We have seemingly brought an earthquake, a hurricane, and a blizzard with us to Long Island in the past few years- every time we head down that way some natural disaster seems to befall the area upon our arrival. This week it was payback time. Grandpa Dada made the trip up from L.I. on Thursday, and on Friday we awoke to a quarter inch of ice covering every outdoor surface. Power was out by 8AM, and by noon that quarter inch had turned into at least a half inch of crystalline coating. Very pretty, but a total disaster for trees and powerlines. Two big branches chunked off of a big pine hanging over our driveway in the afternoon, one of them hanging on the wires leading to our house. Needless to say, it was a nerve-wracking day between power outages, falling limbs, and trying to keep the kids happy cooped up inside. It was great to have Grandpa Dada's help, actually. By the next morning, all the ice was still intact, but the power was back and it promised to be sunny and warm enough to melt it away by afternoon. In our travels around the area on Saturday, it was crazy to see that the ice was restricted only to a very small area that included most of New London (probably due to our slightly higher elevation compared to surrounding towns) and a few other higher pockets in Grantham and Springfield. Lucky us!
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| Our street |
Despite the natural disaster, we were able to get out an enjoy some activities during Grandpa Dada's stay- we went to the planetarium in Concord, splash park for Aiden's swim lessons, had a korean/japanese lunch at Yama, and even scoped two bald eagles at Wilder Dam in VT. That was the first time that Aiden or Grandpa Dada had ever seen a bald eagle, so it was a treat to be able to show them both our very cool national bird (though he's more of a stealing scavenger than a noble hunter) at the same time. I don't think Haley can quite count the eagle on her life list..they were difficult to spot without the scope or binoculars, and she still insists on looking through her binoculars at the wrong end. Does she want help? NOOOOOO!! We also went for a nice hike to Clark's Lookout and topped the weekend off with breakfast at Ellie's.
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| Haley and Grandpa heading to Wilder Dam to look for eagles |
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| Aiden scoping one of the two eagles we spotted |
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| Wilder Dam |
Haley and Aiden thoroughly enjoyed their Grandpa time. By the end of the weekend Haley was screaming "Hi Grandpa Dada!" and running over for impromptu leg hugs (her badge of true approval) every time she ran into the same room as the adults, and Grandpa Dada knew all Aiden's lego EVO guys by heart, including which ones were the good guys and which ones bad. The kids' happiness was topped only possibly by Kimball's - if such a thing were possible, I think Kimball would like to be tucked into Grandpa Dada's pocket to ride around with him everywhere, getting belly scritches and kisses all the day long. It's putting it mildly to say that Grandpa Dada is Kimball's favorite person on earth. So we'll forgive him for the ice storm, this time ;) Now that the ice is gone and things are back to normal, we can relax and chalk the whole thing up to a big adventure for the family archives. Hopefully we are even now? Somehow I'm afraid not...
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| In an ultralight at the planetarium |
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| Icy walk to Clark's Lookout |
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