Month: July 2007

The bus came today to pick up Edda! Curb-to-curb service. School is a mysterious thing now – the bus comes and three hours later she gets dropped off in front of the house and is smiling and happy, but I have no idea what happened at school. It’s not as if she’ll tell us.

This huge bus is for 4 kids. There are 2 adults, a driver and an aide and there are six Graco car seats strapped into the front 3 rows of seats. So cute! Vince wanted to take the picture of the bus, so you see my backside as I try to see them strapping Edda into her carseat.

There is a bird’s nest right outside the front door. I bet when they built that nest they weren’t counting on 2 kids and a dog disturbing their tranquil neighborhood.

Well, I think our July 4th party was a success… Over 50 people showed up. We had food/grillings/desserts at our place, and JT had smoothies/fruit/drinks at his place down the street. Sadly I didn’t take a single picture throughout the whole event, so hopefully someone else (Frank?) can slide me some photos.

I must say that I had the easy job – desserts. Since desserts are really all prep work anyways. Frank had the hardest time since he was outside grilling, and it was a freakin’ hot day. And he was standing out in the sun. He was there for a good 4-5 hours, requesting drinks from the gentle ladies as he would say. Ha!.

Right at 2pm, it was dead. We were all in the kitchen prepping. about 2:02, 3 of my friends showed up and I had time to chat with them, give them a tour of the place. sit down. I got up to make some bruschetta. Then all of a sudden we got slammed with like 20 people all showing up at once. From that point on it was pretty much non stop all day. Frank was grilling as fast as he could to keep up with demand. A tart I made, was gone in like 10 minutes. The bruschetta was gone in 2. Sadly nobody seemed to like my apple pie or bread pudding. Probably because the bread pudding didn’t go all the way to the top? Or at least the chocolate crossaint side of it was much better? hrm…

It was fun. Some people brought their kids over. A friend brought her 2 dogs – some sort of retriever mix. They were a big hit at the party. She left them at my place to go watch Transformers. I took them on a walk. Fun. Dogs aren’t half bad. 🙂 Of course, we got the glowing review of Transformers, so Frank, JT and I, went to see it at night after everyone had left. Some impressive CG stuff.

And that was the night! surprisingly, we don’t have all that much food left over too. But we have a ton of beer…. Frank? 😛

Also. I got on the scale at the end of the day. Guess what? 170.5. Not too shabby for eating so much!

I’d like to thank Hattie from Stitch Therapy for being a great secret pal. I’ve participated in a bunch of these swaps before and she’s the first one who sent me an actual knitted item! I am so excited 🙂

A lovely scarf in the softest green yarn ever.

A coffee cup holder, which is a clever thing to use up a bit of leftover sock yarn. Now I just have to go to starbucks and try it out.

Also, look at some of the other goodies Hattie sent!

Am I doing any knitting you ask? Well as a matter of fact I am!

Look, it’s just about 6 inches too short. I got impatient with the ocean of plain knitting so I just had to stop it after a while. Maybe I should give it to a child. Also, the joining of the yarn didn’t turn out so well, one of them is located about 4 inches below my chin centered in the middle of my chest. It’s quite noticeable. I don’t even think I’m going to finish weaving in the ends for this one.

Annual 4th of July block party today. Jeremy’s contribution was a success.

I forgot to mention that Jeremy’s been trekking up to Johns Hopkins taking a week-long intensive course in epidemiology. He’s got some ideas about health care/medical records/public health and public policy which are pretty cool and exciting and which I won’t go into here because it’s just not my thing to tell. If you are curious, you’ll have to just talk to him about it.

Hmm, what else?

The school bus was suppose to come pick Edda up today at 8:50 am right outside our door. It didn’t come.

Here’s Edda learning to jump.

She looks really classically Rett in this picture, her thin, thin arms and the way she holds her hands.

Oh, an aside to Donald…
In order to curb your iPhone jealously, I think this is the coolest thing ever.
Love,
Sis

Tho I am seriously lusting after one and I feel jealous that Ronnie and Xin are getting one for free, I think I’ll keep my money. All is not lost tho, at least work is buying me a new Macbook Pro.

Edda was so excited to start school today that she was eating her hand. Oh wait, I forgot, she always eats her hand. So much for that idea.

It was just fine and dandy and, of course, disorganized, just like I expected her summer session to be. They are having a hard time convincing teachers to work during their summer vacations, so Edda’s going to have a mishmash of different teachers over the 5 weeks which is fine by me.

I went to Goodwill today to get rid of some stuff. I came back with a ten dollar bike for Vincent. He’s outgrown his little bike, and this one had a cute bell on it already – I couldn’t resist.

We went to the park to try out the training-wheel-less bicycle and to have Edda careen down some hills.

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Well it’s been a busy weekend. Giro di Peninsula on Saturday. Organized by none other than the great Yi-Ling. We did about 69 miles, but we cheated, and instead of doing the official 100k course, we did part of the 100 mile course that looped out to San Gregorio. Yi-Ling was complaining a bit about having to climb so much and wanted a shorter ride, but nobody was having none of that. She can handle the climbs no problem. Actually all she really needs to learn is to be comfortable sitting behind Charles and drafting him on the flats. At some point Yi-Ling was the one sticking her head in a good 15-20mph headwind for all of us. Not exactly saving yourself for the climbs.

On the whole tho. It was a pretty good ride. Definitely, I’m a bit tired today, so it was good. And omg, the chocolate chip cookies were excellent. Especially the ones that have been in the sun for a little bit – all the chocolate chips morsels were melted with the outer part still crunchy. MMMM…

That’s Ky in the photo. Notice the (lack of) cycling shoes? 😛

Also went to see Ronnie in his musical – Wonderful Town. It’s about these 2 girls who go to NY for their shot at Broadway. At one point, Ronnie had to get up on some crates and do a jiggle dance. Since, Ronnie doesn’t dance, like… EVER… Larry thought that scene alone was worth the $25 admission.

Today was cleaning day, prep for the 4th of july party at our place. Our house is CLEAN. By god… everything got scrubbed and vacuumed today. Not bad for a place with 4 guys living in it. I will make an apple pie, perhaps a tart, and most definitely I will try my hand at bread pudding. Woot!

We went to the mall in DC today to the Folklife festival. There were three regions showcased; Ireland, Mekong and Virginia. There were bagpipe players, bamboo fish traps and sheepdog demonstrations.

Vince started out as a grump-meister. Even as he had fun building a whiskey barrel.

Nothing a little Popsicle couldn’t fix.

Edda danced to the bluegrass music.