Manhattan Temple

We found a couple in the ward that has willing to teach us the ins and outs of a temple run in the city as well as do babysitting swaps with us, so with that we made our first trip down to the Manhattan Temple.

We learned where the good places to park are, including the garage we used which had this sign posted. We felt welcome despite the misspelled name.

The Temple was beautiful of course, but it was different because it didn't have the incredible landscaping and breathtaking/eye catching architecture as most other Temple's I've seen. It blends into the city well though. The church has definitely made good use of the real estate here as it is used for everything. The interior reminded me of 1920's city style. Efficient use of space in good taste would my summation of it.

It was a beautiful day and  Central Park is only a few blocks away so while we were babysitting all we had to do was go into the park and let the kids play. We'll have to get more creative as it gets cooler.

Eating Apples

As I've mentioned before, Ira is loving the idea of feeding himself. Enjoy the short clip we threw together. I love to watch him exploring the world and see him learning.

The only downside with him trying to be more involved with the feeding process is the mess afterwards. I guess it's a small price to pay in the end.

Bluegrass, Water Falls, and Stone Sculptures

Labor day marks the unofficial end of summer and the beginning of fall. We are now mostly settled in as you can tell from Sharon's video tour of our new place and so we start the New England chapter of our life. We are looking forward to getting to know the surrounding area better and have a good start on it. We visited Maine last week and loved it. This weekend we have been exploring areas closer to us as the roads are busy with all of the holiday travelers. We started out at a little State Park where there is a series of small water falls that cascade down the mountain side called, Kent Falls. It was a beautiful day and as you can see in the pictures below the park was pleasant.

The park below the falls was busy with people picnicking and playing frisbee. The hike up to see the other parts of the falls wasn't as busy, which was nice.

I loved this cute little covered bridge. There are supposedly a lot of covered bridges still in use in the area, I'm hoping to get around to seeing some of them.

Ira feeding himself, he's really getting into this. We'll post some video of him later.

Kent Falls is about a quarter mile of stream cascading down the limestone rock through potholes and down slippery slopes. It reminded me of some of the canyons I've hiked in Southern Utah, just in limestone surrounded by forest instead of in desert sandstone.

We discovered a side trail that took us through this amazing stone sculpture garden, I guess you could call them karen's(trail markers) but they were the most elaborate ones I've ever seen and were everywhere, but the trail.

 How many can you count in the background?

And these were some of the simpler ones...

Some were small, others were quite tall.

After the park we headed over to Sherman, one of the small downs just outside of Danbury, to enjoy some bluegrass/folk music. The music and atmosphere were wonderful. It was put on in a small 'clubhouse' (really more of a barn/cabin) by an excellent group of musicians next to a beautiful lake. The music was cheerful with the audience clapping along enjoying in the marry tunes. The musicians told how a few of them meet riding the trains into New York City to play on Broadway for shows like The Jersey Boys and The Color Purple.

Our drive back took us along a twisty tree covered road I can't wait to go back to when the leaves start to change colors.

Tour of the New Place.

For those of you who've been asking about the place, here it is.  Come visit!
p.s.  Sorry for my "talking to Ira" tone of voice.  Just pretend that you're Ira and you won't feel condescended.  :)

Portland, ME

There are a lot of places that we want to go to in close proximity to Danbury. One of my best friend, Dave Sutherland, was finishing a short medical stint in Portland, Maine so we decided to make our first trip up there to see him. It was great to visit with Dave and explore a little piece of the eastern most state. The weather was beautiful and the food was wonderful. The pictures below tells our story well.

We drove half way up Thursday evening and stayed the night in Massachusetts. The campground was nice, I think we missed all the summer traffic. We stayed in this one room cabin for the night, it made things easier with Ira.

Friday we finished our drive up and meet Dave on the Eastern Promenade. Ira was a good sport, so was Dave. We were happy the got along so well.

We took a ferry to Peaks Island to explore the Island life of the Northeastern United States. Ira was cute on the boat and maybe a little sea sick...

There were these cool scooner boats you could get rides on, we didn't do it this time around.

Dave was our Portland, ME expert tour guide. I really enjoyed hanging out with him.

After about three years of searching for a good sun hat, Sharon finally found one on the island.  It turns out to be the old lady hat of choice there. 

The guys exploring the Island coast.

The ferocious coastal wildlife. Don't be deceived.

Saturday morning we headed out to the Bradbury State Park and did this grueling .3 mile and couple hundred foot elevation hike to the top of Bradbury Peak. Okay, so it wasn't all that scary, just Dave at the top. You could see the ocean off in the distance.

Fate would have it that on our way to Bradbury we discovered a little community celebration of Fun Day! That's right, Fun Day. We couldn't help but humor fate by stopping in to get in on the fun. The main(e) event was the local dog show complete with course. We enjoyed the fire departments juicy hamburgers and I quote, their "wicked good, fresh, dug up three days ago from a local farm" french fries. I might be biased as an Idahoan, but they weren't all they were hyped up to be. The hamburger and root beer float were excellent.

 I do have to insert the irony of the state of ice cream in Maine. While on the Island the day before we got some great fresh fruit pies 'a la mode' (with ice cream) however, the ice cream was more...I mean all cream and no ice. We decided later that night to try again at the famous Friendly's restaurant, but to our great astonishment the ice cream didn't make it intact yet again. The irony of the story comes in at Fun Day. The ice cream in our root beer floats was solid and as icy as ice cream comes, the one ice cream dessert where you really just want the cream to make your root beer more tasty.

A trip to Maine wouldn't be complete without a visit to a lighthouse. This one is the most picturesque in all of Maine. It was very scenic. It was also nice to sit next to the ocean and listen to the waves crashing on the jagged shore.

Second half of our summer nomad adventures

Ant, Camille and the boys.

Visiting friends out West. Why can't all of our friends live in the same little village?

Ira getting a lesson in dressing up from his older and wiser cousin.

Ira, again learning from his Quinn cousins.

I've never seen two babies flapping their arms so excitedly.  They almost flew away. 

I guess we do look like sisters.  After all of these years of denying it. 

Nephews:  Whenever I'm sad, all I'll have to do is look at bat boys face.

Mac came to Lancaster, PA for the National Jamboree.  That's right, Amish country wedged right between NYC and DC.

Family reunions are the best.  I need pictures everyone!  I'm posting the only couple I took.

View of Marietta.

Ira's been obsessed with this random umbrella I bought forever ago.  Maybe not the safest baby toy...and I guess it's bad luck go have it open inside, but his mouth dropped open, and I thought his eyes were going to pop out the first time I opened it and closed it for him.

Moving to Connecticut and the Cool Whip family

Alright Alright, it’s been about 2 months since I’ve written an update.  So, I’ll let the pictures tell the story of the rest of our Summer Nomad Adventures.  And I’ll start with the last couple of weeks.  We made it to Connecticut!  Woohoo!  As Anthony mentioned, I made the move from PA to CT with Ira and met him up there after his  GE Bootcamp.  It was a little crazy and a little exhausting, but it was definitely manageable.  This story sums it up I think.  It’s also a kind of lengthy writing exercise, so pleeeeaaase don’t feel bad about skipping it.

My first full day in Connecticut, I woke from my sleeping bag next to little Ira.  I had him rested, fed, changed, and ready to go buy milk and cereal so I didn’t starve and literally, as I was reaching for the doorknob, the plumber called.  He knew our bathroom sink was backed up and was on his way.  “I’ll be there in 20 minutes, no big deal,” he reassured in an Italian-ish New York accent.   An hour and a half later he arrived, and 2 hours after reaching for the doorknob, I was out the door.  Anyway, it ended up taking a bit longer to run errands, and was during Ira’s nap and meal time, so he was grumpy to say the least.  And I, well I didn’t really have to interact with anyone, otherwise I probably would’ve noticed myself nearing grumpiness.  I was heading home at 3 when I realized that I hadn’t had anything to eat since my cereal with water on it for breakfast.   I also realized that the majority of the food I bought would have to wait for my kitchen appliances to arrive with the movers the next day.  All my energy seemed to suddenly drain.  And then over the hill, a beautiful roundish sign representing Burger King came into view.  I swear I heard choruses of angles.  Many of you might not know this about me, but I avoid fast food.  I’m not a big meat eater to begin with, but I reserve most fast food experiences for emergencies.  After days of packing, cleaning, driving, shopping and getting lost all with Ira practically attached to me, I was exhausted.  This was a caloric emergency.  I ordered a fat sugar injection in the form of a large Oreo shake and fries and I didn’t even wait to put my foot on the gas to start stuffing my face.   And the shake, oh  man, it was so picture perfect.  It even had this whipped cream oozing out the top.  Well, it wasn’t real whipped cream.  It was something that belongs in the cool whip, marshmallow family, cousin to the stuff inside Little Debbie oatmeal cream pies.  But it was soooo good.  So deliciously, artificially, satisfying.  So that pretty much sums up the move.  Maybe not a stressful, but stretching experience that drove me to enjoy and even love a fast food experience.  Mmmm.  Cool whip family.

Other highlights about the move:
•    Anthony!  I cannot tell you how happy I am to have him back.  A month is too long. 
•    Homemaking:  I’ve always associated this with cross stitching and knitting, but I’m realizing that I really like it!  I like the challenge of taking the blank canvas of an empty apartment and making it into a refuge.  I like the interior decorating, artistic curatorial, music selecting, baking, culinary arts of it all.  It’s good to have access to our kitchen stuff after a summer of living out of boxes.
•    Danbury:  It’s awesome.  Ira and I have taken many walks and have discovered that there’s lots happening.  Lebanese, Indian and Jewish festivals, free concerts in the park, farmer’s markets, etc.  Prairie Home Companion just had a show here the other day!..and we missed it.  But it’s still cool.
•    The ward:  Very nice.  Lots of families just a few years and a few kids beyond us.  A great demographic for advice collecting.
•    Ira:  He is so great.  Yesterday I took him for a checkup and vaccines.  He has stretched out over the summer.  He’s in the 90th percentile for height at over 28 inches long, and in the 45 percentile for weight at 18 lbs.  His head has gotten bigger.  In April it was in the 25th percentile and now it’s in the 75th.   Details details.  I must be a mom.  Anyway, he’s doing well adjusting to solids.  It’s sooo nice to finally have a high chair.  In PA, I was feeding him in my arms, kind of using my arms as a strait jacket, but somehow he would use lightning fast action to whip his foot into his mouth, and I’m not sure how… but in a fraction of a second rice cereal would be EVERYWHERE.  High chairs are nice.
•    We’ll post pictures of our place when we put our last finishing touches on it.  Come visit!