On My Own

On Friday morning, at 6 AM, I dropped Corey and Jim  off at the airport for their trip to see Tucker. All their flights went as planned and I believe that they are now on a canoe/kayak trip down the Dolores River for a couple of days. I know that they will have a wonderful time together.

I can update you on the last 3 days around here via the numbers on my pedometer.  Jim wears his pedometer every day and keeps track of his steps because J&J rewards its employees when they accumulate a certain number of steps. I only wear my pedometer when I think I may have a big step day. Health professionals have determined that 10,000 steps in a day is a good target for most people, and for most people that translates into about 4 miles of walking. So we will start with Thursday when I did my mile walk before school started. My PE lessons included dancing and rope jumping, so I was at about 15,000 steps when I left school.  Corey, Jim and I then went to RIT for the Corporate Challenge, a 3.5 mile race/walk. I walked the course and then did fair amount of walking as I cheered the runners during the actual race. By the time I got home I was just shy of 30,000 steps! The weather during the race was dreadful, heavy rain with thunder and lightning! Jim is wearing the red shirt and white hat in this photo and did well considering the conditions. He is anxious to hear how the J&J team did in the standings.

Friday was a half day for the students and I had to run a special program for the incoming kindergartners during the morning. After lunch, I sat through 2.5 hours of meetings~not many steps there. But I had signed up to be part of the school's Relay for Life team and that meant lots of walking. I walked around the middle school track for over 2 hours, along with a couple hundred other walkers, and when I got home at 10:30 PM, I had just over 24,000 steps!

This morning I woke up early and decided to go back to the Relay for Life event (it is an overnight event, but I chose not to stay the night). My teammates were thrilled that I returned because they had taken turns walking all night and I took over being the team rep on the track as they laid around on the ground and in the chairs. So I walked for 2-plus more hours and had 15,000 steps by the time I left at 9 AM. And now after running some errands, cutting the grass in the front yard and an after dinner walk, I am sitting here with 27,000 steps!

My errands today included dropping my new bike off at the bike shop where I bought it, so it could have its 30 day tune-up. From there I continued south on 390 to a church in Rush, where the Shepherd Wool Market was being held. This is an event for local farmers who raise fiber animals (sheep, alpacas, goats, rabbits), to sell their fiber. There were freshly shorn fleeces to purchase as well as roving (fiber ready to be spun), handspun yarn and finished knitted products. I bought a small amount of roving from some sheep breeds that I have never spun. 

On my way back to get my bike, I stopped at Best Buy to look at small cameras. Jim took my blog camera (the one I carry with me all the time, in case I see something blog-worthy) to Utah and I was feeling a bit frustrated since I had already missed several events because I didn't have my small camera. I do have a full-sized digital camera, that takes wonderful photos, but it is not as easy to carry around. So I looked what was new since I was last camera shopping several years ago and saw a couple of interesting models. I came home and did some on-line research and then returned to the nearby Best Buy and purchased a new Canon. Here are a couple of photos of my new camera, with the clothes pin for size perspective,taken with my SLR camera.

After dinner I decided to walk to the carnival that is running in the far parking lot of the mall and take some photos with my new camera. I bought a ticket to ride the ferris wheel and here are a couple of pics from that ride.

It was a lovely night for the festival, which is a fundraiser for local youth programs, and I'm sure the place will be packed later in the night. I did not have to wait in line to buy my ticket or to get on the ferris wheel. It was a very pleasant ride, especially since there was no one sharing my seat that liked to rock the seat!! You know who you are!!

So I am feeling quite tired tonight and will turn in soon, and will try to stay awake long enough to finish my Nicholas Sparks' book.

I hope to get a bike ride in tomorrow, but the weather is questionable right now.

Hope all is well. 

Happy Birthday Corey!

Happy Birthday to Corey! My baby turns 20 today! We are so proud of all that you have done in your first 20 years and we are looking forward to your bright future!

Then:

Now:
Then:
Tucker holding his little brother!

Now:

Tucker holding onto his girlfriend, Allison.
Tucker was a groomsman in a friend's wedding over the weekend and he sent this photo. He looks pretty good in a tux and Allison is a very pretty girl!

Hope all is well.

Weekend Round Up

This has been a good long weekend and here are some photos to show what we've been up to.

Saturday started with a nice 23 mile bike ride. In the afternoon we went to Jennifer R.'s wedding. It was a lovely day for a wedding and the ceremony at a church in Holley was beautiful.

Groom Tom, Bride Jennifer and Maid of Honor Annie

The reception was held at Deerfield Country Club and we has a lot of laughs with our friends Jim and Sue, enjoyed a great buffet dinner and then danced until our feet hurt. 

On Sunday Jim and I drove to a farm south of Syracuse for their 6th Annual Shearing Festival. We enjoyed the sunshine, the animals and the demonstrations.

There was a woodcarver using a chainsaw,

A sheep shearer

A variety of sheep and lambs,

And Jim's favorite, the Alpacas. These guys have been freshly sheared.

There was a spinner who gave me some good tips about spinning the llama fiber that Tucker gave me for Christmas.

Speaking of llamas, Jim being brave!

Border collie-sheep herding demo

Guard donkey-really, these animals are used to keep predators away from sheep! Now you've learned something!

Chickens-their brown eggs were for sale.

Goats

Angora rabbit

Tractors-just like Iowa!

Alpaca shearing-Their legs were stretched out and tied down during the  process-a bit unsettling to watch, but the shearing process did not take long.

After 2 hours at the festival, we headed north to see Corey in his new dwelling. He and his buddy and teammate, Mike, have rented the 3rd floor of this house. They have use of the veranda on the second floor, which is where they were when we arrived. Notice Corey's garden on the roof of the first floor porch. He has broccoli, lettuce and something else growing.

The third floor is full of odd shaped rooms and angled ceilings-it is a great place. They have a lot of space and it is light and bright. Below is the living room. They just moved in the day before, so they were still figuring out where to put things.

Both boys have access to the kitchen from their respective bedrooms, but you have to be thin, like runners, to get from Mike's room into the kitchen. This is definitely not an apartment for most of the football team!
After a tour of the apartment we took Corey, Mike, and another running friend, Forrest, to play mini-golf and then out to dinner at Dinosaur BBQ. The Dinosaur was its usual madhouse, so we ordered take-out and ate outside at one of their picnic tables. It was a perfect evening for it.

In the photo below, Corey is admiring his perfect parallel parking job, that was doubly challenging because he had to park in a spot on the driver's side of the road, and his parents and buddies were in the car as he was trying to do it. He nailed it on his first try!
After dinner, we drove home. Corey and Mike had plans to play some volleyball with the team and then go downstairs to meet their neighbors-2 young women!!

Today was a stay close to home day. I got an early morning bike ride in and then Jim and I went to the garden store and bought some plants for around the yard. They are now all planted. Jim washed some of the Jalousie windows on the porch, one of those pain-in-the-neck kind of jobs. 

I have finished sewing Jim's sweater and now just need to knit around the neck hole. I fear the sweater is growing and Jim is not! Time will tell!

Gram and GrandDad got home from their Spain trip right on schedule on Saturday night and are resting up at Jenny Lake. I talked to them today and they report that they had a great trip!

Now, about Jim painting my toenails~ it seems to have aroused some ire from some of the male readers of this blog. My brother Bob buys his way out of having to do it and Biking Bob thinks it is a step back for all of mankind! Jim says he cracked under the pressure of all the sensitivity training that J&J is requiring of its employees! I think he was just being a nice guy and there is nothing wrong with that. And to tell the truth, he never actually touched my feet!

Just got an e-mail from Tucker with some photos from the wedding he was in this weekend, but those will have to wait until the next blog.  

Hope all is well.