Red Sox Day

Today is Red Sox Day at Raymond's school. He is so excited that hats are allowed in school for the World Series kickoff. He is wearing all Red Sox clothes - shirt, shorts, socks, hat, backpack, and even his underwear!





Cranky has also posted a prayer he found on craiglist. Take a look here!

GO RED SOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Heckuva Week

This weekend, the weather was beautiful about half the time. Unfortunately it was the wrong half.

Friday night was beautiful and clear followed by most of Saturday being nice too. Saturday was a big day for Raymond, as he turned 8 years old! Here he is enjoying his birthday cake:


And on his new bike:

We planned our usual "bon fire" birthday party for Saturday night. Cranky got the fire pit all ready to go -- lights, chairs, music -- while I got the food together. Cranky lit the fire at 5:00 pm (the guests scheduled to arrive at 5:30). Unfortunately it started raining at 5:15! Arghh! We moved everything inside and watched it pour. Luckily Cranky did a bang up job on our porch, so we had a nice place to party. A good time was had by all:




(The porch isn't quite done yet, but we've been spending A LOT of time enjoying it already.)

Naturally, Sunday was a picture-perfect fall day. Clear skies, cool weather, beautiful.

This morning, the rain came back at 4:00 am. I heard the thunder and listened to the rain pounding the roof until I got up at 6:00. Why was I getting up early on a day off? I was heading to Boston to run in the Tufts 10K. My friend Lynn and I drove down and met a few other friends. With fingers crossed, we headed to Boston Common for the race. The rain stopped for awhile and then started up again 5 minutes into the race. It rained for about half the race, and then cleared up. Geez, I was only running for about 50 minutes; you'd think I could've gotten a break on the rain. We still had a great time. Here's the gang after the race:

Last Monday was pretty exciting for me. I was in the middle of a 6-day trip, on a layover in Cincinnati. I put in for this trip since the New England Patriots would be in town for Monday Night Football. After we got in from Frankfurt, I went for a run all around the stadium -- in, out and around the stadium and in and out of tailgate parties, running in my Patriots shirt. I got a lot of looks but nobody threw anything at me or anything. I was hoping some wonderful Patriots fan would offer me a ticket. Nobody did. I went to dinner with the other 2 pilots and had given up on going the game. On the walk back to the hotel, I talked to a ticket scalper right next to our hotel (we stay 3 blocks from the stadium) and ended up buying myself a ticket. I was on the lower deck on the Patriots side. Here's the view from my seat:

There were some Patriots fans at the game, but as expected, I was surrounded by Bengals fans. A few people asked my how I could show up with a Patriots shirt and hat. I said, "I'm a fan! Wouldn't you do the same thing?" Anyway, as New England proceeded to kick some Cincinnati ass, the fans grew quieter. I decided to go down to the field level for the 4th quarter:


And then for the last few minutes of the game, the stadium was nearly cleared out so I walked over to a seat behind the Pats on the 50-yd line:



Final score: Patriots 34, Bengals 17. WOO HOO!!



(Not bad for cell phone pictures, huh?)



In other good news this week, the Boston Red Sox swept the LA Angels and as I type this, the NY Yankees are losing to the Cleveland Indians. Another big WOO HOO!!


Have a great week everybody!

Epic Ride!

On Labor Day weekend Cranky and I packed up the KLR-650's and went on an epic ride. Well, maybe not totally epic, but we went motorcycle camping. Cranky's bike had all the camping gear, and I had food, beer, a cookstove and my clothes.



We rode up to our favorite hiking/camping area, the White Mountains. We drove about 100 miles (taking the scenic route to avoid highways) and ended up camping near Lincoln NH.


Even the bikes had cover:


This picture isn't very good, but that is our dinner, brats w/peppers & onions, cooking over the fire. It was wicked delicious.


The next day we packed up and drove the Kancamagus Highway to North Conway, then north through Crawford Notch before turning back south towards home, about 200 miles. Here I am near Crawford Notch.


One of the roads we took was Rte 118. It was a beautiful road to ride and there weren't many cars on it. Here's Cranky at a "scenic overlook".


This was our last chance to get away while my mother was in NH (She's the only one we have to watch the kids overnight.) Hopefully next summer we will get to go more often.

Oh My God, Mary is 13!!!!

This must mean that I am getting old.

To commemorate the occasion, I took her and her friend Samantha to New York City. Here they are waiting to get on the plane in Boston:

After the short flight to NYC, we caught a ride to Times Square. This was right after we were dropped off:

We walked around Times Square, ate lunch and checked into our hotel a few blocks away. After dropping off our backpacks, we took the subway to Chinatown. We shopped on Canal Street (I showed the girls how to haggle for goods.)



Then we ate cannolis in Little Italy:


I wish we had eaten dinner in Little Italy, but we had tickets to the Broadway show, "Spamalot" and we had to get ready. Mary consented to a picture with mom:


This show was hilarious!

The next day, we went to the Museum of Modern Art, commonly referred to as "MoMa". This is my favorite painting by Van Gogh:

After the museum, we walked to Central Park and bought lunch from a street vendor. I figured that was enough for the trip so we headed back to LaGuardia and caught the 4:30 flight back to Boston:



Hopefully Mary will have fond memories of her 13th birthday! Now if only I can survive the next 5 years!

Picnic

Yesterday Raymond and I went on a picnic on our dirtbikes. We rode on an 8-mile trail through the woods (and over many bridges), along the Sugar River. It starts in the town next to ours, so we packed the dirtbikes in Cranky's truck and hit the trail. It's very scenic and we saw some people walking dogs, jogging, and riding bicycles. During the winter, this is also used as a snowmobile trail.

There are 2 covered bridges -- this is the first one we drove over:


Here is the second covered bridge where we decided to have our picnic.


Raymond and I took pictures of each other:



Near the end of the trail, it there is some construction work being done on a nearby road. The road is being widened, and they have been digging the tall slopes on the sides of the road. It looks like they have found several discarded cars and put them in this holding area:


On the way back home, Raymond was leading and took quite a spill. He hit a large rock and lost control. He was a little freaked out at first but got over it very quickly. He had ripped his shirt a little bit and scraped his arm, but his helmet, chest protector, gloves and boots took the brunt of the fall. After a few minutes, he hopped back on and continued. Before I knew it, he was zipping right along like nothing had happened.

We had a great time and I hope we go again soon.

Summ, Summ, Summertime....

I can't believe how fast July is flying by! Cranky bought fireworks a week before the 4th of July and he and the kids were lighting them off all week. In this picture, Mary and Raymond are throwing "pop-its" at each other:


Cranky is the master of the fireworks:


Bob likes sparklers, but decided to touch one that had burned out and managed to burn his fingers a little. I don't think he's too keen on them anymore...


Much to Cranky's chagrin, our town held it's "4th of July" parade on July 6th. (So it can be on a weekend. Cranky's hometown, Bristol RI, holds the mother of all 4th of July parades, and always on the proper day.) Sunapee's parade is very small and the kids like grabbing the candy that is thrown.

Bob didn't like the loud sirens when the firetrucks went by:


Afterwards, there are games for the kids and this year there was one of these bouncy things. That's Raymond in the blue shorts:


Raymond also likes the pie eating contest:


In other news...Cranky has been working hard on the front porch. The deck is done, now for the roof, steps, and railings. It's coming along very well!


Raymond is very excited about getting a bigger dirt bike. It's a Yamaha PW 80. Here he is test riding it when we brought it home:


WOO HOO!!!!!!!!!!

Watching him ride makes me smile. He's an excellent driver and has a great time. (Sometimes we can hear him singing.)

This weekend Cranky and I are taking off by ourselves. My mother is watching the kids and we are going hiking for a couple of days!

Can you believe summer is half over?!

Superwoman!!!

Holding up a well-known tower in Pisa, Italy:


I also bought a couple of really cool low-crawling army men toys for my sons. How long will they have their legs attached? No telling in our house! (Bob is a "disassembler".)



I may take a train to Florence tomorrow. Back home to Sunapee on Monday.

Have a wonderful weekend!