A free day off

Well, we didn't really care why the Americans celebrate Independence Day on Friday 4th July, Annalie was just glad to have a free day off ahead of the madness that will be the Farnborough Airshow that starts on the 14th July. She'd emailed her Masters assignments off ahead of the deadline so we had the whole weekend laying ahead of us.

We decided to head over to West Hartford as we hadn't been there in a while. There is an outdoorsy store over there that we quite like, although it is quite expensive. We also wanted to go and see the new Will Smith film, Hancock, despite it's slating in the newspapers. It wasn't as good as the trailers made it look, but it wasn't as bad as the reviews made out either. But it was a fun way to spend the afternoon.

Whilst over at West Hartford, we grabbed some lunch at one of our favourite places - Cheesecake Factory which, despite its name, doesn't just serve cheesecake, and, in fact, we've never had cheesecake there anyway! The portions are just enormous so we always opt for a "lunch" size in there. That's still about the same as a normal portion back home!

The big celebrations in Hartford were reserved for the Saturday with a bunch of free entertainment on the riverfront on both sides of the river. It was rather overcast and a bit wet, but we ventured out anyway. We visited the two sites on the Hartford side of the river first, which both seemed to be a bit of a damp squib. Although we got our first taste of freebies there with some t-shirts from Mohegan Sun (a local casino that sponsored the event) and some free cans of Red Bull to celebrate their sky diving team taking part in the festivities.

After a bit of a disappointment on that side of the river, we crossed back onto our side and headed to the events at East Hartford. There was a lot more going on here, with Police dog displays, some old military vehicles on display (so Ian was in his element) some competitions and plenty more freebies. Ian was especially proud of his ability to get chatting to a girl who was helping to promote a make of barbecue and end up with a free t-shirt AND a hunking great piece of chicken from the grill! He’s such a tart

We also ended up with a load more freebies like yogurts, more t-shirts and the most unlikely-looking frisbee in the world!

We decided to hang around to see how good the firework display would be and we weren't very disappointed. Although not well choreographed to the music, it was still an impressive display and we even got some good pics to show you. We did get some video with the camera too but the site doesn't allow for them.

Suppose we'd best let you know what else we've been up to as well. Last weekend we decided to get the bikes out and head out for a ride. We have a reasonably flat path called the airline trail that runs between New Haven and Boston and is a disused railway track. To save our legs (or maybe because we were lazy ) we decided to take both cars, drop one off at one end, take the bikes and the other car to the other end and then we had an easy way of getting back.

It was a fairly flat trail but there was soem pretty tricky, rocky terrain and also some mud around. At one point Annalie's bike got stuck in the mud and she nearly fell, getting her new trainers stuck in muddy water in the process. The bike also fell on her leaving her with a nice bruise on her leg that you can also see in the piccies.

When we reached the Wrangler after about 6 or 7 miles, Ian decided to make a novel bike rack out of the car's retracted roof! When we got back to the Liberty, we didn't bother removing the bikes and just left them there for the trip back! When we got back to the house, Ian thought he'd experiment in taking the Wrangler's doors off! The results can be seen in our house pics.

We also went out to play golf with the couple whose basement Ian is trying to do. It was Mandy's first ever visit to a golf course after several lessons and she did very well. The rest of us didn't do too great! When we went out for the IAE golf league on Tuesday, we were teamed up with Marc again, who seemed to be playing comedy golf it was that bad! But after a reasonably good start, we all went downhill and even stopped recording scores after the 7th!

We had to take a trip down to Norwich again as the DMV finally realised that they had Annalie down as a Male on her driving licence! So we still had to make the effort to go to them to rectify their mistake - typical. On the way back we had a great brunch at Ken's Corner. We thought we would be too late as it was 20 minutes before closing, but with typical US hospitality, we were welcomed and told to sit wherever. We then managed to get served by the most barking waitress! Although she was lovely with it. She just wouldn't shut up! It probably took us half an hour to get out of the door!

And finally we've been making use of Wii Fit although we both think it's lying about our weight. And that is we think it's weighing us too light, not the other way around! Ian's been getting very competitive and seems to think his sole purpose in life is to be at the top of the leaderboard for all events but he claims he's not competitive!

We've probably bored you enough now. And anyway, we've got the rest of our Sunday to go and enjoy But there is a final message from Ian to his mum and dad in the house pics

Speak soon, love to all.