Morgan's Halloween Birthday Special

Morgan's birthday is on Sept 11th but she wanted a Halloween party. We felt most parents would not be able to find a costume in Sept so we waited for Oct. She turned 7 this year which made me feel a little old until one of the parents at the party said "Its was tough when I turned 40" I really wanted to say "I wouldn't know" I decided my comment would not be appreciated.

Tower Hill

Over the labor day weekend we went to Tower Hill. It's a botanical garden, which does have a hill but there is no tower on the hill or near the hill so I don't know where the name came from. My guess would be they wanted something that would make you think of England. Which it did for me since its the name of the tube stop near the Tower of London.

The garden is setup to make you think of an English botanical garden. It reminded me of what Kew Gardens just outside of London would have looked like while it was under construction. You see the management at Tower Hill have this 8 stage plan and they are starting contruction on stage 4. They would like to be done in 2038 or something like that. So I guess I'll wait till then to go back. What they have done is very nice and I think it was time well spent.

Rocket Man 2: Bigger is Better

Morgan and I made better 2 liter bottle rockets. We added fins and nose cones. They flew much better then regular bottles, but their flight path was very unpredictable and we ended up spending a lot of time searching for the rockets. We really needed to make the body of the rockets longer and attach our fins better. We also tried adding water to the rockets and that helped make then go much higher.

Anyway Morgan had a great time even though we lost her rocket that day. I did eventually find her rocket which had landed on the far side of the house in a trash can. What are the odds we would hit the trash can?

Story Land 2

Okay here is the happy sappy video you were expecting. Before you watch it you must know two facts

1.Since Micheal Jackson has passed away Morgan has become a fan of his music. She knows the chorus to Annie are you okay. I don't have any Jackson songs but I do have the remake of her favorite song so I played that even though it does not tie into the video at all

2.Katie's dad created a theme song for King Kone based on the King Tut song sung by Steve Martin. Basically just replace King Tut with King Kone and you have the song. Alright now you have the inside story. Enjoy

Story Land

To kick off the summer we packed up the wally wagon and drove up to the white mountains to check out story land. Now anyone who has talked to me or seen my facebook comments knows I was dreading the vacation. Who wants to be dragged up to a small amusement park in the middle of the woods geared towards small children then asked to shell out too much money for crap we don't need. To make matters worse Katie had me practically drive up to Canada and come back down, so the trip took forever. It was not scenic as planned as it rained the whole time. In the end it was not nearly as bad as I had feared. The threat of rain kept the crowds down so at least we were not sitting in lines for too long. The bed and breakfast we stayed at was nice. It only rained at the very end of our stay at Story Land so we were very fortunate.

On our way back we stoped at Clarks Trading Post but only checked out the gift shop. Did you know they want 17 bucks for an adult! That is crazy! The whole Clarks trading post 'adventure' is outdoors and it was threatening to rain so we decided to skip it. We then ended up in Merrimack were we got ice cream at the legendary King Kone stand and then checked out the Anheuser Busch Brewery. Sadly there are no Ompa Loopa's or a river of Bud Light. However, there were free samples at the end of the tour.

In keeping with my torture theme I have made a video based on a suggestion for the US department of defense to use as an alternative to water boarding - the threat of being forced into going to Story Land and outlet shopping is far more effective then the simulation of drowning any day. Gwen was very troubled when she watched the video for the first time so caution is advised.

This Old House

I was sick and tired of our closet in the "master" bedroom. There is nothing master about my bedroom other then Katie and I sleep there. The closet is a walk in closet but it is not organzied well so you can only access the front half. The back half becomes a black hole where stuff gets lost. Plus the old plaster is starting to crumble, so its time to rip it out. Here are the highlights.

American as Apple Pie

We had a lot of photos from Easter so I have broken them up into two videos.

Did you know that apples are not native to North America? I didn't but I recently saw a PBS (public broadcasting station) special on New England Native Americans during the time period the first English settlers where settling the area in the 1630s. Anyway the Pilgrims brought apples, and used to eat apple pies for breakfast. I totally agree that Apple Pie is a breakfast meal not just a desert. Of course their pies didn't have nearly as much sugar as a modern apple pie.



As many of you know I had a very tough time finding the supplies needed to die eggs last year while we lived in London. Apparently that is not a tradition they observe. I called around to several grocery stores and not one had white chicken eggs. I did find duck eggs which were a little larger then chicken eggs and more money but they did the trick. I don't recall how we came about the kit to die the eggs. I think Katie had it shipped over. The stupid things we do for kids.