This weekend we were up visiting with David's family. There was some special birthday event planned for me; something that involved getting up at 4am in the morning, but it was canceled because of bad weather. Anyone care to guess what it is? I don't know!

Ruby just cannot get enough of her visits up there. She has her usual stuff: jumping on the beds, walking the big Labrador, Guy, receiving many many kisses and attention from Grandma Pat and playing with her cousins Ellaina and Blake. This time she also had extra time to hang out with aunt Lissa and that was really cool.

What we did: Ruby and David helped Grandma build a raised bed for tomatoes, we watched the Memorial Day parade that Ellaina was in, Ruby went swimming at the local campground with her cousins (once a freakish and torrential storm had blown over), and we went up to the farm where Ruby got to sit on the old gentle horse Tim and I got a riding lesson which involved some fun trotting around the yard.

Oh and Ruby fell asleep in the car with her hand in a bag of chips. At some point she needed to scratch her head and turns out that a bag works just fine, if you hand is stuck in it that is and you're asleep and you don't really realize what you're doing. Thankfully she wasn't asleep (and we weren't driving) when she discovered that she could stick her head out of our sun roof.

We even bumped into David's dad, Howie. That's a big deal because David and Howie haven't been in touch for over a decade. It was a calm quiet chat and that's probably all it will ever be, but we take what we can.

Ruby was very upset when we left. That was a first and I'm sure it won't be a last. It's hard to be so far from our families, both in Massachusetts and of course, even further away, in France. I'm not even sure how to write about it, because it doesn't feel right at all. Maybe another time.