How Nancy saved my life.

Before I write this all out I want to first thank Nancy for my bag of trail mix that she gave me with my flying goodie bag.

Now, sit back while I retell my flying story from yesterday. I flew to Florida to help my mom take care of my dad while he recovers from a pretty nasty surgery. I was pretty stoked to find round trip tickets to Orlando from Scranton for a decent price. My flight was from Scranton to Philly with a two hour layover and then from Philly to Orlando. Easy enough right? That's what I thought.

My flight was due to leave Scranton at 12:45 pm. Tim dropped me off at the gate around 11:10. I gave myself plenty of time to get through security and to find my way to where I was going. Granted, Scranton's airport is small, but I have never been there. I find my gate and there is this nice older gentleman waiting there. I walk up and he says, "You know this flight has been delayed, right?" Uh, no, I didn't know that. The board said the flight was still on time. He said it was delayed until 2 pm. I got nervous here because I knew that my connecting flight was leaving at 3:50. I mentally did the math. Ok, if the plane leaves at 2, I should be in Philly by 3 and I will still be ok. The gentleman, Jim, I think was his name then called USAir to confirm the departure time. When he called the delay was still there, but it was only delayed until 1. Great. No problem. I settled in and did some knitting on Tim's scarf. 1 o'clock came and no one was there yet. No guys at the desk to board us. No plane. Uh oh. 1:15 comes and the USAir guys come and say that Philly is backed up really bad. Our flight was now delayed until 2:02 or 2:48. Long, nervous story short, we left the ground at 2:48. I was sure I was going to miss my connection. The flight was in a small prop plane. SMALL. It only seated 37 passengers. They had let another lady catch this flight because the 2 o'clock flight that was due to be leaving was now pushed back to 5. She boarded...we were all seated and nervous with the size of the plane. Before they close the doors, the guy from the counter came onto the plane and told the lady that she would have to get off the plane because of "weight issues". Uh, hello? How embarrassing is that? And should I be worried that there are weight issues on a plane? The flight was pretty good considering. It was a really smooth takeoff and landing.

Landing. We landed at terminal F in Philadelphia. We landed at 3:40. My flight was due to leave 3:50 from terminal C. I had to take a shuttle bus from F to C. I stopped ever so briefly to see if by chance the Orlando flight was delayed and I would have any chance of catching it. I really didn't think I would. Orlando was pretty much the ONLY flight that was on time. Really? I got off the shuttle at 3:48 (flight leaves at 3:50) and I RUN through the terminal to my gate. I made it. I flashed my boarding pass and got on. I was the last person on.

This should be a happy ending right? I was going to land in Orlando at 6:26 and Andy was going to pick me up and then we were going to drive over and see the last ever night launch of the space shuttle. Oh, please keep reading.

I am on the plane. I am panting because of a hard run through a long terminal. I'm sweating because I had a sweatshirt on. There is a line of about 25 Indian people (all family I'm guessing) trying to figure out their seats. The overhead bins were all full and I wasn't sure where I was stashing my carry on bag. I really didn't want to have to check it and have the chance of losing it. The family must have been at it for a while because the flight attendant had pretty much lost her cool (and she was really cool) and was yelling that they just needed to find a seat and sit. They were trying to push by me back and forth. Whatever. I was tired and glad to have made it on the plane. I scoured the open overhead bins and found out some jerk had thrown their backpack up there when they very well could have put it down by their feet. I squished it over to a side and slammed my carry on up there. I found my way back to my seat. The very last row on the plane and there was a dude in my seat. Come on. I showed him my ticket and he said he had traded with one of the Indian guys so he could be near his family. The poor guy was 6 foot 2 and not happy that the guy had told him that it was an aisle seat he was trading with. So, he scooted over and was now squished between me and another tall, little larger person. Ok...everyone is seated. Doors are closed. We back out of the terminal and taxi to our runway. Ready for lift off. Going to fly. We wait for about 20 minutes. We figure that we are waiting for an ok from the tower. It's all good. Just get us in the air and start serving drinks.

Twenty minutes go by and the pilot comes on and said "Folks, we have a problem with a heat sensor on the outside and we've tried to fix it and can't. We are going to have to turn around and go back to the terminal and have maintenance look at it." Everyone groaned. We all whipped out our cell phones and called and texted our frustrations. So,we turn around and go back and sit for another half hour and finally the pilot comes on and says "Folks, we are going to have to exit this plane and get on another plane in terminal C24". It took about 15 minutes for everyone to grab their bags and unload off the plane. We all poured out into the terminal and went to the next terminal. There was no plane there yet. We all stood around for what felt like another half hour. Some people were smart and went and got shots to drink and food to eat. I was not one of those smart people. I was not going to wander off too far and then miss the flight. Remember that I had thought I would have a two hour layover in Philly and had figured I would get lunch while I waited and instead I was running trying to catch a flight that wasn't really going anywhere. I had not eaten anything all day, except for some of the trail mix that Nancy had made me.

We finally are allowed to board the next plane. From what I gather, it went smoother this time and the very large Indian family was able to find their seats with no problems this time. I guess it was good we had a dry run. We took off from Philly at the very same time we were supposed to be landing in Orlando. I was not going to see the space shuttle. Oh well. I've seen a night launch before. I would survive. Around 7:47 the pilot comes over and says, "Folks,it may be a good thing that our flight was delayed. In about 8 minutes the space shuttle will launch and if you look at about 10 o'clock, you might be able to see it." 7:55 rolls around and we hear, "The space shuttle has launched. Look out your windows and you should be able to see it. There it is. Well, there it goes behind haze. You can't see it anymore.". At this point I was thinking about how in a movie when they show everyone come to one side of a ship, it flips over. Everyone was leaning over, coming across the aisle to look through minuscule fuzzy windows looking for the space shuttle. I was expecting the airplane to flip over. And I was thinking to myself about the pilot, "You shitbag, if we had left when we were supposed to we would have been able to get to the coast in time to see it in real life...don't tell me it was a good thing we were late". I was getting testy at this point.

Thankfully, for as full as our plane was and for as many children who were on board it was a smooth flight. I think the airline gave out free drinks because I saw everyone getting booze and no cash being passed around. I had planned on getting a rum and coke but by the time they got to me I just got a water because I knew if I had a drink I would probably get sick. I'm also thankful that I had downloaded season one of Pushing Daisies for my Ipod. That kept me entertained for a long time. I think I'm most grateful to Nancy though for my little bag of trail mix. I also want to thank Andy and Diana and Sydney, Bailey and Bryson for coming out three hours later than planned and picking me up at the airport.

I had hoped to have a really cool shot of the space shuttle to post in my blog today, but alas, I do not. I do have a picture of what I think is the light off of the wing. I had handed my camera to the nice guy next to me to try and get a shot of the space shuttle, and I think he got the wing. I might post that when I get home.

So now, I'm sitting here glad to have finally made it and hoping that when I fly home on Saturday it will be a smoother run.

Two weeks ago.

Breathe. That is what I'm trying to do after a very busy three weeks here. One week was a trip to NY for the Sheep and Wool festival, the next week was Dad B's wedding, and then last weekend was GOTV weekend. I think today is Friday and I'm just starting to feel normal again. I will cover the wedding in this entry. It seems like it was such a long time ago, but it was only two weeks ago.

We drove over to Olean on Thursday. We were supposed to be there at 4 for the rehearsal. We left here at 10:30 and should have shown up around 2:30. Becuase of construction on the highway, there was an additional hour tacked on to our drive. We checked into our motel at 3:30. We had to change into our nicer clothes before heading to the church for the rehearsal. Thankfully the church was only 5 minutes from the motel. We unpacked the car and literally threw off our clothes and put on our dressy clothes. It looked like a bomb went off in the room with the clothes just thrown everywhere. We made it to the church in time and the rehearsal went smoothly. The boys were a little wild because they had been in the car so long, but considering that they were good.


Connor and Aidan trying to be good at rehearsal.

After the rehearsal we had a fabulous dinner where the kids finally met up with their cousins. They have been waiting since June/July to see them again. It's so cute when they get together too because they always act like no time has passed and they pick right up where they left off.

Friday was kind of a free day for us. We hooked up with Jennifer (Tim's cousin) and her girls and we all went to Pumpkinville. It was freezing that day but we had so much fun. The kids got to ride Andy the pony and we did a huge corn maze and then did a very cold hay ride. As cold as it was out, the kids played with the water pumps more than anything. It was neat because it reminded me of my Grandma. On her farm there was a water pump that we always used and the water was always so cold when it came up.


Connor, Autumn, Danielle and Aidan at Pumpkinville.


Connor cutting through the maze.


Connor playing with the water pumps.


Aidan too. Man, it was cold that day.


This picture was a 'had to take' picture. We have a picture of Connor when he was about 6 months old with his little baby head sticking through the same cat. I'm going to have to somehow scan that picture and get it on here too. He's a little bit bigger now.

After Pumpkinville we went back to the motel and crashed for a little bit before heading out to two separate parties. While we were napping we had the pleasant surprise of Melissa showing up with one of Tim's old high school buddies. We haven't seen him for about 8 years so it was nice to see Tim. Yes they are two Tims. They hung out for a little bit and we found out that he's going to have his first child in about four months so that was exciting news. After Tim left, we went to the parties and that about wraps up Friday.

Saturday was the big day. The wedding was at 4 so we had the morning to kind of laze around. Connor did some school work and Tim worked all morning on his best man speech. Then we all got dressed and to the church at 3. I was worried about the kids behaving themselves for so long. We had an hour to wait before the wedding and then the wedding lasted about an hour. Connor did a fabulous job. He was so well behaved. He sat through the whole wedding and didn't move a muscle or make a peep. Aidan, on the other hand, is another story. He was mad at me because he didn't have a tie. Connor had one but he didn't. We tried to find him one but couldn't. He was not a happy camper. He pouted through most of the pictures. He used a whole stack of donation envelopes and wrote I love yous all over them and then crossed them out as to say he doesn't love me. I think he eventually got over it though. The wedding was beautiful. Dad and Laurie looked so nice. I'm still amazed at how perfect Laurie's hair was. Gorgeous! There was a lot of picture taking afterwards and then we headed over to the reception.


Handsome boys before the wedding.


This would be after the wedding. Wrestling on the church floor. I guess the fact that they were well behaved had to fizzle out sometime.

This brings us to the reception. It was packed. The band was awesome. The drinks were fabulous. We all had quite a few. The food was yummy. The drinks were good. I think I mentioned that already. The kids were pretty good. Connor was hungry by the time we got there and he was grumpy because the food was taking too long, but once we ate he was fine. Aidan took a couple of swings around the dance floor. Connor was too "embarrassed" to do so, but was happy to sit at the table and play his Nintendo DS.


Connor and his Aunt Amy.


Connor and his Aunt Melissa.


Connor looks so grown up here. He and Danielle had fun hanging out together.


Aidan letting loose on the dance floor with Aunt Melissa.

It was a long night but we had so much fun. Tim did a great job on his best mans speech and then was able to relax afterwards. The kids both said around 10:30 that they were ready to go back to the motel, so we left and Tim caught a ride back with his sisters. I really thought he woudl stay a lot longer, but he was back within the half hour. It was funny because when he got back he knocked on the door and all I saw was his forehead. I guess he was ready to come home too. I have the best picture of Tim five minutes after he got back but he won't let me post pictures of him on the blog. Dork. I did get permission from everyone else to post their pictures.

Sunday morning was a brunch for the whole family. We were all really tired and honestly I was more intent on getting our room packed up and making sure we had everything before we left. I got some really cute pics of Grampa and Laurie with the kids but haven't asked them if I could post it or not...so I won't. We left Olean around 1 (in time to listen to the Bills game on the way home...they lost). We got home and then the next week was a blur getting ready for GOTV. I'll write about some of that next time I get a chance to use the computer. The whole time I've been sitting here writing both kids have been bugging me to use the comptuer so they can play Spore. I suppose I will finish up here and go start my 8 loads of laundry. Ack.

I hope everyone is doing well and I hope Dad that you are feeling better. Get well and get out of the hospital. Mom sounds like she's about to crack. =) Oh, and thanks Andy for taking care of mom. I'm pondering if I should make a trip down there to help.

Sad day.

This will be short.  It's a sad day when your 8 year old son has to buy a size 8 men's shoe.  Sad, sad, sad.  I'm going to go drown my sorrow in a beer.

I love fall!

Fall leaves are a great backdrop to pictures!


Rhinebeck, NY

What a great weekend was had by all. We really needed to get away from the craziness around here. We drove over to mom D's Friday night when Tim got home from work. Friday was an insane day for me because I had to get Patchy to the groom, and do all of the shopping for Connor and Aidan for the big wedding next weekend. I got them some really cute duds and they are going to look so cute...of course, when don't they? I do have to alter a couple of things and I'm trying to figure out when I'm going to squeeze that in this week.

The main purpose of our trip over to NY was to go to the Sheep and Wool Festival. About 4 years ago when we lived in Poughkeepsie, my parents came up for a week to visit and this was something that was going on when they were here, and I had suggested going because I didn't really know what it was. I was brand new to knitting and thought to myself, "Self, there might be yarn there". No one really wanted to go, so for four years I've pined to go. This year we went.

The day started out very cold. It was 40 something out and windy. When we got there, there weren't that many people there. It was nice to walk around. We watched the sheepdog trials for a little bit, but our little (or big) buns were frozen to the metal bleachers so we didn't stay there for very long. The kids found some carnival rides that they wanted to do. I was horrified to find out the tickets were 2.50 each for each ride. They didn't ride very much. Aidan and Tim went on a huge slide. You know, the one where you climb all the way to the top and sit on a burlap bag and fly down. Aidan's face was hilarious when he got to the bottom. His eyes were so wide and he looked like he was terrified, but when he stood up he exclaimed he wanted to go again. He didn't. Connor and Aidan then went on a big bouncy thing. I don't know why they love these things so much. They did this at Knoebels too. They take their shoes off and just jump and bounce in this huge thing that it blown up. They must have bounced for five minutes. I finally pulled them off of it when there were too many kids on it and I was waiting for one of them to crack their heads on another child.

I would say the highlight of the day for the kids and I was the Mad Science show. We saw both shows that were put on. We sat on the floor right in front and both of the kids got picked at different times to be assistant scientists. The guy that did the show was really good with kids and made it a lot of fun.

Aidan assisting with a dry ice experiment.


Connor had a shot at helping too. He did a great job!

So, you go to a sheep and wool festival in hopes to look at yarn. By the time we were done with the shows and lunch and the kid's rides, I was itching to look at some yarn. It was damn near impossible. There were so many people that had shown up for the afternoon that we got through one "barn" and I gave up. There were so many people looking at the stalls that we were getting pushed around. I don't like being in large crowds and the kids were getting tired so I didn't get any yarn. Boo. Oh well, I still have my blanket and Tim's scarf that I'm working on. I'll finish at least one of those projects before I start another one. I am thinking that I want to make another pair of socks next.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the festival got too crowded. We stopped and got a big bag of warm kettle corn. I have never seen popcorn that big and fluffy. I wonder what kind of kernels they used. The bag was so warm and the popcorn was so unbelievably delicious that I pondered paying ten dollars on Sunday to go back in and get another bag. We took our bag of popcorn and stopped back by the dog trials and sat for a few. It was really interesting to watch these workhorse dogs. They were so fast and they could understand what their trainer was telling them to do by different whistles. I felt bad for the sheep because they had all been shorn and were running around in the cold with no wool. After watching for a bit, we head back to mom's. Aidan had been begging for the hot tub all day so that is what he did. The rest of us fell in front of the fireplace and tried to warm up.


some cold sheep waiting to be moved by their dog

oh yeah, there were candy apples too

I have a picture of Tim right after we got married that looks almost exactly like this one of Connor. Creepy!

Nothing like a hot tub when it's 40 something out.

I think one of the other coolest things about the festival was recognizing other Obama supporteres. I had my "Obama Mama" pin on my hoodie. Thanks to Rita for my pin. I love it!! I wore it proudly. I caught people looking at it. One lady had a pin on that I noticed while we were looking at the freezing lemurs. She saw my pin and then whispered to her friend, "She has an Obama Mama pin on." The mad scientist guy kept calling me Obama mama when he was working with the kids to get their pearls out of their oysters. One lady walked by me and gave me a thumbs up and I saw she had an Obama pin on too. I actually saw a lot of Obama wear there. Hats, pins, shirts. It was so nice to feel the Obama love. It was so cute when we ran into Hannafords to get Kool Ade and stuff for poppers. There was a little old lady bagging my groceries and she asked what my pin meant. I said I'm a mama who supports Barack Obama. She said I was a good girl and said that NY was pretty much a democratic state and that he's got NY. I then told her that I was from PA, and she told me how great that was, and that we really needed to win PA. I told her that we were working very hard to do that. It was a funny exchange though.

This brings us to Sunday. Tim has been bemoaning the fact that we ran out of our picked apples in a week, and that the store bought apples here suck. I had mentioned that we should try and see if there were any apples left on the trees. I had serious doubts. I mean it is the end of October. I was wrong. About 7 minutes from mom's house we found an orchard that we didn't even know existed. Well, mom found it, but it was a very successful trip. The orchard had just opened up a section of trees and the trees were FULL! We got Fujis and Galas and Golden Delicious and some Empires. We have so many apples now, and they are so tasty. We were very excited to find this place. After picking apples we went back to the house to watch the Bills game, or so we thought. For whatever reason the game was blocked out on CBS. We ended up listening to the game off the computer while watching the plays on nfl.com. The Bills won and are now 5 and 1. Tim and I have been married for almost 10 years and never have the Bills done so well. I really hope they can get to playoffs. I think it's hoping too much that they'll win superbowl, but I guess stranger things have happened.

Gobs of Gala apples.

This is the road back to the orchard. Both Tim and I said we wanted to live there.

We got home around 7 last night and basically everything that was in our trunk is now on our kitchen floor. I have my work cut out for me today. I have to unpack, do laundry, do school with the kids (although I've got their schedules into block schedules now and I think that will be easier), I have to sweep and wash the floors, and start altering kid's clothes. I guess that means I should get my butt off this computer and get busy. We have three days home and then we go to Olean for four days for dad B's wedding. We are all excited for that.

I am hoping to get back to regular posting after the election. All of my free time has been going to that and I"m looking forward to getting back to enjoying fall. Fall is my fave!!

One of Ed's birdhouses. I'm sure the birds have headed south for now.

Patchy enjoys the fall weather too. He's going to spend a week with Grandma. We miss him already but know that he's having the time of his life chasing leaves and going on long walks with Grandma.

Testing.

I'm still here.  Buried in life.  I did want to test out my new camera.  

Let's proceed with test.

I should have a good post after next weekend.  We are going over to Mom D's house to go to the  Sheep and Wool festival.  Reports are that fall foliage should be around peak when we are there.  It is supposed to be cooler too.  I hope the kid's colds are done by then.

Flowers and Dogs

Yup, it's still really busy around here. I'm happy to report that it seems we are finally starting to gel in our school routine. I'm not spending 8 to 9 hours a day on it. That makes all of us a little bit happier.

I actually had a chance to wander outside for a while yesterday. Mostly forced by my kids. Their neighborhood friend came over and they played outside for two hours. I thought I should take advantage of that time and survey my sorely neglected gardens. They seem to be winding down. We have four heads of cabbage that are ready to pick and four more that are still getting big. I picked a butternut squash and I saw three more growing back there. The tomato plants are still covered with tomatoes. The green peppers have turned red on the plant. The flowers seem to be doing pretty well. The big bush that was towering over the other plants in the back of the patio garden has exploded with dainty little purple flowers. They resemble asters, but the plant is much bigger than the other asters we planted. My gerber daisies keep popping out beautiful blooms. I love the little curly pieces around the center of the bloom.

butternut squash


more tomatoes


gerber daisy


Purple explosion

Patchy and Mylie had a good little wrestle while we were out there. They are such good doggie buddies. They are always ready to start a freindly little wrestle. It's so funny too because they will go at it like crazy and then they will both, at the same time, call a time out to rest and pant...and then they go back at it again. I made the mistake of once letting them wrestle after I had just cut the grass and Patchy's soft white fur turned green. It was kind of funny.

Patchy does this all the time...he somehow jumps over Mylie.

Mylie showed him who the boss is though.

So, that brings us to this weekend. The wee ones are all a-twitter with what we are doing tomorrow. We are meeting grandma, Ed and Melissa at Knoebels. We've never been there. It's fairly close to where we live, but have never made the trek. They have been doing a countdown all week and beside themselves or tomorrow to come. Then everyone is coming back here to spend the night. Sunday, extended family leaves and Tim will be driving down to Richmond for an all day interview. We're not sure if we are going to take the job even if it's offered. No one is really excited about moving. I think we are going to gamble on the chance of him being picked up by the new company in December. I hope when we come to December we aren't regretting our decision. We've done some research on Richmond and it doesn't look like a place we want to move to. I guess we'll play the wait and see game. I'm getting pretty good at that game.

I hope everyone has a great weekend. I'm sure I'll be taking a bunch of pictures tomorrow at the park, so I might even get another post in over the weekend. I feel like I've been neglecting my little blog here, but I have to keep priorities straight, and school comes first.

I'm still here.

Uh oh.  I haven't been around here lately.  Honestly, I haven't had the time.  I'm going to have to figure out how to squeeze out an extra hour here and there to take pictures and post.  

The garden looks like it's starting to wind down a little bit.  We have a lot of tomatoes on the plants and I saw that one of our buttenut squash is almost ready to pick.  That's good because in one of the recipes I'm making this week, I'll need it.  

School started and we are still trying to settle into a good routine.  I am finding it easiest to work with Aidan first and spend a couple of hours with him and his lessons and then work with Connor.  I tried a couple of days to try and work with them both at the same time and it didn't work. Connor would be trying to work on his work and would get distracted listening to Aidan and I and then I would be working with Connor on something and Aidan would be badgering me to help him.  So I've split them up and it seems to be working better.  

Connor's work load has tripled since last year.  He's in a gifted program this year and is a year ahead in math.  He has gone from cutsie little elementary workbooks to full fledged textbooks.  He's gone from figuring out multi choice answers to having to write 25 answers down in a notebook for eath math lesson.  His reading work is insane.  He has 20 new advanced spelling words each week. He has a very intense writing program and the reading work is very advanced.  He's not having a problem with the reading and comprehension.  He's far ahead of his grade level.  What he has a problem with is writing.  He hates it.   Yesterday on his science test he asked if he could just tell me the answers instead of writing it out.  I think he gets frustrated because I've drilled it into him that I want neat handwriting and now he's editing his writing while he's doing it.  He'll write a letter, and get frustrated and erase it and say "that's not good enough" and then do it over again.  So, on the one hand, I'm happy that he recognizes that he can do better, but on the other hand I don't want him to obsess about it to the point where he doesn't want to do it at all (which is where I think we are right now).  I'm pondering letting him write a little less neatly on things that I'm grading and on things he has to send to his teacher he has to have it perfect.  I don't know about this though.  I want him to do his best all the time.  It's going to be interesting trying to figure this out and hopefully I won't mess Connor up in the meantime.  

The other interesting thing I'm finding is that Aidan has a completely different way of learning than Connor does.  Connor does not like the sit down/listen/write way of learning.  He is much more into the go and do and figure things out.  Kinesthetic.   I try to let him do a lot of his work on the white board and let him look things up on the internet to find answers.   Aidan, on the other hand is very happy and content to sit with a worksheet and learn this way.  When I had him get up and do different kind of movements last week to show him different body parts and how they moved, he freaked out.  He didn't want to do it.   It's so interesting to see the difference between the two boys.  Both of them are insanely smart and it's fun to see them grow.

I should be getting started with Aidan's school here now so I'm going to sign off.  I hope I have a little bit of time over the weekend to update our gardens.   I might have to change the name of my blog as the season changes.  Maybe it should just be "Busy Bee's Notes".  I hope everyone has a great day/week.