Ben gets his yellow belt!

Ben has been taking Karate at the Lake Placid Martial Arts Academy for about 9 months, and today he got his yellow belt.

It was an ordinary class throughout, starting off with warm-up exercises and then some drills involving tumbling and falling safely...


At the end of the class, Sensei came to the front of the room, and recognized Ben's work in the last months...


Ben was called to the front of the room to receive his diploma...


...and his new belt...

The school has a nice tradition in which the other students line up and shake the hand of (and in some cases give hugs to) the advancing student...

We're very proud of Ben, for all of his hard work!

More Thanksgiving!

We took a walk on this chilly afternoon to see some pigs that a neighbor acquired recently...


Ben and Fuz and the dogs were particularly excited...


Ben ran down the steep hill through long grass in his mud-boots...this pic was taken a split-second before he faceplanted...


It was cool (35-ish) but the wind made it feel cooler...


The pigs are very cute, the 2 big ones protect the runt between them at all times...


Miles wanted to leap the enclosure walls, so I put him on his leash until we were clear of the barn...


He has had a great time running and playing this weekend...we all have!

Thanksgiving!

I'm thankful for family, friends , the relative safety in which I live, my work, and my health...I am also thankful for great books to read, places to go/see/explore, food to cook and eat, camping trips (alone and with friends), and dogs!

We went down to visit with my parents in CT for Thanksgiving...seeing my parents, my sister, Brad and Lucio, and tons of dogs...


We made a Tur-duc-hen and a bunch of sides, all of which turned out (against the odds) delicious...


Ben helped with lots of the prep, but his specialty is marshmallowing the sweet potatoes...


Gail and Ben watched some of the big parade...


There was lots of hanging out with family and dogs (we had tons of both this weekend)...

A very nice long weekend!

more halloween...

We got up yesterday and worked designing our pumpkin...Ben wanted to do a 2-faced Janus pumpkin, so we did a variation on that involving clone troopers from Star Wars...


One with a happy face...


...and one with a sad face...


Our tradition is that Ben and Gail do the design and drawing work, and I do the surgery...


It cam out really well...


We enjoyed some more spooky jigglers...



it looked great after dark


even the sad face was cool...

Halloween 2010

At LPMHS this year, Team 6 was composed of hippies...


As always it was a fun, if not entirely academically productive, day...


Not shown in the picture at LP were my Vibram 5-fingers, really cool shoes that I love, although they (in combination with my shorts and the snow falling later in Saranac Lake when we went Trick or Treating with Ben after school) were a little chilly...


Ben went as "The Shadow" from Inkheart...his idea and he worked out the costume himself...


He was pretty spooky!


Gail was a pumpkin...


Saranac Lake does Halloween really well, and we love it every year!


On Saturday, we spent the day making Halloween food and watching spooky shows on TV while it was gross outside...bloody jello jigglers and such...


Ben loved eating the bloody hearts...


The brains, made from tapioca and thick jello was perfect and perfectly gross...


The brain came out of the mold with some ridges and a nice line dividing the lobes, and the clots and veins were awesome!


It tasted great as well, Ben had some for dinner last night, and also for breakfast this morning...

Ninja Restaurant!!!

Ben and Anti-Sarah and I went out to dinner at a Ninja Restaurant in NYC over the Columbus Day weekend...it was awesome!


We were attacked constantly throughout the dinner, and had great food as well...


Our cottage had a door as well as a window for ninja attacks, and Ben kept an eye on the window most of the time...


we were attacked a lot...


I spent lots of the dinner laughing so hard that I almost fell out of my chair a number of times, and actually got out of breath...


Anti-Sarah almost has a cardiac arrest a number of times throughout the supper...


Anti-Sarah and I took the edge off with a Sake tasting sampler, all of which tasted to me a bit like windex to me...


The food was great!


Sarah had a fun salad, which required a karate-chop to get into it...




I just liked this pic of Ben enjoying his supper


There was a cool magic show after the dinner...


It was an awesome time!

Fall Weekend

Ben and I spent some time noodling around in the woods behind our house...I'm going on a kayak-camping trip in a couple weeks, and wanted to test out a new hammock-geek piece of gear...a hammock sock which encloses the sleep in a cocoon, thus extending the comfortable sleeping temperature in the hammock by a bunch (one shortcoming of hammocks is that the contouring fit, which crushes the insulation under you, exposing you to cold air underneath you)...


Ben loved it so much that after I was done hanging and adjusting the fit and drape of the hammock sock, he climbed inside...Gail came out to check out the cocooned Ben...


The added (and non-smooshed) insulation of the hammock sock, in combination with the draped nylon over the top of the hammock (running over a ridgeline, so it doesn't drape over your face) makes for a nice and toasty space...


Miles thought we were silly but had fun running around, and under, both Ben and me while we were play-testing the hammock...in the pic above, you can see the hammock sock joining the hammock...I used a bit of stretchy shock-cord so that there is some give and take in the fit between the two (this prevents the insulation layer in the sock from getting crushed)...


Ben liked it so much, that he insisted that we try it out tonight, despite the fact that it will be below freezing tomorrow morning...we'll report back in the morning!

Ben's first day of school 2010

Ben was really excited for the beginning of the schoolyear, and for a change this year, I got to see him off...


We got down there early to wait


He had trouble staying in the car, so he got out and did a "first day of school" dance


Gail reads to him every morning before the bus comes


When it came, he ran over to get on with his friends


Ben likes to ride at the back of the bus, to chat with friends back there...


Gail picked him up at the end of the first day, he had a great time!