we went to the garlic and arts festival today!
it claims to be:

but it didn’t really smell very strong.

it was a gorgeous day weather-wise and we purchased some very pretty and tasty produce.

this week’s theme is all about big smiles.

in this picture not only am i smiling big, i think i might actually be saying “cheese!”

this photo is undated, but i am guessing summer 1977. that’s my mom off to the left holding me, and we are at a picnic, but i can’t figure out where the picnic is. judging from the pictures i have in my possession, we went to a whole lot of picnics in my first few years.

now, getting back to the jeff and eileen visit!
we had a much more successful adventure on the second full day of their trip. we hopped in the car and headed to shelbyville, home of the lemon tree stealers shelburne falls, home of the bridge of flowers and glacial potholes:

the bridge of flowers is an old trolley bridge that spans 400 feet. once it was no longer needed for transportation, it was transformed into a garden:

it was a really nice walk, on a gorgeous day:

then after a walk through town we came upon the glacier potholes, “an incredible geological wonder”

the colors of the rocks were pretty great and the sound of the water is something i could listen to all day.

however, i was disappointed that no one told me to bring my bathing suit:

next time i want to frolic among the rocks and gentle tide pools

i went swimming this weekend with friends (my first swim ever in a lake! i’m a jersey shore swimmer.) and on our way out of the forest we encountered this guy:

he was trying to cross the road, but was surely going to get crushed. as we stood there trying to decide how to help and who to call, a guy drove up, jumped out of the car, picked up the turtle and carried him to the other side of the road, explaining that he had done the same thing many times where he used to live.

the turtle was none to pleased to be off the ground and demonstrated exactly why he is called a snapping turtle. let’s just say, i do not recommend that anyone attempts to move a snapping turtle! this creature could have done some real damage to the guy carrying him.

he had a super-sharp beak, was very strong, and just look at those claws:

in the end, mr. turtle seemed happy to be on the other side of the road and scurried off into the woods.

this week’s theme is sunday best/formal dress/fancy pants/etc.

i don’t think i can get any more sunday-best-er than my fancy first communion dress!

i think this was early 1984, second grade.

and this is me with my teacher, sister kathleen anne, on the big day:

i adored her. she was so sweet and much younger than the other nuns in the school. she was a bit of a rebel, too - she played guitar, but that wasn’t allowed in our church. sometimes she would bring in her guitar and play it for us in class. i remember her saying that she wished she could play with the choir during mass.

strangely, i think that she was the only nun i had as a teacher in all of my eight years of catholic school. odd, no?

jeffy and eileen came up from nj to visit us this weekend!
they arrived late friday night so that we would have plenty of time on saturday for the 3 county fair:

a fair covering not one, not two, but three counties is bound to fill up an entire day, especially when it costs $10 per person to get in, right? apparently not so much. sure, we saw some cute animals:

and some award winning vegetables, both pickled:

and anthropomorphic:

but, in under an hour we had seen all there was to see and headed out of the fair gates, disappointed, to make a new plan for the rest of the day:

we wandered around the shops in town, had dinner and stopped by our garden:

to harvest tomatoes:

the day ended around a makeshift fire pit in the back yard:

each of us fighting over who would get to snuggle with the pups for warmth: