Sunday

Dennis made breakfast for us Sunday morning--scrambled eggs and flatbread toast.

We went on the Cog Wheel Train straight up Mt. Washington, the 2nd highest mountain east of the Mississippi.

Later, we took a drive through. The Bear Notch. They have a lot of notches around here. I guess a notch is a valley.

Sunday night we had dinner at a Thai restaurant and brought home a couple of blizzards for dessert.

We are definitely eating too much.

Saturday in N. Conway

Saturday morning we had breakfast in the hotel before driving to N. Conway, a small town with many small shops and restaurants. We did some shopping and stopped for a cupcake at The White Mountain Cupcakery. Then we took a train ride on the Conway Scenic Train.

Later we had a fun dinner at the Spaghetti Shed. They bake the bread as soon as they take the order and serve an entire loaf to each table. It was good, too.

New Jersey to New Hampshire..

The first stop on our East Coast vacation was New Jersey. Our friends, Haim and Nettie, picked us up at the airport and drove us to their home in Englewood, NJ. We had dinner and visited together before heading to bed. Since we had gotten up that morning at 3 a.m., and since our friends had just gotten back from Israel, we were all tired. Below is a photo of Haim and Nettie cooking.

The next day, Wednesday, we had breakfast at home, then took Dennis and Haim to New York City for a meeting. While they were at the meeting, Nettie and I drove around the city, going from west side to east side and back again. The was some thought of shopping at SOHO, but there is NO parking in the city.

In about an hour or so, we picked up Haim & Dennis & Josh, Nettie's son, and then met Josh's wife, Chelsea, and baby son for lunch at the 2nd Avenue Deli.

After lunch Haim, Nettie, Dennis and I went to a matinee. The play was Memphis, and we all enjoyed the show and the music.

We went back home after the play and later went to dinner at Dayi'nin Yeri, a small Turkish restaurant in the neighborhood. After dinner we drove by Haim's office building so I could see where he worked.

The words for the day are "Too much food."

The next day, Thursday, we had breakfast at home, then Haim and Dennis went out to rent a car and Nettie and I ran a couple of errands.

Later, we took our leave and drove as far as Saratoga Springs, NY.

The next day, Friday, we drove up through Vermont, stopping at a bed and breakfast place offering Icelandic horseback rides. They seemed to be booked, but we drove up to see the horse ranch in case we could take a ride that day. It didn't work out, but it was nice to see the horses. See photo with the horses in the background. I was impressed with the chickens, too.

From there we drove to Montpelier, the capital of New Hampshire. We did some window shopping in the little shops on main street, then split a sandwich in a little coffee shop and a crepe at the crepe restaurant across the street.

We continued on our trek to the time share in New Hampshire. We checked in about 6 p.m. and found out we actually had two connecting rooms. One was a studio with a sofa, Murphy Bed, and kitchenette. The other room had two double beds and bath. There was a flat screen TV in both rooms.

After unpacking, we drove into N. Conway to do some grocery shopping, then home to bed.

This is the Grand Summit Resort - Attitash.

Storm in the Mountains

As soon as we left the mountains the storm disappeared. By the time we got to Uncle Johnny's house it was dry as a bone. He said Lakeside didn't get a drop of rain. I took this photo from the airplane just after we took off. It shows the storm concentrated over the mountains in East County.

Leaving Town

We got up at 3 a.m. on Tuesday 9/13 for our trip, first to New Jersey then to New Hampshire. Minutes before we left the house, we were surprised by a deluge of rain, including lightning. We quickly retrieved an umbrella from the closet (when was the last time we used that?) By the time we reached Pine Valley it was hailing. Betsy sent me this photo of the hail she had at her house in Pine Valley. Looks like pearl onions.

Caught Up

Okay, that pretty much catches us up on the major events of the last month. Next I'll start on our vacation.

A Family Affair

Thanks to Laura, the local family members were able to get together at Lido's restaurant. This restaurant has a lot of memories for us and was a good choice. Laura was in town and arranged for all of us to get together.

Amanda & Kristy

Angie and Gary returned to the ranch to stay and ranch-sit for us while we're on vacation. They brought Amanda and Kristy for a little visit over the weekend. Here they are, eating breakfast.

Me and Shalla

With the help of a big mounting block, I was able to get up on Shalla--the first time since my accident. With my knee compromised, it's difficult to get up on the horse. Shalla is taller than Doc and, also, I wasn't sure she would stand still as well as Doc does. But she did great and I was able to ride her.

Horse Camping

In late August Dennis and I went horse camping with our club, the Desert Arabian Horse Association, or DAHA. Each year DAHA reserves the group camp at Cuyamaca and this year, because we now have a camper, we were able to go.

New Photos

Another task that has been taking a lot of time is retaking all my jewelry photos in the Artfire format. All photos have to be 5" x 5" and "staged" with props to make the photos interesting. Way too much work, but I've redone most of them. My creativity gave out after awhile. Here's a sample, but I haven't posted any photos to Artfire yet.

Where Have I Been?

Good question. Right now I'm in New Hampshire and before that Vermont, New York, New Jersey, and back at the ranch in Pine Valley. I'm now wondering how I'll ever catch up on the last month.

At the end of each day, I guess I've been too tired to write anything. Vacation helps with that. Dennis and I are currently on our vacation on the East Coast. I'm trying to update the blog from my iPad using a Google app. Not sure how that is going to work. I think I'll have to keep each post short. So, here goes....

One of the things I've been doing is making jewelry for my sandycreekdesigns website. The cat helps with that.