Spring Break, part 1

Ben and I have the same Spring Break, and so we headed down to visit with Muz and D for a week, starting in Cornwall, and then going into NYC with them...


Saturday night, we all went over to Torrington to enjoy a fabulous, and entertaining supper at FUJI, a Japanese restaurant where the cook your food at the table with lots of theatrics and FLAME!!!


We navigated over and back using D's Garmin Nuvi, which is lots of fun...we changed the spoken directions component to Australian accent to Swedish to Magyar, and then back to the Australian guy...


Ben looked surprised during dessert for no reason that I can remember, but he looked cute in the hat, so here's a picture...



D read the bedtime story to Ben and Mo...


Ben is quickly becoming a card shark, and Muz is a frequent sucker target for his card-playing...


We got into NYC and had a fun dinner with Anti-Sarah and Uncle Brad, and we played so long that we had to postpone the bath that we had negotiated for until the next morning...he still had a good time...he has slept the first 2 nights of our stay in Maggie's dog bed, tonight he will be sleeping over at Sarah and Brad's place...


Maggie is a sweetie, despite her gratuitously pink nose...she and Ben love each other, although she does get tired out by all of the play...


Yesterday we went uptown to play in some playground on the East side of Central Park, until the zoo opened at 10am...the one picture above was sort of an Aztec Bunker themed playground, and has elaborate water-sprinklers all over the place...Ben and I promised each other to come back sometime in the hot weather to enjoy the wet...


On the way down to another, somewhat asian-themed, playground nearer the zoo, we noted this cool wooden gazebo up above our path, and explored in the rocks at the base for a bit, looking for a way to climb up (going around is for prudent people) until some nosy old ladies shamed me into looking out for the welfare of my son...


The Central Park Zoo was, as always, a blast, even in the light rain that was falling on us by this point...we had fun seeing the beasties in this small but nice pocket-zoo...



After seeing the zoo-proper, we went to the Children's' Zoo, which was also fun, and Ben loved feeding the goats...


Last night I left Ben and my parents to look after each other, and headed over to Brooklyn to meet my sister Sarah for some barbecue and (free) bourbon in Brooklyn with Cynthia before heading over to a local bar that has indoor Bocce facilities...they are part of a Bocce team in a Brooklyn league, and although they argued that they love the pleasure of my company, they were also short 1 player for the final game of the regular season, and were aware of my prior petanque experience (petanque is closely related to bocce, so I was able to play with minimal tutoring)...Sarah's team is named the "Liber-Bocces", and we were playing the "Idealists"...a team made up of smart, glass-wearing, hair-receding, earth-tone wearing guys so similar looking as a whole that we kept mixing them up...


In the picture above, you can see Mariann, a soulmate of mine in former life during her warmup...


This is "Team Liber-Bocce", plus 1 stand-in...


Today Ben and I made a trip uptown, by subway and bus, to the Museum of Natural History...it was, as ever, the best museum in the universe...the above is a picture of Ben standing behind the shell of a really large clam...


Ben loves the sea-life exhibit, especially the life-sized blue whale, but this time we also spent some time actually reading and learning about some of the cool beasties living in our oceans, including these awesome tube worms...


We also took a turn through the meteorite and gems exhibit...here you can see Ben peering into a ginormous geode filled with amethyst crystals...


When Ben asked what kind of mineral this was, and I told him Labrodorite, he immediately sat down and patted it...it's a Sheffield genetic trait, and possibly not that funny to those outside of our end of the gene-pool...


Ben was starting to run out of gas a bit as we climbed to the 4th floor...this is obvious by the fact that he managed to look grumpy in front of the giant ground sloth...really...who can be grumpy when faced with fossil evidence of a 20 foot tall ground sloth...Ben, before a snack and juice-box...


Luckily I had some supplies in my bag, so I fueled him up, and we moved on...he seemed much better by the time we got to the hall of really, really, big dinosaurs (that's not the actual name, but it should be)...when I pointed out this huge arm bone of available for touching and comparison by museum visitors, Ben asked if he could sit on it...my initial reaction was to say no, but I couldn't think of a reason not to...everyone experiences, and has the right to experience, the majesty of the ancient in their own way, and in this case, on this day, Ben wanted to absorb the millennia through his butt...


He loves the interactive computer stations, this one was on Carnosaurs...


This one was on geckos, 5 of which live with us in Lake Clear, so Ben was very interested in this one, and how it related to both dinosaurs and the beasts living in his room...


Ben was fascinated by the human evolution exhibit, especially the skeletons and the "loose" bones on display...


We also went to the temporary exhibit that the museum is running on water...it had lots of touchy-feely stuff, which we both love...an experiment that Ben could run on water flow and dams...


This one was on the effects on artesian wells of draining ground water supplies over time...Ben may have missed some of the finer points, but he had fun pumping...


We stopped for lunch in the cafeteria downstairs for lunch before going, and had a great meal...



Ben loved that the subway station attached to the museum was still museum-like...we had a great time in the first few days of our vacation, and there will be more entries in the next 2 weeks...

Easter and Geocaching

Easter came early to Lake Clear...


We were happy to see that the Easter Bunny had made his rounds, and were well started hunting for eggs by a bit after 6am...


...were enjoying the fruits of Ben's efforts not much later...


...and were done with the hunt by quarter to seven...


We then got back into bed to watch a bit of "Lion King 2: Simba's Pride", an Easter tradition we're starting this year...


A while later, we got up and Ben requested special eggs, in the form of "toad in the hole", a trick of mine that Ben enjoys...


He cleaned his plate in short order, and even ate one of the "oatmeal bread cookies" that are a byproduct of the manufacturing process...


Another new tradition we've added this year was an Easter coconut...I don't know where the demonic grin came from, but Ben liked the process much more than coconut milk it yielded...why the coconut was in one of my bureau drawers to begin with is a whole different story that we won't get into here...


We next headed out to do some geocaching in the Lake Placid area...we were stunned by the fact that even though it was a beautiful day (clear blue sky to the horizons, 20 degrees, not much wind), there wasn't anybody out on the trails except for us...


We grabbed one of the maps of the Peninsula Trails area, to help us figure out how to get from the parking area out to the geocache...we took different trails going out and coming back so that we could see as much of the trail system as possible...Ben is getting really good at helping me with map-reading...


In the clearings I was able to read 9 satellites on my GPS, which ended up getting us within a couple of feet from the geocache...


We also stopped numerous times along the way to read the interpretive signage about the flora and fauna to be found along the trails in these spectacular woods...


Ben got a kick out of sitting on this mostly buried bench...


Believe it or not, the above is a picture of a picnic table in a large clearing...yes, the snow really is that deep...


I saw this cool fungus on a dead birch tree, and wanted to record all of its colors and textures...


We went out a ways onto Lake Placid (not Mirror Lake, which is the lake that the village of Lake Placid adjoins) and could hear the lake-ice shifting and booming...I wasn't worried, because on the way over I saw some fishermen with their trucks parked on the ice, but it gave Ben a chance to feel adventurous...


He then took off running ahead of me down the trail, following the map and my GPS towards the geocache...


It was a lovely day, and we had a great time enjoying the walk...


We got to the dam and bridge that the geocache is near, and Ben went across in front of me...it was slippery from frozen spray from the spillway, so we took it slow and I was glad to be across...


We found the geocache in short order, did our signing/trading, and headed back out to the car...we went to lunch in town, enjoying a McDonald's lunch in front of the fireplace in the LP McD's before heading out to the next geocache...


We started out from a parking area, and took a wrong trail at first and had to double back...when we found our way back into the woods, it was without benefit of a trail, but the GPS was more than enough to show us the way...unfortunately, when we got close, there was a steep hill and a river to cross between us and the geocache...

We slid down the hill together, but the river crossing seemed a bit more than I wanted Ben to try in the winter...he waited on the shore of the pond outlet while I leapt across the gorge like Carl Lewis...


It was beautiful and sunny on my side of the pond/river (Little Cherrypatch Pond is really just a wide spot in a river on its way to the Ausable river), but Ben assured me that he was warm, and that he wanted me to find the geocache...he played with sticks and rocks and pine cones and sang the whole time I was, incredibly unsuccessfully, looking for the geocache...

I didn't find it, even after 20 minutes of looking, mine were the only tracks in the area (not counting the numerous animal tracks like in the picture above), and the snow was drifted high and frozen hard all over the place, so the geocache may in fact be there, but we'll have to come back in the spring to find it...

It was fun anyway, Ben and I had a great time exploring the woods, and, as always, enjoyed finding our way to new places thanks to geocaching...

Jewel had her babies!!!

I was away part of the weekend, but got a call from Gail announcing the Jewel (see previous post) had started giving birth...and then later that she had given birth to 11 healthy chocolate puppies...7 males and 4 females...


We got pictures from the breeder last night, and I thought that I would pass one of them along...Jewel looks tired but happy...we're very excited!!!

A new puppy!!!

Nope...not yet, but Gail and I drove up North of Malone (closer to Canada than Malone) to visit with the mother of Ben's future puppy today...we were checking her out to see if she passed muster, and she definitely did...Jewel's a beautiful chocolate Labrador retriever with a delightfully square head and body who will be giving birth to her 3rd litter of puppies this coming Monday...



She welcomed us into her home and spent the entire visit giving us kisses, leaning against us, and sitting on my foot, while we talked with her owners about the puppies that would be coming on St. Patrick's Day...


She's a sweet and earnest girl that is not in the least bit pointy or hound-esque...


We have dibs on the female pick of the litter, she has had litters of 9 and 12 puppies before, and since she was bred to another chocolate, she'll probably have all (or almost all) chocolates...


Although this picture isn't perfect it does give you a look at 2 more generations of the same line...the chocolate, Isabella, is her daughter (yes daughter, we were surprised too) by the same father, so she will be sisters with Ben's puppy...the yellow is Jewel's granddaughter, Ruby...


Isabella is also beautiful and square and taller than Jewel, which would indicate that Buddy, the father of both Isabella and Ben's pup, is more of an American Labrador...Jewel is more along the lines of the short and stout English Labrador...

We are obviously quite excited and very impressed with Jewel and her daughter Isabella, and Gail is excitedly (maybe beyond excitedly...down towards excitedly's neighbor obsessively) listing and organizing names for the puppy, even though the choice will be Ben's...