It's been quite a while since I've blogged. Things have just been really busy!
I woke up Saturday morning and thought, we should go to the King Richard's Faire http://www.kingrichardsfaire.net/ before it's gone for another year, we've said we wanted to go every year for the past 9 and haven't made it. Mike thought it was a good idea and with nothing planned for the weekend, we decided that's what we'd do....until Leone called. Janni needs a new roof put on her house and Mike was calling to ask Mikey if he'd lend a hand. We live in a very tight knit community and if one friend needs help everybody pulls together to get the job done. King Richards faire would just have to wait. The kids and I spent the weekend hanging around, Em worked Saturday. I worked Friday - Sunday. Em had her last driving instruction Sunday. The weekend passed and Janni's roof was left tarped and half done.
Monday was uneventful. We took Em to work, it was her first day cashiering at Mahoney's and she was a little nervous, but did great. Dan and I stopped at the grocery store on our way home to pick up food for the week and then went home to clean. Dan and I rearranged the living room to get the couch and loveseat off of the living room windows. With a strong north wind off the pond you can feel the cold air on your back. Dan took a nap, and I did school work.
Tuesday turned out to be a very busy day. I had a VNG http://www.stopdizziness.com/services_vng.asp test at Cape Cod ENT in Hyannis at 8:30am. Since I had to have a driver we decided I'd have the test then Em would drive us to the m all and we'd spend some time in Hyannis shopping. The test went well, comfortable except for the weight of the goggles I had to wear, and judging by the assistant running the test everything seemed normal right up until the Caloric test explained in #4 in the above link. She called in an audiologist to repeat the test and when it came back the same the audiologist said she'd seen that result once before. I don't know what any of it means, but it did sound like an abnormal finding. I see Dr. Mann next Wednesday.
The kids and I went to the mall afterwards. Our first stop was Macy's. They always have beautiful dresses this time of year, and I love trying them on. Em and I both tried a couple. I took pictures with my cell phone. I'm pleased with my progress. Size 10!
Wednesday was Dan's first day back to Sandwich Library's preschool storytime. He did well, had a good time and made an Elmer the Elephant craft. Afterwards he and I had a picnic at the Marina playground then went over to Buzzards Bay to meet Dr. Lorraine Hurley and Blanche Derby http://www.tagyerit.com/freefood.htm for a foraging field trip on the canal. I had no idea how many weeds are edible. Our favorites are sheep sorrel which is everywhere and tastes like lemon, wood sorrel which looks like clover except it has heart shaped leaves and yellow flowers, it also tastes like lemon and the berries of the Autumn Olive which is an invasive bush with silvery leaves and bright red berries. The berries are incredible, we must have eaten a pint each! 
Here is a link to a blog with an Autumn Olive jam/jelly recipe. I've found a good source of them on a back road in Hyannis. I'm hoping to get a chance to forage closer to home sometime in the near future! Supposedly they're the sweetest right after the first frost.
http://wearemadeofdreamsandbones.blogspot.com/2006/09/autumn-olive-jam-saga.html
TodayMike was working in Newport and since Emmy wasn't working we considered going to RI with him, however Mom is camping and with a whole day to kill in Middletown and no car we decided we'd stay home and "enjoy" the wet day. Danny mentioned he'd seen the manatee on the news this morning with Daddy, and I had an idea. Nothing to do, and overcast...we could take a ride and see if we could see it. We arrived shortly after 9am, talked with the harbor master, and some of the natural resource guys for a while and although they were very nice they really told us very little. The kids and I poked around the docks for a while, and after seeing nothing started for the parking lot.
There was a man parked up there and gave us the tip that yesterday the manatee had been feeding in the far corner. The kids and I decided we'd take a look and thanked our informant. Sure enough, we were not even down the ramp when 
someone said they'd just seen it. We walked down the dock and a worker invited Dan and I onto a boat. Within a minute this beautiful animal surfaced. It was probably 10 feet away but we were thrilled have seen it. Had we known just how close to it we would get this brief look would have seemed unremarkable. We watched Dennis or Denise surface and dive 4 or 5 times and got pretty used to the pattern. It would submerge for about 10 minutes. When it surfaced you'ld see it's nose, and sometimes it's back. It would come up and go down for 2 or 3 minutes before with a great sweep of it's tail it would dive for another 10 minutes.
Eventually it made it's way between two rows of dock and seemed to be coming directly towards us which is exactly what it did. In about 4 feet of water it surfaced along side the dock and proceeded to feast on the algae growing on the ropes. If Dan had reached out his hand he would have touched it, however the harbor master was looking on, trying to control the growing crowd. We decided we'd leave to let somebody else have a chance to see it. I have a feeling eventually they were going to block the docks entirely so the animal could do what it wished. Quite a liability having all those people and kids on the rickety old docks. 
There is a short video of the manatee in the upper left hand corner of this blog, if you'ld like to see more!
Em's been asking if she can color her hair for some time. After thinking about it for a while, I've decided that if that's the extent of her adolecent rebellion I'm a lucky mom. I gave my blessing. She chose purple hair dye from Hot Topic. We browsed the mall for a while, had lunch at the food court then made our way to Trader Joes and Christmas tree shop for a new carpet for the living room. We remove the old one every summer, it's easier to vacuum sand and dog hair without it, but always get a new one in the fall when the weather starts getting cool again. The kids and I headed home and since I was unhappy with the hair cut I got a couple of weeks ago asked Em if she wanted the hair cut she'd been nagging me about. We agreed and took our turns. The girl who cut my hair had blond under her dark hair and I started asking her about dying. 3 hours later we left. Em had some of her hair bleached then dyed purple, all three of us had our hair cut, Dan decided midway he wanted his hair spikey so into the chair he went. We got home at 6pm with just enough time to make dinner before Mikey got home. It was a hectic but good day!
Wednesday was Dan's first day back to Sandwich Library's preschool storytime. He did well, had a good time and made an Elmer the Elephant craft. Afterwards he and I had a picnic at the Marina playground then went over to Buzzards Bay to meet Dr. Lorraine Hurley and Blanche Derby http://www.tagyerit.com/freefood.htm for a foraging field trip on the canal. I had no idea how many weeds are edible. Our favorites are sheep sorrel which is everywhere and tastes like lemon, wood sorrel which looks like clover except it has heart shaped leaves and yellow flowers, it also tastes like lemon and the berries of the Autumn Olive which is an invasive bush with silvery leaves and bright red berries. The berries are incredible, we must have eaten a pint each! 
Here is a link to a blog with an Autumn Olive jam/jelly recipe. I've found a good source of them on a back road in Hyannis. I'm hoping to get a chance to forage closer to home sometime in the near future! Supposedly they're the sweetest right after the first frost.http://wearemadeofdreamsandbones.blogspot.com/2006/09/autumn-olive-jam-saga.html
TodayMike was working in Newport and since Emmy wasn't working we considered going to RI with him, however Mom is camping and with a whole day to kill in Middletown and no car we decided we'd stay home and "enjoy" the wet day. Danny mentioned he'd seen the manatee on the news this morning with Daddy, and I had an idea. Nothing to do, and overcast...we could take a ride and see if we could see it. We arrived shortly after 9am, talked with the harbor master, and some of the natural resource guys for a while and although they were very nice they really told us very little. The kids and I poked around the docks for a while, and after seeing nothing started for the parking lot.
There was a man parked up there and gave us the tip that yesterday the manatee had been feeding in the far corner. The kids and I decided we'd take a look and thanked our informant. Sure enough, we were not even down the ramp when 
someone said they'd just seen it. We walked down the dock and a worker invited Dan and I onto a boat. Within a minute this beautiful animal surfaced. It was probably 10 feet away but we were thrilled have seen it. Had we known just how close to it we would get this brief look would have seemed unremarkable. We watched Dennis or Denise surface and dive 4 or 5 times and got pretty used to the pattern. It would submerge for about 10 minutes. When it surfaced you'ld see it's nose, and sometimes it's back. It would come up and go down for 2 or 3 minutes before with a great sweep of it's tail it would dive for another 10 minutes.
Eventually it made it's way between two rows of dock and seemed to be coming directly towards us which is exactly what it did. In about 4 feet of water it surfaced along side the dock and proceeded to feast on the algae growing on the ropes. If Dan had reached out his hand he would have touched it, however the harbor master was looking on, trying to control the growing crowd. We decided we'd leave to let somebody else have a chance to see it. I have a feeling eventually they were going to block the docks entirely so the animal could do what it wished. Quite a liability having all those people and kids on the rickety old docks. 
There is a short video of the manatee in the upper left hand corner of this blog, if you'ld like to see more!On the way home we stopped at Sally's to pick up some more dye. Emily loved the purple so much she wanted more, and was willing to entrust me to do it. We came home, Dan went down for a nap and I took to bleaching. 2 hours later, one very sad girl sits on the couch. Apparently when I bleached then dyed blue one particular section of hair I'd forgetten to take into account her part, and she now has a bluish/greenish stripe running right down the side of her head. Whoops.....
Here is the latest cape cod times article on Dennis: We would be the three people walking up and down the docks in the rain.
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081010/NEWS/810100308
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081010/NEWS/810100308
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