Wordless Wednesday

Renovation time

This Saturday Lynne took the kids to the Ballet with Auntie Heather and Harrison.  I decide to skip hunting one day and concentrate on getting something moving the in the study downstairs.

Last time I wrote anything the walls were spackled and needing paint.  Painting has since be completed (mostly by Lynne during nap time and on sadik days).  So now I have been working on the drop ceiling.  First I installed the drop ceiling grid, then a new light was installed within the grid.  The first photo shows the drop ceiling grid installed with the lights. 

Next I started installing the drop ceiling tiles.  I had to leave one area open to install the air ducts.  This required a trip to Home Depot for parts.  Once back I completed the duct work, terminating all the cables in the room, and installing the outlet covers.

With the duct work complete I finished installing the ceiling tiles.  Now the ceiling is done. I pulled the door to the room off its hinges so I could sand down all the old paint.  It is amazing that a contractor was paid to do a job this bad.  The guy painted over dirt and left paint drips everywhere.  With all that extra paint lots of doors in our house don't properly close.  I am slowly working on correcting that.  Last night I got the door sanded and started painting again.  So the list of work to is slowly dwindling.  We still have to finish painting the door and rehang it, touch up paint the walls where I made a mess putting up the drop ceiling.  After that I need to level the floor, then install the tile floor.  And lastly paint and install the trim work.  Lots to do but lots less.

Scranton

In the seven years since we bought the cabin, we have never spent more than a week a year there. 90% of our time there has been spent over the summer or nearby months. This means that we have thoroughly explored the library, the beach club, our property, and a couple of local playgrounds. We've hit the Wilkes-Barre mall and shopping centers. We haven't had the time or inclination to explore farther afield.

Enter: The D.C. Tour. This summer alone Alex and I got at least 2 full weeks here, maybe more. Terry and Zoltan got a bit less. We've taken two four-day weekends this fall/winter. And, we have now visited Scranton.

The first visit was just me and the kids. We visited the Everhart Museum, Scranton's own Science/Art/History museum. Yeah, you read that right. There was some event going on in the art gallery so we didn't get to check that out as our visit got cut short due to bad behavior, but we did get through the science (dinosaurs, rocks - many of which glowed under UV light) and the history (I can remember Egyptian and African art and a video of interviews and "traditional" dancing; "traditional" in quotation marks simply because I am not educated enough to make a judgment). The grounds are also lovely and back right into a park where we would have visited post-museum. Maybe next time.

The more recent trip was to the Steamtown train museum, not to be confused with the Trolley Museum located across the parking lot and the destination of our next Scranton trip. This time Terry and his dad accompanied us. I made sure we got there in time for the locomotive repair shop tour, which I thought would fascinate the kids until I remembered, mid-tour, that kids don't like tours. They were amazingly well behaved though and as there were some super-cool things to see and we did stay in motion a good bit of the time, it went well. The rest of the museum was also well done, and I am so glad we stumbled on the History section (you had to go back outside into the train yard, around 2 train cars and into another door) because there were the replica train cars we got to run around.

Our hope is that next time we'll have a whole day to devote to Scranton and get to Old Forge for pizza.

"Old" friends

Something I think every foreign service person would recognize: having in your life people who knew you when is important, but it is equally important to have people who knew you where.

Wordless Wednesday

Celebrating birthdays

Every year for the kids' birthdays Terry and I argue about how to celebrate. He prefers the way he grew up: birthday child chooses dinner and cake. That's it. No party, no gifts, nothing more. I grew up differently; birthdays were a BIG DEAL.

This year I think we found our happy compromise. Yes, the birthday child gets to choose the dinner we make and the kind of cake. This year their birthdays were on Saturday so they also got to choose the day's activity from a curated list. Plus, we have introduced the coupon book. It's a gift with no tangible residue (I do agree with Terry that the kids have too much stuff) and the kids have been thrilled to use them.

This year's coupons were (2 each):
- one TV show even after mom and dad said no
- one dessert without eating a good dinner
- one trip to a cafe or ice cream shop with just mom or dad (this was sweet, they pooled them once so the whole family could go together)
- one treat at the supermarket
- 30 minutes of playing on the tablet

6-8 weeks later they each have 3 left. I'm keeping track of which ones they use when, and plan to modify the coupons each year. 

Final (8th) CSA haul

Oops, this should have been published a week ago!

For our last week of the CSA we brought home:
- the weekly cabbage
- a bag of leeks
- a bunch of carrots
- a small bunch of turnips (need to figure out what to do with these)
- a head of lettuce
- about a dozen red delicious apples
- potatoes

I have been delighted in rediscovering the joy and entertainment of a CSA membership. There is a winter one but I think we'll skip it, I'd rather buy my own broccoli than figure out something new to do with turnips and cabbage for yet another week. Come spring, we'll be back!

Lyle

For one night of Hanukkah, my mom got the kids (and me! and technically, herself) tickets to a show at the Imagination Stage - Lyle the Crocodile.  The kids had seen shows at detsky sad, and Alex had been to plenty of performances, but I was unsure how Zoltan would be.

Duh. It's children's theatre. He was mesmerized. The show is 1.5h with an intermission so pretty doable to any child who can watch a movie at home or even a long show. We had amazing front row seats, although the theatre is small and I imagine every seat is good. They have stacks of booster seats as you walk into the auditorium for smaller ones to be sure to get a good view. The parking garage attached to the theatre is the same kind of metered parking that's all over Bethesda and it is free Saturday and Sunday, although I had loaded up on quarters just in case.

The show itself was fantastic. Lots of singing, dancing, costumes that attract attention on their own. Simple plot. A few jokes for the parents. Zoltan kept asking me why the man who played the crocodile didn't talk. I repeated "Because he's a crocodile and they don't talk." I don't think the answer satisfied him.

The kids have already said they loved it and want to go again. I don't love the upcoming shows but I think I'll suck it up and we'll get back there, or try one of the other local children's theatres (there are several!!)

Have I mentioned lately that I love where we live?

Gratitude #30

30. Today I am grateful for communities. I belong to virtual communities of foreign service folks or moms of children born in October 2007 and real life communities of parents and children who go to the playground after school pickup or people who went to law school with me.  It is instantly rewarding and validating to know that someone will just "get it" if I tell them a particular story, rant, or situation I need advice to solve. They say it takes a village and I don't think it's just about childcare.

Gratitude #29

29. Today I am thankful for my children. Often frustrating, occasionally precious (in the good way). Last night in the car home from my brother's house Alex suggested that we all go around and talk about what we're thankful for. I so love that she thought of doing that.