Kyle participated in the Coles Science Fair again this year. His project this year was “Exploring how well
different brands of popcorn pop”. We had lots of fun counting and popping popcorn. We also ended up eating a lot of popcorn over the course of a week or so. If you’re interested, here’s an NJ.com article about it (alas, no photos of Kyle there). Here’s some of Suzanne’s photos:
His car did okay this year, coming in third in the Bear group (~12 cars), winning at least one heat, maybe two, and 6th in the overall (top three from each of the four groups). He was quite happy. He gets to go to the district race in March. Here’s a video of Kyle’s car being raced. His car is in the silver one in the nearest lane. (Skip to around 30 seconds for the action. I tried to edit it, but couldn’t get it in the right format.)
Here’s a couple of photos: 
Here’s a better photo of the car:
We hope everyone had a good holiday and start to the new year.
Latest Kyle photos:
I also posted the trip report and photos from our Disney trip:
We have done a few things over the past few months. For Thanksgiving, Suzanne and Kyle came up to Boston on Wednesday and we headed up to Burlington, VT to visit with my dad and step-mom for the holiday. My aunt Lucy and uncle Ken came over as well. We had a very nice time. On the day after, we did Christmas early so they could get to see Kyle open his presents. We headed back to Boston on Saturday so Kyle and Suzanne could catch the late morning train back to NJ on Sunday. While they did a lot of traveling (4 hours by train each way to Boston and 3 1/2 hours each way from Boston to Burlington), we all had a nice time.
Of course, after that, was Christmas. We had the holiday at our house a couple of weekends before, so that was nice. On the Saturday before Christmas, we packed up the car and headed down to South Carolina. We had a wonderful time down there seeing everyone, though Kyle and Suzanne had just been down a bit over a month before. Ally has grown so much in the last year. (Of course, 6-18 months is a huge change.) On Christmas morning, Kyle and Ally opened their presents first thing in the morning while the rest of ended up doing so after breakfast. Santa brought Kyle a Wii which he loves. The rest of our time there was pretty quiet. We decided to head back home on Friday to have some time to ourselves as I was off through Jan 1st (Wednesday).
First thing in January was my and Kyle’s birthday. I ended up driving to Boston on Wednesday Jan 1 only to have the university close early on Thursday and be closed Friday due to a serious snowstorm. It ended up being okay Friday afternoon, so, after stopping at a client site in Framingham, about 30 minutes west of Boston and on my way home, I made it home easily. Normally I wouldn’t spend only two days in Boston, but wanted to be home for our birthdays, which I did by working from home on Monday and taking Tuesday off to travel back. While we didn’t do much, aside from going out to dinner, it was nice to be there.
Since then, nothing too exciting has happened. Kyle’s Cub Scout pack had their Pinewood Derby. Kyle came in 3rd (out of 10-12) in the Bear group and 6th in the “grand finale” round (all the cars that were in the top 3 in each of the four groups), so he was excited. He even gets to compete in the district race in March.
We do have a few things in the next little bit. Kyle’s having his birthday party at the Trailside Nature Center in a couple of weeks. They’re going to do a Reptile of NJ show, so that should be exciting. A bit after that, we got tickets for Kyle and I to see the Harlem Globetrotters play in Newark, so that should be fun. (As an aside, a member of the team used to be a parent at Kyle’s school.) In early March, Kyle’s pack is doing an overnight (indoor) camping trip to the Philadelphia Zoo, which should be very cool. I think that’s it for now.
Hi all. I finally managed to post the report and photos from our trip to Disney World back in October. Enjoy.
On Saturday, Kyle and I had some fun improving his snow fort, which he had built with Suzanne on Friday’s snow day. It’s all gone now due to the pouring rain we had Monday.
We hope things are well with everyone.
I posted some photos of Kyle
We’re doing okay. In early August, we spent a day at the Red Mill Museum in Clinton (about 30 minutes west of us) during the Revolutionary Soldier encampment. A couple of weeks later, we spent a great day at the Greenwood Lake Airshow in West Milford. We got to see lots of stunt planes and some historic ones. Aside from them having to cancel most of the second flight session due to an nearby accident requiring medevac helicopters, it was very enjoyable.
During the week before Labor Day, we spent a day in Philadelphia. Kyle is really into the Revolutionary War, so he enjoyed seeing the historic sites and getting another Junior Ranger badge. Aside from the rain, it was very nice. We even got to see them “ring” (really lightly tap) the Liberty Bell as it happened to be the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
The weekend after Labor day, my family got together and rented a house in Newport (actually Middletown) RI to have a memorial for my Grandfather. We always like spending some time with family. We were also only a short walk to the beach, but it happened to be on the cool side that weekend, so it was a bit chilly. We also did our annual apple picking trip to Terhune Orchards in Princeton. The cider and donuts afterward are always a treat.
Our big thing in October was our trip to Disney World. We met up with my brother Allan and my mom (the latter for the first part of the week) and had an excellent time. I’m still working on photos, but will have them posted along with a trip report (hopefully) soon.
Suzanne and Kyle are currently visiting with her parents in South Carolina. I’ll be heading up to Berlin/Gorham to see some of my family while they’re down south. No big plans for the rest of the year. We’re planning to head to Vermont for Thanksgiving, but we don’t have further plans aside from continuing to get the house ready to sell.
Here’s a couple of photos from Halloween.
I hope you enjoy.
Here’s a quick video of part of the Jedi Academy training session Kyle did while we were at Disney last week. We made a special effort to get to Hollywood Studios early to ensure he got one of the limited spots and it was well worth it. I’ll have many more photos at some point, but I just started going through the roughly 3700 images I took during the trip. If the video is choppy, pause it to let it buffer it fully.
Here are some photos from Kyle’s first day of school.
I just posted some photos of the July 4th fireworks from North Plainfield this year. Enjoy.
