Winter 2010/11

i've been lazy

2011-08-01T17:09:00.001-04:00

too lazy to post much lately.

Been a slow news month

2011-05-26T11:46:00.003-04:00

March 17 - Jake's Over-Birthday

2011-03-17T09:53:00.003-04:00

First i need to explain the term "Over-". It is a term Megan came up with to describe having something again or more. For example, she'll wake up in the morning and have a bowl of cereal but 30 minutes later declare she's still hungry and needs her "over-breakfast". Now any time there is a second iteration of something we call it "over-" whatever.

So Jake was born on a snowy Feb 24th back in 1994. But he wasn't really due until April 1 or so and as a result of being a preemie he had to stay in the hospital for a few weeks. March 17, 1994 was the day he came home from Norwalk Hospital so we like to celebrate, or at least acknowledge that great day in Cunninghame history.

Happy Over-Birthday Jake!

February 24, 2011

2011-02-23T21:53:00.000-05:00

17 years old. Now he can see R rated movies on his own.

Don't need a ladder to get on the roof

2011-02-02T20:15:00.002-05:00

I still like snow...

2011-01-12T13:07:00.000-05:00

more snow is more better

I Like Snow

2011-01-08T14:48:00.002-05:00

snowed about a foot yesterday

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T15:23:00.002-05:00

1.1.11 - start of a new year.

Nothing new to report

2010-12-11T19:53:00.002-05:00

just wanted to share that.

College Road Trip - 2nd stop Central NY

2010-11-10T22:13:00.000-05:00

We learned a valuable lesson on the Boston trip, siblings are welcome on college tours, much to Megan's dismay.

I had hoped to save visiting upstate NY for snow season so we could check out a new ski mountain in conjunction with a college trip but an open house opportunity presented itself so we took advantage of it. It was going to be a busy 30 hours with a lot of driving but we made the best of it and took off on a Friday afternoon, destination Syracuse NY.

Checked a few options on Google Maps but elected to take a route i'd known from years ago, we headed west on 84 and north on 17. I hate it when i want to take a different route than the GPS, the damn thing yells at me to turn around or take a different exit.

On the way up we stopped at the famous Rosco Dinner. It surely is famous, says so right on the sign.

We ended getting to Syracuse around 9:00 PM. Meg was happy, the hotel pool was still open so she and Amy headed down for dip while Jake and I hung out in the hotel room. Our hotel was about 10 minutes from Syracuse University which meant we could plan on sleeping late and grabbing breakfast at the hotel before heading over.

Alarm clock goes off as planned but that was the end of our plans going as expected. Amy and Jake took showers and just as I was about to step in myself the hotel fire alarm went off. We waited a minute or two hoping it would turn off but it didn't. We grabbed coats and headed down to the parking lot. We ended up waiting outside for about 20 minutes before they let us back in. So now our schedule was off a bit. Amy, Meg and Jake went directly to breakfast while I ran back up stairs to shower. I joined them just as they finished up so i grabbed a quick bite (the food sucked by the way, free buffet breakfast isn't all it's cracked up to be) and we headed back to the room to grab our stuff and check out.

We loaded the stuff in the car and took off for the school. I noticed a tire pressure light was on for the left front tire so i pulled over and checked it. Seemed fine so we drove a bit more and stopped at a gas station where i put some air in. Light stayed on but everything seemed fine so we kept going.

We arrived at the school with time to spare so we parked and headed to the adminssions building where we waited for the tour to start. We walked around the campus but didn't go in many buildings. Of the few tours we've done the guides at Syracuse were a little below average, at least the ones we had. Nice kids but I don't think they sold the school well.

I'd been to Syracuse once before, many years ago, to see a Van Halen concert. I vaguely remember the concert but had no recollection of the school itself. The campus was nice but a little too close to the city for my liking. One of our guides, a guy in is junior year, told the story of walking back to his dorm from the library and clutching 2 pencils in his hands just in case he got jumped.. Not really a good story to tell prospective students and their parents. I applaud his honesty and the point he was trying to make was how they had good campus security in that anybody who wanted an escort could get one but still odd story to tell. The bench above was a landmark pointed out on the tour, called the kissing bench. something about kissing the one you love and getting married or something like that. One parent freaked when they mentioned all the snow Syracuse gets (got to love lake effect snow!). As we walked up a hill they told us during the height of winter that the snow banks would be 9 feet tall. I liked that.. nobody else in our group did though.

We wrapped up the tour and headed off to our next destination, Ithaca College. Back in the car i figured the tire pressure light would be off after having time to reset but that was not the case. The indicator said left front tire pressure was low, 23 psi (30 is norm) so i got out and looked at it again, seemed fine so we did the hour-ish drive down Ithaca. It was a beautiful ride, as we came in through Cornell, you could see Ithaca across the way on the other hill. Amy really liked the town, said it reminded her of Fairfield CT (it didn't for me).

The Ithaca campus was gorgeous (there is a saying, Ithaca is Gorges, a play on the beauty and quantity of gorges in the area).

It was an open house and the school did a great job, very organized and well presented. We took the tour of the communications school where Jake's current interest in media lies. We got to see a lot of behind the scenes stuff. All the campus TV and radio productions are student run, giving the kids great opportunity to get hands on experience.

After the luncheon Jake and I did one final campus guided tour while Amy and Meg took a break. We got to walk through a bunch of the school buildings. This picture grabbed Meg's attention, she was really impressed with the gymnastics setup.

We all agreed that Ithaca was a great campus and the school + kids we met were fantastic. I wouldn't be surprised if Ithaca was one of the finalists on Jake's list.

We wrapped up around 3:00 and headed home. Again the tire pressure light was warning of a problem with the left front tire but it seemed fine. We drove out of Ithaca and i decided to check the pressure myself so we stopped at a gas station and purchased a pressure gauge. Checked left front - 35 psi! over inflated (slightly) from putting air in earlier that day.. i scratched my head, couldn't figure out why the light was signaling a problem. So for the fun of it i checked right front, 32 psi. right rear - 32 psi and finally left rear - 21 psi! Oh great. the indicator light was telling me the wrong info.. i pulled up to the air pump and filled the tire. as i did that i took a quick look and what did i see? i nail in the tread, right along the sidewall. :-(

I was not liking the idea of a long lonely ride back down rt17 in the dark with a potential tire problem and the spare wasn't going to last the 200 miles we needed to go so we started looking for a tire repair shop. We round one outside Binghamton NY. We dropped off the car at a Firestone and ran to Dunkin Donuts while they did the repair job. When we got back the manager informed me they couldn't fix the tire due to the location of the nail. Shockingly he didn't even have a tire to sell me, he just sent me on my way. We found another shop down the road, they were closing but took pity on me and check it out. the mechanic said he could fix it and we were back on the road 30 minutes later. The manager at the 2nd shop told me that when tires are rotated they often forget to reset the location on the car's computer which is why it was telling me the wrong tire location.

We stopped at the Roscoe Diner again for dinner and then made our way home. It was a long day, especially the last part with the tire crap but it was a fun trip.

Now we just need to start looking at less expensive schools!

College Road Trip First Stop - Boston

2010-10-26T09:50:00.002-04:00

I'm not a fan of Boston. My hatred for the city dates way back to the 80's when, while attending college in Rhode Island, we drove to Boston for a day trip. Trying to drive around that place just sucked, people are friggin' insane in the way they drive, or don't drive.... Minding my own business driving down a four lane road and the idiot in front of me simply stops.. he gets out of his car and just walked away. Who parks like this? Boston people that's who! Wicked Awesome i tell you .... NOT! I've avoided Boston throughout my life based on this single event. 1986 world series, Mets vs. Red Sox, Boston is evil!

So Jake decides he wants to check out schools in Boston, just great.. can i drop him off in Quincy and put him on the T? I guess not.. so we have to drive to Boston. I get the shakes just thinking about it.... I have been back there a few times since the 80s and swear, every time i drive to Boston i get frustrated.... So we put the address of the Double Tree Hotel in the GPS and head off. Dropped Meg off @ Amy's sister for the night and the 3 of us continued on. MASS pike was busy as usual, even on a Sunday of a holiday weekend (Columbus Weekend). As we get into Boston we see a Double Tree Hotel right off the highway in Cambridge but checking the GPS we still had 5 miles to go so we pass the hotel and make our way further into Boston to find "our" hotel. Cross the Charles and make a right... follow the river driving a few miles.. turn right again, re-cross the Charles... turn right again and now we're headed back following the river in the opposite direction. Finally the GPS announces "your destination is on the left in .5 miles" so we look up and guess what we see.. THE SAME HOTEL WE JUST PASSED!... now i realize the city of Boston has no control over the directions my GPS gives me BUT I DON"T CARE! So we check in (early afteroon at this point) and decide to walk around. We headed over to Harvard to see what there was to see and maybe try to find Will Hunting.. Didn't see him but there was a street festival going on. seemed like 10 blocks of Cambridge were closed off, lots of food and vendors and some bands playing.. People seemed to be enjoying themselves, i wasn't, i don't like Boston.

(view from hotel)

We walked along the Charles River on the way back to the hotel. it was kind of nice, if you like scenic parks and stuff...

Sunday night we took a cab (i knew better than to try and drive more in boston) to dinner at a nice place amy found. It was a Brazilian BBQ restaurant which was really good.

Got up early Monday and drove, yes drove, to Northeastern University. Traffic was light but of course it wasn't a smooth ride. GPS said turn right... but there was NO RIGHT to make. Thankfully i have good directional skills, i worked it out on my own and we made it to the campus without too much trouble.

We did our tour of Northeastern. My impression before seeing it wasn't all that good but by the end of the tour I really liked the school and the 5 year program which includes an internship.

I was really surprised at how they managed to give you the feeling of a (somewhat) traditional campus in the middle of a city. I liked the contemporaryness (is that a word?) of the school. The people we met were all very nice and did a great job representing the school.

Next stop was Boston University. Back in the car for more city driving. But I wasn't too worried, check a map and it wasn't far. Relatively uneventful gettting there and i was shocked to find plenty of parking on the street right in front of the BU admissions building. We checked in and waited in the admissions building for the tour to start. i was not liking BU as much, based solely on appearance. The office was a converted browestone or something like that.. felt very formal and stuffy. Brick, ivy, dark wood... Then we met one of the tour guides... he rubbed me the wrong way too.. came across like a politician. but whatever. who am i to judge.

We avoided the politician and hook up with a tour guide named Megan who was in the Communcation program (Jake's interest at this time are in that area) and walked around the BU campus.

I didn't love the setting for BU, too much in the city for my liking but Jake liked it.

We got to see the student union, the library and a dorm as we walked around. The "campus" seemed much bigger than NU and i'm not sure if that is good or bad.

The third and final stop for the day was Emerson College. Back in the car for a quick ride to the center of Boston. quick? did i use that word? oh, meant to say torturous! Looked at the map, looked at my watch and said we have plenty of time. We'll stop and grab a bite to eat once we get downtown. HA! Jumped on some highway like road for a few exits and got off near downtown. GPS says 1 mile to go and suddenly traffic is at a dead stop. Once again relying on my keen sense of direction I opt to ignore the GPS and make a left... i'll just drive down a few blocks, make a right and i'll be right where i want to be... except after 1 block the road ends and my only turning option is a left since the road is one way. 10 minutes later i'm sitting in the exact same spot as i was before i took matters into my own hands... so we wait.. and wait.. traffic is at a crawl.. finally we start to move and what do we find? the stupid road we want to cross IS CLOSED for some stupid race. The road is full of runners. I can't go straight, i can't turn left...i'm stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, i'm slamming the steering wheel and using profanity. We turn right.. the opposite direction we need to go in... we keep going and going there is no way to make a left to get back where we need to go. Finally make a right and jump back on the same highway like road i was on before. this time we stayed on it in hopes of going past the school and the race and then we could circle back. That worked and we eventually found our way to the address we were given. drove around a bit and found a parking lot, walked up to the main street right at the Boston Common. we grabbed a quick bite and headed over to the admissions office. You'd have no idea you were in a college. It looks like any city block and if it wasn't for banners saying Emerson College on them you'd just assume everything was apartments and office buildings. It'd be pretty cool if you liked living in a city.. i don't. But it isn't about me.. we did our tour. It started out good but the 2 people leading it were droning on and on and on and after about 90 minutes Jake had had enough. We bailed and hightailed it out of Boston. I didn't even take any pictures @ Emerson. Emerson is a highly regarded school but I don't think Jake liked it.

End of the day - Amy and i really liked Northeastern. Jake liked BU the best. Nobody liked Emerson.

what's next?

2010-10-23T22:27:00.000-04:00

summer's over.. ice cream's over.. too early ( just barely) for skiing.. what to type about???? college road trips!!!

have to organize pictures but will write up our adventures in finding a college for jake some time this week.

Bonus Action

2010-10-12T10:20:00.004-04:00

10-8-10

The eight of us went out to dinner Friday night and hit up a local ice cream shop. After stuffing our faces (and emptying our wallets) at Kobi's hibachi restaurant we stopped by the ice cream shop next door. The sign in the window says voted #2 Ice Cream Shop in CT so we figured we'd found a hidden gem in nearby Shelton CT.

Turns out the #2 designation was probably #2 in that shopping center. Most likely a distant 2nd place to the nearby Wendy's restaurant where they serve the "frosty". It was so good that I don't even remember what the name of the place was . . . . the girls did have fun on the Dino ride and we played Flintstones trivia... what was the name of the Rubbles' dog? i didn't get that one.

NOTE - i had to use google to find the name of the place - Chic's Frozen Yogurt and Ice Cream

All good things must come to an end

2010-09-27T20:06:00.001-04:00

9.26.10

or at least take a break.

The pressure of finding new places to get ice cream and have dinner was just too great, we couldn't take it any longer. This weekend was the final episode of Sundae Drive for 2010 and possibly forever...

Milford CT was our destination for dinner and we were in the mood for Italian. The original plan was to hit Olive Garden (Meg's fav) for dinner but when we called at 4:30 they already had a 45 minute wait and would not allow us to put our names in. Plan B was still Italian but Bertucci's instead. Dinner was very good. We got a big table in the corner, almost seemed like a private area and our waitress Michelle was super happy. Jake + Lorri had pizzas, I had a steak + chicken combo, Jon had a house special, Meg went with Shrimp Fra Diablo minus the diablo. Alyssa had 4 cheese ravioli, Amanda went for MAC + Cheese and Amy had a Chicken pasta dish. As always we played the "guess how much dinner cost" game and i won :-)

After dinner we headed down the road to Dip Top.

sung to the tune of Rapper's Delight -

i said a dip top the dippie the dippie

to the dip dip top, a you dont stop

the rock it to the bang bang boogie say up jumped the boogie

to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat

We sat in the parking lot eating and everybody complained how cold it was outside, i think it was like 68! The ice cream was good. i didn't love mine, cappuccino crunch. if i dropped it i would not have ordered the same thing again. no idea what anybody else got, except for Megan cuz she got same as me but didn't eat it (its in our freezer) and Alyssa got "Crazy Vanilla" which was just regular vanilla ice cream but multi-colored. And now that i think about it a bit more, Lorri had softserv vanilla dipped in chocolate and i think Jon had softserv chocolate, at least that is what it looks like in the pic above.

So that wraps up (get it, wraps up, rapper's delight . . see the tie in? i crack me up) Sundae Drive for 2010. It was tough finding new places each week but we had fun doing it. We'll continue doing stuff together and there is talk of next summer doing "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" stealing the theme from some TV show on the food network or something like that. In the meantime we'll try to find something to blog about this winter.

It is simple math really . . .

2010-09-20T09:56:00.004-04:00

9.19.10

birthdays + camping = no ice cream

The Carrolls were off camping and the Cunninghames were off celebrating getting old* (why do we celebrate that??) so as a result we didn't get ice cream (tho i did eat a little chocolate cake)

We'll pick back up again next weekend for what will likely be the final ice cream adventure of the season.

*Amy turned forty five while i'm still a very young thirty sixteen.

Its getting late early around here.

2010-09-14T20:25:00.001-04:00

9.12.10

Nothing signals Fall like the days getting shorter and shorter. It was practically dark when we left Maggie McFly's in Southbury on Sunday. There's something about a table for 8 overlooking a World War I 3/4 scale airplane that makes dinner special. Everyone seemed to enjoy their meal but we passed on dessert @ Maggie's even though it was really Cheesecake Factory being served. The brownie ice cream sandwich was looking very tempting though.

Next we headed north to a small ice cream shop we'd seen earlier in the summer on the way to drop the girls off at camp. After a mild case of lostness we arrived at Popey's Icre Cream Shoppe, which was also a dinner/drive-in, in Morris CT. I've lived in CT for almost 46 years and never heard of Morris before.

Popey's had a good selection of ice cream. Jake got some concoction of ice cream, reeses peanut butter cups and brownies. Lorri and I have the same taste in ice cream and both got Maine Bear Tracks (coffee ice cream with fudge and oreos). I saw cake batter in Alyssa's cup, Amy had a cone of something.. Megan had a cup of something, Jon and Amanda were there.... i guess i should take better notes.

Jake got scared afterwards.. he asked about the restrooms and was told to use the porta-potty in the back parking lot. It was pitch black out there!

you know you might be a redneck when . . . .

2010-09-07T19:43:00.003-04:00

you walk up to the drive-thru ATM . . .

9.5.10
It is getting ridiculously hard to find an activity we all like and ice cream we haven't eaten. It took almost a week to figure this out but we eventually found something to do this weekend that every agreed to (or at least didn't refuse to do).

We started out with a trip to Lyman Orchards. A locally famous place that has been around since 1700s. First order of business was to check out the corn maze. Lyman's has been doing a maze for a long time and each year they come with a new design. This year was a maze dedicated to UCONN's women basketball.

The maze turned out to be a bit of a snooze, much smaller than we anticipated. We walked less than a mile to complete the whole thing in what seemed like less than 20 minutes.

After a break at the Lyman Orchard store, where they had excellent cinnamon apple donuts, we headed to the orchard for some apple picking.

We got our fill of apples and pears while we walked around the orchard and then bought a few pounds to take home with us.

We loaded back in the car and headed to Blue Back Square in West Hartford for shopping and dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. Blue Back is a revitalized area of West Hartford with plenty of shopping and foods options. After we all hit Borders books we split up, the girls went to Crate & Barrel and then a toy store while Jon, Jake and I headed to REI to check out ski equipment. Unfortunately Sept 5th was too early for ski gear to be out so we settled for checking out ski clothing only. I have a bit of a jacket fetish and found several that i wanted to take home, each totally justified in my mind. We met the girls back on the street and went into to Cheesecake Factory to stuff ourselves. Everybody enjoyed it and we ate way too much. We had already picked out an ice cream shop on the way home so most of us skipped dessert but Megan and Alyssa couldn't resist and each got something to go with the intention of eating it while we had ice cream.

We took advantage of being upstate and decided to visit one of CT Magazine's top 10 ice cream shops in the Hartford area, Mortensen's Ice Cream in Newington CT. After reading the review and an editorial where the owner was upset with CT Mag's review we thought we were in for a fantastic treat but it turned out to be just pretty good. I had a Sundae with Brazilian Coffee ice cream, Alyssa bailed on her Cheesecake Factory dessert and ordered Cake Batter Ice Cream. Lorri got Heath Bar Crunch and i forget what everyone else had. I'm pretty sure somebody had the Boston Blackout (chocolate ice cream with brownies)

After stuffing our faces for the 2nd time we piled in the Acadia and headed home.

A Sunny Sundae

2010-08-30T11:05:00.000-04:00

8.29.10

It was as sunny this weekend as it was rainy last weekend so we wanted to take advantage of the weather and have a dinner outside. We piled in the Acadia and took off for Norwalk CT

Our dinner destination this week was the Sono Seaport Restaurant. We've been there before but it is a fun place to eat. We got a nice table on the deck and had a great seafood dinner. Well, except Jake.. he went with the Chicken Parm :-(

After dinner we took off for Westport CT, a little place called The Frosty Bear Ice Cream Gazebo. It was a funny location, in the middle of nowhere adjacent to a small country store. The ice cream was really good and we had fun hanging out.

This was the last Sunday before school starts for the kids so we reminisced about the fun we'd had this summer. Colony Pizza was the unanimous favorite of the places we ate this year.

Rainy Days and Sundaes always get me . . . .

2010-08-23T15:54:00.003-04:00

down? no way!

8.22.10
I think it rained more on Sunday than it did all summer long but that wasn't getting in the way of our having a fun dinner and good ice cream. We all piled into the Acadia (seating for 8, perfect for our outing) and headed off to Bethel CT.

We picked a return visit to the Sycamore Drive-In for dinner. We'd been there last year and everybody really liked it so we decided to go back. There were no complaints and everyone had a great dinner.

Then we headed off to Stony Hill Ice Cream + Bakery, also in Bethel. Once again relying on GPS we got there but took a very scenic ride getting to see lots of back roads on a rainy night.

When we arrived the place was empty. But as soon as we ordered and sat down the place got crowded. The ice cream was good and they had a nice assortment of flavors. After stuffing myself at the drive-in i wasn't in the mood for anything too fancy so i opted for regular old chocolate chip. i wasn't paying attention to what everyone else ordered. I think the consensus was "very good, not great". They did have a nice seating area and we got to watch ESPN while we ate.

Just Ice Cream

2010-08-18T10:34:00.002-04:00

8-15-10
Hectic weekend here. Picked up Meg and Alyssa @ camp on Saturday and the Carrolls headed off for vacation in VA on Sunday so we were on our own for ice cream this week

My old MAC computer broke last month so we headed to Danbury to visit a MAC GENIUS at the Apple store to see what could be done to fix it. After a [sarcasm on] delicious [sarcasm off] lunch at the mall's food court we headed home with a planned stop at Dubl Twister Ice Cream shop, also in Danbury. We plugged the address into the GPS and took off. Luckily someone (jake) was paying attention because while the GPS said it was .5 miles down the road we drove right by the place but, no worries, a quick U-Turn put us back on track.

The ice cream shop was connected to a pizza place, had i known this i would have skipped the crappy mall food.. The ice cream was good. They had tons of flavors and the girls behind the counter were very nice. Meg got cupcake flavored ice cream, Jake went with Italian Ice, i had Snickers + Peanut Butter cup and i think Amy had pistachio.

Evoking the Tom Carvel Rule

2010-08-09T10:46:00.001-04:00

Aug 7, 2010

If Tom could declare "Wednesday is Sundae at Carvel" then we can declare "Saturday is Sundae" as well.

With Meg and Alyssa heading to camp on Sunday we decided it would be best to have our ice cream adventure on Saturday because it would be too hectic otherwise.

We started the day with a little river adventure first. We headed up to New Hartford CT and did a tube ride down the Farmington River.

You might not be able to tell in this pic but Megan was not thrilled with this ride. It wasn’t until the rapids were over that she relaxed and had some fun. Everyone else had a good time, though it was not a unanimous vote on trying this adventure again. 5-3 in favor, my wife and kids were the naysayers.

After we dried off and changed we went looking for some lunch. Being in the neighborhood of our local ski hill, Ski Sundown, we were familiar with some of the options. Jon and I had passed by the Log House Restaurant countless times on the way skiing so we figured we’d give it a shot. It was a diner kind of place which worked out well as everybody found something they liked on the menu. The food was pretty good too.

Torrington was our next stop; we headed down to find an ice cream shop called “Peaches N Cream”. We almost drove past the place and from the outside my first impression was they were closed. But after seeing people in the parking lot eating ice cream we realized they were indeed open. Expectations were low at this point.

A bit of a surprise inside. While I’m not quite old enough to know what a restaurant looked like in the 50’s, I imagined this was just like it. They had a good selection of ice cream and sorbet. I ended up with Kailua Chip (Lorri did too). The ice cream was excellent. Someone (can’t remember who) said it was the best ice cream so far this year.

Could it be better than last week?

2010-08-02T18:22:00.001-04:00

NO! We knew it would be hard to top the food and ice cream last weekend but we tried . . . and failed.

This weekend we headed south to Rowayton CT (which according to everything electronic is really Norwalk.. the Rowayton people must think they are better than their neighbors so they invented their own fake town).

The plan was to go to Brendan's 101 for dinner and ice cream. We took two cars, hit lots of traffic on I-95 and when we got to Brendan's found it to be less than we expected so we made a quick change of plans and went to Rowayton Pizza across the street.

The place looked really nice - they had tables outside and a dude playing guitar for ambiance. The mediocre food was out done by the poor service. Our food came out 1 dish at a time, wrong meals, appetizers came after meals, the fried mozzarella was still frozen and the kids were done by the time our pizza came out. Not a place i'd recommend to a friend.

After dinner we headed back across the street to Brendan's to get our Ice Cream fix.

Jake really liked his ice cream while Megan broke with tradition and got a giant cupcake rather than ice cream. I think everyone else was less than impressed.

Don't think we'll be going back.

Best Day So Far

2010-07-27T14:54:00.002-04:00

at least that is what Lorri said. And who can argue? Pizza and Ice Cream is an awesome combination. Factor in the world famous Colony Pizza and you have a winner!

If you grew up in or near Stamford you have to have heard of the Colony Grill. They opened a 2nd location in Fairfield this spring so we had to check it out. Honestly, i was very skeptical, I didn't think they could reproduce the pizza but was proven wrong. We knew they'd be busy so we got there around 5:30. We had about 15 minute wait and grabbed a big table in the bar. 8 people, 7 pizzas, a pitcher of beer and some sodas made for a great dinner. Staten Island girl Lorri proclaimed it the best pizza since leaving NY.

After stuffing our faces we took a little drive around Fairfield. Jon and Lorri both went to Fairfield U so we showed the kids where Lorri lived by the beach. That gave us just enough time to digest so we could go for ice cream at Gofer Ice Cream (get it, "go for" + gofer?? think about it, it will come to you).

Gofer had also recently opened. Place was empty but the ice cream was delicious. I had a flavor called Gofer something or other plus a scoop of coffee with chips and brownies (i can't resist coffee ice cream).

I'm pretty sure Jake liked it too. He ordered first and was done before we could sit down outside.

On Vacation

2010-07-20T15:50:00.008-04:00

~~no ice cream due to vacation. will resume ice cream eating when we get home.~~

UPDATE - while some of us were too busy, too lazy, too preoccupied or just ignored it, the Carroll girls went out of their way to save Sundae Drive for the weekend of 7/18. Here's their update -

Quack Shack Icecream in Lake Sunapee New Hampshire it was a cute little shop with a deck overlooking the river. Alyssa had Rainbow Sherbert and Amanda had Vanilla with rainbow sprinkles. GOOD ice cream!

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

2010-07-14T07:59:00.001-04:00

7-11-10

So this update is worth about a $1.25. Jake took pictures this week on his cell phone but we're too technically challenged to get them off.

We reunited with the Carrolls Sunday for a local trip in Monroe. Our Parks & Rec department puts on a Summer Concert series at Wolf Park and this week's concert was a comedy show so we decided to go there.

Before the show we went to Dr. Mike's of Monroe. We've eaten there plenty but never as part as part of the Sundae Drive adventure. Lorri and I both had Carmel Toffee Crunch which was OUTSTANDING! Can't remember what everyone else had except for Jon. The whipped cream on his sundae looked really really good.

After ice cream, we took two cars so Jake could drive, we headed over to the park. I was surprised at how few people showed up for the comedy show and i started thinking we were in for a bogus evening. Happily i was wrong. They had 3 comics and 2 of the 3 were really funny (while the other was only a little funny). The "headliner" (if you can call him that, performing for about 50 people) was a supposedly famous Boston guy, Jimmy Dunn. I thought the 2nd comic the best, Kelly McFarland.

Jake left early, he was bored, and the girls spent as much time playing in the park as they did watching the show but it was a fun night.

Happy 4th!

2010-07-06T22:54:00.003-04:00

Holiday weekends are special, so special the fun can't be contained into 2 or even 3 days. Lets say the weekend started on Wednesday and ended on Monday....

12:01 AM Wednesday was the showing of the new vampire love story movie Eclipse and Amy took Jaimee, Alyssa and Megan to see the opening day show.

Thursday night i took Meg & Jake to see The Last Airbender, which was a disappointment.

Friday the Carrolls dumped us for what seems like the 9th weekend in a row and headed to New Hampshire and that night Meg went with a friend to see fireworks.

Saturday was dinner out. Jake had gone to a friends house for a pool party so Amy, Meg and I planned on dinner and a movie ($2 theater!!). The new Hibachi place opened that i'd been wanting to goto so that was our destination. Here is summary of a month long conversation:

Gary- i want to go to the new hibachi place as soon as it opens.
Amy - i think we should wait a few weeks after they open so they can iron out any problems.
Gary - what problems? lets go ASAP
Amy - ok, if you say so.

So we went, they'd been open 4 days. I'll spare you the details but i ended up with what must have been a mild case of food poisoning. up all night getting sick.. so lesson learned, listen to Amy!

But before i got too sick we headed to the $2 theater in Newtown to see "How to train your dragon". it wasn't on anyone's "must see" list but for $2 each you can't really go wrong.

Sunday was the fun day.. though i felt like crap we headed off to Hartford to see Cirque du Soleil. Amy and i'd seen a Cirque performance almost 20 years ago and i figured it would be fun for the kids.

Jake admitted afterwards that he liked it even though he expected it to be lame.

After the circus we headed to Old Weathersfield to make our official ice cream stop. Amy found a place, Main Street Creamery & Cafe, and it turned out to be great. I'd have to say it was the cutest (and i don't usually use that word) place we've been to yet on a Sundae Drive. Ice cream was good, not great but we liked the place.

The Carrolls returned on Monday and hadn't had any ice cream so we had to, just had to, go out again for dinner and ice cream with them. Because we'd already been to a new place this weekend i allowed the rules to be bent on Monday and we did a revisit to a place in Shelton we went to last year, Wells Hollow Creamery. Dinner before that was at Chili's, also in Shelton, a family favorite.

Hot and Sticky

2010-06-28T14:29:00.004-04:00

Typical New England summer day this weekend, hot and humid was the order of the day. The little bit of rain didn't do much to cool things off so what better way to eat dinner than outside sitting in the sun, made just a little more tolerable by sitting on a deck overlooking the water.

Dinner this week at Sono Seaport Restaurant in Norwalk. The Carrolls abandoned us for camping in New Hampshire so we had to call in reinforcements in the form of Mimi and Aunt Dot

Other than the jazz band being too loud dinner was great. Meg went with Shrimp, Jake & Amy had clam strips and whole bellies. I had a combo platter, Mimi the soft shell crab and Aunt Dot had the Tilapia special.

After dinner we headed over the bridge to Sweet Ashley’s for dessert. Very good ice cream, I had a hard time choosing flavors so went with a scoop of Espresso Chip and a scoop of Coffee w/ Heath Bar.

Meanwhile up in Jefferson New Hampshire the Carrolls hit up a local ice cream shop.

They only had ice cream, Gifford's, not the ribs (personally, i'd have gone with the ribs over the ice cream). And like us they had to bring in substitutes on their adventure. I'm not sure what to make of it though, we had Amy's mom and Aunt Dot replace the Carrolls. The Carrolls chose to replace us with goats......

Father's Day Fun

2010-06-23T23:07:00.000-04:00

June 20, 2010

We kept close to home this weekend due to crazy schedule and travel plans for Jon and me heading to D.C. for a conference. We started off Father's Day with brunch at 707 On Main. We have very few restaurants in Monroe and this is one of my favorites. They were pretty busy and service was a bit on the slow side but we all enjoyed our food. All you can eat buffets are always a hit in my book.

After that we hit up the 39th Annual Strawberry Festival, something we do every year.

Its a great event put on by one of the churches in town. They fill the town green with arts & crafts vendors, setup games and serve food.

The girls had fun playing some games and then we walked around the crafter's booths. The girls got their first "ink"

Then we headed for the strawberry shortcakes.

I went with the ice cream and cookie version.

Bikin' & Hikin' and Dinner & Dessert

2010-06-14T12:17:00.004-04:00

June 12, 2010
Kind of a blah weather weekend and i wasn't really in the mood to use the treadmill so i tricked the girls in to getting some exercise with me under the guise of a bike ride and hike in the woods. We headed off to Trumbull and played around for about an hour.

We started with a short bike ride on the "rail trails".

Then we did some hiking around the rocks and the girls had fun on the rope swing but we didn't have time for them to swim.

After that we all (Carrolls + Cunninghames) headed out for dinner. We went up to New Milford to a place called "The Cookhouse" which has won CT's best BBQ for many years. After being told there was a 45 minute wait we almost left but stuck it out. Suddenly noticed some unoccupied tables in the bar and asked if we could eat there, to which we received the answer YES so it turned out to be a 2 minute wait instead. BONUS was we had two tables, adults & kids. Funny how things work out for the best ;-)

The food turned out be be excellent. Amy, Lorri, Jon and I split the family platter. They touted the family platter to be enough food for four PLUS lunch the next day, which had me laughing. I highly doubted that claim as i can put the food away pretty good, if i do say so myself. Well, fast forward 45 minutes and I was embarrassed to walk out the door with doggie bags. There was enough ribs, pulled pork and brisket to feed 6 of us! I know this because i had leftovers for lunch today and still haven't finished all the food.

After dinner we headed off for ice cream, as usual. The original plan was to visit "Double Twisters" in Danbury on the way back. For some reason people started questioning that choice and Jon pulled out his Iphone to look for other options. Carvel? i refused! Brusters was the next option. I remember looking into it earlier in the week but couldn't recall why i went with some place else. Looking at the web site on the Iphone it seemed good, advertising "Bruster's Real Ice Cream". It was close by so we changed plans and headed there. Not directly mind you, mixed up directions had us go a little out of the way but in the end we found it.

As we pulled into the parking lot it dawned on me why i passed it over as an option.. The ice cream store was also a Dunkin Donuts and a Nathan's Hot Dog stand. Turned out Brusters is a chain of stores serving "commercial" ice cream rather than our high standard for home made..

But it was pretty good ice cream. We were all so full from dinner i don't think anyone got anything bigger than a small cup. Mine turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, based on the name i thought it was chocolate chocolate chip but it turned out just to be plain chocolate. I also noticed an almost full cup of Cotton Candy ice cream sitting there so I don't think Amanda loved her's either. Oh well.. at least the view was nice -

NOT!

Ice Cream - Week 2

2010-06-07T15:51:00.001-04:00

June 6, 2010
I think the Great Park Pursuit has met an untimely death, at least for the "Monroe Musketeers". Other than them designating my backyard as a park and having an event there i don't think there is enough interest to venture out again.

Luckily there is still interest in ice cream!!! This week's destination was Sunny Daes of Fairfield in the Black Rock section of Fairfield CT. Though not a chain, we'd been to a different Sunny Daes last year but without the Carrolls so we decided to give this store a try too.

Ice Cream was good, everybody seemed to enjoy it. Our service was excellent, the scooper dude was careful to ask about all the different options realted to cone type (hard, soft, waffle) and toppings. However Jon had a different experience with his scooper, wrong waffle cone and mixed up toppings had to be dealt with.

So far this is our favorite place this year.

Memorial Day Weekend

2010-06-01T13:04:00.009-04:00

Great Park Pursuit - Week 4
Abandoned once again by the Carrolls who went camping at Lake George with Lorri's family, i was left alone to carry on the tradition.... this week's GPP location was Natchaug State Forest in Eastford CT. Ironically this is exactly where Jon, Lorri, Alyssa and Amanda were camping LAST WEEKEND when they abandoned us previously! This week was again a self-guided tour, no rush to run up there (2 hours away) and due to Jake's driving class on Saturday I figured a Sunday trip would be nice way to spend the day, the weather forecast was looking great! We went out to dinner Saturday night and I brought up the GPP. Mind you, I'd already talked about it with Amy and cleared the way for the Sunday trip. Suddenly my whole family, including my wife of nearly 21 years, turned on me, attacking my integrity, honor and good name. They had the audacity to call the GPP "lame" and flat our refused to participate any further. So, needless to say, dinner didn't go too well after that.

Not So Great Park Pursuit
Consolation prize was to find something to do locally. Meg really wanted to attend the Memorial Day parade in town so we needed to find something to do for a few hours in the morning. We ended up doing a little biking and hiking on the "Rails to Trails" in Trumbull. We'd gone here in the past and knew what to expect so we packed a picnic lunch and headed off. We had fun hiking around the "swimming hole" but Jake lost his sun glasses in the water when he jumped over some rocks.

Later in the afternoon, sans Jake, we went to the parade. In previous years Meg and I walked in the parade as part of her Brownie troop but this year we were just spectators. It was a lot more fun to be in the parade but we had a good time.

Monday's weather was nice in the morning so Meg, Jake and I decided to do a little more hiking, this time at Webb Mountain Park. Hiked for an hour or so and climbed around on some rocks.

Ice Cream, U Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream!
The Carrolls, back from their camping adventure, joined us for the kickoff of this summers Great Ice Cream Caper (??). After a failed attempt at locating Carnival Cones & Cakes ( and the realization that i just need to be in charge of this stuff) we found our way to Denmo's Snack + Dairy Bar in Southbury CT.

More of a road side drive-in than an ice cream shop but they had both hard and soft serve ice cream and the "gourmet" flavors were pretty good. Price was very reasonable but the service was not so good. I'll chalk it up to early season jitters and the staff being new. Jake had to change his order because they were out of Snickers flavor ice cream and Jon had to remind them what Alyssa and Amanda were waiting for. Not bad, definitely my favorite place so far this year.

Great Park Pursuit - Week 3

2010-05-24T11:03:00.005-04:00

Didn't think we'd get lucky two weeks in a row with a nearby park and was right, this week's GPP destination was back on the East side of CT at Devil's Hopyard State Park.

The bad news - we didn't make it there this weekend. Our partners in crime, the Carrolls, were off on a family camping trip with Jon's brother's family and parents and we had conflicts too. Jake had to work (umpire) Saturday afternoon, Amy needed to go to Stamford to see her Mom and I needed to go to Stamford as well to fix my Mom's computer.

The good news - this week's GPP event was a self-guided one and they encouraged participants to visit the park "any time between now and June 11th" so technically we're still doing OK. Perhaps with the holiday weekend coming up we can hit two sites and catch back up. Would have tried to go yesterday (Sunday) if the weather forecast was right but on Saturday they called for rain on Sunday so we didn't make plans. But in the end it turned out to be a decent day.

Despite not making going to the park we managed to keep busy all weekend. After running around on Saturday AM in Stamford we had to shuffle Jake between 2 games he was ump'ing. Of course the first game ran long so he was late for the second. I went over to the 2nd game and offered to ump in his place until he arrived but it worked out. The other ump took the plate and the coaches did the bases (i knew one of them from my softball team) until Jake got there. He only missed the 1st inning so it wasn't terrible. We picked up Jake after his last game and went out to dinner. When we got home we had a fire in the backyard, Megan made s'mores.

Sunday started with a trip to IHOP which had a 1 hour wait so we bailed and went to Friendly's. Meg loved the chocolate pancakes with chocolate chips AND chocolate ice cream. Jake had Cinnamon Bun French toast with vanilla ice cream...... why didn't we get ice cream with breakfast when we were kids???????????????? After breakfast we did a little car shopping. My mid-life crisis is winding down so we're dumping the BMW in favor of another SUV. Looking for a used GMC Acadia but not having much luck. Back home, did a little yard work and then Jake had another umpiring job at 6:00 PM. We dropped him off and went out to dinner again! We met up with the Carrolls (back from camping) at Archie Moores. Picked up Jake on the way home and proceeded to watch the LOST series finale.

not a bad weekend but i feel a little guilty about not getting to the park. i'll get over it though.

The Great Park Pursuit - Week 2

2010-05-15T23:31:00.006-04:00

We joked last week that after the long drive to the park in East Lyme we deserved to have a short ride this week to a park near us. Well, wish granted, this week's destination Indian Wells State Park in Shelton CT (our neighbor to the east). The park is 6 miles from our home and in the 14 years we've lived in Monroe I’ve probably driven past it hundreds of times but never visited it. The "park of the week" being so close was a blessing as it turned out to be a hectic day for everyone.

We packed a picnic lunch and headed to the park, arriving around 11:30. We checked in and took our obligatory pictures.

We walked around to see the activities they had to offer and, like last week, the girls weren't overly interested. There was one station where they got to make a "talking stick" with beads and feather

The park was very nice, a long beach on the shore of Lake Zoar, a large field for playing and a picnic area.

After lunch the girls got a treat of ice cream. and we finished up the activities with by conducting a weather experiment. The purpose of the experiment was supposed to teach how a forest affects weather but I think the girls just had fun running to the stations and recording the wind and temperature.

We ended the visit with a short hike to a water fall.

Like last week, the activities were a snooze but it was nice to finally get to see a park in our backyard and the waterfall hike was fun.

The Great Park Pursuit

2010-05-14T10:56:00.010-04:00

One of the favorite shows in our house is "The Amazing Race" on CBS. Premise of the show is teams compete in a race around the world to win a million dollars. I was reading something somewhere and noticed the State of CT advertising "The CT Amazing Race" called The Great Park Pursuit and thought it sounded like something fun for us to do. The idea behind this race was to promote the parks around the state. Teams would be given clues as to where the weekly event would be and at the end the team with the most points would win prizes. So the Cunninghames and Carrolls teamed up and registered as the Monroe Musketeers for the race. First event to be held May 8th.

Well, back in early April I got an email from the state parks department explaining that their registration database got hacked and while no significant private information was lost they needed to shutdown the registration process while they investigated the problem. As a result of having to shutdown the registration they decided it wasn't fair to have a true competition because not everyone who wanted to play had time to sign up. Instead they converted the race to a "fun participation" event instead.. Booooorrrinnggg.... Uh, what's fun about no prizes?? ;-)

So anyway, May 8th rolled around and it was time to start The Great Park Pursuit. The more I read about past years of the pursuit the more I worried that this would be one of the lamer things I roped us into. That day started out rainy and not everyone (self included) was excited to trek out to the middle of nowhere but we couldn't come up with something better so we headed off.

Destination - Rocky Neck State Park in East Lyme

As we pulled into the parking lot the lameness meter was in the red. There was a tent where we signed in and a bunch of people just milling around. One of the checker-in people said they'd had over 700 people in attendance already that day, which i found surprisingly high (thought it would have been 13 or 14)

We snapped a few pictures with the official sign and hit the snack bar.

When we signed in there was a list of activities. I asked about them and was told they were on the beach. From where we were standing you couldn’t see the beach (or most of the park for that matter), it was under a bridge and around a corner.

The weather was not great. Rain had stopped but it was windy and cloudy. After lunch we headed to the beach to check out the activities. Cool + cloudy @ beach isn't my idea of fun and the lame meter jumped to 11 when we saw what awaited us. Several more tents setup and each one had an activity - like a color scavenger hunt, beach bingo, poem writing and a bunch of stuff I can't remember.

Really not what we thought we'd be doing and the kids lost interest quickly. Though in fairness to the parks department, if our kids were 6 or 7 i bet they would have liked it.

BUT (there's always a but) as we finished snubbing our nose at the final tent and started back towards the tunnel to escape from the boring park the clouds suddenly broke. In just a matter of minutes sun warmed the beach. We decided to look around a bit and went to other side of the park and there's where the fun began. We found a hill with a rock face so the girls and I climbed it. walked around a bit and did some exploring.

Then we headed back to the beach. There was a 200 yard long breakwater and we decided to walk out on it. Just me, Meg, Alyssa and Amanda while Amy Jon and Lorri sat back at the beach (Jake skipped the event completely - too old/cool for us). walking out on the rocks was blast. The sky was blue, not a cloud to be seen, and it was getting HOT! We went as far as we could. We didn't get to the end because the water was too high (or rocks too low) but we made it out about 90% of the way.

In the end it turned out to be a really fun day. The whole point of the program is to get people out to the parks to see what they have to offer and the first week was a success in that regard.

Summer 2010 Fun!

2010-05-13T09:52:00.007-04:00

Our Summer Adventure Series has already begun. I've been remiss in updates and will catch up soon.

Here's the basic plan

Ice Cream - we'll continue our search for new and exciting ice cream shops around the world. While some people have the misconception that we'll be revisiting previously reviewed places I assure you we will NOT.
Dinner - about half way through last summer we started adding dinner to the ice cream outing. Everyone enjoyed it so we'll be doing that again too.
The Great Park Pursuit - State of Connecticut puts on a program to promote the state parks around CT, it started last week. We went to Old Lyme for the first stop on the tour (detailed write up to come)
Stuff - don't know what yet but will be doing fun stuff all summer. Already planning to get back to Catamount for their adventure park. Will do something that involves water and rafting, tubes or boats like we did last year. And I will fulfill my promise to Jake this summer that we go to a ski resort and ride our mountain bikes down from the top.

I also updated the map (to the left) to designate the year of the visit. Added 2009 to all the places we went last summer. I'll also add some different color pins to differentiate the type of activity (food, ice cream, fun)

YAY for new toys!!!

2010-05-07T12:20:00.006-04:00

Well, really a replacement toy. Friday night softball is what i call my "old man" league, it is for 35 and over. We play with wooden bats because at our old age we (supposedly) can't react fast enough in the infield or run/throw far enough in the outfield to handle the speed + distance of a ball coming off an aluminum. Last season i picked up a bamboo bat (http://www.bamboobat.com) which was really nice. If you read and believe the hype on the web site they claim the bamboo is harder than steel. all i know is the ball really jumps off the bat and with a good swing you can hit the ball pretty far. Used it all last season but broke it during the playoffs last year.

We've had one game already this season and while i hit fine with the "old fashion" maple bat in the first game i figured i'd pick up a replacement bamboo. Found a store in the next town over that sold them and picked one up for tonight's game.

i got demoted from leadoff this season (at least for the first game) so now i have more chances to drive runners in.. hopefully it works out.

oh, and the bamboo bats look very nice. I got the black/white one show above. i would have preferred something a little less flashy but the store only had the one style. The white is so hard to keep clean ;-)

Also picked up a new pair of cleats today

My old ones didn't fit well and really made running uncomfortable. new ones felt light as a feather and no pain!!

Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.

2010-05-01T11:04:00.018-04:00

Words of wisdom from a modern day philosopher -

“Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.” - Dr. Seuss

and I'm smiling!

Today was supposed to be the last day of my ski season. I'd never skied in April until last year and I really wanted to ski in May this year but it just didn't work out. Killington had been advertising May 2nd as their last day but abruptly ended the season last weekend (4/28) because the weather forecast didn't look good. I don't mean to rant but seriously, cancelling the season more than a week in advance based on a weather forecast is just lame. As it turned out they got snow rather than rain and could have stayed open but it wasn't to be.

Jay Peak on the VT/Canadian border is still open, they'd gotten 2 feet of snow this week. i gave serious consideration to driving 6 hours each way but in the end didn't do it. Even had an offer from a ski-buddy to stay over for free Friday night but that wasn't in the cards.

No complaints on the season. Skied 30 days, my goal for the year. Skied at 7 new mountains which was also something i wanted to do this year. Didn't expect 7 but am very happy i got to try so many new places. The trip we had to CO was awesome even though we only go 3 days of skiing rather than 4. I'd go back in a heartbeat.

I avoided serious injury though my left knee nagged all season. I hurt it before the season started, ironically doing exercises trying to strengthen my legs! thankfully it only hurts when i stand and didn't hurt when i skied (usually). probably going to see Ortho soon just to make sure it isn't something serious.

I think my skiing skills improved. Not that i'm great by any stretch of the imagination but always trying to push myself to do better, ski harder, ski faster, etc.

Kids had good seasons too. Meg, though a little timid on the slopes, made a big breakthrough on how she turns and Jake was skiing like a whole new person this year. Not sure what happened (maybe the new gear he got) but he's leaps and bounds ahead of where he ended last season.

As i look out the back window i see green grass, trees full of leaves, flowers blooming and hear the birds chirping. I think i can finally let go of the 09/10 ski season. The fact that my softball season has started helps too :-)

I don't blame MY dog!

2010-04-28T16:21:00.009-04:00

90 pound chocolate lab running around my yard but i don't need to make excuses about her being the cause of my grass looking bad . . . .

(brown spots). . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (no brown spots)

Spring Break in FL

2010-04-25T12:18:00.005-04:00

Mention spring break in Florida and most people start conjuring up images of crazy college kids on the beach, in the bars and generally having a wild time. Our spring break was similar but different (opposite) :-)

Just back from a wonderful week in Florida visiting family, We stayed with my Dad for the week but also spent time visiting with Amy's sisters Katy and Teri.

Katy turned the big 4-0 this year and we went down to Wellington for a great party Saturday night. Amy's brother John and sister Ginger also came to town to celebrate.

Weather didn't cooperate early in the week, a bit cloudy and rainy. We made the best of it dodging rain drops a few days and hanging @ the pool waiting for the clouds to part (they didn't).

Wednesday turned out to be the first real sunny day. We played tennis, which I don't do much of any more. I'd forgotten how much liked playing. I used to really enjoy tennis when I was younger but was never very good, though I recall doing a good John McEnroe imitation in the way I used to throw my racket in disgust of my lousy playing. But my temper has mellowed with age and I eventually learned that top spin let me hit the ball hard without sending balls over the fence. After tennis we hung out @ Teri's pool and tried to get tan.

Thursday we headed north with Katy, Neil and her boys to Kennedy Space Center. In the 20+ years we've been going to FL we'd never been to KSC and I finally convinced the family it might be fun (primarily because our friends the Carrolls just went and liked it).

I think everyone had a good time and the day ended with us watching a rocket launch. We didn't see it while @ KSC but rather we watched from the parking lot of the restaurant we had dinner at that night.

Friday and Saturday were back @ the pool, now we're home and I’m watching the rain fall outside our window.

I was supposed to go skiing today, one last trip to VT but the weather wasn't great and I couldn't muster the energy to spend 6 hours in the car for a few hours of skiing in rain :-(

I haven't completely given up hope of one more day on the slopes but the chances are pretty slim. Jay Peak is still open and if I can find someone to go with me I’d consider a 12 hour round trip drive next weekend. Also, JetBlue's been running some specials. I could have done Boston to Denver for $20 round trip but it was the week leading up to FL so it didn't make sense. If they run that special again I’d give serious consideration to doing it, fly Saturday, ski Sun/Mon/Tues and take red-eye home Tues night..

Of course, softball season starts tomorrow so i won't be bored.

And while i'm thinking about my old firebird....

2010-04-16T10:37:00.008-04:00

Back in the day, my friend Kathy was dating a guy named Marc. Marc was into cars and had a very cool and fast green Camaro from the early 70s (i think it was the first year of the new body style) .

Marc was a good mechanic, he did all the work on his car. I became friendly with Marc thru Kathy and we hung out a bit. As much as I loved the Firebird I was always envious of other "cool" cars because I only had a little 305ci engine while most people had small block 350s (again, why couldn't mom have gotten the trans-am???) .

I wanted to go faster. . . . I NEEDED to go faster!

I don't recall how it got started but i ended up buying and installing (marc did most of the work) an after-market Edelbrock hi-rise aluminum manifold and a big 4 barrel carb. I know I bought it used, might have been from Marc. I think i paid $50 for the whole thing.

After we got the parts installed we found two problems:

1. The throttle cable didn't reach far enough to the new carb and we ended up fashioning an extension out of the blade from a hacksaw.

2. Due to the hi-rise feature of the manifold the tip of the screw for the airfitler was about 1/16 of an inch too tall. no fix to be had, ended up with the tiniest of pimple on the hood when the wing nut dented it from underneath.

Never really knew if the performance was improved but it sure sounded great. I drove the car for years and don't think my parents ever knew that we made those changes.

Of course there was the time when they DID notice what i'd done. One night Marc lent me a spare set of fat tires on some nice looking chrome rims which i put on the back of the car. They looked really cool especially since i'd installed air-shocks and could jack the back of the car up. The next morning i got yelled at by mom about not respecting the car, looking like a hoodlum and blah blah blah.... she made me take them off :-(

Old cars and old memories

2010-04-15T09:16:00.010-04:00

Got a box load of pictures from my Mom that I scanned so i could send copies to my Dad. Going through i found a few pictures of two of the cars I talked about earlier.

My 77 Firebird - I was always slightly embarrassed by the powder blue color but still loved that car. Why couldn't my Mom have gotten the Black Trans-AM instead?????

And can't forget my first car ever, the green Mercury Capri (aka eugene green)

Found lots of other "interesting" pictures in the box too.. I busted out laughing at a few of them... one day i'll do an 80's blog entry and post the picture of me looking cool in my black jeans, skinny tie and capizzio shoes.

By the way, the grass in that last picture looks like crap, who was taking care of that lawn!

Ok, it might be over now

2010-04-12T11:23:00.003-04:00

i said MIGHT but it probably is...

Skied a new mountain yesterday with some friends, Belleayre Mountain in the Catskills. In all my years of skiing i've never really paid much attention to NY mountains but Belleayre was only 2 hours from home (vs. 3 for south VT) and was a lot of fun.

Despite liberal use of SPF 30 my face still got sunburned.

Bellearye 4.11.10 from gary cunninghame on Vimeo.

I will try to squeeze in one last trip, keeping an eye on May 1st! but the weather has been warm and many places are shutting down.

It ain't over til I say its over!

2010-04-04T20:36:00.003-04:00

and I ain't saying it yet ;-)

Good Friday was indeed a good Friday :-) Jon and I took the kids up to Okemo and skied in 75 degree HEAT!!! What fun that was, fantastic day. Even with SPF 50 sunblock i got a little burned on my face.

Jake wore shorts all day. Jon switched to shorts in the afternoon. Snow coverage was pretty good considering the mediocre winter we had and the rains last week. We skied right up to the last chair and everybody wished we could keep going. Kids all agreed it was their last day (but it wasn't mine).

Meg and Jake at the top. You can see MT. Sunapee in NH in the background.

The kids posing for a picture -

Ski season winding down

2010-03-22T10:34:00.006-04:00

Warm weather, daylight savings time and the start of the baseball season all point to the impending end of ski season. Our local hill in CT probably closed Sunday, unless we get some very cold weather over the next few days. Ski Sundown went out with a bang, they hosted their 2nd annual spring S7 event. In the AM they have a competition in the terrain park and in the afternoon a mogul skiing race. Winners (men and women) of the mogul race each got $1000 and new skis. Jake and I signed up but weren't recipients of anything more than the T-shirt you get for entering. I like skiing moguls but don't consider myself anything more than average, however some of the guys skiing this weekend were phenomenal. Many came down from VT just to compete for the prize money.

Hopefully I'll get a few more days heading up to VT before the season is finally over. My goal at the start of the season was to get 30 days, i'm at 27 and think i can do it. My secondary goal is to ski in May for the first time ever, May 1st @ Sugarbush or Killington would be great. Just need to plot and scheme to make sure it all happens.

Here is a video i made Saturday, i was using the new camera i got to replace my broken one.

Ski Sundown - 3.20.10 from gary cunninghame on Vimeo.

A quick pic of Jake hanging out after he and i were eliminated from the race.

Return of the Helmet Cam!

2010-03-11T16:49:00.002-05:00

found a good mounting position and more importantly found some software to help smooth out the bumpiness of the camera. Here's some footage of me following my friend Greg down thru the bumps @ Ski Sundown.

Ski Sundown - following AlpineZone Greg from gary cunninghame on Vimeo.

bad week for electronics in our house

2010-03-09T10:02:00.003-05:00

Not a good week for electronic stuff in our house. First Jake's laptop died. Initially we thought it was just a bad power cord but after trying others it turns out the laptop itself is the problem. Then after we got home from skiing this weekend I went to download some video off the camcorder and mistakenly plugged in the power cord for Megan's laptop.... the result was i killed the camcorder :-(

so now we're shopping for a new laptop and a new camera.

Not much going on

2010-03-07T23:13:00.003-05:00

Was down in Raleigh NC last week for work. Working with lawyers and auditors is always fun. Get to go back in a couple weeks.

Spent the weekend in VT with the kids, skied Okemo and Bromley. Meg had not been to either place. Weather was great and skiing was too.

Why don't they like me?

2010-03-01T08:22:00.003-05:00

i picked up an old issue of skiing magazine the other day and was flipping through it. It was the first issue of the season and they were rating "things" like skis, boots, mountains, etc. One article caught my eye, "the winners of the first annual Skiing Magazine awards for outstanding achievement in the field of excellence in film".

NOT ONE of my videos were listed!!! how could this happen? I guess it could be due to the lack of a category such as "lamest video of mediocre skiing" or "films only your family watches" but still.. no respect, that's just not right.

and my latest . . . .

Seems like just yesterday

2010-02-23T23:40:00.005-05:00

but it was 16 years ago that Jake was born. I still remember it well, i guess i always will.

It started several days earlier, 8 weeks before he was due Amy started having contractions. She was admitted to the hospital and they did what they could to stop the process. On 2/15 the Dr told us everything was fine and that Amy could go home the next day. I went to work that night, we were setting up a computer show at the Trumbull Marriott. I'd been out all week due to Amy being in the hospital but since everything was looking good i decided to pitch in that night. We pulled an allnighter setting up for the show and around 5:00 AM my beeper went off. apparently things had changed and Amy was in labor, no stopping it. It was snowing that night (that was a very snowy winter) and i had to drive from Trumbull to Norwalk on the Parkway in about 6 inches of snow.

Once I got to the hospital i found that things had gotten under control. Active labor but not happening immediately. I had time to run home, get showered, feed the dog and get back to the hospital. I grabbed a quick lunch at Wendy's on my way. I took it to go and ate in the room with Amy. That was a mistake! i think the smell of the food combined with the whole labor thing made Amy nauseas and she got sick on me, not fun! The nurse gave me scrubs to change into and looked like a Dr so that was cool :-)

A few hours later just after 6:00 PM Jake was born. Life hasn't been the same since.

Then -

Now -

Happy Birthday Jake!

Back in the East

2010-02-21T23:09:00.004-05:00

so we're back home and i had to get out and do some skiing this weekend. Wanted to keep it local this weekend since we'd just gotten back so headed to Ski Sundown.

Saturday was Jon and me for some kidless skiing. Spent a beautiful spring afternoon (in feb!!) on the hill. Snow was soft and slow, it felt like i was dragging an anchor behind me. But got to hit some small bumps and that was lots of fun.

Sunday was me and the kids. Megan had tried and got frustrated on the NASTAR course at Breckenridge so she wanted to try again. Sundown has NASTAR Sunday 3-6. Hit the hill around 1 and skied some easy cruisers. Sun was out but it wasn't as warm as yesterday (warm, just not as warm). As 3:00 rolled around we headed over to the starting gate. Meg's first time was 40 seconds, about 10 seconds away from a medal. 2nd run was 36, 3rd run was 34. She was doing great. Even the guy in the starter's house commented on the progress she was making. Meanwhile Jake had scored a Bronze for one of his runs. Last run of the day Meg got down to 32 seconds. Little video of the action -

such a tourist. . .

2010-02-18T21:47:00.001-05:00

how could i resist using this song???

CO trip recap -

2010-02-18T17:14:00.004-05:00

Back to CT after a GREAT!!!! vacation in CO... here's the recap -

last week - had to spend 2 days in NYC for work AND there was a big blizzard headed our way. This combo made for an anxious week leading up to the trip. Luckily our flight was no affected but the one we were originally schedule for was cancelled.

Thurs -

Arrived safe and sound at DEN. I was a little sad that we were landing after dark as seeing the mountains from the plane was a vivid memory i had from my previous trip. Lugging bags, ski and ski boots around the airport was fun (not really). Picked up our rental SUV and headed out. At the rental car exit the woman asked if we needed direction. Told her we were headed to Keystone and she said "Take your first left and go straight for 2 hours." Sounded funny but that is pretty much what we did. Made a little pit stop on the way out and found a fun place called Noodle Factory or Noodle Company ( one of those) and had a quick dinner. Stopped at the grocery store to get some basics for our condo before continuing our westward trek.

Heading up the east side of the Rockies we suddenly heard a POP.. pulled off the road and found that a bag of chips had popped due to the pressure change, that made for a good laugh. back on the road and moments later another bag popped.

Fri –

Even with the time change we managed to sleep in a bit. Had quick breakfast in the condo and headed over to Keystone. Amy dropped us off and headed to the spa. The kids and I got our boots on and had a quick over-breakfast (as Meg likes to call it) then hit the slopes. We skied the front side of Keystone all morning. It was good but nothing special. Certainly bigger than what we normally ski in the East but just didn’t thrill me much. Took a lunch break (Amy met us) and then headed back out. I convinced Meg she was ready for some harder trails so we went over the backside to a different area of the mountain and found much more fun (for me) trails. The day got cut a little short when Meg said she felt sick. We took the gondola back down to the base because she felt too sick to ski. Eventually she felt better so we figured it was altitude sickness.

We went out to dinner at a ranch house via horse drawn sleigh. Dinner was a lot of fun.

Sat –

Expecting crowds due to the holiday weekend and fact that Meg just likes skiing while Jake and I LOVE it, we planned to split up. Amy and Meg for a “girls day” – shopping, lunch, movie and hot tub + pool while Jake and I headed to Arapahoe Basin. Rough start to the day and driving conditions were not great on the way up to Abasin. We ended up turning back because I didn’t want Amy to drive in those conditions. Jake and I took the bus back to Abasin. On the way back up the road we watched a 4 wheel drive jeep coming down the road fishtail and almost hit our bus. He ended up in the ditch on the side of the road.

Jake and I skied most of the day. Abasin was amazing. Even though they were only 50% open we had a great time. Towards the end of the day I started to feel like how Megan did on the day before but kept going because it was so much fun.

We were heading out for fondue dinner at the top of Keystone. By that time Jake was starting to feel ill also. He and I didn’t eat much but Megan and Amy had a great time. Riding the gondola at night was fun. Just enough moonlight to make out the mountain below us.

Sun –

Plan was for all of us to ski Breckenridge. Unfortunately Jake still was not feeling well and we ended up skipping skiing for the day. Amy and Meg went skating and out to lunch while I hung out with Jake. Later in the afternoon Amy, Meg and I went to the pool and hot tub. Jake started feeling better and we ended up going out for dinner @ a brew pub down the road in Dillon.

Mon –

Last day of the trip and everyone was feeling better. We headed over to Breckenridge. Cool town at the base of the mountain but hard to navigate for a first timer. Amy dropped us off @ Peak 9 and went to town for shopping and touristy stuff. Kids and I skied all morning and after lunch they took a break hanging with Amy who’d come back to the lodge. I went off and tried some more advanced terrain that Meg wouldn’t have liked. I dropped down to the learning area 6 pack lift for a ride over to the peak 10 chair. Took a few runs on my own and then went back to grab the kids to finish up the afternoon of skiing. Jake went off on his own to check out the terrain park while Meg and I tried to get back to the NASTAR race course. We had all tried the race course earlier. Jake and I got medals but Meg was upset that she didn’t so we were going to try again. Sadly it was closed by the time we go there. Meg and I took a few more runs and called it a day.

We had an early dinner in town @ Eric’s downstairs (something like that). Headed home and packed for the trip home.

Tues –

White knuckle drive up the west side of the rockies in the AM and then we flew home :-( delays getting in so we weren’t home until almost midnight.

The trip was better than I had imagined, despite the altitude sickness we got hit with. I’d have liked to have gotten in the 4^th day of skiing but sometimes you just have to go with the flow. I think I could live out there.

I’d love to go back and see more of the mountains we skied as well as maybe hit a few others…. Hmmmm, southwest airlines has a special on for flights from Hartford to Denver… maybe I could swing another quick trip…..

Last day in CO

2010-02-15T23:36:00.004-05:00

Spent our last day in CO at Breckenridge. What a great place! Would love to get back there and ski more of the mountains.

Arapahoe Basin

2010-02-13T21:24:00.001-05:00

Skied ABasin today, it was great.. video doesn't do the day justice. had too much fun skiing to do much taping.

More skiing

2010-02-13T10:49:00.002-05:00

Jake and I heading to Abasin today. looks like we'll not get to experience the whole mountain, they report the backside bowl closed.. probably due to the lack of snow CO's had.

Breck Sunday + Copper Monday

Keystone

2010-02-12T19:11:00.002-05:00

Keystone today -

Getting close

2010-02-02T13:04:00.003-05:00

Little more than a week til we head west.

got the condo confirmation e-mail and have confirmed flights and rental car. keeping fingers crossed for a smooth trip.

packing should be fun!!! NOT :-)

NOTE - apparently confirming a seat assignment 3 times doesn't really hold a lot of weight. 3 times i found our return seats messed up and 3 times i had Delta fix them. AGAIN today our return seats were mysteriously "UNASSIGNED". and from DEN to MINN we can't get seats. I'm sure they'll help us @ the gate but it is frustrating since i booked the flight in October and HAD seat assignments 3 different times.

Cars

2010-01-27T12:54:00.008-05:00

Hard to believe Jake will be 16 soon. We stopped by a used car lot the other day, walked around to get a feel for what he likes and what he can afford. He's been saving money for more than a year and might actually get to buy something decent.

That got me thinking about cars I've owned:

My first car was a green Mercury Capri. I think i nicknamed it Eugene Green and if i recall correctly there was a song on the radio back then about a guy named Eugene. Had a 77 Firebird for a number of years. I bought (or was it a gift??) it from my mom. Drove a 78ish white VW Scirocco after that and then purchased my first "new" car, 86 VW cabriolet. Turns out it was a chick car but i liked anyway.

A Passat after that, again, bought that off Mom. A new 2000 Saab 93 was next, i really liked that car and finally my 2006 BMW convertible. The BMW is fun, i just wish i could have went with the 6 speed instead of the auto but sometimes you have to make small trade-offs.

I'd say of all the cars i've owned (there are a few others but they were primarily Amy's so i didn't count them) the Saab was the most fun. BMW with the top down is very very close but the saab with a stick shift and a turbo engine always made me smile. The Saab kicked ass in the snow too! No doubt if the bmw had a stick it would be far and away my fav.

The Scirocco -

VW Cabriolet -

The Saab-

The BMW -

(amy's honda pilot in the background)

Olympians visit CT

2010-01-25T08:48:00.007-05:00

Skied Saturday at our local hill in CT, Ski Sundown, and Olympians Phil Mahre and Bill Johnson were there. Ski Sundown was hosting a charity event to benefit Bill who suffered significant medical injuries during his career.

Meg and I saw Bill in the lodge but didn't get a chance to see Phil. I grew up skiing K2 skis because of Phil, I wanted to be just like him.

CO Weather

2010-01-22T10:59:00.002-05:00

thing are looking better, snow in the forecast :-)

7-Day Forecast for Latitude 39.6°N and Longitude 105.95°W (Elev. 9394 ft)

Less than a month away

2010-01-19T16:39:00.003-05:00

The Good - Less than 1 month until the CO trip, getting more excited each day.

The Bad - Checked out lift ticket prices @ Keystone, Copper and Breck - OUCH!!

The Ugly - Keystone reports no new snow in past 7 days. from what i read/hear it isn't the best year of snow :-(

let's go to the video tape . . . .

2010-01-15T08:21:00.010-05:00

Santa delivered a new toy this year... a camera that mounts to my ski helmet. I've had a lot of trouble getting it mounted in a way that shows good video. there is no screen so i don't know what the picture looks like until i load it on the computer afterwards.

i prefer to use youtube for most videos but occatoinally use vimeo. vimeo gets less traffic but they haven't been sucked in on the legal issues yet so i can usually get away with a song that youtube blocks.

This video isn't great (bad angle) but Vimeo has an embed video option and i just wanted to see if it works. (edit - i guess it works)

Magic Mountain 1.10.10 from gary cunninghame on Vimeo.

(edit # 2 - adding YouTube)

Looks like YouTube has the same embed feature and it works.. this is one of my favorite videos i've made (for whatever that's worth)

Colorado here we come

2010-01-11T10:01:00.006-05:00

Still a month away but getting psyched for our trip to CO.

I was there years ago and had a great time at Steamboat & Vail. Funny how some thing things stick in your mind, it was more than half a lifetime ago but i still have vivid memories of Steamboat. I recall like it was yesterday riding up a lift and seeing two guys skiing side by side down a bumped up trail hitting a catwalk and doing simultaneous helicopters (kids today call em 360's or maybe 3's???, i don't know, i'm not a kid) they landed and kept going without missing a beat. Pulling a 3 has been on my wish list since then.. still ain't done it :-( I also remember taking a lesson at Steamboat and finding out i didn't ski nearly as well as i thought i did :-D

Since i'd been to Steamboat we decided to try new places (trying new things is GOOD!) so we'll be skiing Keystone, ABasin, Copper and Breckenridge while there. Amy's plotting some non-ski activities for us including a sleigh-ride dinner and also a fondue night at the top of the mountain.

The village @ keystone (where we're staying) is supposed to have lots of stuff to do so Amy & Megan( when not skiing) won't be bored.

back to the grind...

2010-01-04T11:46:00.007-05:00

spent a wonderful long weekend up in New Hampshire with the "sundae drive" crew. got lots of snow, skied a few days and tried out a new place called Pat's Peak. Not the biggest mountain in NH (probably 1 of the smallest) but it was a lot of fun. Girls loved the fresh snow and it gave them the confidence to try skiing in the trees. Jake had fun too, headed off on his own for a bunch of runs, one of which landed him lost in the woods and me trying to find him.

Other than the bumper of our car being torn off by a guy who doesn't drive so good it was a great time.

back to work/school.. delayed opening for the kids today cuz of the snow we got locally yesterday.

Christmas / New Years Update

2009-12-29T11:20:00.002-05:00

good christmas.. kids (including me) very happy.

jake got his big gift early, new skis, which he really likes.

meg's favorite gift was one she didn't ask for, a new netbook computer

heading to NH for some skiing over long new year's weekend. blizzard is in the forecast, hoping for lots of snow but not so much wind.

Soup's On

2009-12-22T22:41:00.002-05:00

Another night of "Amy doesn't cook"

Jake said he was ready for another night of cooking and he wanted to make home-made chicken noodle soup. Coincidently Grandpa felt we needed help and shipped us a cookbook.

So i picked up Jake from school (staying late for Tech Corp (chip off the old block)) and we headed to Big Y to pickup the necessary ingridents.

we were supposed to also get sandwich stuff for "soup and sandwich" but we didn't! :-p

Jake did most of the prep work, i browned the chicken. We went with the "hearty" version of the recipe and it was closer to a stew than soup but it turned out really good. Jake had seconds

Ski Season has begun

2009-12-20T22:20:00.003-05:00

Not the best start to a winter ski season... but finally got out for some skiing with Jake at our "local" hill here in CT. Heading to NH for few days after Christmas but hope to get in a few more local before then.

quick video from our first day out. Jake is sporting some funky pants but they don't show up well on the video.

http://www.youtube.com/garycunninghame#p/a/u/0/A0Djwl9Z5uI

I don't have anything new to write about... .

2009-12-15T20:32:00.003-05:00

but i felt like i was neglecting the blog.

Was in Raleigh NC last week for meetings. that was fun.. I had to go to NYC today for a meeting... that was fun.... tomorrow is Meg's birthday, that means we go out for hibachi, YAY!

i should be on the snow and skiing this weekend, that makes me smile.

Another round of Amy doesn't cook night

2009-12-01T21:56:00.004-05:00

Tonight was my night to cook.. i threatened to make hot dogs and chili but was informed nobody would be eating it if i did... plan b was to introduce the family to Hamburger Helper!! Off to the Big Y market I went.

When i found the hamburger helper i decided it wasn't right so i had to come up with something quick. We ended up with:

Shrimp Cocktail - extra spicy sauce

Chicken Picata over pasta

Steamed brocoli

Lime Jello with whipped cream for dessert..

total success!

weather....

2009-12-01T13:33:00.003-05:00

yeah, i left talking about the weather, so exciting!!

this weather just sucks... can't put it any other way. Last year at this point (dec 1) i'd been skiing 3 times:

first time - http://www.vimeo.com/2311409

second time - with Jake @ Hunter.. no photographic evidence.

third time - http://www.vimeo.com/2391918

this past weekend know what i did??? yard work, in a t-shirt!

Summer is over and so is the Ice Cream Adventure

2009-11-09T08:33:00.006-05:00

Have had way too much ice cream and now its time to find something new to blog about. I probably should blog about the diet i need to be on and the weight i should be losing but i'm not that "open" with my life so it will have to be something else.

Ski season is just about here ... could certainly blog about that. Not just the actual skiing but could also include planning, speculating, injury reports and such - but that is alpinezone.com is for. With family vacation to Summit County CO in Feb + a few other special trips planned to NH and ME I might end up putting that stuff here too. I'm always looking for an excuse to make a ski video.

Started a new event around the house this fall, "mom doesn't cook night". So far so good. Jake's gone twice while Megan and I have each gone once. Quick summary-

Jake made breakfast for dinner - Eggs, pancakes + bacon
Megan went with turkey club sandwiches + soup
Gary made his world famous chicken and potato dish, which wasn't nearly as good as he remembered it being :-(
Jake made an awesome bacon & cheddar meatloaf + mashed potatoes

Megan is up next.. she says it will be stuffed baked potato night.

I also tried, failed, but keep trying to get "Family Bench Press Night" kicked off. As the name implies, the whole family head to the basement and sees how much weight we can each bench press (yes, this is as stupid as it sounds). I won the first night :-) Oddly, nobody but me seems to want this new activity to continue. . . go figure.

Also batted around the idea of "what did we do that was exciting this week" which might take off.. just a general blog of what fun we've been having.

stay tuned, i hope to get something figured out soon.

Welcome to Sundae Drive, a little diversion for the summer of 2009. The goal is simple: visit as many different ice cream shops as possible this summer! There are a couple of rules. First, and most important, is that the spirit of this adventure is to visit unique ice cream shoppes. I have nothing against the big chains. Cold Stone and DQ are great and I 've enjoyed many treats from those guys but I want to find the small out of the way/unique/not-your-average ice cream stores. The only other rule is that we should be finding new places each week, not going back to a place we've been already.

Let's see how this goes..

More Bonus Ice Cream!

2009-10-18T23:14:00.002-04:00

Tom Carvel would be proud... we've taken a liking to making our own ice cream at home. We've whipped up several more batches since our first attempt.

First we stuck with the same plan, basic vanilla + different topping to mix in. We added TWIX cookies since we liked it so much at the Milford shop. One time we threw the oreos right in the ice cream machine and it became a cookie ice cream.

Today we tried two new flavors. I threw together a batch of coffee chocolate chip ice cream. Unfortunately (well, actually it was planned all along) no one in the house likes coffee so i have to eat the whole thing myself....

Then Jake and Amy independently had the same idea, make a batch of ice cream with brownies mixed in. Amy baked a quick tray of brownies while Jake and I ran to the store to get the necessary ingredients. We needed chocolate because we decided to make it a chocolate brownie ice cream. This recipe was little fancier, we had to melt the chocolate and do some extra steps. In the end i thought it was incredible, so did Megan, but Amy and Jake were not blown away. I think Jake actually skipped it after taking a few tastes from the bowl.

Sundae Drive - Unoffical bonus week

2009-10-14T16:40:00.004-04:00

Perhaps it was ice cream withdrawal or maybe just too much time on our hands... this weekend we busted out the ice cream maker and whipped up a batch of home made! Of course we couldn't all agree on a flavor so we took the diplomatic approach - vanilla ice cream and your choice of topping.

We had reeses peanut butter cups, crushed oreos, chocolate syrup and chocolate chips. Not bad for our first batch.. will probably make more :-)

Sundae Drive - Week 20 / October 4

2009-10-05T14:06:00.011-04:00

Week 20 represents the official* end of the 2009 Sundae Drive - Week 20!! I can't believe how much ice cream we've eaten, how many different places we found and how much fun there could be in something as simple as eating ice cream.

The weather was great in CT this Sunday so instead of going out to dinner we opted for a backyard cookout. We roasted hot dogs over a campfire for dinner tonight.

Where to go for our last night of ice cream was hotly debated. Several people felt we should go back to the yet to be decided favorite spot of the summer. Alyssa and I stood strong and demanded that we not compromise our goal of eating somewhere new. With a bit of Googling Jake and Amy found an interesting spot called Walnut Beach Creamery (http://walnutbeachcreamery.com/index2.html) in not-too-far-away Milford.

The kids working there were great. They'd have to be, the flavor list is long and has names which don't really describe what the flavor really is so they patiently answered what seemed like dozens of "what is in X?"

After getting our ice cream we sat in back of the store in a really nice (i can't bring myself to use cute or quaint) garden while we ate. The ice cream was excellent.

The store is located a block from the Milford beach. We walked down the block to find a stunning orange harvest moon hanging over the water. We strolled the beach for a bit before heading home.

We might even find ourselves heading back to Walnut Beach.. They close on Halloween this year and told us that anyone who shows up in a costume gets a free ice cream!!

* keep an eye on this space for maybe one last unofficial event ;-)

Sundae Drive - Week 19 / September 27

2009-09-27T21:45:00.017-04:00

Another split weekend. The Carroll family headed to Lake George for the balloon festival while the Cunninghames hung in Monroe.

The Carrolls reported -

Sprinkles Ice Cream. Queensbury, NY. Huge portions, lots of flavors. Would have been a lot more fun in the sun!!

Cunninghames - Went with the dinner/ice cream combo again this week. First stop was the Firehouse in Newtown. Had driven past a few times and the place looked interesting. Walking through the front door it was much smaller than expected. Nice little bar in front with dining room in the back. Place was pretty empty. Menu was varied, almost too many choices- pizza, burgers, entrees including fish + steaks. Jake of course had a burger which he liked very much. Jake WOULD recommend this place to a friend and wants to go back again.

Best part of the evening for me - when i convinced Amy that the hot wings i ordered for an appetizer were not that hot, the look on her face and the water she gulped told a different story. 2nd best (well, funniest) part of the night was the F-Bomb the less-than-sober guy at the next table dropped.. TWICE ;-) Megan never heard the guy, she was busy playing "spy" when nobody was looking, doing somersaults and flipping over booths.

Off to Woodbury for ice cream. Amy found a place called Dairy Delite in Woodbury which looked good so we headed over. Hard to believe the summer has slipped away and it is now dark @ 7:00. I mention this because it is hard to find a place you've never been while driving unfamiliar roads in the dark... I had to slam the brakes and make an emergency turn to get into the parking lot. Ice cream selection and quality were good. I had a flavor called Pomperaug (named after a nearby river i think) which was vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips and heath. Megan went with a lemon sorbet this week.

Sundae Drive - Week 18 / September 20

2009-09-21T09:56:00.005-04:00

Back to the dinner/ice cream combo this week. For dinner we stopped by a road side BBQ place on the river in Seymour. Cheese Fries, Mac + Cheese and Freaky Dog soda were big hits. I had the BBQ brisket sandwich, it was most excellent.

Off to ice cream in Shelton, we went to The Ice Cream Shoppe of Shelton, a family owned store making their own ice cream for many years.

http://icecreamshoppeshelton.com/

Ice Cream Eaters - Amanda, Megan, Alyssa, Amy, Lorri, Gary (via take home)

Jon was off watching cars go round and round in circles and Jake didn't feel like eating ice cream this week.

Sundae Drive - Week 17 / September 13

2009-09-13T21:50:00.004-04:00

This week saw the end of a mini-tradition. We weren't able to do what has become our regular diner out before ice cream this week. Nonetheless we were able to find a new and exciting ice cream destination.

This week, Ridgefield Ice Cream Shop in Ridgefield CT. A converted Carvel store they are now well known for their super soft serve ice cream. Several reviews rated them very highly and they even made the CT Magazine list of top ice creams shops.

I went with the Moose Tracks ice cream (chocolate ice cream with chunks of chocolate and peanut butter) and i saw several traditional vanilla cones dipped in chocolate.

It was a great way to end the weekend.

Ice Cream Eaters - Jake, Amanda, Megan, Lorri, Alyssa, Amy and Gary
Watcher - Jon (too full from dinner, so he said)

Sundae Drive - Week 16 / September 6

2009-09-06T19:50:00.013-04:00

It is funny how things change over time. In the beginning it was all about the ice cream. It still is but now that we've been doing the dinner before ice cream for so many weeks in some ways dinner seems to be as, if not more, important in our weekly location decision.

This week we found an old fashion 50's style drive-in diner complete with car hop service, though we didn't take advantage of it and the car hops were NOT wearing roller skates. Dinner for 8 @ the Sycamore Drive-In in Bethel CT (http://www.sycamoredrivein.com/). Several of us had the Dagwood burger and everyone really enjoyed it. Sycamore was rated as the "best root beer" in Connecticut Magazine's Best of CT '09. My root beer float was great!

After a short zig zag trip through Bethel and Danbury we arrived at Il Bacio Ice Cream. I'd read about this place in the past and we found several great reviews of their ice cream, friendly staff and speedy service so we decided to give it a try after eliminating several other options in the area.

The ice cream was very good. I believe I heard Alyssa say it was the best ice cream we'd had so far this summer. They had tons of flavors to choose from and all looked great. A crowd appeared around the same time we did but the scoopers handled the rush well and we got our ice cream quickly.

I had a very hard time forcing myself to stick with a medium cup and limiting it to two flavors, cardiac arrest + chocolate lace. The cardiac arrest was a popular flavor with our group. It was chocolate ice cream with 7 different flavors of chocolate, including brownies. I hate to say it but it was TOO chocolaty for me. The staff seemed friendly, they had a wall full of pictures of customers and we asked how to get on the wall. Just stand there and let us take your picture was the response so we did..

BUT, i hate to say it, this place will not be revisited, I got yelled at by the owners for taking the picture of the ice cream flavors! details to follow.....

Update - I think i'll take the high road and not go into details but will say while i understand they might not want people taking pictures of the people working in the store they could have handled the situation much better than yelling at me and being rude. But i won't go back that's for sure.

Sundae Drive - Week 15 / August 30

2009-09-03T09:12:00.010-04:00

Guest Bloggers this week * Amanda, Megan and Alyssa *

Here is their write up:
This week we went to a place called Cabo (http://www.panchos-cantina.com/). 2 words BIG PORTIONS! Jake got a giant burrito, Alyssa and Megan shared ultimate nachos and let me say something we didn't even make a dent. Amanda got 3 chicken nuggets and Amanda didn't like them. Jon got sizzling fajitas and they were silzzlen!

After going out to dinner we went to a place called Goody Basset's for ice cream(link). Amanda and Lorri got vanilla with cookies mixed in. They had home made whipped cream. Alyssa and Megan got cake batter ice cream and it was good but on all of them they put a little too much whipped cream. Amanda didn't love her ice cream but mostly every body else liked theirs. We thought the place was interesting because it was named after a witch named Goddy Basset who lived in Stratford. The place was cute and we got candy from there. All and all it was it was a good last sundae night drive of the summer vacation.

Ice Cream Eaters - Amy, Lorri, Amanda, Jake, Jon, Megan, Alyssa + Gary

BONUS CONTENT - Goody Bassett witch info from http://theshadowlands.net/places/connecticut.htm -

Stratford - Phelps Mansion - Before the Mansion was built a lady named Goody

Basset was burned at the stake for being a witch. After the house was built, lots of

people have been drawn out of it. The legend is that if you stare in a mirror in the

house, you will not see your face but Goody Basset's and she will prick your arm

with a needle for staring at you.

Sundae Drive - Week 14 / August 23

2009-08-24T23:05:00.008-04:00

14 weeks of ice cream.. no wonder my pants don't fit any more!!

After a week on the beach both families needed a break from the monotony that is the ocean so this week we headed to Captain's Cove Seaport in Bridgeport (http://www.captainscoveseaport.com/) for our now regular dinner out before ice cream. In case you didn't catch the sarcasm Captain's Cove is on the water in Bridgeport. It is a cool place, they have a take out style concession stand selling fried seafood (we had clam strips), burgers, dogs, sandwiches, etc. There was a band playing and a pretty good sized crowd.

As we finished up dinner some really wild clouds rolled in.

It then proceeded to pour as we drove over to our ice cream destination. Just around the corner from Captain's Cove was Timothy's Ice Cream Shop (http://www.roadfood.com/Reviews/Overview.aspx?RefID=530).

I believe they made some CT list of top shops. If so it had to be for the ice cream cuz the place itself was a dump!

The ice cream was actually very good. They did the mix-in thing like Cold Stone does. Jake had vanilla with butter finger and chocolate chips mixed in. He declared Timothy's his favorite shop of the summer so far.

Ice Cream Eaters - Alyssa, Amanda, Megan, Jake, Jon + Gary

Amy and Lorri were in attendance but did not partake :-(

Sundae Drive - Week 13 / August 16

2009-08-17T21:36:00.005-04:00

Like a family with a mission the Carroll clan continued the ice cream adventure with a stop in Virginia. They got to VA Beach about 4 pm and after a quick swim and a meal at Capt George's they stopped off at Handel's. Cake batter and choc chip were the two flavors. Nothing too crazy as they were still full from soft shell crabs, king crab legs, scallops, shrimp, prime rib, clam chowder and a whole lot of other food.

The Cunninghame family just didn't cut the mustard this week. Too much going on with our trip to North Carolina and finding a local ice cream shop didn't make it to the top of the priority list this week. So we cheated and had ice cream at the house instead.

UPDATE - Mid-week adventure

In an attempt to redeem ourselves for the poor showing this past Sunday the Cunninghames ventured out to a local ice cream shop, Big Bucks, in Corolla NC for a quick snack today.

Sundae Drive - Week 12 / August 9

2009-08-09T22:36:00.003-04:00

After a long but fun day yesterday (http://www.vimeo.com/6026456) we decided to keep this week's adventure close to home. Short of staying in wonderful Monroe you can't get much closer than Newtown CT, home of the giant flag pole and the $2 movie theater.

Ever heard of Burgerittoville (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEDOoLEmfkI)? if not you should check it out, not your typical fare but i bet you find something you like.

We stopped there for our pre-ice cream warm up dinner. Alyssa loved the PB&J-aritto :-) Megan recommends the cheese fries.

Off to the highlight of the evening, the generically named "Ice Cream Shop" of Newtown CT. Reminiscent of a Dairy Queen, but also with hard ice cream, they had a wide variety of ice cream and frozen yogurt choices.

Amanda loved her mini-cone. Jake, Jon and I went with Avalanches (like a blizzard from DQ)

Ice Cream Eaters - Amanda, Megan, Alyssa, Jake, Lorri, Jon, Amy & Gary

Sundae Drive - Week 11 / August 2

2009-08-03T10:17:00.007-04:00

This week's trek was to the Naugatuck Valley. Derby and Seymour to be exact- here's the summary, sung to American folk classic "Down in the Valley"

Down in the valley, the valley so low
On our adventure, we decided to go.
First we had dinner, Brickhouse the place.
Watching over us, many a celebrity's face.

Then off to Seymour, for our dessert.
Into the parking lot, it was made of dirt.
Whittemores or Wentworths? what did we eat?
Doesn't really matter, it was an excellent treat!

Ok, stop singing now. I can't remember the last time we had a full group for our weekly adventure, this week someone let the redneck in him draw his attention away from what was important to some car race thing in rainy Pennsylvania, but the rest of us continued with our weekly adventure.

Amy's friend Sue's sister Heather recommended Whitmore's in Seymour. We looked and looked and looked on the internet to find info about the place but for the life of us we couldn't. We almost bagged it but Sue and Heather reassured us the place existed and gave us the address. A quick check of Google Maps with the street view feature did show an ice cream shop at the address so we decided that would be our place this week. Now, if we actually knew the place was "Whittemores" we might have had better luck finding it but in the end it all worked out.

So where to eat dinner first? Again, relying on Google maps we found a number of restaurants near the ice cream shop. We settled on a place called Brickhouse (http://www.brickhousederby.com/). The menu was diner-like so we figured there would be something for everyone. When we arrived we were a little surprised by location. It is hard to explain but it was at the end of a long beat up parking lot, past the Valley Bowl lanes. Very out of the way. The place was empty, which is never a good sign, but it turned out pretty good. The decor was unusual. There were what seemed like a hundred celebrity photos around the restaurant and we spent most of dinner having fun trying to figure out who was who. The waitress, Tracy, knew most of them and helped us when we were stumped. BUT, sorry Tracy, there was no way that guy next to Mel Gibson was a young Elvis.

Then off to Whittemore's (sorry, no link again this week) for ice cream. How did we manage before GPS??????? plugged in the address and headed north (north, of course, what better direction for something cold :-) ) The place was just your basic house with a large dirt parking lot. Upon opening the front door we were surprised at the inside. A very old-fashioned shop - wood floors, wooden tables, exposed beams, posters and pictures showing the history of the building (used to be a tavern, dating way back to 1700s i think). We ordered up our ice cream and as we paid Lorri made a comment about skipping Wentworth's this week and the people behind the counter said the ice cream we were getting was from Wentworths! Apparently they bring it in every day from the other store. I can't remember what everyone had, I went with a combo Coffee and Chocolate Mousse. Everyone enjoyed the great ice cream, if you are in Seymour give it a try.

Ice Cream Eaters - Jake, Amanda, Alyssa, Megan, Lorri, Amy + Gary

Sundae Drive - Week 10 / July 26

2009-07-26T22:46:00.007-04:00

Another 2 for 1 special on the Sundae Drive this week. The Carroll clan headed to chocolaty Hershey PA while the Cunninghames stayed home in hot and sticky CT :-)

The Hershey crowd enjoyed treats from Phillip Arthur's Old Fashioned Ice Cream (http://philliparthursic.com/) located right on . . . . wait for it... Chocolate Ave! :-) Jon had the Hershey Trojan (the high school mascot), a sundae with vanilla ice cream, reeses peanut butter cups, choc sauce.

Ice Cream Eaters - Alyssa, Sean, Emily, Amanda, Jon, Ron, Lorri and Laurie.

The Cunninghames continued the adventure within the adventure by combining a dinner out followed by ice cream. Destination - Fairfield, CT - first stop Joe's American Bar + Grill (http://www.joesamerican.com/).

I digress ... earlier in the day Jake and I went mountain biking in Bethel CT. As we were getting ready to ride a woman and her daughter stopped us to ask if we were familiar with the trails at Huntington State Park. She was concerned about which trails might be hiking only. I'd been there a few times so offered what limited info I could and then off we went. As we finished up our ride we saw the same people having a picnic lunch. I asked if everything went well, which they say it did. (Fast forward several hours.) As I open the door to Joe's I notice 2 people walking out so I politely (as my parents taught me) stepped back and held the door for the two women ....THE SAME TWO WOMEN from mountain biking!!! seriously, what are the odds???

Anyway, back to Joes. Good dinner, I had the chicken fajitas which were good. Jake's taste in food is getting expensive; he is usually happy with a burger but tonight went for the sirloin steak tips. Overall, nice place and the price was reasonable. Might not drive the 30 minutes just to go back there but if was in the area and needed to eat would not hesitate to stop in.

On to the main attraction! As we left Joe's we realized Sunny Daes (another ice cream shop with no web site) was 2 doors down. We found a crowded parking lot and the line was almost out the door but the service was speedy and we moved along quickly. An old family friend recommended the place to us (Thanks Uncle Billy) and his recommendation was on the mark. So many flavors to choose from I had to get 3 different ones in a cup :-)) Megan got the Cake Batter ice cream, she raved about it. She says Sunny Daes is the best ice cream we've had yet. I'd say it was really really good but give it 2nd place at this point.

Ice Cream Eaters - Amy, Megan, Jake and Gary

Sundae Drive - Week 9 / July 19

2009-07-19T23:28:00.005-04:00

As they say in Hollywood(or is it broadway?), the show must go on, and the same goes for Sundae Drive. While 2 of our regulars felt going to the see the Jonas Brothers would be more fun that eating ice cream, the rest of us did our part to keep the adventure going.

What started last week as a fun little bonus might be turing into part of the weekly adventure. . . . This week's ice cream destination was Dr. Mikes in Bethel CT. Rated as one of the top 10 by Connecticut Magazine we figured it was a must see (or taste) for us. But looking at a map of the route from Monroe to Bethel we realized there as another significant landmark along our path... so for the second week in a row we added a stop, this week dinner for 6 @ Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries!!(http://www.fiveguys.com/)

After a great dinner we continued on our journey, giving us just enough time to digest, to Dr. Mikes in Bethel (no link to insert, how in 2009 can a place not have a website?!?!?). Hardly any line, we got our frozen deserts and sat outside on the picnic tables enjoying a great summer evening. We were serenaded by music coming from one of the nearby restaurants. The chocolate lace seemed to be the favorite this trip, 3 of us had it. Vanilla ice cream with ribbons of chocolate covered caramel :-)

After eating we took a stroll around the block. Saw a couple of interesting restaurants worth going back to Bethel for. I've never been in downtown Bethel before, very nice town.

Ice Cream Eaters - Jake, Amanda, Alyssa, Lorri, Jon + Gary

where to go next??? not sure, everyone check their blackberry!

On the way home came across this -

Sundae Drive - Week 8 / July 12

2009-07-13T12:27:00.006-04:00

A little bit of travel involved in this week's adventure. Our destination - Mr. Frosty's in South Norwalk CT (http://www.rollingcones.com/mrfrostys/).

But first . . . . what visit to South Norwalk would be complete without having a great meal at the Sono Seaport Resturant (http://www.sonoseaportseafood.com/). Clam Strips, Mahi Mahi, Softshell crabs . . . mmmm mmmm good!

Weather for our trip was great, summer finally arrived in Connecticut this week. After a fun dinner we headed around the corner to the ice cream shop. Not too crowded and the ice cream was very good. I recommend the peanut butter sundae, with coffee ice cream!

Ice Cream Eaters - Amanda, Lorri, Alyssa, Gary, Jake, Megan, Amy and Jon.

Sundae Drive - Week 7 / July 5

2009-07-06T11:56:00.004-04:00

Hard to believe it is already July. We FINALLY got to the Rt 34 farm in Orange CT this weekend, Field View Farm... unfortunatly, at least in my opinion, it wasn't worth the wait. A working farm with an animal petting area that caught the attention of the kids but I don't think the quality of the ice cream was as good as many of the other shops we've been to. Cross another place off the list.

Ice Cream Eaters : Amy, Lorri, Megan, Alyssa, Amanda, Jon, Jake + Gary

Sundae Drive - Week 6 / June 28

2009-06-29T21:57:00.004-04:00

Not to let a little summer vacation get in the way of eating ice cream . . . . The Carrolls and the Cunninghames split up this weekend and couldn't have been further apart but still in the good old USA!!

The Carroll contingent headed North to Maine and a stop a Ben & Jerry's was on the intenerary. Details are sketchy but I imagine everyone had a great time.

The Cunninghames headed West to Maui and found a Hawaiian ice cream shop called Lapperts!

http://www.lappertshawaii.com/

Sundae Drive - Week 5 / June 21

2009-06-22T09:45:00.010-04:00

What could be better than ice cream on Father's Day, the best day of the year!!

The weather was iffy but we braved the elements and headed back to Oxford this week to Rich Farm Ice Cream Shop, http://www.richfarmicecream.com. When we arrived there were only a few cars in the parking lot and no line to speak of. We were lucky, by the time we left the place was PACKED!! Perhaps it was so crowded because June is national dairy month???

Ice cream was good. A few (Lorri + Amy??) thought it was the best so far but i was not feeling it. I ended up getting a cup of Mocha Almond Fudge + Brown Cow (one of the specials). I think i should have gone with my first instinct to get Black Cherry Vanilla. Megan had chocolate and cookie dough, it was awesome!!!

Ice Cream Eaters - Amanda, Megan, Alyssa, Jake, Lorri, Jon, Amy + Gary

Sundae Drive - Week 4 / June 14

2009-06-14T14:31:00.000-04:00

Thought about going to the RT 34 Farm in Orange again since it was closed last time but at the last minute Amy found a place in Oxford. Checking their web page looked good so we headed out right after dinner last night. Country Creamery, http://www.countrycreameryllc.com, was very nice. Half of us had the same thing, the Country Moose Sundae. They have a bus for parties, which the kids liked. Service was excellent. We were in and out in no time. Good ice cream, would recommend to a friend :-)

Lost one member of our party to the flu but we brought him home something.

Ice Cream Eaters : Lorri, Amy, Jon, Alyssa, Amanda, Megan + Gary. (jake got take home)

Sundae Drive - Week 3

2009-06-07T14:07:00.001-04:00

Week 3 of our little adventure was almost side tracked due to illness. Two crew members were not feeling well and one of them needed a parent to care for her. Nevertheless the healthy group headed off for Newtown CT to visit Ferris Acres Creamery, http://www.ferrisacrescreamery.com. Arrived to a very crowded parking lot but the line moved quickly. We brought along a freezer bag to take home ice cream to the sick (or caring for sick) who could not join us.

The shop was nice, you could see the working farm in the background and across the street you could see (and smell) cows wandering in the fields. Megan and Alyssa found a playmate and romped around in the grass while the rest of us waited in line.

Ice Cream Eaters - Jon, Gary, Amy, Alyssa + Megan. (amanda + jake got take home)

Sundae Drive - Week 2

2009-05-30T13:49:00.000-04:00

Week 2 was a bit of a screw up. Originally planned to visit a new place in Orange CT but when we got there they were closed so we back tracked to Shelton and visited Wells Hollow (http://wellshollowcreamery.com/) on Bridgeport Ave. Nice place, kids got a kick out of the rabbits they had. We got there just ahead of a big crowd.

Ice Cream eaters - Amy, Lorri, Amanda, Alyssa, Megan, Jake, Jon + Gary

Sundae Drive - Week 1

2009-05-23T12:18:00.000-04:00

First stop on the tour was the Lake Zoar Drive-In (http://www.lakezoardrivein.com/) on the lake in Monroe. Probably best known for their burgers and dogs but they had a sign that advertised 24 flavors of Ice Cream so we stopped there a few weeks ago on a Friday night after eating at Archie Moore's in Derby.

Ice cream eaters: Gary, Jake and Dan. (Amy was in the car but didn't partake)