Christmas tree time!

We ditched the artificial tree (after 10 years of service) for an honest-to-goodness tree straight from the wilderness (read: Canadian Tire Parking lot).

 Tall and skinny.

 Oh, that's better.

 All the old decorations...

 Looking good!

 Can't forget about our other tree.  Pink for our pink-graprefruit tree.

Gingerbread house part I: the construction

In the grand tradition first established on College Avenue, we invited the neighbourhood kids over to decorate a gingerbread house.  Spoiler alert: I apologize in advance for the fact that I didn't take any photos of the kids.  I was having a "be in the moment" moment, and decided that recording everything for the archives wasn't the most important thing.  Of course it should have been my top priority!  For note-keeping purposes, present were Justin, Dylan, Anne, Guillaume, Xavier, and Eloise (plus my two urchins).
Anyhoo, as more people started accepting my invitation I began to get nervous that the house would flop.
I've only made one before, and that went fine, but anyone who has built a gingerbread house (and a few people who have built real houses, I suppose) can attest, the roof can just slide right off at an inopportune moment.
The upshot is that I baked the house the night before and there were no mishaps.  No misshapes, either.
Bulk Miniwheat boxes are the perfect template material, by the way.

Pre-baked goodness

The half Christmas trees get glued to the backs of the whole Christmas trees so they stand up in the yard.  In theory.

The final result.

I show only the front side of the house.  You can literally see from the declining quality of the smarties shingling work the effects of hyperglycemia on the little ones.  Since none of the parents stayed (at least at the beginning) I gave the kids free rein to eat as much of the candy as they wanted (until we started to run out before finishing the house!)  They went through about 2 lbs of smarties.  (Not bad for 8 kids.)  

When the parents came to pick them up everyone stayed for a cup of Christmas cheer while the kids continued to suffer in the throes of glucose poisoning.  Fortunately the playstation and DSs kept everyone more or less calm as the effects wore off.

Hopefully we'll have them all back in a couple of weeks for the smashing.  Updates will follow.

How do you like them apple bananas?

At the beginning of the school year I bought "apple bananas" for the kids' lunches as a special treat.  At the same time I discussed banana varieties with them, including the fact that a fungus was threatening the predominant banana in our supermarkets.
Fast forward 6 weeks and I'm making muffins with Oscar.
"Why does it say 3 ripe bananas?" he asks.
"Well, that means bananas that are starting to turn brown."  (At this point I'm wondering if he doesn't know what "ripe" means.)
"So when there are no more Cavendish bananas, will you use 9 bananas in the recipe?"
Smart kid.

Fitness challenge

Having scoped out Carter ledge a couple of weeks prior, I decided it was kid friendly (more or less).  I returned with the spawn, gave them a pep talk, filled their water bottles, and set off.
They did me proud.
I think Emma got the message that I didn't want to hear a bunch of complaints or questions about whether we were there yet.
Plus each kid had his own water bottle, so there were fewer requests for breaks.  And we weren't in a huge hurry.  All we needed to do was get to the top to have lunch, then get back to the car and make it back home in time for school in the morning.  Everything was pretty much taken care of: the tent was down and the car was already packed.  Nothing left to do but enjoy.

New Hampshire Wild Turkey

Did I ever mention how much I like New Hampshire?

Lovin' OOB

Oscar Doesn't Like the Ocean

Or at least a couple of years ago he didn't...

New Addition

To my great disappointment, our hermit crab didn't survive the move to St-Lambert.  I have to admit that was one of the motivations for our trip down to Old Orchard, where me managed to find two replacements for Sylvia: Shelley and Shirley.
Here's Shirley, doing her thing.

Cheese party!

Ok, a bit odd, I admit, but that's exactly what we had today.
A couple of weeks ago my neighbours had a street party so I got to know them a little bit.  One of them owns the cheese shop in town.  He invited us to their 25th anniversary party, which is cool, because of the invite, and also because there's a 25-year-old cheese shop that holds a street party in this town.  It featured a string trio, a DJ, a pair of sitar players, free bubbly, cheese and chocolate fondue...
We didn't stay for long, but long enough to run into about half of the swim team :)
Did I mention that I like this neighbourhood?

The Blue Machine Cult

As I think I mentioned in an earlier post, Emma previously swam with another team where, at the end of the season she didn't know her coach's name and vice versa.
The Blue Machine is another beast.  Today was the season-opening meeting, where almost unnoticeably they extracted another $100+ from me for swag and various fundraising.  Somehow all the comradery makes it all awesome.
And do you think the kids have bought in too?

Roughing it.

As is their wont, the school board started the year with two pedagogical days, which made for a long weekend for us at the end of August.
We took it upon ourselves to wring the last few drops out of summer.  We headed down to the White Mountains, which I'm starting to know like the back of my hand.
On previous camping trips we stayed at Cove Camping, a family-oriented campground with a lake and rental canoes, films for the kids, flush toilets - all mod cons.
Unfortunately you can never go home again.  Cove Camping is permanently closed.  I even read that the main buildings have been torn down; I imagine a private developer will be putting up cabins soon.
Well, that forced me to discover the National Forest campgrounds, and I made a couple of solo trips for my own sanity and to make sure it would be positive for the kids.
We headed down there on a Sunday morning, set up camp, and visited our favourite stores in town.  Then it was back to the campsite for supper.

One of the least menacing vikings you'll ever see.

This way to the outhouse

Waiting for supper to appear

 Campfire Stew on the way.  Bacon makes everything awesome.

Cubed beef.

Herbs.  Yeah, that's right.

Spuds

Carrost.

Broth.

And time...

Surprisingly effective technique to make supper cook faster.

Ok, so the prison camp plates don't do much for the presentation, but trust me, it was one tasty meal.

No, Emma's not hurling.  She's trying to use smoke to ward off mosquitoes.

Morning camping always means "Yes and Know" activity books.

Hampshire

As Mark pointed out, I go there so often I can hardly keep calling it New Hampshire.

The trip started, as usual, with a stop at Flatbread Pizza.  Well in fact it started with a mad scramble to find a campsite, due to National Forest rules about reservations.  But as soon as I had my site staked and had grabbed provisions, I stopped for pizza.  There I saw a cool swap box for soccer cleats.  Seems like something we could start here...

My travails in finding a campsite actually worked out doubly in my favour.  Leafing through my White Mountains guide, I had settled on two day hikes for this trip, based on them being more strenuous.  One was 5 miles, the Carter Ledge.  The other, an exposed ridge, was 9 miles.

As it turned out, my campground, which I had chosen not for proximity to one of the hikes, but because it was where I had stayed last time, was full.  That forced me to camp elsewhere, which happened to be at the base of one of the two chosen hikes.  Score.  I'll get to the second good thing in a second.

This thing looks like it's a cross between Lord of the Rings and the Muppets

 The path I took had "perhaps the better claim, 

Because it was grassy and wanted wear; 

Though as for that the passing there 

Had worn them really about the same"

 This is the view from the ledge.  I thought it was nice the way the clouds shaded that peak in the foreground.  I guess that would be foreshadowing. (hint: it IS!)

 This was just too perfect.  Seems like it should be an inspirational poster.  The other day on Reddit someone noted, "my successful friends never send out inspirational quotes."

 Not cool.  My hiking boots are officially not that comfortable anymore.  No John, don't worry.  These are not my Hanwags (I actually managed to kill my Hanwags in university when they were the only footwear I had.)  These are Zamberlans and they seem to have stiffened or maybe shrunk, or maybe my feet have just never stopped growing...  Anyway, after 4 miles I ditched the hikers for Birkenstocks, with socks.  Road less travelled, no one will ever know.

So it was about 5 minutes after this photo that the thunderclaps started.  I was glad that I had chosen the 5 mile loop, because I still had a mile to run downhill in my stupid sandals, but I managed to make it back to the car with no major injuries and before getting soaked.  The joys of car camping.  Drove into town, stopped at a few thrift shops on the way, grabbed a beer, hung out...  Don't think a raindrop hit me.

Nailed it!

We went to the lumberjack show in Ketchikan, where two or three Canadians really outdid themselves.

The warm-up for the lumberjack show was a chance for the kids to win a prize by firing a tennis ball into a bucket using a coal miner's helmet as a slingshot.  There might be some mixing of metaphors going on there, not quite sure.

Anyhoo, two Scrivens dudes nailed it.  Boom!

Mendenhall Glacier

Here's your panoramic view of the Mendenhall Glacier.  Getting here required a half hour walk in the rain and tip-toeing over slippery rocks onto a peninsula below the falls.  That didn't dampen any spirits!

What Rain!

 Natural beauties!

 Me and my troopers

 A few of the boys

 Looks like an Irish Spring commercial.