Thursday, December 29, 2011

Merry Christmas!

We had a nice family Christmas at home this year.

We have started a new Christmas Eve tradition: having dinner with the Giuliana-Latta's - our neighbors with three boys. They also invited another couple who are days away from their first child. Amisha and Roger got to see what they're in for with 5 Christmas-hyped kids running around.

Last year we enjoyed it when the whole family stayed in our pajamas all day so this year we planned on it. The girls told Carol that she had to buy some real pajamas, though. Sweats weren't gonna cut it. So Carol got some cute red monkey pajama pants.

Both girls got a mix of gifts they had asked for and gifts we thought they'd like. They each received a remote control toy. Audrey's is an Air Swimmer - a helium filled shark with a remote control tail that you swish back and forth to make the shark swim through the air. It's pretty amazing. Charlotte received a remote control car that she loves. The only video I shot on Christmas is of those two toys. See the video here.

After opening gifts we enjoyed Carol's tradition: homemade cinnamon rolls right out of the oven. Mmmm.

The rest of the day we just relaxed and the girls played with new toys. They also spent time playing with the makeup kits they gave each other, and Carol got a makeover too. I offered my face but they claim boys don't wear makeup.

Oh, we also watched Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The girls caught the end of it while I was watching it and were fascinated. So I rented it and we watched the whole thing together on Christmas afternoon. It's cool that we can start to watch non-kid's movies with them.

We didn't get a whole lot of photos of Christmas because the photographer was a little under the weather. Carol was also recovering from a stubborn cold. We had planned to repeat last year's Christmas dinner for which I made pasta by hand that Carol turned into her delicious seafood fettuccine. But we were too tired and lazy so we had grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup instead. We enjoyed our seafood (store bought) pasta on Boxing Day.

We're both feeling much better now.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

December

It's been a busy month.

On the first weekend of the month Audrey attended a LEGO robotics event at Tufts University's Center for Engineering Outreach and Education (CEEO). She had a blast learning how to assemble and program a simple robot. Just before Thanksgiving I volunteered in the fifth grade at Audrey's school using the same LEGO robotics kit. I liked it so much I bought one on eBay. I still need to get a copy of the CEEO software (Robolab) so Audrey can use the same tool she used at the camp. Audrey and I had a nice lunch date before the camp at a diner near Tufts.

The next day we went skating. We'd like to go a lot this winter. The rinks got a late start due to the second warmest November on record but they're now in full swing. We hope to skate at Frog Pond on the Boston Common during the break this week.

Later that week we went to Zoolights at the Stone Zoo a mile from our house. We drive by all the time but this is the first time we've been. It was cool to see our little zoo all lit up for the holidays.

The next weekend we had a very busy Saturday. We had a lot to do since I was leaving the next day for China. We started the day by getting our Christmas tree. We go to the Melrose High School where the band sells trees as a fundraiser. Then Audrey had figure skating class. We squeezed in some tree decorating and then we were off to the Polar Express, the local Christmas Train. After that we went to the neighborhood holiday party across the street.

On the morning of the 11th I departed for Hong Kong. This was the first time since having kids that I had been away for more than a night or two and we knew we'd miss each other. Fortunately I had decent internet access everywhere on my trip and we were able to have video chats once or twice a day the whole time I was gone. That made a huge difference.

The day before my return Charlotte had neighbor Anna for a sleepover. It was the first sleepover for any of our kids. All the kids did great and it was a success.

I returned on the 18th. I had a super tailwind on the return flight so I made an earlier connection in Toronto and got home four hours early. That was a treat. Both girls ran to me in the airport and jumped into my arms. Then we went out to dinner to celebrate.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Hong Kong and China

I am on the plane returning from a week-long trip to Hong Kong and Shenzhen China. This was my first international travel in more than 10 years. I've missed it! If you knew me back in my traveling days you know I love to write about it, so come along.

One of the benefits of working for a humongous corporation is that on international travel one can travel in business class. When I purchased my ticket for this trip it so happened that the cheapest business class fare was on Cathay Pacific, a Hong Kong-based airline that is considered among the best for long haul flight comforts. So, unusually, one of the things I looked forward to about the trip was the flights! I had never flown with a "pod" seat before, or even a seat that lays completely flat.

Both flights were on Boeing 777-300ER aircraft. My trip over was in "new business class" on a brand new plane. My return trip was in "current" business class. New business class is a little roomier but they were both quite nice. The seat is adjustable in many ways including lying completely flat. Each seat has a large TV on which one can watch dozens of movies or TV shows, the live map that shows where the plane is along the route and even a live camera mounted on the belly of the aircraft. I've got a lot to write about so just suffice it to say that Cathay business class was wonderful.

It is 13 hours earlier in HK and China than in Boston. I couldn't figure out what the best sleeping schedule would be on the plane to try to sync to HK time upon arrival so I didn't even try. I slept for a few hours on the 15.5 hour flight but not enough. I arrived in HK at 6:30pm on Monday evening and found my way to the Airport Express train into the city. My immediate question was, "why can't we build systems like this in the US?" The Airport Express is quiet, efficient and fast. I estimate we reached 80mph. It takes 24 minutes from the airport, which was built in the 90's on an outlying island, to the city center.

Once in the city center I transferred to the subway system to get to my hotel in the northern outskirts of HK near our first work site. The subways are also modern, clean and efficient.

The weather for my entire trip was perfect - in the high 60s and low 70s with no noticeable humidity. The locals think it's "cold" and they are all wearing jackets with some in full-on winter coats. Meanwhile I was in short sleeves; maybe changing into a long sleeve shirt in the evening.

In addition to my first international travel in some time, this was also my first business travel of more than a couple nights since I met Carol and also since I had children. I knew I'd miss them! But through the wonders of modern technology we were able to video chat once or twice a day on our phones! The 13-hour time difference made it pretty convenient for me to call them at their bedtime when I was getting up and at their breakfast time when I was getting back in the evening. Being able to see my wife and girls' faces every day made a huge difference!

The reason this post has taken so long is I've been sick since my return (cold -> sinusitis -> bronchitis) and haven't had the energy. The remainder of this post was written on December 27.

The largest DNA sequencing center in the world is at BGI (formerly the Beijing Genomics Institute but now a standalone company). Merck is one of BGI's biggest customers and we sequence thousands of samples every month at BGI. That generates terabytes of data per week and we have to somehow get that data back to our US data centers so our scientists can analyze it. My main job for the past year has been to streamline that data delivery process. The purpose of this trip was to meet our counterparts at BGI and enhance data delivery even more. I traveled with my coworker, Blake, who does all of the real work. I'm just a manager.

Our first day of meetings was at BGI's Hong Kong office. This is BGI's production center where most of the sequencing is performed and analyzed (although the analysis is performed remotely by bioinformaticians at BGI's Shenzhen site in China). The most popular DNA sequencing machine at the moment is the Illumina HiSeq. These machines cost about US$500,000 each. BGI Hong Kong has almost 100 of them. We were given a great tour of BGI HK and met with the director and the IT staff. They also took us out for a delicious Thai lunch. I didn't know it but this was the start of a string of great meals we were to eat.

Tuesday afternoon after our HK meetings were complete, a cross-border car hired by BGI picked us up to take us to Shenzhen. It is only about an hour trip. He delivered us to the lovely Sheraton Dameisha Resort at the eastern edge of Shenzhen on the South China Sea.

Wednesday morning our BGI host, Sifei, picked us up at the hotel and drove us the short distance to BGI Shenzhen. We had very productive meetings in the morning. Blake and I have been working with BGI via email and teleconference for almost a year and it was great to meet all of our counterparts in person. We also gained useful knowledge about BGI's organization and processes that will help us work with them in the future.

For lunch, Sifei took us, along with Rena and Dennis who had traveled from BGI HK for the meetings, to dim sum. It was fantastic. See the photos. I tried everything except the chicken feet.

BGI has almost 4000 employees, mostly in Shenzhen. They hire a lot of people right out of college. BGI has dormitories right next to their offices for employees who are transitioning from university life to professional life. They also have a large cafeteria that feeds 2000 people at lunch. We ate lunch there on Thursday. The presentation - a buffet served on metal trays - is not very attractive but the food was decent.

Wednesday evening we took a taxi into one of Shenzhen's shopping districts called Dongmen. For the first hour we just wandered aimlessly through the crowded streets. There were lots of Christmas decorations everywhere, including very large lighted decorations that covered the entire sides of high-rise buildings and big light displays along the pedestrian shopping streets. Prices were interesting. I saw nice looking winter coats for less than US$20 and men's dress shoes for US$8. But electronics, even though they are probably made on the outskirts of Shenzhen, were priced the same or higher as in the US.

We debated a lot about where to eat. I was being more choosy than usual because I wasn't feeling well (head cold and jet lag). We finally found a Japanese restaurant in a mall and slapped together a yummy miscellany of Japanese dishes.

Some observations about Shenzhen:

    We saw many cyclists riding (slowly) along the center jersey barrier on very busy high-speed roads. Some were even riding the wrong way. Some had kids on the back of the bike.

    On a walk during a break on Thursday we saw several factories with adjacent dormitories. The BGI site was formerly a shoe factory.

    In Shenzhen cars definitely have the right of way. Pedestrians wait. Although I noticed that when an approaching vehicle is at a certain distance pedestrians will enter the road and the drivers generally slow down to allow the pedestrians to cross.

    I saw one dad on a small motorcycle with three small kids along. Two were on the seat behind the dad and the other was on the gas tank in front of him.

Thursday we had a brief meeting at BGI Shenzhen and then spent much of the day working by ourselves in a conference room. We had accomplished everything we had hoped for. Late in the afternoon we were given a tour of the Shenzhen facility and then driven to the border crossing back into Hong Kong. The HK subway system extends right up to the Chinese border adjacent to central Shenzhen. We crossed the border without problems and took the long subway ride into central HK.

We had to purchase our airline tickets far in advance of the trip because the fares rise dramatically once the departure is less than a month away. At the time of purchase our meeting schedule was not confirmed and we wanted to make sure to leave enough time. So we planned to arrive on Monday night and depart for home on Sunday. Once the agenda was confirmed, it left Friday free. So we ended up with two whole days of free time in Hong Kong before we would head home.

I have a neighbor who travels to Hong Kong twice a year. It so happens that the night before I departed she appeared at a neighborhood holiday party just after arriving home from a HK visit. She gave me some good tips about things to see. One was to go to the Intercontinental Hotel bar in Kowloon because it has floor to ceiling windows with a view across the harbor to Hong Kong. That was our first stop when we arrived back in HK.

You can read the history of Hong Kong on Wikipedia. Hong Kong proper is an island that Great Britain basically stole from China after the First Opium War. After the Second Opium War, Britain stole the Kowloon Peninsula across the harbor from Hong Kong. Then later Britain annexed the New Territories which are the mountainous area between Kowloon and the Shenzhen River. All of that area is referred to as Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong skyline from the Intercontinental Hotel was indeed impressive. Even in non-holiday times it has a lot of large lighted corporate logos and names on the tops of skyscrapers as well as lighted features on the facades of the buildings. For example, the Bank of China building has vertical and diagonal "beams" that light up in various animated sequences.

For the holidays many buildings in HK have animated lighted decorations covering entire sides of the buildings. So the HK skyline as viewed from Kowloon is a huge light show. There are even lasers that occasionally beam from the tops of buildings and scan the sky.

The first thing I noticed in HK is that no one jaywalks. It reminded us of Seattle. We did it once in a while because we just couldn't stand to wait for the signal to cross an obviously empty street. We were also apparently juicy looking targets for touts: I couldn't walk 50 feet in central Kowloon without some guy asking me if I needed a tailor or a watch. On rarer occasions one would ask me if I wanted hashish.

Back in late 1997 I visited my good friend Phil and his wife while they were living in Hong Kong. I was there very close to the handover of Hong Kong back to China (HK is now a Special Administrative Region). I was fascinated by HK then and I was excited to return. During that visit Phil and Lysiane and I took the hydrofoil to Macau, which was a Portuguese colony and which was also handed back to China in 1999 (and is also now a Special Administrative Region). Macau has been a gambling center for a long time but in the past decade or so the casino business there has really exploded. I read in the Boston Globe last week that Macau generates US$30 billion per year in gambling revenue. The Las Vegas strip generates US$6 billion.

I was interested in returning to Macau to see the result of that growth. Blake was interested, too, so we took the fast catamaran for the one-hour trip to Macau on Friday morning and spent the day there. We explored the new area of western casinos (Wynn, MGM) as well as some of the asian casinos. The popularity of games is quite different there. Baccarat is the most popular game by far. We only saw two craps tables, at the MGM, and they were empty. I didn't see any blackjack. For lunch we bought yummy "pork chop sweet bun" from a tiny shop near the historic cathedral ruins.

Once back in HK we went to dinner at a place Blake had heard was good: Din Tai Fung. Their specialty is dumplings, but in addition to dumplimgs we also had several other dishes and we both thought the meal was fantastic. It turns out there is a Din Tai Fung in Bellevue across the lake from Seattle!

Saturday we devoted the day to Hong Kong Island. We started by taking the historic Star Ferry across from Kowloon. It was smoggy and/or hazy but the view of the skyline and Victoria Peak in the background was still good. We made our way to the Peak Tram, a funicular that carries passengers to The Peak. We took a walk along Lugard Road which circles the top of the peak and saw great views of HK. It is considered the most vertical city in the world (meaning it has a lot of very tall - and very skinny - buildings) and it looks quite unusual and interesting from above. We also walked past some walled estates that given their prime location in what is already the most expensive real estate market in the world are probably worth amazing sums.

Blake had heard from a friend about another good food spot, a small noodle shop popular with the locals called Kau Kee. So we walked there from the base of the Peak Tram. As we were told to expect, there was a 15 minute wait but the line moved very quickly. We were seated at a table with 4 other people and ordered our beef noodles; mine with flat noodles and Blake with rice noodles. A few minutes later they arrived. They were fantastic! In a trip that featured many good meals this was my favorite. Wonderful flavor.

From there we went in search of the Western Market. It turned out to be not quite what I was expecting. I was thinking it would be a large covered market like in Mexico with foods as well as household goods and clothes. It actually consists mostly of textile dealers with so many bolts of fabric stuffed into their stalls there is barely room for a person to stand. There was also a shop devoted entirely to metal models of transit buses at a variety of scales. Many represented specific routes in Hong Kong. I looked at them for quite a while as potential Christmas presents but the prices were a little too high for the level of appreciation I knew they'd receive.

Finally we made our way back to the Hollywood Road neighborhood for some Christmas shopping. My neighbor had recommended a shop where she bought some scarves. I bought a couple there for Carol and they were a hit. I also found stocking stuffers for the girls (anything with Chinese writing would be a hit) and I found some great Chinese pajamas for each of them.

Saturday night was our last night before flying home on Sunday. We thought we were going to have hot pot for dinner. But right next door to the hot pot restaurant was a Korean barbecue place and we decided at the last minute to go there. Either choice probably would have been good but our dinner was yet another fantastic meal. Beef and chicken on the in-table barbecue grill, plus varied kimchee and vegetables and finishing off with my favorite Korean dish: bibimbap. Delicious.

Early Sunday morning I took a taxi through empty streets to the station for the Airport Express train. I had breakfast in Cathay Pacific's business class lounge before boarding my flight home. Right after takeoff I set my watch back to Boston time, and after lunch I slept from midnight to 8:00am Boston time. I thought perhaps that would magically get me in sync. Wrong. I had horrible insomnia the whole week after I returned, sleeping only about 3 hours per night. That didn't do my cold/sinus infection any good and it only got worse. I finally went to the doctor on Thursday and was diagnosed with bronchitis. I've been on the sofa ever since. Feeling better today, though.

I hope you enjoyed the novel! Be sure to see the photos.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Resources for Geeky Moms and Dads

A coworker who knows about my geeky parent pursuits asked me to send him some links to get him started. I'm recording what I told him here for posterity. When people ask me in the future I can direct them to this post.

My favorite resource is Make magazine. Is it the most visible publication in the growing "maker" community and always contains great projects of all kinds. Most of the projects are documented online at http://makeprojects.com/.

Another excellent resource is the Geek Dad blog from Wired. The signal to noise ration can be a little low if, like me, you aren't interested in dungeons and dragons or comic books. But there are still many gems per week for the rest of us. The editor, Ken Denmead, has also published several "Geek Dad" books containing projects to do with kids.

LEGO has made two different robotics kits. The first generation Mindstorms kit is not made any more. It was LEGO model 9719 – if search for "LEGO 5719" on eBay you can always find a few kits for sale. I bought one in pretty good condition with all the pieces for $125. The second generation is called LEGO Mindstorms NXT 2.0 and can be bought at many places. Amazon sells it for about $230 (it's "lego 8547").

Mindstorms (LEGO 9719)
Mindstorms NXT (LEGO 8547)

The first generation is compatible with traditional LEGO bricks. The second generation is somewhat compatible with traditional LEGO bricks, but the pieces that come with it are LEGO Technic. The first generation is slightly easier to program, but even the second generation is pretty easy once you get used to it. Both have visual programming environments.

My 7-year-old daughter just attended a LEGO "camp" for three hours at Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO). If you live in the Boston area you can visit that site and sign up for an email list of events. CEEO runs week-long LEGO robotics camps in the summer even for kids as young as 1st grade. They also have classes for adults.

If you want to take a more DIY approach to learning about electronics and robotics, O'Reilly and Make publish several books that can get you started. They have beginner electronics books and books like "Making Things Move" and "Making Things Talk" (meaning make devices communicate with each other). I've read the former and loved it.

Arduino Uno

Finally, anyone getting into electronics and controlling things should also learn about the Arduino "project". Arduino is an open-source hardware platform that incorporates a fairly powerful microcontroller with circuitry, firmware and programming environment on a standard layout, making it very easy for beginners to start controlling things. You can buy all kinds of fascinating Arduino-compatible stuff at places like Maker Shed and Sparkfun.com. There have been three generations of Arduino so far, if you buy one now you want an Arduino Uno.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Charlotte Turns Six

Wow, how did that happen? Our youngest child turned six years old last weekend!

Charlotte anticipated her birthday for at least three weeks, reporting to us each day how many more days until the big one. She was also excited that she was going to have two birthday celebrations: a "family birthday" and a "real party".

We celebrated Charlotte's family birthday on the day before her actual anniversary. She wanted a pilgrim hat cake (since it was Thanksgiving weekend) with very little frosting - just the strap and buckle.

One of my favorite photos from Charlotte's 5th birthday is of her wearing a birthday crown. I wanted to reproduce it this year so Carol drew me a nice outline and I decorated it. Charlotte added the green dots. She wore it a lot of the weekend.

Charlotte requested Mickey Mouse pancakes for breakfast on her real birthday so of course we obliged. Charlotte's had a chocolate syrup face but she spread it around before I remembered to get a photo.

Finally, Sunday afternoon six friends came over for the real birthday party. Carol is the master party organizer and had several activities planned, including each guest making her own beaded necklace and then dressing up "fancy", including bouquets and satiny gloves from the dollar store. The cake for the birthday party was a princess with no frosting. Guests who wanted frosting could add their own (which they enjoyed). Charlotte and all her guests had a wonderful time. Audrey had her own guest, too: Isabella - and they had fun together.

Now both girls are counting down the days until Christmas.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

A Passed-out Elf

Charlotte fell asleep with her Santa hat on tonight.


My Work in the News

Today the New York Times published an article entitled, "DNA Sequencing Caught in Deluge of Data" It describes the explosion of data being generated by DNA and RNA sequencing because the cost of sequencing has fallen dramatically.

When the Human Genome Project sequenced the first human genome in the late 90's, completing in 2001, it cost billions of dollars. But it launched a technological revolution that is driving the costs down rapidly. The current goal is "the $1000 genome" and that will probably be achieved within a year. The current cost is about $3000.

The article starts with BGI in China, an organization with a significant portion of the world's current sequencing capacity. Coincidentally, I will be visiting Sifei He (quoted) in China the week of December 12. My employer is BGI's largest customer, and my team's job for the past year has been figuring out how to get that data from China to our data centers, organize it, "index" it so it can be searched, and support retention policies governing when to get rid of it (it's expensive as hell to store hundreds of terabytes of data - you can't just put it on hard drives you buy at Best Buy).

If you wonder what I do for a living, this article does a pretty good job of describing it. The best part of my job is witnessing the bleeding edge of (biological) science.

By the way, the caption on the photo in the Times article is incorrect. The professor is not looking at "cells", he is looking at a "flow cell". The flow cell has eight tiny channels running through it that you can think of as test tubes. To perform a sequencing run an operator loads them with DNA or RNA that has been extracted from biological cells.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Delightful Autumn

We have had an absolutely delightful fall. The average temperature for November is running about 5 degrees above average, with one day above 70 degrees and many days above 60 and many of those pleasant days on weekends. We've been taking advantage with lots of outdoor activities.

It hasn't all been rosy - we did receive several inches of snow on October 30 and some towns west of us were without power for as long as a week. It was heavy, wet snow and it fell while the trees still had most of their leaves. We only lost a few medium branches in our neighborhood.

We had our friends the Wiessmans over for brunch the day after the snow and we told them to come in their pajamas. Sophia and Mia did but their parents wore regular clothes. After brunch all four girls went out to play in the snow in pajamas, boots and coats and they built several snowmen and forts.

The girls have a couple of activities each at the moment. Charlotte is taking gymnastics at the Y and Audrey is taking figure skating lessons at a rink in nearby Medford. Charlotte is getting good at cartwheels and handstands and is getting close to walking on her hands. Audrey is listening really well to her skating instructors and is learning to skate backwards and make tight turns. We bought skates for Charlotte and Carol, too, and I'll get some. We're going to try to go skating a lot this winter. We have tried but have been stymied so far - the warm weather has prevented a lot of the rinks from opening.

On that 70 degree day the girls didn't have school so Carol took them to Crane Beach. Audrey and Charlotte actually got in the water! Not all the way, though.

We had a weekend outing into the city on the T and revisited out favorite route to the Esplanade and then to the Public Garden and the Common. We stumbled upon a brand new playground on the Esplanade that is very cool. It's not all safe like most modern playgrounds (if you're not up on playground news, there's been a bit of a backlash against too-safe playgrounds). We played there for a long time and then continued on. Both girls love the playground at Frog Pond on the Common so we spent a long while there, too, before making our way back to the T and home.

Once in a while I give Carol a weekend afternoon off by taking the girls on an outing. Last time we went to the Children's Museum and the girls were able to play in the climbing tower as long as they wanted. It was after the time change so it was dark when the museum closed. Charlotte and Audrey always like being out after dark - it's a treat.

Finally last weekend we visited the Ipswich RIver Audubon Sanctuary with our friends who introduced us to it: the Giuliana-Latta's. Audrey and Zack chased each other around the Rockery while Charlotte and Linus fed birds. Then we took our usual walk to the Old Stone Bridge before heading back to the visitor center. On the way home we all had ice cream even though it was almost dinner time. We told the girls we were having dinner backwards.

Today we raked leaves since they are all down from the trees. Time to settle in; winter is almost here.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Melrose STEM Expo

This past summer a group of parents in Melrose formed the Melrose Education Coalition, which aims to encourage improved STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education in the Melrose schools. Our neighbor Jen is active in the MEC; she let us know about the Melrose STEM Expo to be held on November 19 and asked if I would like to volunteer to present an activity. Of course I agreed immediately.

I originally hoped to present something that is related to biology, but after much searching I couldn't find an activity I could do that would be hands on and fast enough for people just stopping by a table at an expo. Most of the biology experiments I could find consist of growing plants or other similarly long-timescale things.

My fallback was an activity the girls liked at Maker Faire in September: Squishy Circuits. The web site provides easy recipes for homemade play-doh of two types: conductive and insulating. Then kids can just take wire leads attached to batteries, LEDs, buzzers and motors and stick them in the play-doh to build circuits.

I used the project as an opportunity to check out a local electronics store I recently discovered: You Do It Electronics in Needham. You Do It is like Radio Shack used to be before they shifted to consumer gadgets, but four times as big. It was perfect for getting materials for squishy circuits.

The weekend before we made a test batch of the conductive play-doh and it worked great. I played around to find the right type of wire leads to attach to the various components to make them easy for kids to use and also as durable as possible. In the end I also packed tools and materials to make on-the-spot repairs which turned out to be a good idea.

The girls practiced with me a little and seemed to have it down. They were very excited that they would get to be behind the table with me. Carol was excited to help, too, so it turned into a family affair.

The expo was held at the Middle School. The high school robotics team I mentor was scheduled to be there as well as the middle school robotics team and the LEGO robotics program that I'll volunteer at this week at Audrey's and Charlotte's school. But I had no idea how many attendees to expect.

Well, I was blown away. There were probably at least 200 attendees and a pretty large collection of fellow exhibitors with lots of great activities for kids. Squishy Circuits was a huge hit! We had six "stations" at our table and they were all full almost all of the three hours that the event ran. We had kids from pre-school to 5th or 6th grade. Parents seemed equally excited about it and many of them worked hard to keep their kids focused on what we were teaching them.

Carol and the girls were really into it. Audrey was a wonderful teacher. We also had two parent volunteers with us: Amy and Chris. Chris happens to be the girls' art teacher in after-school art classes they are taking. They were fantastic.

Walking around the event almost brought tears to my eyes. I was inspired by both the volunteer energy that was apparent and by the interest of so many parents. It bodes very well for what MEC is trying to do.

I also had a conversation with James Horne who is the overall head of the robotics programs about starting a Junior LEGO League team at Roosevelt School. I'm very excited to do that.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Sisterly Wisdom

Charlotte: Audrey, can you show me how to draw as beautifully as you do?

Audrey: Well... You have to get in touch with your inner...fanciness.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

More Charlotte Reading

Charlotte has been making her way through the Bob Books. The same books helped Audrey learn to read two years ago. We highly recommend them. The other evening I was able to capture a little of Charlotte's reading.

Vegas is Found!

Audrey has had her lovey Vegas since she was three months old and loves her dearly. We've had a few close calls over the years but have always recovered her. Six weeks ago she went missing and we couldn't find her anywhere. Audrey has been sad but stoic about it.

We were pretty sure Vegas hadn't left the house though many searches failed to find her. Tonight just before bed Audrey and I started looking in the play room. Even though I had done it at least twice before I dug through the bin of dress up clothes again, and there was Vegas!

We were all sad for Audrey during Vegas' absence. Now we all share her joy!


Saturday, October 29, 2011

Mister Bones

"Mr. Bones" is a plastic skeleton my mom gave the girls a long time ago. We like to dance with him, dress him up and put him in weird poses. His arms often fall off.

For the past month I've been thinking about using Mr. Bones in a porch display for Halloween. This morning I woke up designing it so I surrendered and just built the damn thing. I used an Arduino to control LEDs for the eyes and heart. The biggest challenge was designing code to generate independent waveforms in a single loop (for the geeks out there, I ended up doing it by populating two lookup tables and the main loop just steps through them in parallel). I assembled the soundtrack from free sound effects found on the web and edited them together in Garage Band; it will play on an iPod with speakers.

This is the first time I've built an "animatronic" Halloween display. I think they're just going to have to get better every year, now. Next year's will include motion.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Charlotte's Alternate Name

Charlotte often parades around the house wiggling her butt and singing either "Oh yeah, shake your butt" or "Shake your booty". This morning she was singing "Shake your booty" as she was brushing her teeth and I told her we should have named her Booty instead of Charlotte.

"Booty Methot," I said.

"No," she replied, "Booty Rose Methot!"

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Fall Camping

Way back when we camped at Wells Point State Park with the Burtnetts (our backyard neighbors) they told us they had a cabin reserved for October 22nd at Pawtuckaway State Park in New Hampshire. We put it on our calendar and went on with life. Last week Carol and I debated whether we still wanted to go because we've been away a lot of weekends lately. But then we reminded ourselves, "Hey, it's the Burtnetts! We always have a great time with them." So on Saturday off we went to New Hampshire.

We didn't leave town until mid-afternoon because Audrey had figure skating class until noon. Pawtuckaway is only about an hour away and we arrived at about 3:00. It's quite a large campground but most of it was closed for the season. There are only 5 cabins and they are off by themselves. The regular campsites that were open were in a different part of the park so overall the park felt very deserted and quiet. The foliage was gorgeous.

We hung out for a bit and Audrey and I went for a little bike ride. The we all decided to go for a walk to the beach and some of the small islands near it. On the way to the beach we played a game catching falling leaves before they hit the ground. Then we arrived at the playground and everyone played on swings and the seesaw and the slides and the climbing wall. Near the beach there was a bridge to a cool little island. The kids used logs as balance beams. The older kids were doing it on a log that stuck out into the lake. Audrey really wanted to do it, too, but it was only about 55 degrees out and walking back to the van in wet clothes would not have been fun. I "persuaded" her not to try it. The younger kids built gnome homes. It was a spectacularly beautiful spot out on a peninsula in the lake with gorgeous fall colors along the shore.

Then it was back to traverse the beach and visit another peninsula and cross another bridge to an island that was equally cool. We scoped out some great campsites to try to reserve for summer.

Sunset was approaching so we headed back to the cabin and started a fire and cooked hot dogs for dinner. The teenage girls built a very cool gnome home in the trees near the cabin. We played many rounds of "guess the animal". Then we roasted marshmallows for s'mores. By then it was getting late and the kids headed to bed. Scott and I sat by the fire for a while and were visited by a raccoon who was not shy.

The temperature got down into the high 30s overnight. We had plenty of clothes and blankets with us so we all managed to stay warm. Except for Carol. But Carol wears a sweatshirt when it is 80 degrees.

In the morning it was chilly but not too bad. We all had a little breakfast and then Carol and Audrey went off for a long bike ride exploring the rest of the campground. We had a little firewood left so we started a fire. I thought the three pieces of wood we had would only last 20 minutes but we managed to milk the fire for more than an hour. Audrey spent a fair bit of time "fire fishing", as she called it: holding a stick in the fire to light the end, putting it out in the ashes, repeating.

In late morning we decided to go for a hike in another part of the park before heading home. We packed up and left the campground. We had to drive about 10 miles out of and around the park to a different entrance. Once back in the park the road turned to dirt and an adventure! Carol was nervous, but it wasn't really that bad. It was maybe a mile to the trailhead.

The hike we had chosen was to a boulder field - a collection of large glacial erratics among rolling hills. The boulders were impressive! The largest ones were probably 30-40' tall. The kids had a blast clambering among them, through caves and passages and onto ledges. Have I mentioned that the fall colors were gorgeous?

The Burtnetts needed to head home and we wanted to continue on the loop trail around the pond so we said our goodbyes. Along the trail we found even more boulders and cliffs and very cool cave that was about 30' long and ended up near the trail again. It was fairly dark going through it - the girls were very brave and very proud when they emerged. When we came to a road I was disoriented but Carol was sure which way to go. That's the opposite of our usual state but a nice change of pace. Sure enough, a few minutes along the road in Carol's direction and we were back at Ruby. A little more than an hour later we were home.

We really had a fantastic time. We've decided to make it an annual trip. In fact, we might try to recruit other neighborhood families and reserve all five cabins next year.

Charlotte is Reading!

At the end of my last post I mentioned that Charlotte has begun to read. That really deserves a special post all its own!

The other night night before bed Charlotte read us a poem called "Apples" from her Kindergarten Poem Journal. Audrey was a great helper and teacher. Click on the photo to go to the video. Somehow a third of the way through the video and audio get out of sync but you still get the idea.

Charlotte obviously received a good grounding in letter sounds in her Pre-K class last year. We've also worked on them at home, and I think Charlotte has learned a lot from watching Audrey.

I've mentioned before that for me watching my kids learn to read is the highest point of parenthood so far. Reading is such a huge part of my life that I am thrilled about the universe of knowledge and adventure that awaits them in the realm of the written word.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

October Octet

The fun just keeps coming in the Methot household!

A couple of weekends ago we made our annual apple picking pilgrimage. We returned to the first farm we visited after moving here: Cider Hill Farm. They have a big variety of varieties. And they also have delicious apple cider donuts. It's really easy to spend a fortune on apples that never get used, so this year we went with a plan: pick eight apples for a pie and 6 apples for eating. Worked great. The pie Carol made with the Jonagolds was really, really good. She also made some fantastic apple sauce out of some old apples she found in the refrigerator.

The girls have been excited for Halloween since Labor Day, I think. Audrey saw a new princess outfit at the Disney Store that she really wanted as her costume, but with all the accessories she wanted it would cost more than $75. Our idea of a Halloween costume cost is more like $12. I'm not sure how it happened but eventually she settled on being a devil. She already had red pants, a red shirt can be used as normal clothes, and the horns and pitchfork were cheap. Win. Charlotte chose to be a vampire with a simple dress.

Just this week we completed the conversion of our home heating and hot water from oil to natural gas. Now that the situation in Libya is resolved oil prices might start to fall, but at the beginning of summer we were looking at almost $4000 to heat our house and water for the next year. That made it easy to pull the trigger on the conversion. We still have to have the oil tank removed and then the project will be complete. I'm looking forward to at least 1/3 lower energy bills. Natural gas prices have been falling steeply.

We've recently acquired several books of kids' science experiments. A couple evenings a week now the girls ask for a project and we pick one from the books to do. Recently we put a candle in a glass, then put vinegar and baking soda in a taller glass. We poured the invisible heavier-than-air CO2 from the vinegar/baking soda reaction into the first one and put out the candle without blowing on it.

Audrey has been wanting to take figure skating for quite a while. Last year she was taking ballet but she decided not to continue that this year, so we signed her up for skating. She was sooo excited for it to start. The first scheduled week was cancelled due to the ice not being ready. We didn't find out until we arrived at the rink and Audrey was very disappointed. But yesterday it started and she had a blast. What a different vibe from the youth hockey program "learn to skate" series she took two years ago! Almost all girls and much more peaceful without the sounds of pucks and people hitting the boards. It's a 20-week class. I'm excited to watch Audrey become a real skater.

Charlotte is taking gymnastics at the Y and a cooking class in an after-school program. She loves them both.

I don't have a photo of it, but Charlotte is also learning to read! I think she got a good grounding in letter sounds in pre-K last year so she's really taking off in Kindergarten. Carol and I are amazed. And Audrey has shown to be a patient and wonderful teacher to her little sister. At first she was a little jealous because Charlotte was getting attention for reading, but we made an effort to praise Audrey more for her chapter book reading and her unprompted reading and she quickly came around.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Santa's Village

Back in June while Audrey was at Circus Camp the rest of us went to Santa's Village, an amusement park in northern New Hampshire scaled for little kids. Charlotte had such a great time that Audrey really wanted to go. We had planned to return in the late summer or fall. Last weekend we had a real bout of Indian Summer - 87 degrees in Boston and 79 degrees forecast at Santa's Village - so we seized the opportunity.

We left Saturday morning and took the scenic route up Route 16 through Conway and North Conway which are the epicenter of White Mountains tourist activity. Unfortunately I didn't think hard enough about the fact that plenty of other people would be heading north to enjoy the fine weather, plus the normal "leaf peepers" so we got stuck in a traffic jam in those towns for more than an hour. We still made it to Santa's Village with an hour left and we managed to snag a bunch of rides before closing. If you enter less than three hours before closing your ticket is good for another day and that was part of our plan.

We camped across the road at the Lantern Inn and Campground. It was a pleasant place and they even had s'more making as a free activity. The girls made instant friends with a family with two boys and a little girl who pulled in to the next campsite. They played "midnight tag" (at 7:00) for a long time. I laid on my back on the picnic table and tried to see some of the Draconids meteor shower. No luck. The moon was almost full and rising and there was a wispy thin cloud layer that was illuminated just enough by the moon to obscure all but the brightest stars. I didn't see a single meteor in 25 minutes of staring.

In the morning we drove a mile to the town of Jefferson for breakfast. It so happened the fire department was holding their annual fundraiser breakfast that day so we joined them in one of the town churches.

We were in line at the entrance about 20 minutes before the park opened. There was a good crowd at the park but it never got too crowded. I think the longest we waited to get on a ride was 10 minutes, if that. Both girls liked the Sleigh Skyway (a monorail), the antique cars and the twirling candy cane ride. Audrey fell in love with the reindeer roller coaster and she also went on the flying swings with Carol. Charlotte loved the racing water rafts. We all had a blast on the bumper cars.

In the afternoon we headed out to the parking lot for lunch in the van and to put on swim suits for the small water park. The girls and I played in the water for almost two hours. Charlotte went down her first little kids water slide, and Audrey went down her first "real" water slide. She was afraid of the enclosed slide but I reassured her that it was fun and eventually she gave it a try. She loved it. There is a huge bucket on top that slowly fills and then empties out and douses the center of the water park every few minutes (just like at Great Wolf Lodge). This one has a bell that gives warning and Audrey was very tuned into it because she did not want to get doused. But as we were about to dry off I invited Audrey to stand under the torrent with me and she did! She hugged my legs very tightly but was brave and of course afterward thought it was great fun.

By then it was about 2:30. I thought we might leave at 4:00 or so since we had a three hour drive home and I had to work the next day (the girls had Columbus Day off). But we were having so much fun that I let go of my schedule and we ended up closing the park down at 6:00. It was really a fantastic day.

The drive home was a breeze, perhaps due to the Monday holiday. We were home shortly after 9:00 so I wasn't even up late. We realized later in the week that we had forgotten to watch the gas gage and had arrived home on fumes. The weekend getaway gods were apparently watching over us.

We might get in one more weekend camping trip this coming weekend. We have definitely gotten good use out of our camper van ("Ruby Tuesday") this season.

Oh, and the leaves in the White Mountains were a little subdued but still gorgeous, especially the "golden hour" before sunset.

New Blog Template

I've been using the same blog template for years. When I logged in today Blogger offered me some updated templates and I figured the time had come to give them a try. Let me know if they don't display well for you, or if you have any other comments on the blog layout.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Shorts and Mittens

Today's weather is a transition from the Indian Summer we had over the weekend (87F in Boston) to normal Fall weather (50s). Audrey was determined to wear her favorite summer outfit to school:  matching lime green t-shirt and shorts from Grandma. As we were leaving for school she stepped outside to feel the temperature. She came back in and declared, "All I need is mittens!" So off we went to school with Audrey wearing a t-shirt, shorts and ladybug mittens. Unfortunately it didn't occur to me to take a photo.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Bristlebots

I get a lot of ideas from the Geekdad blog. They recently ran a mention of a project from Evil Mad Scientist Labs called Bristlebots. It's dead simple: get some pager vibrators (tiny motors with unbalanced weights on their shafts that cost about a buck each) and fasten one with a battery to a toothbrush head.

It just so happens that the girls went to the dentist yesterday and got new toothbrushes. So today I repurposed their old brushes.

If you build them, be aware that the leads on the pager vibrators are very fragile. I broke three of them. In particular they can't take any strain when you're bending the attached wired around. Isolate them from that strain with your finger grip.

Click on the image to go to the video.

Magic Milk

Last weekend Carol whipped out a cool home science project: Magic Milk. You just drip some food coloring into a plate of milk, then touch it with liquid dish soap. Supposedly Dawn brand works best, but we used what we had. In the video you'll see the girls putting the entire Q-tip head in; I think it might work better (and for multiple touches) if you just touch the milk with the soap.

Click on the image to go to the video.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Science Day/Maker Faire

This past weekend was a STEM weekend.

Saturday morning we attended the Family Science Day at my office. It's an annual event presented by the Merck Institute for Science Education and volunteers from among my coworkers.The girls really enjoyed it. When we arrived there were a bunch of walk-around stations where kids could experiment with different scientific facts. Then a representative from Mass Audubon gave an auditorium presentation with a live kestrel and a barred owl. That was followed by an interactive session where we learned a lot about sponges and also about making observations and performing experiments. Then we had pizza.

That was the warm-up for our weekend. After the science fair we hopped in the car and drove to New York to attend Maker Faire on Sunday. This was the second annual fair held in New York; there have been fairs for several years in the Bay Area. Last year Audrey and I attended the inaugural NYC fair.

Boy, where to start on what we saw and did there?

  • In the center of the grounds was a huge metal fire-breathing dinosaur/lizard machine - and they were letting kids climb on it! Audrey climbed up onto a sofa built into the rump, but then she decided that was a little too high for her. Charlotte sat in the driver's seat. Audrey also waited for a while to climb up into the belly of the beast. At one point the builder of the thing told one kid not to climb on a particular part because "it's dangerous." All of the parents looked at each other and said to each other, "The whole thing is dangerous!" But that's part of the point of Maker Faire: don't just passively consume stuff - take risks and explore! Like this. I loved the skin on the lizard that was made from old truck tires cut into long strips.
  • The Life Size Mousetrap, of course. See last year's video to see it in action.
  • The girls always love the Science Playground at the New York Hall of Science, the site where Maker Faire is held.
  • Played with Oobleck. We were really looking forward to the big vat of it that they had last year, but even without the big vat the girls enjoyed playing with a smaller tub of it.
  • We learned about electricity and circuits with Squishy Circuits. They have recipes that make playdoh either conductive (more salt) or insulative (more sugar), and then use it to illustrate those concepts with simple circuits.
  • Revisited one of my favorites from last year: the Brooklyn Aerodrome. They show you how to build a cheap remote controlled airplane out of recycled foam board.
  • The girls made paper bag puppets.
  • In the craft-related shopping area the girls had a good time at the Thumbooks booth.
  • Carol and the girls rode the Carousolar: a carousel powered by nearby solar panels.
  • We ate overpriced gyros. They weren't as spectacularly good as last year.
  • We *really* enjoyed the Sashima Tabernacle Choir (video).
  • I got to wander through a whole bunch of robotics and 3D printing projects and products. If you ever feel the need to buy me a $1300 gift, get me a Maker Bot. Make magazine, the sponsors of the fair, have a huge Maker Shed store tent there. I could spend a lot of money in that tent.

We wrapped up the day with a shaved ice and then got on the road home. We were pleasantly surprised to not encounter much traffic through Connecticut. We all had a great time and we'll definitely go again next year. I might even organize it as a field trip for the robotics team I mentor.

Now I just need to find the time to get back to those robot projects...

Cape Cod Cottage

Back when Carol and I were coaching Audrey's T-ball team there was a boy on the team named Zack. He and Audrey hit it off and it turns out they only live a block away. We started hanging out together. Zack's parents are Dana and Rachel and he has two brothers Linus (3) and Miles (2). They love to come over and play chase in our yard. When I'm not biking and I ride the train to work Dana and I are often on the same train.

They have a beach cottage in Dennisport on Cape Cod that has been in Dana's family since the early 70s. Dana and Rachel invited us to join them there on the weekend after Labor Day. We drove Ruby Tuesday down and camped in their driveway.

The cottage is classic: plywood walls, mixed flooring, big louver windows, outdoor shower and a Gorton's fisherman lamp. It is in a little community with a bunch of other similar cottages along narrow sandy drives. There's a pond on the property and the beach is a block away. Great bike riding for the kids and they took advantage of it.

We of course had to partake in traditional beach activities. We had ice cream at the Sundae School. We played mini-golf at Pirate's Cove. We petted animals and saw a cool live tegu demonstration at Zooquarium. It wasn't warm enough to swim in the ocean, but the kids and I flew a kite on the beach.

After we packed up and closed the cottage on Sunday we all visited the Long Pasture Audubon Sanctuary in Barnstable. It was fantastic. Right off the bat we encountered a bunch of goats running loose eating vegetation. The kids really enjoyed feeding and petting the goats. And naming them. Then we had a lovely picnic on the grass overlooking Cape Cod Bay and went for a walk through the forest to a butterfly meadow. It wasn't butterfly season but the walk and the meadow were pretty.

As our last stop we visited Four Seas Ice Cream in Centerville but we hit it on their last day of business for the season. They weren't serving scoops, they were only selling pints and quarts. So we bought a quart of chocolate and improvised with camping stuff from the van, using a knife and cutting board to slice servings for everyone. We successfully produced five kids with chocolate faces.

It was a really fun weekend.

End of Summer

We've had a great summer! It started with our trip to Audrey's circus camp in northern Vermont in June, then camping on Cape Cod; our fantastic visit to Seattle and Richland; camping with neighbors in Central Massachusetts and several fun day trips and also a nice visit from my parents. We're definitely getting good use of our camper van this year.

Back in August while Hurricane Irene was approaching we headed to the Franklin Park Zoo. Boston has two zoos run by the same organization. The Stone Zoo is about a mile from our house and we go fairly often, but we had never been to the "main" zoo which is south of town. It was fun to see it, but we're spoiled by Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo which is top tier. The Franklin Zoo has a baby gorilla which the girls enjoyed watching.

I figured we had until early afternoon before the first rain bands would arrive. Sure enough, after a couple of hours at the zoo the first bands arrived around 1:00. We got back to our car just before the third band came through and then it started getting torrential. By the time Irene arrived in New England she was only a tropical storm. We didn't get all that much in Boston: maybe a few 45-50mph wind gusts and 3 inches of rain total over three days. It rained nonstop all day on Sunday.

Then school started. Audrey is in second grade now and Charlotte started Kindergarten, both at the Roosevelt School two blocks from home. They are loving it. Although Audrey complained to me that they were teaching math that she already knows how to do, and Charlotte really wants homework and hasn't been assigned any yet.

Over Labor Day weekend we introduced my friend Mark and his wife Gretchen and daughter Ava to the Ipswich River Audubon Sanctuary. They live in Newton west of Boston and were curious to visit a North Shore site. We gave them the grand tour of the Rockery, the Old Stone Bridge and the marsh trail in between. Then we had a fun picnic on the grass at the visitor center. We also visited the Harvard Museum of Natural History which I had wanted to see for some time. They have a Harry Potter-themed scavenger hunt that is very effective at getting kids to 1) visit the whole museum and 2) look closely at exhibits.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

New School Year

  

Audrey had her first day of 2nd grade on Tuesday and Charlotte had her first day of Kindergarten today.

Audrey was nervous about starting 2nd grade. Last weekend she told me she wanted to go back to 1st grade because she already knows how to do 1st grade. But after her first day she told us that she really liked her teacher, Ms. Fargo, and that 2nd grade seems like it might be OK after all.

Charlotte couldn't wait for Kindergarten to start. She's been anticipating it since preschool got out in June and counting down the days for the past two weeks. Last week we all went to meet her teacher, Ms. Devino, and Charlotte was instantly in love. I think she hugged Ms. Devino ten times. She reports that today (which was only a half day) was "boring" because "we only got to spend three seconds on the playground!"

Carol is very glad to be finished entertaining the girls all day. This year both girls are in the same school on the same schedule (8:15-2:20). Much less running around for Carol and nice big blocks of time.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Hipstamatic Crane Beach

Carol took the girls back to Crane Beach yesterday (Tuesday) and they stayed until 7:00 pm. She took these great shots.





Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Mid-Summer Fun

Western Massachusetts Weekend


A few weeks ago my office hosted a day at Six Flags New England near Springfield, MA. My friend Bill happened to call earlier that week and mention that he and his girlfriend Sara and his kids Cole and Tatum had rented a house called the Serenity Stone Cottage in far northwestern MA that week, So we made a weekend of it, driving out to have dinner with Bill and family Saturday night and then Six Flags on Sunday.

On the way across the state we visited two state parks: Lake Dennison and Otter River, for future camping purposes. Lake Dennison looked perfect.

We had a GPS adventure finding the cottage in Heath, MA. Our GPS tried to take us over a mountain road that is actually a dead end. According to the woman at the house in the middle of nowhere the road used to go through and people are always getting lost there due to their GPS's.

We eventually found Bill and Sara. Carol got the kids busy building gnome homes while Sara made dinner. The cottage is beautiful and remote and quiet and seems like a wonderful place to spend a week. No cell phone coverage either.

After dinner we drove to a campground near Northampton, where I lived from 1991-95. We got there late and were leaving early so we were really just treating it like a cheap hotel. This particular KOA seemed to have a larger then usual population of seasonal "campers", and they apparently have a tradition of festooning their encampments with Christmas decorations. I felt like we were intruding as transients in a mobile home park.

Six Flags New England was formerly a privately owned amusement park named Riverside. I went there once when I lived in Northampton. My memory is of shoddy rides and lots of asphalt. It became a Six Flags park in 1999 and is completely different from how I remember it - much larger and cleaner and with a whole bunch more thrill rides. We spent most of our time in the kiddie section and in the water park. There are some very large roller coasters there - the largest ones I wouldn't go on even if the kids were game. Bizarro has a first drop of 221 feet! We did find a smaller coaster named Catwoman's Whip that Audrey enjoyed.

We will of course have to go again when the girls are a little older.

Close to Home


Our house has a large screened porch on the side. We don't use it as much as we should, but we've had a few pleasant dinners out there this summer.

We also live very close to the Middlesex Fells, a 2500 acre reservation with miles of trails. We often go geocaching there. One of the photos shows the girls exploring the cache closest to our house.

Family Visit


My parents came for a short visit on their way to a vacation in France and Germany. They kept the girls at their hotel for two nights and Carol and I had a real date night. On Thursday I took the day off and we took them to the Saugus Iron Works, then to the Bunker Hill Monument and the Charlestown Navy Yard - home of the USS Constitution.

It was warm and muggy, so the girls were a little crabby on the way. I told them I was going to climb the monument but they both claimed they weren't going - Audrey because she was too tired and Charlotte because she was afraid of heights. Of course when it came time to climb it Audrey couldn't resist and practically ran up the 294 steps. Then after we visited the museum across the street and had some ice cream, Audrey asked Carol if she would go so Audrey could go again. Then of course at the last second Charlotte decided she had to go, too. So both girls ended up climbing the monument. Yeah! The view was fantastic! Carol and I had just watched "The Town" the night before. Several scenes were filmed in the shadow of the monument so we were identifying them from the top.

Phew! I'm all caught up!

Crane Beach

I've mentioned many times that our favorite place to get outdoors here is the Ipswich River Audubon Sanctuary. Our second favorite place is the Crane Estate and Crane Beach. Both are part of the former estate of the Crane plumbing fixture family but are now owned by the Trustees of Reservations, a non-profit group that owns a lot of historic sites and open spaces.

This year we joined the Trustees, and we also bought a Crane Beach parking sticker that gives us unlimited access to the beach (space permitting - on summer weekends the parking lot fills by 10:30 or so). We have been to the beach several times in the winter and spring but we hadn't used the beach sticker yet this summer due to Seattle travel and other activities. On Saturday we finally had a "beach day".

A whole day at the beach was a new concept to us when we moved here. In the Pacific Northwest the 45-50 degree water is too cold for swimming so you go to the beach for an hour or two and then go somewhere warmer! But here you make a day of it. You bring an encampment with you: umbrella(s), chairs, cooler, blanket, food, sand toys, etc. Along with a "beach buggy" to transport it all.

We arrived at the beach at 10:45 am. The parking lot was only about 25% full on this day, perhaps because there were some clouds and a forecast of thunderstorms later in the day. We staked our claim and hit the water, which is about 65 degrees. It felt cold at first, but after a few minutes I could get pretty used to it and stay in for a long time. The girls built sand castles and tunnels and chased seagulls. I napped. We all ate food we brought plus treats from the snack bar. The beach got pretty full. I went swimming 5 or 6 times with the girls.

About 4:00 Carol and I first talked about when we should leave and the consensus was "not any time soon." We finally packed up around 6:00 and we had to drag the girls away. We all had a blast. And none of us got sunburned!

Charlotte's New Hairstyle

A month or so ago Charlotte started talking about cutting her hair shorter. Charlotte has never had a real haircut - only a trim now and then. We talked it over with her and made sure she understood that once cut she couldn't change her mind: she would have to wait for it to grow out again. She was on board. So last Friday Carol took her in and they cut off about 8-9" of hair.

Personally, I think the new style is adorable. Charlotte thinks so, too, and she spends a lot of time in the mirror admiring her new look. She has also decided that she likes brushing her own hair. More power to her!