June in Connecticut

I'm so far behind in blogging it's getting really lame, so here goes a quick summary of our life in Connecticut this June! We got home from NYC on June 1st and then had a little less than 3 weeks until we headed out to California. So during this time we were still getting used to our new life as just a family of 4 in our new house! I was mostly surprised at how cold it still was for what I had always known as summer. Seeing pictures of summer vacations and hot summer days at the pool in AZ were not fun for me to see on Facebook or instagram. We were still wearing sweaters most days! It had gotten warm while my family was in town but it really cooled down afterwards.

Since this covers such a large span of time here are a few highlights in pictures and short summaries :)

I was really excited to go to a strawberry festival on one of our first free saturdays! There were actually a few different ones all going on in different towns around where we lived, but we chose this one in Unionville and met our friends the Giffords. I must say I was expecting a lot more strawberries but it was basically a small carnival, barbeque and local craft sale with fresh strawberry shortcakes offered as a dessert. While it was pretty crowded and a good time, I was expecting more focus on the actual name of the event, ahem, strawberry festival?? BUT Jackson got to sit in a fire truck for the first time in his life so that made it all worth it. If you know Jackson you know how much he loves fire trucks, ambulances, cop cars, etc... This made his day!

 We also went to a small church run carnival in Simsbury one Thursday night. This motorcycle ride was his favorite for sure! They had a small roller coaster that he also rode but he actually got kind of sick on it! We could see in his face that he was not enjoying the kid only ride so we had the employee end the ride early. Jackson later told us that made him waaaaaay dizzy! But this was just a classic night becuase we were realizing that our days of Disney and other high class entertainment and theme parks were behind us and local fairs and carnivals are in our future. It was cute but Tyler was just initially so frustrated at how expensive it all was. I think each ride cost $3 at least. So we ended up buying Jackson a wristband so he could enjoy unlimited rides and we just watched him have fun on all the rides that didn't need an adult. Except you know Tyler snuck on a few with him :)

One night I had the idea to have a picnic at a lake. I had driven past a lake (almost hidden by the crazy amounts of trees here) just 15 minutes from our house and I looked on the map and realized it was a huge body of water, Nepaug Reservoir. So although I knew nothing about it we just drove there with our dinner in a cooler. It turned out to be an amazing lake with a great trail running along it, but there weren't many great places to sit and eat. We found a small patch of grass and had our picnic while getting some weird looks from the bikers runners and dog walkers along the path. We haven't been back but I hope to go again sometime! The picture above was taken from the dam, which is the only place we could actually see the water clearly and not just behind the trees.

 Abbie and Jackson have started playing together and it is pretty dang cute. Jackson tells Abbie that she is his best friend. While there are plenty of fights and sharing issues between the two there are lots of tender moments. In Florida I had a toddler and a baby and now I have two toddlers, crazy.

 During these weeks we started putting Jackson to sleep in his big boy bed! We bought it in Albany and Steven slept in it while my family was in town. We left his crib in the room at first and gave him a little time to get used to it. He really loved this new bed but was so attached to his crib that he chose to sleep in it for a few days. Soon though he went to bed and did pretty well! There were nights where he fell out of it but we keep lots of pillows on the ground and have it at a low setting. In the morning he still calls for us out of habit I think :)

This boy loved exploring outside in our new yard and neighborhood but lots of rainy days deterred this from happening. Some days he would go in the garage just so we could play baseball and other days he put his new rain jacket and boots to use and jumped in the puddles.

 Tyler went on his first business trip, to Orlando of all places, and left me alone with the kids for the first time! The kids and I had really gotten used to the new lifestyle of him coming home for dinner every night but such is life... Jackson and I really bonded those few days I feel. He has always been a daddy's boy and clung to him in all the hard moments he'd had with being sick and moving. Jackson has his moments for sure but he is such a sweet boy and I am so lucky to be his mom.

 This was the only picture I got from fathers day and although no one's looking great, I had to document! Tyler got a golf gift certificate and a shutterfly photo book from the kids and I. We also had homemade Cafe Rio for dinner that night. Our ward spoils the dads and gave them a full spread of cookies, cakes, brownies,  and treats during priesthood, I had never seen anything like it!

Jackson and I had an interesting morning when we got locked out of the house with Abbie asleep inside! We had been in the backyard playing soccer and Jackson had been playing around with the back door as I'd been running in and out grabbing water or looking at the baby monitor or something. He shut the door and I didn't realize that he had locked it, it has a deadbolt that we normally use, but also one of those small locks on the handle that can lock it from the inside without a key. Anyways, since we're still kind of new living here I don't have a key hiding anywhere outside or with a neighbor. Our garage doesn't have a keypad entrance, so we were literally locked outside. And I didn't have my phone. And Abbie was inside, upstairs taking a nap (luckily). I had a baby monitor on but it was sitting on the kitchen table inside.

I ran over to my neighbors house, she had literally just introduced herself 15 minutes before this happened and told me to come over if I ever needed anything. She let me use her phone so I could call Tyler at work. And then even offered to meet Tyler halfway so he didn't have to drive all the way here and back. She then offered that we could stay in her house while she went to get the key and although I was tempted because it was a hot morning, I was too scared that Jackson was going to break something. She is an older lady and there house was not kid friendly and Jackson already was getting into things while I made the phone call. Anyways, all ended up being ok and she was able to meet Tyler to get the key and I was back in the house in less than 30 minutes. And Abbie was still sleeping. We took this picture after we got back inside.

Later that same day Jackson helped mow the lawn for the first time, it was a proud moment for Tyler and he will be ready to had over the task to him in a few years...

We really had a fun time exploring the parks, libraries, and shops near our house that month. I would have envisioned us doing a lot more swimming and splash pads but we had a lot of that coming up in our big trip out west!