School's Out for Summer!

Yippee! I pulled away from school at 12:05 PM today, ready to start my summer break! 

I had a full afternoon of errands and plans as I pulled away from school, including a trip to the strawberry patch to pick some fresh berries. As I was driving west, I was watching this large black cloud grow more and more threatening. I was driving behind a car that was having trouble going the speed limit, and my frustration level was growing as I knew that big, black cloud was going to interfere with my picking. When I finally got to the strawberry farm, I opened the car door to be enveloped by the smell of fresh strawberries! I started picking and as I filled my first quart the thunder and lightning rolled in and some big raindrops started falling. One minute later all h&$# broke loose,  with the wind howling, torrential rains were falling and the thunder and lightning was immediate. All the pickers ran for cover under the open air pay station. Then the hail came! The white streaks in this photo are the hail falling.
Marble sized or bigger hail pounded the metal roof of the shelter, while the thunder and lightning continued to put on a show.

After about 10 minutes, the edge of the storm moved south and east and I was able to pay for my quart of berries and return to my car. The berry patch was closed for the day after that storm. Unfortunately, in  order to get home I had to drive south and east, right back into the heart of the storm. I cannot remember the last time I had to drive through such heavy rain. It was slow going. 

I came home, mildly surprised to see that our side yard was not flooded. What was flooding was the gutters along the edge of the garage and there were several inches of water waiting to flow into the garage when I opened the garage door. The gutters were overflowing with water and not because they needed to be cleaned out, but because they could not handle the volume of water that was falling from the sky. 

I carried my berries and school stuff into the house, called Jim, and looked out into the backyard and suddenly the yard had filled with water.
So much for the town fixing our drainage problem. The good news is that once the rain stopped, the flooding quickly drained away. 

So that is the way my summer vacation started!

Jim and I went downtown tonight to get some dinner at the Taste of Rochester event on Main Street. Just as we got near one of the stages as one of the bands was starting their set, I heard my phone ring. It was my brother Bob wishing me a Happy Summer! As a very newly retired teacher, he clearly remembers the joy that comes with summer vacation. Thanks for the call, Bob! Jim and I each found something we'd like for dinner and we sat on a curb and ate our dinner and people-watched. 

I may have mentioned that the PE staff had to relocate our office area to a new space at school. For the past 5 years the PE staff has shared a classroom with some other staff to use as an office area. This year that space was needed as a classroom so we all had to move. The PE staff was moved (thanks to the custodial staff) to the former conference room. It is a much smaller area, but is air-conditioned and is right near the main office, so lots of people stop by to say "hi!" Here is a photo of our old office space, followed by our new space.

Jim, Maryanne, and Zach are supposed to go to camp today. I hope they made it. We look forward to seeing them for a few days around the Fourth of July.

Tomorrow we have some options for entertainment. We will probably walk over to the Farmer's Market at the mall, looking for salad greens and strawberries. I also hope to get a bike ride in as Saturday is supposed to be the better of the 2 weekend days. 

Jeannie left a comment wondering if I was talking about our Tennessee kin when I made my Appalachia comment in reference to Corey's chipped tooth. No, the last time I saw you'all, you'all had all your teeth!!

I called Sally today and spoke to her as she followed Bob through the rain, up over a mountain pass in Colorado on their way to Telluride. I was happy to read in their blog that they made it and found indoor accommodations instead of camping, even if the camping was going to be free!

Hope all is well. 

Strawberries and More

Yesterday, after school, I went strawberry picking.

The picking was pretty easy and after 30 minutes, this is what I had to show for it:

These berries are soooo sweeet and juicy and because I picked them, there wasn't a bad one in the boxes. We've had fresh strawberries on our cereal and I've had strawberry shortcake for dinner both last night and tonight! Corey was breifly in town today to have his tooth fixed so I sent him back with a quart of strawberries. I hope he is loving them! Sorry Tucker, wish I could send some to you.

Corey needed to have his front tooth repaired. He chipped off a corner of his front tooth a few years ago in a sledding accident  (involving a video camera and a 17 year old boy brain!) and it was repaired at the time. The fix fell off last week so he took a "long lunch" from work to drive home and have the dentist make him look less like he's from Appalachia (not that there is anything wrong with that). After his appointment, he picked up some subs and met Jim for a quick lunch by the ponds. 

We talked to Tucker recently and he was very excited because the new Apple computer that he ordered had arrived! I'm sure he will be impressed with all that his new computer can do that his old one could not.

Grandma and Grandpa put a deposit down on their new apartment in The Villages on the Unity Hospital campus, so I guess it is all official that they will be moving in the next couple of months.

Tomorrow is my last day to teach for this school year. The kids come for half a day on Thursday, but I have no teaching responsibilities then. The teaching staff then has half a day on Friday and then "Schools Out for Summer!" The PE department is moving their office area out of a classroom and into a small conference room, so we will be doing that on Thursday and Friday mornings. Space is at a premium and where all of our stuff is going to go is still unknown. 

Biking Buddy Bob has made it to Colorado and is riding like a madman! If you are interested in his progress click here. He and Sally have done a great job keeping the blog up to date.

Hope all is well.

Home

After a great weekend we arrived home around 7 PM. The Canadian expressways heading away from Toronto were typically busy, but once we split off to go to the Queenston Bridge, the traffic disappeared. We got through customs in 4 minutes!

In yesterday's post I forgot to mention one fun thing we got involved in on Saturday. We decided to walk the 1.67 miles from the hotel to the yarn store since it was along interesting streets and we were looking for a place to have lunch. As we were walking we kept noticing these pairs of people hustling in different directions and they all had t-shirts on that said City Search. I remembered reading about this activity in one of the promotional booklets that we received. Groups of 2 were given a list of things they had to see, do or find all around the city and the first group to complete their challenge was the winner. Well, as we were walking up Queen Street, people from 2 different groups asked us if we would do 3 yoga poses with them! We looked at each other and said, "Why not?" So here is a photo of Jim in a partner pose. Please note that it was raining at the time and the yoga mats were soaked! Our efforts were greatly appreciated and after about 5-10 minutes we were back on our way.

Today dawned sunny and bright, as promised and after a quick change of plans, Jim left at 6:30 AM for his track meet at a college north of Toronto. I got ready for a morning of biking and pedaled away from the hotel at 7:20. It was a beautiful morning for a bike ride and I took advantage of the weather and the abundant bike trails. I ended up putting 34 miles on my bike and truly enjoyed the riding and the scenery. Here are 2 photos from my ride.

I returned to the hotel around 10:15 and got cleaned up, packed up and checked out by noon so Jim could pick me up shortly after. He then texted me to say that the meet was running behind schedule and he would be about 45 minutes later than planned. So I sat in the lobby and read my book and people-watched.

After the pick-up we returned to the track for Jim's last race. He had already won his age-group in the Steeple Chase and the 800 meter race. Next up was the 1500 meter race and he easily won that too! Check out these photos. There were more than 2 people in the race, Jim and the guy in second were just quite a ways in front of the rest of the pack!


Jim picked up his medals (3 golds, which now that I think about it, we did not declare at customs!!) and we were on our way home. 

We stopped for supper at Abe's on the Ridge, just west of Greece. When we were ordering our cheeseburgers, Jim noticed that Abe was giving away free ice cream cones to fathers, with any food purchase. So after a good meal, Jim got his free chocolate ice cream cone and I drove him home!

Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there!

Hope all is well. 

Toronto!

We've spent a soggy, but fun day here in Toronto! Such a great city to visit!

After a mucho hectic week, we started driving around the west end of the lake right after school yesterday. The trip was fairly easy and not because I was knitting and Jim was driving, but because the traffic was light, the weather was pleasant and customs was uneventful! Jim "Pricelined" a room for us, getting a bargain at Le Meridien King Edward, a hotel on King Street, just a block away from Yonge Street. We arrived here in plenty of time to go for a nice walk.

Today we awoke to rain, as forecasted, but that did not deter us from our plans. We read that the annual Toronto Dragonboat Races were taking place on the Toronto Islands today and tomorrow, so that was our morning destination after a nice breakfast at the famous St. Lawrence Market. The market was indoors and featured hundreds of different food vendors from meat to bread to desserts, with every nationality represented. Here are a couple of photos from the market.


I bought a butterscotch tea biscuit at the vendor pictured above and Jim bought and eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast at some Middle Eastern vendor next to this bakery. The above photo shows about 25% of their baked goods!

After our local breakfast, we walked to the boat pier where we bought our tickets for the ferry to the Toronto Islands. This next photo shows the ferry approaching the dock, and what may be difficult to see is the wind-blown, driving rain that is falling! Fortunately the ferry had some indoor seating, which was very popular!


Upon our arrival on the island, we walked around quite a bit. The Toronto Islands are a collection of 17 small islands that provide nice shelter for the Toronto shore line. The Dragonboat Races are held on a 500 meter stretch of fairly protected water between 2 of the islands.
Each Dragonboat has 20 paddlers, each using a canoe paddle, a coxswain-type person who screams at the paddlers, telling them to work harder!


There are about 6000 participants and a full day of races both today and tomorow. There were 6 boats in each race and races were going off about every 10 minutes. We saw "rookie" level races and it took those boats just over 2 minutes to complete the 500 meter course. It appeared that there were 12 of these Dragonboats and when teams were done competing, they would paddle to a docking area where they would jump out of the boat and another team would jump in. I talked to 2 women on our ferry ride back to the city who had just raced and they said that their team signed up for 8 lessons with a boating group that owned some of these Dragonboats. The races we saw were comprised of teams from businesses, kind of like the Corporate Challenge at home, where businesses send teams of runners to the event.

The Toronto Islands are a wonderful series of green parks, and a place we would go back to another time.

After the ferry we returned to our hotel to dry off before we headed for "the" yarn store here in Toronto. You may have read about this place in blog entries from July 2008. This is Jim's favorite yarn store because it is right next to an Adult store, called Miss Behavin'! This place features live models in the store windows! I was overwhelmed at the yarn store and came out with only one ball of bamboo sock yarn! We did discover another yarn store on Queen Street, but I did not purchase anything there, although they did have some lovely yarn.

We ate dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant so Jim could carbo-load for tomorrow's big event, the reason we came to Toronto, the Ontario Masters Track and Field Championships! We will have to leave the hotel by 6:30 AM tomorrow because the first of Jim's 3 races is at 8 AM. I hope that the weather cooperates so I can go for a bike ride between his first and second races.

I will put race results in a blog entry on Sunday night or Monday night, depending on when we get home.

Happy Father's Day to my Dad, to Porge, and to Jim! You all are wonderful fathers in so many ways!

Hope all is well.

Tuesday Update

I guess the biggest thing I want to share is that there was an article in the Democrat and Chronicle on Monday morning (front page!) about our Field Day!  A reporter and photographer showed up and took a bunch of photos and asked a lot of questions but we weren't really sure what was going to show up in the paper. Click HERE to go to the article on-line. Yours truly is quoted towards the end of the article.

Today was a glorious day! I took all my classes outside for batting practice! During my planning time today, I went to one of the kindergarten classes to demonstrate how to spin yarn. The kids loved it and were rather amazed that people actually made their own yarn. 

I was supposed to go to yoga class late this afternoon, but it was too nice outside so I went for a bike ride instead. That was a good decision because it was a good ride. 

Jim ran in the Tuesday night track meet (a weekly thing) at RIT in preparation for racing in Toronto this weekend. 

Tomorrow night I have my volunteer job at the hospital and then Thursday night I am going to a retirement dinner for one of the teaching assistants at our school. Busy, busy!

Here is one more lovely shot from the boy's trip in Utah. I think this is Canyonlands.

Hope all is well. 

Sunday NIght

What a beautiful day! Clear skies, gentle breezes, and temps in the upper 70's. I think there is more of this weather to come!

Happy Flag Day!

Jim and I went to church this morning, Jim was Lay Liturgist.  I do love one service at 10 AM, as opposed to two morning services, like we do most of the year. 

The afternoon was filled with typical Sunday errands, but I squeezed in a bike ride because it was too nice of a day to be in the house or in the car. And, since there is no rain in the near forecast, I washed the Beetle this afternoon.

Jim grilled chicken and we ate our first meal of the summer on the patio.
For dessert we had a Blueberry Focaccia, which I made, using a recipe in the newest Woman's Day magazine. It is very good.  

Corey called tonight to report that he had a good visit with Bob and Joanie, who stopped in Syracuse on their way back to Michigan from Jenny Lake. Corey enjoyed his first week at work, learning a lot, and even solving a couple of problems. 

I called Jim, Maryanne, and Zach tonight to check on dates for visits at Jenny Lake. They will be there when we go to camp in early July. It will be great to see them!

Jim and I had a glass of wine on the porch late this afternoon and both promptly fell asleep in our chairs! Love the porch!

Hope all is well.

Shoes

Shoes, specifically, my shoes are the topic for today's blog entry (that means we did nothing blog-worthy today!). 

This morning, before heading to Spinning Guild, I decided to clean out the floor of my side of the closet, where most of my shoes are stored. I discovered that I had a lot of black shoes, or at least what I think are a lot of black shoes. See for yourself and you decide.

Now, some are sandals and some are sneakers, some are dressy and some are casual and I have worn all of them in the past year. There was only one pair that when I pulled them out I thought, "Wow, I forgot I had these!" They had the most dust on them! But I can honestly say that these are all useful parts of my wardrobe so I did not put any of them in the "donate" pile. Now I do have more shoes than this. There are the cowboy boots that I bought in Texas 27 years ago that no longer fit, some bright crocs, and my Christmas high tops. I have 2 pair of low hiking boots, my work sneakers, an old pair of sneakers, slip-on sneakers, Crocs that I wear around the house, white sandals, pink sandals, brown, dressy sandals, and my new Keens. Is this too many shoes? And I am asking that of my women readers, not you men who own maybe 5 pairs of footwear. I don't feel like I buy a lot of shoes, and especially when I look at some of these shoes and realize that they are five or more years old! Speaking of old, I forgot to mention my biking shoes, which are 17 years old! So let me know what you think. When was the last time you took a shoe inventory? Before I stop writing about my shoes, please note that I put 2.5 pairs of shoes in the donation pile today ( the other .5 may be on Jim's side of the closet, but I could not tackle both sides of the closet in one day!).

I spun at Spinning Guild and wrote report card comments today. Jim cut the grass and did some work at his parent's house. 

We are having some trouble with our TV now that the switch to digital has been made. We bought the new TV back in December so we did not need a converter box, and we bought what research said would be a good antennae, but now we cannot get 2 of the network stations. Jim went through the process of re-setting the channels but we are still not where we should be. I imagine (hope) Jim will continue to research the problem.

For the knitting report, I have about 12 inches of Tucker's sweater knit. This sweater is knit from the bottom up, so soon I will be at the armpit level, where I need to start knitting the back and front separately. 

Hope all is well. 

Field Day Follies

I awoke this morning, Field Day morning, to heavy, overcast skies and the threat of more rain to come. Various weather forecasters were predicting that the rain was  moving through and it was going to be a lovely day. So I arrived at school at 6:10 AM and started to get ready for all the activities. Various other staff people joined me and we all were convinced that the intermittent mist was going to  end real soon, so we took all the rain-proof equipment out to the fields. By 7:45 AM the rain appeared to have stopped so we got very serious about setting up about 35 different activity stations. The volunteers and kids arrived and things were looking good.

We started the day with a Flag Day Ceremony, led by the Music department.

Some classes made Tie-dyed shirts for Field Day.

The kids raced,

played with friends,

made enormous bubbles,

took batting practice,

and did some break dancing.

I declared the day a rousing success after the last large group performance of the Chicken Dance!
The weather ended up being perfect. There were over 70 parent volunteers, which are the reason we can do this event. Not one child had to go to the Quiet Room, which was a huge surprise to all of the staff. The kids did a great job, and went home happy and exhausted!

When I got home at 4:15 PM, I had 27,000 plus steps and was one tired PE teacher. I rested for a little while and then realized that I would probably feel a whole lot better if I took a shower and got cleaned up. That did the trick. 

Jim took me to dinner at The Garland House and we celebrated with a couple of beers while waiting for a table and then enjoyed a delicious meal.

It has been a great day.

Tomorrow is Spinning Guild!

Hope all is well.

Utah Trip

Here is a photo story of Jim's and Corey's trip to see Tucker in Utah.

Their adventure started with a 2-day trip on the San Juan river. 

Allison, Corey, Tucker and Kellem

There was belated birthday celebration for Corey on the river, reminicent of many birthday celebrations for Corey and Sally on our Memorial Day canoe trips.

When Tucker had to go to work on Monday morning, Jim and Corey headed for Arches National Park and hiked to 62 of the more than 2,000 arches in the Park.

After Arches, it was on to Fisher Towers and more unique rock formations.

Outside of Canyonlands NP, they stopped at Newspaper Rock to get the latest headlines!

A Canyonlands hike to the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers.

On to Druid Arch in Canyonlands. 

Back to Bluff, UT for a hike on Comb Ridge, Tucker's "office!"

They thought of me and brought back many desert flower photos. I love yellow cactus.

You know you are in rural Utah when they herd the cattle right down the middle of the road!

A hike up Centennial Peak in the San Juan National Forest.

Corey, talking to the alpacas at the Dolores River Days Festival.

A good time was had by all. Watch for more beautiful photos in future entries.

Tucker called tonight to tell us about a huge sting operation that went down in a little town north of Bluff, busting all the people who steal "antiquities" from the archaeological sites in Utah. He said it may be an interesting time to be an archaeologist out there, where 22 people were arrested for "pot stealing." Apparently a similar bust happened in 1986 and it caused a great deal of unrest in that area. I encouraged him to keep a low profile.

 

Tomorrow is June 11th and it is my Mom's 80th birthday! Happy Birthday, Mom! You make 80 look great! 

Hope all is well.

Sunday Update

Here it is, the Sunday night of Field Day week and already my mind is whirling with things that need to be done before the actual event on Friday. And I made the mistake of looking at the long-range forecast and it calls for showers on Friday. One more thing to plan for.

Oh, well, this has been a good weekend with lots of little jobs getting done. Yesterday I washed windows and put in the screens in the kitchen. I love clean windows! I hemmed a pair of pants for Jim and altered his USA running singlet. More on that another time. I had prints made of all the family photos I took at the baseball game and will distribute them at school on Monday. I went to GEVA theater yesterday afternoon for a performance of PUSH physical theater. This is a small troupe of actors/mimes/gymnasts who tell stories with their physical movement. It was quite impressive and they all moved their bodies with such fluidity. I enjoyed the show! 

Today's big event was the Tour de Cure, a fundraising bike ride for the American Diabetes Association. Thanks to all who made donations towards my effort.

I did the 25 mile ride and averaged 14 mph, which pleased me. I have not been able to ride my new bike as much as I would have liked this spring, so I was happy with how I felt while riding and how I feel now, 9 hours later. Twice during the ride, deer came out from the edge of the road and ran across in front of me. The first time it happened the deer was close enough to me that I needed to put on the brakes! Hitting a deer while riding a bike would not be a good thing!

I stopped at Medved on my way home from the bike ride, hoping to find a pair of sandals for my river trip this summer. I tried on 4 different pairs, Teva's, Chaco's, and Keen's. The Keen's were the clear winner. When Keen's first came out a few years ago, I like the toe protection that their sandals provided, but they did not fit with my hammer toe. This new style has a hole right where my hammer toe bumps up, so they fit perfectly! I think they will be great river-wear.

Gram and GrandDad came home from Jenny Lake today and came here for supper tonight. They look great and it was fun to catch up with them. Tomorrow Bob and Joanie spend the night here with G & G before heading to camp. G & G will join them at camp on Thursday.

And tomorrow Corey and Jim come home after a fabulous trip to see Tucker. I can hardly wait to see all their photos! Corey will head right back to Syracuse after a quick Garbage Plate with a friend. Corey starts his internship on Tuesday. It will be good to have Jim back home. It gets lonely around here after a while!

Hope all is well.

Finally, Margaritas on the Porch

Because the decor on the renovated sun porch is loosely based on a Mexican theme, I have been waiting to have margaritas on the porch. Jeanne thought that was a great idea, so she bought us some margarita glasses for the porch, and came over with Maw and Porge, and Michal and Elizabeth, and a Bucket O' Margaritas! A good time was had by all.

Now I have included some photos here, but before you look at them, please be warned that Porge had a fall and landed on the side of his face and side of his leg and is quite black and blue. So here are the photos from their visit. More on his fall in a minute. 

Margaritas on the porch.

Ponty's in the dining room.

 About Porge's fall~ apparently he fell asleep while sitting up at his puzzle table on their porch. He fell off his chair and landed on the floor, hitting the side of his face and his leg, both of which are black and blue and sore. This all happened while Jeanne, Michal and Elizabeth were visiting Niagara Falls. We will keep a close eye on Porge for the next few days. Here is a close up of his injuries.

We talked to Jim tonight and they are looking forward to a fun weekend in Dolores, CO. I'll be glad to have Jim back home on Monday.

Last night I went to the Rochester Redwings baseball game with families from school. It was a perfect night for a ball game and it was a wonderful evening. Our students got to go out on the field and hold the large American Flag for the National Anthem. Everyone had a great time.

My brother Bob put in his last hours this morning as a teacher and is now officially retired, and I wish him nothing but the best in this next chapter of his life.

Hope all is well.