Sandy has come -- and gone.

Sandy's effects involved some tree damage, 5 hours without power, and 2 days with no school.  We heard late Sunday afternoon (after just about every other district on the East Coast) that school had been cancelled on Monday.  After doing a load of wash, I filled both the washer and the bathtub with water - we have well water and a septic system, so we need extra water in order to flush the toilets -- ah, the perks of living in an old house.  

I watched TV in the evening and caught up on all the Upstairs, Downstairs episodes, including the latest that aired on Sunday night.  Bed at 10:30 - so not me on a Sunday.

Next morning, the power went out at about 7:15 AM, not due to the storm but to an idiot who hit a telephone pole during a state emergency.  Power was restored by 9:30, but I got to try out my Jetboiler -- worked like a charm!!  The rest of the day, I posted and read on Facebook while the TV was tuned (minus the sound) to the Weather Channel. I also kept taking pictures of the creek level.

Good moment of the day: Frank called from Henning's, our local supermarket, and asked if I needed anything, which he then brought to me!  Bad moment of the day: while watching Netflix, the satellite went down and then came back on, and somehow I lost first the sound and then the ability to get onto Netflix at all.  I then watched an old NCIS since the power was still on and went to bed.  The power went out just after I turned off the light to go to sleep.  I awoke at midnight and moved all the stuff from the refrigerator to the cooler in the side porch.  Just as I fell back to sleep, the power came on and has been on ever since.

 This morning I got up, made coffee, and moved all the refrigerator items back. Oh, we didn't have school again today. We had some tree limbs down, but nothing too serious.

Biggest branch, same old dilapidated barn

It's 12:15, and I'm getting ready to finally read the paper. I just took another picture of the creek to prove to the flood plain police that our flood plain has not moved significantly...this for Bob.

It's still raining a bit...

Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee...waiting for Sandy.

October 28th -- wow.   The days are again flying past.  This month I facilitated a BUNCH of meetings with gifted parents and helped my colleagues navigate the often-challenging waters of IEP Plus, the program that we use to document said meetings.  Bob was home two weekends in a row, which was fabulous!! 

The first weekend, we headed for one of our new favorite restaurants, Cantina Feliz, a place in Fort

Washington started by one of Jose Garces' former employees.  Kick-ass happy hour -- $5 margaritas and small plates - so good and so cheap!

We arrived on a Saturday, so no happy hour, but still worth the extra few dollars.

Wild boar tacos!

Bob looking a wee bit scary with his brussel sprout huarache

We watched a HUGE party arrive for a birthday party...

The next day we went to Chestnut Hill's annual craft fair - had a great time and bought some interesting things for gifts.  On this day, we had our meal at Iron Hill.

Enjoying some Belgian style beer on the avenue in Chestnut Hill

After a week of working with my lovely students, it was time for yet another great meal, this time at the happy hour at Stella Blu, another great deal: $5 drinks and half price small plates.  This time we splurged and had pumpkin cheesecake for dessert.

That Sunday was Frank's first concert with the Mendelssohn Club - quite enjoyable.  The group is much bigger than the choral society he used to sing with - they also perform with a chamber orchestra, which makes the sound balance so much better than it was in previous years.

 Afterwards, Chris and Frank joined us for some food and drink at Bridgid's.  

And then - Sandy formed.  Hurricane Sandy is bearing down on our area; landfall in Atlantic City area tomorrow night.  It's supposed to be a superstorm...whatever.  Anyway, Bob was back in New Jersey after dropping off a trailer, and he came home to bring home the Civic from where it was parked in Jersey.  He arrived home early Saturday morning.  Judy and her friend Cindy were due to visit, and we embarked on a trip to Sanatoga and the outlets -- a very productive trip, I might add.  Bob stayed home and started storm preparations for me.

With Cindy at lunch!

Judy very kindly volunteered to drop Bob off in Paulsboro to pick up the Civic - he had brought the tractor directly home.  So off we went to New Jersey and back.  On our way back, we found a camping thingie that boils water and uses propane to do so.  I cannot do without my coffee.

 

 

What I will do to avoid a caffeine headache.

 Upon our return, we had yet another really enjoyable meal.  Sense a theme here???  We headed to Parc Bistro, a great place where one can always get a table, even on a Saturday night.

Foie gras and pear in amazing sauce.

Sated, we returned home and went immediately to bed - up early the next day to make final preparations for storm control and Bob's leave-taking.

It's been a long, been a long, been a long, been a long time...

Wow - the month of September has flown by!  Since I've begun posting separately for our trips, I've neglected my everyday blog.  Now that school is in session, I'll continue to use it for day to day activities until our next big trip - to Rome for our 40th wedding anniversary!

Gifted stuff has taken over my time at school.  With four new GIEP writers, I've been spending my time teaching as well as preparing documents for my own case load.  We're far more aligned with the special ed. IEP than we ever were before - and it's actually a good thing. 

My classes this year are again really nice.  One new thing to add - when studying the Rubaiyat, I paired them to explain in one sentence the meaning of a single rubai.  Worked well. 

I also have a new projector in my room - the lamp on the old one died on Thursday morning, and by the end of the day, I had a new one - yay!!

Bob comes home a week from Monday, and the following weekend we'll go to see Frank in his first concert with the Mendelssohn Club - a big step up from the Choral Society, which is no longer in existence.

Blog for our road trip

Here's the website for the Big Ten road trip I took over the last two weeks.
http://bigtenroadtrip.blogspot.com/

Home with Bob.

This is the only week this summer where Bob is home and we're not on our way somewhere!  It's the nature of my time off, I guess.  June was Europe; August will be California.  We've already made our plans with the Northwestern and tracking group people, and we'll spend the first 4 days in lovely Santa Barbara.

This week, however, we've been working on the third floor "office" -- really a place for all the junk we've accumulated in the attic since Sam's death.  This is how the room looks after 3+ days of hauling stuff out of there and going through things.

We haven't moved anything back in yet....

Now here's what's out of the room sitting at the top of the third floor steps.

And we've gotten rid of more than half of what was in that room!!

Yes, we might have been candidates for "Hoarders" -- maybe still could be if someone looked at the contents of our barn.

So we'll be taking clothes to the Salvation Army and leaving furniture for Purple Heart.

And I've finally figured out how to post pictures from my stupid Blackberry without them coming in sideways.

Here are some food pix from our dinner last night at Parkside Grill.

The top is Szechuan chicken; the bottom is fettuccine Alfredo with shrimp, crab meat, and avocado.  Yum!

NYC With Theresa

THURSDAY EVENING
This is our annual trip to NYC.  T arrived at 3PM on Thurs. We caught up and left for Peddler's Village at 4ish.  After walking around and buying some pjs at a great shop, we met Harriet for dinner at Buttonwood Grill.  A fun time was had by all! 

THIS WAS A RECREATION OF HARRIET'S SCHEMATIC OF HER LIVING ROOM - THE H IS HARRIET'S HEAD AS SHE WATCHES TV; THE S IS SHELDON'S HUGH RECLINER!!

FRIDAY

Friday morning, we had coffee and scones and then left for NYC.  No traffic issues, so we arrived at 11ish and left our bags at the Park South Hotel.  It was going to be a REALLY HOT day, and it was already well on the way by the time we walked to Riverpark for our lunch.

The restaurant overlooks the East River, and it includes an outdoor garden that provides many of the fresh vegetables and herbs for the restaurant.  We saw people tending the garden as we walked past; pretty amazing.


The building itself looked like an art museum space: high ceilings, creative light placement, really cool benches.  We arrived a little early and decided to sit inside - couldn't believe that people were actually sitting outside.  We both had non-alcoholic drinks to start - fruity and refreshing.  Theresa ordered bruschetta - and she didn't like the taste!  A bad start to what was supposed to be an awesome lunch.  I told her to ask for something else - she was prepared to just eat a little bit and leave the rest.  As she thought about it, I said, "This was supposed to be our food highlight of the day -- tell the waiter!"   She did, and he brought her another appetizer choice in its place - and of course it was delicious!!  We have become so empowered these days...

Our lunch was so good -- Theresa had salmon, and I had fried oyster tacos.  I had a brownie and ice cream sundae - two small squares of brownie, ice cream, and salted pecans - lovely!


We walked back to the hotel and took a little siesta before our trip to the 9/11 Memorial.  Before heading south, we took the subway to the area of the Eugene O'Neill Theater to pick up the tickets for Book of Mormon for Saturday night.  We also got our Pain Quotidien fix - this time we had iced coffee and fresh fruit (a weird combo, I know!). I was concerned about the heat in the subway station, but we didn't have to wait very long to catch the subway in either direction.  We got down to the Wall Street area 1/2 hour early and toured Trinity Church before we went to the memorial. 

Although there is still massive construction surrounding the site, the pools with the names of those killed that day are finished and quite impressive.  I quietly cried most of the time I was walking around; I don't know whether Theresa noticed it.


 After spending over an hour at the site, we took the subway back to Dos Caminos, the restaurant we had chosen for dinner.  The margarita and sangria were good, but the place was really loud, and my queso fundido was really salty.



The good thing about the place was that it was right around the corner from our hotel, where we immediately sank into our beds after a quick shower.  The room was a little warm even though we had cranked up the air as much as possible, but we managed to get an okay sleep anyway.

SATURDAY

We were up by 7AM.  This diva asked if Theresa would be willing to bring up coffee while I showered - she was too kind in saying yes!!  Originally, we had planned to go to the Hester Street Fair, but it was already ungodly hot in the city, so we decided to go to Macy's in the morning and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the afternoon; we would go directly from the museum to dinner at db Moderne on West 44th Street.  Breakfast at the Park South Hotel is INCLUDED in the room rate, and it's a great deal.   Lots of fresh fruit, breakfast breads and bagels, cereals, juice, yogurt, boiled eggs...

After breakfast, we headed for some quality time shopping at Macy's. We both found some great deals, and I had an arsenal of coupons, so all was well!  Afterwards, we slowly walked back to our hotel, looking for a place to get a small bit of lunch since our dinner reservation was at 5:15.  Theresa spotted Artisanal, and we went into the place, but there was NO ONE in sight...weird!  Speaking of weird, I was beginning to feel quite odd, so we found a pizza place almost across Park Avenue from Artisanal.  After eating, I felt much better.  We went back to the hotel to refresh ourselves and get ready for our late afternoon and evening.  Because the room was still a bit warm, we called the front desk, and a repairman came up and took a look at the unit.  It was a problem with freon, and he said he'd either repair or replace it while we were gone.  We decided to take the bus to the art museum; we only had to walk 1 1/2 blocks to the bus stop.  We both got seats once on the bus, and it was quite civilized.  After looking at the Prada/Schiaparelli exhibit, some Modiglianis, and the museum store, we took the bus back down to db Moderne for another stellar meal.  We told our server we didn't need to rush through dinner, so we had a nice, leisurely, delicious meal.





Afterwards, we walked up to the theater and found our seats, on the aisle and three rows from the front of the theater - terrific!!  The show was again so well-done and wildly inappropriate.  The theater, however, was a bit too warm for our comfort.  We got some cast autographs after Theresa got some souvenirs for the girls.  We took a cab back to the hotel and had a drink at the hotel bar.  Bed at 12:30.

SUNDAY
After awaking at 8AM, we went down for breakfast.  The place was hopping, so we didn't spend a really long time at breakfast.  We packed, checked out, got the car, and were on the road by 10AM.  We were back home by noon, the end of a great weekend!!

Trip to Europe

Saturday

We're finally at  the point where we have traveled to Germany to visit Tom, Martina, and the boys. Bob got home on Wednesday evening, and we spent Thursday packing for the trip and getting ready for the painters to come while we are away.

We got to the airport at 2:30 and had time for a  glass of wine before our plane departed. Because of stormy weather east of us, our departure was delayed about an hour. The flight itself was uneventful - the bad part was that neither of us slept.  I watched 21 Jump street and The Artist.  We arrived  at Frankfurt about 1/2 hour late but still had 2+ hours until the flight to Hannover.

We arrived on time; Tom and Yannik met us at the airport. We then went to their home and met Niklas for the first time - what a cutie! He has blonde, curly hair and a big smile complete with dimple.  It was a beautiful day, so we played outside on their massive swing set. Tom grilled our dinner, and we had a lovely day.  We checked into our hotel and were asleep by 9PM.

Sunday

The day was cloudy and gray. We walked to their house and had a lovely breakfast. Martina was concerned because Yannik had a fever. He slept for a while and then seemed to be better. We played with both boys all day when we weren't eating good food. Niklas refused to go to bed for the evening while we were there. Because it was raining so hard, Tom drove us back to the hotel.

Monday

Another cloudy day. Yannik seemed better. Jill and Ingo came to visit, arriving at noon. We caught up with them, had another grilled meal for lunch, and had Mexican pizza for dinner. Jill and Ingo left after dinner; we stayed a little longer but took a 20-minute walk when it was time to put the boys to bed.  When we returned, they were asleep. I guess they didn't want to miss anything when we were in the house!

Tuesday

Today was supposed to be a sunnier day, but the sun didn't arrive until after 4PM! I also misread my watch, so we got up at 5:45. Yannik had a little cough when he awoke, but it didn't seem so bad, so Tom took him with Bob and me to the Hannover Gardens.

 They were quite lovely, but Yannik's attention span was very short, so we did a quick tour. By the time we got back, Yannik was really coughing. We sat at dinner for a while and then just walked around the block until Niklas was in bed. Yannik didn't fall asleep right away, so we said goodby for real the second time. Tom walked back with us in order to pay the hotel bill. the hotel owner gave us some homemade schnapps to try, and he gave Tom a bottle to take home.  Bed before 10.

Wednesday

Today we leave for London. Bob and Tom have taken the boys to the doctor's so that Martina can sleep because she was up most of the night with Yannik. The diagnosis was not so bad - they just have colds and post-nasal drip.  We had milk rice for lunch - rice mixed with milk and some kind of fruit in a sugar syrup - we had cherries and pineapples.  Tom took us to the airport at 3PM so that we could make sure we got our boarding passes for our flight to London.

We arrived at Heathrow at 5PM.  We had an issue, however - we're used to having flight attendants give us customs documents on the plane before we land.  This did not happen on the flight from Germany to England, so Bob got out of line to get the documents, and I filled them out while we were in line.  We both forgot that Bob was pulling his bag, and so we left it in line and left the customs area before we realized the second bag was missing.  Bob went back in and was able to get the bag, but the customs person told him that in some countries, he would have been fined and sent home.  Terrorists.  Hate them.  We finally arrived at the Axel's home after 6:30.  Axel was not home from work yet - we met little Ann-Sophie, an adorable 8-month-old charmer.  She and Niklas rival each other in the size of their smiles!!

We caught up with Steffi and played with the children until Axel got home.  The kids must have been prepped because they were not shy at all - in both households, they took to us almost immediately.
We had a late dinner (the rule rather than the exception in this home b/c of Axel's work schedule) and watched the Portugal-Spain soccer game (not the World Cup but still watched by all Europeans!!) and went to bed around 11.

Thursday
For some reason, Bob and I both slept until 9AM!!  When we got up, Mark and Annie had already had breakfast, so we ate with Steffi while they played.  After we played for a while, we took a walk into Richmond for a late lunch at a German restaurant right on the river Thames. The day was supposed to be gray, but the sun was brightly shining, and it was WARM!  The walk  was lovely, and we decided to sit outside in the shade at the restaurant.  The meal was good, the beer was great, and we had another leisurely walk back to the house, stopping at their favorite coffee shop for some caffeinated beverages.  


The children fell asleep on the way home, and Mark continued to sleep in the stroller.  Annie continued her nap in the bed.  After they awoke, we played with them until Axel came home, again after 8.  We had another late meal of bread and "lunchmeat" and went to bed after 11PM.  We had given Mark The Little Engine That Could, and they had been reading it to him the week before we arrived, so I read it that evening.  He loved it!  Afterward, Axel had to read it to him again because he loved it so much!!

Friday

Again we woke up after nine o'clock.  I apologized to Steffi, but she said we obviously needed the sleep (and she's an MD, so she knows).   We got ourselves ready and took the tube into London to meet Axel for lunch at the "best fish and chips place in London."  Steffi carried Annie in a front carrier, and Mark "walked" (often carried by Bob) so that we didn't have to worry about double prams and space on public transportation.  Because we were late in leaving, we got to the restaurant late; Axel could only stay for about 40 minutes.  We did have a great lunch, and Mark ate almost all of his "kiddie" meal, which was pretty substantial.  



We then decided to take the train back since the restaurant wasn't too far from Waterloo station.
The ride back was uneventful, and we arrived back at the house around 4PM.  


More playing took place, and Axel came home a little early so that we could eat before the Germany-Italy game.  Unfortunately, the game was a bust - Italy pretty much dominated the scoring.  It was fun watching with them, though.  Bed after midnight.

Saturday

We actually awoke a little earlier than normal, but the others were either sleeping or quietly playing (the kids!!).  After a leisurely breakfast and more playtime, Steffi and I walked into town to pick up some clothes she had ordered.  Everything fit perfectly, and I bought a really nice cotton blouse at another shop.  We had a great time talking.  Then we got ready for our lunch at the The Plough in East Sheen.  Axel had been telling us about this place for a while, but when we arrived, he discovered that the awesome microbrew selection was GONE!  Apparently, a major brewery owns the place and decided that they would only serve their beers.  We had a great meal except that Steffi walked all the way back to the house because she didn't have her purse with her and couldn't remember whether she'd taken it with her. Of course, she'd left it at home - I so commiserated with her!!  

After lunch, we walked by some gorgeous mansions and through the forest near their house.  What do we call a place with lots of trees?  Not a forest; we have so many places like that...hmmm.  Anyway, we got back to the house after 5PM. 

Playtime again and then dinner - we helped with the children's baths.  I love doing that!!  I helped with Annie, and Bob helped with Mark.  Afterwards, Axel read Mark's new favorite book -- he was quite good.  Mark is ENTRANCED by this book: there's one part where, at the bottom of the page, there's something about the toys and dolls being happy the the train will try, and at the top of the next page, they say, "Hurray, hurray!"  Axel read the bottom of the previous page, and before he turned to the next page, Mark whispered, "Hurray."  It was the cutest thing EVER.

We chatted and had some wine after the children went to bed; I had pretty much packed everything except our toiletries and clothing to wear the next day.

Sunday

We awoke at 7:30 and got ready to leave.  We had our last continental breakfast with the London family, and then the taxi took us to the airport.  Even with 2 1/2 hours to kill, I didn't have enough time to shop the duty free shop because the airport is so big, and our gate was at the opposite end from the shops.  The flight went off without a hitch, and we arrived in Philadelphia ahead of time.  We were home by 5PM.