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Making memories…

I remember growing up that my Dad always took my brothers and I fishing with his friends and their kids. We went fishing locally to farm ponds, lakes and we also ventured out to fish from boats either out on Lake Erie, Lake Ontario and even way up in Canada.

I remember each of those trips for the fun I had with my dad, my brothers and the other people we went fishing with. I don’t think we caught fish every time but just being with friends and family was the connection that made it so special.

My kids were bitten by the fishing bug and we’ve spent some time both last summer and again this summer out on the water together seeking fish.

This past weekend, my friend Russ, his two boys, Carter and myself all ventured out on Long Island Sound with the infamous “Captain Pete” in search of Striped Bass and other various species. We were rewarded with a beautiful weather, a boatload of fish and a ton of memories that I hope my son remembers for a long time.

I’m blessed to have great friends like my father did, the means to be able to carry on the tradition my father started and three amazing children that appear to like spending time with me. I hope my kids remember these memories and help their kids make there own moments and memories sometime down the road!

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Flying

I always promised myself that I wouldn’t push my kids into aviation. I want them to find their passion just like I did growing up. Sure, they know what I do and the subject comes up regularly but I’ve always felt that if they want to do what I do, they need to initiate the steps to make it happen.

My kids love to travel and they have been on plenty of airliners as we typically use that mode of travel to get back and forth to Ohio. They also seem to be genuinely interested in the business aviation side of the industry that I live in.

It seems that this summer saw a marked change in interest after we visited the New England Air Museum as a family. They loved seeing all the old planes, flying the simulators and generally just being around aircraft. Seeing their enthusiasm, I brought home a flight simulator control system from work and set up the X-Plane flight simulator program on the computer which is the modern day “Flight Sim” that I grew up using.

To say that they are addicted is an understatement. They each get 30 minutes of computer time per day and they are choosing to fly every single day. In fact, Carter wakes up and flies first thing every day before breakfast.

With this new (and self found) enthusiasm, I did ask if anyone wanted to go flying in my company plane this weekend. Carter jumped at the opportunity and we just got home from a fun and exciting journey that took us over our town, a circle around the house and then a quick jaunt up to Hartford to drop it off for some regular maintenance work.

I think he has the aviation fever since I can see him reacting to the same things I did when I was his age. There isn’t a plane that flies over that we don’t stop, watch and discuss the model, where it is headed and what altitude we think it is cruising at. He even gives me nightly reports of what he saw during the school day outside at recess!

We shall see where this goes. I’d be thrilled if one or more of the kiddos take up aviation as a career. However, I’ll be happy if they simply find something that makes them happy and/or is something that they are passionate about. That love for something makes it very easy to get up and head to work each day!

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Adirondacks 2017

We just arrived home from what has to be one of the most relaxing and enjoyable vacations we have ever been on as a family. We were introduced to the Adirondacks several years ago by our friends who regularly go there (they basically live there for the summer) and spend time on a beautiful lake called Tupper.

This year, we decided to expand our typical visits of long summer weekends into a full fledged week long stay over the 4th of July week. We ended up finding a house via VRBO about 15 minutes away from Tupper on Lake Eaton which is basically in the town of Long Lake, New York. Lake Eaton was just the right size for everything we needed which was basically, boating (we rented a nice size “party barge” of a pontoon boat for the week), swimming and fishing. While the water temp was a bit “refreshing” we still were able to have a blast all week.

Our house was right on the lake, had a nice dock and a boathouse and fit the five of us perfectly. It also did not have WiFi nor did it have a TV so we really took advantage of being free of technology and enjoyed spending time together as a family without any outside distraction. Each day started without any set plan but everyday we found some type of fun adventure or event. Those included taking a sea plane ride from Helms Flying Service in nearby Long Lake, driving to see the raging Buttermilk Falls, a visit to the amazing W!ld Center, opening night of a local art show and witnessing the most amazing and longest fire works show we ever seen over Long Lake. It was also fun to have friends from home nearby since we either hosted or met up with them several times during the week to cook out, fish, hike, etc. throughout the week.

Our lakeside rental was from Saturday to Friday so we knew in advance that our vacation would involve a “second phase” since we didn’t want to have to head home on Friday morning. Our first stop was a day at our friends place on Tupper Lake. They have an amazing “tiny house” in a campground right on the lake where we generally relaxed and water skied. Our youngest (at five years old) even water skied for the first time! After a great dinner with them we pushed on 40 minutes down the road to the town of Lake Placid. It was a bit surreal to come back to civilization so to speak by checking into a hotel after living around camp fires, in the woods and with no TV but everyone agreed that the hot shower with awesome water pressure was a welcome addition to our vacation.

Lake Placid hosted the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics and is chock full of fun things to do around all the Olympic events. We stayed downtown which put us right in the midst of the Olympic Museum, the Ice Rink (where USA beat Russia called the “Miracle on Ice”) and all the neat shops downtown. We were also a 15 minute easy drive to the Ski Jump, Bobsled/Luge/Skeleton tracks and Whiteface Mountain all of which we toured and visited. We were only there Friday night into Sunday afternoon but we all agreed that we’d be back to spend some more time there and it was the perfect way to wrap up what was a fantastic vacation.

Hit us up with questions if you plan to visit the Adirondacks. We love the area and would be happy to share places to go, and things to see!