Cursed in Connecticut (Part Two)

So as I promised, I am back to fill you in on the rest of our trip to Connecticut. When last we spoke, I had been telling you about Wednesday and the wonderful time that we had with Emily's cousins, and the fascinating Globe Hollow. Our plans for Thursday were to do some more letterboxing, but it seemed that to get the letterboxes, we would actually have to leave the car. (We had heard reports that if you drive around in Connecticut with your windows down, boxes would jump right in. These reports are simply not true.) So our plans for the rest of the week included leaving the car and hitting the trail to seek out the elusive letterboxes.

Thursday morning dawned and we slept. When we finally awoke, we began to make plans with Aunt S & the Godfather as to where we would letterbox today. We decided to do letterboxes in and around the campus of UCONN, that way we could do two more of Aunt S's boxes and also visit the incredible Shadow Puppet exhibit at BIMP (Emily especially was looking forward to this). So after getting a later start than we expected, we were off and on our way to UCONN. We stopped at the site of a letterbox, but were unable to do it because a police officer was sitting in his car directly across from it, and we did not want to attract undo attention. We continued on to the puppet museum and managed to find the two boxes there and then enjoyed our private tour of the exhibit. From here we went to Kathy John's for lunch and a letterbox. Our next stop was the UCONN Dairy Bar. There is no letterbox here, but there is ICE CREAM which is made right here on campus. With our tummies full of lunch and ice cream, we went in search of a letterbox in a nearby church cemetery; once again we were successful. Aunt S & the Godfather then went with us in search of three other boxes that were all very close to each other, and the cemetery, but alas, two of them were missing. From here we parted ways with Aunt S & the Godfather, as they had appointments in the evening. We found the next two boxes that we searched for, and really enjoyed the lovely campus. We then took some time for site seeing, and souvenir shopping in the co-op. Emily also really wanted to see the statue of Jonathan and see where the UCONN women's basketball team played. Our evening was coming to a close (and we were starting to lose the daylight), but there was a four box series we really wanted to do, so we went to our last stop. We all started on our quest, but after the first box, Emily was getting very fussy and very tired, so Christa brought her back to the car and I continued on alone. I was working as fast as I could, but night was falling fast. I was able to get two more boxes for the series and another single box, that was placed on the same trail, but I was unable to find the last box because it just got too dark. On our way home, we stopped for the box that the police officer had prevented us from getting earlier, and I have to admit it was one of the most ingenious hiding places I have ever seen. We returned to the Dome (I think I have forgotten to mention that Aunt S & the Godfather live in a very very cool Geodesic Dome house.) and got a good night's rest.

On Friday, we went off to the place where I grew up, Brookfield, CT. One of the first orders of business was to stop at the local Saturn dealership for an oil change, vacation is no reason to slack off on maintenance. From here we got our first box of the day in a very old cemetery. A big part of our plan for today was to plant a couple letterboxes of our own while in Brookfield, so we needed to buy some plastic containers to put them in. The next couple of hours were spent going from store to store, looking for somewhere that sold what we were looking for. We were having very little success, until we finally found what we were looking for in the last store we went to (let's face it, OF COURSE it was the last store we went to, how silly would it have been to keep looking after we found what we were looking for?). From here we did a box in New Milford, which is the town that borders Brookfield. We had some trouble at this box, because just as we were beginning our search some people showed up and wouldn't go away. Just as we were about to give up, they left and we were able to find the box. From here we drove past the house I lived in as a kid, once again I was a little upset about all the trees that have been cut down, but at least the house color wasn't as offensive. Now that we were done site seeing, and had the materials necessary to plant out boxes, we set about doing that (we have still not yet had the chance to post our clues, they'll be coming soon). Once our boxes were in place, we went to visit my former employer, Barto Engraving and Awards, or more specifically Barb Norman. Emily was very happy to meet Mrs. Norman and judging from the reception we received, the feeling was mutual. We spent a little while catching up, but finally had to say our goodbyes and head back to the Dome.

Saturday was to be our final day of vacation (and the beginning of our trip home), but we wanted to get the last box from our quest and try to get another set of boxes from Aunt S & the Godfather on our way out of town. Sadly, when we arrived at the location for Aunt S's boxes, there was a Revolutionary War re-enactment going on, so we were not able to make an attempt. From here we went to complete our quest, which thankfully we were able to do! On our way out of town, we made a quick detour to the Dairy Bar to end our trip. After the Dairy Bar, it was time to hit the road and make our way home. We did end up stopping, much longer than we would have liked, to look for a bookstore so we could buy the audio book for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets for the ride home. Our drive progressed much the same way as before, stopping every so often to let Emily stretch, until she was down for the count. We did encounter some difficulty finding a hotel room, but we did find one and got a little shut eye.

Sunday, once again we left a little later than we would have liked, but our bellies were full from the continental breakfast and spirits were high because tonight we would be sleeping in our own beds!! The day progressed nicely and we really enjoyed the scenic beauty that is Pennsylvania. We enjoyed it for a very LONG time, because Pennsylvania is a very LONG state. We were still making stops for Emily, and she was starting to get a little antsy from spending so much time in the car. When we would try to put her back in the seat after a break, she would refuse to bend at the waist in her attempt to not be put back into her seat. It took me a little while to discover that a little tummy tickle would fix this problem. We finally arrived home, a lot later than we would have liked, but we all had fun and were also happy to be home. Emily survived her first LONG trip with great success and we look forward to our next opportunity to travel.

So, I will leave you here, with just a small tease . . . coming soon (hopefully not later that we would like) . . . March of Dimes . . . Emily's final swimming lesson . . . and much much more!!!

While at BIMP, Aunt S gave us a private tour of the Shadow & Substance exhibit, as well as the rest of the puppet museum. It was pretty fun. (If you look closely, you can see Emily hanging on her every word.)


Emily was looking at one shadow puppet, while Daddy was looking at another.


"Wow! Aunt S, these puppets are amazing!"




Steve used a Shadow Mask to change the shape of his shadow on the wall.




at the UCONN Dairy Bar . . . Emily wasn't looking at the menu, because she knew when we arrived that she wanted a "milk shake."

This is The All-American Sundae . . . woo-hoo!

Emily has a thing for straps. We bought her this really neat purple dragon, but all she wanted to do with it was chew on his Velcro (tm) strap.

Emily, at this point, had decided that she had enough of her car seat. Here she is trying to work the red button that will release her seat belt and set her free.

When she couldn't push hard enough to set herself free, she settled on eating the slack from her seat belt. (aka, another strap!)

This is part of a cemetery where we found a letterbox. I thought it was neat the way this tree is swallowing the grave marker.

Aunt S takes a short respite while Emily slackboxes, I read clues, and the Godfather follows behind us.

This lovely garden was another letterbox location (no, not this exact spot, but in this same garden.)

Steve captured the ultimate slackboxer at work! She may be a slackboxer, but she sure is cute.

At the UCONN Co-op, Emily found another hat to add to her collection. The kid looks fabulous in a hat!

Our next stop was to go say hi to Jonathan (UCONN's mascot).

What a cutie!

Emily decided that she was hungry while we were visiting Jonathan, so we took a seat on the bench next to him. When she was done eating, she and Daddy made faces at each other.

"Come on, Mommy, stop taking pictures and keep up!"

We would have needed to walk through some grass that was taller than Steve to go retrieve another letterbox. Emily and I stayed behind at the picnic area (we didn't want her to get ticks) while Steve went in after the letterbox. I snapped a few pictures of the area while we waited and managed to get this really cute one of Emily on my back. I also liked the way the clouds looked in the background, so I decided not to crop this shot.

This is the view from the top of the hill (mountain?) at Lovers' Leap State Park.

This is the "newly renovated" Lovers' Leap Bridge.

Steve's childhood home in Connecticut. The last time we saw this house, the natural cedar shakes had been painted blue, yuck! Who would do that to natural cedar shakes? Now they have been repainted a nice grey, that's better than blue anyway.

Turn about is fair play . . . Steve snuck a picture of me napping with Emily earlier in our trip, so I was able to sneak one of him on our way home.

**...looking at this sign, scratching my head in confusion...**

Emily found another strap. This is the end of the strap that holds her Rainforest creatures onto her carseat. She needed something to snack on.

Pay close attention to her right leg . . .

This is the way I found Emily the morning after we arrived home. She was so happy to be sleeping in her own bed. She decided to rearrange her stuffed animals and was having a giddy time goofing around before I came to get her for her morning bottle.

Cursed in Connecticut (Part One)

As promised, I am back to tell you about the exciting adventure that began on Sunday, July 22nd. Many of you may remember (but many more of you have probably forgotten, or never even knew) that we had planned to take a trip out to Connecticut at the beginning of June, the week after school got out and also the week of the Great Lakes Gathering. We managed to go to the gathering but were not able to go to Connecticut because of the unprecedented number of snow days in Christa's school district this year. Well, we still wanted to take that trip, after all, who doesn't need a vacation? We decided to go now because the people we would be visiting would all be in Illinois starting August 1st and staying through the 13th and after that Christa would be going back to school starting on the 20th. All of that in mind, we packed our bags, tossed Emily into the car and away we went.

I am the first to admit that Christa & I rarely leave at the time we intend to, and with Emily that seems to be multiplied by a number greater than I would really like. I had wanted to leave the house in the 9 to 10 o'clock a.m. range, we actually left at around 3:00 p.m.. Considering our recent record 6 hours off schedule, that ain't too bad! We brought the audio book CD's for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the drive out and began listening to it right away. Emily, snuggled into her car seat and promptly took a nap. The drive on Sunday progressed nicely, we hit a little traffic getting out of Chicago and into Indiana, but once we were passed the toll, we started really moving. We stopped about every hour and a half to two hours to let Emily get out of her seat to get some hugs and a little play time. At around 10:30/11:00 we found a hotel in Ohio to spend the night.

We left our hotel bright and early at 11:00 the next morning for the long drive through Pennsylvania and on to Aunt S & the Godfather's house. We continued our routine of stopping every couple of hours for Emily, and to her credit she was really good the whole way. I admit that I was a little worried that she would not do well spending the whole day driving in the car, but she & her mother both had a lot of fun in the back seat. Our drive on Monday took what seemed like forever (Pennsylvania has that effect on people), but we did finally make it to our destination!! After playing a bit and talking, we all went to bed looking forward to Tuesday morning . . .

. . . It is here that I should explain the title of this blog entry. For those of you who don't know, Christa is a travel jinx. Don't get me wrong, I love her, but no one should travel with her. When Christa goes somewhere, EVERYTHING is closed, broken, out of business, or missing. On our first vacation after we got married, we went to Connecticut. One of the things that we really wanted to do was go to Gillette Castle; I had been telling Christa about this for a long time, this was something that she would really enjoy. When we got there, the gate was up and the entire park was closed for the season. We went back on another trip and the park was open, but the castle was closed for renovations. When we finally made it to Gillette castle (and it was open) all of the furniture was missing . . . it hadn't arrived yet after having been in storage during the renovations; we took a tour of the empty castle. A few years later we went to spend a day in Washington DC, as part of a larger trip. We didn't have a lot of time for museums, but we really just wanted to see the monuments, as Christa had never been to DC. When we got there, all of the monuments had been removed for cleaning, I walked her around saying, "Well, in that hole would be the Lincoln Memorial, there is a picture of it on the back of this penny." O.K. that isn't entirely true, but this is, The Washington Monument was closed for security upgrades (you couldn't even get close to it), the reflecting pool had been drained so they could clean it (we were told by a national park person that it was the first time in something like 20 years!), the Vietnam Memorial was 2/3 boarded up for lighting upgrades, and there was scaffolding at the Jefferson Memorial. Like I said, Christa is a travel jinx, there are many other examples of the stuff that doesn't happen for Christa on vacation but let's get back on topic . . .

. . . The primary focus of this trip was to go letterboxing, more specifically to do the boxes placed by Aunt S & the Godfather (not their trail names, but their "blog" names). Those of you in the letterboxing community know where this is going...almost all of their boxes have gone missing in the recent rash of vandalism and box theft that has plagued Connecticut.

So we got up on Tuesday morning with the knowledge that we would only be able to do Aunt S's one remaining series, "A Series of Unfortunate Letterboxes," and despite it's title, we were really looking forward to this series, but were unsure if it was still there. Off we went, into the unknown, a little later than we would have liked. When we reached the location of the first box, we were very happy to see that it was still there! We spent the rest of the afternoon hiking up the side of Mt. Everest for thousands of miles in 400 degree heat to finish the rest of the series; it took us about four hours, but that includes diaper and bottle stops for Emily. We were able to get all of the boxes except #7, which we knew was missing when we started. This was one of Emily's first real forays into letterboxing and it turns out that she is the textbook definition of a slackboxer: she doesn't do any walking, she doesn't carry any of her own stuff, she doesn't stamp in for herself, and she even slept through two boxes during the series! She can't even be bothered to stay awake long enough to find the boxes!! We returned back to the house very tired but very satisfied that we got the boxes, Aunt S was also very happy.

On Wednesday we had some very special plans. Emily's two cousins, Sarah and Amy, had no idea that we were in town and today was the day we planned to surprise them. After getting a much later start than we had anticipated, which kept us from doing any letterboxing, we arrived at their house. Emily snuck up to the door with her Bumbo (tm), her diaper bag, and her Cow. (She had the "suitcase" to make it look like she ran away from home) When Emily was all settled in, I rang the doorbell for her and ran across the yard to go hide behind a tree to wait and watch. Almost at once, we heard a shriek from inside the house and seconds later Sarah, who while looking out the window to see who was at the door had seen my mad dash across the lawn, came running out the back door and from twenty feet away lept into my arms for her patented Running Jump Hugs (tm). From inside, we could now hear Amy frantically pulling at the front door (which was stuck) and screaming, "Who's out there, who's out there?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Sarah realizing that Emily was not with us, went tearing across the lawn to the front door and got there just as Amy finally got the door open. Suffice to say, they were pretty happy and very excited to see Emily, and slightly less so to see Christa & me. After watching Emily do some crawling, we all put on our bathing suits and headed off for a swim at Globe Hollow, which is something to behold. Globe Hollow is a literal interpretation of the "cement pond" an update on the 'ol swimmin' hole if you will. It has a concrete bottom and they use chlorine to make it a little cleaner, but they fill it straight from the reservoir and the water runs out over a small spillway into a stream on the way out, so you are really just swimming in the "pond" or "lake" depending on your personal interpretation of the reservoir, but the bottom is concrete. No squishy gross mud bottom, but it does have small fish and a fair amount of seaweed. All in all, it is a very unique experience, enjoyable, but unique. We spent the rest of the day here, Emily enjoyed a quick dip and we had pizza delivered. From here we went to DQ for dessert and then Christa, Emily & I headed back to Aunt S's place for the evening.

I will leave you here until the next installment . . . coming up . . . what happened on Thursday! and Friday!

We stopped for lunch in Pennsylvania and let Emily crawl around for awhile on a blanket. She was really having a lot of fun playing with Daddy & her toy, until she saw the grass . . . then all she wanted to do was try to eat the grass.

"Wow! Look at all that green stuff!!!!!!!!!"

Steve snuck this photo of us napping in the morning. Emily woke up for her bottle and then we both fell back to sleep after she finished eating. It felt so good to be lying down instead of cooped up in a car.

On the trail of the "Series of Unfortunate Letterboxes." Emily, the ultimate slackboxer, wouldn't even walk to the boxes, she wouldn't stamp in, in fact at one point she even fell asleep and stayed that way for 2 boxes.

Even though the boxes are unfortunate, we thought that the scenery was beautiful.

You can tell by looking at Steve how hot, long & grueling our hike was.


Emily, sitting in her Bumbo (tm) on her cousins' porch, waiting to be discovered.

"EMILY!!!!!!"

Emily was quickly scooped up and brought inside.

Once inside, we got to meet Max, or as we like to call him, Max-meel-own (phonetically and spoken with a very snooty French accent) & Sarah's "BFF", Kelly.



Emily got a kick out of watching Daddy swim a couple of laps before scooping her up to bring her to the shallow end to do some swimming.

Emily & Daddy had a lot of fun swimming together, and practicing the techniques they'd been learning during Emily's swimming lessons.

Amy was also having fun playing with Emily in the water. We all had a really fun time at Globe Hollow, and it is definitely on our list to do again the next time we're out during the summer. Of course, now that I've said that, it'll probably be closed for renovations . . . ugh!

Midnight Magic . . .

So, by now you were probably beginning to think that we had given up on the blog and stopped posting altogether. How wrong you were!! We have been busy adventuring and just didn't have the time, or our computer, to work on the blog. This is the beginning of what will soon be a blogging blitz. After all, we have over a whole week to tell you about. The question is, where should I begin? I think that the best place would be where we left off last time, instead of jumping ahead and then jumping back and jumping ahead and jumping back, you get the idea.

I am going to start with the Midnight Magic Party, the release party for the last Harry Potter book. We all went as a family because Emily was so excited about the book, she just would not go to sleep on the evening of the release. I wanted to go because I could not wait to start reading it. We chose not to dress as character's because, well, it's just not what we do. We did take part in all of the fun activities. While we were there, Emily had her picture taken with Harry, made her own wand (because at the end of book six Olivander had gone missing), guessed at the number of Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans in a jar, and watched a magic show. When it was time, I got in line to buy the book; Christa & Emily went out to the car to get away from the mad rush of HP fans. Ten minutes later, I had my book and we were on our way home. Emily fell asleep; Christa fell asleep; I stayed up and read my new book.

The next morning we went to swimming lessons, then came home, so I could read my book. Emily was playing on the floor and began to do something amazing (apparently there was some Midnight Magic of another kind at play here) . . . Emily figured out the mechanics of crawling! Well, mostly; she doesn't always get all the way up, but she is definitely on the move. I continued to read my book through all of the errands we went on that day. Once the errands were over, we went to a wedding reception for our friend and Mary Kay (tm) consultant Amanda W (now, Amanda G. Just like Christa, she married up, alphabetically speaking). We all had a great time, then we went home. Christa & Emily went to bed and I finished reading my book; I have to say I really enjoyed it. I was very sad about parts of it, but overall I am happy with how she chose to end the series, but as this blog is about Emily and not a Harry Potter discussion, I will end it there.

Incredible things were going to start on Sunday, but that is best left for the next entry, because let's face it, I like to leave you wanting more...bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Arts & Crafts at the Harry Potter Release Party. Make your own Magic Wand!

Emily chose a yellow straw to make her wand, a pink pipe cleaner to wrap a handle, and some yellow, pink & purple feathers to make the "magic" on the end of the wand.

Here she is making sure that the straw for the wand doesn't get away while I try to wrangle a pipe cleaner around the "handle" with one and a half hands.

After making her Magic Wand and getting her picture taken with Harry Potter, Emily decided to kill the time by eating her toes. Steve and I filled out some Trivia Sheets to try and win Steve a front of the line space to buy his book.

Emily decided to chew on her little baby polar bear for a little bit before showing off her new moves.

"Grandma, Look! I'm going to crawl now!"

"Whew, crawling is hard work. I need a little break."

Sometimes her crawling begins as a push up. It's quite amusing.

"Watch me go, Auntie Mandy!"

"Grandma, did you see me?"

Always the little lady, Emily was eating her dress at Amanda W.'s wedding reception. No, not our Amanda W., our friend Amanda W. (well, now it's Amanda Gude).

She was fascinated by the plastic tablecloths. She couldn't get enough of them!

Amanda came by to say hi and admire Emily's pretty dress.

I just couldn't get everyone to look at the camera at the same time. Emily is such a distraction, but a very cute distraction . . . I guess that's part of the problem.

Our little party girl melted after awhile into Auntie Mandy's lap.

In this video, you will see Emily making faces. Shocking, I know, but it's true. You will also see her trying to steal the camera away, and will get a super quick view of the couch cushions as a result of the scuffle. Oh yeah, she also tries to eat the camera. I know, I know, I couldn't believe it either. Parental Guidance is recommended due to Emily's crazy faces, theft, and violence.

Video run time is 39 seconds.

We call this video "The Grandma Jumperoo." You'll understand why after you see it. This video is rated "G" and has been approved for all ages.

Video run time is 42 seconds.

Your last bit of entertainment is called "On The Move!" In this video, you will get to witness Emily's new crawling skills first hand! Remember, at the time of this amazing feat she was only a week past the 7 month mark! This video has also been rated "G" for all ages.

Video run time is 2 minutes 1 second.