Confession

So, I've been blogging.

Just not here.

I kind of needed time to, um, find my blogging "voice" without sharing it with people I know (other than Sara, of course).

Mainly, I'm using this new blog to track my progress as I do this half marathon training, but I'd say I end up discussing things from a spiritual perspective a lot of the time. Based on my sister's recommendation, I'm trying to record one "thought" that came to mind as a result of each run.

And, I've easily made up for the posts I didn't do for Sara last year, since I'm trying to blog a thought after each run.

So there. My secret's out. If you care to see it, the new blog's at http://dansreallife.wordpress.com/.

Huge, Embarrassing Failure

This is exactly why I'm not making any official, public resolutions for 2010. I'd say I tried to keep my word, Sara, in getting 52 posts in 2009, but that would probably not be true. This past year has been one of the busiest, most stressful (albeit, good) years, and I just never had the energy or motivation to keep up with this. Sorry. I might just keep the blog going for 2010, but this time I know better than to make any promises about the number of posts I'll make.

That being said, if you counted 1 facebook update as, say, 1/4 of a blog entry, I probably far exceeded the number of posts I promised.

Merry Christmas, Sara.

The end.

Day 3

Monday, August 31 -- Hike with the boys, Gabe swimming with Justin, Caleb sleeping through dinner

So after getting our first good night's sleep, I was anxious to get out and explore, and the boys needed to move around a little, too. We ate a little breakfast and the three of us set out for a nice morning hike. The town we were staying in was a tourist-y little town with all kinds of shops and such. Fortunately, the hotel where we stayed had its own hiking trail, away from all the shops and all the tourists. Well, all of them except for the boys and me. I didn't bring the camera along, and I wish I had. The trail led through woods full of wild apple trees. Caleb loved picking up the apples and throwing them in a big mid-trail mud puddle. At the end of the wooded trail, you have to climb up these little boulders onto a rock path that follows a shallow river. Caleb loved sitting on the edge of the path, throwing rocks into the river. Anyway, we hiked for a while, just to see where the path would take us. Around one bend was a great view of one of the rock-faced mountains (not sure which one). We eventually decided to turn around and head back to our room. We don't get to hike (in nature) much, and I think it was Caleb's first time joining Gabe and me for the exploration of a hiking trail. It was just really fun to get to have that time with the boys. I was impressed with their endurance (though I did have to alternate piggy-back rides on the return trip). I was also impressed with Gabe's attention to the route we took. On the way back down the river path, I was about to obliviously walk right past the boulders we needed to climb down to get back to the apple tree path back to the hotel. Gabe stopped me and was like, "Daddy, don't we need to go that way?"


Later that morning, my great friend Justin joined us for the day. He's been my friend since the 6th grade, when I moved to Maine. He always does such a good job interacting with the boys, and they, of course, took to him right away. I think he must be magic. Both boys wanted to hold Justin's hands as we walked into Friendly's for lunch (impressive in that Caleb is going through this independent thing where he refuses to hold someone's hand in a parking lot, etc..."No. I got.")
Anyway, we had some good food and ice cream at Friendly's (rushed a little by Caleb's impatience with sit-down restaurants) and went back to the hotel to swim in the indoor pool. Again with the magic: Gabe is normally terribly timid around a (grown-up) swimming pool. With me, he clings tight and will barely sit on the edge and plop into the water for me to catch him. He went to Justin, and within minutes, he was leaping a good 3 feet into the pool for Justin to catch him, putting his face in the water, and even walking on his own in the 3' section, where the water comes up to his chin. It was pretty fun to watch.

From there, we went outside for a while. Justin and I played shuffleboard. Yes, shuffleboard. And it was actually pretty fun. Wow...this is what "old" feels like.

After a long and active day, we decided to drive to a restaurant that was 20 minutes away for dinner. The place was called The Red Fox (nothing to do with Sanford & Son). The greatest thing...it had a movie room for kids to sit and watch a movie while we waited to be seated. No wait, that wasn't the greatest thing. The greatest thing was that, on the way to the restaurant, Caleb fell asleep. And stayed asleep through dinner. And we go to take our time and eat a relaxing meal and catch up with Justin.

Day 2

Sweet Mountain Air

Okay, back to the trip. Seems like a long time ago now; I might have waited too long to write much of anything thoughtful.

Here's what I remember from Day 2: We drove from Buffalo to our hotel in New Hampshire.

I can't remember a lot of the details. What I do remember is this: Clementine, our car's female-voiced GPS, routed us through Vermont into New Hampshire. We were only in Vermont for about 20 minutes...must have driven through the skinny part, but it was here that the scenery started to get a lot more picturesque. My favorite memory was, a while after we crossed the New Hampshire state line and were driving on back-road highways, we turned off the AC and rolled down the windows.

You know you've been in the city too long when rolling down your windows in New Hampshire becomes your favorite memory for that day. There was this cool moisture in the air that just smelled so clean and felt so good to breathe. I just remember Sara and me explaining to the boys that what was coming through their windows was sweet mountain air.

Oh yeah, we then stopped in this tiny college town at a pizza place for dinner. Had a pizza with feta cheese, chicken, tomatoes, and greek olives. It was good.

We got to our hotel pretty late, got the kids to bed, unloaded the car, and crashed.

Day 1

Day 1a: Failure to Launch
So we thought about starting the trip Friday afternoon/evening. Seemed to make good sense. I had plenty of hours at work and was able to leave by the early afternoon, and it wouldn't take that long to pack.

Problem was, I am (temporarily) sort of, well, actually changing jobs at Circle since budget stuff is so tight (Not going to explain it here for the sake of time and staying on point). I hoped to get most of the loose ends tied up with the mentoring job before leaving for vacation so I could hit the ground running with my new responsibilities when I got back. So I ended up working later than expected. (I've been back for a few days and am still trying to get those loose ends tied...)

Packing is never a fast process for us. I blame it on the kids. And Sara. (Another rabbit trail...While my preference is to throw some things together and hit the road, Sara is quite thorough. She thinks through all the contingencies so that regardless of the situation, we'll be prepared to take care of the boys. Which is great. Really, it is. ) By the time it got to be 8 or 9:00 and we were still packing, we knew the trip would have to wait for Saturday morning. I think we finally had the car fully loaded by midnight or 12:30.

I don't have any pics to share from this (rather boring) part of the vacation story. I bet you're glad.

Day 1b: Buffalo Hurds
We finally hit the road around 8 or 9:00 on Saturday morning, bound for Buffalo, NY. A high school friend of mine lives there with her family (The Hurds) and extended the invite for us to crash there for a halfway-to-Maine break. Sara and I gratefully accepted.

Sidebar: I think we were not even through Indiana before Gabe asked for the first time if we were almost to Maine. I must have told him it would take like 7 movies before we got there because he kept asking me, throughout the week, if he had watched 7 movies yet. Thank goodness for the car DVD player...really don't think a cross-country road trip could happen without one.

Sidebar #2: I explained to Gabe that we were going to New Hampshire, not Maine first. He thought a "Hampshire" was a fuzzy rodent that runs in a wheel...I think he said something like, "I don't like Hampshires" and proceeded to describe a hampster. First the turd (see a couple posts below) and now the hampshire. But I digress.

The Hurds (Amy & Tim) actually have two boys almost the exact same ages as Gabe & Caleb, each just a little older, and they all got along really well. I love seeing Gabie come out of his shell to make new friends, and he definitely did just that. (Caleb, on the other hand, is a lot less shy with peers.) It was cool to see how similar each of our boys was to their counterpart in personality. Funny thing was that instead of pairing off by age, Gabe played more with the younger sibling and Caleb played more with the older one, and they had a blast. It was great, too, catching up with an old friend and getting to know her husband. We really enjoyed their hospitatlity. And can I just say...they made this steak for dinner that was off the chain (Parents, that means "really good"). (Amy/Tim...if either of you happen to read this and wouldn't mind leaving the recipe as a comment, that'd be great :) ) After a great night's rest and a delicious breakfast, we loaded up and hit the road for our destination in New Hampshire.

Live free or die in Vacationland

The family and I just got back last night from our second road trip to New England in a little over a year. This time, sans the grandmothers but avec the new car.

Overall, I'd have to say it was a wonderful trip. Not without it's "pull-my-hair-out-if Caleb-doesn't-stop-screeching-from-the-back-seat," or those "if-Gabe-sasses-once-more-I'll-become-a-believer-in-whoopin's" moments, but wonderful, nonetheless.

Justin, my best friend from childhood was getting married on Sept 5. Sara and I decided not long after getting the news that it would be best to drive out and make it our summer vacation. I'm really glad we did. Really thankful to have had the opportunity. Still kinda wishing we were a thousand miles northeast of here.

For those who are keeping track of my, ahem, commitment to blog once a week for 2009, I'm going to use this vacation as a chance to play a little catch-up. My hope is to do one entry sharing the highlights for each of the days of this most recent trip. Quite honestly, I'm not doing it to share so much as I am to do something to preserve the memories and record my thoughts for the sake of my own recollection. And since it would kind of be a pain to print pictures to add to my journal, I'm going to do the (somewhat self-censored) journaling here.

Here are the things I think I'll write about from each day:

Day 1a: Friday, August 28 -- Failure to launch
Day 1b: Saturday, August 29 -- Buffalo Hurds
Day 2: Sunday, August 30 -- Sweet Mountain Air
Day 3: Monday, August 31 -- Hike with the boys, Gabe swimming with Justin, Caleb sleeping through dinner
Day 4: Tuesday, Sept.1 -- Fishing and more fishing. Bear poop. Winthrop.
Day 5: Wednesday, Sept 2 -- Ocean and my adventure buddy
Day 6: Thursday, Sept 3 -- Rest, Choo-choo, More swimming, Moose Crossing Scam, Laundry
Day 7: Friday, Sept 4 -- Fishing, Shopping ($5 Lids), New Hampshire State Pen
Day 8: Saturday, Sept 5 -- Long drive, Wedding, Gabe's new friends, the Toast I didn't give
Day 9: Sunday, Sept 6 -- Long hard road, Mt Holyoke, So much for driving straight through
Day 10: Sunday, Sept 7 -- The White Stag, Clementine, Gary, and Back in the Chi.

Made me laugh...

This afternoon, Sara's grandma saw a little baby toad in Norma's yard and she picked it up so Gabe could see it.

Gabe and I had a great time playing with it in the front yard. We named it Kermit.

Now, Gabe gets word mixed up sometimes. He calls Culver's "Clovers," etc.

Sara's aunt pulled in to Norma's driveway as Gabe and I were sitting on the lawn, watching Kermit sit in the plastic cup where we put him.

I asked Gabe if he wanted to tell Judy what we had. Naturally, in his enthusiasm, he was eager to share.

He ran to Judy's car and said, "Guess what me and Daddy found....A turd! Do you want to see it?" (She was a good sport...before I corrected Gabe, she said yes...I can only imagine the thoughts that ran through her mind as Gabe asked that and she saw me sitting, looking into this plastic cup.)

That one still has me cracking up...thought I'd share.