another month gone by
and I'm still horribly hit-n-miss with the posting. At least I have the excuse that I had my kids for six days, from the 19th through the 24th. I tried to make the most of it with day trips and activities.
Thursday we finished school shopping. I swear with my oldest two boys we used to do it all in a single trip to Sears. With these three, it takes about 6 trips to a dozen stores. Part of it is we aren't living in Columbus anymore with the massive shopping malls and Sears that had a kids department that was at least half as large as the entire store here in Concord. Part of is that the stores are carrying more and more fashions that I won't let my girls buy, so there's less of a selection to start with.
Friday I took Dan and Elyssia down to Stonaham, Mass to the Stone Zoo. It's pretty basic as far as Zoos go, but it was still a fun time and an easy day trip to start off the weekend. Saturday Sam decided to come along and I took the three of them up to Rumny, NH to Polar Caves. They aren't real caves, they are a huge--literally mountainous--pile of glacier-deposited granite boulders with various tunnels, passages, and spaces under and around them. It turned out to be quite the work-out for me, as I had to go through either nearly doubled over or on my knees through most of the "caves". They also have a few semi-exotic animals: lot of birds and some european deer. It was an odd mix, but the kids enjoyed seeing them. We then enjoyed some surpisingly good chinese food nearby.
Sunday they held the annual model railroad show at the arena here in Concord. I've been taking Dan regularly the last few years, so I was very happy with the timing. We found some much needed hardware, a couple of new cars for his train, and a book on basic layouts for me. Except when we got back to my house, Dan had no interest in doing anything with it. I'm hoping we can finally play with and put to use our purchases with his set this coming weekend.
For Monday I had talked about taking the kids to StoryLand, but it was supposed to rain all day. It's a 2.5 hour drive each way and 5 hours in the car to spen 6 or 7 very wet hours at the park at twenty-seven bucks a head wasn't my idea of a good time, so we went to Chuckie Cheese's instead. Dan and Elyssia had fun there, but when Elyssia realized in only rained during the first half of the day, she was still disappointed about missing Story Land. So now I am actually thinking about the normally unthinkable, and maybe taking them up on Labor Day Weekend. Yeah, I know, I'm insane.
Tuesday was the best day. Off and on this summer, Sam has been asking about going horseback riding. So Tuesday I drove her up to the Castle in the Clouds in Moultonborogh, where they do 1 hour trail rides, and we went riding. I've not been on a horse since I was 12 or 13, and 45 minutes in to the ride, I was more than ready for it to be done. But I survived, and she had a lot of fun and announced that she'd like to do that often. After the ride, we had a very nice lunch at the cafe there, and then took the bus ride to the top of the mountain (which sounds more grandeous than it was, it was maybe a 10 minute ride) and toured the great house. I will eventually have pictures up on my facebook; I've only cropped and saved about half of them so far.
Since then it's been mostly work and chores. Tomorrow is a new month, and I will attempt yet again a new attitude and priority for myself, to include writing here more.
Thursday we finished school shopping. I swear with my oldest two boys we used to do it all in a single trip to Sears. With these three, it takes about 6 trips to a dozen stores. Part of it is we aren't living in Columbus anymore with the massive shopping malls and Sears that had a kids department that was at least half as large as the entire store here in Concord. Part of is that the stores are carrying more and more fashions that I won't let my girls buy, so there's less of a selection to start with.
Friday I took Dan and Elyssia down to Stonaham, Mass to the Stone Zoo. It's pretty basic as far as Zoos go, but it was still a fun time and an easy day trip to start off the weekend. Saturday Sam decided to come along and I took the three of them up to Rumny, NH to Polar Caves. They aren't real caves, they are a huge--literally mountainous--pile of glacier-deposited granite boulders with various tunnels, passages, and spaces under and around them. It turned out to be quite the work-out for me, as I had to go through either nearly doubled over or on my knees through most of the "caves". They also have a few semi-exotic animals: lot of birds and some european deer. It was an odd mix, but the kids enjoyed seeing them. We then enjoyed some surpisingly good chinese food nearby.
Sunday they held the annual model railroad show at the arena here in Concord. I've been taking Dan regularly the last few years, so I was very happy with the timing. We found some much needed hardware, a couple of new cars for his train, and a book on basic layouts for me. Except when we got back to my house, Dan had no interest in doing anything with it. I'm hoping we can finally play with and put to use our purchases with his set this coming weekend.
For Monday I had talked about taking the kids to StoryLand, but it was supposed to rain all day. It's a 2.5 hour drive each way and 5 hours in the car to spen 6 or 7 very wet hours at the park at twenty-seven bucks a head wasn't my idea of a good time, so we went to Chuckie Cheese's instead. Dan and Elyssia had fun there, but when Elyssia realized in only rained during the first half of the day, she was still disappointed about missing Story Land. So now I am actually thinking about the normally unthinkable, and maybe taking them up on Labor Day Weekend. Yeah, I know, I'm insane.
Tuesday was the best day. Off and on this summer, Sam has been asking about going horseback riding. So Tuesday I drove her up to the Castle in the Clouds in Moultonborogh, where they do 1 hour trail rides, and we went riding. I've not been on a horse since I was 12 or 13, and 45 minutes in to the ride, I was more than ready for it to be done. But I survived, and she had a lot of fun and announced that she'd like to do that often. After the ride, we had a very nice lunch at the cafe there, and then took the bus ride to the top of the mountain (which sounds more grandeous than it was, it was maybe a 10 minute ride) and toured the great house. I will eventually have pictures up on my facebook; I've only cropped and saved about half of them so far.
Since then it's been mostly work and chores. Tomorrow is a new month, and I will attempt yet again a new attitude and priority for myself, to include writing here more.