Tax Day

Happy Tax Day! Hope your taxes are all safely filed with the IRS. Are you one of the lucky ones awaiting a refund?

I rode my Trek bike to school today with the hope that I could take a long ride home. In spite of a few threatening sprinkles around lunch time, I was able to take a great 15 mile loop home from school. I left school, worked my way through some residential neighborhoods until I got to the Holy Sepulcher cemetery. I rode through the cemetery to Lake Ave, north on Lake Ave, until I picked up the River Trail. I cruised down the River Trail, took a connecting road to the Parkway bike trail, and then took the 390 bike trail home. It was a great ride, with little traffic. I look forward to doing this again in the last couple months of school.

Spring break is next week and as you might imagine, I can hardly wait. Up until a day ago, I really had no plans. Jim has pretty much dedicated his vacation time for the year, so he couldn't take time off. I didn't really want to fly anywhere and I need to be back in town by April 24. I also thought it would be fun to do some biking somewhere new, but I wanted to go on paved trails. When we were discussing this with Bob and Sally, they strongly suggested the bike trails around Washington, DC. There are enough trails around the DC area to keep me busy for a few days, plus I can see Liz! So tonight I made some hotel reservations and will be leaving on Saturday morning and coming home on either Wednesday or Thursday of next week. The weather in DC looks favorable and it should be pretty down there at this time of year. So watch for some blog posts from our nations' capital!

It is Scooterville time at school and it is one of my students' favorite activities. I transform the gym into a small town and the children travel around on Scooters. Scooterville includes a bank, carwash, YMCA, McDonalds, Wegmans, a school, a gas station, a playground, a library, an ice cream parlor and a tennis court. The children can earn a Scooterville Driver's License if they play safely and nicely and they are wildly excited when they get their little green license! It is such fun for me to watch the kids get completely immersed in the world of make believe. Here is a photo from Scooterville.

Happy Birthday to nephew Michal!

Time to go write a packing list!

Hope all is well.

Catch-up Time

I don't know if I am losing my blogging mojo or if I just don't think there is anything to write about, but this is about the longest I have gone without writing something! So I will catch-up.

First off, I neglected to publish a photo of my wonderful birthday cake that Mom made for me. It was a lemon ice-cream cake roll and it was yummy! Mom made the lemon ice-cream and it was quite lemony, just the way I like it. Thanks again Mom!

Last week was filled with the usual stuff, work and evenings out. We did go to GEVA to see the show Two Trains Running and we enjoyed it. We have one more GEVA show to see in May and that completes our season.

This was another good weekend for biking. The temps were not as hot as last weekend, which made it all the more pleasant. Jim joined me yesterday and today for two 25 mile rides. Yesterday we went west and today we went east. Today we rode the Canal trail out to Lock 32 and we took this photo of the small rapids that are normally in the canal when the canal is not filled and it shows why there is a need for a lock in this particular place.
Last weekend we rode our bikes on the new bike trail along the Lake Ontario Parkway. This trail connects the 390 bike trail to the River trail and it was a great ride. Here is a photo of Jim on the new trail.
When I think back to last weekend, Easter weekend, I realized that maybe I didn't write anything because we were so busy. Bob and Joanie were in town and Corey and his roommate, Mike came for Easter dinner so there was a lot going on. It was good to see everyone and share a delicious Easter dinner.

We feel like Santa has brought us Christmas in April because the UPS man has been delivering boxes of gifts all week. Because Jim is celebrating his 35th anniversary with Johnson and Johnson, he was allowed to select 3000 points-worth of gifts from this huge website that had thousands of different items. I will post a photo of all the gifts once the final gift arrives tomorrow. But here is picture of my new waffle iron in use on Saturday morning. The waffles were a great way to start our day.
It is report card time at school and I have spent a lot of time this weekend writing up comments for about 120 children. I may end up with carpal tunnel problems before I am through! On the bright side, it is time for Scooterville in my gym, starting on Tuesday, and it is one of children's most favorite activities.

Corey called sometime this past week to tell us that some video he shot was featured on Wheel of Fortune. Apparently the company he interned at last summer was hired by a local Bed and Breakfast to do some filming of the B&B. Corey saw the video on Wheel because a stay at that B&B was one of the prizes being given away! He was super excited to see his work on national TV.

I guess that is all for now.

Hope all is well.

Spring Time Photo Essay

Signs of Spring

Laundry drying outside.

Blue-ettes

Crocuses

Bike rides (30.4 miles today!)

Door opened to the Mexican Room.

Hope your weather is as good as we had today.

Hope all is well.

Saturday and Sunday

There seems to be a fair amount to report, so here goes.

Saturday was a fun day~I started the day by going to a Young Life Baskets and Brunch fundraiser with Sherri. There were over 1oo baskets in which you could put one or more of your raffle tickets. After a nice brunch the winning number for each basket was drawn and the winner given the basket of goodies. My streak continues, I did not win. However, Sherri's good luck streak continues as she won 2!! One of her baskets had a BBQ theme and was filled with lots of accessories and food items that you might use at a BBQ. The other basket was filled with picnic/party supplies so I told Sherri I expected to be invited over for a BBQ party! Last year when I went to this event, I was the highest bidder at the Silent Auction, on a pretty necklace. I bid on another necklace this year, but didn't love it enough to follow up my bid. I did win the floral centerpiece which was a treat. The overall theme for this year's Baskets and Brunch was "Shoes" so each of the centerpieces was an arrangement in a fancy dress shoe. It is cute. Overall, it was a fun morning and I was glad to spend some time with Sherri.


Late Saturday afternoon GrandDad and I left for Syracuse to watch West Virginia play Kentucky in the Elite Eight level of March Madness. It was another great game and it was fun to share it with GrandDad. Here are a couple of pictures from our time at the Carrier Dome.

We got home from the game at 11:30 PM, which was much more reasonable than the 2 AM arrival on Friday morning! Today I'm still feeling the effects of 2 late nights, even though I slept pretty good last night.

Today I started my broccoli seeds, hoping for sprouts. Here are some photos from the starting process:
The seeds will hopefully germinate (?) on the wet paper towels in this plastic dish.
Less than a tablespoon of seeds go in the dish.

The covered dish is in the window for some daylight. I hope this works. Broccoli sprouts have many health benefits and I love to have them on my salads and sandwiches.

Corey raced at Stanford University in California and had a good 5K race. Jim raced in Boston this weekend at the National Masters Indoor Track Meet and brought home 1 silver medal and 2 bronze medals! So it was a good running weekend for the Robinson family from coast to coast!

Congratulations to the RIT men's hockey team who had 2 upset win this weekend to earn a spot in the NCAA Frozen Four! Go Tigers!

Short week at school coming up because we have Good Friday off. Busy week ahead as we are out every night!

Hope all is well.

Friday Fatigue

Today was a challenge at work. Not because of the usual kid challenges, but because of the fact that I got less than 5 hours of sleep last night. Jim and I (along with Bob and Sally) attended the NCAA East Regional Sweet Sixteen play-off games in Syracuse. The first game was between West Virginia and Washington. West Virginia won fairly easily in a sloppy game. But that game took a backseat to the Cornell vs. Kentucky late game (10:05 tip-off). Cornell, a 12th seed, had a definite home court advantage over number one seed Kentucky. We watched the Carrier Dome steadily become a sea of red as more and more Cornell fans filled the stands. By 10 o'clock the crowd was on their feet and cheering wildly for the underdogs. And Cornell fought a good game but came up a bit short when the final buzzer sounded. It was awesome to be in that arena and feel the love that the Cornell faithful had for their team. And who doesn't love to cheer for the underdog. It was a great night at the NCAA games.

However, I didn't get home until after 2 AM, and was in bed by 2:30. I had the alarm set for 7:40, but the phone woke me up at 7:12, so it was a really short night.

Jim stayed the night in Syracuse, in Corey's apartment, last night after the games because he was catching a ride from there to Boston for the National Masters Indoor Track Meet this weekend. I heard from him late this afternoon, saying that he took 3rd place in the 3000, which is pretty good since he hasn't been able to train quite the way he would have wanted to in recent weeks. He still has to run the mile and the 800 later this weekend.

The Syracuse team lost last night in a messy game. I'm glad I was not watching it at home. So it has been a good run for the Orange, just ended a bit sooner than we would have liked.

Tomorrow morning I am going with Sherri to a Young Life fundraiser called Baskets and Brunch. There are about 100 baskets filled with a variety of stuff that get raffled off. Last year the only thing I won was a beautiful necklace that I won in a silent auction because I made sure I was the last one to bid on it! Hopefully this year I will win a basket! Sherri has had good luck with winning the baskets.

Tomorrow night I will go back to Syracuse to see the Elite Eight game between Kentucky and West Virginia. I will cheer for Kentucky because they are about the only team I still have in my 2 brackets! GrandDad is going with me because Jim is in Boston.

Our seats are as high up in the Carrier Dome as possible! We are in row T, and as the usher told Jim, T stands for "Top!" Actually the seats have some advantages. First there is a foot-wide shelf behind the seats to put coats, food and drinks on. No one is dumping beverages on you in their excitement and you can stand up anytime you want without bothering anyone behind you! Here are a couple of photos from last night:

You may be able to see how much red there was in the Carrier Dome last night.

I am falling asleep at the keyboard here so I am going to bed.

Hope all is well.

Go 'Cuse!

It has been a great weekend of basketball and in spite of sitting and watching a lot of basketball on TV I have managed to do other things this weekend.

But first off some congratulations to the Syracuse, Cornell and Purdue teams for their big wins today. I included Cornell and Purdue here because Bob and Sally were over tonight with an early birthday cake for me and we got to celebrate their teams winning too. Syracuse looked good today even with their big man out with an injury and their second big man sitting for a good chunk of the first half with 3 fouls. They play Butler on Thursday in Salt Lake City, but we will have to get updates on the game while we are at the Carrier Dome for the East Regional Play-off games, where Kentucky will play Cornell in one of those games. I will have to cheer for Kentucky (sorry Sally) because I have them going all the way in one of my brackets. Of course I had Kansas winning it all in my other bracket, and that can't happen now that Northern Iowa upset them yesterday. I do love college basketball and March Madness!

So would you rather read about knitting or basketball?! I have done a lot of knitting on my pink shawl while watching the Madness and must have 9 inches or so done on it.

Yesterday I went to my spinning guild meeting for a couple of hours and it was great to have some dedicated spinning time. Maybe I would spin more if my wheel was back in the living room where it lived for a long time.

I got home in time to get outside for a 15.5 mile bike ride. The sun was out but the wind was colder than I anticipated and I never really warmed up until I turned around and headed east, back home. I was very pleasantly surprised at how good I felt on the bike and the pace I was keeping. I did ride my cruiser bike (Roxie) to school 3 days last week and on

Saturday when I got on my new Trek, the riding seemed almost effortless! I do love both of my bikes and they each serve a great purpose.

Last night my bell choir played a concert at church along with the 3 other bell choirs at church and we did OK. Most of us in the choir would prefer not to do these concerts but the director says it is good for us!

So Sally made me a white cake with the frosting that goes on top of a German Chocolate cake (coconut and nuts) and it was yummy. Plus there is enough left over to enjoy it the rest of the week. Thanks Sally!

Back to school tomorrow. I am part of the planning committee for our Jump Rope for Heart event at school on Wednesday. It will be interesting to see how generous our community is with their charitable donations during this economic time.

Hope all is well.

Dinner on the Porch

Ahh, the sweetness of a beautiful spring day. Actually this is the second perfect spring day in a row and the forecasters are predicting more for tomorrow. When I got home from school today, I opened the door to the porch (the Mexican Room) and was blasted with a wave of hot air, so I left the door opened to let some of the free heat into the house! By dinner time it was still a lovely temp out there so we carried our dinner plates out there and ate off of tray tables! It was delightful!

Yesterday and today I rode my bike to and from school. It has been a bit cool in the morning, but by the return ride, I didn't need to wear my jacket. I may try to ride again tomorrow.

The progress on my newest shawl is coming nicely. Here is an in-progress photo:

March Madness has started and so far it has been great basketball. I can easily knit and watch the games, so that is a good thing. Syracuse plays tomorrow night, so we will be cheering for them even though we won't be at the game.

Our sympathies go out to the Grivetti family as they mourn the death of one of their dogs, Jazz. Jazz got in a tussle with a coyote and lost that battle.

Hope all is well.

Monday Musings

March Madness! I love March Madness, or as one of my colleagues calls it, Marge Madness, and now that the teams have been announced I have to give serious consideration to my picks in the bracket. I will be in 2 pools, one at school and another through a friend in DC. My track record in these pools is pitiful, but that doesn't deter me from throwing down $5 and entering a pool. I love to watch any of the games and love to circle the winners on my bracket. My heart would love to pick Syracuse to win the whole thing, but my brain questions that decision, especially since one of the SU players has been injured and will probably miss the first 2 games of the tournament.

We have tickets to see some regional NCAA games at Syracuse next week and it should be fun. Syracuse won't be playing there, but I believe we may get to see Kentucky play. It should be good basketball.

Enough about basketball, and on to my knitting. I took a few days off from knitting once my shawl was completed, but I was itching to start another shawl of a different pattern. I found a pattern that I liked in a book I borrowed from the Knitting Guild library so I bought some beautiful Kidsilk Haze yarn, a 70 % mohair and 30% silk blend. It is so incredibly soft and fluffy. Instead of being a triangular shawl, this will be a stole- styled shawl, like a really wide scarf. The color is a pale pink and I think it will be lovely. I'll take some photos in the near future, but I can tell you that I have knit about 3 inches and I already love it!

In other knitting news, nephew Zach asked me to knit him one of the Olympic hats so I will have to get just a bit more yarn for that. I have quite a bit left over from the first Olympic hat I made, but not quite enough of the blue.

We had a nice visit with Corey. He took Jim's car back to school so he could go out to some local dairy farms to film a documentary that he is working on for a school project.

We talked to Tucker over the weekend and he had a great trip on the Salt River. And with Alison's help, his aquaponics experiment survived his absence.

This week has all the usual evening activities, with the added bonus of dinner with Grandma at the Villages.

Tomorrow is a big day for our dear friend, Liz. Little Elizabeth turns 30 (that is the last time I will announce your age in the blog, Liz!)! We have had the honor and pleasure of being part of her life for these 30 years and have loved every minute (well, with the exception of a couple, but we won't get into that right now)! So Happy Birthday Liz! We love ya! Also, tomorrow is Andrew J's birthday, but I don't know how old he is! But I'm sure it is older than I think he should be. So Happy Birthday to Andrew too.

Since I have no photos of current happenings around here, I will leave you with a photo from Tucker's time in Mexico. He looks like he is ready for the north shore of Oahu!

Hope all is well.

Corey's Home!!!

It is Spring Break at Syracuse University and Corey has come home for a few days! He got a ride to Fairport and we picked him up there tonight. So far, he has kept his 3 course meal off the new living room furniture.

It was a usual week filled with work and evenings out. Monday night I went to the Rochester Knitting Guild meeting where I had the opportunity to debut my finished shawl. Now Jim told me that my shawl looked nice but it did not compare to a room full of knitters ooo-ing and ahhh-ing over my shawl! The local knitting community has validated my efforts. I am already looking for another shawl pattern to start knitting. Here are a couple of photos from the guild meeting, thanks to my photographer, Sally.

This last shawl photo is a close-up of the lace pattern.

Tonight we went to a fund-raiser spaghetti dinner for the young son of a runner friend of Jim's. The boy needs some pretty serious medical procedures, which will be done at an out-of-town hospital so this dinner was held to defray some of the costs. There seemed to be a good turn-out when we were there. We took Gram and GrandDad with us to add to the success of the dinner.

Tomorrow night we will be going to the RIT Hockey play-off game with Corey, Bob and Sally. We will do an early dinner beforehand.

Guess that is all for now.

Hope all is well.

Shawl Update

Are you sick of reading about my shawl? Well, if you are, skip past the photos and maybe you will get to something that interests you more. This weekend has been about finishing up my shawl. After trying a couple of finishes on the top edge of the shawl, and not liking either of them, I sought out the advice of an employee and lace knitter extrordinaire at one of our local yarn stores. She said that I could leave the upper edge just the way it was and it would allow the shawl to hang the way it was supposed to hang, so that is what I did. Here is a photo of my pre-blocked shawl on the living room rug.

The next step was to soak it in lukewarm water for 20 minutes.

Then I had to lay it out and shape it. I use gingham check fabric so I can measure things by counting the one inch squares.
My next blog entry will have a photo of the finished product.

Corey, in-spite of all this shawl talk, I have been working on your afghan!

Jim raced in an indoor track meet at RIT today and was pleased with his 800 meters race time. He has now registered to run in the National Masters Indoor Track Meet in Boston later in March.

Last night we went to a restaurant that was new to us, Brio Mediterranean Bistro on Monroe Ave. It is next door to the place where Jim buys his running shoes, MedVed, so we've been aware of it. Then I learned that a former colleague works there, so we decided to give it a try and had a very nice meal and would go back again. Give it a try if you haven't already.

Talked to both Tucker and Corey this weekend. Tucker called to say that he was off for a 5 day trip on the Salt River in Arizona. Corey ran in Boston on Saturday and had an OK race. Both boys are doing well and it was good to hear from them.

I recently joined Facebook and am learning my way around that social site. I did this with the approval of both boys!

Back to school tomorrow and I start my gymnastics unit with my students~always a favorite!

Hope all is well.

Bind-Off Boogie

Hip, Hip, Hooray! Tonight I finished doing the picot edge bind-off on my shawl, binding off all 485 stitches!!! And it looks great if I do say so myself. Where are the photos, you might ask. Well, I still need to do an applied I-cord on the neck edge to add stability to that edge, so the shawl is not finished yet, but it is getting darn close! I have to go on YouTube and find some video tutorials on how to do applied I-cord, which stands for idiot-cord, and then I can start that last part of the knitting.

So I have some photos to share from Jeannie. The first 2 are from Michal's annual Christmas tree bonfire. This major pyro event had to be postponed a few times because of all the rain and snow that Tennessee has received. The first photo is of the 600-plus trees that were collected, awaiting the light of the match. The second photo is of Michal, Elizabeth and an unknown friend (unknown to me, I am assuming that Michal and Elizabeth know that person!).

Jeannie sent us this next photo after Bob and Joanie visited Jeannie and Mark on their way home from Florida. In spite of the cooler weather that Bob and Joanie experienced in Florida, they both still look like they got a bit of a tan!

Speaking of Florida, Jim and I will be taking a 5-day, all expenses paid trip to Naples, Florida in May. How come? Because Jim is the recipient of a big award at work and the award is being presented at the Ritz-Carleton in Naples, where we will be guests for those 5 days! I am very proud of him, and am sooooo glad that he asked me to be his guest! Maybe I will wear my new shawl at the presentation dinner!

This has been a fairly typical week around here. The usual nights out, but nothing really noteworthy happening. Our snow should melt pretty good in the next few days because the forecast is for sunny skies and temps in the 40's. I took my car to the carwash on my way to work this morning, so it is ready to shine in the sun!

Corey is in Boston to run in the IC4A Championships at Boston University. Jim thinks that stands for the Inter-Collegiate Amateur Athletic Association of America. Good Luck, Corey!

Tucker called tonight to tell us that he is headed out on a 5 day trip down the Salt River in Arizona. Tucker now has a blog that chronicles his adventures with Aquaponics. Curious? Click Here for a link to that blog.

I'm headed over to YouTube now. Wish me luck.

Hope all is well.

Weekend Wrap-Up

I have been such a spectator this weekend and it has been great!

Of course, the Olympics have continued to be spectacular. There has always been a good story to go along with each event. And today the USA/Canada hockey game did not disappoint. Although I would have preferred that the Americans won, I am still very happy for our neighbors to the north. Now, I write this as the Closing Ceremonies are being broadcast. There has been a wonderful re-cap of all the events, which is fun to watch.

Last night Jim and I went to the RIT hockey game versus Canisius College with Gram and GrandDad.
The RIT team beat Canisius 8-0 on Friday night, but last night we saw a more competitive game with RIT coming out on top 5-4. From the hockey arena, we went back to Gram and GrandDad's to watch Syracuse play their arch rival, Villanova, in basketball. This game was a sell-out in the Carrier Dome with 34, 616 tickets being sold. Corey had one of those tickets. To show the importance of this game, Corey wore his orange pants! We got home to see the second half of the basketball game and Syracuse put on a real show and soundly beat Villanova! Corey said the celebration in Syracuse continued on through the night once the final buzzer sounded to end the actual game!

So today we wrap up the Olympics. But to keep me from getting in to a sports-withdrawl funk, Jim reminded me that March Madness is right around the corner!

We had Gram, GrandDad, and Grandma here for dinner tonight. I made Wegman's ribs and they were delicious. Corey called while we were finishing dessert and we passed the phone around so he could talk to everyone.

Here is a photo of how much snow we got. If you are having trouble reading the tape measure, the snow depth is a hair under 19 inches~a very respectable snow storm!
I see from my poll about cleaning behind your sofa, that there our cleaning priorities cover a fairly wide spectrum!

My seascape shawl is progressing nicely. I have 4 more rows of 485 stitches each and then will finish off the bottom edge with some nice picot edging. Then there is an i-cord that I need to knit onto the top edge to stabilize the edge that goes around my neck. I can hardly wait to finish knitting this and then block it to see the lace patterns pop right out.

Have a good week.

Hope all is well.

Snow Day!

Finally, the weather forecasters were right on! Yesterday at school when other teachers were getting their hopes up for a snow day, I was reluctant to jump on that band wagon. The weather people had been wrong so many times before about the severity of storms that I just did not want to get excited and then be disappointed. But this morning at 5:34, the phone rang and there was my call saying that schools were closed! Yippee!!

A snow day is such a joy because it is a blank page, a clean slate. I had a whole day to do whatever I wanted to do. Usually, if I have a day off, I've known about it for a while and have a bunch of things that I have to do, or have planned to do. But a snow day has nothing planned because the plan was to be at school!

So, what have I been doing? Well, I tried to go back to sleep but that is difficult after doing the Dance of Joy at 5:34 AM! I've stripped the bed, did the laundry, rode my bike, did some exercises, cleaned up (myself and the kitchen), knit, knit some more, wrote a letter, did some computer work, talked to my mother and mother-in-law, ate lunch, started cooking some ham and bean soup, and readied myself to go out and attack the snow in the driveway.

This is the view I got when I opened the garage door.

This beautiful drift arched its way over the walk to the side door.

But I was not intimidated by the snow, instead I was up for the challenge. So I started my first pass down the driveway with our trusty snowblower and realized that cleaning out the driveway was going to be a long-distance event, not a sprint (all you runners understand what I mean by that!).
Almost an hour later, I finished the job!
It was snowing while I was snowblowing, and stopped for a short bit when I came in , but I see that it is once again snowing, those big, heavy flakes.

We had some pretty good winds with this storm, but the temps have been hovering right around the freezing mark.

I very recently signed up on Facebook, mostly because I wanted to be able to see all the photos that family and friends are posting on that site. I have a lot to learn about Facebook, but I sure can see how it can waste a lot of time!

Speaking of time, it is time to go watch the USA hockey team play their semi-final game! USA! USA! USA! I have been loving the Olympics and I will really miss them when the flame goes out on Sunday.

Hope all is well.

Ottawa

Here is our report from our annual trip to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. We left Rochester on Thursday morning and had an uneventful, under 5 hour drive to the Canadian capital city. We quickly dropped our luggage at our hotel, the Chateau Laurier, grabbed our skates and headed for the frozen Rideau Canal. We skated down to Dow's Lake, enjoying the lack of skaters on the ice. We did the whole skating route, about 14 kilometers, taking in the Urban Art show and documenting our progress on the ice.

We returned to the Chateau and our lovely room.
We had a nice dinner at the Cornerstone Bar and Grill and were able to watch the Canadian Olympic Curling team do their thing. After dinner we walked to the park where the ice sculptures are on display and were once again so impressed by the ice creations created by talented artists.

We skated again on Friday morning, ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant before heading over to Hull, Quebec to visit the Snow Playground. This is a nice walk as we walk by the imposing National Art gallery building, and then over an old wooden pedestrian bridge over the Ottawa River. From the bridge there are great views up and down the river as well as a great view back to the Parliament building. Because we were at the Snow Playground on a Friday afternoon, the crowds were small which let us do the snow slides without waiting in line! I love the snow slides! You walk up the back of the slides, sit on your butt, and slide down an icy luge-style shoot! It is great fun! Here are a couple of photos that Jim took of me on one of the slides.

From the slides, we toured the impressive snow sculptures. Here are photos of 2 of my favorite sculptures.

Sally and Bob arrived on Friday night, along with friends of theirs, Dianne and Terry. We went to a seafood place for dinner and had a good meal and good conversation.
Today we all were skating shortly after 9AM, while it was snowing, which made the skating a bit more challenging. However, by the time we went down and around Dows Lake the snow removal equipment was out on the ice, making for a very pleasant skate back towards the hotel.

Jim and I left Ottawa shortly before noon, heading to Scranton, PA, where we are spending the night. Tomorrow we will make the 2 hour drive to New York City, where Corey is running in the Big East Indoor Track Championships. We will drive back home after Corey races. We are looking forward to seeing him run, as we don't get the chance much anymore.

Hope all is well.