Anna's Birthday Weekend

This weekend we went up to Vermont for Anna's 2nd birthday party. Brett, Carey and Cameron also went up for the weekend so all the kids/cousins got to hang out for more than just the couple hours they usually do. It was fun to watch them interact and play together and they all seemed to have lots of fun and everyone got along. It was too cold to go outside but they ran around the house, played with trains, cars, kitchens and games, had a pizza party and a birthday party and jumped around on the air bed among other things. The adults also got to hang out, have dinner and a few drinks and play Scene It. Carey snuck in for the win even though Brett and I spent most of the time in the winners circle trying repeatedly but unsuccessfully to win a final challenge. That's the way it goes but I'm pretty sure everyone had a great weekend, I know we all did. Rather than tell the whole story here I'll let the pictures I put up while being bored by the Grammys do the talking. Click here or on the ones above to go to the rest of them. There's a lot but sit back and hopefully enjoy.

Nothing special but in case you missed it here's a picture I took off out front porch and an article I copied off the internet. You can also click on the picture and blow it up a bit if you like.

(Jan. 29) – Tonight's full moon will be the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. It offers anyone with clear skies an opportunity to identify easy-to-see features on the moon.This being the first full moon of 2010, it is also known as the wolf moon, a moniker dating back to Native American culture and the notion that hungry wolves howled at the full moon on cold winter nights. Each month brings another full moon name.

Orlin Wagner, AP
Tonight's full moon is the first of the year.But why will this moon be bigger than others? Here's how the moon works:The moon is, on average, 238,855 miles from Earth. The moon's orbit around Earth – which causes it to go through all its phases once every 29.5 days – is not a perfect circle, but rather an ellipse. One side of the orbit is 31,070 miles closer than the other.So in each orbit, the moon reaches this closest point to us, called perigee. Once or twice a year, perigee coincides with a full moon, as it will tonight, making the moon bigger and brighter than any other full moons during the year.

Tonight it will be about 14 percent wider and 30 percent brighter than lesser full moons of the year, according to Spaceweather.com.As a bonus, Mars will be just to the left of the moon tonight. Look for the reddish, starlike object.

Snow Snow and More Snow

January in New England is supposed to be snowy, and until the last few days it had been. Brooke loves to put on her snow suit and go out and play and ride her sled in it. She loves to eat it too. She can barely walk to the car without grabbing a hand full for a taste. We made a snow-woman after the last big storm but she didn't last long. The 48 degree temps of the last couple days and the warm rain made our snow-woman look a lot like Frosty did when he got trapped in the greenhouse. That's OK because Brooke didn't really like her anyhow. I think she thought it was creepy.

Brooke is saying new words every day now but only talks when she feels like it and not when we ask her to. She knows her colors now for the most part and is very good with her puzzles also. Her hair is finally growing longer as you can see from the picture above but she doesn't like clips or pig/pony tails either so it's usually just all over but at least it's finally there. We also got Jen a new camera so there should be pictures to put up more often I would guess. We'll see, either way there's a bunch since the last ones were posted and you can find them all by clicking right here.

And if that isn't enough snow for you can check out the pictures from my latest hiking trip. This past weekend Ryan, Greg, Stephen and I made a trip up to Maine to hike Saddleback. It was the first overnight winter trip for Greg and Stephen and it was another of the 4000 footers in Maine that Ryan and I need for the New England list.

After a stop at a pub for dinner in Farmington Maine, getting stuck in a snowbank near the unplowed trail head and parking up the road in the breakdown lane we finally started hiking the first three miles or so around 8:30 at night at night and finally set up camp about half way up the mountain after midnight as the temperature dropped down to right around zero. The next morning we put our snowshoes back on and made our way another 3 miles through 4-5 feet of snow to the 4117 foot high summit. The weather couldn't have been much better and the hike itself was great with about a mile of trail above treeline. The views easily stretched to Mount Washington and the White Mountains 60 miles to the Southeast, to Mount Katahdin 102 miles Northeast and covered everything in between. There's plenty of pictures from the trip so if you're interested you can click right here and it'll take you to them.

Well, that's all for now but we're headed up to Vermont for a weekend with Brooke's cousins and a birthday party so check back soon. I'm sure there will be plenty of pictures from the weekend.

2010 and Our Seacoast Safari

I know it's been a little while since I posted when people start telling me the stuff on the blog is getting pretty old. Hopefully there is enough here to keep you happy for a while if you enjoy seeing what we've been up to and keeping up with Brooke.

For starters Brooke has been very busy hanging out with friends, going to museums and attending birthday parties. She's a very busy little girl. She also is learning some of her colors (boo and pupo) and she's starting to talk a lot more when she's not being shy. She's a dancing machine and whenever music comes on just can't help herself. There's also a few slightly older pictures that have been on Jen's camera since she broke it a couple weeks ago. We need to get her a new one so we can keep the pictures coming. We might get to that tomorrow but in the meantime there's pictures of most of that stuff right here if you'd like.

Other than that there hasn't been much excitement around here lately. Today it was really nice out, almost 40 degrees, so we decided to head out and explore a little. We had a few ideas of places to go and walk and stuff to see but what we ended up with was more like a safari. We started off hiking up Stratham Hill but after that we went and saw buffalo at the Little Bay Buffalo Company in Durham. Then cows at the UNH dairy barn, elk at the Wednesday Hill Elk Farm, also in Durham I believe, and finally seals down near Wallis Sands State Beach in Rye. I threw in a few of the ducks that arrive daily behind the cleaners at the reservoir too because I think it's kind of neat.

It was a pretty exciting day for Brooke since she loves animals and even the seals were exciting for Jen and I since we'd never seen them in the wild before. I was very happy to have something to use my new zoom lens on also so there are a lot of pictures of all that. If you'd like to follow along on our busy day, or even just see the animals, you can find it all right here. Thanks again for checking in. Hopefully there will be more pictures up soon.

Happy New Years!

Happy New Year everyone. Not much excitement around here since Christmas but here's a little video of Brooke and Elmo doing the Hokey Pokey. That's about it for now. Check back soon!