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.