Alpha is eleven? When did this happen?

So, our darling Alpha Child is eleven years old today. We pretty much let her plan her day however she wanted it. Donna’s Donuts for breakfast. The Dover Tent Sale after that. And then to Strongwater Farm to pick up the clothes she needs for the show next week. A quick stop in the park, and then back home for the afternoon.

And that’s when the real fun started. See, we spent a couple of hours last night coming up with clues. Things like:

Once upon a time you kissed her, / Now its time to ask your sister.

or:

Look next to where you wash your faces / You’ll find something to take you places.

and so on. We had a blast, and I wrote the clues on cards, and then hid them all around the house.

Alpha found the nerf bow and arrow. Then she found the skateboard (what was I thinking?). And finally, she found the big one. The Bike. Its a black and orange Trek 3500, and is great for getting her around town, or light trails. Her eyes were like saucers, and Dad and I both got huge hugs. Then she was on the bike and riding off down the street.

I think she liked it.

And now, we’ve had her birthday dinner of hot dogs and Gramma’s Mac and Cheese, with s’mores for dessert. We’re all curled up in the living room, and watching Star Wars. A fantastic day, by any measure.

We love you, darling girl. You are amazing.

deCordova Museum

The kids are on April break, I took the week off to be with them, and Meghan is at work.  It’s a great time to do something out of the ordinary, especially since it’s a bright sunny day.

I know – something educational!  Something cultural!  Art!

I brought my little heathens to the deCordova Museum‘s sculpture park.  (The main museum is closed while they prepare for the summer exhibits.)  It’s a huge outdoor exhibit, so they can run around and get some fresh air while taking in some mind-broadening experiences.

When I take the girls to art museums I coax them to pose like the artistic subjects (when possible – modern art gets a little hard).  It makes them focus on the art at hand as well as learn to use their bodies, but best of all they think it’s fun.

Kids posing with sculpture
Alpha and Beta posing with some modern art

This was our first time there, but I think we’re going to get a membership now.  I had to drag the kids away and bribe them with lunch at a restaurant.

Percy Jackson And The Drunken Bacchanal

I have a new drinking game for listening to Percy Jackson.  We’ve been listening to the book series (as read by Jessie Bernstein) when we take car trips together.
I now cringe every time I hear some combination of ‘my’, ‘dear’, and ‘boy’, or hear a totally inappropriate (non-serious) verbal response to an emotional situation.  Sometimes the enunciation of some words is downright pedantic and rather awkward.
If I weren’t driving I would take shots to make it more tolerable (and certainly get plastered in the process).

Found Some Code…

# check for missing fields
if (!$var1) {
        return 'missing_var1';
} elsif (!$var2) {
        return 'missing_var2';
} elsif (! $hash->{val1}) {
        return 'missing_hash_val1';
} elsif (! $hash->{val2}) {
        return 'missing_hash_val2';
} elsif (! $hash->{val3}) {
        return 'missing_val3';
} elsif (! $hash->{val4}) {
        return 'missing_hash_val4';
} elsif (! $hash->{val5}) {
        return 'missing_hash_val5';
} elsif (! $hash->{val6}) {
        return 'missing_hash_val6';
} elsif (! $hash->{val7}) {
        return 'missing_hash_val7';
} elsif (! $hash->{val7}) {
        return 'missing_hash_val8';
} elsif (! $hash->{val9}) {
        return 'missing_hash_val9';
} elsif (! $hash->{val10}) {
        return 'missing_hash_val10';
} elsif (!$var3) {
        return 'missing_var3';
} elsif (!$var4) {
        return 'missing_val4';
}

[identifiers changed to protect the innocent, but otherwise this is verbatim]

Gee, I wonder if this could be simplified?  I really don’t see the pattern…

Sadly, I see code like this much to often.  Most of the time it’s old and the developer(s) moved on long ago.  I stopped reading TheDailyWTF regularly because it hits too close to home nowadays.

Old Sturbridge (April 2014)

It’s been a beautiful spring weekend after a stormy March.  A trip to Old Sturbridge Village is in order.  Its the last day we can bring Butter the dog until autumn.

The Quinebaug River is pretty full after all the storms:

Quinebaug River Dam
The water was a full foot higher than the top of the dam
Megh and the kids playing pooh sticks on the Quinebaug River
Megh and the kids playing pooh sticks on the Quinebaug River

Some of the fields are flooding too.  Fortunately the flooded parts aren’t regular exhibits.

Flooded OSV fields
Flooded fields (plus you can see the moon)

Of course, we’re expecting another inch of rain tomorrow night, so this might be even more flooding in a couple of days.  Sadly we won’t be around to enjoy the carnage.

We went with our friends Sam and Joanne, and their son.  The kids tire each other out quite effectively.  I didn’t get a photo of them playing in the dirt.

Beta works the pottery churn
Beta channels Conan the Barbarian while working the pottery churn

While there, we accidentally ran into our friends Pat and Kelly.  We haven’t seen them since before we moved, so we skipped lunch and caught up instead.  Afterwards, when we finally got food, the kids were clearly hungrier than we were but they hadn’t complained while the Pothiers were around – too much fun to notice little things like your stomach gnawing on your backbone.

Alpha and Alpha-Pothier played like it hadn’t been five minutes since the last time they saw each other – they’ve known each other pretty much since birth.

The Pothiers
The Pothiers and their Pothiettes (plus some random kids that happened to be there)

We did get the children to sit still for a couple of seconds to take a group photo.  This is the only ‘straight’ photo, the dozen or so others have various rabbit ears and everyone cutting up.

Joneslings, Pothiettes, and Gaileys
Joneslings, Pothiettes, and Gaileys

 

Visiting the USS Albacore

My earlier plan to hide under the bed not-withstanding, we decided to head out into the weather to do something fun today. What to do?

We could have gone to the Science Museum, or the Aquarium. We could have gone to see the Constitution and the Bunker Hill Memorial (on Breed’s Hill, but who’s keeping track). Nope. We have several submariners in the family, and there is a submarine open to the public in New Hampshire. Here we come, USS Albacore! wpid-DSC_0206.jpg

The guys running the museum are fantastic. They clearly like well-behaved kids. The girls were told they could touch everything, get into the bunks, and drive the boat (who, apparently will veer towards dives).

wpid-DSC_0195.jpg wpid-DSC_0197.jpg

And touch and drive and try out the bunks they did!wpid-DSC_0202.jpgwpid-DSC_0194.jpg

According to both Dad and the girls, this is a much better submarine to visit than the USS Nautilus. The guys working the museum agreed. “We don’t talk about that other boat down in Groton. We clearly have the better boat.” We happily spent well over half an hour poking around, trying out bunks, and getting into mischief in the galley. It was just a fantastic day over all.

And we accidentally visited Kittery, Maine. Not many places you can say you accidentally visited a state just by taking the wrong bridge…