Halloween album

Halloween 2007

Well, I found out that the night before Halloween is called Goose Night around here. There was lots of toilet papering going on and I saw shaving cream squirted on objects here and there around town. In Michigan (specifically the Detroit area), it is called Devil's Night and is much more violent...most of the activity dominated by setting fires all around town. Goose Night, in contrast, is much more benign. The toilet paper is a nuisance but at least doesn't permanently destroy property or put lives in jeopardy! Sam had a blast at his school party and came home all sugared up. It was a really fun, safe experience for him and I'm so glad he got to go this year.
The kids got up ON TIME today, for once, and were ready for school like an hour early...if only we could have Halloween everyday...
Peter got to wear his costume to school the whole time and Sam and Caleb got to change into theirs after lunch. They all had a costume parade after lunch. Since Peter was all ready for Halloween to start at 7:15AM, it was a long day for him. He kept asking me when we would go trick-or-treating. (Did he actually think we were going before school)? When I would tell him we would go when Dad got home from work, he'd say "How many minutes is that?" I'd tell him it's **hours away. He'd then ask, "How many seconds is that?" At one point, I actually had to get a calculator out and show him that we would go trick-or-treating in 14,400 seconds. He informed me he could only count to 106 seconds. You might say it was a long day for me, too.
As usual, they enjoyed handing out candy to trick-or-treaters just as much, or more, than going themselves. Caleb, especially, said something about how fun it was to stay home awhile and hand out candy to cute kids. Peter generously donated almost all his candy when ours started running low. He went through each piece deciding on which to keep and which to donate and ended up keeping only a handful. We ended up not needing to use his but I'm hoping Dave or I can take it to work and leave it or something! We certainly don't need it in the house! (See previous post about Steph's party pooping).
Hope everyone had a great Halloween!!!!
p.s. Dave says (in response to the previous pumpkin post) that he remembers things differently. He has done his fair share of pumpkin scraping, innard removing, and cleaning up. I'm sure he's right...if only I'd been blogging all those other years...we could look back and find out for sure! ;-)

It's the Great Pumpkin...

This past weekend, we held our annual pumpkin carving night. What this usually means is I get to cut open the pumpkins, scrape out and remove all the innards by myself, Dave carves a nice pumpkin face for the kids and I then clean everything up. It's not really an activity I look forward to each year. This year was a little better...Sam and Caleb did a lot of scraping and innard removing and actually carved a pumpkin each all by themselves. Peter didn't want to get his hands slimy so pretty much just watched me work. (I remember Sam and Caleb used to refuse to put their hands into the slimy pumpkins, too). Dave was busy making us a yummy dinner so we let him off the hook. Hey, anything as long as I don't have to cook!
This is the first year we used actual "pumpkin carving tools" which made the whole thing SO much better...as opposed to just using sharp kitchen knives that the kids aren't allowed to use anyway! Here's a picture of the finished pumpkins. They are already starting to shrivel up. I carved the two on the right; Sam did the one on the bottom left and Caleb did the one on the top left.

Sam is going to a Halloween party at the school tonight for all the 4th and 5th graders. Apparently this is an annual thing and should be lots of fun. After the party, they are given rolls of toilet paper and they actually get to run around the outside of the school, papering whatever they want to! (Their school is an "open air" campus with small, individual buildings connected by outdoor walkways). There are lots of big trees too! I couldn't believe it when I heard that, but, each kid had to sign a slip promising to arrive half an hour early for school the next morning to help cleanup. I'll be interested to see how it looks!?!

One more note about Halloween: Steph told me that on the TODAY show this week they were talking about all the candy that kids bring home from trick-or-treating. They said the average kid brings home 14,000 calories in their bag!!! That's fourteen THOUSAND, people! I couldn't believe my ears. But wait, there's more! They took a poll and the average mom (myself included) sneaks approximately ten pieces of candy per day from their kid's loot and is consuming an EXTRA 1,000 calories/day! Lucky for you guys I can do the math, and from that I can tell you that we will gain 2 pounds a week at that rate!!!! Yikes! Steph is such a party pooper.

This weekend I was on a cleaning frenzy and actually found lots of leftover Easter candy! I threw it out, of course, (after Dave ate a stale peanut butter cup) but thought it would be kinda funny to hand it out to the trick-or-treaters. Can you imagine your kid coming home with an old chocolate bunny in their bag? Or some marshmallow peeps?

What's on YOUR mousepad?

Every now and then I get one of those e-mail questionnaires that you're supposed to fill in the blanks or finish the sentence so that all your friends can learn a little more about you. I love reading them and seeing what my friends answered about themselves, but I'll admit, I've NEVER done it myself. I think I'm just too lazy to delete their answers and put in my own! Anyway, one question they often ask is: What's on your mousepad? Not a very exciting question, really...but I have to confess that I love my mousepad! Dave bought it for me a few years ago when I became enamored with the artwork of Gustav Klimt. His work is quite unique, in my opinion. Most of his paintings are on square-shaped canvas, although nowadays when they are reproduced, the distributors often crop them to make them rectangular (so they'll fit in ready-made frames). ANYWAY, my favorite is "The Kiss" which is the mousepad Dave bought me. We just can't afford the original...although Christmas IS coming, hint, hint!

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck...

The other day I made a quick run through a Burger King drive-thru. As I sat there in line contemplating the spicy chicken sandwich I would be ordering from the dollar menu, I remembered that I used to get chocolate shakes at Burger King all the time. So I thought I'd strike out on a wild hair and order a chocolate shake to accompany my chicken sandwich. When they handed me my shake, I thought it didn't look quite right. Even though the lid isn't see-through, I could tell that the shake inside was white, not brown. I asked the cashier if this was a chocolate shake. She looked at my receipt and said, yes, it was a chocolate shake. I opened the lid and looked at the white shake. I showed it to her and said, "Are you sure? It looks like vanilla."
She said, "No, it's chocolate."
I took a sip through the straw and said, "Tastes like vanilla."
She assured me once again, "No, no, it is chocolate."
Okay....???
So I drove away thinking maybe I could be wrong. Maybe just because it looks like vanilla and tastes like vanilla, it could be chocolate? Well, two minutes later as I was a fourth of the way through it, I kicked myself over and over for actually letting her almost convince me it was chocolate! It was definitely vanilla. Not that I hate vanilla shakes...but as you can see in my list: '10 things I love'...vanilla shakes are definitely not listed! I KNOW chocolate, lady!

Saturday in the City

Last Saturday, my childhood friend from Texas came to NYC for the weekend. Nichole now lives in Virginia and she's the one I mentioned before whom we visited in August during our D.C. trip. Anyhoo, she and her sister-in-law, and two other gals took the train up from VA to spend the weekend in NYC. They arrived on a Friday and met Dave at work where he gave them a tour of the Patek Philippe service center. The next day, I took the bus in and got the spend the WHOLE day bumming around the city with them!
First, we met up at the farmer's market in Union Square. It was fun to see a place like this in the city, with New Yorkers pulling their little luggage carts around, full of fresh produce, flowers, goat cheese, and so on. Then we went to a lovely seafood restaurant in Union Square. Seafood, you ask? Shelley went to a seafood restaurant? As most of you know, I don't DO seafood. But this trip wasn't about ME so I happily ordered a nice salad while the other ladies enjoyed their seafood. (Although, I admit Nichole got me to try her crab cake and it was a bit tasty). The only thing I can figure is that one day I must've had some BAD seafood and have been turned off by it ever since. That, and the fact that many sea creatures look like giant bugs. Think about it: lobster, crabs, shrimp? They're huge water roaches! AND, they swim in their own excrement! But, I digress...
We then wandered through the trendy Greenwich Village on our way to the Jacques Torres chocolate store. This is Nichole's favorite chocolate so she needed to stock up and I was more than happy to make a few purchases of my own! Afterwards, we wandered around Soho; window shopping and checking out all the cool street vendors. These are not the vendors selling I love NY shirts or Statue of Liberty trinkets. They sell really cool, very eclectic stuff. Everything from handmade jewelry and t-shirts to finger puppets for kids.
I LOVED Soho! It was very crowded and I noticed that you could probably wear anything in Soho and not even get a second glance. I bought a gorgeous crocheted winter hat, a beautifully soft blanket, and then a pink belly-dancing scarf with all the jingle jangles on it. I actually thought about wearing the noisy scarf over my jeans because then I would've fit right in. I'm telling you, nobody would've even given me a second glance if I was wearing a belly-dance skirt and jeans together in Soho! I don't think you could get away with that in Midtown (the area where Dave works).
Then we ventured a little closer to Chinatown so two of the girls could buy knock-off Coach handbags. To get the really good imitations, you have to be willing to go on a bit of an adventure but we were able to find some without having to climb into the back of someone's van, luckily.
It was a really fun day...especially for me since I had never had the opportunity arise to wander around the Village or shop in Soho before. I'm usually with my family when I'm in the city and Dave's never said before, "Hey, I have a great idea! Let's take the kids and go shopping in Soho today!" Just doesn't work...

The Naked Cowboy, part 2

OK, just in case you missed my previous post about the Naked Cowboy, you can catch up on it here.
I forgot to mention in my previous post that after the class with Beto, I caught a glimpse of the Naked Cowboy in Times Square. This was a first for me and I say a "glimpse" because I was literally running so as not to miss my bus.
Later that night, I mentioned to Dave that I saw the Naked Cowboy for the first time today. Our conversation went as follows:
Dave: You saw him, huh? I think he must wear a liner or something, don't you think?
Me: A liner?
Dave: Yeah, you know, some kind of special gear to cover his 'package'.
Me: His package?
Dave: Yeah, you know, his package looks way too smooth. He must wear a liner or something underneath his tighty whities to smooth it out.
Me: You were looking at his package?
Dave: Oh come on, and you didn't?
Me: NO, I didn't. I didn't allow my eyes to go South and I'm really wondering why you did!?!

Here's a picture in case any of you want to zoom in and check it out. I especially like the tattoo of Jesus on his left shoulder. Very classy...

Me on the TODAY show!

Last week I got up at 5:30am to go to the TODAY show. They were going to include a Zumba segment that morning so I HAD to be there with my "I love Zumba" sign and stand outside waving at the camera with all the other crazy TODAY show tourists. I stood outside in the COLD for almost 3 hrs. total and it was so fun! Alberto Perez (a.k.a. Beto), the creator of Zumba was there with his posse to perform a short segment outside on the plaza. Once I got there, I figured out where on the plaza they would be performing and gradually elbowed and nudged my way to the front for "front row" seats. I was on the air twice: once around 8:30am as they were coming back from a commercial and later at 9:50am as they were going to a commercial. When the Zumba crew came outside to do their thing, I discovered that having front row seats was not the best idea. Suddenly there were a zillion cameramen and such in between me and Ann Curry and Beto. That's OK because I got to watch it later...you can view the Zumba segment here. It's so funny to me to watch Beto's interview with Ann Curry because 1. He doesn't speak much English so I'm sure he had memorized things to say and 2. In every interview I've seen him in, he always always always mentions that Gina is the mother of 4 kids. I think that is his fall-back when he doesn't know what else to say. Luckily, Gina was with him! (She, by the way, is not the mother of HIS kids).
The best part, for me, was meeting Beto afterwards. He was so nice and friendly and sincerely appreciative of all of us who had come to the show to support them. At one point as we were standing out there, for some reason it was just Beto and myself standing off to the side of everyone else. It was a little awkward so I felt the need to make small talk with him...and I was kinda nervous so I was talking really fast, probably. Anyway, I was telling him about how my husband works right in this building next door and he's a watchmaker, and I'm the mother of THREE kids, etc. Then as I was blabbing on, I noticed the look on his face and suddenly realized: he has NO idea what I'm saying. No speaka de English? So I said, "My, it's cold today" to which he replied, "Si, Si, I'm from Miami so is much cold for me". And thus ended my conversation with Beto.
Soon after, Dave arrived for work (several hours late due to an overturned Mac truck at the entrance to the Lincoln tunnel). I went up to work with him and hung out in the conference room with my Harry Potter book. Some other employees came in, eventually, with stacks of beautiful watches that they were sorting for some reason or another. One gal was trying to decide which watch(es) to send to a magazine who was shooting pictures of a model and wanted their model to be wearing a Patek Philippe. (This happens all the time, apparently). Patek Philippe doesn't use celebrities to advertise their watches but often a magazine will do a photo shoot of a celebrity and they want them to be wearing a Patek watch. Anyway, not that I was eavesdropping or anything, but I did overhear that this particular shoot was for Charlize Theron. No big deal; all in a day's work for these people.
Dave and I ate lunch together in the City; a first for us (without kids)! We ate from a luncheonette called Mangia. It has amazing food and is not ridiculously expensive. It was fun to be together and also spend a little bit of time at his work.
Afterwards, I went to the Sports Club/L.A. in Rockefeller Center to attend a 'master class' with Beto. When I found out he was coming to the TODAY show I e-mailed Zumba headquarters to find out if he would be doing any classes or performances that we could attend. They said he wasn't but that he would be happy to prepare a "special choreography update class" for the area Zumba instructors if I wanted to organize it. At first, I was like: No way, I can't do that...I have NO contacts in NYC and only 3 days to throw something together, etc. BUT, I decided to give it a try anyway, got the ball rolling and luckily Zumba headquarters took it over from there! I wasn't sure if we could get enough instructors together on a weekday after lunch; especially since most of us were coming from NJ and CT, have kids at home, and so on. BUT, it was a packed house and it was so much fun! Man those instructors are lucky to have me! ;-)
Anyway, here's some pictures of me and Beto. One after the TODAY show, and one after the class. Also, below is my half second of fame from the TODAY show: special thanks to Steph and Geoff for transferring the video to the internet for me! It's a little grainy but you can see me with my purple jacket and gray scarf:

Miscellaneous happenings

The other night when Peter was supposed to be in bed, I walked in and found him NOT in bed. I was, however, kinda impressed with how he was spending his free time. It's not rocket science or anything, but I thought it was pretty neat for a 5 yr. old. You can watch the video if you want to see it, too.
Also, the other day, Peter asked me if I was lonely all day while they were at school and Dave was at work and I had no one to snuggle with. I told him that actually while they were at school, I was at work and then I went to the grocery store and then I picked him up at school so I didn't even have time to get lonely. He then said he felt sorry for our house being here all alone with no one in it while we were away. I asked him if he thought the house was alive and he said oh yes, definitely, and when we walk around in it, it tickles the house all the time.
One more thing about Peter: even though he's almost 6, he still has a lot of trouble with the whole linear time frame thing. Like when he says "yesterday" he could actually be talking about something that happened 3 years ago. Now that I think about it, when he says "tomorrow" he could actually be talking about something that happened 3 years ago. Sometimes there's even new words like "tomorrowday", but this week, he really made some progress as he was talking about the day before yesterday and said, "yesterday's yesterday". It took me a moment, but I understood what he meant!

Caleb got his first orthodontic appliance installation this week. I'm SOOOOO happy that it is cemented into his mouth and can't be removed/lost in the lunchroom at school! I experienced many years of orthodontia myself and am proud to say I never lost a retainer so I know it is possible to NOT lose one, I just don't count it as very likely. Anyway, he has tolerated it very well and speaks with a slight lisp now. It's very cute.
Sam is on his way to making a best friend. His name is Bernard and they were in the same class last year and sit by each other in the same class this year. He is a very nice, polite boy and he and Sam are also starting the gifted and talented program together tomorrow at school. We have had him over to play twice now and they get along very well. Most of their play consists of Pokemon on the GameBoy/Nintendo DS. Sam has the GameBoy and Bernard has the newer Nintendo DS. Sam really wants to get a DS now! Luckily he is not obsessed with it, though.
Yesterday, we invited Bernard and his little brother (who is 7) over to play. We had some water balloons already filled and ready to throw. (It was like 85 degrees; crazy hot for New Jersey in October, I'm told). Anyway, I thought it would be a really fun outdoor activity for the kids...unfortunately, these were deadly water balloons! Most of them wouldn't burst! The kids would throw them REALLY hard at each other and it would just smack them really hard as it bounced off their skin and then bounced along the ground! They were covered in red pelt marks and it turned into a screaming cry-fest in my backyard. Caleb was screaming at ME because the water balloons hurt so bad, as if I had manufactured them myself. Peter was crying because he wanted to throw water balloons at people but no one, apparently, was allowed to throw one at him. And Bernard's little brother was doubled over after taking a water balloon in the gut which knocked the wind out of him. Sam and Bernard seemed to be the only ones taking it in stride. It would've been funny except for the fact that they really did hurt, and not to mention I was a little worried about what Bernard's parents would think when they picked up their kids covered in mysterious bruises. These water balloons, by the way were filled and ready because we were going to use them during Caleb's birthday party weeks ago and never did. (We ran out of time). They've been sitting in our backyard ever since. Now I'm really glad we didn't use them during the party!!!

Weekend in Boston

Some old friends of ours, Josh and Amy Routt, who now live in Arkansas were visiting Amy's brothers in Boston recently. We drove up there to see them and to see Boston since we'd never been there before. Amy and I grew up in the same town in TX, and we all lived in the same apartment complex in Provo as young marrieds and had our first babies there, etc. Aaah, those were the days...life seemed much simpler then. We were always dirt poor and stressed about school, work, and money but still, looking back it seems like a much simpler time. I wonder how that works? Will I one day look back to today and think the same thing? But I digress...
SO, we drove to Boston. It is less than 4 hrs. away from us so that's what, like 2-3 Disney movies, right? We had perfect weather despite a recent cold snap and some of the trees were beginning to change color, we noticed, as we drove through Connecticut. Anyway, we met Josh and Amy and their oldest girl, Taylor (whom I used to change diapers!), and they treated us (thanks!) to a delicious brunch at a bar named Deep Ellum that Amy's brother owns and just opened 9 months ago. We spent a good 3 hrs. with them and it was great to talk and get caught up, etc. We were also able to get tips on what to see and do in Boston!
We took a Duck Tour to hit the main highlights of Boston and learn a little bit about the area. A Duck tour is on a WWII amphibious vehicle. So we drove around the city and then entered the water and rode around in the Charles river. The Charles river has Boston on one side and Cambridge (MIT, Harvard) on the other. On land, we went past Bunker Hill where the revolutionary soldiers waited for the oncoming British and were told not to shoot 'til they could see "the whites of their eyes" and also past modern day sites like the Cheers bar. I loved seeing places like the Old North Church where shined the two lanterns as a signal from Paul Revere to warn the British were coming "one if by land, two if by sea" and driving through the streets where Paul Revere rode on horseback yelling, "the British are coming, the British are coming!"
Our tour guide was great...they are all comedians, I think, and he let the boys each have a turn "driving" the boat while in the river. I couldn't get over every one's accents there. To me, they all sounded like JFK...(and the New Kids on the Block). When they talked fast, I couldn't even understand what they were saying! I assumed it would be like a NYC accent but it is totally different. I've gotten used to the NYC/Jersey accent so I can at least understand them when they talk too fast!
Anyway, we walked through Boston Commons, which is like a mini Central Park and the site of the Boston Massacre in 1770. We ventured by some sights like old cemeteries (which I love to walk through) and the Old State House where the Declaration of Independence was read from a balcony to the people of Boston.
Then we made our way towards the harbor through Quincy market and ate at a seafood restaurant right on the waterfront so Dave could have some real fresh seafood. The best part about Quincy market is the street performers. They are WAY better than the street performers we see in NYC. The ones in NYC are often just freaks. In Boston, they actually have talent and this is their actual profession. Our favorite was the Yo Yo People, John and Rebecca Higby. They are a young married couple and they actually tour all over the world with their street comedy/yo yo tricks/hula hooping show. I took some video and pictures of them but I think their website is much better than what I have so you can click on it if you are curious. I can only imagine what their children will be like!
A few things I noticed in comparing Boston to NYC.
1. Boston is much cleaner.
2. Boston was much easier, believe it or not, to get lost. At least NYC is laid out on a grid. Boston is full of funky curvy streets that wind all over the place. We were lost 90% of the time.
3. Finding parking in Boston is about the same as NYC. But when you do have to pay for it, it's much cheaper than NYC.
4. As already stated above, the street performers in Boston are much much better.
5. I'm sure there's more but that's all can think of right now!
The highlight of the trip (other than seeing our friends), in my opinion, was visiting the U.S.S. Constitution, a.k.a. Old Ironsides. She is 209 yrs. old now, and although she is made of wood, I learned that she does have plenty of copper on the outer hull, below the waterline. All of the copper was produced by Paul Revere, who owned the first operational copper rolling mill in the U.S., giving us more independence from the Brititsh. Prior to 1800, our copper was all supplied by England. Anyhoo, she saw most of her first battles in the War of 1812 against Britain. During one such battle, someone reportedly sees a British shot bounce off the U.S.S. Constitution's side and shouts, "Huzzah! Her sides are made of iron!"-and so began the nickname Old Ironsides. It was really a beautiful ship and if you ever go, make sure you make the time to take the guided tour. It's the only way you're allowed to go below deck and you learn so much more about her history, etc. Her battle record was 33-0. Not bad at all! They take her out for a sail through Boston harbor once a year and we learned (too late) that each night at sunset, they fire one cannon. I wish we could've seen that!
At one point during the tour, we were headed up from a lower deck and I told Dave I was going to stay behind for a second to take a couple of pictures and he would need to keep track of the kids by himself for a few minutes. After I snapped some quick pictures, I was headed up the stairs where the tour guide was explaining the story about the cannonball bouncing off the hull and how the ship got her nickname. Then I heard a loud BOOM...OK, not like a cannon fire boom, more like a LOUD THUD. I then heard the tour guide interrupt his monologue and say, "OH! Hey there buddy, yeah, oh my, let's not play with the 24 lb. cannonballs. Here, let me put that back for you." I looked over and saw the guide scooping up a cannonball off the floor and putting it back on a rack and a very embarrassed Peter running over to me and burying his head in my hip. Then I saw Dave scrambling through the crowd to me as I made some "what the h_ll happened up here!" eyes at him and he made "I swear I thought he was right next to me!" eyes at me. I was so glad that cannonball didn't bash a hole in the floor and ruin Old Ironside's 33-0 record! I have tons of pictures from this trip if you want to see them and learn even more about Boston, click here!

Sam's Fall

Almost 2 weeks ago, the kids were playing on the playground after school. Sam climbed up the outside of a tube shaped slide all the way to the top and then fell to the ground. He landed on his arm and hit his head. He cried a little and seemed a little dazed, like he got the wind knocked out of him or something, but was otherwise OK. We seemed pretty shook up so we all went home. His arm didn't swell up and he was able to move it in every direction without much discomfort so I assumed it was just sprained or something. I was mostly concerned about a mild concussion because Sam asked me if he had passed out. I said no, I don't think so, and then he told me this long story about how he fell and then we were all standing around him, and he had a moment with a little gap of time, etc., etc. This, itself is not what concerned me. BUT 3-4 minutes later, he asked me again if he had passed out. I'd say no, I don't think so and then he told me the story all over again. After like the 10th time I realized that he was not just 'making conversation'. I looked at him and said, "Sam, you've asked me if you passed out like 10 times now. You've told me this story over and over again." He said, "I did? I don't remember that." And that's when I started watching for concussion warning signs. All in a days work (for a mom), right? After I informed him that he was repeating himself, he seemed to snap out of it and wasn't so spacey. He didn't have any other concussion symproms so I stopped worrying about him. He still kind of favored his left arm all week, but never really complained about it until...
Four days later, I was returning to the school with Caleb following an orthodontist appt. As I was pulling up to the school office to sign Caleb in, I saw Sam walking into the office with an aide and he was holding his left arm and looked like he'd been crying. He was on his way to the nurse's office because he had fallen on his arm in gym class and it hurt a lot. I looked at it while we were waiting for the nurse and it appeared to already be swelling. The nurse examined it and said it wasn't clearly broken, but she couldn't be sure. I took him in for x-rays and sure enough, he has a greenstick fracture of the radius. Luckily, it's not a really bad break and he only has to wear a cast for 3 weeks. He told me on the day that we got the x-rays, etc., that he'd always thought having a broken arm would be a lot more exciting. I told him it's not so exciting when it hurts really bad, huh? I think he enjoyed having a little extra attention from the kids at school, signing his cast, etc. In the above picture, by the way, he's rolling his eyes at me. He does this all the time, you know...because I'm SUCH an annoying mom.

Caleb's Birthday!

Caleb turned nine on the ninth of September. Since we had been busy going out of town and with the whole first week of school, we didn't have his party 'til the 15th, which was fine with him since he then sort-of had 2 parties. On the 9th, we gave him his presents and had a cake for him. He got lots of $$ and cards from far away relatives, and we gave him a David Beckham (soccer) shirt and 3 Reader's Digest kid's books: rocks and minerals, space, and sea creatures. I didn't think the books would be such a big hit, but Caleb loved them and the shirt, of course, and he said it was the best birthday ever. He says David Beckham is his "hero" but I don't think he actually knows anything about him except he's a soccer star.
Thankfully, not all nine of the kids he invited to his party were able to make it as we seemed to have our hands full with just five plus our three! The funny thing about birthday parties here in New Jersey is that they are never at someone's house. They are always at the skating rink, or the private movie theater, or the sportsdome, etc. So I think it might've been unusual for these kids to go to someone's house to have just a regular old birthday party. Plus, Caleb insisted on making homemade invitations that he made completely on his own (with plain white paper and pencil). And I must admit, they were awfully cute but I was worried that other parents would think that we couldn't afford to buy printed invitations! (In addition to having the party at home)! Anyway, all the kids had a great time, mainly because Dave quickly came up with a spectacular treasure hunt for them complete with secret codes, riddles, and so on.
We also had a pinata, which is a big deal for these Jersey kids since they never are at a party that has one; they were really excited about it! We let Caleb go first. As Dave lowered the pinata getting it ready to be hit, the whole thing crashed to the ground. Luckily it appeared unscathed and Dave was able to quickly rig it back up. I blindfolded Caleb, he stepped forward, swung, and barely tapped the thing. The bottom dropped right out of the pinata like a trap door and all the candy spilled to the ground! The kids dove in and collected the candy but I felt so bad for them all lined up waiting their turn and no one got one. They didn't seem to mind too much though!
Dave and I were exhausted afterwards, and it was only an hour and a half! Sam's birthday is next and we are SO trying to talk him out of a party! Here's some pictures if you want to see them.
p.s. The picture above is a candid, unstaged picture of Caleb during the party...

Patek Philippe company party on Sept. 8th

Patek Philippe (Dave's company--well, it's not HIS company, we can only dream) has an annual family picnic. This year it was in Connecticut on Sept. 8th. It was only an hour drive for us and the scenery through CT is beautiful. It turned out to be a really hot day which was a shame since we hadn't brought our swimsuits and there was a private pool available to us. Oh well, we had a huge pavilion, sand volleyball, inflatables for the kids (you'll see them in the pics), miniature golf, face painting for the kids and some organized games for the kids and adults: sack races, water balloon toss, tug-of-war, etc. We were there for like 4 hours and we all had a nice time.
The best part may have been the food, though. They had the traditional grilled hot dogs and hamburgers, but there was also lasagna, fried chicken, tacos, ribs, sausages, a salad bar, drink bar with bartender, and then a whole seafood extravaganza with fresh lobster, mussels, clams. Caleb honors all sea life, apparently, and was opposed to Dave's barbaric partaking of the lobster. (Don't worry, we have pictures and video).
For dessert, they brought out trays of fresh fruit and cookies and brownies. The cookies and brownies looked store-bought but tasted heavenly. I swear they must've injected them with horrible amounts of trans fat for them to be that good. I'm sure the fresh fruit was good too, if you're one of those people. Also, much to the pleasure of our children, they had a Good Humor ice-cream case stocked full of ice-cream cones, sandwiches, etc. It was like having their own personal ice-cream truck that they could help themselves to all day, as much as they wanted. At one point, Peter actually said that he was in heaven. Since we stayed 'til the very end, we got to take lots of leftovers home. YEA!
Oh yeah, besides the food fest, it was also nice to meet and get to know some of Dave's co-workers, blah blah blah. If you want to see pictures, click here.

Vacation part 4 of 4

Really need to finish blogging about our August vacation! OK, so we spent a whole day at King's Dominion; see post below. That night, Caleb sat me down to have a heart to heart. The conversation went a little something like this:
Caleb: "Ummm, can we sit down and talk for a minute about our vacation?"
Me: "Sure, babe, what do you want to talk about?"
Caleb: "Well...no offense, but I'm not really liking the educational parts. I mean, when we were in Washington D.C., sometimes I felt like I was being tortured."
Me: "I see. Well, you seemed to enjoy most of it: the Air and Space Museum, the National Zoo, going to the top of the Washington Monument..."
Caleb: "Yeah, I guess some of that was ok, but some of it was so boring. I mean, who wants to look at monuments anyway? Could we maybe just talk about what we're going to do for our last two days of vacation? I mean, I'd really like to do something fun and exciting and not-educational."
Me: With sarcasm, "You mean like spend a whole day at an amusement/water park?"
Caleb: A bit chagrined...
Me: "OK, why don't you tell me some ideas of what YOU would like to do and we'll see if maybe we can work something out."
Caleb: "Well, I've always wanted to go bungee jumping. Can we do that?"
Me: Trying to be polite but firmly, "NO."
Caleb: "What about rock climbing? Could we go rock climbing?"
Me: "Ummm, yeah, rock climbing? Also not going to happen this weekend, buddy."
He finally settled on fishing which we were planning to do anyway, so luckily that worked out. I told him that I appreciated him sitting down and talking with me about it instead of whining and complaining like some kids might. I didn't have the heart to tell him at the time that we were planning on spending the whole next day at Thomas Jefferson's home: Monticello!

Monticello was so cool. We learned so much about Jefferson, whom I really knew almost nothing about. He was a very important person! wink, wink The home itself was very interesting and very beautiful, but even more stunning was the grounds and the view. One interesting point: when you look at a picture of Monticello, for example on the back of a nickel, that is actually the back of the house. The front of the house is less remarkable but offers an amazing view. Also, what you don't see when you look at the house is that there are many rooms and a long corridor running the length of the house, underneath it. These rooms were called "necessary" rooms and included stables, kitchens, wine cellars, etc. where the daily runnings of the home were done out of sight of visitors, etc. Also, contrary to popular belief, Jefferson only had one invention which was a lap desk or something. He did recreate many other inventions, like the swivel chair, that he had seen in Europe and then was able to design and recreate from memory. He was also, amongst many other things, an avid gardener. He would bring seeds home from everywhere and plant them...he would also trade seeds with other people to have as many varieties of plants, trees, and flowers as possible. Who knew the one of our founding fathers was really into flower gardening?! Anyway, it was a fun day and alas, educational. If you want to see pictures from this day click here.

The next day was spent entirely at Lake Anna, Virginia, with Nichole and her in-laws who very graciously opened their huge, gorgeous lake house to us. Their house is situated perfectly right on the lake, with a big shady lawn, a boat dock and everything anyone could possibly want. The boys loved swimming in the lake, boating, canoing, jet-skiing, playing fetch with 2 golden retrievers, and yes, Caleb finally got to go fishing, if only for a moment as it was getting dark when he finally remembered! This was probably the funnest day for them on the whole trip. It was nice to relax...and eat the chocolate chip cookies that Nichole made! Thanks Nichole! For pics and teeny videos of this day, click here.

Zumba anyone? part 2

Here is a longer clip of one of my classes...Feel free to not watch the whole thing. I think it is like 12 min. long! I don't know, yet, how to edit videos. If I did, then I would edit this so you would just watch a small sample of each. ANYWAY, the first song is a salsa, 2nd song is just for fun, and the third song is a bellydance-ish song. All three of these are low to mid-intensity. In Zumba, we normally interval the songs so you alternate between high intensity songs/dances and low intensity ones. High intensity would be merengue, samba, or calypso. For some reason none of those made it onto the video! Maybe next time...

P.S. I don't know if it is even possible, but please don't share this video (e-mail, embedding, etc.) in any way as Zumba has copyright on these songs and I am technically not supposed to put any of their stuff on the internet. Since it's a 'private' blog then I assume it's safe to share with you guys!

Zumba anyone?

So...here's a video of me teaching a Zumba class. Usually this particular class is very full...I'm not sure where everyone was tonight since I only had 5 people. Also, most of those people are hiding on the other side of the room because they didn't want to be video'd! This particular song is in a style called Cumbia. Cumbia is a dance from Columbia, particularly of the slaves working the sugar cane fields (which are now probably cocaine fields). Anyway, they had their legs either shackled together or had a ball and chain so they, in general, could only dance with one leg at a time. It's one of my favorite styles of Latin dance. This particular song is low intensity (in case you want to exercise with me at home). wink, wink