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Lots of visitors and skiing continues!

I need to get better about regularly posting!

Since my last post in January, we’ve had tons of visitors to the lodge almost every weekend.  We sure are enjoying this place!  Unfortunately the skiing hasn’t been too good in Jan+Feb, little snow and lots of warm temps have left the mountains unable to make snow and lots of icey conditions.

Fortunately the past couple weeks have been spectacular!  The mountains have received 2 feet of snow in the past week and are expecting another 1-2 feet this week!  The end of the ski season is looking great and we may potentially be able to keep going until April if the temps stay low!

Here are a list of visitors we’ve had to the lodge the past couple months:

  • Jan 27 – Noone, I forget where we skiied
  • Feb 3 – Coughlins (Jim, Kate, Eric, and Trixie) visited the lodge and we skiied Cannon
  • Feb 10 – We took a week off from the Lodge and skiied Sugarloaf w/ the Coughlins
  • Feb 17 – ClearMotion ski weekend, had a bunch of former coworkers up at the lodge and we skiied Cannon
  • Feb 24 – Noone, I forget where we skiied.  This was the end of school vacation week.  Michele stayed up at the lodge all week with the boys.  Some warm temps kept them from skiing some days, but overall they had a blast.
  • Mar 3 – Ingalls ski weekend.  Lots of family from CA, FL, CT, and MA!  We skiied Bretton Woods both days
  • Mar 10 – Were planning on the Imbeault’s but the boys all got sick.

 

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A great October at the Lodge

Well, I haven’t been doing as good of a job of keeping the blog up to date over the past few weeks.

We’ve been up at the Lodge each weekend in October though.

On the first weekend, we had an extra day off for Columbus day.  On Sat+Sun we had our friend Jenn and her two kids up.  In the morning we hiked Mt. Willard.  It was a peak foliage weekend and the trail was packed!

On the second weekend, we had my parents up.  On Saturday night Michele and I took advantage of the babysitters and had a date time.  We went to the Woodstock Brewery, which was a lot of fun (and really hopping!)  Also, we got some good projects accomplished, including repairing our broken sofa bed (thanks Dad!) and getting that upstairs.

On the third weekend, Michele’s brother, David, came up to visit.  Most of the crew hiked Mt. Osceola.

Cannon will be opening in one month and we are very excited to get the ski season started!

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Dave and Eli hike Liberty

This weekend we had no visitors at the Lodge.  On Saturday, Eli and Dave hiked Mt. Liberty (4459′).  The hike had 3000′ of elevation gain.  Overall it took us about 7 hours to complete.  The top was chilly and there were even some snowflakes!  Eli did great on the hike, but was getting very tired in the last hour or so.  I think I tuckered him out!

 

On Sunday we spent the morning cleaning up the Lodge.  Also, we went to the Sugar Hill Autumn Festival, which was a small little craft fair in town.

Good shot of our view at the Lodge in Autumn!

 

 

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Ingalls Family Visit

This weekend we had a few visitors.  Michele’s brother, David, visited us from South Boston.  Also, Michele’s dad and step mother visited us from Florida.

We had several contractors scheduled at the house on Friday, so worked remotely.  We had a chimney sweeping, couch delivery, and a quote for a new boiler.

On Saturday, we started the day with a quick hike up Artists Bluff.

After Artists Bluff, we hung out at the Echo Lake beach.

In the afternoon, Steve and Mary arrived.  We just hung out at the Lodge the rest of the night.

On Sunday, we headed over to Loon Mountain to check out the gondola ride.  At the top, the kids got to explore some caves.  After Loon we had lunch at our favorite spot in Lincoln, Enzo’s, then got some candy at Chutters!

 

 

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Aaron hikes Cannon

We took a week off from the Lodge to do some stuff around the house, go to some kid bday parties, etc.

This weekend we headed up on Friday night, as usual.

Saturday AM, Michele and Aaron headed out to climb Cannon together.  This was Aaron’s biggest hike yet.  The Hi-Cannon trail is about 5 miles round trip with over 2500 feet of elevation gain.

While they were out hiking, I took the other boys out for the morning.  I had the great idea of hanging out at Loon to check out the gondola and the various other summer activities.  Well, it turned out that was a mistake, because it was the Highland Games at Loon this weekend.  This is a huge Scottish festival and the place was mobbed.

After waiting in line for over a half hour, we decided to turn around.  We had lunch at Enzo’s, ran some errands, checked out Boise rock and then headed back for nap time.

During nap I started chopping some wood, and built a wood holder.

Michele and Aaron got back to the Lodge just in time to head over to our neighbors house.  We got to meet a couple neighbors, which was great!

On Sunday we went to the Woodstock Cascades, which is an awesome watering hole.  We swam there and had lunch.  Then we headed back home and enjoyed the rest of the weekend back home!

Here’s some pics from the weekend!

 

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Labor Day Weekend 2017

So my parents have been vacationing up at the Lodge for the past 2 weeks.  We headed up there early on Friday to spend Labor Day weekend with them.

On Friday, we went for a hike at Kilburn Crag in Littleton.  The hike was an easy 0.7 miles each way, with a great view overlooking downtown Littleton and the whites at the top.

After the hike we just hung out at the Lodge the rest of the day.

On Sunday the weather wasn’t very good.  We had Polly’s for breakfast.   In the early afternoon I took Eli to the indoor rock gym, then to run some errands.    My parents headed home after dinner.

On Monday morning we packed up and headed home to beat the Labor Day traffic.

Overall a low key and relaxing weekend with the family!

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First family hike success!

This weekend Michele was finally not in Florida.  She headed up to the Lodge with the boys on Thursday.  Andrea, Nathan, and Hazel were up Friday night until Saturday morning.  Dave came up Friday night.

On Saturday morning we did Polly’s w/ the Watson’s.  After that we did the Basin.  After the Basin the Watson’s headed home and we went back to the Lodge for Tommy’s nap time.  After nap we just hung out at the Lodge the rest of the night.  The kids have been building a hiking trail in our backyard, which has been keeping them occupied and enjoying outdoors.

So far hiking as a family has been a challenge.  There is usually lots of whining, fighting, both parents and kids getting frustrated.

On Sunday we decided to try again and do the Lonesome Lake trail.  This trail is 1.2 miles from the Lafayette campground to Lonesome Lake, then another 0.4 to the hut.  The trail is easy to moderate grade the entire way.

Early on in the hike we decided to split up, Dave took Eli and Aaron, and Michele took Tommy.   This turned out to be the ‘hack’ that solved our family hiking dilemma.  Dave could hike at a faster pace with the older kids, and Michele could take her time w/ Tommy.  Also, when the kids are split up they don’t fight and whine as much.

It turned out to be a great hike.  We had excellent views of the Franconia ridge and everyone had a good time.

At least for now, it turns out the best way to have a family hike is to not hike together as a family!  We’re hoping this turns around soon!

 

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Eli’s Birthday, and another fun weekend at the Lodge!

This week was Eli’s birthday.  At his request, we celebrated at his favorite mexican restaurant, Casa Blanca in Billerica.

For his birthday Eli got a 3D printer, which he was very excited about.  Unfortunately we didn’t really get to play with it, because it was a Lodge weekend!

We kicked the weekend off by heading back to Uhaul to pick up another truck.  We had a garage full of furniture to ship up to the Lodge, our final big load!

We picked the truck up, loaded it, and headed up North on Friday night.

On Saturday, Michele and I spent the morning unloading the furniture.  It turned out one of the sofas we purchased was broken.  What a pain in the butt!  We’re going to try to get them to swap it out, or repair it ourselves.  Also, 2 other couches we purchased were the wrong color.  Lesson learned, never receive furniture wrapped up in the packing material.  We thought it would make the move easier, but we didn’t get to inspect everything and are now stuck with it!

After unloading, we returned the truck and then nap time.  After nap we made an attempt at the Lisbon pool, but it was closed again.  We really need to figure out the hours at this place.

We then drove around exploring the Gale River in Franconia, looking for a good place to get wet, but failed.  We ended up at the playground in Franconia to let the kids release some energy.

I’ve been chainsawing every chance I get to increase the view, progress is coming, though slowly.  Here’s a view from one of the bedrooms:

On Sunday we made an attempt at hiking to the Lonesome Lake Hut.  This was Tommy’s biggest hike so far.  The last hike failed, mainly due to him wearing old sneakers and there being wet rocks.  This time he had new boots, so we were hoping for the best.

Unfortunately, the Lonesome Lake trail was closed part way up, and had a detour that was pretty steep.  This turned out to be too much for Tommy to handle, so we headed back around 3/4 of the way up.

At the base we had a snack and the kids climbed trees.

After nap, we packed up and had dinner at our favorite pizza place in Lincoln, followed by ice cream of course!

 

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A great 4th of July weekend!

This year the 4th of July fell on a Tuesday, so we decided to take some extra days off and make it a long weekend.

Michele and Eli went up on Wednesday night.  They had a night stay at the Lake of the Clouds hut on Mt Washington planned for Thursday night.  Dave, Aaron, and Tommy came up on Thursday night.  We all stayed until late Tuesday.

On Thursday, Michele and Eli made it to the hut, in the rain, and then summited Mt. Monroe.  On Friday they summited Mt. Washington, but conditions were so bad (70 mph gusts) they took the Cog down.  Overall, Eli was super excited about his successful first summit of Mt. Washington.  I’m sure there are many more to come in the future!

For Dave, on Friday morning he took the kids to the Franconia  playground.  Afterwards they went hiking in the Basin.

Afterwards, we all met up back at the Lodge.  We had some deliveries, new mattresses and a refrigerator (ours was broken by the time we moved in, doh!)  The big hit of the weekend was our internet guy, who got so frustrated by not being able to find the house he just gave up and headed home.  The whole family found this very odd, yet amusing.

On Saturday morning, we headed out to Echo Lake, which is at the base of Cannon Mountain.

The clouds were rolling in so we headed back to the Lodge for lunch and nap.  It turned into a giant storm with torrential downpours.  We got a lot of rain that leaked into the house and a good portion of our road was even washed away!

On Sunday, we decided to hike Artists Bluff.  The weather was great, but the conditions were very wet.  Tommy had a hard time hiking in his worn out sneakers on the wet rocks and roots, but we all survived.

In the afternoon, we went to Clark’s Trading Post, in Lincoln.  It turned out the park was about to close, but it was good to explore the area.

On Monday Dave had to stay home in the morning to meet the house inspector for our insurance.  It turns out that in New Hampshire all new insurance policies get an inspection, makes sense to me!

Michele took the boys to the Flume Gorge.

On Monday night we went out to dinner at Schilling Beer Company in Littleton, NH.  The food and beer here is awesome!  Also, the setting is right on the Ammonoosuc River.  Before dinner we grabbed some Chutters for dessert during the Fireworks.

The fireworks were a total townie event!  It was on a field and they had some games for the kids and a snack bar.  The kids just love being able to release some energy and staying up late.

On Tuesday, we decided to go to Story Land for the day!  We got to the park right at 9:30am for the opening and stayed until  4pm.  After the park we had some ice cream in North Conway.

The biggest hits were the Roar-a-saurus for Eli, the Flume for Aaron, and the train ride for tommy.