3rd Day, Martha's Vineyard

At this point, Elizabeth and I are feeling pretty accomplished and cocky. Seven kids! Three days! We are Sister Wives! (It didn't help that Elizabeth's cousin Brett showed up with her two well-behaved and charming sons and the boys all played Beyblades for 45 hours straight. "One...two..three...LET ER RRRIP!"

We finally got everyone clothed and shod and drove to the Farm Institute.

Chickens! Every single boy got nipped by one.

Wee baby goats!

We played in some rocks and muddled with some piglets.

Oscar, Nathanial, Cal and Arlo.

We bought some eggs that were still warm and took off for the Right Fork Diner for lunch. It's on the edge of a tiny grass airfield, and we were disappointed to not see any planes come in. But the food and the behavior was fantastic! We also loved hearing stories from Elizabeth about waitressing there in 1989, saving up money for a trip to Greece. (She told me some slightly risqué stories about that trip.)

We took off to South Beach, It was foggy and mysterious!

Arlo looking for a place to pee.

Pictures by Lucy. Lila looking cute, and Lucy looking cute in the reflection of my glasses.

The surf was really, really rough. I'm a strong swimmer, but I don't think I would have ventured past my knees that day, never mind the fact that it was about 50 degrees in the water. The boys had no such reservations.

Poor sweet Lila took a spill in the water and although she didn't get dragged out, she wasn't able to get up. Luckily Elizabeth was 100% on top off it, plopped Jed down and plucked her up. That was our cue to leave.

We managed to tear everyone away from the exciting scary beach with tales of the boring private beach. Arlo was perfectly happy because he could stay nekkid. I never, never thought that I would be applying sunscreen to my son's Manly Area. Thank God for spray sunscreen.

We had Elizabeth's Grandma, "Bamum" over for dinner. She lives in a cottage next to the big house with an awesome golden, Nanuk, and generally lords over her awesome family with adoration and craziness. She is a pip, in the words of my dad. She nibbled on cheese and crackers while charming Oscar B and listening to Jed natter away. I loved listening to her talk about the history of the house and her family and her teaching career. Bamun tossed back a couple of red wines and retired early. We settled the kids down (very much looking forward to the next evening when we'd have the help of the husbands) and settled down to read for a lovely quiet hour in the living room. Elizabeth picked up the husbands and there was a joyous reunion.

Martha's Vineyard, Day 2

After a delightful morning of hanging around and doing nothing, we took off for Oak Bluffs. We meant to visit the Flying Horses Carousel, but it didn't open for the season until the next afternoon.

We managed to avoid any big blowouts, and went to the beach. When in doubt, go to the beach.

Arlo adds to the ocean.

Oscar ponders his own parking space.

We found a charming place staffed by lots of kid-loving Portugeuse. Everyone had plenty of french fries and pasta and chowder and lobster rolls. And then, ice cream.

And what's the best to top off a day like this? A couple hours at the private beach and The World Underwear Ping Pong Invitational.

And where the heck have I been?

Tidying, cleaning, dusting, swiffering. Cocking the tea tray perfectly at the foot of my bed. When this dang house actually sells, I can't wait to ask the buyers if it was the the tea tray that pushed them over the edge. (My bet's on the hammock.)

And welcome to any new readers to the blog. We are thrilled you are here and look forward to hearing more from you!

So this is not really so much a moving related entry, more of our NJ Bucket List entry. Our dear friends the Redwines have a family house on Martha's Vineyard, and after years of invitations, we finally made the schedules work, so we pulled the kiddos out of school and at 5:45am, we pulled out of the driveway and headed up to I-95. It was the longest car trip I've taken with the kids, and you know what? It was fine. We drove for three hours with only about an hour of help from electronics and then pulled over to Rocky Neck State Park.

You enter the beach by going under a railroad beach. Beach + trains + Purl = Arlo about to explode from joy.

That's Lila Redwine, Lucy's girly pal.

I can't tell if The Goose is dancing or doing the "MAH HANDS ARE DIIIIIRTYYYYY!" scream here.

After much cavorting, snacking, and peeing, we got on the road again.

We made it to the Ferry in record time.

Purl.

Nathanial and Oscar B.

Elizabeth and Purl.

Finally on the ferry!

The ferry was uneventful, other than the $86 in snacks we had t spend to keep everyone happy. We arrived at the island and drove to the incredible family house in Edgartown. When you drive up all you can see is this ostentatious mansion next door with acres and acres of lawn and statuary, but then you reach the end of the dirt road and see this:

The view of the front of the house from the beach.

Their private beach in the harbor.

AMAZING. I spent the next two hours oohing and ahhing over lightswitches and hardware and dental moulding, all from when their family built the house in the 1920s. I will post more pictures later.

We played on the beach, fed all seven kids (the husbands came up on the direct NY ferry Friday night, so we were on our own. ) and bedded everyone down for the night.

More later. It's Saturday morning as I write this. The husbands came in last night, we made scrambled eggs with eggs purchased at a farm yesterday this morning, and everyone is down fishing at the dock. Feel free to add comments!

A Very Serious Scientific Question.

We've had a couple interested parties lately, but nothing much. And yet! We stay positive.

When we get the house ready to show, there are certain things we need to do. Tidy, tidy, tidy, vacuum, windex, scrub, swiffer more than you could ever imagine. Remove every bit of personal effects. (We currently have no family photos in our house, other than a vintage photo from 1971 of my mom, brother and I tacked up on our bulletin board.) I was told by my stager that when people look at our house, they want to imagine their life unfolding in the house. They don't want to try and figure out who is the family that currently lives here. Hence, no pictures, no books, no artwork.

But.

There is one thing that remains in our house that could actually give a bit of information about our family. Can you guess?

It's the magazine rack in our bathroom.

When we first moved in, we really needed to do some work on our (really large!) full bathroom. The previous owners installed beadboard and a chair rail (gorgeous, and period appropriate) and above that, they tore up pieces of plastic wallpaper, and layered in over the bead board, and then sponge painted it to bring out the texture of the lovingly-ripped-up wallpaper. You remember, this was 2004, and Trading Spaces was huge.

We spent a lot of money to get a bunch of guys of suspect immigration status to rip out the wallpaper, fix the walls, and repaint it a nice light blue. We also went to Restoration Hardware and bought fantastically expensive pulls for the drawers, back plates for the lightswitches and plugs, and towel bars, hooks and a magazine rack. Yes, we spent $12 on a drawer pull (shudder, Loretta!) but we had expected to stay here for 20 years. I was going to use that pull to access my Q-Tips for the next 20 years!

Anyhoo, we tamped down the DIY and got the bathroom to a lovely, usable state. We've bathed our kids in that tub more times then I can tell. Luckily I have photos!

But, let's get back to the magazine rack. It's the one thing that wasn't styled by our stager. She just left it bulging with periodicals.

So! I am stumped when I get the house ready for a showimg. I can't have a picture of my family in the house, but I can subconsciously let the folks who are looking at the house know that they are Just Like Us with the magazines in the bathroom magazine rack!

Here's my intense psychological theories.

Real Simple. The owners of this house are organized and don't let their children own anything aesthetically unfortunate.

The New York Times Magazine. The owners of the house are kind of intellectual, but not so much that they subscribe to the New Yorker.

Brain, Child. The owners of this house are a man that makes a lot of money and a women who blogs about her kids a lot.

The Oprah Magazine. These owners are suckers for a sob story! Tell them about your bad divorce and get 30k off the asking price!

Comic books: These owners are geeks. You can probably shove them during the closing and get a good break on the price.

Better Homes and Gardens. Mormons.

Racheal Ray's Everyday. Mormons that don't live in Utah.

Rolling Stone. The man of the family thinks he is cooler than he is. (My man, of course, is cooler that anyone can imagine.)

Ready Made. The owners are folks that pine for Brooklyn every day, but moved to the burbs to provide their kids (still breast fed at age 4!) better public schools.

Mad Magazine. This house is being sold by the Brockway and Metcalfs.