Labrador Deciever

Here's how we spent our Labor day - so we're only a month behind, here. We went to Hubbard Park because there's a nice playground there. We packed a lunch and went, thinking we'd be at the playground all day.

Well, there's a back road that leads past an old (?) reservoir and up the hill. On top of the hill, for some reason even wikipedia can't tell me, there is a small Norman-like turret castle. From the top you can see both  New Haven and Hartford.

So we ended up eating our picnic up there and climbing on the rocks.

I kept the pics bigger so they're easier to see.

Charlie on the rocks. She was like a mountain goat.

I was pointing out where we lived. Or maybe I was showing Asher where he'd land . . .

Family portrait.

I always forget how squinty I am.

Here's us at the reservoir. We mainly spent our time hucking rocks into the water. Points for best splashes.

When we got home Ash found the last of the summer strawberries. We spent the rest of the time doing yard work - taking down parts of the garden. Our tomatoes were done (but our green peppers are still chugging along nicely).

Rice A Ronnie

Here are some pics from our Vineyard trip. Shogun and fam. rent a house and, graciously, invite us up to cramp their style for a weekend. Dianna went up, with Sean and the kids, on Thursday, then Christi, Ryan and I followed on Friday. Christi, Sean, Ryan and I got to leave on Sunday . . .  Dianna stayed until . . . late Monday night with the kids. 

Here the kids are scratching the paint on my car while waiting for the ferry.

Sean and Asher looking for mermaids.

We always get to go for the big (BIG) fire works display in Oak Bluffs. The fireworks are set off from a barge just off shore. Where we sit we're always about 75 yards from the barge. So the fireworks literally explode directly above us. It gets surreal. The sound (and concussion of the sound) with the lights . . . it actually starts to mess with your perceptions and alters your state just a bit.

Very cool.

Here's the green we sit on. By the time the sun goes down you can't see even a sliver of grass.

 Here's the opposite view of the green. In the first pic we're standing near that khaki and red roofed house, which I think is Larry David's house.

He had a party for Ash's birthday. Cupcakes and presents - what every kids wants.

On one stretch of beach there's an inlet and a bridge so people crowd up and jump off. Jack was old enough to jump this year.

Keith, Sean and I soon followed. I did a very competent swan dive and two damned impressive flips. None of those pictures were flattering and did not survive.


Playing in the surf.

Charlie taking one of Asher's birthday gifts out for a spin.

We saw this in Edgartown and had to snap a pic.

Mash

Aloha, peoples who read this. How are things? Have you been to the doctor yet? About that . . . thing . . . that's going on? Good. I'm sure there's a soothing topical cream for that.

Lets start out with a couple Asher pics. One looks like it was painted with the left over body paint from Goldfinger, not sure why our living room lamp decided to explode like the sun but it does give a nice hue to the room. 

The best part of Asher on the scooter is you don't get the sense of scale. No depth to the picture. Which is good because we got all of two feet off our property and into the neighbor's driveway when he stepped off the scooter and went, "All done."

Wouldn't let me take the helmet off thought.

This . . . thing is in the Boston Children's Museum. You can only see about two stories so you're missing a third of it. It's a three story . . . climbing thing inside a net. There is literally no way to describe it accurately. You climb from carpeted wood shelf to carpeted wood shelf until you get . . . where ever you might end up.

Perfect for our kids. No clue how an adult would fit into it. Some of the . . . levels (?) . . . were inches apart so the kids had to squeeze their way in. 

They did get to the top, thought.

This was a little pirate dingy that was anchored outside of the museum. The museum is just off to the right.

Anne (with Moses) and Dianna in the bubble room. 

There was one of those Stand Inside A Giant Bubble pit/pool things. Charlie kept cranking the hoop us as fast as she could and popping the bubble with her bum when she bent down to get the hoop higher. 

Asher did it once, hopped out, slipped, went perfectly parallel two feet above the floor and crashed down. You'd think that, since the bubbles were basically made out of soap, he'd end up slightly cleaner after soaking on the wet floor for a second or two. Alas, no. The smell was not clean, either.

Water Balloon Battle: before the war!

These were taken after the Bus Orientation. Getting ready for Kindergarden!

Back up to Lyman Orchards, the local Pick Your own place. In season now are peaches, apples and pears. We went peach picking a while ago, so this week we went back for apples. But before I put the kids to work, we took a spin around the sunflower maze. I'd switch which kiddo got to lead at each sign post . . . or when we'd walked the same trail bit one time to many. It's amazing when you can start telling individual sunflowers apart. And by amazing I mean sanity stripping.

Onto the Apples!

In the apple tree.

So we picked a billion apples (that's the collective noun for apples. A pod of whales. An army of frogs. A Billion apples). In this case it added up to two plastic shopping bags full of apples. So far I've made three pounds of applesauce, some backed apples and an apple cake.

 Of course I buried the peels and cores in a simple syrup. Five months from now **BAM** apple wine. Hooch, my friends, hooch.

 I first tried the hooch with peaches (still buried) and made a peach cake. So far I have about 12 quart jars of in-the-making-hooch buried in two locations in the back yard. If this works (large if there, people) I'll have to set aside more ground for hooch burials. I figure if I make a fruit cake (NOT FRUITCAKE, note the space) each time, Dianna won't mind the giant holes as much. This was the peach cake (it was delicious).

Hum, pears are still in season . . . might have to buy more quart jars . . .

A couple pics from a nice lunch Asher and I had out. Ash got a kick out of one of the highest powered hand driers I'd ever seen. 

I used the Cooks Illustrated Summer Peach Cake recipe . . . which I can't find online. Here's one that's close - in both the apple and the peach cakes I did, I left out the schnapps. I also sliced all my fruit so it was thinner and didn't make them into chunks.