Best guitar ever made.  Best musical instrument ever made?  Best anything ever made?

This weekend was a winner.  On Saturday my step daughter and I went to her softball try outs.  Family members were not allowed to watch the actual try out (will we be allowed to watch the games?) so I didn’t see her shag all of the grounders and hit all but one of the pitches.  After we got home the kids went bike riding for a little bit and they met two other kids who might have recently moved onto our street.  That would be awesome if they had some friends in the neighborhood.  Next the kids and I did a little yard work.  We live at the end of the wind tunnel that is our street and when trash gets blown out of a neighbor’s yard there is a good chance it ends up in ours.  That accounted for a small percentage of what needed clean up.  Most of the trash in the yard came from those damn dirty squirrels who raid our trash cans and spread stuff around the yard.  The kids did a fantastic job cleaning up all of that stuff while I took care of the mountain of downed branches that have landed in our yard over the winter.  We rewarded our job well done by taking a hike through the woods behind the house.  After that we had a wonderful turkey dinner that Jen prepared for us.  Everything was delicious (especially the stuffing… drool…) After dinner we all just hung out together in the living room until bedtime/Bruins time.

Sunday started out with a few chores inside the house.  Jen went food shopping, I cleaned the kitchen and the kids straightened up the living room.  Once the clean up was done the kids and I went outside to play catch for a while.  When my step son got tired of that he rode his bike and for the first time ever was able to stand up on the pedals.  Just before we broke for dinner I was buzzed by a hawk.  That was so cool.  After that Jen had to spend a couple of hours working so the kids and I went down stairs to veg for a while.  As soon as Jen was finished working we played a few kid-friendly card games.  Rack-o, I Doubt It, and Spoons.  We will probably suggest a couple of those when we’re on our vacation to Maine.  They were all fun.   Once it was time for the kids to go to bed Jen and I hung out in the living room where I watched the Bruins while folding laundry.  The Bruins won… I wonder if me folding laundry was what put them over the top?  This is how superstitions get made.

All in all it was a wonderful weekend.  I had a blast.  I am the luckiest guy ever.

My step daughter and I were out in the front yard playing catch when a bird buzzed me. It passed about five feet in front of me, about waist high. It was close enough that I could hear its wings flapping.

It flew straight at our living room window before pulling up and flying over the roof.

After my heart started beating again I looked to see if it had landed. I found it on a tree branch on the edge of the back yard.

It was a huge red tailed hawk.

We tried sneaking up to the tree but it calmly swung its head around and looked at us. It then flew very low across the yard and then into the woods.

Coolest wild kingdom moment ever.

With the exception of the Maple Leafs, the Bruins have had a nasty habit of playing poorly against bad teams, but playing well against good teams.  Take this road trip thus far as an example.

Thursday against 10th place San Jose… they play like zombies.
Saturday against 7th place Los Angeles…  they win 4-2 and look pretty good.

Tonight against Anaheim will probably be another turd.

But it begs the question… if this continues into the playoffs, will they go on a monster tear because they are only going to be facing good teams?

I hope so, because the last few months worth of Bruins hockey have been seriously frustrating.  Will the real Bruins please stand up?

The kids and I did some yard work.  They picked up some of the wind blown/squirrel distributed trash that was lying around the edge of the woods while I dragged the last of the downed branches over to the woods.

This is the result of two storms.

After the work was complete we headed out into the woods behind the house to do some exploring.  There is actually a little path back there that leads to one of the houses on the next block.  We had no idea.

Usually my woods pictures are taken from the house.  The trees look bigger up close.  (har har har)

Yesterday I turned the shuffle-to-randomize function on in Hipstamatic.  Yeah, I think I’ll turn that off now.

The kids chose our first destination, a hill to the right of our property, and on the other side of the hill were a lot of bark-free dead trees.

There were also downed trees all over the place.  A number of them were magically transformed into balance beams.

Artsy, eh?  The randomize function gave me black and white film.  Was I aware of this?  Nope.

At last, the settings I actually chose!

My step son was really digging how much ground this tree pulled up when it fell over.

Please note that after we got back into the house, Mommy searched the kids for ticks and Robbie made everyone get changed so he could wash all of our clothes.  Yeah, deer tick paranoia runs rampant in our house.

Is this deer poop?

Almost every time I go to a kids event in New Hampshire I over hear small groups of parents having what I now consider The Obligatory New Hampshire Conversation.

It goes something like this:

I can’t believe the school system is making us do this. (where this is any number of things. Usually it is relating to either class room sizes or some fee)

The response to the first statement eventually comes around to something along the lines of, they had that referendum on a tax increase but of course we voted it down. (where a tax increase would have either eliminated or greatly alleviated the issue being discussed)

Today’s version was three parents bitching about next year’s class sizes being significantly larger than this year’s. The referendum in question voted down funding to add class rooms to one of the elementary school buildings.

It’s like effing clockwork. They are furious with the way the schools are handling their tiny budgets but absolutely insulted by the very concept of giving the school system a larger budget.

It’s almost as if they are incapable of seeing the connection.

As Ronald Weasly once said, “How thick can you get?”