new england traditions: fallen foliage

Everyone likes leaf-peeping in New England. "Oooh, pretty fall foliage," etcetera. But here is the thing: that fall foliage falls off the trees living one big mess. We have sort of perfected the fine art of procrastination when it comes to leaf collection (much to our neighbors' dismay).

We basically rake our leaves once a year. It seems sort of futile to do it any more than that, what with all the maple trees in our yard. In any case, the one time a year we actually do it, it's pretty fun (I suppose it's easy to say that when you are not the one doing the leaf collecting; but, there you are). The Pup was very excited to rake up leaves (or pretend to).

But he was even more excited to play in the piles.

A couple more leaf shots in flickr, because, you know, that is what we do.

a boy and a train

So it's that time of the year in Connecticut. The time of year when Thomas the Tank Engine comes to town--or close to town. We wandered over to Essex, Connecticut for a day with the smling train.


While the parental units debated the charm factor of the train on an older and wiser Seal Pup--he had so much fun last year, would it be the same this time? Better? A bust?), the pup relished in the day's activities.

Proving that we, indeed, truly don't know anything.

Leave it to the tot to school the 'rents.

More pictures from the day are in flickr, of course.

Next up...raking up dead leaves. A New England tradition.

um, boo?

Whoa, it's the Roaming Gnome! Totally scary, right?! Well, maybe try this face, this is kind of scary. Yeah, he wasn't so into the belt.

For Halloween this year, the Pup declared the Roaming Gnome to be the coolness. So I made him a costume so he could be all gnome-y. The hat is, clearly, the best part. If you are interested in how this costume came together, read this post here-recapping seems too redundant.

While Papa and I don't normally get all jolly over the ghoulish delights of Halloween, the Pup's excitement for it sort of won us over and we did (most of) the things parents who are raising main stream kids are supposed to do for Halloween. Like carving pumpkins.

Dressing up and going trick or treating (twice, no less).

And making festive cupcakes for cadets (or whoever you want, I realize that not everyone has a captive audience for culinary attempts at their beck and call) for the purpose of making them smile.
And, yes, let's not forget the costumery. I am particularly proud of that. So is the kid.

Happy Halloween, or if you are being politically correct, Happy Orange and Black Day!

As you can imagine, there are tons of photos sitting in flickr just waiting for your ghoulish perusal.

we brake for sheep

In my head, I wrote this post and put it up last week. In reality, I, obviously, did no such thing. So in the spirit of chronological order, let's talk about our trip to Rhinebeck, New York, shall we? On the 17th, we headed to upstate New York to go to a fiber festival, because, you know, "we" are into that sort of thing. There was a lot of yarn and fiber to spin to make yarn.

We ate like kings (I am eating for two now, so I too ate like a king, my friends).

I could go on at great length about the irony of eating lamb at a sheep and wool festival, but I won't go there.

The Pup found the best part of the day involved riding on trains... (which I totally don't get, it has nothing to do with sheep, knitting, weaving or what have you, but there you are).

And he also experienced the joy of fried dough, or, as he calls it, "dough with snow."

More pictures in flickr (because that is totally unexpected). Tomorrow (and I totally mean it), I will post about Halloween, because doing so after the fact might be a little gauche and also, I am too lazy to catch things up after a flurry of expected activity in the coming days...

our little apple tradition

For the last four years (maybe it's 5 now, we didn't blog back then, so I don't know) we have made our way to a local apple orchard to buy, pick and eat local and have a little autumnal fun.

We usually go to Holmberg Orchards in Gales Ferry, CT. It's not too far away and they grow plenty of my favorite apples (the Mutsu, it's a beautiful fruit).

And since I am a (self-proclaimed) pie-baking queen, we had to pick some golden delicious apples for pie (with a cheddar pastry crust, because it is truly better with cheddar). We also picked some red delicious for munching (these are Papa's favorite, I think they are sort of bland in comparison to the Mutsu, but that is just me). Papa and the pup think the apples are truly delicious (...one can lead them to water--or the Mutsu...).

After picking about 30 or so apples, I guess it gets kind of old. So to entertain the Pup we scouted out some pumpkins post haste.


The orchard going made for a fun weekend activity and suitably wore out the kid enough to sleep in his new bed in his new room (who's a big boy?). Very exciting.

Trivia: It's been almost a year (to the day) since the Pup switched from his crib to a toddler bed.

More apple-y (and pumpkin-y) pictures can be found in flickr. And stay tuned; our next adventure will involve fall foliage and sheep (those of you rolling your eyes can stop now)!

edward's house

After our "Go Coast Guard!" weekend, we decided to take a day trip up to Massachussetts to town of Yarmouthport on the Cape. We have been wanting to take a visit to the Edward Gorey House for quite some time, and the days seemed suitably rainy and dreary to set the stage for a trip.

We are fortunate that the Pup just sort of tags along with us right now. There will come a point that he won't think trips like this are fun...till then...

It was fun. Edward Gorey was a character. He was an ecclectic collector of pretty much everything. When he died, 25,000 volumes of books were found in his home. That's pretty crazy.

The Pup had fun messing about with "The Doubtful Guest" outside when the rain stopped.

It's a fun little house museum that sheds a lot of light on the life of Edward Gorey. The exhibits/displays were very well done and they were fun and interesting.

As always, more pictures from our excursion can be found in flickr.

welcome home; or, we bleed blue and white

Last weekend was really busy, so I am going to break it into two posts. The first post (that would be the one you are reading presently) is going to cover the crazy that was homecoming weekend at CGA.

It was Papa's 10 year reunion. He somehow (I have labeled it as the "inability to say no," you can call it something else if you like) became the default chair of his class's homecoming planning committee. He was pretty busy and taxed his usually introverted self, what with all the socializing, and socializing. It was fun though. Here are some highlights (this will, admitedly be of more interest to you if you either 1) attended CGA, 2) graduated from said institution in 1998 or, 3) just want to see some cute pictures of the Seal Pup, aka Progeny 1.0).

The weekend started with cadet drill. The Pup has decided that the best part of drill is the end when the cadets clear the lawn and he can run on the parade field (running is better with friends).

Friday night there was a party at Camp Rell. We were in a cabin that had stuffed and mounted animal heads around the room.

While the decor was charming, it left parents with the need to be overly creative when explaining the decor to their impressionable, and in some cases frightened, children.

Saturday started out with a dedication ceremony at the CGA chapel for Kevin Carpenter, a classmate who passed away during his second year at the academy. The class of '98 helped to install a patio extension to the Chapel and laid a stone marker in Kevin's memory.
The ceremony was well-attended by members of the class.

After the dedication, there was a tailgate party before the football game. There was much socializing.

There was also a great deal of consumption of beverages containing alcohol. The pup was curious to know the location of the juice boxes.

There were no juice boxes but he got a fine explaination of the virtues of seasonal brews for Octoberfest. Oh, well, maybe next year when the class of '99 throws the big show.

After the tailgate, the celebrating 5 and 10 year classes did the homecoming march-on onto the football field. The class of '98 was not told that they should be in any sort of formation...so they weren't.

But they had a good time, and they looked really snazzy in the CGA homecoming gear. Papa sported some of the head gear during the football game.

We won the football game, but I had to hear about the win later (not that I minded this, of course, as being a spectator of the great American game is not high on my list of things to do--if we are being honest here). Papa had to get back to organizing and planning, and the Pup and I were tired and worn out. Also we had to prepare for a little adventure for the following day. But more on that later in the next post.

There are more pictures in flickr. Members of the class of '98 who might be interested in the rest of the pics from Friday and Saturday just e-mail us, we can send a disc to you.