It's a Graveyard Smash

Seeking to fulfill one of Megan's fondest dreams, we recently set out for Salem, Massachusetts. As though some force was trying to warn us of impending danger, we found our house surrounded by dense fog that morning.

I can't say for sure, but I suspect those shadowy figures were some sort of ogres or zombie elephants.

We didn't make too much of it and kept going. Little did we know it, but Salem still had some magic in store for us. Our first hint was that the city government has taken control of the weather.

Apparently they weren't enforcing the snow ban today, but it still turned out sunny.

Bizarre people that we are (Although maybe in Salem's case it makes us fit right in), the first thing we sought out was a cemetery.

This cemetery is on the grounds where Giles Cory was pressed to death. They say that his ghost can sometimes be seen walking the grounds, which indicates that tragedy is soon to befall Salem. That must explain why he mysteriously appeared in this photo:

Megan is going to kill me for suggesting that Giles Cory was a totally awesome looking wizard, but I contend that we have no evidence to suggest that he wasn't.

That's when things got spooky.

We started taking tours through the various museums there. Each turned out to be slightly more ridiculous than the last. We started to let our guard down, thinking that Salem was just squeezing it's tragic history for every penny possible. Unfortunately, as so many have found out, and as so many will, that's when the zombies showed up.

This is no time to think. Just shoot him!

Perhaps you are now saying, "Scott, not every shadowy figure is a zombie." Not only do I disagree with you as a matter of principle, but I offer you this:

Convinced?

Having left our sawed off shotgun in the car, we had no choice but to run for it. Unfortunately, Topher got lost along the way and was discovered by the witches themselves.

Looks like we need to start working on Topher's fear response.

Thankfully, Megan's history major really started pulling its weight when she remembered that witches only eat babies if they've been left outside for a few days. We quickly made our way to the town stocks and snuck away with him.

Why didn't they put him in the baby one on the right there? That's just cruel.

We tried to make a break for it, but the witches sent their familiars after us.

Which one would you say is the bigger imp?

While running for our lives, we found an informative sign that noted that the wharf was the one safe place in town. While I still have no idea what a wharf is, we went for it, not realizing that the wharf was longer than the town of Salem itself.

I know I could look up what a wharf is, but I prefer to be able to make jokes about not knowing what it is.

With the threat of witches and zombies off our backs, we took a moment to take a family photo.

Topher was still a little suspicious.

The wharf was more powerful than we thought. As we returned we found the witches to be decreasing in resolution.

Eventually they just became grayish smudges.

Not only did we vanquish the witches, we were happy to find some friendly faces.

I know it looks like he's pretending like he doesn't know me, but he's just fooling around. We go way back.

Unfortunately, it turned out that most of the pirates were zombies, too.



Things got really dicey when they tried to recruit Topher onto their crew. They gave him a hat to keep, regardless of his decision and offered him a free tattoo, just for signing up. He thought about it, but refused. He didn't even keep the hat.

That was actually a mash-up of scenes from Peter Pan and Speed Racer. I think it worked out pretty well.

We finally realized that things were only going to go downhill from here, wharf or no wharf, and high-tailed it out of Salem. We were worried about what might have followed us or what might await us at home. However, all of our fears were allayed when Falcor made a brief appearance, reminding us of our neverending friendship.

I certainly hope that everyone now has the theme song from Neverending Story stuck in their heads. I know that I will for days.

As a parting, unrelated note, I was looking at our visitor tracker and noticed that some visitors had found us by searching for "Monkey Business with the Huffs." I got excited to see if maybe we had made the big time: Maybe we'd show up on Google's predictive search. All my hopes were dashed when this was all that came up.

Thwarted by Shia Labeouf again. I would say "You could do worse," but I'm not so sure that's true.

Pretending to be adults

In this corner: Toph the Terminantor!

Signature move: The Two Thirty (AM) Thunder Tantrum

And in this corner: Dixie the Destroyer!

Signature move: The Long Lost Lick of Doom

Let's get ready to rumble!

Check it out on pay-per-view

In reality, Topher and Dixie actually got along swimmingly. She is an amazingly patient dog, especially when a little boy refuses to release the two fistfuls of fur he got ahold of. Topher was also surprisingly patient with the licks to the face and feet that came on a daily basis.

We've had quite the time house sitting. It's given us a chance to pretend like we have reached that stage in life that seems increasingly elusive (especially considering the amount of work I've completed on my master's thesis this summer). You don't have to take my word for it, here's Topher for you:

Megan's new talk show will be starting as soon as they finally take Jimmy Fallon off the air.

I think that his enthusiasm has largely stemmed from having so much room to wander and so many new toys to play with.

Here is Topher getting his Davy Jones on.

Unfortunately, Megan has also been finding things to keep herself busy and an excessive number of those things involve putting headbands on Topher.

He would make a cute girl, though.

With all the pictures we've been taking lately, though, Topher's cheeser faces have been becoming increasingly more extreme.

I don't know where he can go from here.

With this I'm inaugurating a return to blogging. In the coming days you can look forward to...

A trip to Salem Massachusetts!

A visit from my Parents!

Several appearances by our best historical friend, Cotton Mather (Including one in Zombie form)!

And Topher's brand new, hit dance video!

Please excuse our appearance

Hi folks,

For those three of you who check our blog, I'm just dropping this line here to let you know that it is unlikely that we'll post a good update for the next couple of weeks. We are currently house-sitting for some friends, so it's been a little less convenient to post like we used to. Don't worry though, once we're back in our apartment we'll be back up to full steam with a total recap (which will mostly be pictures of Topher bothering the dog here). Catch you on the flip side.

Critter Country 3

I had planned for this week's post to be the debut of our latest family photo. Unfortunately, the wind and a fussy baby conspired to make sure none of the pictures we planned turned out halfway decent. As evidence, this photo won the "Most Likely to Be Framed" award:

My apologies to anyone who finds this hand gesture offensive. In Ukraine it is just hilarious. (Since your mind is now primed for offensive gestures, let me assure you that Megan is not, in fact, flipping the bird. Well... probably not.)

Fortunately, I found myself inundated with new critter pictures, so I'm happy to present the third installment of Critter Country. You'll have to forgive the poor resolution on many of the pictures. No matter how many times I tell them or how loud I yell it, the animals are pretty bad at waiting for me to get the good camera, so my camera phone has to suffice.

Behold the reason we are afraid to keep our windows open at night:

I'm amazed that Lunesta would use this moth as a mascot, since the thought of it attacking me in the night made me leery of sleeping altogether.

I thought for sure that the Luna Moth was going to take the cake for best bug picture this time around. Unfortunately for him, we found this hilarious inch worm who apparently loves Buddy Holly:

He even seemed to have pretty good rhythm.

We've been watching our baby turkey grow, but I am somewhat suspicious that it might turn out to actually be an ostrich.

Which would be a way better story than the ugly duckling, since rather than just showing up all those who once laughed at him, he could crush them. That's a moral you can take right to the bank.

And our friend Roger the chipmunk has been up to his old tricks.

Apparently the amount of nuts in a chipmunk's cheeks is inversely proportional to their fear of humans. Cuteness seems to be their greatest defense.

Our best find this time around was a ground hog.

He was sad because someone called him a Wood Chuck, but nobody called him a Whistle Pig.

The ground hog was actually stuck at this fence. He couldn't figure out how to get through and apparently didn't feel like just moving on. Fortunately, some folks from the UConn grounds crew came by and helped him cross the road to terrorize the golf course.

Finally, we present our most underrepresented class of critters: the amphibians.

Here is a Vermont salamander. They are like regular salamanders, except they hate Wal-Mart.

We were out playing in the grass in front of our apartment when we found this little guy minding his own business:

Little did he know the kind of trouble he was in for.

"What do we have here?"

Topher was a little apathetic to begin with, but I think that once he figured out that we would be upset if he were to put it in his mouth, we couldn't hold him back.

Fortunately, the frog got away with nothing more serious than a poke in the eye. Topher drowned his sorrows by trying to shove a couple rocks in his mouth.

And before I go, I'm not sure if this is Topher's impression of a saxophonist or an elephant, so I'll include it here. Either way, Kenny G should eat his heart out.

Nice Gams :)

We all went to the bank at UCONN the other day for some pretty ordinary business. Toph isn't a huge fan of being held these days and so while I was talking to the teller, Scott put Toph down and let him roam. He kept walking around and around the room, trying to avoid the arms of some random girl who continued to beckon to him. The girl was sitting waiting for her friend who was talking to the the teller next to me. The friend was discussing some pretty serious business it seemed (and for the purpose of the story it should be mentioned that she was also wearing some pretty short shorts) and Toph stopped, looked at her and started heading her way. Normally, Toph is pretty shy and he'll stick close to us when he walks, but he decided this time to be friendly. A little too friendly :). Toph reached out and grabbed her bare leg and the girl screamed so loud! It was hilarious to watch her freak out and see Toph just stand there staring at her :). I guess we already need to have a talk with Toph about not touching girls' legs :).

Moose, Bears, Snowmobiles, Deer

Here is your weekly riddle: What do the four things in the title have in common?

Answer: The are all things we were warned may be crossing the street in Vermont. Interestingly, the lion's share of the roadkill in Vermont was actually birds (with snowmobiles a close second).

Our weekly adventure took us to New England's Texas. We have grown quite fond of living in the quiet corner of Connecticut, but Vermont was a league of its own. Here, for example, is a typical view as you drive through Montpelier (which only takes about a minute and a half):

I have it on good authority (i.e. it best suits my comedic purposes) that this is the tallest building in all of Vermont.*

Fortunately, the relative lack of things to look at opened the door to a wonderful two hour nap.

You'd be surprised how many pictures of my arm I took before we finally got a decent one of Toph.

At this point you may be wondering what we were doing in Vermont.

Does this answer your question?

We all had a great time camping, despite a rude awakening by a car horn at 7:00 in the morning.

This was obviously before the horn, else there would be a lot fewer smiles and a lot more questioning of what on earth was going on in my life.

We came to the conclusion in the process of the trip that the draw of camping for us is not the great outdoors, communing with nature, or any of that stuff.

It's the food.

While in Vermont, we availed ourselves of the opportunity to visit the birthplace of Joseph Smith.

Here is a link to give anyone unfamiliar with Joseph Smith an idea of why this was a special experience for us.

Topher, too, seemed pretty awestruck.

In less spiritually fulfilling news, we also paid a visit to the Ben & Jerry's factory. The tour we took was neat and we liked the ice cream, but things took a turn for the weird when the staff announced a "Frozen T-Shirt Contest." The contest consisted of five contestants trying to thaw T-Shirts that had been soaked, balled up, and left in a freezer for several days.

For a good idea of the experience, stare at this image for 15 minutes. That's about the extent of the action.

After 3 contestants left because it was taking too darn long, the dude sacrificed the win to give his thawed shirt to the girl so she could win. This picture makes it look like he is now hitting on her (which would be weird because she looked like she was 16), but the staff is actually leading them in a cheer.

"Ice Cream?!" "Get your head in the game!"**

And last, but not least, the "Flavor Graveyard" gives us our weekly Obscure-Joke-That-Probably-Only-Scott-Thinks-Is-Funny:

Now with more 20% more Syphilis!

So that's Vermont.

And because this post is coming in a day late, here is a cute video on the house:

My favorite thing about Topher walking these days is that he looks like Danny Devito as the Penguin as he does it.

* Interestingly, in reality the tallest building in Vermont is actually a battle monument built in 1891. I don't think this lessens the impact of my previous joke.

**That's two posts in a row with a High School Musical reference. Good thing I'm already married.

Good to be chillin' out

After some pretty cool and rainy days, it finally looks like summer might be upon us. With school out, we've been trying to make sure that Topher is getting out and enjoying the nice weather.

It is relatively rare that we take Topher out without any pants, but I'd be lying if I said it never happened.

Unfortunately, Topher seems to have his own idea of how he wants to spend his summer.

I think that ultimately Topher will be relieved that he didn't have a top button that I could unbutton for this picture. I, however, am somewhat upset.

The big event for the week, of course, was the Fourth of July. We had wanted to make our way up to Boston for their fireworks. Unfortunately, it looked like we would have had to have waited from nine in the morning, so we nixed that idea after at quick glance Topher's way. Instead, we happily accepted an invitation to barbecue and set off fireworks with some of our friends.

This was the best of fifteen pictures we took. You have to take cuteness where you can get it.

Before too long, we got to the festivities.

The fireworks went off without a hitch, meaning everyone came back with as many eyebrows as they went in with.

Topher has been pretty quick to startle lately, so we were a little worried about him with the fireworks (especially those annoying whistling ones). We were pretty surprised to find he was completely unfazed.

You can't imagine how proud we were that he clutched that flag through the fireworks.

"So guys, can I light the next one?"

Topher got so into the patriotic spirit he started spontaneously acting out famous scenes of American history. Here he is planting the flag on the moon:

This is one wobbly step for man, one giant leap for mankind. My only regret is that I didn't have the camera ready for his Iwo Jima pose.

Topher did run into a bit of trouble when he was recruited for a street gang.

Apparently they heard that he's pretty good with a bo staff.

All and all we had a great time. I can't think of a better way for Topher to have celebrated his first Fourth of July.