Author: Doris

It’s been CRAZY around here. On Sunday afternoon, we lost power to the house via the incredibly intense storm system that blew through the DC area. We saw the huge blue flashes of light (I thought the house was exploding) as a branch crossed two above ground uninsulated lines right in front of our house and shorted them out.

We spent the first night at home hoping for the power to be restored quickly, but now it’s day 3 of power outage and we are trying to figure out what to do with Little the tadpole who is now living in murky unfiltered water and the puddle of sticky melted Popsicle on the kitchen floor. We’ve managed to move base camp to Gaithersburg – here’s Jeremy email that he sent to family:

So we filled up our coolers with everything from our fridge and freezer, packed up all our electronics and chargers, and headed west! Just like the settlers, we put a sign on our wagon train reading “Gaithersburg or bust!” 10 minutes later (they fixed all the traffic lights on Rte 28) we were there. What a nice campsite while we wait for them to restore our power. I am working in the dining room, and Eliana is taking care of the kids in the family room. The AC is working its way down from 85. It’s 84 now, but we’ll get there.

However, our Gaithersburg locale lost power last night which made me feel extra stupid because we spent a bunch of time moving stuff from our house to Gaithersburg. I don’t get off work because of power outages, I could either take leave or go into Alexandria, so I’ve been going into work for the past two days and showering at work. We are hoping that power will be up tonight.

BREAKING NEWS!
It’s now 10:43 pm and we are back at the house! Home sweet home. Pictures tomorrow.

Vince has been attending musical theater camp for the past three weeks and today was the day of the performance. When I signed him up for this camp, I did not realize how much work is was really going to be for Vince. They performed Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (which I have never seen before). It was a pretty intense experience, they put on a 45 minute show, full of choreography and memorized lines and songs. And the kids were so little, little! (There were 2 other shows with the bigger kids…)

Vince was Jacob, Joseph’s dad, and here he is, about to give the coat to Joseph. (Yes Joseph is played by a girl who is taller and probably older than Vince.)

This is my friend Vickey. She is a patent examiner extraordinaire! She has a very lovely green couch.

This is her dog, Charlotte!

It has been 8 years since I started this blog! We had just landed in Taiwan and Vince was 4-month-old. So much has happened since then…

Edda woke up in time to spend a few minutes at the park before the day got really, really hot.

They need to make slides big enough for grown-ups; Jeremy got a little stuck on the way down.

Our local playscape is handicap accessible – although I’m not sure we’ve ever taken Edda’s wheelchair up this ramp.

Last Sunday, Mom & I drove to “Tin Shed Garden Cafe” to have our breakfast. The street, was a fairly bad place, is being transformed itself by these two owners of this cafe. There are a lot of new and modern shops, restaurants, etc. popped up along the street. Many years back, when these two owners showed up at Portland, broke, decided to open this cafe in this fairly bad neighborhood, no once could believe in their aspiration. See below

http://www.oregonlive.com/dining/index.ssf/2010/07/pbs_documentary_breakfast_spec.html

It really is a “rags to riches” and/or “good from bad” success story that moved everyone, including PBS & me.

When we arrived at the restaurant at 8:30 AM, a lot of cars already parked outside along the street. Inside the restaurant, nothing fancy, but many old mismatched tables, chairs here and there, inside and out. Coffee, tea is self-served. People were friendly and cordial. The prices were pretty reasonable. Customers, by looking and listening to them, seemed to be well-educated & belonged to middle upper class.

But, to my disappointment, the food is not not good as what has been advertised in PBS. But, it is good though. I guessed, that morning, the food had a serious disagreement with my taste buds. Or PBS emphasized its success too much on food instead of “people like to see ordinary people, like us, become successful, especially under very difficult circumstances.”

Or may be, the right chefs didn’t show up to work last Sunday morning.

 Now that Jeremy’s back in town, we are again eating beautiful fruit and vegetables.  It is no secret that when he’s out on business, we eat a lot of kid-friendly crap – pasta, chicken nuggets and scrambled eggs for dinner (I was pretty proud of myself that we ate at home every evening, no pizza delivery for us!) – we have been pretty low on fruits and vegetables.  But no more!  This morning Edda and I shared this wonderful pear/strawberry fruit salad.

Also, while Jeremy was out of town, Big the tadpole, morphed into a frog.  So today was Big’s big day – he got to go back into the wild! 

I hope he’s OK out there and did not already turn into someone’s dinner. 

Edda napped through the big release:

We haven’t done much video chatting in the past, but during Jeremy’s business trip last week, somehow we figured it out.  Pretty fun!