December 2018

With our wacky climate, the ponds froze over Thanksgiving, allowing for our first-ever skating in November

These days our companies don't dispense swag around the holidays, but we found the real thing

Gingerbread house building followed the usual routine 

The girls cooperated to deck the house with gobs of frosting

 and it helped that there were 6 faces to decorate

 and then Tundra wasted no time digging in. Makes me wonder if he really does lack a functional Tas1r2 taste receptor, which makes all cats insensitive to sweets.

This year we mustered our colonial spirit at the Lexington Tea Burning. Denouncing that scoundrel King George and his intolerable taxes, we re-enacted the first Tea Party of 1773 that inspired a more well-known protest by copycats in Boston. 

 Tessie's birthday dinner request was hot dogs, strawberries, and guacamole, which made for a festive plate.

Our 6 year-old 

 When holiday cookies were made, Oreo the chimp met his namesake

Boda Borg remains a top attraction. We solved "27 Seconds" and came close in "Alcatraz", where the final room confuzzled us.

We harvested the gingerbread house before Christmas 

and the walls were as inedible as ever. Not so the icing, which made a breakfast bowl no more sugary than Cap'n Crunch

 Gloucester beach

On the shortest day, we created light

Swinging sparklers at night is one effect that does not replicate on digital cameras

Halloween, birthdays, and running

Pumpkin carving time 

We had a Professor, a Weasley, and a Princess 

make that 2 princesses with Princess Losey making an appearance at the Alkermes over-the-top Halloween party

Our 3 Rs: Caroline reading 

Tessie writing

and Erin running. Their team did well enough at the New England Junior Olympics Championships to qualify for the Regional meet in New York

A surprise snowstorm made the original course un-runnable 

and they moved it to Van Cortlandt park in the Bronx

where the course was cold and tough

 Their team came in fifth and qualified for the national meet in Reno, NV, but sensibly, the club doesn't support sending its 9-10 year-olds to attend the national meet. 

Tessie's soccer season ended with all smiles

and so did Erin's

For his 44th birthday

 Dave and Heather saw Hamilton again, this time in Boston

 Erin hit the double-digits

 and now zooms around the house on roller skates

 It was one of the coldest Thanksgivings on record

 but the holiday food was warm and plentiful

Capon Springs

 The road to Capon Springs requires a mandatory stop at Woodbine Farms in the foothills of the Shenandoah Mountains

The first afternoon at Capon Springs requires a hike up to the ridge on the WV-VA border

This year Claire and co. joined us

Katy was pleased that we were upgraded to a big table in the dining room

 64-degree water was fine for Erin and Charlie

and the fireplace warmed us in the morning

Erin's homework for missing class was to find evidence of tree-rifting

and frost wedging


Solid and liquid gaseous fossil fuels, side-by-side!

Driving back to DCA was too simple a plan compared to finding NPS sites in the hinterlands of PA. Getting there required traversing WV and its GPS-impenetrable mountains. With this map we made our way northwest out to PA. 

Fort Necessity was where young George Washington hunkered down after skirmishing with a band of French soldiers during the French and Indian War. He later returned under a British general and as we learned from Hamilton, led his men straight into a massacre and witnessed their deaths firsthand.

Bobblehead George came along to witness firsthand the girls completing the Jr Ranger booklet

Hey look, there's April 19, 1775, a glorious morning for America

Get your arms off of my daughter, Mister Sampey

Next was Friendship Hill, the homestead of Albert Gallatin, who served as Secretary of the Treasury under James Madison. I guess he liked sextants, too, but why his 18th century home on the Monongahela River deserves a NPS site is beyond me.

It would have been infinitely more entertaining to tour this nearby nuclear plant on the Monongahela

On our way out of the Pittsburgh airport, we found 2 statues honoring local heroes.
The first, young GW.

and the 2nd is Franco Harris in the midst of his Immaculate Reception from a 1972 Steelers playoff game