Time with Liz

Today's entry deals with several discussion points we had with Liz when she came for a visit last night. Being the gracious guest, she arrived with a 6 pack of beer. Now that I think about it Liz is not a guest in our house, more like one of the family, but she brought beer anyway. 

When she arrived we (Jim, Tucker and I) were video-chatting with Corey. Video-chatting is way-cool, almost like Corey was right here in the living room, except there are no nacho plates and empty Gatorade bottles on the living room table in the morning! But I digress, Liz sat in "the chair" and participated in the casual conversation we were having with Corey about his cross-country team and his classes. Liz, being a computer professional, with expertise in the Apple line, asked Corey if he had a Mac Book (an Apple laptop). Corey said he did and asked if Liz wanted to see it. This confused Liz (and the rest of us) as we thought he was using his Mac Book to talk to us. But Liz said, "Yes" she'd like to see his Mac Book, at which point Corey reached to the other side of his desk and held up his Math book for us to see! I guess there is something lost in the audio transmission of iChat. We had a good laugh, but Corey did not know what we were laughing about until we told him!

Our next interesting topic (at least to us, and we still hadn't had any beer) was about buttons and zippers on men's and women's clothing. This topic came up as we were talking about the very creative baby sweater I just knit. Our question is, "Does anyone know why buttons (and zipper openings) are on one side for women's clothing and the other for men's clothing?"  I thought it had something to do with the olden days when women had other women to help them get dressed. So leave  comment if you have a thought about the button/zipper conundrum.

The last thing I am going to report on from our time with Liz was the discussion as to whether or not a Tahoe's Plate could be dehydrated! I think if you got one with cheeseburgers, potatoes and baked beans, you could do it. I'm not to sure how well mac salad would dehydrate-that whole food poisoning thing with the mayo just gives me the creeps.  

There was a lot more inane conversation, but I won't continue to bore you with anymore of it.

I spent 5.5 hours at school today and got a lot of prep work done. I have some computer work I can do at home this weekend and then I will be ready for meetings on Tuesday and final classroom set up on Wednesday. My student teacher starts on Wednesday and I already have a list of things to do for him as well as a bunch of things he should read.

Tucker goes back to Utah (home?) tomorrow and it has been wonderful to have him here. It has been a long time since he was the only "kid" home. We will look forward to his time with us at Christmas. Hopefully his flights to Utah will be uneventful since the skies were not so friendly on his way here.

I have no photo from today so I will share a photo from our Iceland trip. These beautiful columbine were in the Botanical Garden in Akureyri, in northern Iceland. 

Wine Tasting

Today Tucker and I took a field trip to Canandaigua to see the New York State Wine and Culinary Center with Sally and Liz. We drove to Canandaigua in a slow drizzle and found a place for lunch before heading to the Wine Center. This is a fairly new attraction in the Finger Lakes region and when I opened a new checking account, I was given a certificate good for a wine tasting session for four people at the Center. The interior of the place is beautiful wood paneling with a variety of artwork on the walls. The first floor contains the wine tasting room, 2 state-of the-art cooking classrooms, a gift shop and a small museum of food products made and/or grown in New York. The second floor is home to a fairly upscale restaurant/bar. Their menu looked interesting and if it was a nice day/evening, there was a patio overlooking Canandaigua Lake where one could eat or have a drink.

In the wine tasting room we had a choice of several "flights" of wine we could sample. Sally and I choose to sample 3 different, Rieslings while Tucker and Liz chose a flight that included 5 wines from around New York State. The wine tasting room sommeliers seemed knowledgeable about NYS and the wide variety of wine produced in this fine state.  We tasted some wines we liked and some we would pass on.

It was a fun activity, but I wouldn't take visitors down to Canandaigua just to do that. However, there is much more to see and do in the Finger Lakes area so a stop at the Wine and Culinary Center could be included on a tour of the area. 

Tucker and I enjoyed spending time with Liz and Sally and had a few laughs over lunch and wine. 

Tomorrow I have to spend a chunk of time at school getting ready for the first day next week. 

Joanie and Bob, you will get a kick out of this - Tucker ordered a pizza from Ponty's tonight and Jim tried to warn Tucker about what would happen when he went to pick up the pizza and wings order that he phoned in. When I got home from my haircut, I got the rant about the Oster/Robinson computer glitch!!! Jim was in fine form and Tucker and I had a good laugh.

JL, SU, Home

After 50 perfect Jenny Lake hours we had to head west. Both mornings I walked a lap on the Tawiskarou roads with Mom and then took off and did 2 slow running laps. I haven't run since the end of June when my plantar fasciitis flared up while running in Boise. I finally began a serious regiment of stretching the arch of my foot and it has greatly improved. The 2 days I have run do not seem to have made my foot any worse, so I will ease back into my running routine. Tucker and I also hit some tennis balls each morning and we had a lot of laughs at how bad we were! Oh, well, it was fun to hit some tennis balls again.

Last night we went out to dinner at a Corinth pub to check out the place for Women's Weekend. I think it will be fine for our dinner out. We won't have to get dressed up or drive far.

 

Tucker and I left camp shortly after 2 PM and got to the south campus of SU about 5 PM. Corey called us shortly after we arrived to say that he needed to shower and get his picture taken and would meet us soon. Tucker and I took a walk around the outside of Manley Field House and saw 3 different teams practicing. 

Corey met up with us and after hugs all around we went to Armory Square in downtown Syracuse where there are a variety of restaurants. He got this recommendation from some of the upperclassmen on the team and I had read about this place in a Finger Lakes magazine. We chose the restaurant "Pastabililites" and had a good meal. We all agreed that it was someplace we would try again sometime. 

We took Corey back to his dorm and went in for a quick visit and to deliver his Grape Pie and 2 gallon drink jug.

Tucker and I got home shortly after 9 PM and made arrangements with Liz and Sally to go to the New York Wine and Culinary Center tomorrow. It should be fun.

1000 Words Times 2

'Nuff said!

Jenny Lake!

Hello from Jenny Lake! Tucker and I had an uneventful trip to camp this morning. The worst part of the drive was on 490 going through the city with rush hour traffic and lane reductions for construction. But, we made it in time for a delicious sloppy-joe-type lunch. It's good to see Mom and Dad again.

It is a "Jenny Lake" day here, sunny and pleasant with the occasional big puffy cloud passing by. I went in for a swim as did Dad and Tucker. Tucker fished off the dock with both his fly rod and spinning rod and caught at least one sunny. The lake is pretty warm for fishing.

We took a walk around the roads, looking at the 2 construction sites. In the near future there will be 2 new camps here.

As you can see from the top photo, Tucker has quickly adapted to life at Jenny Lake. He's been napping for a while now - I may have to throw him out of the porch swing and take my turn!

As we drove by Syracuse this morning, we said "hi" to Corey (from the car, on the Thruway, doing 70 mph!). Today was his first day of classes and we hope all went well.

That's all for now. I have to go relax on the porch, with a glass of ice tea and a good book. Life is good!

Schallers, Abbotts, and Bikes

Tucker had a few things he wanted to do while here in Rochester and one of them was to eat at Schallers, so we decided that we would do lunch there today. We invited Maw and Porge to join us so they could get some time with Tucker. It seemed like it was going to be a nice day so I suggested we ride our bikes the 6 miles to Schallers and the guys agreed. Tucker rode Corey's bike and wore Jim's sneakers. Then we realized that we only had 2 helmets here. Tucker wondered whether GrandDad still had a helmet so Jim went to their house and sure enough there was an old Bell helmet hanging in the garage! Everytime Tucker took off the helmet he had red and black marks on his forehead from the deteriorating foam inside the helmet! Thanks for the loaner, Dad!

We had a good ride to Schallers along the 390 bike path and met Maw and Porge there. The cheeseburgers lived up to Tucker's expectations. Maw wanted to treat us to Abbotts for dessert and that is something you don't turn down. So they gave us bike riders a head start and we rode the couple of miles to Abbotts at the beach. To any readers of this blog, who have ever had an Abbotts ice cream cone, your mouth is probably watering as you read this. Rest assured that the ice cream was as good as ever! A funny conversation occurred between Tucker and Grandma that had us all laughing. Tucker had been talking about his garden and how he was growing corn. Grandma then asked Tucker if he was still making beer, in reference to a conversation from last year. Tucker said "no", that the beer making had been with his Colorado Springs friends. That's when Grandma said, "You know what you can make with that corn, don't you? Whiskey!"

Since we were down by the lake and river, Jim suggested we ride our bikes home on the new Genesee River trail, which starts at the harbor area and goes south along the river for a few miles. The highlight of the trail is a long boardwalk that curves around over a marshy area along the river bank. It was beautiful. We weren't sure how we were going to get home, but we turned off the trail, rode through Holy Sepulchre Cemetery and then wound our way through some side streets to get to Maiden Lane and then home. We rode 17.5 miles and had a great time. 

Tucker got home in time to take a quick shower and head out with his friends. Who knows when we will see him again! I did remind him that we agreed to leave at 8 AM tomorrow for Jenny Lake. 

We are both looking forward to our time at camp. I haven't had much Jenny Lake time this summer.