Our New Start

Keith got a new job in Amherst, Massachusetts. He's been working at his new job since October, traveling between Illinois and Massachusetts. This past July it was time to pack up our bags and hit the road. Keith and Parker left with the moving truck. Tricia and I stayed behind to finish some business. Tricia had summer camp to attend and I had a 1/2 marathon to run for Team Challenge and the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America. We were apart almost 2 weeks.

Two weeks ago tomorrow, Tricia and I pulled into town and our small town livin' started. We moved from a town of approximately 17,000 people to a town of 3,777. We went from a town with lots of stoplights and traffic to a sleepy town with two stop lights and no traffic.

Keith once had a 3 hour commute round trip to work, now it's just 30 minutes round trip. He's home every night by 6pm for dinner and doesn't have to travel as much.

We have been used to a very hectic lifestyle and are looking forward to a more laid back life.

Once we were reunited as a family we took a walk down the street. Here are some pictures of our walk on the way to the Conneticut River.



These two pictures were taken just steps from our house.





About 6 houses down from us is access to the Conneticut River. There is a canoe launch and a Kayak launch. Here we are checking out the river.

Keith and I decided once we moved we were going to start fresh with our family's eating and healthy habits. There are many opportunities to buy locally through farmstands, coops, and buying shares of farms. The kids and I visited a farmstand and bought lots of nice produce.


Here is the first farmstand salad I made for Tricia and Keith. I have a cool carrot cutter that makes the crinkle cut. They really enjoyed it.


Next we headed about 40 minutes away to go to Six Flags New England. It's a lot smaller than Six Flags Great America, but still a lot of fun.








We had a great day at Great America, but we were looking forward to getting back to Sunderland.



One thing that Keith and I have been looking forward is buying into a farm. Today we visited a farm and ended up buying a share in the farm.

Here are the kids waiting outside the barn as Keith and I learned how it all worked. The farm is ours for 13 weeks. Every week on Friday we will go and fill a cloth bag with as much veggies as we can fit in. Some veggies you don't have to put in the bag and then you can go and pick some veggies too that don't count towards your bag. Each week there is a different food you can pick and some of the pick your own foods you can just pick and snack on right there in the field. They will say SNACK ONLY.



Here we are ready to cross the bridge to go to the fields where you are allowed to pick your own produce and flowers.




First we had the opportunity to pick sunflowers. I had never seen purple sunflowers before. Can you see the bee? They were everywhere. The flowers were so pretty.



After picking sunflowers we got to pick Green Beans.

The kids on the farm after picking some goodies. Originally they were very negative about this whole idea, but now they are excited and can't wait to go back next week. We look forward to it to.


Here is everything that we got at the farm today.



After we got home from the farm we headed across the street to the park behind the public library. There we were able to watch the Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees game on a big screen outside. It was a great small town feeling and we all met some new people. Tricia hung out with the little kids and got her first babysitting job. It was really a great day.

We are two weeks into our new journey and we are loving it. We are looking forward to many more new adventures. We are on our way to really livin' and lovin' the small town life.