Good Things Come in Three

1. What are the last 3 things you purchased?

A couple of dresses for upcoming showers and weddings

A print out of my landscape architect's plans for our yard

Tile for the backsplash

2. What are the last 3 songs you downloaded

All good work out songs:

Flaunt It - DJ Francofabi

Stronger - Kayne West

Keep Your Hands off my Girl - Good Charlotte

3. Where were the last 3 places you visited?

White Mountains of NH

Dallas to visit the Fam

Costa Rica

4. What are your 3 favorite movies?

Elf

Ever After

50 First Dates

5. What are your 3 favorite possessions?

Can animals count as possesions? I dig all of my critters!

My home in MA

My vacation home in NH

6. What 3 things can you not live without?

Good Books

Ipod

TV

7. What would be your 3 wishes?

For all my family and friends to be always healthy

To be comfortable financially for life

To find a way to be internally happy at all times (how do people do that??)

8. What are 3 things you have not done yet?

Given Birth

Found "the meaning of life" (deep today, aren't I?)

Get a black belt in Tae Kwon Do

9. What are your 3 favorite dishes?

Pizza

Sushi

Gazpacho (not an all time favorite, but I've

been loving it a lot on these hot days)

10. What 3 celebrities would you want to hang out with the most?

Will Farrell

Drew Barrymore

I can't think of any others I would enjoy hanging with...

there might be a few others I'd like to smack some

sense into, though! That list is FAR too long!

11. Name 3 things that freak you out?

Mortality

Mice (in my house, not the cute ones at the pet store)

Stitches in someone's skin

12. If you could describe yourself in 3 words, what would they be?

Creative

Stubborn

Hard Working

13. Name 3 unusual things you are good at.

Self Portraits with a camera

Kicking people in the bum while standing next to them

Decorating packages to mail

14. What are 3 things you are currently coveting?

Mazda CX-9 (we SO want a new car!)

A kayak

Garage for our NH condo

(Somewhat all tied, aren't they? I can't get a kayak until I have a place to

store it and a vehicle that will transport it easily. )

15. What 3 bloggers would you like tag?

Any of my 3 loyal readers!

Don't Mess With Texas

For some reason, I woke up this morning with the song "Don't Mess With Texas" in my head (how that happened, I certainly have no idea since I'm sure it wasn't playing on my Boston radio alarm clock). But, yes, that's right, I said song.

The Fabulous Thunderbirds were singing in my head (to the tune of Tough Enough) "Don't you trash that Texas highway don't you throw it in the road....Don't you Mess with Texas (guitar twang twang twang), Don't you Mess with Texas!" Yes, that's right TRASH! Don't Mess With Texas was a litter campaign in the 80's. That's it's start. It got me to thinking about how this mid 80's litter campaign somehow became a slogan of Texas cultural elitism. Now, it's on every souvenir you can possibly get at the airport.

Before leaving Texas for New England, I never put much thought into the slogan except for hearing that song in my head everytime someone mentioned it. Now, I find it really laughable how it's portrayed in the US outside of Texas. The rest of the world associates the words with Texans being tough and, yes, even a little arrogant. All fine and dandy since, let's face it, both are a little true (I'm proud to be Texan!). But it's just comical that it's original intent was trash...quite the opposite of something elite.

I realize that the slogan has now very much evolved and Texans now do adopt the meaning that the rest of the world associates with it, but I'll always think trash when I hear it.

DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS!!!

Wildlife at Home

Even though we live just outside the hustle and bustle of central Boston, we seem to get some unexpected wildlife in our neighborhood.  Cute bunnies have often visited\lived in our yard and we even saw a coyote run down the middle of our road one time.

This morning, Mike spotted a rabbit in the yard and was able to quickly grab his camera and snap some shots of the little guy.

Bunny-bun eating some weeds for breakfast 

(Eat away little guy - our dandelion patch is all yours!)

Super cute eating stance on our ledge

Oh, he's spotted Mike!

Independence Day Celebration Continues

We continued the fun in NH on the 5th with a visit from Tamara and Ross. They've won the award as our most frequent NH visitors! Congrats y'all! On this trip, we all decided to go for a hike. After much discussion, map looking and changed decisions, we ended up starting on a trail that Mike and I had gone on last November (some pictures of that trip: http://gallery.mac.com/mhines57#100031&bgcolor=black&view=grid). It starts at the Basin in Franconia Notch, which is really cool, very beautiful and I have no pictures of it from this trip there. Up from that, there are lots of cool sights of ledges in the stream and a couple of waterfalls.

The boys seemed to really enjoy climbing out to the rocks and it seemed everytime Tamara and I turned around, they were back out there. Here's a picture of them (enthusiastically) waving to us from their rock perch.

The trail was a pretty popular one that day. I don't think I've ever been on another hike where I ran into so many people. One of the benefits of the crowds is that we had an offer to get a group shot. Normally, the only group shots I get are self portraits, so it was a nice change from the norm. Here we are enjoying lunch.
As I said, there are several falls on this trail. In fact, I think the name of the trail is Kinsman Falls trail. Unfortunately, there was quite the swimming crowd at Kinsman Falls, so I couldn't get a great nature picture of it without lots of half naked strangers. So, here's a picture of Rocky Glen Falls which is a little further up the hike.
At the top of Kinsman Falls, we swung right onto another trail to hop over and see Lonesome Lake. From the maps, it looks like it's about 1000 feet up from the bottom of the notch (where we started). There's a huge AMC hut there - it looked to be about as luxurious as camping gets. We stopped to check out the hut and enjoy the view. And wow! What a view! With Lafayette (a future hike this summer, I hope) in the background, it was breathtaking!
And speaking of views, check out the guns on Tamara!
After circling the lake, we headed down the Lonesome Lake Trail, which dumped us out at the Lafayette Camping Area and then we traversed another 2 miles on the paved bike\hike trail back to the Basin and our car. 6 miles of hiking deserves ice cream. So, we headed into the nearby town of Lincoln for some "Udderly Delicious" treats. Yum! It was a fun day. Thanks for coming up Tamara and Ross!

July 4th - Yakin' the Pemi (Whities on the River)

The 4th of July brought gorgeous weather to the white mountains of NH. We decided to take advantage of it by taking a little kayaking trip down the Pemigewasset river. The Pemi actually flows just across the road from our condo complex. In fact, our "sister" complex on that side has river access which I've been told we should feel free to use, though we've never done so. After a leisurely morning, we set out to our local ski shop for kayak rentals and a shuttle to the river. While waiting for the shuttle, we ordered a few subs to enjoy, picnic style on the side of the river, from the new pizza\sandwich shop there.

After slathering sunscreen on our pasty selves, I tied my floating cooler (thanks Coke points) to my kayak and we launched onto the river from the "Robin's Nest" stop around 1pm for our 3 mile float.

All went very well as we got adjusted until we hit a low point in the water. Mike got through it easily, but I had to get out my kayak to walk over the rocks. No big deal..I had my water shoes on and was ready for this type of situation. My concerned husband looked back to check up on me though and ended up flipping over! After getting our sandwiches drenched, being frustrated from not being able to get the water out of the kayak himself and having to have his wife come and help "save" him, Mike was not so much into the kayaking trip. However, after a picnic break and having a soggy breaded sandwich, he was in better spirits and was able to enjoy the rest of the trip.

Two very positive things to note for the day:
1) The inaugural run of my floating cooler went smashingly and I was the hit of the river because of it! I'm glad I was a big nerd and collected my coke points for it!
2) Miraculously, we both survived the day with extremely minimal sunburn!

Yak self portrait

Kara with floating cooler in tow

After our day on the river, we went back to the condo to clean up and have a cook out. Our little Coleman grill there has been very good to us and we had a great meal of grilled meat and veggies.

Although our NH neighbors usually put on great fireworks shows weekly, we wanted to check out Waterville Valley's show (one of the ski resorts close to our place). We drove down, sat on a blanket on the hood of the car and enjoyed the show. It definitely wasn't as high budget as Boston, but it still a fantastic fireworks show. My camera doesn't exactly take great photos of fireworks, but here's one picture that turned out okay.
A great 4th complete with enjoying the outdoors, having a cookout and seeing some fireworks. Happy Birthday, America!

Lupine Festival - Sugar Hill NH

After our Welch Dickey hike, my wonderful husband surprised me with a trip to the Lupine festival in Sugar Hill, NH (just on the other side of Franconia notch from our condo..about a 30 minute drive). Lupines are flowers that remind me a lot of my beloved Texas bluebonnets! They grow wild in northern New England, up through Canada.

We went to an open air market where we bought a few craft items and also got to meet Oscar the cow. He was just a month and a half old and very cute and friendly!

Mike and Oscar the Cow

After enjoying the market, we went back to the fields we passed on the way into town and stopped to take some pictures of the lupine. We saw mostly blue\purple ones, but also some in pink and white. Stopping to take some pictures was very reminiscent of all the Easter time pictures folks take in Texas of kids in the fields of bluebonnets.

When driving back to the highway, through the town of Franconia, we came across this large, interesting structure, so we stopped to check it out. It's was the Stone Iron Furnace which is NH's sole surviving example of a post-Revolutionary furnace for smelting iron ore. I don't feel that the picture gives a good idea of it's scale, but it was ginormous! Another great weekend in NH! We always have such a great time there and there's just so much to see! Pictures of our 4th weekend are yet to come and we have another adventure planned for Saturday! So, stay tuned!

Welch-Dickey Hike NH

On June 14th, Mike and I took our first "big" hike of the season. One of NH's "most bang for your buck" hikes is literally just down the road from us (the peaks are just in front of you before you turn down our road) - the Welch Dicky loop. It's a 4 mile loop that includes 2 peaks, is "only" about an 1800 foot ascent and give you 360 views of the white mountain range. This was our first big hike last year, so we've decided to make it our first hike every summer.

Self portrait on one of the peaks (can never remember which is Welch and which is Dickey)

Mike ascending one of the many long, step stretches of granite ledge
Mike pondering life and the white mountains
Mike catching butterflies