Well we're just finishing up with a busy weekend here but I thought I'd put up a few pictures while we're hanging around, relaxing and adjusting to the new time change.

This weekend was a busy one for everyone but especially exciting for Brooke. She's been waiting all week for her cousins to come visit. Every time a doorbell rang or a car arrived she wanted to know if it was Ty and Anna. They finally arrived Saturday afternoon and as a bonus for her Glen came over with Olivia and Kaden, her other cousins, and then later that night her other cousin Cameron came over. One weekend, five cousins. They all kept busy at the playground, out in the yard, playing with Lego's and playing in Brooke's room with the rest of her toys. Like I said it made for a busy but very fun weekend for everyone. Now we're all tired and are going to have to adjust to the time change over the next few days but if you want to see some pictures you can find them here. Other then that not much is new so check back with us in a little while.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everybody! Hope everyone had a good one. We had a busy night of Trick or Treating and playing games at a little carnival in Brentwood. Brooke collected a couple buckets full of candy, all of which except a few pieces she couldn't eat, but she had fun getting it anyways. She was dressed as the cutest little ladybug I ever saw and seemed to get the hang of it pretty well. There's pictures of the night here as well as a couple other recent ones. She's got a big weekend with her cousins coming up so there will probably be more pictures soon. That's all for now.

Since the last post we've been out and about enjoying the nice fall weather. We managed to get away to Loon Mountain up in Lincoln for a few days and did some short hikes, searched for and explored the many trains in the area and used the pools at the condo. We also made a trip to Cider Hill to get some pumpkins and cider donuts as well as see the animals they have so if you're interested in the pictures from those trip you can find them all right here.Last weekend Ryan and I went hiking up in Maine to climb the twin peaks on Bigelow Mountain, our 65th and 66th of the New England 4000 footers, which leaves us with just one left, Hamlin peak on Katahdin. That's probably going to have to wait until the spring as the mountain is closed except by Permit this time of year and the trip takes at least 3-4 days in the winter. The pictures from this last hike up the Bigelows are here if you're interested.That's what we've been up to for the last couple weeks. Tonight is trick or treat in Exeter so there will probably be some pictures from that up here soon so check back in a little while. That's all for now.

Weekend in Vermont

It's been a little while since the last post but we've been pretty busy settling in to the new place so surprisingly there aren't a ton of pictures to put up. We did just have a great weekend in Vermont with Chris, Katie, Ty and Anna so I do have pictures of that. Brooke loved hanging out with her cousins. She got to have a sleepover, go for a hike, wander around Church Street, ride bikes and more all in one weekend. We also got to visit one more time at this house since they're selling it and moving to a new one and Jen probably shouldn't travel that far much longer. There are some pictures here if you want to check them out. Hopefully I'll get more soon once things are settled in but we've been really busy and really tired so for now that's about it. Check back soon.

Just The Three Of Us

For one last time just the three of us went on a little mini Vacation. It was more like a long weekend, except we almost never get weekends off together, so we took a little time mid-week to go camping with Brooke so she could have us all to herself one more time and so Jen could squeeze in one more camping and hiking trip before she has to take a break for a little while. We ended up with two perfect September days up in Acadia. The nights were cold and snugly, I think it got down into the upper 40's, but the days were sunny and upper 60's so we couldn't have asked for a lot more than that.
The first day Brooke walked about 2 miles of nature trails along a harbor,through the woods, down to tide pools and some beaches. The next day we decided to see how she and Jen would do on an actual hike. They both did great, Brooke made it about 3/4 of a mile while climbing about 300 vertical feet before she decided it was time to ride in her piggy-backpack as she called it, but did great climbing up the rocks and ledges to that point. Jen made it the whole 1.1 miles to the top of 522 foot high Gorham Mountain, and back of course, even opting for the more adventurous route on the way down. The mountain itself is a rocky little peak right next to the ocean (the one farthest left in the picture below) so there are great views along the way and from the top even though it's one of the smaller mountains in the park.
That pretty much filled the two days up but we had a good time as usual. Now it's getting too cold to take the whole family and Jen's getting to the point where it's probably not such a great idea to go hiking any more so the next time we go Brooke is going to have to share us with her baby sister. Next spring she can help us introduce her to the outdoors and Acadia. For now pictures of this trip are right here if you want to see them.

End Of Summer 2010

Well the unofficial end of Summer has arrived. I have a backlog of pictures from the past couple weeks and I'm just going to put most of them up in one post. They are from the air show, the weekend at the Cape for Ryan and Kristy's wedding, a trip to the mountains and more. To see what we've been up to click right here or on one of the pictures above or below. There's also some from a hiking trip Ryan and I went on a couple weeks ago and I forgot to put up. If you want to see the pics from more of our adventures in Maine you can click here or on the picture below.
Our other big news is that Jen had her 20 week ultrasound. Exeter thought they saw something that needed to be looked at further so we were sent off to Dartmouth-Hitchcock where, with a better ultrasound machine, they found that it was nothing. We were a bit worried for a few days but in the end we are now more certain everything is fine than we would have been before that trip and we got the 4D pictures that usually cost a lot of money for free. You'd think Exeter could get the better machine too rather than worry people and send them off to another hospital needlessly but all's well that ends well i guess. I didn't want to know what we were having but Jen did so we had them put the answer in an envelope so we could open it if we wanted to. Jen couldn't wait so Brooke opened it the next morning and and in case you haven't heard Brooke is going to have a sister. The following pictures are the Ultrasound, the 4D picture and a picture of Brooke when she was a day old. I think they look alike, you can see for yourself. Anyways we're just thrilled that she's healthy. Well that's all for now. If the weather's good next week we want to take Brooke camping one more time with just the three of us so there should be lots of pictures from that trip if it happens so check back soon.

Camp 2010

You can click the panoramic picture to enlarge it

Another great year at the lake is in the books. It was a bit quieter around there this year as the late night crowd is turning into an early morning crowd instead. Jason wasn't around this year and Alison and Uncle Dan weren't there for long but Brett, Carey and Cameron actually spent the entire week up there and were a nice addition. Brooke had a great time hanging out with Cameron and everyone else as well as doing everything that camp has to offer. The weather was great and that all added up to a great week. Rather than write a book about it I'll just let the pictures tell the story. There's a lot as you might expect but if you want to see them and what we were up to click here to check them out. There's also a bunch more from a different perspective on Brett and Carey's blog which most of you probably know already but if not you can get to that right here. Thanks again to everyone who was there for everything. Okay, that's all for now. hope you all enjoy the pictures.

Summer Fun

I'll try to make this short and sweet since Jen's talking about me writing a book again. Brooke has been busy with the beach, the pool, the fair and more. Jen has been tired from the pregnancy and is starting to show. She's also been busy with baby showers, bridal showers, play dates and more. I've been busy with work and also a little golf. The Member-Member was a couple weeks ago and my Dad and I finished third this year. The Member-Guest was this past weekend and Uncle Dan and I finished tied for second, only a point out of first, but got bumped to third on a tie breaker. Guess you cant win them all but I had a great time trying in both.

There's a bunch of pictures from the past month or more here. Jen has a habit of leaving all her pictures on her camera for months so I tried to get them up here and clean it up for her. For once I didn't take most of the pictures you'll see here but there's still plenty to go around so click right here if you want to see what we've been up to for the past few weeks. Hopefully we'll see you all up at camp next week. I know there will be plenty of pictures from that so check back in a little while for more. That's all for now.

Beating The Heat

White Lake Photos Here
Acadia Photos Here

Well our summer vacation season has officially begun. With any luck we'll have a week at Camp in August and then to finish it off a wedding down the cape Labor Day weekend, possibly followed by a few more days off right after that. To start it off however we took most of the past week off and headed north to White Lake and then Acadia for some camping. This year Jen's parents (Bupee and Dew if didn't know that's what Brooke calls them) joined us up there.

It was a perfect week to be near a lake and the ocean as temps climbed to 96, 96 and 97 the first few days. It limited our hiking, as 97 and humid isn't great for anyone to hike in, never mind someone who's three month's pregnant (in case you didn't know yes Jen is 3 months along) so we were limited there but the water must have been at least 75 degrees so we spent a lot of time in and on it. The one day we tried to do Mt. Washington's auto road, the zip line and alpine slides it was too hazy or cloudy to bother with the road and a dark gray cloud made us rush back to cover everything at amp in case it rained so we missed out on the other stuff too. I guess there's always next time.

Temps were a bit more mild in Maine, regulated by some dense ocean fog a lot of the time, which also screwed up the hiking plans but made everyone much more comfortable. We did some sight seeing and climbed around the top of Cadillac Mountain for a while, as well as strolling through town and walking on the sand bar and Jen and I took Brooke to the beach.

Overall even with the heat and a bit of driving, 1054 miles I think for us, everyone got along very well. We ate very well also, as Paul loves to cook, so we had much better food than we usually do. Omelettes, pancakes, french toast, ribs, meat house burgers, steak tips and more. Everyone had a great time, I think. I know we did anyhow. Hopefully they did too. Now that they've seen both places next time we'll probably limit it to one or the other as the drive was a bit much for all three ladies. Anyhow I'll finish up my book here as Jen calls it by saying if you want to see the pictures there were a lot so they're broken down into two parts. White Lake and Acadia. You can click either one to take you there. I guess that's about it for now.

Life's A Beach...

Click on the image above to see the panorama of the beach

...for Brooke anyhow. She loves it, and gets to go quite often. I always hated it but lately since she likes it so much I'm starting to enjoy it. This past Sunday to beat the heat we headed up to Ogunquit Beach with Ryan and Kristy. None of us had ever been but I had read how nice the beach was and Ryan had also seen it ranked somewhere as one of the best in New England. He also saw Barnacle Billy's, which is in Perkins Cove in Ogunquit, on the Phantom Gourmet and wanted to check it out. The beach has a family section and a, um, alternative lifestyle section you might say. If you're walking along and hit the all guys, Speedos only section like we did you know you went a bit too far. Fortunately Brooke has no idea what's going on at this age so we settled down right in the neutral zone where there was plenty of space. It's on an Island about three miles long with light colored sand and not a rock in sight. Not something you'd expect in Maine. One side was the ocean and the other was the Ogunquit River and there were tall grassy dunes separating them in the middle. It reminded me a lot of the Outer Banks in North Carolina. The water wasn't quite as nice, more like what you'd expect in Maine and only 60 degrees, but we enjoyed it all the same. After that we had dinner at Barnacle Billy's, which was also very good, except the rum punch. More like fruit punch, so I'd skip that, but the fried seafood platter was right up there with Petey's as one of the best. It was a fun day, of course there's pictures too, just click here if you want to see some. That's all for now.

Summer fun and the big 3-0!

So summer is officially here, and it hasn't wasted any time getting hot. Brooke has been keeping busy in Jen's parents pool, at the beach, down at the park and wherever else she can go to stay cool and have some fun. She's really talking a lot lately and is getting pretty independent. I guess she's at the stage now where she wants to do everything for herself. It's fun to watch and listen to her. There are a bunch of pictures from the last few weeks all lumped together here since there was nothing in particular to put up for a while. Check them out if you want, there's some good ones in there.

Bigger news is that yesterday Jen turned the big 3-0. That right, thirty years young. Saturday a bunch of people helped me throw a surprise party for her, which was actually kept a surprise, probably because of my last minute planning that didn't give anyone enough time to let the cat out of the bag. Anyways it went well and we had a great time, so thank you to everyone who showed up, helped out and made it possible. There are of course a bunch of pictures of that here if you want to see them, some that Brett gave me to put up so thanks for those too. They start off with us at the beach, which is how I kept her busy all afternoon while they set things up. After those they get to the party so don't think you're at the wrong ones if you see Brooke running around. OK, that's enough writing for now, Jen hates when I write a book so bye for now.

Weekend in Acadia

Click on the picture above to enlarge it

This past weekend a bunch of us went up to Acadia National Park to do some hiking and camping We had it all planned out for months, a long hike as well as a couple days of camping, and fortunately the weather cooperated. Five of us from New Hampshire (Greg, Jay, Mike, Travis and Myself) met Ryan and two of his friends from Mass (Dave and Takuma) up there for the weekend. We got a great weekend for it, and since only Ryan and I had been there before it was nice that the others got good weather to see the place.

We did a 13.1 mile hike that looped over Gorham Mountain, The Beehive, Champlain, Dorr and Cadillac Mountains that took 10 hours. The map belows shows the route we took and the hike pretty much followed the coastline and the ridges of the mountains in the panoramic picture above that I took from the South Ridge of Cadillac Mountain on the way down. You can probably see 90% of our route in the picture as well as all the peaks we climbed. We also drove the loop road to check out the touristy spots too. Things couldn't have gone better. Great people, great weather, great hiking and great food. Everything went perfect.

Acadia is full of sights and sounds, from the ocean to the wind to the birds to the buoys, bells and fog horns. What the people I was with probably remember the most however is the sound of my camera clicking away. I took a lot of pictures, probably more than usual even for me so I know unless you were there, and even if you were, you might not want to see hundreds of pictures from the trip so don't feel bad if you flip through quickly or not at all. But for those who were there when you get a few minutes there are a lot of pictures to see if you'd like. Get them all by clicking right here or on any of the pictures below.

Ryan and I went up into Maine this past weekend to knock a few more peaks off the New England 4000 Footers list. The weather forecast was wrong, again, the roads were mislabeled, the trails were more like brooks and the river crossings were high but eventually we made our way to the top of Sugarloaf and Spaulding mountains, #'s 7 & 8 for us of the 14 in Maine. That leaves us with just 6 to go for the NE 67. It should only take three more trips and at least two of them are such good hikes we'll wait for good weather to do them so this may have been the last of the rain for us for a while. It wasn't even supposed to rain until the afternoon but of course it started around 8 when we got to the mountain. The steady, cold soaking rain did let us try out our rain jackets though so it wasn't all bad. To see some pictures of the trip click here. That's all for now, thanks for checking in.

Memorial Day Weekend

Happy belated Memorial Day weekend everyone. Hope it was a good one for all of you. It was for us. We worked in some cookouts, walks, picnics and more. There's pictures of most of it here, the only thing we didn't get was the cookout at the Walkers because Jen told me she'd get the camera as it was in her bag and she didn't want me to mess it up, and then she forgot to get the camera so there's no pictures of that. I got the night off as she put it. It was too bad because there would have been some good ones of her and Cameron and the bigger girls playing in the yard but that's the way it goes. You'll have to settle for what I did get, which of course is quite a bit, the ones above are some of our favorites from the weekend and you can see the rest by clicking right here. That's all for now.