May
3
Eoghan’s Poster for US Coast Guard
May 3, 2012 | Leave a Comment
This just in…Eoghan’s art poster was one of the winners in his age group in a competition run by the US Coast Guard:
I am pleased to inform you that one of your students, Eoghan Haughey, has been selected as a finalist in this year’s contest. Congratulations! We had a record level of participation–more than 150 entries from 7 countries. The judges commented on the exceptional quality of the work and the difficulty of choosing just 12 finalists.
For being selected as a finalist, Eoghan will receive a calendar with the artwork from all 12 winners and a signed photograph and certificate from world-famous oceanographer Dr. Robert Ballard. In order to complete the calendar, we will need you to send us Eoghan’s original artwork. Please confirm that you have the artwork, and will be in touch later in the week with directions on where to send it. After we have received the original artwork from all 12 finalists, we will also be posting a gallery of the winning posters. Stay tuned to jason.org/contests to view the gallery in the coming weeks.
Eoghan's poster of the "Titanic"
Eoghan is thrilled, as he and Orla spent several hours, at the end of March, watching live webcasts of explorations directed by the famed oceanographer Dr. Ballard, who is famous for, among other things, discovering the wreck of the “Titanic”. Indeed, they were so interested by the documentaries that they wrote to his staff about an item they spotted in the ocean floor. The documentary was about the search for a slave ship, and kids thought they saw chains on the seabed. An NOAA researcher on the program wrote back to them suggesting that what they saw was actually the fecal cast of a sea cucumber:
Taken by by NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer. Click on the picture to learn more...
May
3
Conall, the rocker…
May 3, 2012 | Leave a Comment
It turned out to be a mild winter in the Hudson Valley, which the kids really enjoyed. I might have known this would be the case, since we went to the trouble of installing the snow plough on our tractor. (I’ll have to remember to do the same thing next winter!) There was very little snow to speak of, although the kids managed to get some sledding a couple of times over the winter. They liked the mild weather, and were out in short sleeves playing in the park in February.
Unfortunately, because of the warm weather, the cold and flu season was particular bad over the last few weeks, and it seems as if every bug that was going around managed to find its way into our house. Poor Conall was even sick on his 5th birthday. His birthday wish was to be “unsick”, as well as for a list of trains which he got from Grandma, and which she and Jenn helped him set up on a big train table in our great room. When I came home from work that day he took me by the hand into the room and, waving to it, pronounced “Voila!” He was very impressed with the set up, and showed it off to everyone who stopped by.
Conall is becoming quite the conversationalist. The other day he overheard us talking about mad cow disease, and he piped up
Mad cow disease is a real puzzle. They’re still trying to figure it out.
Sometimes, unfortunately, he’s not very diplomatic. At a play date recently his seven-year old friend had a nerf gun that Conall wanted to play with. When his friend John refused to let him play with it, Conall yelled at him “Idiot!” Poor John was upset, and ran to the kitchen where his Mom and Jenn were talking. When Jenn heard what had happened, she said to Conall, “Now Conall, what do we say?” Conall paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and yelled “Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!”
As he gets older Conall is becoming more and more the extrovert, and a bit of a show off. Jenn, of course, claims that he’s taking more and more after his father. (Wait until I tell him how we’re descended from the Gods in Ireland!). His expressions – both verbal and facial – are hilarious and keep us laughing a lot. When Jenn told him, for example, that he needed to get a birthday haircut, he responded, “So I can look fabulous?”
He’s really gotten into music lately (a new obsession from trains), especially rock music, and particularly groups like Bon Jovi and Stiff Little Fingers. He tells us all that he is going to be a “rocker”, and whenever I come home from work he asks me to put on some rock music for him so that he can do his air guitar and air drums. Unfortunately he’s already hinting that he wants a real set of drums for Christmas…. we better stock up on ear plugs.
Orla enjoys rocking with her little brother, although in real life the playing that she does is on the violin that she took up recently. Meanwhile, Eoghan plays around on the acoustic guitar that Santa brought him…so we continue to have our own little family jam sessions now and again. (Jenn is convinced that he’ll really appreciate it when he discovers girls…)
As far as “country life” goes, our first massacre happened when we experienced our first fox attack recently. Five of the kids’ favorite chickens fell victim to the family of foxes that live in the field next to our barn. I now understand the appeal of fox-hunting, with Orla wanting to take up hunting and shooting when she’s old enough. She dreams of ridding the world of foxes. Fortunately, given the carnage, we added some new chicks to the house and they are just out of the brooder, out to the coop to join the dozen or so survivors. Just two days ago we lost three quail to some small predator that managed to get at them through the small chicken wire in their pen; we’re not sure if it was a mink or some member of the cat family…So the kids are learning pretty quickly about the circle of life! We’ve also added a couple of rabbits to the housefold, and Orla is working with these for her 4H projects. These new additions should help take her mind off of the losses.
Eoghan, more a of computer fan than an animal fan at the moment, has found a group of buddies – including one of his cousins in Ireland – to play Minecraft online with. Jenn was impressed to see that he has even figured out how to install his own “mods”, and with these extensions he is able to apply some of his artistic ability to building impressive architecture and sculptures in some of his “worlds”. Like Orla, he still enjoys his art lessons, and he submitted an art poster on the subject of The Titanic to a US Coast Guard competition. Winners get to have their work framed and displayed in the national headquarters, in Washington D.C. If he wins, I promised to take him to the capital to see it!
Mar
5
Counting Our Chickens…
March 5, 2012 | 1 Comment
It’s fun to have fresh eggs every day. And they’re not just your usual, boring, white eggs. No, we get white, brown, speckled, and even green eggs! Inside they all look the same, though – and much more appealing than those you buy in a shop. And of course they all taste delicious!
Feb
21
Shrove Tuesday
February 21, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Our traditional pancakes
I made a batch of traditional Shrove Tuesday pancakes tonight, and the kids liked them, even if they were different to what they were used to…
Feb
5
Spring has Sprung
February 5, 2012 | Leave a Comment
Eoghan and Conall sledding, with Angel
Christmas was a big hit this year, with the kids getting trains, Breyer horses, and…more pets. Yes, as if we didn’t have enough animals already, we added some rats guinea pigs, one for each of the children. So now we’ve fish, cats, dogs, chickens and guinea pigs. Everything else has gone to the great menagerie in the sky…
Meanwhile, continuing with the Christmas news, Eoghan and Orla both got a start on their musical careers, since there was a guitar under the tree for Eoghan and a violin for Orla. She has started her violin lessons at a local college and she’s really enjoying it. Her teacher has promised that she’ll be learning some Irish fiddle music along with the classical violin, so we’ll be able to have a seisiún at An Grianan in the near future.
Christmas brought Jenn’s family up from Florida and the kids enjoyed having the company of their cousins. Eoghan and Conall both discovered the world of Minecraft through Zach, their college-aged cousin. Now, Eoghan has even set up his own server on one of our computers, which lets him play with local friends and even with Sean, his cousin in Ireland. Orla plays Minecraft too, but she also continues to enjoy playing with her Breyer horses, and will occasionally even let her little brother Conall play along. He got into the swing of things and has christened his horses with unique names – Baby Jesus Japanese Horse, Renewable Energy Saver, and Christmas Train. We have no idea where he comes up with this stuff!
I took the opportunity to scoot up to Portland over Christmas to catch up on Anthony and Ruth, and the timing worked out well as I was able to bring Zach there to meet a friend that he had planned to visit.
Conall also tags along with his sister Orla when she bakes. They went on a baking craze over the winter and we enjoyed a selection of homemade cookies, breads, and cakes. We were surprised to find that actually they were all very tasty! Of course, they were all made with our farm-fresh, organic, free-range eggs from Orla’s flock of chickens. The chickens keep the kids busy during the day looking after them – feeding the, collecting the eggs, and watching anxiously to make sure there are no predators like hawks or wolverines about. And, unsurprisingly, Eoghan is hoping to make some money off them. He already sold his first carton of eggs to a mom at the playground, and has plans of cornering the egg market…
Speaking of predaqtors, we have all sorts of wildlife around. There are skunks, deer, coyotes, possums, and foxes. Not to mention hawks and eagles. I saw a wolf several months ago, Orla and her friend Kayla saw a black bear, and Jenn recently saw a wolverine.
The kids are keeping busy with their classes. In addition to Orla’s violin class, she also goes to a ballet class, and a jazz dance class, both of which she really enjoys. And all three of the kids have an art class with a local artist, and their work is truly impressive, especially Eoghan’s. Together with the other students in the class they had an art exhibition at the local library, and everyone who came was amazed by the standard of all the kids. My kids clearly didn’t inherit their artistic ability from me!
Eoghan just turned 10
And they’re getting BIG!!! Eoghan turned 10 in January, and Conall will turn 5 in March. Jenn, of course, still wants them to be babies…
The weather has been unusually mild here in the north east this spring, and so the kids have enjoyed getting to the playground frequently with their friends. It’s remarkable to see them playing outside barefoot in a warm 60 degree February day in NY. Luckily, the good weather has kept Jenn from getting too stir crazy this year. Usually around February she’s itching to get down to Florida sun.
Dec
21
Christmas Train
December 21, 2011 | 1 Comment
Jenn managed to kill two birds with one stone this weekend. She managed to combing satisfying Conall’s obsession with trains with a visit to Santa, by bringing all three kids to ride on the Santa Train at the Catskill Mountain Railway. Jenn and I had taken the kids on this railway before, on their route in the Catskill mountains, but this was the first time that any of us were on the Kingston line. Everyone was very excited, and even Grandma had a great time, riding in the caboose and chatting with Santy, while Conall was in his element. From the moment they pulled into the parking lot he was frantic to get on board, and was almost overwhelmed with excitement. In fact, he had so much fun that they had to do it again the next day!
Dec
16
Nutcracker
December 16, 2011 | Leave a Comment
This past weekend I took Orla and Eoghan to see “The Nutcracker” at the Bardavonin Poughkeepsie. It is one of our Christmas traditions, with Orla and I having seen it several times over the years at Lincoln Center in New York, where it was performed by the New York City Ballet. This year, however, we chose to see it locally, as it was being performed by the New Paltz Ballet. As it turned out, however, two guest stars from the NYC Ballet had joined the locals, one of them, Teresa Reichlen, being Orla’s favorite from previous years when she played Arabian Coffee. This year she was playing the Sugar Plum Fairy and was, as usual, excellent. We enjoyed the production immensely, and it was actually pretty good, with the costumes in particular being much better than I expected. Of course, not being Lincoln Center, the music was pre-recorded rather than being provided by an orchestra but all in all the show was very enjoyable.
We were able to scoot behind the curtain when the show was over and the kids had their photos taken with the two stars.
The kids and I got to meet the two NYCB performers starring in The Nutcracker at The Bardavon
Dec
1
Ireland
December 1, 2011 | Leave a Comment
I scooted over to Ireland over the Thanksgiving break. I had intended to go at Christmas, but as it happened almost the entire workforce of Lake Communications, a company that I had worked for about 5 years when living in Ireland, had been made redundant and there was to be a farewell get together on Friday, Nov 25th. So I decided to head over and meet up with some of the lads I used to work with about 20 years ago.
The plane was completely full – obviously, a lot of other folks had decided, like me, that Thanksgiving Day was a good day to travel. The flight was uneventful, although the landing was probably the worst I’ve had as their seemed to be a severe crosswind. I was met at the airport by Ann, who took me to Moloughney’s restaurant in Clontarf. It was great to be back in Dublin and have a real Irish breakfast and enjoy the ambience. Niall and Maria joined us, and we hung out for several hours. After lunch I headed in to the city, and had a quick snooze for an hour or two in the Stephen’s Green Club, where I was staying for the weekend. Located right on St. Stephen’s Green, it’s a fantastic place to stay and was the perfect base for me.
I caught up with Grace for a couple of pints in Neary’s, one of my old watering holes, and we ended up going for dinner as well.Among other things she introduced me to the bicycle rental service in Dublin which is pretty darn handy. Next time I’m coming over I’ll have to make sure I join up…
After that it was off to Dicey Reilly’s to meet the Lake crew. It was a great night, with a lot of faces that I hadn’t seen in years – Lorcan O’Neill, Sean O’Connor, Lorcan Burke, etc. We had a great chinwag, as Paddy Whelan would say, and recounted numerous yarns about the good old days. It was so much fun, in fact, that we didn’t notice the time passing; it was about 3:30AM when the last of us left the place. Fortunately for me it was only a stroll of a few hundred yards back to the Club for the night.
Saturday morning saw me, amazingly, up in time for (a late) breakfast. I pottered around for a while and then moseyed across the Ha’penny Bridge to the Winding Stair Bookshop where I caught up with Carmel, Anne-Marie and Vonnie. This is a great place to check out, and the food was great – real winter fare, which hit the spot. After a lazy lunch I sauntered back through town to the club, where I met Donal, Leanne and Anthony and, as usual we solved the problems of the world over dinner.
On Sunday morning the weather was glorious again, and so I strolled up to the Hugh Lane Gallery where I got to see the Francis Bacon exhibition,as well as some others that were, to my mind, completely devoid of artistic merit… The rest of the day was spent in Clontarf, where I met up with Ann and Tom and Caitriona, and then to Niall and Maria’s for dinner.
Monday was a busy day – starting with meeting Miriam for coffee in the science center in Trinity, before heading our to the RDS to meet Tom, Paddy, Richard and John. Although we’d met on Friday night, meeting again for lunch was a good way to catch up in a more relaxed fashion and as usual we shared some humorous anecdotes about the Lake days. Then it was off around the corner to meet Fiona for a quick chat over coffee, which ended up being about 3 hours, before rushing back into town. One of the silver lining of the cloud that is the current recession is that traffic in Dublin is back at about late 1990′s levels, so that it was a very quick taxi ride back in to Neary’s to meet Brendan. We had a quick pint before heading around to The Horseshoe Bar to meet Dave and his daughter Nadia. A few aperitifs there and then Dave and I headed back to the club for dinner, where Peter and Cathal tracked us down for a few pints afterwards.
Come Tuesday morning it was out to the airport and back to NY. All in all, a great, packed, weekend.
Nov
12
October
November 12, 2011 | Leave a Comment
October was an exciting month for the kids, with one of the highlights being a very unusual snow storm, right before Halloween. We saw about 10 inches of snow in our backyard, just days before we were supposed to take the kids trick or treating.The storm didn’t do too much damage, which was a relief because the most of the trees still had their summer leaves and so were heavily laden by the snow. As it was, we lost a few branches, one big one just missing my truck. We lost power for several hours, although that wasn’t a big deal for us because, fortunately, we have a generator. Some of the surrounding areas, though, were out of power for several days.
All three of the kids had a great time sledding at Grandma’s house, and even Jenn and I joined in the fun with Sue’s sledding tubes. While the Sunday trick-or-treating at Marist was cancelled, fortunately most of the snow had melted before the big night on Monday. Jenn, as usual, helped the kids get their costumes together, with Orla being a peacock, Eoghan a lego skeleton and Conall deciding to stay with his traditional train theme, as Thomas the Tank Engine. We went to Rhinebeck village for some Halloween fun, and were glad to see that this year, for the first time, Conall decided to go in with us to the firehouse haunted house. We were surprised at how well he took it, and even more surprised when one of Orla’s friends jumped out to surprise us in the midst of it. She was posing as a scary clown; her dad is a firefighter and she was helping out this year. Jenn was saying that we know we’re getting older when Orla’s friends are now working in the haunted house. Seems like yesterday that we were asking for the “no scare” version for a littler Orla. Conall, being the assertive little guy (or big guy) that he is, was shouting at anybody blocking the sidewalk with strollers, yelling “Get out of the way!” and “Move it!” He was on a real mission this year to fill his bag with candy. Jenn discreetly stole the sticky candy out of the bag (such as tootsie rolls) to save those teeth of his from any cavities.
Meanwhile, Orla is still obsessed with her chickens and, everytime I look, there seems to be a new one stashed in her coop. Now she’s planning to add turkeys to the mix! Jenn wants to name them “Christmas” and “Thanksgiving”, but we all know they really are just going to be pets and more beaks for me to feed. At least, I’m getting some return on the frequent trips to Agway for feed bags, since we now have fresh eggs piling up in the refrigerator. We enjoy them for meals and Orla is going to donate the extra ones to a local food pantry as part of her 4H community service. Speaking of 4-H Orla and her friend Erin headed to a cookery demonstration recently, where Orla showed off her skills whipping up a batch of ginger and banana flavoured Pavlova. It was, I must say, rather yummy.
Meanwhile, Eoghan has grown up quite a bit and enjoys – when not on his video games – hanging out with Dad. As a special treat the two of us go to the local diner after trips to the barber shop. He is a huge steak eater, and ready to eat it not just for dinner but for breakfast and lunch as well. Having tried it at all the restaurants in the area, he can tell you that the new restaurant Matchbox has one of the best steaks in town.
Oct
24
Fall Fun
October 24, 2011 | Leave a Comment
Hallowe’en is almost upon us. We’ve been keeping busy, and losing track of time. Jenn and the kids have been busy with home-school activities over the past couple of months. Orla does horse-riding, but alas Eoghan can’t as we’ve discovered that he appears to be allergic to horses! Incidentally, Conall seems to be allergic to chocolate – at least in ice-cream and in milk, poor guy! Meanwhile, all three kids go to art class, where even Conall is content to sit (for most of the period, anyway) painting his turtle and other papier-mâché creations. We make extensive use of the local library, where Orla enjoys book club and Eoghan his lego club.
We’ve been doing some touring recently. Orla was up in Hudson, NY, in August, as a member of the local library’s Battle of the Books team. We’ve also been checking out some of the local farms as part of the build-up to Hallowe’en. We’re lucky that only a few minutes down the road we can find Sinon Family Farm, with its Childrens’ Zoo, and Hahn Farm, which holds a Fall Festival every year. We all had a great time checking out the pumpkins and looking at the different animals, as well as trying out the corn maze and the hay maze – although Jenn discovered she was claustrophobic when she tried to go into the latter. The corn maze at Hahn was fun, because the paths traced out letters and there was a competition to see if you could figure out what word the letters referred to. We entered a drawing to see if we got it right – watch this space!
There are lots of resources that the kids can avail of in our vicinity. They regularly go to classes in the environmental center in the local park, and last week they had a ball taking part in a chemistry demonstration given in Marist College as past of National Chemistry Week. There, they got to make all sorts of goo and glop, and learn about the different properties of materials such as corn starch than can appear to be liquid and solid at the same time.
I was away a few times over the past couple of months. I made it up to Bethel, Maine and to Sunday River, Vermont, for several days of golf, and traveled up to St. Mary’s in Canada to celebrate their Thanksgiving (the weekend of October 10th). Dinner with the McCotters was a great success, and a late night was had by all!
Conall is really coming into his own these days. He will sit and talk to you about trains, and get you to watch train videos with him, and was delighted this weekend when Grandma and Jenn took him to a train show in Kingston. He made sure he had his Engineer’s cap on before he went. He knows exactly what he wants, and is not afraid to let you know. Recently there were some homeschool friends over visiting Orla and Eoghan. One of them had a little brother about Conall’s age who had the temerity to go upstairs and into his room. “Out of my room, you freak”, ordered Conall.