Pennsylvania countryside

Not many hotels around the area Megs aunt and uncle live. We ended up at this "motel" in the woods. Upside: the fireflies are SO cool!!! I want to import them to the west coast.

Pennslyvania

Amish country, pennsylvania. Town called Intercourse (teehee). After cute village of crafts, we visited Meg's aunt and uncle and cousins in Coatesville PA.

Mystic

We are touring Mystic seaport, an open air museum about ship building and whaling villages from 1800's. Cool stuff, and my dad would have loved the wooden ships and restoration of them. We are melty, though...77 degrees with 77% humidity is oogy.

leaving Boston

After 3 nights in Boston, we rented a car this morning and started driving South. First stop was Plymouth to see the rock, the Mayflower 2, and to listen to a ranger talk about the Pilgrim History. Next we headed toward Cape Cod and went to museum on the history of the glass industry. We then made it to Rhode Island and saw a bunch of mansions in Newport. We went on a tour of the Breakers- the Vanderbilt home. Finally we ended up in Connecticut in Mystic.

Higher education!

This morning, Jess and Bill went to MIT for an info session and tour. Joe and I dinked around - walked the Beacon Hill neighborhood, saw the original Cheers bar. The headed to Harvard area. Walked around some more, then B&J joined us for lunch. We then sat in the Harvard info session. Sounds like a great school, provided a) you get in and b) you have 57k/year to spend on one child's education! I think Jess was pretty jazzed about MIT, I know Bill was (he wants to go to school there too!). We leave Boston tomorrow AM, headed south then west.

Bunker Hill

Morning sightseeing at Bunker Hill memorial. Kinda glad the memorial obelisk was closed for restoration, so we didn't have to argue/cajole/convince /demand Joe to climb to the top. Now going to see the USS Constitution.

We are in Boston!

I have again been a bad blogger so I don't feel right about switching to Boston even though we just spent our first night here. First I better catch everyone up really quick.

It was a very busy end of the year. Both the boys had perfect report cards and Jess got his first 4 point ever. We let Jess have an end of the year BBQ for about 20 of his friends. Joe graduated from 5th grade. His kid graduation party will have to wait until later in the summer. I took the Friday off and went to his 5th grade graduation which was pretty fun.

I am still riding my bike to work. 380 miles in May and 220 miles in June. This last week we had too much going on and I really missed it.

Jess has passed drivers ed and is a pretty good driver but now he needs to wait for his birthday in January which is already hampering his summer plans. I think he is going to be riding his bike all over federal way this summer. We spent the last week before leaving on vacation going to a lot of doctor and dentist appts. It would be really nice if he could drive.

Our old cat Lucy has been having problems the last few months, seeing, hearing, walking and got really really skinny. I had to take her in to have her put down before our vacation. It was a lot harder than I thought. She had been in our family for 16 years.

Last weekend the boys went with the scouts to their annual shooting sports outing at Blewett Pass. Meg and I took that chance to get away to Oregon. We did some wine tasting and sight seeing around Hood River. We really like the area and think about buying some property for retirement if it wasn't so far away from our current home or Stretch Island.

OK- now you are caught up. Meg will probably post pics and the story of our first day after breakfast.

June 2011

Still pretty busy around here but things should be slowing down soon. Joe's play was a couple of weeks ago so that is finished. He played Lewis Carroll in an Alice and Wonderland play. He was excellent. He also just finished up with the Steel Drums band at school. 5th Grade graduation is this week and he will be heading to middle school next year.

The scouts went to Ancient Lakes a couple of weeks ago. I have some really good pics on flickr. It was fun but we have been there 4 times now. We will look for somewhere else next year. Next weekend they are going for a Shooting Sports weekend at Blewett Pass.

I am still riding to work and building up my endurance. Now, I sometimes ride all the way from home (14 miles) instead of parking at the Kent park and ride. On Friday I saw the all time record- 63 rabbits!

Jess is getting ready for finals this week. He is very close to a 4 point but needs to do well on a couple of his tests and final projects.

Last Saturday, we spent the day on Whidbey Island for Grandma June's 94th birthday. We had a lot of fun with cousins and extended family. We left a little early to get Joe to a birthday party on Saturday night.

We have just 2 weeks before our trip to Boston/Washington DC. It is coming fast and we are getting excited.