camper

On Friday, Brandon came over on the last day before he went to Cape Cod. We stayed out in the rain and watched a storm start. We were under a umbrella but we got wet when it blew back and turned inside out. Because we were already wet we ran around. Later in the day my Grandpa Wood, Chris and Aunt Dianne came over.

My relatives were here because they were going to my mother's cousin's wedding in New York. I woke up at 8:30 and had 40 minutes to get ready for my family to leave. Then I went to karate. Papa picked me up and we went to my grandparents house and had a PARTY. After the party we went to bed in the camper.

The camper is a 1973 V.W. Westfelia camper that my dad used to sleep in when he was going cross country and he was my age. I slept in the top bunk/cot. It felt really good to sleep in that bunk. We were lucky that it didn't rain and that there were no bugs. Aidan and Grammie slept in the bottom bed. There were even fire works.

I woke up in the morning, went to church, came back and then went home and did my blog.

Connor

On Rhode Island the second day, we went on the Misquamakit beach water slides. It was awesome. On the Misquamakit beach water slides you get a mat to ride on, then they just let you go free and ride whatever ride you want. They have one really little slide, three in the middle fun rides and two really big awesome slides, they’re all fun. We rode on the flying horse carousel and I caught the brass ring. I won a free ride.

Other fun things we did in Rhode Island include, going kayaking standing up on the end of the kayak. Mom was paddling, Aidan was laying on the front, and I was standing up on the back. We were quite a sight. We made a single person kayak into a 3 person kayak. I only fell over board once and that one time Aidan said HA- HA! You fell off! I’d like to see him try not to fall off. Next day he tried standing also (he fell off more than once – it’s not easy).

We also did clamming. When we were clamming we found razor clams. Razor clams dig really fast so we had a race. The winner was clam A. In second clam D, and in third was clam B. Then we kayaked back to the cottage. I took one round on the toy-ish real-ish motorcycle. See the pictures!

Then we left and drove all the way home. It was better than the ride to Virginia Beach because Aidan slept most of the way. Tonight I’m going back into my regular round of things and doing karate.

As soon as we got home, we realized that Dad had written phrases on the driveway in chalk. They were “welcome home”, “Connor is great”, “Aidan is awesome”, and “Deb is hot”. Then when we went inside we got a proper greeting from Ginny. Next we realized that Dad got Mom 2 boxes of Good and Plentys, “get passionate” tea and a dozen roses. He also got us the sequel to the Librarian, a movie that we had seen in Virginia Beach. Thanks so much Dad!

I’m now back at home, home sweet home.

-Connor

first day

I'M IN RHODE ISLAND!!! But first I had to drive here, too much driving in the last month. I'm in Rhode Island because I was invited by my neighbors who have a beach house, when I got there I was greeted by my 4 year old friend Livy. We ran out to the dock and caught lots of guppies. Owen, Livy's 7 year old brother, got mad at us for dumping the bucket and letting the guppies go away. We left my Dad at home working. Hi dad miss you!

Connor

I have some pictures of our newly painted house that I should have put in my last post but hey, they look the same on this post. It's almost done!!

During the day today I got heat rash because it was, 93 DEGREES OUT!!!!!! Plus today I was in my karate gee ALL DAY, JUMPING IN A BOUNCE HOUSE! To get heat rash you need heat, sweat and friction from fabric. Soooooooooo to get rid of my heat rash ( you saw this coming right?) I used, Anti Monkey Butt Power!! It really worked! I didn't expect it to work but it really worked!!! My heat rash no longer itches and I DO NOT have a monkey butt. By the way I had heat rash on both my upper arms and both my ham strings NOT my butt.

Ponyo is a movie. In fact it is the newest Hayao Miyazaki film. My dad is ADDICTED to Hayao Miyazaki's films so the first day it was out my family went to the movie theaters to see Ponyo. It was really good, strange, and odd but all the same really good. There's a part at the beginning where the main character gets cut and it doesn't seem like a big thing but it plays a huge roll in the WHOLE MOVIE! Even Grammie came and liked it. Papa missed out.

CoNnOr

The house is being painted a brownish- grayish color, ish. Papa is one of the painters. It's really nice to see papa almost EVERY DAY though it's kind' a' weird. I am not used to the color yet but it still looks good. It's in a good looking stage right now and it looks WAY BETTER than when it was in it's SPOT primer stage emphasis on SPOT.

I've been on vacation SO LONG that I had to go back to school. Not really SCHOOL but to the school out side. O.K. I just went to the school playground and ran around. but that counts, sort of.

Connor

I’ve been back from vacation for a few days and it’s been difficult switching from BIG topics that I’ve never done before to every day stuff but it’s REALLY good to be back. It’s SO awesome being back; I can play with my friends all the time now. Being back I’m able to go back to karate it’s SO awesome. I even got to set up my own karate drill (lately the instructors have been asking the higher ranked students to contribute in class), in it we jumped over pads and then jumped a higher pad, then you did a diving roll out and got up and went in line to go again.

The only bad thing about being back is that Aidan and I are getting on each other’s nerves and driving my mom CRAZY. Over all it’s good to be back

“There’s no place like home!” -Connor

Walking with dinosaurs

Walking with dinosaurs was OUT OF THIS WORLD!!!!! Well, if you don't know what walking with dinosaurs is, I'll tell you. The dinos in walking with dinosaurs are robo puppets with flexible skin like fabric. The tallest dino in the show was over 60 FEET TALL!! wow, big!, big!!, BIG!!!!!!!! The larger dinos were robo-puppets that have a stick sticking out from under them that has a long rectangular compartment and in there is a guy controlling the dino from inside the compartment. The small ones were people in cool dino costumes.

During the show they went through ALL OF THE PERIODS IN TIME WITH DINOSAURS IN IT!!!!! My favorite dino was ankylosaurus, which in latin that means fused lizard. Ankylosaurus is in the first picture, he is really bony and has a lot of spicks and NOT a big head.

Today I did nothing but hang out and play around the house. A lazy summer day...

-CoNnOr

Maine

We had trouble with internet access so we're combining a few days here.

Thursday: On Thursday we went on a duckboat tour on a bus that drove into the Portland Harbor (Hah-Bah). It was half bus/half boat. It was awesome! We also drove the dingy(Moon-Bubbles) around the hah-bah. To end the day we had flat bread pizza on the boat.

Friday: On Friday we took moon bubbles (the dingy) to Fort Gorges, it was dark and freaky and awesome and cool and... We went really deep inside and we found a HUMONGOUS train station size room for holding gunpowder. It was so dark in the fort that you needed a flash light and even with it it was still WICKED DARK. Fort Gorges is a civil war fort on an island in the Portland harbor.

Saturday: In the morning we packed the car with ALL of our stuff. Then we went to see my cousins Abby and Griffin. We went to Portland Head Light park and rolled down a hill a lot of times. It was fun. Then we went for dinner with a GREAT view of the ocean. Then we drove home. Everybody was happy to see us. Ginny was very happy to see us. It's not often some one is so happy to see you that you get sat on.

- Connor :)

Sorry for the delay. We had trouble sending things from the ipod

Tuesday:  on Tuesday I drove home from new jersey. Boring...  When we  
got home Ginny gave us a nice welcome back charge. Grammy and papa  
were doing great. Mimi and Ginny were both really happy to see us. My  
bed felt much more comfortable than all the soft beds I slept in. I  
happily was playing with Grammy and papa for most of the day with a  
lot of Ginny and Mimi moments.
Wednesday:  I woke up in my bed, eager to go have a second vacation in  
Maine with grandpa wood. Bur first we had to drive. After a 4 hour  
drive, we made it to Portland Maine and rejoiced with bubble tea. We  
spent a short day on the boat with grandpa wood having lots of fun.  
For dinner I had noodles with butter and sat next to my cousins Abby  
and griffin and my uncle Nate.  Griffin and I had a lot of fun  
together and we ended dinner by poking holes in pieces of bread,  
making smiley faces.

I spent most of yesterday doing MagicQuest, which of course involves lots of walking and stairs. I got about 3 new runes including the “Master Magi” rune but you aren’t a Master Magi until you do “Adventures”. The first adventure is a Pixie. She is super easy to beat, all you do is keep flicking your wand and you save a crystal then win. Then comes a Goblin King, he’s pretty hard, you have to do controlled flicking REALLY FAST but I did. Then comes the DRAGON. He’s really hard you have to choose your powers, then use then use them quickly or else he will scorch you and you lose points and you can only survive 6 hits at most even if you hit protect every time. I beat him with the help of some girls who had already beaten it. YES, I BEAT IT, I RULE! I said as I walked out of the arena. Aidan didn’t beat it that day. The next morning I woke up and had breakfast, then Aidan played MagicQuest. That morning Aidan beat it in one try. Those nice girls we met yesterday met us at the dragon at 9 in the morning and helped Aidan to win. Next we went to the MagicQuest store and got pins and certificates that say QUESTMASTERS on them.
Yesterday we also went to the water park. My mom sounds like a fire engine when she screams, even on the little rides! I took one last ride on the howling (toilet) tornado (a big toilet bowl ride) and then said good bye to the Great Wolf Lodge. I’ve included two videos of me riding the surf simulator and getting 1000 gallons of water dropped on my head.
-Connor
p.s. I’ve included a picture of the moose that was on the wall next to my bed. It’s annoying because it is hard to sleep next to with it staring at you. Luckily you can’t see it with the lights out.

I forgot to put in that the surfer-guy instructor nicknamed me "long-ride" because I always had long rides on the board up to the beach. At one point on a really big wave, I even hit someone's beach chair and ran into a couple of hippy guys that said, "Narly dude, nice ride".

-Connor

Friday-On friday I went surfing for a second time (the first time I was in California). I was a lot better at it this time and even my dad was rocking. There wasn't anybody there that did not catch a wave and ride it to shore. Friday was also our last full day at V.B. so we worked really hard to come in and win our polite contest medals. The parents give us awards for what we did best at the dinners during the vacation. I won most contained energy award and Aidan won most entertaining/distracting. We both got well earned polite contest ribbons and medals. The waitress at our last dinner even commented on how polite we all were (she did not know we were having a polite contest).

Saturday- that morning I cleaned up and said my final good bye to V.B. As a nice good bye I saw a baby dolphin breach (jump out of the water). We drove for three hours through a bunch of traffic and got to the Great Wolf Lodge. We went to chick filet, the healthiest fast food restaurant in America. When we got to the lodge, the first thing we did was get our magic wands for MagicQuest. MagicQuest is a cool game where you get an electronic wand and you go around and solve puzzles and find gold and rings etc. If you find a certain group of that stuff you get a rune and a rune gives you a new power and once you have all the runes you are a Magi Master. It involves a lot of running around. There is also a indoor water park with cool tube rides and a BIG, HUGE, LARGE, AWESOME bucket that dumps 1,000 gallons of water on top of you. My favorite slide was the howling toilet. It was a super awesome toilet bowl ride that was HUMUNGOUS. Dad and I howled when our tube plundged into it. It was wicked.

-Connor