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!