B & J's excellent adventure, part two

Picking up where we left off...B and I took the train from Philadelphia to just outside Annapolis, MD, to spend the next six days with my sister and her husband. They live on a beautiful horse farm with tons of fun stuff for kids to do.

This is my sister, 34ish weeks pregnant with twins. You can't even tell she's pregnant from behind (that was definitely NOT the case with me -- I had a full-body pregnancy). They're due to be born by scheduled c-section on August 13.

B rode a (very large) horse the first day we were there:

I don't know why he looks so bored in this picture. Honestly, he looked so happy and proud of himself the whole time I saw him up there.

Other critters on the farm:

My sister hates the peacocks. Apparently they've gone rather wild and started breeding out of control, and have a habit of pooping on her roof. I wouldn't like that either, but they are pretty to look at, aren't they?

Sylvie, my sister's elderly (and slightly neurotic) dog


Moo, my BIL's dog. B fell in love with her because she followed him all over the farm, everywhere he went.

A sweet kitty that lived at the neighbor's

One of Bizzy's goats

More horses

Georgia, my sister's first horse, and still her favorite I think

And there were other things to ride besides horses too:




And kids to play with:

B & Bizzy, who must be some sort of cousin to him by marriage, but don't ask me to name that relationship exactly

Jumping on the trampoline at the neighbor boy's house -- they hosted the weekly Tuesday cookout while we were there (wouldn't you love to live in a place where everyone on the road took turns hosting a cookout on summer Tuesday evenings?!)

The clubhouse at the neighbors' place

B and his new buddies entering the clubhouse (I have no idea what was in there; it could've been a chicken coop for all I know)

B & his buddies from the cookout

My brother-in-law's sister (is she my sister-in-law? my sister-in-law-in-law?) is building a straw bale house on the farm, and they've been having mudding parties every Saturday. About 50 people show up every week to help them mud the straw. We dropped by to check it out, but didn't stay to help:





We had a very special visit one day while we were there. Rony from Insane Mommy brought her lovely Abby & Katie over to spend an afternoon with us. Rony and I met online in the run-up to the presidential election last year. We are both part of a very small minority in the adoption community: liberals. As you may remember, I got rather vocal here on the blog last fall when election time rolled around, and Rony and I bonded over that. As it turns out, we had plenty of things besides politics to talk about. She was loads of fun, and I will definitely be looking her up whenever I'm in the DC area.

Rony, her girls, and me. That's B's rear end you can see up at the top of the picture. I don't know why, but he freaked out when we tried to take a picture, and ran away crying. Strange child.

The crazy kids jumping on Bizzy's trampoline; Bizzy had left for the beach the day before, which is too bad, because I think she would've had a blast with these three monkeys.

Sadly, all vacations must come to an end. Here's B on the bus from the airport terminal to our car:


It's good to be home though. I missed M & Z a ton. Z's speech improved tremendously in the 11 days we were gone. Really, it's astonishing. And the gardens are on the verge of taking over the yard, especially the vegetable garden.

It really was an excellent adventure though...