Here are the pictures of our Jeep. It has about 85K miles on it. It is a V8 with all time, on demand 4 wheel drive (Quadra Trac II On demand  4WD System). The tires of Toyo tires.

Edmunds Pricing Sheets:

• Edmunds Trade In Value
• Edmunds Private Party Value
• Edmunds Retail Value

Today was a very SHORT walk with the dogs. I went for a nice run yesterday that only had a minor flip/fall. Yes I completely wiped out yesterday — must have watched too much wipeout on TV and tried to act it out. The good thing yesterday was the lack of bugs — and I didn’t even use bug spray. Well there were just a couple bugs, but since I was running they had trouble “sticking” to me.

Today was a whole different story! I lathered up with my OFF Deep Woods Sportsmen spray and took the dogs for a nice long walk. Well that is what I planned for anyway. Unfortunately about three minutes into the walk I was under attack. I could see the flies all around Bailey and Brandon. I could hear and feel the flies all around my head. I am sure I scored cool points with a sporadic mixture of fast walking, jogging, and sprinting — all the time wildly waving my arms all around my head. It was horrible. I must not have put on enough spray or these black flies don’t care too much about it.

I guess I’ll do a research on these critters and see if I can counter their attack next time. From what I hear the New Hampshire State perfume is something called OFF and Citronella. They also tell me the Black Fly is the State Bird….

As you can see we are on the Free Fun theme this year. We love yogurt — especially the frozen stuff. Deanna loves cows and farms too. On a few trips to the Manchester Regional Airport we have passed by Stonyfield Farm in Londonderry, NH. This is where they make some great organic yogurt. If you don’t read carefully, when researching the visitor’s center, you might assume you can take a tour of the facility. We didn’t read carefully….

Anyway, they are doing construction (growing – which is great for them!) and the facility is not set up for tours. However, the visitor’s center still has a short 12 minute video explaining a bit about the yogurt factory. The great part is that they make you taste all sorts of yogurt. I did use the word “make” and it is a really nice form of the word…. The lady gladly talked about the yogurt and passed out samples. We each bought a scoop of yogurt too. A scoop for a dollar – you can’t beat that price!

We learned a bit about this new fad of Greek Yogurt too. The reason it has so much protein is that it is strained. That is why it is so thick too. Yummy!

Today we strolled around the North Bridge in Concord, MA. This is where the first shot of the revolutionary war began. It is pretty interesting to walk where major events in history took place. That is one of the nice parts about living in New England. There is no shortage of historical places here.

As you can see there is a lot to look at and Lane is taking a closer look at the bronze place on the large stone where a small part of the story is told.

Today we took the kayaks out on the Nashua River. We tossed our kayaks in the calm river at 111 and 199 in Pepperell. The boat launch there is for car top boats and it is a little messy if you aren’t careful. Ms. Graceful Deanna :) almost fell in getting out of the boat. But don’t let that scare you as she almost falls in EVERY time we take the kayaks out.

The water was calm and the weather was great! We were the first ones there, but cars quickly showed up after we left. On the way up the river we saw a little raccoon cross the river in front of us. Our short trip took us to an old bridge where some kids were jumping in the water. We passed about 10 different boats in four different groups on the way back. It was a really nice day for a nice little paddle. Time for a Sunday nap — I am still recovering from my trip to Florida….

We are getting a u-haul trailer and moving our goodies to New Hampshire tomorrow. Thank God the weather should be nice to us tomorrow.

Our new place is a nice little apartment. Some serious downsizing going on! But we are telling ourselves that it is preparing us for A European Lifestyle. At least it will make the trip overseas a little easier if we don’t have all the junk we have today.

Live Free or Die – our new state motto. And who knows, we might score higher than a zero on the next election….

Here are a few words and a bunch of photos from the famous Eisenhower Aircraft Carrier Tiger Cruise with Darin and Brendan. The Schweitzer boys spent a few days at sea on an impressive aircraft carrier – this was pretty fascinating. Brendan and I were allowed to ride on the Eisenhower Aircraft Carrier from Florida to Virginia as Darin was on his way home. Brendan, Brad and a thousand others boarded the ship in Florida and cruised up to Virgina with a portion of the remaining sailors.

We waited for the ship to arrive. Brendan wanted to make sure he was as patriotic as possible. He did a pretty good job at it here!

We ate the yummy food. Brendan loved the ice cream. Too bad one night he ate too much of it and “spilled” some on the hangar bay deck.

We slept in the cozy beds. Darin showed us how to keep the cool air flowing by positioning the curtain with a gap at both end.

We watched the jets take off and land. While we stood on the flight deck the jets launched, helicopters flew by, special ops guys fast roped in, and the sun beat on us.

The the jets also flew right overhead. I mean right over our heads….

We hung out on the fantail and watched the water rush by. This was a great place to wrap up a long sunny day….

We watched for other ships in the sea…and we saw a few. At one point we watched a supply ship restock us.

We wandered through the ship on self guided tours (at high speed). It is amazing how large the ship is and we only saw a little part of it.

And we waited around . . . Just like they do in all branches of military (Hurry up and wait)

See all of the other great photos in the Tiger Cruise Photo Gallery.

The last day or two we planted many of the seedlings that we started indoors. Today, I took off work a couple hours early and finished planting the seeds with Deanna. If all grows well, we’ll have all sorts of goodies to snack on this year. I think we’ll have a couple more plantings to fill in some gaps and tweak things a bit. But, we have a pretty good start here.

I’ve included a sketch of the garden that I hope to improve. I think I am going to give Google Sketchup a try to plot this out. But don’t wait around for that….

Now that we have our garden planted (at least mostly planted) it is going to freeze tonight. We hurried and created a make-shift cover for three of the garden beds. In the process of pounding in the stakes I smashed my hand. With our luck the sheets will blow off, ripping a plant out on the way. Then the rest of the plants will freeze and die. Well garden, it was fun while it lasted. We’ll give it another try if all gets messed up tonight. As long as we don’t get wind, it will be OK.

It was the first truly warm day in New England. When I took the car for a short trip it registered in the high 80′s. I almost felt too hot for a minute, then I remembered how much I like the warmth. It may take another day to get used to it, but I am glad spring is finally here.

We spent a good portion of the day working in the yard. This year we are building four different beds for a garden and a few pots with herbs and salsa necessities. The beds are simple square wooden border beds each 8 foot by 4 foot. We also built a compost pile with some 1/2 inch hardware cloth. It is almost full already, but that is OK.

Bailey and Brandon played in the yard all day. It was as usual — Bailey eating grass, dirt and whatever else he could find while Brandon played with a ball the WHOLE TIME. I know we will ALL sleep good tonight.