Christmas Tree Farm

Today we headed over to the Hancock Christmas Tree Farm to pick up our Christmas tree. It was very exciting for two Floridians used to picking up their tree at the local Lowe's or roadside stand. Who knew that trees actually grew out of the ground or that you could cut down your own? What a country!

We put Morgan in the car and headed over to hunt for our tree. The pics below detail our journey:

Here is Morgan in the back of the Forrester. As you can tell by the shot, she thought we abandoned her. One of the wonderful things about New England is that you can leave your pup in the car and not worry about the heat.

Morgan started us off by hunting around the Charlie Brown-sized trees and all appeared lost until we discovered much taller specimens in the back. It's a lot of fun to hunt for your own tree in what is basically a miniature forest.
We picked this tree after looking at 4 others. It's really funny to discuss what the "front" of the tree will be without being able to spin it around. Also, since the tree was on a slope, we had to do some creative measuring.

This is a great shot of the tree actually falling over after I cut it down with a hacksaw. It was pretty easy to do, but you still have to carry it back to the measuring station a couple hundred yards away.

The attendant measures your tree with a height chart similar to the ones kids use when getting on roller coasters. Ours was a 7-footer and we paid $35.

Brian cleaning up the base so it will fit in the stand.

Here we are taking our wonderful Christmas tree home!

Cutting our own tree down was a wonderful experience, and we hope to do it every year. We also had a classic New England drive home with Christmas music on the radio. Perfect.

The Wedding Cake: One Year Later

Some of you who attended our wedding might be interested in the above pic. As you can see, the chocolate puppy paws are still visible after a year of sitting in the freezer. Thanks to Susan, Erin's Mom, we were able to preserve the cake and she had it shipped up here in dry ice. What an awesome mother-in-law!

The cake, filled with chocolate mousse, tasted as incredible as the day we cut it at the Bayboro House* on Nov. 19th.

Seriously, if you need a cake for any reason---run, don't walk, to Cakes on the Dot!

* The Bayboro House, sadly, was bought by a religious group and is no longer open to the public.

Reason #943 Why dogs are better than kids.

Now that it's time to decorate for Christmas, Erin and I brought the decorations up from the basement. Inside the boxes were Morgan's toys that we put away each year for the next holiday season. You should have seen the excitement on her face when she was reunited with her old friends. Balls were quickly put under the bed, Santa had his fluff pulled out and a stuffed candy cane was gnawed on once more.

Try to pull that trick on your human children and see what happens! I'll tell you what will happen...tears, recriminations, and years of therapy.

"You are going to HATE the weather up there!"

The phrase above is what we heard every time we told our family, friends, or co-workers that we were moving up to the Great White North. Well, as you can tell from the included picture---we're not exactly up to our navels in the white powder.

Trust me, that Al Gore is on to something.

Looking for a healthy cranberry sauce recipe?

New Hampshire is famous for exporting two things---maple syrup and something else I can't remember. Since maple syrup is so plentiful, we decided to make our own cranberry recipe, which we took from CBS Sunday Morning, that includes the following ingredients:

cranberries (shocking!)

orange juice (a touch of Florida)

2 cups of maple syrup

mango

The resulting concoction is delicious and has more sugar than is healthy to think about. The best way to describe it is by imagining a trip to IHOP where the waitress brings the pancakes; and you just suck down the syrup jar and top if off with a jar of jam.

Turducken Day '06: The Guests

Most people invite family or friends over to celebrate Turducken Day (I'm hoping this name catches on!) ; however, we had dogs instead. Dogs don't complain that the turkey is dry, they don't get drunk on tryptophan and pass out on the couch and they certainly don't tell embarassing family stories that should remain private. Our special guests this year were Logan Knapp, a Golden Retriever, and Sophie Christianson, a border collie mix. Morgan was a great host and allowed both pups to steal her thunder, and her toys, on this special day.

You are likely looking at the included pictures and thinking, "They need to have some kids," and you are probably right. :)

Turducken Day '06: The Turducken

Since we are both spending our first Thanksgiving in New Hampshire, we decided to spice up our lives with some local flavor and an entree that was a bit more exciting than a turkey--a turducken! What is a turducken, you ask? Well, it is a turkey stuffed with a chicken and then stuffed again with a duck inside! It's triple your poultry value for a paltry sum of 16 dollars.