the week (and a half) in review

I've been so busy in the past two weeks that I haven't had time to think, let alone blog.

Last weekend (the one that was almost two weeks ago now) saw a trip to Provincetown to go on a whale watch. This is an annual excursion (at the very least) for my large, non-biologically related, family that lives here on the Cape. Chris and I hadn't gone the past two years and Harry had never been. There were 20+ of us in our group and we were probably joined by another 20 or so strangers. We went on the early morning boat, The Portuguese Princess. We like their trips because they have naturalists from The Center for Coastal Studies, a great organization that works to protect marine mammals. We had a fabulous time and saw at least six different of whales, two of whom stayed near our boat for a good fifteen minutes, allowing me to take these



I got lots of great pictures of Harry, unfortunately they all have friends' children in them and I'm making it a policy to not post pics of other people without their (or their parents') permission. Here's a not so great one of him enjoying a pretzel


That brings us to this past weekend. We went to North Conway, New Hampshire and Fryeburg, Maine with Chris' best friend and his girlfriend. Chris and his friend lived in North Conway for nine months twelve years ago - the winter before we met. They skied and drank a lot of beer. Pre-Harry we used to go up there skiing all the time, but hadn't been since before I got pregnant. It was a lot of fun and it made me want to visit there more often. We stay at our friend's condo, which is right on Mt. Cranmore and enjoyed the fall foliage of the White Mountains.

On Saturday we were planning on visiting Storyland, but Harry fell asleep on the way so Chris and I decided to just drive around while he slept. As we drove up Rt. 16, we suddenly found ourselves at the foot of the Mt. Washington Auto Road.

Neither of us had ever driven to the top, so we decided to pay the fee and drive the eight miles up. It was quite an experience and not for the faint of heart! There were fairly sheer drops on the side with no guardrails. The road was just wide enough for two cars to pass each other and was a 12% incline/decline. Very stressful!

Harry slept the whole way up and woke up just before the summit. It had been about 68 degrees and sunny when we started up the mountain and at the summit it was foggy, overcast and 35 degrees with 75mph wind! It was like a collision course with winter. We got out of the car long enough to snap a picture

Harry didn't like the wind (and neither did I) so we got back in the car and headed back down. If I was in better shape it would have been a great hike - maybe in a year or two!

Sunday and Monday we went over to Hurricane Mountain Road to Fryeburg, Maine to go to the Fryeburg Fair. All I can say was WOW! It's a true country fair with livestock, crafts, demonstrations of all kinds - blacksmithing, ice cream making, music, and even a tractor pull! There were also carnival style attractions, but we only took advantage of the food aspects of that. It was really fun and Harry loved seeing all the animals. We saw

Oxen


A sow nursing her piglets


Chicks


There was also a petting area where Harry was too nervous to feed the goats, but Chris had fun doing it!


And as you can see Harry had a wonderful time!


It was a busy long weekend and now we're back at work. This weekend brings the wedding of a dear friend and a jeep club charity ride to Provincetown to benefit a local homeless shelter serving young people. Should be more busy fun!