Alright, I’m a little late on publishing photos this year, but it’s been busy.
Anyway, these are photos from Lily’s 2nd-to-last softball game. I was taking my CRISC exam the following weekend, so I missed her actual last game. Stop singing “Cat in the Cradle” to me.
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Our 2nd trip of the year – Boston! I keeping with our current vacation planning goal to visit and experience new places, we planned out a long-discussed road trip to the Boston area. Nums and I have both been to the general Boston Massachusetts area, but neither of us has ever taken the opportunity to see the city in detail. I looked into Amtrak, in order to make it really interesting, but ticket prices were cost-prohibitive and train arrival/departure timings didn’t work for us. For this three day Memorial Day weekend, we would be making the 4 hour drive to Boston.
Our general road trip plan was to head out Friday morning, try to see some interesting points of interest along the way, and walk the streets of Boston after dinner. In reality, we left later than planned, grabbed dinner in North Jersey, and our 4 hour road trip took over around 7-8 hours due to Memorial day Weekend traffic. If it wasn’t the high volume traffic slowing us down, it was the number of the alternate routes we took on local roads to avoid recent accident sites. We did see some cool areas with lakes, a dam, and vacation homes in the Connecticut area.
We arrived in Boston sometime after 7 pm, tires and hungry. Electing to eat dinner before checking into the hotel, we drove straight to a Bonchon Chicken in the Boston suburbs. After a hearty meal, we drove to the hotel, parked, and checked in. We were staying at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Boston Downtown in Chinatown across the Tufts Medical Center.
After a simple breakfast Saturday morning from the Starbucks in the hotel lobby, we took a cab to the Green. We walked through on our way to the Visitor Center to begin our guided tour of the area. I forget the guide’s name but he was dressed in character (as someone who lived through the American Revolution. The tour was really cool as we learned more about the American Revolution, and learned more of how Boston was founded. We enjoyed learning about the city, despite the heat.
We finished the tour at crowded Faneuil Hall, where we grabbed lunch (not me, because I was feeling ill.) Afterwards we walked around some more, then took a hop on / hop off trolley around the city. We stopped at the U.S.S. Constitution to take a tour. Afterwards, we jumped back onto the next trolley to the Charles River to try to catch the last boat tour. For dinner, we ate along the riverside at Rowes Wharf Sea Grille.
Sunday was a bit overcast but cooler. We drove and parked close by the Boston Tea Party museum. This was easily the kids’ favorite activity of the entire trip. We participated in a re-enactment of the Boston Tea Party, complete with playing roles in a guided tour / play, throwing tea overboard, etc. It was pretty cool, and our tour guide was very entertaining. We later walked to Faneuil Hall to see the Cheers bar, and buy some souvenirs (including a shirt to keep me warm!)
Afterwards, we took a drive outside of the city for dinner at a Mexican bar, then watched The Jungle Book at the movie theater at the mall. After all that saw and accomplished the day before, Sunday was a really nice day to keep it simple and relaxing.
Monday morning arrived and it was time to get on our way home. We looked at a few things to try to do along the way for Memorial Day itself, but it seemed many towns along I-95 were cancelling their parades on account of impending rain. We did our best to get home without too much delays, but we still encountered traffic. With a short lunch stop in Connecticut, we made our way home without too much grief.
We had a great trip overall. So much history in Boston. Frankly, I’d love to go back to see more, and to try out some of their bars.
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When we went on a Boston road trip, we took some time out to watch the new The Jungle Book film directed by Jon Favreau. The film is either a live-action remake of the 1967 animated musical comedy film produced by Wal Disney, or a theatrical retelling of one of Rudyard Kipling’s original stories from The Jungle Book. It’s probably more based on the 1960’s Disney film, but I probably should read the original material at some point in my life.
The film stars young actor Neel Sethi as Mowgli, who acts mostly in front of green screens, and interacts with tennis balls. I say that because he’s the only actor physically on the set. The rest of the film is CGI. The film also stars the voices of Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong’o, Scarlett Johansson, Giancarlo Esposito, and Christopher Walken.
If you ignore my snark, I would tell you that it’s a pretty well done film. Very entertaining, good voice acting, and enjoyable.
The Jungle Book (2016)
A few months ago, Josh, his friend Kaiya, and a number of other 5th graders signed up for this American Young Voices program through school. Me being me, I didn’t know any of this. One day, he brought home a CD with a medley of cover songs, which he was supposed to practice at home.
Turns out, all of the practicing was leading up to the American Young Voices concert at the Prudential Center on May 26. Apart from my wife, Josh, and most everyone involved, who knew?
The kids participating were heading to Newark directly from school in the morning. Lily was hanging out with friends for the evening. Nums and I made plans to drive to Newark for an early dinner at Fornos, then drive to the Prudential Center. Dinner was excellent — you can’t help but appreciate an informal dinner date on a Thursday night.
We made our way to the Pru Center, got our floor seats, and saw a few of the parents. It was rather amazing to see so many thousands of kids from all over NJ participating. I think it was nearly a third of the area. There were professional singers and musicians on stage who sang and played along with the kids, a conductor, and an emcee for evening.
All in all, it was pretty cool. After the concert ended, we made our way back to the car. Josh and the rest of this classmates would be returning to the school via school bus later that night.
While we waited for Josh to get home, we picked up Lily, and started packing for our Boston road trip Friday morning.
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It’s a busy week here for the Ipes, what with Boy Scout pack meetings, multiple concerts, and our upcoming road trip to Boston later this week. Among other things, Josh has two concerts this week. The first one up is his Spring Concert. He’s a member of the band, and still playing the trumpet. We’ve been pushing him hard these past few months (since his last concert) to practice almost every night, and he’s experienced a marked improvement. Practice makes perfect, you know.
I took photos of the rest of the band, and the kids in chorus. Spot your kid if you can.
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I wouldn’t recommend unemployment, but if I had to name the only benefit of being “between jobs”, it’s being able to enjoy extra time with the family.
Especially eating ice cream on a beautiful Friday afternoon.
In May, we all went to see Captain America: Civil War. the third Marvel film about Captain America played by Chris Evans. Loosely based on the Marvel Comics’ Civil War Superhero Registration Act storyline about ten years ago, it’s a film pitting two teams of heroes against each other, over the concept whether folks with superpowers should be registered. If you’re registered, are you on the payroll of the government? If so, does the government call the shots on what you can or can’t do? When you can or can’t intervene in an unjust situation? Amidst all this, Helmut Zemo (originally Baron Zemo, the Marvel supervillain) is manipulating everyone towards his own goals and convoluted grand scheme.
By the time we arrived, the movie theater was packed, so we were relegated to seats near the front. Yes, those seats so close, you are uncomfortable. We weren’t ridiculously close, but meh. It was close enough, combined with what seemed like juttery action scenes, to make the film hard to watch. The story wasn’t bad, but Zemo’s grand scheme seemed very convoluted (as I mentioned earlier), and I don’t know, we didn’t really enjoy the film all that much.
Captain America: Civil War (2016)
On Sunday, May 15th, the CMB Karate Demo Team performed this year’s routine down at Arm & Hammer Park, on the field, before the actual game started. It was pretty cool. I tried to get some good shots using my telephoto lens. A little too close for really good pictures, but I didn’t have a lot of time to switch lenses.
The kids were pretty excited to perform on the field, and they did a nice job out there. Afterwards, we all returned to our seats, and watched the game on a nice sunny (and windy) Sunday.
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It’s the end of an era . After 5 years, Lily is done with dance. No more jazz hands. No more ballet. No more hip hop. No more… wait, I think that was it. Just three kinds of dance.
Truth be told, she was kinda done after last year, but held one more year to hit the 5-year mark. We did switch her to All For Dance, a different dance school in Robbinsville, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. She was done. I hope she got something out of it. An appreciation for dance. Working with other girls. Maybe she’ll barely remember the experience. Who knows. We certainly were not going to force her to participate in an activity she wouldn’t enjoy.
This is parenting. You introduce them to different experiences, and find out what they like and don’t like. Josh used to love dinosaurs, but now, meh. Both kids sorta liked soccer, but lost interest after a few seasons. Anyhow, here are photos from her last recital. No more dance costumes and Saturday morning classes!
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My old childhood friend Chris and I decided to “walk the walk” and actually go biking together. Chris lives in northern NJ and found a nice route starting in Morristown and winding through the hills. I’ve biked Morris county at least twice, and it’s pretty scenic. Nice rolling hills, and good views. What’s not to love? We ended up riding 30 miles around Morristown and the surrounding towns and hamlets. I really enjoyed it. I was also gobsmacked by the homes of the extremely wealthy.
