Da Cape

This is my offering of image overload of our trip to the Cape and visit with Grammy/ Mimi.  I thought my mom was going to be old school and go with the traditional grammy title, but she heard Bibi say Mimi and she quickly changed her tune.  Also, Sylvie picked up the new name in no time.  Maybe in years to come I will forget that when Bibi says "Mimi" it is him saying "feed me Mama, I am HUNGRY!"  So pulling back from my digression.....

Right before departure to Logan we grabbed a quick lunch and one last hug with the grandkids.

Iman unfortunately takes after me when it comes to the beach, it's not really her bag, so she hangs out under the umbrella catching some zzz's.
Bibi on the other hand is his Baba's boy loving everything about the beach, the sand, the water, the ladies... what's not to love?

Sylvie girl chilling 

Iman, still safely on the towel... no sand on those hands or feet

looking pretty cute in Mama's hat


Some P-town Can Can dancing by Miss Sylvie, so much cuter than the cross dresser on the bicycle
My favorite part of P-town a hidden gem of a zen garden that the babies got to stretch their legs and play with some Koi and a Buddha or two.

The required picture of architecture

We met up with Craig, Alicia and the boys, but I somehow managed not to take a single piece of photographic evidence of that, so you have to trust me.

More architecture, I loved all the Hydrangea bushes.  I guess that's the one good thing about a rainy summer.

Bibi in his big chair

Like Archie and Edith Bunker, they each had their favorite chair, both very retro and could have actually been on the set of "All in the Family"

ok, so I realize there are a lot of pictures here and I should really edit more, maybe next time.




I think everyone else must have still been sleeping, or Iman is a total camera hog, little poser!

Sylvie and Katie on our first day at the Cape soaking in the afternoon rays.

40 days and 40 nights

The babies B were the only ones who thoroughly enjoyed the construction process in our backyard, a parade of bobcats, tractors, and workers spent four weeks rather than four days transforming our backyard from white trash to happy suburbia.

A big part of the problem was the quality of workers, I am pretty sure this day laborer set the process back rather than advancing it forward, but she couldn't resist.

The dramatic Before.....

and After!

We returned from the cape to find some lovely green stuff in our backyard, it was such a difference that my mom wondered why I was parking so far from the house... she didn't recognize it!

It is such a wonderful change to have a park of sorts of our very own that I can just bring the babies outside and let them run around.  It is also nice to have a nice seating area and grill for the big kids too.  Those suburbanites are onto something.

Just yesterday the Babies B hanging in the yard

The End... or should I say ends

a bobcat and a birthday

Today work began in our yard.  It all looked very promising for about ten minutes and then Lawrence, later referred to as Loco Larry, drove his Bobcat on the edge of our rotting retaining wall at the high side of the driveway, he rolled off and luckily didn't hurt himself.  The next few hours were spent trying to resurrect the Bobcat and find other things to do until new equipment could be rented.  I have a feeling this process may have several such anecdotes before we are done.

I then left Amine to supervise the crew while I piled the kids in the car and went to Lise's house for Eliza's second birthday party.  We had a great afternoon playing with the other kids and relaxing in Lise's backyard and driveway... who knew how much fun a driveway could provide?  I came home to find two Bobcats and one ginormous bulldozer, the neighbors thought we were putting in a pool, so far we are just moving dirt around, but we will see what tomorrow brings.

my bookends

the kids loved the wagon, especially when someone pulled them around

Eliza is already multi-tasking!

the bulkhead also topped the list of cheap thrills, they repeatedly climbed to the top and then slid down, who needs playground equipment?

Zoe, ridiculously cute and photogenic... and her dad Mike

my kids were the only ones climbing on tables, hopefully it's just a stage

Eliza's new baby carriage was a big hit

Is it too early to claim Zoe as Bibi's future wife?

How cute is this swing?

The birthday girl and her cake

Our last day in Morocco

Here's the last of the image overload, I still may post a video or two, but right now Iman is not quite asleep and me reviewing the videos is keeping her awake, so another time.  These photos are from a mountain town outside of Oujda.  Most of the family was there visiting Amine's grandparents, I realized my other posts left out some of the other cute cousins, so here are Ilias and Sid Hamed.

Ilias was so little two summers ago, but here he is looking like a big boy next to Bibi

Sid Hamed playing with Bibi

Amine's parents having one final tea with us before driving us to the airport.

Rocking the trigs

This video was too precious not to share. Iman shows the world that the Beasty Boys still rock the house. Not what I thought she'd be rocking to, but there is plenty of time for her to discover a passion of Marley music.

Joc is already attempting to recruit Tayeb into the architects clan. Here she's giving him a hands-on trigonometry lesson (anyone remembers which is the sine and which is the cosine?)