Happy Birthday to Me!

Another year gone. Boy do they go by quickly as I get older.

My birthday wish was for many more years of happiness like I have right now. I have a wonderful wife and two fabulous kids and loving family and friends and just a pretty sweet life all around.

I chose to spend the day installing the backsplash tile in the kitchen. It's one of the last projects before the kitchen remodel is completely done and it will be very satisfying to check that off.

I've never laid tile before but I've watched my dad and others do it many times and he and they all told me it's simple. Sure enough, it's pretty easy. I got one wall done today after a late start. I'll finish tomorrow and then grout it one night next week or next weekend.

Carol made us a great lasagna dinner (Audrey's suggestion) and two cakes! I like both yellow cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate cake with white frosting so she made one of each! And she and the girls gave me a copy of "Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share." Perfect.

My parents and sisters called me from Seattle. They happened to catch me while I was at Home Depot renting the tile saw. It was very sweet having them all call me together, especially when they all sang Happy Birthday! I'll see them all in about 6 weeks.

I'll publish more photos of the kitchen tile job when it's done.

Audrey's Class in the Newspaper

Audrey's class was recently in the local newspaper (the Melrose Weekly News). Click on the image for a larger version.

A Visit from Britt

Britt Visit

Our dear friend Britt from Seattle was in Boston this week for a travel medicine conference. She finished at noon on Thursday and spent the next two days with us. We gave her the tour of our favorite places.

First she came with us to an open house at Charlotte's preschool. We saw all of the projects the kids have done and read Charlotte's school journal. Then it was off to dinner at Melrose's favorite restaurant: Turner's.

I'd had a stressful week at work so I decided to take Friday off and be a tourist with the family. Audrey played hooky, too.

We first went to the Ipswich River Audubon Sanctuary, or, as our family refers to it, "The Rockery". We did our usual trek to the Rockery itself and then along the paths through the marsh and forest. The place was magical, as usual. There were so many songbirds. Plus we got to see red wing blackbirds flashing their colors and a pair of geese with a half dozen or so goslings. We also fed chickadees from our hands, although they aren't as hungry for human-donated food now that the world has come back to life.

After that we headed to the Crane Estate and the Castle Hill mansion. We had such a wonderful picnic there on May Day we decided to do it again. This time we were virtually the only people there other than caterers getting ready for a wedding. We explored the old rose garden structures and the "ancient ruins". Then it was a short hop to Crane Beach where we broke out the kites and enjoyed the sunshine. We had originally planned to end the trip in Rockport with some taffy, but it was getting late and we decided to head home to our summery dinner of grilled marinated steak tips, potato salad and corn on the cob. Mmm.

On Saturday Britt helped Carol shuttle the girls to ballet classes. Their end of the year demonstration is next weekend, so this weekend Carol practiced getting the girls' hair into buns. They looked beautiful. I'l post photos of the ballerinas next week after the performance.

Audrey had a birthday party to attend in the afternoon so Britt and I headed into Boston to walk the Freedom Trail by ourselves. I had never done it. We were able to walk all but the Charlestown portion of it. I enjoyed it because it allowed me to glue a bunch of pieces of my mental Boston map together in more organized way. Of course it was also great to hang out with my old buddy: back in 1998/99 when we were both single Britt and I used to hang out together a lot (before I met Carol and then Carol and I fixed Britt up with her husband Ken).

It was wonderful to have a visit from Britt and show her our favorite parts of our new home. Hopefully she can come back with her family sometime. And we'll see them again in a month and half when we are in Seattle.

Catching Up

Sheesh, it's been more than a month since my last real post. We've been busy.

As always, click on the small photos to go to a photo album for each story.

New York Weekend New York Weekend At the beginning of April we went to New York for a weekend to visit my friend Brady and his daughter Isabel and attend Sleep No More. We had a great weekend. Saturday we all went to the Metropolitan Museum. We weren't sure if the girls would enjoy it, but we promised them they'd see suits of armor. On the way to the armor we passed through the Egyptian section (including the temple) and the Art Deco section. They liked all of it. After the museum we went across the street to the Ancient Playground where the girls had a blast. Saturday night we spent at the performance, which was fascinating. Our friends had seen it in Boston last year when it was staged in an empty school and had raved about it. It lived up to the hype. Just the "set" was amazing: five floors of multiple adjoining warehouses, all meticulously constructed and decorated and available for audience exploration. And the performance was intriguing, too. It consists of about eight or nine non-speaking characters moving through the space and periodically interacting. Audience members just follow whichever character they want, or none at all. We're very glad we went. On Sunday morning we went to Cafe Centosette, which was Brady and Isabel's favorite breakfast spot. Unfortunately we found out during our meal that it was their last day in business. The rent was raised and was now too high. Bummer. But Brady asked the secret of their delicious Dutch Babies: it's Bisquick! And a cast iron skillet.

Crane Estate Crane Estate May Day Open House We subscribe to a weekly email list called Boston Central that lists stuff to do with kids. It's been a fantastic resource and probably once a month we do one of the activities we learn about from that source. The most recent was the Crane Estate Open House on May Day. The Crane Estate was the summer home of plumbing fixture magnate Richard Crane. It is now owned by the Trustees of Reservations, a New England open space and heritage site preservation group. Another part of the property is Crane Beach which is very popular in the summer. Carol packed a picnic for us and off we went. There were a few hundred people there but the grounds are huge so it didn't feel crowded. We played croquet and chased each other around and had a delicious lunch. The Castle Hill mansion was open for self-guided tours. Then local high school girls danced around a may pole. We wandered down the Grand Allee to Steep Hill Beach and played on the beach for a good long time. I drew a maze in the sand. It was the first time I've ever drawn a maze; it turned out to be not too difficult to solve. Of course being in only two dimensions didn't help since you could see right over the "walls".

Mystic Seaport Mystic Seaport We visited Mystic Seaport last April and had such a great time we've sort of decided to make it our annual first camping trip of the year. So the first weekend in May we drove down after the girls' ballet lessons on Saturday and arrived mid-afternoon. The girls were excited to go straight to the playground, which consists of three boat play structures that kids can climb in and on: a tugboat, a fishing boat and a sailboat. They could play there for a very long time. Right next door is the "Children's Museum" which is the ground floor of a converted house that contains: another fishing boat structure with fish they can catch and decks to swab and woodwork to paint; a couple of sailor's berths; and a galley in which they can pretend to cook up a feast. This year there's a new indoor area in one of the real museum buildings that has a puppet theater, period dress-up clothes (Mystic Seaport mainly focuses on the mid-19th century when Mystic was a thriving shipbuilding center), and some cool old games and puzzles. So we spent a lot of time there as well. We only had a couple of hours on Saturday before closing, but tickets are good for a second day. So we headed to the local KOA campground and made dinner. While we were eating a thunderstorm approached from the southeast. We quickly cleaned up and got in the van as it started to rain a little. We were hoping it would roll right over us because that would have been cool in the van, but it just brushed us with a little wind and rain. We could see plenty of lightning nearby though and hear thunder. Sunday was Mother's Day. I had researched local breakfast places and decided on Kitchen Little. It's very near Mystic Seaport so we had passed it on Saturday. It's definitely little. Although once inside we found it packs people in very efficiently and can actually hold probably 40 people, partially in a covered outdoor area overlooking the river. Back at Mystic Seaport we revisited the huge scale model of the Mystic River that does a great job of showing what the area was like in the 1850s, including the many shipyards and ships in various stages of construction. We also spent a fair bit of time aboard the Charles W. Morgan, the last surviving wooden whaling ship which is being painstakingly restored. The restoration is an amazing process with a fascinating facility. They rebuild parts of the ship using the same materials and techniques as were originally used. Finally, the most popular activity with kids is a little shop where they can build their own boats. There are small pieces of wood in various shapes plus paper, string and hot glue guns that they can use to build whatever they want on top of a bare hull. They love it. We had just as much fun as last year, so our plan of making it an annual event is confirmed. Oh, the campground also has a big jumping pillow that we all love.

Spring 2011 Everything Else Boy, there is lot of other spring news, too. Charlotte is wrapping up Pre-K and will go to full-day Kindergarten next year at the same school Audrey attends. We're very excited for everyone to be able to walk to and from school together. Audrey is wrapping up first grade and has had a great year. She's becoming quite the reader, which warms my heart to no end. She has recently taken up the habit of spontaneously curling up with a book. Audrey has also started losing her baby teeth. On the bottom the new teeth came in behind the old ones and in January the dentist pulled the two front bottom baby teeth (with some kind of magic: Audrey liked the experience!). The top two front teeth were loose seemingly forever but finally came out a couple of weeks ago. She looks damn cute with her gap-toothed smile. Both girls have been excited about riding their bikes this spring. Audrey shed her training wheels last summer and she picked up right where she left off. Charlotte has decided to ride with training wheels after not liking them last year. On nice days they both ride their bikes to Audrey's school with mom walking along. Carol took the girls to the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum one afternoon and they enjoyed all the outdoor sculpture as well as the indoor exhibits. We also attended the MIT Open House on April 30. It was the first campus-wide open house in 30 years. A fellow robot team mentor works at the Plasma Science and Fusion Center and had specifically told me about events there, so we made sure to attend the Plasma and Pickles presentation. We also saw some robot demonstrations and Audrey got to fly a quadracopter. I got to see a lot more of the MIT campus, which I ride my bike past every day on my way to and from work. Finally: several years ago I read an article about the invention of colored bubbles. It's a very difficult problem because: soap bubbles are very thin and dye is heavy enough that it just flows to the bottom of the bubble it was hard to come up with a dye that wouldn't stain kids' clothes But after more than a decade of work an inventor figured it out. After reading the story I was excited for the bubbles to hit the market so I could try them out. But that never happened. Then a week or two ago we saw an ad on TV for Crayola Washable Colored Bubbles. I'm not sure if it is the same chemistry as that described in the article, but they are the first colored bubbles I have seen on the market. Carol picked up a the pink and green varieties for the girls (and for me). Unfortunately, they are a bit of a disappointment. The green ones have a fair bit of color to them but the pink ones are very faintly colored. However, even though they are "washable" the fluid is very dark colored (the pink looks like slightly watered down blood) and it's very hard to believe that they aren't going to stain anything they touch. We did prove that it washes right off of concrete and that it can be easily blotted out of cotton clothing. It was interesting to close the loop on the story. I'm not sure if we'll be buying any more of them.

Whew, we're all caught up now.