It’s been cold. We got a nice reprieve this weekend, but except for that it’s been cold. We are not “animals in the house” people but it’s been cold enough that we’ve been letting Maggie spend the night in the back hall. That’s saying something right there.
AN EVENING WITH THE RICARDOS. We aren’t plugged in to current culture much. For example, we have an old fashioned TV antenna. The cable company won’t come out this far and we’ve never wanted to get satellite TV service. Suffice it to say we don’t have a large choice of TV stations to watch, though the conversion to digital a few years ago tripled our selection. This isn’t to say we don’t watch live TV--we’re loving the third season of Sherlock right now--but a lot of what our kids watch is on DVD.
Christmas before last (2012) Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob gave our kids the complete set of I Love Lucy on DVD (thank you again Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob). They’ve loved it! Nate in particular has watched those shows over and over (along with Gilligan’s Island and now the Dick Van Dyke Show). Lucy’s antics are playing on our TV most every weekend and in the van when we travel.
This past Christmas Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob were kind enough to share with our kids again. And when we saw the ad that the I Love Lucy stage production was coming to TPAC in January we knew that would be the perfect gift for our kids. We went Friday night, ate supper at the Old Spaghetti Factory on 2nd Avenue, and then took in the show. It was a wonderful evening!
The stage production did a really good job of catching the flavor of the show as if you were back in the 1950s at a taping as part of the live studio audience. There was a host who came out between acts to keep the audience entertained. There were live commercials sung and performed just like they were back in the day. And of course, there was the show itself complete with a blooper and retake just for the fun of it. The script was written to show the “filming” of two episodes: The Benefit and Lucy Has Her Eyes Examined. All in all it was almost two hours of fun with the Ricardos.
CROSSING OVER. It’s official, Nate is now a Boy Scout...and after seven years of Cub Scout meetings we get Monday evenings back. Nate has completed all the requirements and awarded his Arrow of Light last night, and tonight he goes to his first Boy Scout meeting as a Boy Scout. It’s hard to believe he is old enough to move on to bigger things.
BEN’S CHESS MOVE. The boys and I dug out the chess board when Vicki and Jenna were in New York and played several games. Both are decent players but lack the experience to beat me. The last several times I checkmated Ben he pulled a new move out of his hat and claimed victory. I keep telling him the World Chess Federation doesn’t recognize the “double flip jump back” as an official move but he doesn’t listen.
Joe
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Visiting the Big Apple
Jenna had been counting down the days. Vicki had been looking forward to getting out of town with Jenna. Both of them returned Sunday night from New York City! They were part of a group of about 50 students and parents who went on a Beta Club trip from school and from the sound of it they've had a blast.
The whole idea for this trip actually came up last year and the date has been changed a couple of times. We've been to meetings and participated in fund raisers and now they've gotten to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
The girls left home early Thursday morning in order to meet their group at the airport for an 8:00 am flight. They had great weather to fly in and arrived in the Big Apple around lunch time. From there they stopped by Yankee Stadium on their way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and shopping along Fifth Avenue. Their bus picked them back up around 6:00 to take them to their hotel. This was their early evening.
Friday focused on things to see in Upper Manhattan: the Lincoln Center, Central Park, Rockefeller Center, the Hudson River, the Intrepid, and the American Museum of Natural History. That evening they went to dinner in Times Square and then off to the Nederlander Theatre for a performance of Newsies.
The next day the group went to Lower Manhattan where they spent the morning at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. After lunch they had a guided tour of sights including the 9/11 Memorial, Greenich Village, and Grand Central Terminal. After dinner they went up to the observation deck of the Empire State Building to see the nighttime skyline before returning to their hotel.
Sunday was their last day, but they still squeezed in a trip to Times Square for shopping before their afternoon flight home. We got our exhausted women back around 9:00 that night with orders not to wake them up at all the next day. Good thing Monday was a holiday.
I asked Jenna to write something to summarize their trip and this is what she had to say:
The whole idea for this trip actually came up last year and the date has been changed a couple of times. We've been to meetings and participated in fund raisers and now they've gotten to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
The girls left home early Thursday morning in order to meet their group at the airport for an 8:00 am flight. They had great weather to fly in and arrived in the Big Apple around lunch time. From there they stopped by Yankee Stadium on their way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and shopping along Fifth Avenue. Their bus picked them back up around 6:00 to take them to their hotel. This was their early evening.
Friday focused on things to see in Upper Manhattan: the Lincoln Center, Central Park, Rockefeller Center, the Hudson River, the Intrepid, and the American Museum of Natural History. That evening they went to dinner in Times Square and then off to the Nederlander Theatre for a performance of Newsies.
The next day the group went to Lower Manhattan where they spent the morning at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. After lunch they had a guided tour of sights including the 9/11 Memorial, Greenich Village, and Grand Central Terminal. After dinner they went up to the observation deck of the Empire State Building to see the nighttime skyline before returning to their hotel.
Sunday was their last day, but they still squeezed in a trip to Times Square for shopping before their afternoon flight home. We got our exhausted women back around 9:00 that night with orders not to wake them up at all the next day. Good thing Monday was a holiday.
I asked Jenna to write something to summarize their trip and this is what she had to say:
“To sum it all up in a few words, would be impossible. After going to New York, I can officially say I am a country girl, but the experience was amazing. The most jaw-dropping moment to me was seeing Times Square at night. You really just can’t believe it until you see it. That’s not to say the city as a whole wasn’t jaw-dropping (which it was), but Times Square and the Broadway Play were definitely the highlights for me. This is a trip I will never forget, and I hope to get more opportunities like it in the future.”Joe
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Into the New Year
After some delay due to the extreme cold we are now back into the routine and the holidays seem a long, long time ago.
ARCTIC BLAST. The weather folks didn't miss the mark with the cold temperatures last week. An arctic low shifted south allowing it to blast it's frigid winds all across the US. We woke up to a low of 4° Monday morning and the temperature never got above 7°. Nate looked at the thermometer and asked what 4° felt like and I told him to go out and find out for himself. He wasn't out long. I noticed the next morning the temp had dropped to 0° overnight. Recently we have had highs in the 50s but temps are dropping again.
BACK TO SCHOOL. Well, we're back to school even though students got an unexpected two day extension to their break thanks to icy road conditions around Greenbrier and Ridgetop. The boys' schedules are the same but Jenna has a new set of classes for the spring semester: English II, Geometry, Diagnostic Medicine, and Spanish II.
BASKETBALL, PART 2. Ben's basketball season may be over, but Nate's is just getting cranked up. He played his first game Saturday. He confessed to me that he was a little nervous before the game but that certainly didn't last too long. He proved himself to be the king of rebounds. Of course, when you are a head taller than most everyone out on the court how can you not rebound. He also scored quite a few goals. He's been very excited about it since his game.
DIGGING A HOLE. We have a new basketball goal. Some time before Christmas Mr. Jimmie asked me if we wanted his goal and I said, "Sure, if no one in your family wants it." They didn't so the day before we left for Georgia Jeff Garst went over there with his tractor and pulled the goal up out of the ground and dropped it off at our house. We didn't have a hole ready to receive it so it is laying in the back yard.
They boys asked me how we were going to set the goal up I handed them a set of post hole diggers. When Jeff pulled it up all the concrete it was set in the ground with came with it so they have a large hole to dig. They were eager to get started when we got back from Georgia but the ground was frozen putting a stop to that idea (actually I said to the boys, "Knock yourself out."). The ground had thawed out by last weekend and I was impressed with how much work the boys did to get a hole ready for their goal. Hopefully we'll have it up before too long.
Joe
ARCTIC BLAST. The weather folks didn't miss the mark with the cold temperatures last week. An arctic low shifted south allowing it to blast it's frigid winds all across the US. We woke up to a low of 4° Monday morning and the temperature never got above 7°. Nate looked at the thermometer and asked what 4° felt like and I told him to go out and find out for himself. He wasn't out long. I noticed the next morning the temp had dropped to 0° overnight. Recently we have had highs in the 50s but temps are dropping again.
BACK TO SCHOOL. Well, we're back to school even though students got an unexpected two day extension to their break thanks to icy road conditions around Greenbrier and Ridgetop. The boys' schedules are the same but Jenna has a new set of classes for the spring semester: English II, Geometry, Diagnostic Medicine, and Spanish II.
BASKETBALL, PART 2. Ben's basketball season may be over, but Nate's is just getting cranked up. He played his first game Saturday. He confessed to me that he was a little nervous before the game but that certainly didn't last too long. He proved himself to be the king of rebounds. Of course, when you are a head taller than most everyone out on the court how can you not rebound. He also scored quite a few goals. He's been very excited about it since his game.
DIGGING A HOLE. We have a new basketball goal. Some time before Christmas Mr. Jimmie asked me if we wanted his goal and I said, "Sure, if no one in your family wants it." They didn't so the day before we left for Georgia Jeff Garst went over there with his tractor and pulled the goal up out of the ground and dropped it off at our house. We didn't have a hole ready to receive it so it is laying in the back yard.
They boys asked me how we were going to set the goal up I handed them a set of post hole diggers. When Jeff pulled it up all the concrete it was set in the ground with came with it so they have a large hole to dig. They were eager to get started when we got back from Georgia but the ground was frozen putting a stop to that idea (actually I said to the boys, "Knock yourself out."). The ground had thawed out by last weekend and I was impressed with how much work the boys did to get a hole ready for their goal. Hopefully we'll have it up before too long.
Joe
Sunday, January 5, 2014
The New Year's Icy Blast
We were driving home from Georgia on Thursday when we stopped at the rest area atop Monteagle. Opening the van door reminded us that winter is young and it means business. We’re supposed to be taking a dip into single digit temperatures over the next few days. Maybe we’ll get a little snow to change up the scenery a bit!
FUN WITH THE COUSINS. I left off telling about our Christmas last time, but for us the festivities continued with a trip down to Georgia for a visit with the Jones cousins. We left after eating lunch with Mom on Sunday and would have made pretty good time except for the traffic approaching Chattanooga.
Our trip was pretty typical. We spent our time playing games, watching movies, and eating. About the only deviation to this was out outing on Monday where we caught Frozen, one of Disney’s latest, at the movies and then went to Michael’s Pizzeria in Statham for supper.
VISITING AUNT SARA. While we were on our way home we dropped in to visit my cousin whom I call Aunt Sara (What do you call a cousin who is older than your mother?). She lives in an assisted living facility near her younger son, Bill, and seems to be doing quite well. We hadn’t seen her is several years and thoroughly enjoyed reminiscing, catching up, and cutting up.
CHRISTMAS IS OVER. Unless we get some snow we all have to get back into the routine of work and school this week. We’ve already taken down most of our Christmas decorations and packed them away. The house looks sad and I’m right there with it thinking about my vacation being over.
Vicki and I took the opportunity to go out on a date last night. We decided go head a different direction this time and drove up to Bowling Green where we caught a movie and ate supper. We ate at Mariah’s which is close to the town square and was very good.
The movie we saw was Saving Mr. Banks which we had been looking forward to seeing when we first saw the trailer. The movie, in case you don’t know, tells the story of Walt Disney acquiring the rights to Mary Poppins from the book’s grumpy, eccentric author, P. L. Travers. We both enjoyed the show and recommend you at least put it on your Netflix list.
And so, with that in mind, I am going to take a spoon full of sugar and enjoy my last evening of vacation before I have to face work tomorrow.
Joe
FUN WITH THE COUSINS. I left off telling about our Christmas last time, but for us the festivities continued with a trip down to Georgia for a visit with the Jones cousins. We left after eating lunch with Mom on Sunday and would have made pretty good time except for the traffic approaching Chattanooga.
Our trip was pretty typical. We spent our time playing games, watching movies, and eating. About the only deviation to this was out outing on Monday where we caught Frozen, one of Disney’s latest, at the movies and then went to Michael’s Pizzeria in Statham for supper.
VISITING AUNT SARA. While we were on our way home we dropped in to visit my cousin whom I call Aunt Sara (What do you call a cousin who is older than your mother?). She lives in an assisted living facility near her younger son, Bill, and seems to be doing quite well. We hadn’t seen her is several years and thoroughly enjoyed reminiscing, catching up, and cutting up.
CHRISTMAS IS OVER. Unless we get some snow we all have to get back into the routine of work and school this week. We’ve already taken down most of our Christmas decorations and packed them away. The house looks sad and I’m right there with it thinking about my vacation being over.
Vicki and I took the opportunity to go out on a date last night. We decided go head a different direction this time and drove up to Bowling Green where we caught a movie and ate supper. We ate at Mariah’s which is close to the town square and was very good.
The movie we saw was Saving Mr. Banks which we had been looking forward to seeing when we first saw the trailer. The movie, in case you don’t know, tells the story of Walt Disney acquiring the rights to Mary Poppins from the book’s grumpy, eccentric author, P. L. Travers. We both enjoyed the show and recommend you at least put it on your Netflix list.
And so, with that in mind, I am going to take a spoon full of sugar and enjoy my last evening of vacation before I have to face work tomorrow.
Joe
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