In order to act like a completely bipolar person, this will be a positive post. We had a great weekend! My mom came down for her birthday and the girls and I took her to a paint-your-own-pottery place, where my mother naturally excelled and probably painted the most beautiful piece of pottery the shop had ever seen (this despite my mother's protestations that she was a terrible artist). The girls had fun, too, and each got to paint their own pieces of pottery (I painted yet another coffee mug). From there we went next door to the jewelry making/bead place and the girls and my mom each made their own pieces of jewelry with cool beads (Ella made a necklace and Maisie/mom made bracelets). I must admit that they all turned out beautifully!
Sunday was a great day because Kim and I took the girls to visit Ella's summer camp, which was hosting an open house. This camp, called Holiday Hill Day Camp, will be just fabulous. Its only about 15 minutes from our house and a bus comes directly to our house to pick up Ella, take her to the camp, and bring her home again at the end of the day. Her days will be spent outside doing all kinds of really cool stuff, like arts and crafts, drama, swimming (twice/day!), boating and just about every sport you can imagine. They serve the kids a wonderful lunch each day (so glad I'm off lunch duty for the summer) and the kids also get ice cream every afternoon, which I'm totally ok with because they have the kids doing so much exercise that ice cream every afternoon will be perfect. Two of Ella's little kindergarten friends are also going to this camp, so she feels good knowing she'll be riding the bus with them. From everything I've heard from other parents, and from seeing the camp myself, I think it will be a really great experience for her. I think it will be a welcome change from sitting in a classroom all day!
One reason we are taking this option with Ella is that our nanny, Amy, will be working at a camp for disabled kids this summer in Massachusetts, which is something she's been doing for the past several years. I'll have Maisie attend Mishkan Israel for full days in July, which won't be the best thing in the world but is a pretty short term thing. July will be an interesting month work-wise, as I'll have to hang around and wait for Ella's bus, then drop Maisie off. Then, for two mornings/week, I'll be teaching a health policy course at Yale. I guess I'll drop into work for a bit after that, and then race home again around 3 to collect Maisie and meet Ella off the bus. So much for a productive work summer. I'll just have to make it all up somewhere....somewhere.
Still no news on the house, but I have a much better attitude about it all. I went for a great run on Saturday morning and decided it didn't do me any good to obsess about selling the house. From everything I hear, the market is absolutely terrible (unless you are a buyer, and then you have amazing options). Our realtor was saying there are like 16-18 houses in our neighborhood that are in the same price range and haven't sold for months, so it really doesn't bode well for selling our house. I guess we'll do another open house this weekend but my hopes are basically nonexistent that we'll actually sell the house this year. Its extremely disappointing, but as our realtor says, she's never seen a housing market as bad for sellers as this one is. Great to be part of history...
So, I'm going to stay optimistic by thinking of Ella's cool camp and enjoying the amazing weather we've had. We have a lot of great things to look forward to and I'm just hoping that at some point we can make this all happen and transition up north.
In the meantime, it feels like summer here, and we've been doing a lot of popsicle eating...