Things got a little crazy last week and my blogging suffered so let’s try to recap:

1)  Found out on Monday afternoon that my services were needed tomorrow (Monday) for a 3-hour presentation in Elizabeth, NJ which is a good 3 hours away.   The presentation relates to the NJ state assessment which I know nothing about so I have some prep time in front of me.

2)  Found out Tuesday afternoon that my services were needed FRIDAY (as in 3 days ago and 3 days from the original call) for a 5-hour presentation in Barnegat, NJ, which is also 3 hours away.  Left at 4:45 AM Friday morning to make the drive to be there by 8:30.  Made it home by 5.

3)  Baby Sogn was born Wednesday night!!   Leaving behind his fetal name of Thor, Ethan James came into the world after an apparently “easy” delivery.  We just went to meet him this afternoon and he is too cute!   The parents Sogn are wonderful examples of calm, collected, and super happy parents!  You can learn more about him at www.sogncentral.com  

 4)  Seth’s dad arrived Thursday night (his flight was 3 hours delayed– what’s with all this 3-hour stuff?) and I felt bad that I couldn’t be around to entertain him either Friday or Monday.  We’ve done our best to be good company this weekend.  Unfortunately, he did not bring good luck to the Sherwood Warriors JV team which experienced its first loss on Saturday, 32-12.

5)  Several things of note did manage to happen this weekend, however.   First of all, we introduced Big D to the wonder that is Sushi King.  Unless he’s a masterful liar, his first experience with sushi was quite a positive one!   And today, he and Seth put together the crib and moved the dresser up to the nursery (which, amazingly enough, was successfully cleaned out yesterday) and Baboo’s room is starting to take shape!   Okay, really, those 2 pieces of furniture are the only baby-related attributes but eventually we’ll take the non-nursery stuff off the walls and paint, etc.

PS–  The wood color of the crib and dresser really is the same.  It’s hard to tell in these pics and I’m also not sure where the random sunspot-ish circles came from, but oh well!

 

So…….the ONLY drawback to 5 trips to Weggies over the weekend is that we now have a whole new suite of treats hanging out in the kitchen tempting me.  After my monthly trip to the doctor yesterday where I discovered I’d gained a few more pounds (I MUST stop going right after weekend food-heavy trips!!), I’m trying hard to eat plenty of fruits and veggies rather than melty mints, choc chip cookies, kuchen, and any of the gummy octopi, tarantulas, and centipedes. 

My second ultrasound appointment is next Tuesday so I’m looking forward to what I hope will be final confirmation about Baboo’s boyness.  He’s definitely kicking around much more now.   Still not as creepy as I thought it would be, I’m happy to report!

Here’s part 3.

As you can see, more progress has been made. They’re just about finished with setting the cabinets and they’re finished taking up the old floor. They installed the new microwave and the hardware on the cabinets. They also started patching up the ceiling. They also measured our cabinets for the countertop template. We’ve only got a couple weeks to go.

Friday afternoon, Sheils and I drove to Buffalo in time to pick up my dad from the airport.  We spent the evening together (Friday fish fry as mentioned previously) and then went to pick up Seth at the airport late that night.  Everyone pretty much crashed after that, but we were all raring to go Saturday morning for a GIANT breakfast!!  The following pic is really to show you the massive amounts of food on our table, but you can also notice and appreciate that Seth went authentically Greek with some beef souvlaki and feta scrambled eggs!

 After breakfast, we headed across the border to Niagara Falls, Canada.  Since the Buffalo/NF area is only a couple hours from Corning, we have made the trip several times but Seth had never been.  (Linds, the last time was with you in March 1999!!)  So here we are in front of the falls, represented by all that mist!

A shot of the falls:

 The game didn’t start until 6 pm so we had some kicking around time in the afternoon.   Of course, we arrived at the game super early and managed to take a quick pic to show that Olivia the pig made the trip, too– check out her special BU outfit!!

It was wonderful to get to see Baylor in action– and even better to see them actually win.  It’s been a long time since we’ve been 3-1.  We’ll see how long the winning record lasts….

As most of you know, even though I was born in Texas to Texans, the 12 years my family spent in Corning, NY were a huge part of our lives.  It may seem like I’m on the payroll of the Corning Chamber of Commerce with this entry, but I assure you it is all genuine!!  I encourage everyone to plan a trip to the Finger Lakes area of NY, especially in the fall:  it’s a wonderful place!  (http://experiencecorningny.com/)

I arrived in Corning around noon on Thursday and made a beeline for a local coffeeshop where I knew Sheils would still be yakking with her friends after having met them earlier that morning.  Much of the time we had after that was spent roaming around Market Street, which is the historic (and super cute) downtown.  A glimpse of the shop-lined street:

 All the merchants were setting up for the Jazz and Harvest Festival which would be starting Friday evening (hayrides!  wine-tasting!  live jazz!) and many places entered a contest for decorating with pumpkins and scarecrows.  I thought the Y’s entry was quite creative as they formed their scarecrows in honor of the classic song:

 In the middle of Market Street is Centerway Square, with a clock tower and pavilion.  Back in the late 80s, they redid the square and there was a brick-building campaign.  My parents were generous enough to donate bricks in each of our names.  Of late, however, I could never find my brick and I was convinced they’d dug it up.  Thankfully– I found it this weekend!

 And finally, we always have to cruise the neighborhoods and marvel at how wonderful the Victorian architecture is– and how relatively inexpensive the houses are compared to the boxes around here in Maryland.  Here is the house where I grew up:  

Sniff, sniff!   We miss you, Corning!

860 (approx):  Miles covered by car this weekend

3: Corning culinary faves I ate (Crystal City apple fritter and long john; Spencer’s 1/4 chicken dinner; Aniello’s pizza and calzone)

34: Points put up by Baylor in win over Buffalo (GO BEARS!)

5:  Trips made to Wegmans in a 72-hour time frame (3 in Corning, 1 in Buffalo, 1 in Hunt Valley, MD)

4:  Buffaloan food eaten (Friday Fish Fry at La Marina–where, actually, my dad was the only one to get the actual fish fry; Big ol’ breakfast at Kostas; Beef-on-Weck sandwiches; Anderson’s custard)

2.5:  People I knew at Baylor game– Angela (Todd) and Jeff Brace along with 16-month old Whitley, who drove over from their new home in Michigan

Photographic narration to follow.

OK, here’s part 2 showing the status so far.

As you can see, the cabinets have been installed and the old floor has been ripped up. The cabinets look really nice (even without the hardware). Additionally, the old light fixtures have been removed and the new track lighting is in. The new light over the sink is not yet in because we bought the wrong thing (we bought a 3″ can and the hole is a 4″ can). So, we have to get a new one before the electrician comes back.

We made our way to the baby store last night to pick up the furniture.  (Note to self:  evening shopping in Rockville is a great option…no traffic or crowds!)  When the employees wheeled the cart of boxes out to the curb, I bet they were laughing to see just one of us who can actually lift anything.  The dresser comes in one piece so it was in a huge and heavy box; the crib is in pieces but is still in a giant unwieldy box, and then we had a really long third box with the rails to make the crib (eventually) into a double bed.  So the two workers heave and ho and get everything in the back of the truck and I’m just wondering how Seth is ever going to get it out on the other end.   He tells me, however, that he can do anything through sheer willpower.   And something else about steel— whatever.

Long story short– the man was right.  He carried each of those huge boxes across the yard by himself and then got them all down the stairs into the basement room for storage.  It was insane.  Go Seth.

In other Seth news, he has his weekly JV game today because they can’t do anything this weekend due to Yom Kippur.  So they only had 2 days of practice since the last game and I don’t think things were looking rosy.  Plus, since the JV is playing before the Varsity (rather than the morning after per usual), they won’t be able to use their starting quarterback since he is the backup Varsity quarterback.  In the two previous games, he didn’t get called up to play Friday night so could play for the JV on Saturday morning, but he needs to be eligible to play Thursday for Varsity this week just in case.  So who knows what’s going to happen.  

I don’t really have any news.  Baboo is enjoying his acrobatics.  My back has started getting kind of hurt-y towards the end of the day.  I had to buy giant pants yesterday which depressed me.  So I ate a pinwheel to make myself feel better.  (hee hee)

OK, this has nothing to do with babies, but we wanted to post some in-progress shots of our kitchen remodel and this seemed like as good a place as any.

This first picture is the before picture. We’ve cleaned everything out, painted some of the walls, and gotten ready for the contractors to show up.

They showed up at 6:55 am on Monday to start demolition. After a couple hours, they were done. Here’s the kitchen with nothing in it. Notice the lovely original flooring under where the cabinets were

A few hours later, the cabinets arrived. They now fill up our previously empty living room. We’ll keep you posted on the progress.

So we weren’t able to pick up the nursery furniture as planned yesterday.   After a very productive morning at church, hosting coffee hour, going grocery shopping, and watching an episosde of DVD The Office, we went out to get in Seth’s truck to head to meet some friends for lunch and then go on to the store.  We got about 5 feet before having to stop and look around….sure enough, that funny sound was being caused by a flat tire.  We didn’t want to be late for our lunch rendezvous so we hopped in my car to head to Silver Spring.  I’m sure my car could hold the furniture, but we needed to get back for Seth to take care of the flat tire so he would have a vehicle for today.  (Because we all know we can’t switch cars since I’m not much for the standard transmission!)   The store will have to hold onto Baboo’s stuff for a little longer.

Thankfully, our Saturday did not have any such hiccups.  Seth’s team won their game 14-6, which might have been closer than expected (and chock full o’ turnovers) but who cares because it’s a W!  Late afternoon, Kathy and Joel came over and the 4 of us drove a little over an hour up to Elk Neck State Park (almost to DE state line) for some “quasi-camping.”  Q-C refers to dropping in at a campsite, partaking of the fun campfire vittles and atmosphere, and then returning home to one’s bed.  I highly recommend it!!  :-)   There was a group of 13 of us Glen Mar UMC Young Adult types gathered there, 8 of whom were champs who were actually roughing it for a 24-hour period.  Tom and Eric demonstrated their Boy Scout backgrounds with good lessons in campfire safety as well as how to make apple cobbler in a dutch oven over hot coals.  Very impressive all around.

And somehow it’s Monday morning again.  Hope everyone has a great week!