Kai

Congratulations to Tom and Ari on the birth of their firstborn son Kai. Kai is a very punctual person arriving exactly on his due date. Both Kai and Ari are doing well. Bekah, of course, made it to the hospital only a few hours later to help welcome Kai into the world.

Cape Cod

Recently, Bekah's parents and nephews came to Boston on a 15-hour road trip. Rather than stay around the city, we rented a townhouse on Cape Cod for the weekend. On the way, we stopped in Plymouth to gaze at the infamous Plymouth Rock and see a replica of the Mayflower. While on the Cape, we enjoyed time at Coast Guard Beach, eating fried seafood, and soaking in the sun. The trip was extra special since it was Carter and Cooper's first time at the ocean. They agreed it was a pretty salty and sandy place. As always, we posted exciting pictures.

Franconia

Having a taste to revisit the White Mountains after our Presidential Traverse and also wanting to get in another training hike before our Yosemite trip, we headed out to Franconia Notch State Park for the weekend. We had been to the area before in Fall 2008, but this time we had our eyes set on summiting Mt. Lafayette. We headed out with Dan and Laura on Friday night and were lucky to get one of the last remaining campsites in the White Mountain National Forest. With wonderfully cool weather we headed out on the 9.0 mile loop hike. It was a scenic climb up the falling waters trail past 3 major waterfalls. We made a short side trip out to Shinning Rock before summiting Little Haystack, Mt Lincoln, and Mt Lafayette. We followed the Old Bridle Path down from Mt Lafayette and made a quick stop at Greenleaf Hut. In all the trip climbed 3,500 feet in elevation and took close to 8 hours to complete. We also toured the nearby Basin before heading back to our campsite for dinner. You can check out pics of our outing here.