North and South!

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a huge sucker for a sappy love story, which is why Hannah suggested that I watch North and South. (Thank you Hannah) They also know that I LOVE Pride and Prejudice! Mr. Darcy is such a lovable character with his "faults that can't be laughed at" and he will always have a special place in my heart. But Mr. Thornton has captured another part of my heart. He shows his hard exterior, but his vulnerability is almost enough to make me cry. I just want to jump into the screen and tell him everything is going to be ok and that he will get Margaret in the end. I know, I know I need help. The great thing about love stories at least for me is that I fall in love with Jonathan all over again because I compare these characters to him and I always find the attributes in him that made me fall in love with him in the first place. The tenderness, patience, integrity, honesty, humor, soft kisses and passionate ones. I have so much to be thankful for in my husband. So I send out a thank you to Miss Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell for their talents of insights into the males psyche. I highly recommend watching this movie. Just make sure that you have your warm blanket or someone to snuggle with. Yep, it's that good. You can watch it on youtube if you don't want to wait to purchase it.

Blueberry and Peach Picking!

On Friday Jonathan took the day off so we headed out to the country with the boys to pick Blueberries and Peaches. We know that Fall is on its way when we get to start harvesting our favorite fruits. There is nothing like picking a handful of blueberries off the bush and popping them in your mouth. Isaac was an amazing picker as usual and Owen was a huge eater as usual. You will notice from the pictures that Isaac's bucket is almost full while Owen's is empty. I made a deal with the boys that if they picked 5 blueberries then they could eat the 6th one. Isaac did well with the deal, but Owen was 5 for me and the 6th for me. After a while the boys got tired so Jonathan took them over to the playground that is next to the farm house. I stayed behind in the trenches and ended up picking 10 pounds of blueberries. GO ME!!! After we refreshed ourselves with our vanilla ice cream cones w/ rainbow jimmies and blueberry donuts we headed out to the peach trees to pick our bushel. The boys had a better time picking the peaches due to the fact that they are 500 times larger than the blueberries and much easier to get at. The whole ordeal lasted about 20 minutes, which was perfect for the boys attention span. We had fabulous weather, very tasty fruit and an awesome family day.

The Tanner Sybling Reunion!

Jonathan and I headed out with the boys on Monday morning of the 4th, and after arriving at the air port and being told that our flight was canceled due to the fact that our pilot didn't show up for work, any guesses why?, then being booked on a new flight for later that afternoon and re arriving at the air port then being told that our flight was delayed for about 3 hours because of a part that needed to be flown in from NYC that could have been done the day before because that is when they found out it needed to be replaced, then being booked on another flight, we finally arrived in Las Vegas 23 hours from the time we started our trip. To reward the boys for being such AMAZING troopers we booked a night at the Excalibur. The boys thought that it was pretty cool that we got to sleep in a castle. The room was pretty nice and we had a rockn' buffet breakfast the next morning. Any of you who know Jonathan know that he has a passion for the "Buffet". After breakfast we took the boys out to the small water park that they had at the hotel. Isaac had a great time on the water slide and Owen loved the "Hot Pool". I took Owen up to the water slide kicking and screaming and made him come down with me. When we made it to the bottom he was yelling "I did it mommy, I did it. Let's go again". He is such a crack up. After we had our fill of water sports we packed up the car and headed up to St. George to the condo. We had two days to ourselves before everyone started heading in for the reunion. I'll give you one guess as to what Jonathan did, yup he golfed and we took the boys to the driving range. I bought them golfing gloves. They were so cute I could have gobbled them up. We also spent a good amount of time in the pool. It was so relaxing! A much needed break for both of us. I fear that I was a bit more relaxed because Jonathan was still fine tuning his notes for his paper that he had to present in CA. So, on Wednesday everyone started rolling in. . . .

Ok, so our reunion ROCKED! We didn't camp like everyone else did because it would have been quite the interesting task to get all of our camping gear on the air plane, so we opted for the "pansy" out which was sleep at the posh family condo with AC, kitchen, soft beds, electricity, hot water and pool. We did have some company after a night or two, so I guess we weren't too pansy. It was great we went hiking, swimming, had some good laughs, more swimming, good food, more laughs, more swimming and then there was the Talent Show. Hannah and Eve thought that it would be good to have everyone tell a little bit about what we have all been doing over the years to get reacquainted since we haven't seen each other in so long. It was fun, we learned about new talents that we have acquired over the years, but the best was when Mike, Scott and Jonathan got a jiggn'. Here is a link to my sisters blog http://www.theshakespearskinny.blogspot.com/ once you watch this video you will never be the same again. On Friday Jonathan left to go to California for the Academy of Management Conference where he presented his paper on "Organizational Scope and the Returns to Focused Experience: Evidence of Complementarity from the Hospital Industry". Yah, long title and long paper. I was told that he did a good job, I just wish that I could have been there to watch him. But I was in St. George with the boys having a blast and living it up in the pool and relaxing. The boys and I flew home without a hitch. it was a great vacation.

July!

I know, I know, I have been a bad blogger this last little while. Shame on me. July was a crazy month, it was one of those months that so much went on that it feels like a year and a half ago that it all happened.

The month started out wild and crazy. The 4th of July weekend was jam packed with tons and I mean tons of events for us. In addition to the trip down to the Charles's River, with some of our good friends from HBS, for the famous "Boston Pops" music and fire works celebration and our annual drive down to Pawtucket, RI for our "Paw Sox" game and fire works, we had Jonathan's family and Rebekah's (J's sister-in-law) family in town for little Rachel's baby blessing. which was a lot of fun to see everyone. In addition to all of that family I also had a long lost Aunt which I must refer to as "My FAVORITE" Aunt or she will cut me out of her will, drive up from CT with two of my cousins and their family that I haven't seen in 15 years or never met before. Like I said it was a whirl wind of a weekend.

Later in the month Jonathan and I took the boys up to Tangle Wood to watch the John Williams concert. I had been wanting to go to this for the last 3 years so I was happy that we got to go this year. It was great to hear all of the music from our childhood movies like E.T., Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Jaws etc. etc. The big focus was on Indiana Jones because of the movie that came out this year, which I have yet to see. Steven Spielberg even showed up to do some readings and put his spin on things. The night was very entertaining and I hope that we get to do it again next year. Now on to August!