Thursday, August 6, 2015

Thursday, August 6, 2015

Tonight's picture was taken in July of 2007. We took Mattie to Boston that summer to visit Peter's parents. Mattie was five years old and very active! My joke about Mattie was he had two modes: on and off. There really wasn't an in between. Mattie loved going on their tree swing and though he was learning the art of pumping his own legs on the swing, he still needed to be pushed! I of course never went anywhere without my camera, and as you can see, Mattie complied by giving me a nice smile!






Quote of the day: A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Peter and I flew to Boston today to spend the week with Peter's parents. I am so happy Peter decided to fly. Typically I wouldn't say that, since I do not like airplanes. But the drive to Boston from DC, is super long and can be stressful. Which is not what either of us needs right now, since we are highly stressed out as it is. A 65 minute flight was so much easier! As you can see the views coming into Boston were beautiful!.

When we landed at the airport, I went to use the restroom. When I came out, I found Peter talking to a woman. It turns out this woman was on our plane and she recognized Peter. She did not know how, but she knew their paths had crossed before. So she started playing twenty questions with him.... did you go to a particular camp? Did you work for a particular company? Finally did you go to Union College? Of course the answer to the Union College question was YES! She went to college with us and was two years ahead of us. The conversation was innocuous until she brought up children! She asked us if we had any children, because she told us she had two, one of whom was looking at colleges! It is hard to know, EVEN now, how to answer such a question when posed to us. Peter did not want to get into it with her, so he responded no, and I added to his response by saying.... well actually it is a rather long story. Of which she did not skip a beat and did not even pursue what I meant by that! So clearly we did not offer anymore information. But that whole interchange upset me and I carried it with me the rest of the day. Why am I upset? I am upset because answering the question.... do you have children doesn't provide for an easy answer. NOT one people want to hear. In addition, also not having Mattie in our lives is a constant reminder of what we are missing. We can't relate to this woman doing college searches with her daughter. She brought her daughter back to our alma mater, and though I never had plans that Mattie would go to Union College, it would have been a place we would have wanted to show and share with him. 

We spent the day reconnecting with Peter's parents and catching up over lunch outside. Later in the day we went for a lovely walk around this neighborhood pond. Horn Pond is a 102 acre water body along the Aberjona River. There is a 2.25 mile walking path around the pond and there is something to see at every turn. Literally we saw the following today: turtles, ducks, swans, geese, a snake, cardinals, blue jays, frogs, a piping plover, and a great blue heron. 

I snapped all sorts of photos along our walk! This one I know Mattie would have appreciated! It was a mama duck and her baby. Such sightings always caused commentary from Mattie! He felt such pairings reminded him of us.

Cardinals were out in droves along the path! Barbara, Peter's mom, comes to the pond with a Ziploc filled of birdseed. She knows were along the path the cardinals like to hang out. Some are so used to her feeding them, that they come out to greet her and wait to be feed! Like this fellow you see here!

Along our journey we saw several great blue herons! This was one of them! You can't miss these distinctive and prehistoric looking creatures. It was a delightful walk, on an absolutely perfect weather day!