Dream Car Garage

Ground breaking started this morning on our new garage! We'll put up more posts as it progresses. Very exciting!

A Tropical Christmas


Our Christmas palm tree, poolside.

Atlantis Shuttle Launch

One of the many perks of living here in central Florida, is seeing the occasional Shuttle launches - from our backyard. Their have been a few since our arrival this year, but we missed them due to timing or an overcast sky.

But, here is a video of today's launch - keep in mind that this is about 80 miles east of us, so you'll have to look carefully! You'll get a better view if you make this a full screen view and look to the left of the larger tree in the center of the video. The launch comes into view at around 20 seconds. (And yes - that's me telling the neighbor's dog to stop barking - very annoying)

Our kitchen redo is done!

A few quick videos of the pool progress

More Pics From Ted's Trip to FL

Going Green

As we continue with renovations to our home, we thought since we are living in the land of sunshine, why not take advantage of that and go solar. So, after we had the solar hot water installed for the pool, we had a new solar domestic hot water system installed. Nothing like free hot water (well, after it is paid for!)

It was a pretty simple installation and only one panel was needed to supply the new 80 gallon tank, which will give us 175 degree water.

Ted Visits Florida

We had a great visit with Pat, Kate and Ted this weekend. While a short visit, we had a great time visiting Downtown Disney, a visit to the Farmer's Market, eating out a lot and playing
poolside in our newly opened pool!

Our pool is almost done! We should be swimming next week

Pool Progress!

Some pics of the new pool

It's been a long time comin'

It's goin' to be a long time gone.

Appears to be a long time,

Yes, a long, long, log time

Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young 1968



23 years ago this month we were in the throws of building our home in Douglas. Now, with 2 children raised and now off on there own, through trials and test of family and health, with the final New England winter behind use, we are at long last moving to warmer climates.

A dream which we really didn’t realize would happen even after we purchased our what we thought would be a vacation home; we tested the market and we sold our Douglas home for these many years. We’ve spent the better part of 8 months purging the non-essentials, relived a lot memories and discarded items of which we wondered – ‘why did I keep this?’

As we empty our home and say our farewells to friends and acquaintances, we know that the only thing that changes for us will be our address. Home is truly where your plant your dreams. Our last day in Douglas will be Tuesday April 7th. We anticipate that we’ll have frequent visitors in the land of sunshine and, thankfully, technology and frequent flyer miles will keep us in touch.

Grace will be living the high-life and due to some large work-related projects that I am wrapped up in (and he fact that I still need to work), I’ll be staying in Natick for a while taking some time with my parents.

We will be in touch.

Road Trip!

We just returned from a 2500 mile adventure down the east coast. We packed the Harley two weeks ago and started the journey with a rain soaked, hail and wind driven ride through New York City and D.C. After just under 500 miles, we landed in Frederickesburg VA for the night.

We were up early the next day for another 500 miles plus journey to Kentucky to visit Aunt Kay and what a fantastic ride it was. Hitting over 8,000 feet throughout he Appalachians and seeing the HUGE horse farms was amazing. The weather held out for us on this day, but along the way, seeing that fuel allocations were running low, we thankfully had our GPS looking for the nearest fuel stop. In the middle of nowhere West Virginia, it found us a gas station in a very remote area. Do you hear banjo music? While we were a bit concerned at first as to the accuracy of the GPS unit, our faith was upheld once we pulled in for gas. It made your local gas station look like a palace, but it was gas and after a quick pit stop, we were on our way. We made it safely to Lexington Kentucky later that afternoon and while worn out, we really enjoyed the day.

The next day, we rode out to see Aunt Kay at Saint Catherine's and had a great visit with her and some of the other Sisters there. It's a great facility and she has a great group of friends there. She was so happy to show us off to her pals! We had lunch with the group and were on our way that afternoon.

The next day we took an abbreviated ride to Wythville Virginia (more heavy rain, but no hail this time!) and landed at Patrick, Kate and Ted's the following day. We had about a day and a half visit with them and, yes, Ted is even cuter than the last time we saw him :). And so smart! Rolling over and giggling. Champion eyebrows and spectacular boo-boo lower lip. Pops however, may have hooked him on TV! " who are those people?" A wonderful visit and clean laundry!

From there, it was off to Jacksonville Florida to visit Grace's sister. We took a quick side trip to the "South of the Border" attraction and in the 20 years since our last visit there with the kids, it was sadly in much disrepair. We left there rather quickly and continued on the journey.

As we approached the Florida border, we saw some very ominous clouds ahead and not wanting to get caught in the rain, we thought it would be to our advantage to stop and the next rest areas to dawn the rain gear. Well, the rain came faster than we though it would, so we ended up pulling under an overpass and suited up in the breakdown lane. As Grace put it,"I think this makes us official bikers" as the trucks whipped past us at 70 mile per hour plus. Through another heavy bout of rain and thunder, and some nasty wind on the St. John's River bridge, we made it to Jacksonville for a 2 day respit. Great visits, super squeezes, tasty eats and clean laundry. And floating...ahhhh

Our final leg was a quick run down 95 to our home in central Florida and a weeks worth of work there.

All-in-all, a great adventure and we are ready for the next trip - Alaska?? Although I sense from Grace's expression that I might have make that trip alone.

More Ted and Family!


We had a full house today with family members coming from far and wide. With plenty of food and great company, it was a great day. Thanks to everyone for making it and making it a great weekend...




Ann, Kim, Kristen, Chris with Jack and Ted



Uncles
Great Grandparents











The Stokes Clan

Ted's Excellent Adventure!

Patrick, Kate and Ted flew up this weekend for some quality family time. We had a great family get together today and I'll post more later, but here is a 4 generation sitting; Dad, Pops, Great Granddad and, of course, Ted!











Captive Eyes!

Smart Kids…

Having been through the turmoil of writing papers and preparing legal briefs while in college, I always thought writing a thesis was like a huge term paper, but also heard that it was a bit more cumbersome than that. Knowing that thesis work was typically reserved for those going for their master’s degrees and never pursuing that avenue of education, I never gave it much thought. However, when Kristen brought home a copy of her thesis a few weeks ago and I saw that it was bound and hard covered – yah…its a book! - I’m thinking, wow, the bar sure has been raised!

Her thesis (again, it’s a book) is called Evidence Based Practice for Emergent Literacy Intervention for Children Who Use AAC. It is so impressive that I have no idea what this means, although Grace tells me it has something to do with studies that have been done in the past on children with disabilities. There are not enough studies to draw any conclusions one way or another. Again – that is the 50-cent version, the thesis is much more impressive in its detail.

So, you are probably asking, OK, we know that Kristen had to do a thesis as part of her degree; after all, it is a standard that most going for a masters has to go through. And yes, we know that Kristen is really smart with this stuff, but what follows is what I find truly amazing.

It seems that a publisher in Germany was so impressed with Kristen’s work that they want to publish it. As Kristen so aptly puts it, ‘Holy Crap’.

Imagine, the little girl that once couldn’t color within the lines, is going to have a published work!

Parent’s pride at its best. To have a work published for local reading is one thing, but across the Atlantic... wow.

So, maybe the proud parents can plan on an early retirement???

This past weekend Pat and Kate flew up to the cold of New England to help celebrate a few events. With their impeding delivery of our first grandchild, Kate’s sisters and mom got together and put on a jack and Jill event. With about 50 in attendance, and a truckload (literally) of gifts, fun was had by all. Good eats and good company make for a great family get together.

Grace’s fellow yoginis attended and Kristen monitored the gift spreadsheet. Josh won the ‘figure out the 'baby food game’; while I just sat back visited with friends and watched the world go by.

Post this event. A dozen or so of us attempted to hold a surprise birthday party for Patrick (ah… he’s 29…makes me wonder where time goes), but since we struggled with figuring out how to get to the restaurant, we had to can the surprise and said, “happy birthday, follow us”. We met a Chellos (sp) and Patrick entertained us with some birthday gifts, while we ate too much and had a wicked nasty (in a good way) chocolate cake.

It was great having the kids back and we are already planning our dates for a trip down south to see the new grandchild. We can’t wait.

Merry Christmas to All!!

Stay tuned - more postings to come soon....

Finally Laconia

After several years of hoping and waiting, through other obligations and inclement weather, I finally made the trip to Laconia for Bike Week - 2007. While only a day visit, it was no less an adventure in viewing machinery, sounds, scenery and people.

Along with my riding partner, Rob, we left central Massachusetts at around 6:00 AM. Other than being a bit chilly - Rob suffered the most, me, I have a bagger (that's a touring bike for the less informed) with a 'barn door' in the front that keeps the elements to a minimum - the ride went pretty much as planned. I missed one exit off 101, so that lengthened our ride by about 25 minutes. We arrived shortly after 10:00 and much to our surprise, traffic was not as bad as we have heard that it could be. As the day drew out and as typical for this event, traffic started to back up well past the immediate downtown area.

Tens of thousands of bikes and people and with so much to look at we could hardly take it all in. Knowing that we only had the day to visit, I resigned myself that this would be more of a fact finding event so that when I go next year, I will plan better and stay several days.

The crowds were well behaved and while I would not call this a family event, it was very entertaining. Lots of custom bikes, more T-shirt sales tents that you could possibly imagine and a fair number of scantily-clad folks, rounded out the day. The cops in the area seemed good natured and we saw regular traffic stops throughout the day. Of course, there are always the nutso people that cause accidents, as we saw several ambulances running through downtown throughout the afternoon. We bought a few token souvenirs and left shortly after 3:00. My plan was to get back on to Route 3 and head over to the north of Meredith and around lake Winnipesaukee, but the traffic was so crazy, we opted out of that plan and took some side roads off the beaten path that got us out of the area fairly quickly.

Overall, it was a great trip, a great ride, the weather could not have been nicer and still with a grin on my face and dirt in my eyes, I look forward to next year's Bike Week even more.

More Mustang Musings

I have found that one of the advantages of owning an antique auto is that I can actually work on the car myself. One of the disadvantages of owning an antique auto is that I have to work on the car! Such are the joys of knowing too much about a lot of little things about cars.

I forget too often that the Mach 1 is 37 years old and the most technological aspect of this car - as compared to today's cars - is, well, really nothing. When I restored the car my intent was to keep it in its purest form and not make any alterations to 1) keep it original in the event I ever entered the car in a judged event, and 2) because from a resale standpoint, stock restored cars bring higher value than altered ones. So, through this long project I have learned that common sense often rules over any financial gain or emotional posturing. For instance, I knew that electronics have come light years over the past 25 years, so logic stepped in and I replaced the antiquated mechanical ignition system with an after market electronic ignition system. Reliable, no maintenance, very efficient and unless you took the distributor cap off, you cannot tell the difference.

Now one area that I really lost sight off during the restoration was the stopping ability (or lack of) of this car. For those of us old enough to remember, 4 wheel disc brake systems, anti-skid brakes options and other "high tech" amenities were often times optional equipment - or just not available. We drove these cars with drum brakes and many times with no power assist, never giving a second thought to the inefficiency of these antiquated braking systems. Oddly enough, this car was ordered with manual drum brakes (why someone would order a high performance car with manual drum brakes is beyond me). Once this restoration was completed I found out early on that this car had very limited stopping power and, at times, stopping the car has been a bit scary. With that, I made the decision to waiver - again - from my original plan for no alterations, to one of understanding the importance of not hitting something and decided to install a 4-wheel disc brake conversion system. This is where I am glad I know too much about cars.

Over the course of this vacation week, I started the installation of an aftermarket disc brake conversion kit. Underscore here kit as this is not from Ford, it is from another manufacturer - who is highly regarded in the industry as manufacturers of very efficient advanced braking systems. What I have learned in installing this system is that, as is often times the case, the directions help you get there, but they don't tell you about all of the detours that must be taken to get to the end. While I enjoy the hands on and the personal satisfaction of doing it myself, the manufacturers "recommended" time to install just the rear system is 8 hours. OK... I am 3 days into this including install and dismantle 3 times, fabrication of several components and 4 trips to the parts store!

With one more rear brake and the fronts to do, I might be done in a week. I will let you know how much better the car stops in a later report. For those that understand, here are some before and after images

Deer with Attitude!

A few weeks ago, Grace was on her way upstairs to get ready for work and as she passed through the front foyer, she saw a deer in the front yard. Now this is not a totally unusual experience here, we we are frequented by such guests as deer, fox, wild turkeys (the edible kind, not the liquor!) and other not-s0-typical wild life.

As Grace took some pictures, she tried to scoot the deer from the front yard and it just turned its head towards her and gave her a look of "are you talking to me?" It did eventually scurry off.