Monday, April 12, 2010


 
today was another beautiful spring day! biff and i left t.j. and grace sleeping this morning while we drove off for some coffee and a little visit with an old friend.  she is a wonderful woman of my mom's generation, a dignified and conservative yankee.  she's a strong woman with a heart of gold.  she's 83 now and still working almost everyday at the business that she and her husband bought years ago.  her husband has been gone for many years.  this woman has never let anything get in her way...she just keeps on going.  she's a great role model for women...even for the latest young women in the work force.  mrs. thayer was ahead of her time.  it's still a family business and mrs. thayer has one of her sons working there too.  the business was a passion of her husband's and has remained a passion for the whole family!   

we lived up here near boston for almost 5 years. from the moment mrs. thayer met biff and i and our kids, she was a wonderful person in our lives.  we met at the time we moved in...her son is biff's boss....she brought up her 5 kids on the south shore of boston.  biff and i knew that we wanted to live in the area. once we settled in, we went up to meet mrs. thayer at the rink!! did we feel a connection?? immediately! 

after all, biff and i were together because of ice skating! the rink was mrs. thayer's business.  when we got together for the first time she encouraged us,"if grace can walk, she can skate!! within weeks, grace was geared up and we put her on the ice!  she
was almost 18 months! 

that's when we felt it was meant to be!  we were in the right place.  every tuesday and thursday morning, i got her dressed to go and we drove up to the rink and dressed her up in her snow suit, mittens, helmet and single blade skates...and a neck guard!
i thought that i would be skating with her! not! she went on the ice all by herself.  she had a chair to push and she was off....mrs. thayer's son, a hockey coach at the rink, was out there on the ice.  when i wanted to run out to the middle of the ice to save my baby, the coach would look over at me and signal "wait...."
i wanted to pole vault over the boards and help grace up...i didn't want her to be scared!

little did i know, she knew no different!  she would fall down, get frustrated....slip and slide around....then get herself up and she was proud!  very proud!

a gift for us all. mrs; thayer was wonderful to us all.  to grace and t.j., she was like another grandma....just local!

so, today we stopped in and spent some time just telling her about the kids and hearing all about her big family...her kids and her grandchildren. we left t.j. and grace sleeping....we were so sorry that they hadn't been with us.  we'd like to bring them back tomorrow.

once we got back to the kids at kit's house, we had something to eat...waited for kit's kids to get home from school...laughed at our kids getting involved with kit's kids' homework!  their vacation, they were involved in homework!!  they resist their own homework!  we may have to move back just for that homework enthusiasm!
after kit's kids went off to sports practices, we all went off to the beach...same beach we all used to go to...during all seasons!  we walked, talked and looked for sea glass. a fabulous family time...quiet and peaceful and like another walk down memory lane.
we sure have had a lot of that lately!  we had considered boston...and decided to enjoy taking it slow...we wanted to enjoy where we were...we didn't need to hunt around...here was just right!

the beach is always a good place for us as a family!!
always. always. we certainly have good times at the beach....it's pretty tough for any one of us to have anything other than a good day at the beach!

it's not the beach in florida we were hoping to get away to this year....it was a tad cooler than florida....but it still is just what we needed.  a little getaway...another beach and some time together!

life is good....always!!

we all found lots of sea glass!  grace found a bonus blue piece...one of the most rare!  we all found some and we all left tired after walking for miles down the long stretch of south shore beach.
life is good.