Halloween 2007

So Halloween is on a Weds this year, lame. So most festivities happened over the weekend. I still hope the little kiddies will come and take all this candy I bought. Lord knows Baha and I don't need it.

I went to Jim's Department Pumpkin carving party on Friday. It was fun. Didn't win any prizes this year, but free food and free beer! Not to mention hanging out with Jim, we always have a good laugh.

Sat night Baha and I went to Nik and Ana's to eat, and hang out. Watched the game, Go Sox!

And on Sunday Tonia came over and carved our pumpkin. She did an awesome job! As you can tell from the above photo, hers is much more creative. Tonia's is on the right.

And then to top of the weekend the Red Sox won the 2007 World Series! Hurray Sox!

Apple Picking & Boys first Apt!

Mom and I took Baha and Tonia this year on our annual apple picking adventure. We always go to Pats Peak in Henniker, NH. Small little farm on the top of Pats Peak Mountain with a great view of the lake below. The weather and apples were beautiful. Now time to make yummy apple treats!













After apple picking Baha and I went to my brother's first apartment. It's a cute little place in the middle of the woods in Belmont NH. They have the left side of a duplex, with a little yard and everything. They are much closer to school, so that helps when you work construction all day and then take classes at night, the soon you can get home to relax the better. And they are very close to a major shopping area, the Tilton outlets. I didn't take photos of their place like a dope, but I did take a couple nice photos of the railroad tracks near their place.

2007 Family Reunion

So as custom in most families, once a year the family tries to get as many family members as possible to come to a cook out. We always have ours in a park in Schenecady NY because it is close to grammy. We had good food, of the American cookout variety, nice chats to catch up and of course the usual family photos. It was windy and a bit cool, so next year we are going to shoot for earlier in the season.

Grammy with the Boys

Grammy with the Girls

Grammy with her surviving daughters

Grammy and her first granddaughter

Andrew and his new girlfriend Clair

Grammy with her niece Melanie

Me and my bros, aren't we cool

My boys, aren't they cute

Family future superstars

Look at these cheeks! So yummy!

Allen Family

Jackson Family

LaRose/Kavlakli Family

Jones Family

Till next year!

Day at Lake Winnipasaki NH

My aunt Patricia and her husband and granddaughter came to visit my mom over Labor Day weekend. Her son Ren has been staying with my mom and he was happy to see them.So Baha and I drove up and Greg, Andy, Tonia, Ren, Aunt Patricia, Uncle Will and Shalea drove up to Lake Winnipasaki for a picnic and swim.
It was a bit windy and cool in the shade, but we did go for a dip! The water was warmer than the air. So it was get in the water and not have anything but your head out till you got out and got dressed. But despite the wind, Baha was eventually, after a whole bag of charcol and a bottle of lighter fluid, able to get a fire going for us to cook.

Tonia was being her photogenic self.

But my cousin, Ren's niece stole the show. She is so beautiful and already she is a little miss thing.

Canobie Lake Fun!

So on Sat we took Tonia, my new little sister, to Canobie Lake Amusement Park. Andy, Greg and Baha came too and we all had alot of fun!

The weather was awesome and we hit the water park first, then on to the rides! Tonia road her first roller coaster, actually I think most of the rides were her first.








She was a real trooper and road everything! Even the Turkish Twist, which of course our own personal Turk had to ride.









She's still young so she can still handle all the rides. Me on the other hand have been to and ridden more amusement parks and rides this summer than I have in my whole life!

It's cool though, it's fun to get out into the nice weather and enjoy summer, do real summer activities before it's colder than a witches tit again! You sometimes surprise yourself and get a few good, non-snap shot, photos out of the day too. I thought these were pretty cool.













Of course we can't forget Baha's grand prize! I have to say, with little effort, he was able to win a giant Homer! Baha love Homer.













So with a Ferris Wheel ride to end the night, we headed home. I don't think we were on the highway before Tonia was asleep. Glad she had fun.

Roller Coaster Pilgrimage: Day 3 & 4

Day 3: King's Island (just north of Cincinnati, OH)
After sleeping late and getting some much needed rest, we headed for brunch at the Waffle House. MMmmmmm...excellent diner food. The Chocolate Chip Waffles melted in my mouth and the "real" hash browns as they call them, guess they are fake everywhere else, were yummy!

Before jumping on any fancy roller coasters on a full stomach we decided to catch us a game of miniature golf! We had seen the place on our way in the night before and I think we all thought, haven't done that in a long time.











Back to the hotel for a nap and wait out the afternoon heat. 5pm we enter the park and for almost half the price! It's a big park, with several section all different in theme. We headed for the Nickelodeon section first. Scooby-Doo & The Haunted Castle ended up being a BIG waste of time, totally not scary and our laser guns didn't work well. Next the Fairly Odd Coaster, short, but a good way to get us introduced to coasters for the day. Stepping it up a notch we head for the Rugrats Runaway Reptar, your feet dangle from your seat as you whip around corners and hills; I liked this coaster, could have road it again, but unlike Fun Spot, lines are long and you have decide what you want to spend time on. So not wasting anymore time we head straight for The Beast. We are ready. It was awesome. Can't really describe it; it's fast, you go up giant hills to come racing down and make sharp turns and dash through dark tunnels. It's very cool. And I can only imagine how much more exciting it was for Baha and Jim when they went again at night and you can't see a thing!

So mission accomplished we jumped on a few familiar rides: swings, bumper cars (totally lame), scrambler & the monster (their name for the spider). Turns out I can't do loop coasters or spinning rides anymore, I am not feeling so good on the spider and after we get off I am only able to do one more coaster ride, The Racer.

This image of Jim on the Spider, really does express his and my feeling about this ride:











A trip to the top of their replica of the Eiffel Tower and we are done.













Day 4: Long as drive Cincinnati, OH to Boston, MA
Yup, it was a long as ride. 15hrs to be exact. Baha did the first tour of duty and then Jim and then me to pick up the last leg. Baha got the best of it, daylight and sun, Jim got daylight for most, but a TON of rain, I got all darkness and some crazy ass fog through the Berkshires, but we made it safe and sound, with some new stories to tell.

Roller Coaster Pilgrimage: Day 2

Day 2: Buffalo, NY to Angola, Indiana
After a nice breakfast at Ambrosia's in Buffalo with Ethan, Jen and Phin we got some new ice for the cooler and hit the road. Baha took first shift taking us all the way to Fun Spot. Along the way we passed through Erie, PA, Cleveland, OH and Toleda, OH. I had never seen one of the Great Lakes before and we got to glimpse Lake Erie on your journey, Man what an amazing site! It's huge! If I didn't know it was a lake, I would think I was looking at the ocean.
Now Fun Spot is a tiny little park, but I imagine the most fun thing to do in that area of Indiana. And for our short visit, it was fun. I particularly enjoyed the Zoo, where they have a whole collection of Big Cats! Beautiful animals, that unfortunately, they took in or rescued from bad situations. Lions, Tiger (no bears), cougars, black leopards and a little deer family (poor deer, seemed like they were more like lunch with all the big cats surrounding them). First ride we went for was the reason we came all the way to Indiana in the first place!
The Afterburner:

As it turns out, we each only rode it once! Come to find out we aren't as young as we thought and can no longer handle loop coasters. As they say, sometimes you find out things the hard way, but at least we had fun doing it. A few turns on some other rides and back on the road.








Back on the road, Jim at the wheel we headed for Cincinnati, OH.
It was beautiful landscape, though seemingly endless.










Tired and not sure of a better option we settled on Motel 8, right down the road from King's Island. The hotel itself was fine, it was just a little bit pricer than we planned, but you can't beat the convenience.