Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion, continued

A few more photos from the Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion in Portsmouth, NH

In the Spring the Lilacs are supposed to put on quite a show here. Ahh, the smell of sweet, salty air . . .
Not to mention the sight of purple flowers contrasting against the golden mansion. It seems like a place I'd truly like to be come late May- early June. You should join me!

Looking out over the water towards New Castle. Just beyond the island and to the left of the bridge sits the Wentworth by the Sea Hotel.

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This anchor sits down by the water in front of the Mansion. Honestly I'm not sure what it symbolized. Yeah, bad reporting/blogging. Forgive me.
On the top of the anchor where the two cables crisscross sat a horrid spider. I refused to photograph it so Elise did instead. She was insistent, so here you go. Sorry about that.

And as I had mentioned before, here are some impromptu photos I took of Elise under that big, golden maple tree.

She's such a willing and playful model, I just love it!

After wards she took a few photos of me. My leaves-in-the-air didn't go as well as hers!

What a fun time the two of us had. I hope you enjoyed tagging along!

My new favorite necklace

For my Birthday on July 1st I only wanted one thing, a Lisa Leonard necklace.

I let my husband in on my wishes almost a month in advance, but it takes at least 3 weeks for LL’s custom necklaces, so I waited. Towards the end of last week I was so excited when a package finally arrived in the mail. Just the wrapping alone was delightful!

 

I wasn’t disappointed at all. The necklace is gorgeous with both of my girls names and I love it. Thank you Lisa!

 

Isn’t it sweet?

You just have to check out Lisa’s Blog Her family and photos are beautiful.

I love my girls

A love that sustains

I'd like you to meet Sally and Frank

81 and 85, respectively

Married 62 years their marriage is one that has surely seen it's fair share of ups and downs. They first met when he was 22 and she 19. He got out of the service the day before and was hanging out with 2 of his buddies in Portsmouth. That's where they met up with Sally and her two friends. From that day on the two of them saw each other almost every single day, but didn't kiss until 4-5 months later. She finally asked him if he was ever going to kiss her. lol! He said there wasn't any hurry. Now that's a gentleman. You just don't see that anymore.

They sat right behind us on Sunday at The Purple Onion where my daughter and I went for lunch. He said they come for lunch quite often and always sit in the same place. Sally orders the Sweet and Sour soup while Frank goes for the Chili. He says he's not crazy about Chili but there's is pretty good.

They have 3 children, 59, 58 and 54, along with several grandchildren. Frank said family is the most important thing there is. He says they have been blessed. For 24 years the two of them went to go to Florida for 6 months at a time, often having the kids down to visit. Now health issues keep them close to home.

I can't tell you what a pleasure it was talking with both Frank and Sally. Before I took the photo she made him take off his hat which I thought was so cute.

We talked for quite a while. They asked me about my family and children, and talked about their own lives. As we left I couldn't help but wonder what their future holds. I shook their hands and wished them all the best. Honestly I wanted to give them a hug. Sometimes you meet people who you feel like you've known all your life.



Frank insisted Elise be in this photo with them

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A few other Newburyport views . . .

Romance was definitely in the air on this perfect afternoon

A couple random shots:

I thought the side of this building was pretty with Ivy growing up around everything in it's path

And finally, an historic Fire Alarm that sits a mere feet away from the restaurant.

I hope you enjoyed our day in Newburyport. I'm sure we'll be heading back before too long, though I don't know if we'll be seeing Frank and Sally again.

A Special day

On Sunday my sweet young lady, Elise, turned 14

A lot of people think she is older than her 16 year old sister. I've always said she's an old soul ... wise beyond her years ... usually. After all, she is still a teenager.

I know she would have preferred to spend the day with her friends but it didn't work out that way. Instead she spent the day with her Mom : ) The weather was just perfect with temps in the upper 70's and we decided to go to Newburyport, MA to walk around for a bit. For some reason I'd never taken her there before and I knew she'd love it because of it's similarity to Portsmouth, NH. We arrived in town right around lunch time so we decided to give The Purple Onion a try. I'm so glad we did! The food was very good!


Elise had the Chicken, Roast Tomato & Basil Panini, while I ordered the Smoked Turkey and Swiss Panini. That's my sandwich in the photo above. Elise kept joking about the holes in my cheese. For some reason it seemed very funny to her. lol!



No, the ceiling isn't dirty. I just felt like adding textures to all the photos




What a great day we had! Even though I don't think it's how my daughter had planned to spend her Birthday, she still seemed to have a good time. Later on, instead of celebrating with cake, our family went out for ice cream.

For gifts Elise is getting a bedroom makeover, something she's wanted for a long time now. If only I could actually get to the walls to paint them! My word that girl has a lot of 'stuff'! In all fairness her bedroom is very small too ... so maybe it just seems like she has a lot of stuff. We're talking about moving one of the girls into the guest room so I could move Elise into a larger bedroom. My husband and I still have to talk about it a little more before we make the decision.

In my next post I'll show you a few more photos from our trip to Newburyport. There's a special couple I really want you to meet.

Salisbury Beach State Reservation

 

A guy my husband knows recently told him about the Salisbury Beach State Reservation. His family goes every summer and he claims to love it there. Yesterday was a gorgeous sunny, fairly warm day so my husband, I, and my youngest daughter decided to make the 1/2 hour trip to Salisbury, Massachusetts.

 

We had a wonderful time though the ticks were definitely out! I don’t usually think of there being ticks at the beach but my husband pulled one off his back and another couple pulled one off their dog. After that my daughter and I steered clear of any grass.

A few more individual photos:

I’m not sure if you can see them or not but there are Harbor Seals sunning themselves all over the rocks in front of the sail boat. I cropped the photo quite a bit as they were pretty far off. The sand bar on the opposite side is part of Plum Island.

 

Fishing on the Merrimack River

 

 

 

I thought this was a great shot of my husband. There’s been a lot going on lately with work so it was nice to see him look so peaceful. Of course it was right after that he found the tick on his back.

 

This is not our dog, but he liked hanging out with us all the same. He/she kept running back and forth between his owners and us and the water. I just though he was pretty cool.

For more Mosaic Monday head on over to Mary’s Little Red House where there’s always a good turnout.

*I made my mosaic at www.picnik.com. Once it was completed I added a bit of Sepia tone to it. Picnik is a pretty cool photo program!

You never know ....

.... what the next day will bring

This morning my older daughter texted me that a 15 year old freshman in her high school took his own life last night. The teachers notified all students during second period with a prewritten statement from the principal, something I'd never heard of before but they probably felt it would better than telling them when the teacher could quiet everyone down as opposed to during morning announcements. Turns out my younger daughter in the middle school knew the boy, but not well.

It was a very sad day all around. Both girls texted me off and on throughout the school day to keep me updated on who knew, what happened, etc. Most teenagers have never had to deal with the death of a fellow student and my heart just aches for them. But mostly it aches for the family of the boy who died. The grief the parents are going through today. All the years they'll never have. And I just don't understand it. Maybe if I knew the circumstances it would make more sense, but I doubt it.

The one thing I do know is that I hope tomorrow is a better day for our family. I hope my girls laugh and smile and enjoy time with their friends, like teenagers should. I am so grateful for the loving relationship I share with them.

Girls being Girls

Bare with me, I’m enjoying playing with textures.

I had taken these pictures in late October. It was getting dark and quite foggy so they didn’t come out that great. My camera seemed to pick up on the fog making it look bright outside, but it’s not. Of course realizing I had my camera on the wrong setting after taking most of the shots didn’t help either. Layering textures on seemed to rescue them a bit.

This is my older daughter Andria swinging on the wet tree swing for the first time … in a dress. The swing belongs to my younger daughters friend, Shannon, so Andria had heard about it first hand. The younger girls couldn’t wait to push her as high as they could just to make her scream. Scream she did. We were all laughing hysterically!

 

My younger daughter, Elise, takes a turn by herself.

Don’t you wish you could feel that kind of joy? Don’t you wish you could still swing on your stomach, flying around in circles? Remember winding the rope or chains as tight as they would go then pulling yourself in as it untwirled? 

This swing totally rocks! I wanted to swing too. Didn’t happen. Older daughter was late for a date.

  A little heavy on the textures for this shot, but I still kind of like it.

Girls just being girls.

Fathers Day and Mothers Day

Me with my Mom and Dad

I love this picture :)

Happy Fathers Day!

To a wonderful Dad.

Happy Fathers Day, Brent!