May 26
In which a man's home is his castle.

And considering what one pays for a castle in Massachusetts, you'd think that there would be very little home improvement required.

If only!

We saved for a year and finally treated ourselves to a new deck built with the start of spring.  The thing was put together by an Irishman fresh from the old sod.  There wasn't an "h" to be found in any of the words he spoke.  Our conversations went like this:

Gaelic, Gaelic, Gaelic.
What?
Gaelic, Gaelic, Gaelic.
What?!
An' I'll be speakin' wit' yuir wife, if ya please.

Even so, Lenny the Irishman is a fine craftsman and we're enjoying the new outdoor space immensely.  A good half of our meals are taken there and Owen loves the under deck space.  It's good for tractors, rock dumping and the jump-o-lene Grandma Pat gave him for Christmas.

The goof ball keeps letting the air out of the jump-o-lene, so it has a little less jump and a lot more lean.

When he isn't busy bouncing, Owen keeps a pretty full schedule.  The pre-school of the century continues to impress.  You can see Owen decked out for Sports Day in his KU attire.  (Sorry, Uncle Tad!  Dig it, Uncle Roy!)  He came back from Sports Day victorious-- according to him-- in the 3-legged race.

Tomorrow he will be a loup, a wolf, in the French play.  One can only imagine.

We stay pretty busy when we're not in school, too.  Mom's been steadily transforming the backyard into a garden paradise.  She wants to pull out a bunch of the overgrown bushes that are so strangely popular here in the northeast.  My back hurts just thinking about it.

To distract Mom from that list of chores, we go on day trips.  For the Memorial Day holiday, we went to Hammond Castle and then on to Rockport.

The castle was built in the late 1800s by a family with a fortune in diamonds and a penchant for inventing.  The building itself was a wedding present for Mr. Hammond's European bride.  It's very cool and littered with medieval paraphenalia.  You can see Owen showing us his spooky face from our walk through the huge but dark chapel.

Owen became fascinated with the knights' armour.  Prior to our trip, he'd surprised us by sneaking out of bed and coming downstairs.  There he discovered us watching Mom's DVR'ed episode of The Tudors.  Thankfully, the scene was violent rather than... what The Tudors normally is.  As a result, we just had to explain a joust instead of a topic we have no interest discussing with him until he is 30.

Now Owen is all about the jousting.  At the castle, he picked up a toy knight holding a spear.  It is not a spear, though, Owen tells us.  It isn't a lance or a javelin, either.  It is a "knocker-offer" that one uses when jousting.

We had a lovely picnic at the castle.  It was by the dumpster in the parking lot since food and beverage are not allowed on the grounds.  Still, it was very nice.

From there we journeyed into Rockport.  It's another fishing village in Cape Ann, but one that's a bit more upscale than nearby Gloucester where you can see the actual fishing boats moored to the docks.

Another way you can tell that it is more upscale is by the complete lack of parking for anyone who does not have a resident sticker.  There are signs that point you in the direction of parking but, like most street signs in Massachusetts, they lead you to nowhere.

In the end we just parked in a resident slot and accepted the ticket (which was only slightly more expensive than the rates advertised for the undiscoverable parking).

The town itself is loaded with shops that sell everything from leather goods to toys to witchcraft accessories.  The place is loaded, too, with art galleries.  There wasn't much time to explore those, though, as Owen was more intrigued by the toys than the paintings.  He scored a fisherman's net which he wears over his head to create his "poking hat."  The handle sticks conveniently out and he can poke you with it when you walk by.

Still, who needs art when there are so many picturesque things to photograph?  While we desperately miss our family in friends in Kansas City-- Owen asks weekly about when we'll be back-- it is kind of nice to have ocean views just a short drive away.

Storm our castle sometime and you can see them for yourselves.