It’s been awhile

I can’t believe the last post made here was from summer vacation.
Now we are plowing into ski season. But of course first there’s Halloween. Which everybody at our household is hepped up for. Not sure hepped is a word but there you go. Here’s a short clip from fall leaves falling here during our wonderful fall foliage season.

Summer vacation 2009

We’ve been on the family summer vacation for the last few days and have a few more to go. Time with Amy’s family in Minnesota and my old friend Eric in Duluth has been a lot of fun. The weather, minus the thunderstorm on the ride into the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, has been fantastic. The best weather of the summer so far, so we’ve been lucky. I have a pile of video I’ve compiled from the Flip camera and have been daily updating the files to You Tube but will link back to them here as follows. There’s a few silly ones but also some fun ones.
Mississippi frog hunting.

Eating peas from the garden at Eric’s house in Duluth, Minn.

A visit to the biggest inland port in America.

Swimming in the chilly Gitch…

A day, or at least a few hours at the beach with Finn

We broke out today, when Nana came and watched Kai for a few hours, and headed for Range Pond State Park. It was fun one-on-one time with my best, best friend and son Finnegan. He’s a delight, a joy and wonderful gift from the great one.

At six he loves the water and his imagination is superb. Today he was taken by the ramp for disabled people to get into the water and watched a man use it to get from confines of his wheelchair to the freedom of the water, which was 77 degrees on one of the few hot, muggy summer days we’ve had in Maine this year.
Here’s a short video starring the Finndog and filmed on a Flip camera that belongs to work but I wanted to test out a more complex use of the camera. Sorry about the long closing scene of the sand castle, I edited in the Flip software and I need some more practice.

Happy birthday to Finnegan and Kai

Finnegan and Kai were born on July 4 and July 5 respectively. Finn gets fireworks for his birthday and Kai, well he’s only 2 so he gets fireworks too. Here’s the rough cut video from two days of fun over the Fourth.

Finn’s second t-ball game, the short version.

Violets in the spring

The header above is cut from a shot of some violets that grow wild blanketing our side lawn for a few weeks each spring. I’m not sure if they were planted, are the results of something exotic and invasive escaping, or an intentional garden effort by somebody before me here. Either way, we have decided to enjoy them and not replant the side lawn with grass.
The newest addition to the homestead is a fence in the backyard to help contain Kai and keep him from the street until he understands the dangers there. He doesn’t like being contained much but usually forgets about it when he becomes lost in play. It helps the big people be able to relax for a bit.

The violets that grow wild on the side lawn.

Love this graphic regarding a snoutbreak….

Hilarious clip on the swine flu here by John Stewart…

A day at Popham

We had a great visit to Popham Beach State Park on Sunday. Kai and Finnegan had a blast in the water and sand as did all the children there on a warm sunny Sunday in April. The power of the sea is invigorating and kids just feel it with all their beings.

Kai Erik at the beach in Maine.

We also visited the Fort Popham, which is closed for restoration at a present but you can still see the outside of the fort. The bonus there was we saw and counted more than 20 harbor seals out in the water. They kept popping their heads up to look around but it was pretty neat to see so many seals in one place.Here’s the video.

My other blog…

More about the news business and work than family. I wanted to try out another blogging platform as well.

Check out Big News Day, here.  Is it Okay to blog about a blog?

To the park pyramid and the Oncler

Finn and I walked to the park and climbed on the rope pyramid there. It was a blast. “It’s as big as our house,” Finnegan said later describing the playground feature to his mom.

The only drawback was the derelict who came stumbling through and left the mangled remains of his near- empty 40-ounce beer can on the basketball court. It was an odd display of stumbling drunk tricks and a sadly sick man. Either way, unfortunate on Earth Day.

Finn surveys the "Oncler".

Finn asked if it was the Oncler? And then asked if the Oncler was real? I told him the Oncler is a figurative character, he represents real things but, no, he is not real.

“Oh,” Finn says. So like that guy with his beer can, he’s like the Oncler and you and me are like the Lorax?”  Something like that I say, yes — thinking if the kid only knew the beauty in his observation.  Then we were off to counting the steps up and the steps down to the next stop — the duck pond, where the mallards were only upstaged but the aubundance of earthworms squirming on the baseball infield.

Coming down the rope pyramid.

Happy Earth Day.