the master chef

the master chef, originally uploaded by topoisomerase.

working in the kitchen at the children's museum in west hartford this afternoon.

dancing queen

for some reason Arwyn was really into dancing along to the songs from her leapfrog fridge farm magnetic animal set thingy this evening. here's a short clip of her demonstrating her showing off her sweet moves. pretty cute, no?

her new summer 'do

you got a preview in the last post, but here's a shot from earlier in the day showing off Arwyn's new hairstyle. both mom and I have been looking forward to the time when we could do more with her hair so of course we're both enjoying the pigtails!

after a nice hike

after a nice hike, originally uploaded by topoisomerase.

Arwyn proved her fortitude today, hiking half a mile with her own two feet! we had a nice hike in Lyme this afternoon and didn't have to put her in the backpack until the end! such an outdoors woman, like her mom!

she's got the hang of this horsey now

it took a little while but these days Arwyn really seems to be enjoying her rocking horse, given to her by GiGi and Poppy some time ago. here's a little clip of her rocking away yesterday morning. she still needs a little help getting on and getting going; occasionally she will also request harmonica accompaniment to achieve the proper motivation, as seen here. her great grandmother must assuredly be proud of her taste in music :)

breakfast is tasty

especially when you're finally over the stomach bug that you had for the last week. a scrambled egg followed by some yogurt and granola: cornerstones of any Arwyn breakfast.


(and then some more yogurt and granola that you steal from your mother's own breakfast later on...)

a geocaching we will go...

geocaching. something few of you may know of, but definitely something lorri and i are glad to be getting back into. similar to letterboxing, which you may have heard of, geocaching is essentially a treasure hunt (generally) involving a GPS. a few years back lorri bought me a garmin etrex legend, facilitating our entry into geocaching. thanks to websites like geocaching.com, it's really easy to locate caches most places (except bar harbor, ME, which is why we haven't gone since we moved away from guilford, CT). there are a ton within even 10 miles of our current home, so we thought it was about time we get back in the game, especially since Arwyn enjoys the outdoors so much.

we did a quick cache yesterday, involving a short hike in cockaponset state forest. while it was Arwyn's first cache, daddy wasn't smart enough to bring a camera. anyhow, we set out again today on two more hunts in the next town over. handily, both of these sites were within the distance of an easy bike ride.


we found the first cache fairly easily, though some stealth was involved. you see, it was hidden in a very public place with lots of people around, and tradition dictates discretion when non-cachers ("muggles", much like in Harry Potter) are around. silly, perhaps, but who am i to break the rules? anyhow, the second cache was good too. it was found near a small gazebo at which we gave Arwyn a snack and let her run around a bit. she was particularly fond of a small monument set in the ground, as this video shows. she demonstrates one of her amusing mom-taught mannerisms here, that being "relaxing".

a return to bar harbor

ok, so this post is two weeks late but i'm finally getting it done. we went to visit the reinholdts way up in bar harbor, me, our former home, and had a great time. those of you following their efforts to build a new home know just how hard they're working to get things done. now that i've seen it firsthand, i can tell you they've got a really nice piece of land and i think it will be well worth all the effort and associated headaches in the end. i'm also happy to say that the abrasions on my left forearm have now nearly healed - those being the battle scars well-earned from helping Eric out for a few hours with some chainsaw fun coupled with the hauling of scratch-inducing log bits. :) thanks for getting my normally desk/lab-bound self out doing some real work!

one of the fun aspects of our trip was seeing just how much Eric and Laura's sons, Henning and Sig, have grown. answer? a lot! also a treat was seeing Arwyn interact with the boys. of course we know she's a social butterfly but it seems she's also quite the flirt. this fact has caused the population of gray hair already present on dear old dad's head to further expand! as the pictures below demonstrate, first she hung out with Sig (younger guys are easier to manipulate, right?), playing the innocent little girl (note the presence of her blanket monkey, Karl. nice prop!). she then moved on to the older man, Henning, taking a more deliberate, confident approach. Just look at that pose - and his response!



to sum it up before i write too much more, we had a really great trip. we were grateful for all the hospitality Eric and Laura provided, and we had a wonderful time visiting with them. also nice was getting to visit with our former colleagues and friends from The Jackson Laboratory. while we didn't get to spend time with everyone we'd have liked to see, there's always next time! see you in a few months, i hope!