mom's visit to new england

It's been such a treat to have my mom here all week. She came to visit New York for the first time and has been hired to do scrapbooking for the family I nanny for. I will definatly feel a sense of loss when she leaves as I am loving chatting with her, scrapbooking with her, showing her around and best of all, enjoying her delicious cooking. I've missed it! Last weekend I took her to New York and Boston. We were exhausted by Monday, but it was well worth it. If you live in the New York area and haven't seen "Mamma Mia" on Broadway yet, book your tickets now! My mom and I laughed our heads off and we knew all the ABBA songs of course. Enjoy our little trip highlight slideshow below!

my hero

I dug up this old photo of Grandpa Harris singing to Grandma the other day. This is no ordinary fella...in fact, he was one of the most stellar men I have met. This picture captures his zest for life perfectly and makes me smile every time I look at it. I've thought a lot about him lately and how I can create a life more like his for myself. His motto (which by the way he wore pinned to every outfit including church clothes on a big round button) was to "Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much". Many people post this on a variety of paraphonelia, but my Granfather LIVED this quote. And for that, he is my hero...my number one and because of him I have the best family (parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins) in the world. I will never forget him saying to me as we were chatting one day..."Holly, never settle for what you can live with...go for what you can't live without". I think about that quote EVERY DAY of my life and it pushes me to find what I really want out of my own journey, which ultimatly is a life like his and to continue his legacy of family strength and making those that you come into contact with feel important. Grandpa Harris is such a treasure and I don't think any person lucky enough to meet him would disagree with that.

rock and roll

So if I look a little dazed lately it is only because I'm absolutely hooked on Guitar Hero and because of it I don't sleep! You can't get me away from it on my free time. I have the coolest job in the world because as a nanny, I get paid to play GH against an eight year old who thinks he's hot stuff. The only downfall...I'm not getting much of anything else done. I'm completely miffed that I can't get past the battle against Slayer on "Hard" and I've had the song "When We Were Young" stuck in my head for two weeks straight. My bedtime is on average two hours later than it was before last week when the dad I nanny for purchased it for "Madeline's 7th Birthday". She rarely plays it at all...my boss and I battle each other til we can't see straight. If you have a cure for how to get off Guitar Hero and back to normal life, please leave comments below. In the meantime, I am going to go try to beat Slayer!! I'm not going to bed until I do! Rock On!