Jack's Football season is over....

      His first season as an All-Pro flag football star is in the books.  I"m thinking he had a blast.  It was big business all week for him between soccer and football.  He takes it real serious.  They got trophies so he told me that they won the championship.

                                       And there is the championship team....the Steelers!!!!

Ye ole Annual Ugly Pumpkin 2014

      Yes, the Old ugly pumpkin carving night.  Daddy has been okay at a number of things, but pumpkin carvings and snowmen...well, not so much.  Anyway, this one looked kind of passable.  I let Laura do the nose and I think she is carrying on in my tradition.  Jack was a little less squeamish this year about sticking his hand into the pumpkin muck...Catherine just loves anything and if its weird, Laura is all in.  James even joined in on the festivities again.  As if he had a choice!!!  He did have fun and was a good sport.  Damn teenagers.

Pumpkin Math with Jack

Another year rolls along with pumpkin math for the second graders.  There are four pumpkins and all the seeds are taken out and cooked.  They then place them in a baggie and the kiddies glue them on sheets to determine how many seeds were in the pumpkin.  Its kind of messy but fun.  Our pumpkin had 476 seeds in it.

Laura's birthday week....yes, week

No longer can we wait all year for that special day....nooooo, its a birthday week now.  She was actually very cute about it all and we were more than happy to oblige.  It was a fun week, fun but tiring, and it led us all over.  On her birthday night, she had a plain old happy birthday night, which was nice.  I asked her where she wanted to go for her birthday, now she could have gone anywhere she wanted.....but she wanted to go to Wahlburgers

   We went over to Wahlburgers the day after her actual birthday, a day which happened to be a school day.  Hmm, what to do here.  Well, I went inside to sign her out of school and ran into her principal.  After talking to him for a couple of minutes, I told him exactly what we were doing..hey, there are no do-overs right?  Anyway, up the stairs comes Laura and the principal says to her..hey Laura, where are you going today??  The look on her face was so funny.  She wouldn't lie but she didn't say a word about it either.  It was well worth it in the grand scheme of things

And then she ended the week at the Patriots game.  We had a tailgating feast and played some catch in the parking lot................and Laura and mommy went into the game.  I stayed in the car the whole game watching the game on my iphone.   I have to say, it was sooooooo peaceful.  Not only that, it was a great game they got to watch.  After seeing probably the best game of the year, Laura thought the best moment was when they were leaving and these two fat guys started fighting each other and bloodied themselves.  Its always a circus going to those game, though she should have seen it back in the day....oooo.....Happy Birthday Hippie

Jack's birthday

Garrison House

      A second  grade staple is going to the colonial era Garrison house.  Sadly, Jackie is the last one that i'll be able to chaperone.  This year I manned the butter table and taught the little ones how the colonial era peeps churned their butter.  Jackie seemed to move around fabulously from station to station and then through the old house. His teacher had very encouraging words about him so I was pleased with that info.  He's so cute in the student element. 
    I have seen that a lot of the kids find this as one of their favorite trips when they remember their elementary school days. 

     Here, the kids are learning how to make soap..... then off to the candle maker and the quilt maker.

Box Hockey

perhaps you don't know what box hockey is....well, i'm not surprised because not many people away from these parts actually do.  a little history......when I was a wee lad growing up we used to spend a lot of time during our summers playing Rec games down at the old park with with Rec kids, and as part of their games that they had, box hockey was one of them.  I was never a box hockey king but I spent a lot of time playing during those days.  you see, box hockey is a game where there is a small puck,  made of wood, that goes from one end of the field of play into the other by going through small hole in the foldable, midsection of the game board.  On the other end, naturally, there is a goal. 
During the folk festival they had a couple of those games and the kids really seemed to like playing it.......Well, one day I got an email on facebook from an old pal named Pam and she asked me if i'd be interested in having her box hockey game that her kids had outgrown.  Apparently, her kids are in college now and have little use for it.  She told me she thought we would get some use out of it.  Well, I first thought it was a good idea, then the more I thought of it I realized what a great idea it was.   I got to the point where I couldn't wait to go grab it from her.  We have had tournaments on the front lawn(yeah, I know, front lawn)...for the longest time I had been undefeated...until that one dreaded day when Laura took me into overtime and stuffed me.  Goodness gracious that girl is a monster.......Its actually been a real treat having this game.  Its a really loud game, not only the sticks hitting the wood, the trashtalking too......its a blast though and one more thing in our arsenal.....

Artie T.....The hippie walks the line

     So as I go through my pictures I'll catch up.....There is no way we can go through these last months in the blog without a mention of Laura's crusade to back Arty T.  We'll remember that Artie T.  was forced out as CEO of Market Basket by his evil cousin Artie S.  The story is quite an intriguing one and shows how employee's (who we know a few) backed their CEO and how customers (like us) refused to shop there anymore until they reinstate him.  Being the hippie that she is, Laura made up signs and took up the cause of good versus evil.....we even went and marched one Saturday in September, waving to cars and walking the picket line.  It was really funny...but I think I'm helping to create a monster hippie

  We ended up talking to a lot of employees that day and they were happy to have her there. My little hippie, the activist...eee gads

Apple picking with the Cousins