Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! We've been pretty busy around here so the pictures are a few days late but better late than never. We all had a wonderful Christmas. Brooke is still opening presents but is almost done, which is good because Jen already took down all the decorations so Christmas is pretty much over at our house.

Our day was busy starting with a stockings and a few presents at our house early and then Our parents and Jen's brothers all came over to see her open presents. Unfortunately for them she was pretty much overwhelmed and done for the morning by the time they all arrived but we all had breakfast and coffee and hung out while she played with the stuff she did opened. Then she just moved all the unopened ones into the other room and out of the way so she could play with the others. We're still opening them up a few at a time and plan on being done by Valentines day with any luck unless we decide to help her out a bit.

After that we got ready and went to visit both of our parents houses and see everyone. We had dinner at my parents and then went to Jen's parents after Brooke's nap for more presents, food and a poker game. I made $40 there to help replenish the bank account so it was a good ending to a great day.

Well rather than keep blabbing I'll let you get to the pictures, there aren't as many as you might think as I was busy with everything else that was going on but you can see them by clicking here or on any of the pictures. Hope you all also had a great day also and if we don't see you at my parents house have a happy New Years.

'Tis the Season

I know it's been a little while since the last post but we've been pretty busy. Everything from wine tastings to Christmas parades to Holiday and birthday party's and train rides so there's plenty of pictures for those of you interested. There's also some video's below as you can see. One is Brooke enjoying some chocolate, one is her dancing with the Rockettes and the other is her spelling and saying her name at Travis' 21st birthday the other day.

Rather than write much more I'll just let the picture tell the story so click here for pictures from the past few weeks and/or here for pictures from Travis' birthday. Don't forget to check back soon, Christmas is coming and there should be plenty more. Hope to see you all in the next week or so. Bye for now.

Howling with some chocolate

Dancing with the Rockettes

B-r-o-o-o-o-o-k-e BROOKE!

The Pictures

Here are the pictures I said were coming. For an explanation of what they are read below. Click on the pictures to get to three different sets from our recent travels, Thanksgiving and out tree trimming. Enjoy!

The Mountains and The Creek


Thanksgiving





Tree Trimming

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I think we saw almost everyone in the past few days but if you're on the short list of people we missed hopefully you had a good one and we'll catch you around Christmas.

We did pretty much the same gatherings as always but this year the Kukesh side got together at my parents house instead of Gram mys. It was different but fun as usual, there were 21 people this year (I think) including Cameron who was there for her first feast. There was just as much food as always, maybe more actually, especially appetizers and desserts. After that we rolled across town to Jen's parent's house where we had more dessert, played cards and visited with everyone there. It was a long filling day and now I have to diet before Christmas gets here so I can do it all over again.

Besides that we've been traveling around a bit too. Last Saturday we went up to the Mountains for the day an Sunday went down to Peabody for lunch with some of Jens friends at Bugaboo Creek, which Brooke loved because of all the animals. I have lots of pictures from all this but for now here's just a few videos from the last few days until I get them up which hopefully will be in a day or two so check back soon for more.

Early November

Well there hasn't been a whole lot going on around here to take pictures of lately. Jen has been very busy with Nicole and Tim's wedding and then with the Jennie Fund fundraiser but now that all of that is finished and the holidays will be arriving soon there should be a lot more in the next post. Brooke did spend her first night without us at Grammy and Grumpet's the night of the wedding and everything went great. She played all day and slept right through the night. I don't have any pictures of it because I wasn't there so for now there are just a few pictures from around the house (click here or on the pictures) and a video of her drinking some very refreshing Powerade below. That's about it for now, if nothing exciting comes up before Thanksgiving we'll probably see most of you then but if not have a great one and check back for another update after that.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! Hope you all had a good one this year. We have been keeping busy between our pumpkin carving/painting, trick or treating and fall clean up around the house. This year Brooke went out as a ballerina and Jen and I also joined the fun as a kitty cat and a cowboy. I don't think she quite got why everyone was dressed up at first but after Grumpet helped her get the hang of the treating part she didn't really seem to care. We roamed the west side neighborhood with Brianna and Sophia for quite a while, collecting a bunch of candy that she can't even eat but she seemed to have fun doing it and that's all that really matters I guess. I'm sure the candy won't go to waste either ;-)

Other than some yard work that's all we've really done lately. Brooke loves to play in the leaves, when we were out trick-or-treating she stomped through a few peoples piles. Oops. Anyhow for pictures of the festivities you can click here or on the pictures above. We don't have any exciting plans coming up for a while but you never know what will come up so check back soon and if anything blog worthy happens you'll see it all here. Bye for now.

Grammy Ellen & Pumpkin Picking

Sorry it's been a little while since the last post. We've been pretty busy lately with the passing of Grammy Ellen. Between the services and the company in town for them we have had a lot going on. It was good to see everyone again, even under the circumstances, and while Grammy is probably in a better place now we're going to miss her. This is one of the few pictures I have of her and Brooke from about a year and a half ago because she hadn't been well enough to attend family gatherings for a while but it's a good one of her smiling so I thought I'd put it up. If you'd like to read the obituary or sign the online guest book you can do that here.

Saturday afternoon after spending the morning in the ER with Brooke's first big boo-boo, from diving off the couch head first into the coffee table while trying to feed the cat, we went pumpkin picking to take her mind off of it. Well, more like picking out, but we got pumpkins all the same. We liked Cider Hill so much we went back this time to get pumpkins and of course some cider and hot cider donuts while we were there. Brooke got to visit with the animals again as well as go through the hay and grass maze they have there and ride around in a wagon. The maze was a dollar a person, even for Brooke, but it was fun and worth the three bucks. The donuts were even better than last time and the cider was still great. Anyhow to see the pictures from the trip and a few other recent ones click here or on the picture above. Enjoy!

Family Weekend

This past weekend my parents rented a place up in the mountains for them, us and my brother and his family to all get together for a weekend. The plan had been to meet up there for the weekend and all go to Story Land or take a ride on the scenic rail road but the weather had other plans for us. It was nice on the ride up Friday and we ate a great restaurant that night that everyone liked a lot but Saturday we awoke to rain and clouds that lasted all day. Fortunately for us the place they rented had 4200 square feet of space including 6 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, a couple game rooms with foosball, air hickey and a pool table as well as a great room that included the kitchen, dining and living areas all in one big room so everyone could hang out. It was quite a place and it worked out really well to have all that to do on a rainy weekend.

Of course on Sunday the clouds cleared and the sun came out so we all went for a short hike to a waterfall before going our own ways. I also stopped a few times on the ride home to take a few pictures of the foliage. Brooke had fun playing with her cousins and we had a great time getting together with everyone for the weekend. You can see all of this by clicking here or on the pictures above. Thanks for stopping by.

A Few Words From Brooke

Just a few quick words from Brooke. She's been babbling a lot lately and is finally starting to put a few new words together, well, if Uh-Oh counts as a word. She's added that and no to her repertoire. Anyways to see a short video of a few new words click the arrow.

First Days of Fall

Well it looks like summer has ended around here. That's alright with me, my favorite time of the year is here. The days are perfect for hiking, taking pictures and doing other fall stuff like apple picking. After hearing how bad the place the Walker's went to was we decided to try out Cider Hill in Amesbury. Who knew that Amesbury was about 15 minutes away? We took the back roads just over the border of NH past Seabrook, Kensington and South Hampton and we were there before we knew it. The farm is very nice with a big barn/store, a small animal area and lots of pick your own fruit and veggie areas. We were concentrating on the apples which were a short walk up a hill, Cider Hill I'm guessing. The had about a dozen different kinds, nicely laid out with a map and signs so you could get the ones you wanted.

After we gathered up the kinds we liked we went to the barn to wait in line and pay for them. It was really busy so Jen went to pay for the apples while I went in to the store to get some cider donuts and apple cider because both lines were pretty long on this perfect weekend afternoon. The donuts were great when hot off the line, but not so great once they cooled. The cider was the best I've had except for Cold Hollow up in Vermont and it didn't miss that by much. Brooke loves cider but this stuff was unpasteurized so she couldn't have any of it unfortunately. We also didn't know what was in the donuts so she missed out on those too but she loved the apples. After that we went to the animal barn for a few minutes which she loved and then we had to run because Jen had somewhere to be.

Next time we're going to try and go on a Wednesday to avoid the crowds and get more apples, a hay ride and some pumpkins. Oh and more cider too, it's already gone. It was a great find right up the road. The food and apples were great, the people were friendly and we all had a great time. If you'd like to see the pictures plus a few other recent ones click on any of the pictures above. If you'd like more information on the farm itself click here for their website. Bye for now.

Charlene's 47th and Our 56th

The other day was Charlene's 47th birthday. To celebrate a bunch of us went out to the Orient Pearl for Chinese food. Jen's parents and brothers along with her grandmother, aunt and cousin that were in town from Florida for a visit and of course the three of us all went out for dinner. They have very good food there and very strong scorpion bowls which made for a good time for everyone I think. After that we came back to our place for cake and presents. There's some pictures from that and a few more from around the house last week here or on the picture if you want to see them.
Also last Sunday Ryan and I went for a hike up in Maine. We were headed for Sugarloaf and Spaulding mountains but missed our exit. By the time we got to an information booth to find the quickest way there from our current location we were already in Bangor. It was a beautiful day out and the guy there told us the weather was supposed to be nice everywhere that day so we decided to head for Baxter State Park since we were only 75 minutes from there at that point and the hikes there are best on good days. Well if you follow our recent hikes you know that the weather always takes a turn for the worse and this day was no different. Katahdin had clouds on the summit as we got near the park and the whole park was clouded over by the time we arrived. We got out of the car and a steady rain started to fall. We hiked up North Brother in the clouds and rain and within 3 hours were standing atop our 56th 4000 footer (only 11 to go on the New England list). The views of Katahdin are supposed to be spectacular from the top but we couldn't tell you as we saw nothing more than about 50 feet of clouds. We did see a lot of wildlife on the trip, including a dead moose, a lot of frogs, a few rabbits, a beaver and a cool spotted salamander. We had never seen one of those before so that made the hike a little better. Anyhow for a few pictures of this trip you can click here.Finally there's a video below of our little ballerina. It's actually her Halloween costume but below you can see her twirl around in it until she gets too dizzy. That's all for now but keep checking back, sooner or later there will be more pictures and videos.

Well summer and our vacations are over sadly. To finish up this summer we took the week off and went up to the White Mountains and then over to Acadia and Bar Harbor for the rest of the week. The warm clear days and cool crisp nights were as perfect for camping and hiking as the heat and humidity were for being at the lake. Hardly a cloud to be seen all week and mostly in the 70's with two days breaking 80. We really lucked out with two perfect weeks of vacation this year. We did some hiking, went to the beach a few times, saw some moose and even did a little outlet shopping. It was pretty much a perfect week for the three of us and we had a lot of fun.

As you might have guessed there are a lot of pictures from the trip. I probably should have broken them up a little more like last time but I didn't so each section has quite a few. If you want to flip through them feel free to pull up a comfy seat and click away on whichever ones you like. They are at least split into a White Mountain section and an Acadia section plus there's a few others from around the house from the last few weeks in a separate section. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking so if you want to see more of what we did get you're mouse finger stretched out and dive right in. The first one will take you to the White Mountain half of the trip, the second you might guess to Acadia and Bar Harbor and the third picture to some recent ones of Brooke from around here. She turned 16 months old today. Enjoy!

Camp 2009

Well we're back from vacation, all a little more tan and a lot more rested than a week ago. We had a great time at the lake with everyone who was there. People came and went through the week but by my count there were 30 people in the rotation this year. Even Brett and Cameron made an appearance which was shocking to everyone. Brett even got in the water, even if it was just to get Cam in but you gotta start somewhere. Baby steps for both of them I guess. It was as good a week as you could get to be at a lake, maybe not so nice if you were anywhere else but we weren't so it was great. Hot and humid almost every day and even Friday was warm, humid and still a good day to be at a lake despite a few showers. The best week I can remember having there in years. Swimming, floating, golfing, kayaking, shopping, Wii bowling, boat rides and more. The only thing we didn't get to was hiking Mt. Major because Friday didn't look good for it but other than that we did it all and then some.

We also ended up skipping White Lake because Brooke was getting a cold and we didn't want to get the other kids there sick. Probably a good idea since she puked right before bed last night. That was the first time for that since she used to spit up as a baby and it was scary for her and us but she seems to be much better today. I don't have pictures of that but there are a lot of pictures from the rest of the week so I don't think you'll miss it that much. There are so many in fact I have broken them up by day so if you have a while you can check them all out or go day by day whenever you have a few minutes. I do know this many pictures might bore some people but if it's not your thing I guess you don't have to look right? But if you have some time to kill just click on the picture/day you would like to see and it should take you there.

Sunday
Monday
Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday & SaturdayThere are also a bunch of pictures from before camp on Jen's camera and some from today of the beaches, waves and surfers as hurricane Bill passed nearby. You can click either link or the pictures below to go to those.


And if that's still not enough for you we're going away again next week to White Lake and Acadia so there will be more pictures from that too I'm sure. I didn't realize it was so close to camp when we scheduled it but it will be nice to get some more camping and hiking in before summer is over so check back in a little while if like us you just cant get enough of Brooke. We can't imagine a better kid and we're very lucky to have her as well as a great family to spend the week at camp with, who are also all very good with her. It makes our week much more relaxing to know everyone is always keeping an eye out for her and everyone seems to enjoy doing it which gives us a few minutes to really relax and slow down once in a while so thank you to everyone who was there for helping out with her and for everything else this week. OK that's enough of that...Ladies and Gentleman...Start Your Clicking!

Hot Summer Fun

Well it's been a little while and we've been a little busy, especially Jen and Brooke. They really get around, as you'll see. Since the last post they have been on their share of trips to playgrounds, campgrounds, pools, lakes and mountains. Kingston Lake with the Haas's, Mt. Chocorua with Nicole and Tim, Jens parents old campground with the family and friends up there, Jens parents pool and more playgrounds than I can name here. I don't take those pictures so I have little to say about it other than what I've been told so if I left anyone or anything out I apologise but I probably know nothing about it. There's also some pictures from Uncle Scott, Aunt Therese and my cousin Jennifer's visit and Aunt Pam's birthday dinner. Rather than try and recap all of it here I'll let the pictures do the talking. All of the pictures except the hike can be found right here, or by clicking the pictures above or below, so click away and enjoy.
I was however part of the latest hike. I was the mule actually. We went up to hike Mt. Chocorua with Nicole and Tim. They had never been with us, I don't know if Tim had ever been, but since he was in the Army we figured he'd have no problem with it. It's a great trail on a great mountain but most of you who have ever been with me know that because I take almost everyone on it as their introductory hike. If it were rated like ski slopes it would be a blue square. A nice intermediate trail. We managed to get in a great day for hiking, sunny for most of it and then clouds rolled in but it was fairly cool also which makes for a nice summer hike. We had a great tie, I think they did too. I guess we'll know how much they liked it if they go again but for pictures from this trip click here or on the picture above or below.My father and I played in the NH State Father-Son tournament again this week. We didn't win but we got a step closer than last year. We shot a 75 net 63 which was good enough to tie for 9th gross and take 6th net. Not too bad considering neither of us have been playing real well this year. Good enough to place here and win out flight in the PCC Member-Member so that's not a bad year in my book. You can see the final results from the state tournament here if you want.

Other than that we're headed up to Lake Winnipesaukee for the week for some much needed R & R. We cant wait for that. Sun, swimming, golf, hiking and more. Maybe we'll see lots of you up there, if not and you want to see lots of us up there check back next week. I'm sure there will be plenty of pictures from the week. And just in case you're interested we will probably do a little hiking, probably Mt. Major one day and maybe something in the White's too so if you might want to get some fresh air and exercise with us bring your gear, everyone is welcome to join us so we'll either see you there or you can see us here. Bye for now.

Magic Trick

Well, no luck in the big tournament for Uncle Dan and I. He played well but I was off and on and that didn't get the job done. The one rain shortened round really hurt us too. That's two years in a row the rain has screwed us out of the money.

Anyhow I don't have a lot of new pictures so I won't put any up right now but I just thought I'd update the blog with a video of Brooke's magic trick. She came up with this all on her own, it's pretty funny. She does it really well, until the camera comes out of course, but it's good enough that you'll get the idea. That's all for now but check out the video below of Brooke's new magic trick and check back for pictures soon.

Summer Fun

Well it's been a little while since my last post. That leaves me with a small backlog of pictures to put up so I'll start with today. We were planning on hiking but the forecast as usual didn't cooperate. With a chance for sever thunderstorms up there we decided to stay home and went to the Stratham Fair instead for lack of anything better to do. We spent a few hours wandering around and looking at the animals, which Brooke loved with the exception of the loud sheep calls, and then around noon it became so hot and humid we went home for lunch and a nap. There's some pictures here of Brooke's trip around the fair grounds if you're interested or you can just click on the picture with the cow.
After that it got even hotter, 87 and really humid, so we decided to take a ride down to the beach. The recent tropical system stirred up quite a bit of seaweed but we ended up at Jenness Beach which wasn't that bad. The water was even fairly warm so Brooke played around in it for a while until a big thunderstorm came our way so we went and got some take out at Petey's and then when the weather cleared went to a playground. It was a busy day for Brooke but she had fun and there's some more pictures of the beach here or you can click the beach picture above also.
Yesterday we went up to York's Wild Kingdom so Brooke could see some animals. We fought the traffic up there and passed some people protesting the animals being caged with signs like "See the animals in the wild" and "Born Free, Let them Be". Now I can understand not liking the animals caged but where are most people going to see a wild Zebra, Tiger, Lion, Monkey etc? Anyhow when we finally got there we got to see lots of animals in big hard to see through cages for a few hours and Brooke got to feed and pet some goats, deer and birds. We were looking forward to the "Butterfly Kingdom" thinking it would be huge and nice and filled with butterflies like the one in Niagara Falls that we have been two a few times and were disappointed by that the most I think. They had very few butterflies and Jen just pointing at one closely got us yelled at not to touch the butterflies. The place isn't exactly nice and the enclosures are small and hard to see into, but it got the job done. It might be better if she was old enough to go on the rides, then it's only $10.00 for all the rides you want. The animal rescue place in Gray Maine would get my vote over this place however. It doesn't have the exotic pairs of African animals but the enclosures and overall place is nicer (and half the price) in our opinion. I guess that will be our next stop when we want to see the animals but to see pictures from this trip click here or on the picture with the gorilla, which they don't have by the way. Finally there's a few general summer fun pictures of Brooke at Grampy Dew's and Bapcia's pool and just hanging out enjoying life. You can click here or on the pool pic to see those.

Other than that the big PCC Member Guest is this weekend so wish Uncle Dan and I luck. We got screwed out of the money last year by the rain so hopefully this year the weather cooperates and we can get back to our winning ways like my father and I dd in the Member-Member this past weekend. Thanks for looking in and check back soon.