Sunday, February 24, 2008

Winter Vacation Week


Feb. 18 - 22

The kids had the week off from school this week, but Tim didn't. So, we didn't do too much. Jamie and I went to see Spiderwick at the IMAX theater. It was pretty good. Jamie had read all 5 books, and had been looking forward to seeing the movie since we saw the first preview. Rachel had a marathon spend the night with her friend Esther (from Brazil/ friend from MIT). We went to a dinner on Saturday night and Rachel went home with Esther from there, but it was very late, so Esther's mom suggested that Rachel just go ahead and stay until Monday.

The weather has been crazy this week! On Monday, the high was 63 and it rained all day. After that, the temperature plummeted and the highs were in the 20s/low 30s. Then it snowed all day Friday - we ended up with somewhere around 6 inches of snow. We're not tired of it yet, but our landlord does all the shoveling.

Back to the week's activities. On Tuesday, my friend Susan and I took our 5 kids on an overnight trip. We started out at the Ecotarium in Worchester, MA.
It's kind of like a zoo, planetarium, and science discovery museum all rolled into one. It was really cold outside, so we didn't spend too much time visiting the animals. We did see eagles, owls, a polar bear, an otter, and a red fox on our quick trip around the grounds. Next, we went to a planetarium show that was cute. It was about 2 kids who build a rocket from a cardboard box and take a tour of the planets in our solar system.


David and Ethan enjoyed the preschool play area.

























The older kids really enjoyed the dinosaur exhibits that filled the bottom floor.
On the second floor, there were lots of space activities. Rachel and Madeline made pocket solar systems, and we all watched an Ecotarium teacher "make" a comet. Of course, she said that the real thing would be 300x bigger than what she did.





Rachel and Jamie with a friendly Australopithecus.
Then we packed up and drove on to Springfield, MA to spend the night in a hotel with a pool! Yea!!! We went to grab what we thought would be a quick bite for dinner and ended up spending 2 hours in our restaurant of choice. We didn't even have to wait to be seated. Anyway, both moms were a little frazzled after that. We swam for about 45 minutes, and then called it a night. I had never spent the night in a hotel with the kids and not Tim. It really wasn't too bad. I might actually be game for trying again during our April break.

On Wednesday, we got up, ate our lovely breakfast at the hotel, and headed out to the Springfield Museums. A really neat gathering of a science museum, ancient artifacts museum, fine arts museum, and history museum. In the center of them all is the National Dr. Suess monument. (A quadrangle with bronze statues of the Lorax, Cat in the Hat, Horton, Sam I Am, and several other Suess characters.) We had a good time exploring them all.


















During all this, I had a sore throat and was worrying about whether or not it was strep. Turns out it was. Arrrrrrgh!!! But it's not nearly the severity of the case I had on New Years.

Thursday, we just hung around the house. Friday, Jamie went to class with Tim and me. We were discussing Julius Caesar for Choice Points (the MIT literature class for fellows and partners). The professor had invited children to come during the school vacation weeks. Since Jamie had read and performed Julius Caesar in Mr. B's class, we wanted him to attend. He actually participated in a "reader's theater" of one of the scenes. It was fun to be in class with him. I missed the first half of class going to MIT medical for a strep test. They don't do the quick test there, so I had to wait 24 hours before learning that I was actually positive for strep.

Friday afternoon, we just stayed inside and watched the snow. Rachel went to a birthday party here in town (Susan's daughter). I drove her to the party, but got stuck trying to get up the last hill. The dad (Frank) walked down and got Rachel. I didn't have any trouble backing up and going back down the hill. It was very interesting being one of the few cars on the snowy roads. Most of the other traffic were trucks with snow plows on the front. The family has a car with snow tires, so they brought Rachel home after the party.
Tim and I watched the police try to find the owner of a car left parked on the street next to our house that night. We got so much snow on Friday, that a snow emergency was declared - which means that cars couldn't be parked on the street so the plows could do their thing. Anyway, the police tried to find the owner with no success. Then the tow truck came and had to pull the car out of the snow it was buried under. Then, they couldn't get the car unlocked. Finally, the car disappeared.

Saturday, the kids and I went to the mall to shop for Tim for his birthday and eat lunch at the food court (one of Jamie's favorite things to do). Saturday afternoon, Tim, Rachel, David, and I went sledding at the reservoir. (Jamie didn't want to go- tired of the snow already.) Saturday night we went to a friend's house for dinner and ate authentic Indian food. It was quite good. Our hostess (Anusha) requested I make a Coca Cola cake for dessert (she had it at another dinner we both attended). I was glad to comply. No one at the party had ever heard of it before. I left the rest of the cake with Anusha, who is expecting and due in May. She was excited.

On Sunday, we slept in (we were at Anusha and Mahesh's until 11). Then I made a big breakfast for brunch as an early birthday treat for Tim. Sunday afternoon, we decided to go ice skating at the Frog Pond at Boston Common. Everyone skated - including David. We got our skates on and started struggling to move on the ice when the announcement was made to clear the ice for the Zamboni. We got off and watched the Zamboni do it's thing (David enjoyed this)! Then he didn't want to get back out to skate. I told him that if he'd go one time around the rink with me that we'd get some hot chocolate. It was a real struggle, but we finally made it all the way around. I don't skate very well while trying to straddle a slipping, sliding, three-year old. We stopped and started a lot!! After we made it around, Tim came and sat with David and let me take a spin around the pond on my own. That made me feel much better. I'm not a good skater, but I can do ok on my own. Jamie went around with me and did well too. Then I got off to make good on the promise of hot chocolate. Tim and Rachel skated a little longer. The common was covered in snow, but there were lots of people out in it. The sun was setting when we left the frog pond, and was casting a golden light on the buildings around the common. It was so pretty!! A very nice end to an almost perfect outing.






Monday, February 11, 2008

BREAKING NEWS ON THE CHOOCHIE FRONT

My baby has passed another milestone! He has given up the passie. Sniff!! Sniff!!
He picked out a "passie prize" on Thursday - a new Buzz Lightyear with a laser. We brought it home and put it up on Mommy's dresser as incentive to sleep without the passie that night. He knew that if he gave up his passies, he'd get to have Buzz. He did it! It took a little longer than usual for him to go to sleep, but he made it. He was so excited on Friday morning! Then with our busy weekend, we were out late every night and he fell asleep quickly each time.
Mommy is a little sad. He is growing up so fast! He has grown up so much this year! But we've had a lot of good time together.

A VERY busy weekend!!

Feb. 8-10
It was a busy weekend after an extremely long week during which it either rained or snowed all day every day.

Friday night, we went to an authentic Chinese New Year party thrown by the Chinese and Singaporian Sloan Fellows. This is the year of the Rat - which makes it Jamie's year. We ate moderately authentic Chinese food for dinner and had Singaporian snack foods. Rachel even participated in a Chinese dumpling-making contest. It was a nice evening.

Saturday was absolutely full! Jamie and Rachel both had Saturday music school in the morning. Then we had another Sloan Fellows function in the afternoon. We went to Jillian's next to Fenway Park (the closest I've been to Red Sox territory) - and it was "Truck Day" too. For those of you who are like me and don't have a clue what "Truck Day" is . . . it's the day that the truck departs from Fenway Park to take the equipment to Florida for spring training to begin. You know that you're in baseball crazy country when they even name the day the truck leaves for spring training!!! Anyway, this place is a very nice bowling alley/pool room. The kids all had fun bowling and playing with the pool tables. We had to leave the party early to get Rachel to the high school for the Spelling Bee. Her team-The Super Spellers- did a terrific job. But I must say that it was a little underwhelming. The whole thing only lasted about 15-20 minutes. Even Rachel said, "That's it????" So we let her choose where to go for dinner to celebrate her hard work preparing for the bee, and she chose Chuck E Cheese.

Sunday, we got up and went to church at Belmont First Methodist because it was Scout Sunday. Jamie dressed in uniform, sat with the boys, and recited the Boy Scout oath during the service. For afternoon entertainment, Jamie, Rachel, and I went to see the Arlington Children's Theatre's production of Little Shop of Horrors. It was actually pretty good. Jamie really likes the music from that show, plus there was the added bonus of knowing a girl who was in the girl's chorus. She was Jamie's buddy at VBS this summer and is a real cutie. When we got home, Tim wanted to go scout out Nashoba ski area. It's only about 20 miles from our house, so we drove out there. It's really just a big hill, but I think it will be a good place for us to start since none of us have any ski experience. We'll probably go next week while the kids are out of school for February break. We stopped to eat at McDonald's on the way home and experienced our most interesting snowfall of the season thus far. It has been snowing on and off for the whole weekend, but the pavement was all clear because the temperatures haven't been too low. When we went in McDonald's, the parking lot was clear of snow. While we were eating we had a round of heavy thundersnow - thunder, lightning, and heavy snow. There was about an inch of snow deposited in about 15 minutes. The snow was strange - it was little balls that reminded us of Dippin' Dots. Plus the temperature dropped dramatically during the time we were inside. The moisture on the roads flash froze. We saw lots of cars that had run off the road and many others that were slipping and sliding all over. We were ok because the van has front wheel drive, buit this was definitely our most frightening winter driving experinece! Tim expertly brought us all safely home. Jamie and Rachel were both sure that they would be out for a snow day on Monday, but no luck. The Belmont road crew got busy sometime after 10:00pm, and the roads were just fine.





New York trip
Feb 2-3

We took another quick trip to New York. We drove to Stamford and took the train into town again. Our first stop was the National Museum of Natural History ( the setting for Night at the Museum which we just saw last month). It was fun to look for the things we had seen in the movie. David enjoyed the dinosaurs, Jamie enjoyed looking for Mistmantle creatures in the dioramas, and Rachel enjoyed the ocean habitats. The kids wanted to visit the Nintendo center and Toys R Us again, so we headed over to Time's Square. We ate dinner in a little family pizzaria. Next, we made a trip to the Americal Girl Place. Rachel was shopping for something, but couldn't make up her mind what she wanted. She actually didn't end up getting anything from there, so I have a feeling we'll have to go one more time before leaving Boston.
Our trip to the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, VT.
Jan. 20-21