Very few things make me happier....

Than seeing my men doing dishes by hand!The dishwasher died, and I'm thinking we just may not get it fixed.

Some of my favorite New England Photos--it's random, I know

Autumn in New England

We've been told by several people that Kent Falls State Park was a place we needed to visit while here so we took off one Saturday. We were very pleased with what we found. It was so beautiful.

The view from the parking lot is pretty, but as you hike it just continues to get more and more amazing. The colors were brilliant there too, although like most of New England, it's not been the best year for leaf-peeping. But compared to what we are used to it was breathtaking. Wishing I had a better camera, but these were taken with my iphone....just pretend.

Jacob was a blast to hike with, even though he made me feel old the way he just skipped up those steps...
After lunch we visited a local orchard and picked some apples and pumpkins. Sadly, it turned pretty cold and started raining while we were there so we didn't spend much time.

And to finish off our trip we stopped at a historic Covered Bridge. The boys were less than excited about this, but I made them stop so I could take a picture anyway. I plan to go back with someone who can appreciate it with me sometime. They can't complain too much...I bribed them with Dr Mike's ice cream afterward.

Soccer Mom

Travis made the high school soccer team. Go Barlow!! It's been lots of fun to watch him play. The program and style of play is very different from what he's been used to but he worked really hard and progressed a lot this year. I'm really proud of him.

And i just have to add that being a soccer mom in CT is much more enjoyable that sitting in the miserable heat of Texas. I even sat in the grass one game and wasn't eaten alive by fire ants.

Bean Town with the Boys

We headed to Boston to spend the weekend, at least Lynn, Jeremy, Jacob and I did. Travis actually went with our Priests Quorum to Sharon Vermont and the birthplace of Joseph Smith.

Our first stop was the Freedom Trail with our tour guide "Bully" Jim Denton. He was amazing!!! He had been sold as an apprentice to his uncle in Boston at age 11, so he bought Jacob from us for the same price. Jacob got to serve as his apprentice for the next two hours.
He was an amazing tour guide and most of his tour was done from the actual letters that Jim Denton had written to his mother while serving as an apprentice. He had witnessed many of the events that lead to the Revolution.

While on our tour we passed the filming of RIPD a movie starring Ryan Reynolds. We missed the actual crashing of the car, but got to see the post crash carnage. So sad we didn't get to see Ryan too. He's cute. :)

After the tour we had lunch at Durgin Park which is a 'must' in our family. The boys loved that the menu says, "Your grandparents probably ate here", since theirs did along with their great-grandparents.


After lunch we walked to the North End and saw the USS Constitution, Paul Revere's home, the Old North Church and Bunker Hill. It was a beautiful day and we thoroughly enjoyed Boston. It really is one of my favorite places ever!

The next day we visiting Concord and Lexington. What a beautiful place. The fall colors were much better there than in CT, and the day was amazing. We are all loving Fall in New England.
I love this tree...and the kid sitting on it.

A Day of Remembrance

While my boys don't remember the attacks of September 11, I hope they will never forget them. Of course there were memorials all over the country, and many here in our area. A lot of the people here commute into the city to work so they lived through it. Our local fire department spent the first week after the attacks at Ground Zero assisting with the recovery efforts. One man who lost his life was a graduate of the high school the boys attend and they did a nice memorial there.

We had heard there was going to be a motorcycle tribute across Connecticut and that it would be passing through our area, but that it would likely pass here while we were at church. But much to our surprise it was just as we were on our way home and we were able to pull off to the side of the road and watch it.
There were about 3000 bikes-they didn't have an official number last I heard, but it lasted for over 20 minutes just a continuous stream. When you think that's about how many people died on September 11, that's sobering. It was a LOT of bikes.

Time for some updating...

I've gotten a little lazy about keeping up the blog. In part because we've settled into a routine with school and so haven't been having as many adventures. But in part just because I got lazy. You pick how much each part might have contributed. :)

September 10th we went into NYC to the Statue of Liberty and Battery Park. There had been some credible threats made since it was the 10th Anniversary of the terrorists attacks so security was pretty intense. We had pre-purchased our tickets for the tour long ago and hadn't thought of the date, but we weren't too concerned about anything.

Poor Travis had woke up that morning covered in hives. We aren't sure what caused it. possibly a reaction to a medication he was on, but never found out for sure. He was pretty miserable, but still was a good sport about our trip.

We drove down to Battery Park, and the traffic wasn't a problem at all, but there were police everywhere. You couldn't hardly turn around without bumping into security personnel, in fact I think there was more security that tourists. We were okay with that.

It was a gorgeous day and it was so neat to go into the statue, see how it was made, and enjoy the view. What an amazing part of American history. It was also hard to imagine standing there watching the towers burn. It was a bitter sweet day for us. We actually got help up for about 20 minutes or so while they had a 'security situation' at the base of the statue. We never did find out what it was about. Wasn't scary really, but did make us realize the threats are real.

My camera got left in the car, hopefully the boys still have their pictures on their phones and I can upload them later.

After arriving back in Battery Park, we stopped at the Field of Flags tribute. They had one flag for each person who lost their lives on September 11 in the attacks. It was hard to imagine so many lives gone so quickly. They also have a statue there that was at the World Trade Center site and is now in Battery Park. Neat memorial there. We didn't walk over to Ground Zero, in part because of the security masses, and in part because Travis just wasn't feeling well at all.