Fun at Kimball Farm

We went to Kimball farm in Westford with the family this weekend. Wow, was it fun! Their offerings begin with food and ice cream, and are then huge in scope, ranging from bumper boats and petting zoos to 2 miniature golf coures, a driving range and batting cages. Fun was had by all!

Connor's first drive on the range

Fiona is getting the hang of things

Uncle Michael demonstrating the proper technique

Bumper boats -- Booyah -- they were fun!

Bam!

Fiona did a great job driving!

Connor did not want to leave the batting cages!

Bamboo Capture

I suppose it will come as no surprise that Mike and I enjoy taking photos of the world around us. We've done a little photo editing in the past and are very interested in doing more. The problem is that editing on a laptop is less than ideal. Making corrections to small areas that require intricate detail using a track pad or mouse is not easy.

Last weekend we undertook a project to help us visualize some changes we were discussing. Specifically, we were trying to figure out how a new landscape feature would fit into our yard. We wanted to compare a few different sites and positions so the idea would gel a little better in our minds.

We decided to mark off the areas we were considering so they would be visible, then we photographed the various sites. Next, we went to the store that sold the item(s) we were considering. We took photos at various angles that matched the angles we shot at home.

I planned to use Gimp for my edits, as I have had a lot of success with it in the past. As I contemplated how we would execute the project, the Bamboo tablet came to mind. My stepfather John introduced me to the Bamboo years ago. At the time, I didn't really understand its power and utility. Yesterday, the benefits hit me like a brick wall.

Bamboo makes a tablet and stylus system that lets you draw on the tablet to make precise edits to a document or image. After reviewing the various options, I decided the Bamboo Capture was the best fit for our long range uses. A quick trip to Best Buy (which included the use of some gift cards -- thank you, Dad) and we owned it!

The Capture as shown on Wacom's website

The Capture experience, also from Wacom

The Capture made short work of our editing task. I didn't read any instructions or follow any tutorials. The tablet was incredibly intuitive and easy to use out of the box.We place our item of consideration in several different spots and got to see the final look, with just a few clicks.

I am in love with the Bamboo... I can't wait to use it more!

Mad Libs

We recently rediscovered a childhood favorite - Mad Libs -- reincarnated on the iPhone. Mike and I played with it a bit on a long car ride a few weeks ago. Connor had a blast doing it on our trip into Boston.

I want to share these funny little stories!

Connor did this one.

TARZANOne of the most hairy
ADJECTIVE characters in fiction is called 'Tarzan of the dogs
PLURAL NOUN.' Tarzan was raised by a/an monster
ANIMAL and lives in a/an green
ADJECTIVE jungle in the heart of darkest (the) Texas
A PLACE. He spends most of his time eating bananas
TYPE OF FOOD (PLURAL) and swinging from tree to cat
NOUN. Whenever he gets angry, he beats on his chest and says, 'beep
FUNNY NOISE!' This is his war cry. Tarzan always dresses in blue
ADJECTIVE shorts made from the skin of a/an kangaroo
ANIMAL, and his best friend is a/an fat
ADJECTIVE chimpanzee named Cheetah. He is supposed to be able to speak to elephants and zombies
PLURAL NOUN. In the movies, Tarzan is played by Connor
PERSON IN ROOM.

Connor also did this one.

VACATIONSA vacation is when you take a trip to some hairy
ADJECTIVE place with your plain
ADJECTIVE family. Usually you go to some place that is near a/an Florida
NOUN or up on a/an Colorado
NOUN. A good vacation place is one where you can ride kangaroos
ANIMAL (PLURAL) or play Wii
GAME or go hunting for hockey sticks
PLURAL NOUN. I like to spend my time bowling
VERB ENDING IN 'ING' or skiing
VERB ENDING IN 'ING'. When parents go on a vacation, they spend their time eating three cheeseburgers
FOOD (PLURAL) a day, and fathers play golf, and mothers sit around running
VERB ENDING IN 'ING'. Last summer, my little brother fell in a/an Connor
NOUN and got poison rose bush
PLANT all over his foot
PART OF THE BODY. My family is going to go to Disney World
PLACE, and I will practice snowboarding
VERB ENDING IN 'ING'. Parents need vacations more than kids because parents are always very silly
ADJECTIVE and because they have to work 1,025,000
NUMBER hours every day all year making enough jelly donuts
PLURAL NOUN to pay for the vacation.


And this one:

A RECIPE FOR ICE CUBESTo make tall
ADJECTIVE ice cubes, first find a tray with molds shaped like a ice
NOUN or a dog
NOUN. Then snowboarding
VERB once while holding the tray. Fill the molds with Koolaid
TYPE OF LIQUID, or even water
TYPE OF LIQUID, but for the best results always use milk
TYPE OF LIQUID. It can even be dyed yellow
COLOR if you wish. Ski
VERB carefully when placing the tray in the freezer. Allow the cubes to fly
VERB for at least 125
NUMBER minutes until they are completely hairy
ADJECTIVE. Remove the tray quickly
ADVERB, and jiggle with your heads
PART OF THE BODY (PLURAL) until the cubes run
VERB. Add to your favorite drink and play
VERB!

Characterizations

After touring Fenway last Saturday, we continued on into Boston for a couple of errands and lunch. Mike had forewarned me there was an anime conference. I was completely unprepared for it. Turns out, it was the annual Anime Expo. The Anime Expo included a masquerade, anime video contest, video games and more... Apparently, somewhere around 20,000 people were expected to attend this year. We saw many of them, dressed as their favorite character, as we had our lunch...

Food court at the Prudential Center

Who knew?!

Shed Offices

Mike's upcoming transition to working from home has gotten us thinking about an office space outside of the house. This isn't an idea we've been serious about; it is something we have toyed with and something that "would be cool".

When I cam across this article on TreeHugger today, it really struck a chord. This is what we are thinking. Wow...




The video does drag on a bit, but I like seeing what they did. I wonder what the budget was. If you have some time to get sucked in -- like I did -- follow the link over to the TreeHugger article. There is a great slideshow of home office sheds and some other cool shed-office related stuff.

Touring Fenway

We had a great day the Saturday before Easter. Michael, Connor and I decided to take a trip into Boston for the day. We thought it would be fun to take Connor for a tour of Fenway Park.

We arrived at 9:20 am and were among the last to get into the 10 am tour. Our group of 120 was queued up to go at 9:55. They split us into two smaller groups of 60 each. The 50 minute tour was a lot of fun. We got to see the visiting team locker room, the Green Monster seats, the press box and a variety of other cool areas. I'd definitely recommend it!

Welcome to Fenway!

First time seeing the field up close

Checking out the view from the Green Monster

We all had so much fun!

Love this teammates statue!

Worcester Restaurant Week

Worcester Restaurant Week was hosted from March 17 to 31, 2012.  We had pretty much forgotten about it until our friends Steve and Helen reminded us and suggested we get together for dinner.

After perusing the choices, we decided to visit Via Alto 27 -- a new spot for all of us. We headed to Clinton and were welcomed by the elegant charm of the restaurant and notes of live piano music. It was lovely. We all decided to take advantage of the $23.12 restaurant week menu.

I started with the tomato bruschetta. Helen, Steve and Mike all got salads (Caesar for Mike) as their starter.

Tomato Bruschetta

The bruschetta was a hit. I really liked it. The salads seemed to go over well for everyone else, though it was difficult for me to notice with me bruschetta love...

We tried three different entrees. Mike and I each got the Surf & Turf 4oz. Beef bistro filet
w/shrimp & scallops risotto.

Surf & Turf and Seafood Risotto

It was fantastic. The risotto was very, very good. Mike read up on risotto later (we never eat it) and we concluded it is so good because it is so terribly unhealthy (rice soaked in milk, butter, and parmesan, then seasoned even more as it cooks). Steve got the Shrimp and crab stuffed baked filet of sole w/vegetable risotto and Helen got the White lasagna w/zucchini & mushroom topped w/tomato basil or Alfredo sauce. Both got rave reviews.

Dessert was the flourless chocolate cake for all but Helen, who got the gelato. I didn't get a picture of the cake, but it was quite good.

Via Alto 27 was a nice restaurant with a lovely atmosphere and excellent Italian cuisine. I am definitely looking forward to a return visit!

Healthy Breakfast

Mike got me Sam Talbot's cookbook The Sweet Life for Christmas. His recipes look really good and the bonus is that they are super healthy. Last Sunday we decided to make one of the breakfasts from the book -- Peas with Mint and Soft Poached Eggs (recipe here -- though not credited to the chef).

Yum yum yum! I can't wait to make it again!

Every experience...

brings something to our lives. I know this is a general statement.

Here's the short of it... We invited Connor to take a trip to Boston with us last weekend. We stopped for gas along the way, and he helped to pump it (with adult supervision). The pump got loose, did not shut off, and ended up spurting gas all over Connor. It also went In. His. Eye.

After we performed the immediate first aid at the rest area (thorough flushing of the eye), we headed to the emergency room. Connor was not injured in any way (thank God).

Playing Angry Birds while waiting for the doctor

One of the tests they did was really cool. The doctor put a special drop in Connor's eye and turned off the lights. She used a black light to look at his eye. The purpose of the dye was to make any abrasions or burn on the cornea stand out. There wasn't any damage, but the effect was still really cool.

Connor thought this would be fun to do to eyes for Halloween

All's well that ends well. We'll be off to Boston again next weekend. This time without stopping for gas.

Spring Weekend

We've been blessed with a warmer than normal Spring this year. All of the plants are blooming early, which means we have to start our work early, too.

Mike wanted to put down crabgrass killer on Saturday. The problem was that we have grass seed in the dozens of divets in the yard that we needed to protect. We came up with a solution.

The solution worked great, though we are still unhappy that the divets are there in the first place.

Next it was time to aerate. We haven't done it for so long and were really overdue.

While Mike was doing all this work, I did some planting.

3 new mugo pines

Heather by the patio (next to four others)

Heather by the milk house

A blueberry tree added to the stand of others we already have

As always, Mattie wanted in on the fun. He is such a helper.

 

How are you spending your Spring?

Hanging out

St. Patty's weekend was such beautiful weather that we decided to set up the patio early. We got out the table and chairs (and gave them a bath), the chiminea, patio heater and grill.

We had a great cook out for dinner on Sunday :)

Mattie patiently waited for his dinner. Too bad we didn't share :(

LaCroix Cup, 2012

We were lucky enough to participate in the 2012 LaCroix cup this year. Our team was three due to Connor's fracture, but... We did pretty good!

There were about 85 people registered for the race.

Fiona placed second in her age category (girls)

Michael placed first in his age category (mens)

I got third in my age category (womens). I need to improve my time.

Drumroll.... Our team won the cup with the fastest time. We are so lucky -- we're the first family to win two years in a row!!! Go Skiing Dogs!!!

You may have noticed our outfits. We weren't being goofy - it was a luau theme!

The Gadgets and Gear that Helped Us Along

In addition to our ski gear, our electronic gear and gadgets helped make for a fun time capturing memories of the trip. We went out with as little as possible, but certain things had to be included.

Our phones. Really, a must-have. The side benefit was the navigation app we have (Navigon) that told us what routes to take. It was convenient and reliable. It even made some of the regular things fun. Take the tunnels... As we drove through them, it even changed the screen to be a tunnel :)

Our iPads. Loaded with books, music and movies, we had all the entertainment we could need. As a matter of fact, we only watched one of the four movies we brought (and I fell asleep during that one).

Our cameras. Mike shot using a Nikon AW100. This waterproof beauty also records GPS locations. Oooh, pretty maps... I shot with the much less expensive but capable Easy Share Sport 123. It is also waterproof.

Mike's snazzy snapcatcher

My durable do-gooder

All the gadgets required cords and chargers. We organized them in our gadget pocket and grid it.

Boot dryers. You can forget this baby. It keep our boots dry and our toes toasty. This was worth every bit of the $24.99 it cost. It has both a wall charger and a car charger so you are good to go.

That's it folks! I'll give you a rest from our trip. Now back to regular programming :)

Ski Trip Summary

Lest you think we are really that nerdy, the EpicMix pass we had for Vail Resorts really made the trip fun. The passes had RF chips in them that were read each time we took a lift and each time we had our pics snapped by the pros. The website tracked our vertical feet, organized our pics, and even gave us pins for accomplishments (like taking a lift 5 times, or skiing 75,000 vertical feet). I really wish the mountains in New England would add this ability. It was great fun for us and would be even more fun for kids.

Part of the capability was to create a collage of our trip. Here are ours:

Mike was clearly the rock star. He skied beyond what I did on Monday and Wednesday. He was terribly disappointed not to have reached 100,000 vertical feet

My vertical should be about 82,000; my pass didn't read for some reason, even though Mike's did. It was fun anyway!

We're looking forward to our next ski adventure. It will be fun to plan for!