Vermont: Part I

We just got home from a lovely five days in Vermont with my Irish Twin, Jen, and her family.  Just going through the pictures from the first day has made me cry a little bit.  I don't know why so emotional.  I got thinking about how Jen and I went for about 17 years seeing each other every day.  We knew EVERYTHING about each other.  I knew that when she'd been asleep for about 45 minutes, she'd start talking in her sleep.  Being at her house was familiar (we both do the same things for comfort, which I found very interesting) and a little sad - knowing that this was the tip of the iceberg and it's all I've seen of her life for the last 10 years.

Our journey there was somewhat harrowing, as Jen knew it would be having done it herself many many many times, so we didn't plan much for our first full day.  A little walk into town to get the news:

We jumped on the "Bye Bye Birdie" bandwagon immediately.  Jen, Bridget, Henry and I wandered a little, then met Brian and Ben for lunch in the Star's Hollow-esque downtown Bristol, Vermont.  Jen had to run after lunch, so Ben took us on a mini-tour.

Historic "Holley Hall" - in the middle of major renovations.

The bell on the door to "Honey Lights".

This is Henry's "Park Face." 

Soon enough it was time to wait for the big kids to get home from school.

Bracelets, anyone?  Those beautiful white ones are from Aunt Jennie.  When Bridget took her sweater off she insisted I transfer her Conrad button to her shirt.

Later that afternoon we went to the library in Lincoln, where all the hippies live and long-haired children don't take baths.  They had the kids look for very small bags of candy in a very big field after story time.  Bridget and Henry played in the fun playhouse on the lawn.  Then we checked out the creepy cemetery above the library on a hill.  Perfect for Halloween.

Guess how many times they ran across the porch and around the house and across the porch?  We'll never know since no one can count that high.

Every time Henry was laughing, I had my camera ready.  Then I'd snap the photo and look at it in my camera and this was almost always his expression.  How does he do it?!

Henry is looking up the hill at Weston, who took a shortcut with Uncle Brian to the cemetery.

This might be my only photo of Weston in focus.  The man is constantly moving.

That evening we went to the choir concert at the high school.  I haven't been to one of those since I was in one of those!  Jen accompanied the big choir and Taylor sang with two of the choirs.  I had a very surreal moment watching it.  Taylor is amazing!  Such a genuine musician.  Then I panned down to Jen on the piano and flipping her own pages like it was no big deal and never missing a beat - same thing she used to do in high school.  My eyes filled with tears just in time for her to catch me.  She thought I was having an Olympic Cry for Taylor.  Good as he is, the crying was for Jen.  She is amazing at everything. 

Taylor is on the far left singing with "Sweet Transitions."

We missed most of the spectacular color, but the scenery still blew our minds.

That's it for day one!  We'll see how I do for day two since it was a very full day...