How We Spent the 2013 Blizzard they Called Nemo

Thomas and I on a snow pile. Veronica took the picture and stayed far from the pile.

Well, for once the weathermen in Boston were right.  We got a blizzard.  The picture on the left is partial proof.  This powerpoint (BlizzardFeb13) is more proof.  We got closer to three feet of snow rather than two.  But, with the drifts, as you can see when you get to the first picture of the car, it went closer to five feet.  Also, our upstairs neighbors did a timelapse video which you can see here.  But, two days in a row home with Thomas and Veronica – can’t remember the last time that happened.  I love the snow.

 

Merry Christmas from the Boston Becks

Well, it’s Christmas.  I suspect you might have already known that.

That pile under the tree has now pretty much been devoured.  We have eaten our eggs, coffee cake and sausage and we have our croque monsieurs and chicken cacciatore to come.  We are watching Pixar Shorts Vol II (though last night we watched A Charlie Brown Christmas and Christmas Eve on Sesame Street and we watched Mickey’s Christmas Carol while opening presents), which Thomas got for Christmas.  And tonight it will be all about the new companion on the Christmas episode of Doctor Who.  Though before that, we’ll go out in the snow (yes – we actually have received the gift of a white christmas – at least it’s a gift to Erik).

Thanks to everyone who sent Thomas things – except for the pile in the back, everything under the tree was pretty much for him.  And he has been enjoying it all this morning.

 

Thomas at Story Land

Veronica teaches Thomas to milk a fake cow. I take a picture and refrain from Wisconsin cheese or cow tipping jokes.

So we went to Story Land to celebrate Thomas’ birthday.

Thomas in Cinderella’s coach.

If you’re not from this area, Story Land is a nice little amusement park that happens to be in the middle of nowhere.  Well, in the middle of the White Mountains.  Yet, somehow, even though I am roaming everywhere in the Fox Cities (pop. 360,000), in this valley tucked up in a mountain range in northern New Hampshire (pop. 185,000), I had perfect phone reception.

To get back to the point, we had a nice time.  It’s an amusement park based around fairy tales.  Well, the older parts of the park are based around fairy tales.  We went on some rides, played with some water, had a nice Sunday out.  (I don’t know which surprised me more about the park though – that they let people bring in outside food or that they actually have designated smoking sections inside the park.)

The Cinderella aspects of the park (there is a castle and a pumpkin ride – the picture to the right is not the ride, it’s a designated picture spot – the actually pumpkin ride coach holds something like 8 people – it was quite sizable) worked nicely – Thomas and I have been slowly watching our way through the Disney Animated Films and we just finished Cinderella on Friday.

There is also a video here of Thomas and V on the flying shoe ride.  There’s not much action to it, so you are forewarned.

 

Thomas turns 8!

Thomas (with our neighbor Isaac) looking at his Jack and the Beanstalk cake.

It might seem incredible, but Thomas is now 8.

Action shot! Thomas blowing out his candles on another Veronica creation!

For those of you who haven’t seen him in a while, he’s gotten pretty big.  He’s now 4’4 1/2″ (pretty much the same height I was on my 8th birthday).

This was also the last day of school, so there was lots of excitement.  Thanks to everyone who called or sent him a card or otherwise wished him a happy birthday.  Tomorrow he and Veronica are going to the Museum of Science (to make up for him missing the field trip there while we were in Wisconsin) and on Sunday all three of us are headed to Storyland in New Hampshire.

 

Sesame Place Redux

Veronica and Thomas with Cookie Monster

Erik and Thomas with Bert and Ernie.

Well, Sesame Place had their Free Autism Day again.  We decided not do anything big on the way down like last year (when we went to the Bronx Zoo).  I did, in a fit of insanity, decide to try to show Veronica a little of Manhattan.  It would have been fine, except for the following things:

1 – I went the wrong way at the end of the Throgs Neck Bridge and started heading out on Long Island

2 – I reversed myself by getting on the L.I.E., which, unfortunately, seems to be jam-packed with traffic at noon on a Friday.

3 – I thought this would be a good way to get to the Brooklyn Bridge (which I thought would be a nice way to go), when, in fact, it is a good way to get to the Midtown Tunnel.

4 – Once we were in Manhattan, I forgot that Broadway runs one-way downtown, so my thought of driving her towards Times Square so she could see it, didn’t really work.

5 – Tolls.  F#$%^g TOLLS!  We drove to Philadelphia and back.  Our trip encompassed some 660 miles.  We paid $56 in tolls.  On the list of things I dislike about living on the East Coast, right along with all the damn sporting events happening so late that I’m exhausted just staying up to watch them, tolls is one.  I used to drive all the time from Portland to Southern California.  2100 miles round trip.  The only time I would ever pay a toll is if I took the Golden Gate Bridge.

 

Thomas as Rumplestiltskin

Thomas in his costume.

Thomas had a Fairy Tale Theater at school last week.  One of those things where we suddenly learn he has to choose a character and come to school in a costume.  We decided to go the old-fashioned route and make the costume.  And by we, I mean Veronica, with one idea from me.

The shirt was something he already had.  The belt is Veronica’s.  The sweatpants were borrowed from our friend Terry when he got sick in Oregon last year.  The hat is made from some felt from an unfinished art project at his art class.  The beard was my input – it’s construction paper with holes cut out so it can fit over his ears and cotton balls glued to the front.  He also has pointy ears made from construction paper.

It went okay.  The class has a microphone which Thomas finds very distracting, so that was an issue.  But one more big project down.

And speaking of big projects, I have been going through boxes of old pictures, ranging from the early 40′s (pictures of my Mom) to recent pictures.  I am going to scan a bunch and we’ll probably have them up on Veronica’s Facebook page because it’s a lot easier to put them there then to put them here.  So keep an eye out for them.

 

2011 summer trip

Thomas was definitely the shortest route to Wall Drug in 2005.

It occurs to me that we never put up anything about our trip in August.  I guess several days of a child throwing up in the backseat ending with a day of torrential rain will do that to you.

Maybe not quite the shortest anymore in 2011.

Well, if you say that we saw some friends we hadn’t seen in years, saw some family, saw some very sparsely inhabited parts of Canada, Veronica had a good conference and I discovered that you can’t get phone reception at 1353 feet and finally saw a game at Wrigley as a measure of a successful trip, then we had a successful trip.

But, when you plan to come back at a leisurely pace and see some sights, but instead blow across the country in a few days again because of a sick child and tropical storms and just wanting to get home, it doesn’t feel so great by the end of it.

 

Thomas turns 7!

Thomas blows out the candles on his baseball cake

Yes, Thomas is now seven (insert you feeling old here).  As you probably know by now, this means that it’s June 20, and of course, that Veronica has made another impressive cake.

Her comment: “It isn’t his best cake ever.”  Yeah, well, the baseball looks pretty good to me and to Thomas, and as you might know, she has given herself a high hurdle to leap.  When Thomas turned 3, there was the Blue’s Clues cake.  When he turned 4, there was the Very Hungry Caterpillar cake (no picture, unfortunately, because Veronica had broken the camera).  When he turned 5, it was the ice cream cone cake.  Last year, he had the rainbow cake.  Now, it is the baseball cake.

 

Bronx Zoo and Sesame Place

Veronica and Thomas next to the famous Bronx Zoo cobra. It's actually really small.

Well, the reason for the big gap between the Year in Film and Best Picture for 1984 was that we went down to New York and Philadelphia on Thursday and Friday.

Bert, Veronica, Thomas and Ernie

All started out well on Thursday morning.  We zipped down to the Bronx in 3 1/2 hours (including stopping for breakfast) and we got to the north corner of the Bronx Zoo (Fordham Rd and Southern) by 10:08, just after the zoo opened.  All we had to do then was drive the four blocks down Southern and make a left into the zoo entrance.

It took 72 minutes.  On the worst paved major road I have ever been on.  Maybe next time instead of spending $150 million to run for a third term, Bloomberg should just spend his money on paving the damn road next to one of the biggest tourist attractions in the city.  And put a cop at the intersection who won’t tell me “go down to the next light and make a left” when the next light is a one-way street running the wrong way.

Luckily, the rest of the trip was much better.  The zoo was nice (it was sunny and nice, although windy).  We saw a lot of things (although the Asia monorail didn’t open until the following Saturday) and Thomas had a nice time.  In fact, Thomas did great at both locations on the trip and the drive (but he did have a hard time calming down at night in the hotel because he was so excited).

 

Yet Another Family Update

Thomas among the rocks at Purgatory Chasm

With a weekend visit from my dad and my total inability, it would seem, to get anything typed, there has been a big lag on the blog lately.  We took a trip out to Purgatory Chasm while he was here, which is where the pictures are from.  So, here is a bit of a family update to keep everything going while I try to finish my piece on the next book (Midnight’s Children), the next film year (1983) and the next For Love of Books (Disney).  It would appear that we haven’t done a family update since Christmas so this is long overdue.