Calvin has taken up chess and can beat the pants off his mom already. He's still a sweetheart though:) We had fun making Valentine's for his class this week. Isabel is enjoying her new room, which served as the chess center last weekend, when Tom Brokelman came over to play with Dave. It is the warmest room in the house. And of course, Olivia was over too. She's become a regular fixture at our house. We are starting to wonder if we should adopt her!

Chicago and Chicagoans

Sunny, Sara Molly and Maia put me up in Chicago while I was interviewing in the midwest. I really enjoyed meeting Molly and Maia. They were both very good readers. Molly knew the meaning of words I couldn't even pronounce. I enjoyed partaking in their family rituals from lighting the candles and breaking the bread, to dancing to Cindy Lauper's Girls Just Want to Have Fun. I told them about the upcoming folded book project and they have sent me the first donation of what I hope will be many for the June installation. To see pictures of of other books and get some ideas look at the Flyfishing blog.


While in Chicago, I also went downtown to the Art Institute and had lunch with Sunny. He's still working for the ACLU and advised me to get a BUST Card for the next time the police harass me. I told him about the arrest that I photographed last September and how the Syracuse police detained me and tried to extract my photos of the scene without a warrant. It scared me quire badly and I didn't know what to do. Next time, I'll be better prepared. For one, I have Sunny's number programmed into my phone now. Here he is at at his office.

Yoga in the Dining Room and other Delights

I love it when the kids get into Yoga, even if it is in the middle of dinner. Here are the three trees that are growing in our house. Olivia, in the polka dots, is Isabel's best friend.

Visiting Buffalo and Celia, the Poet

Starting off the last round of interviews I met my friend Celia and had dinner with her and Joe, her musician partner in Buffalo. It was winter and cold outside the RAB, but we enjoyed the light, shadows, and warmth of long-time friendship.

Iowa City Revisited

So, Interview Season is done. I'm home recovering from my third head cold and second bout of bronchitis, on steroids and antibiotics for the second time in three months. Yes, it was a little stressful visiting all the germ pools in America, but fun too, mostly because I got to reconnect with friends and family in places I have not visited in a long time. My favorite visit was to Iowa City, where I was most excited to discover that the tree we planted for Isabel in my crazy artist days--placenta at the roots and all--is still there. We planted it next to the parking lot at the Blooming Prairie warehouse where we thought they could use a tree one day. It's not like a parking lot is a hospitable place so we didn't have so much hope. But, there it is, now much taller than Isabel will ever be. I also got to see Ingrid and Kaia (spelling) and meet Ingrid's husband Dave Widitz, a psychiatrist at the hospital there, who shared his secret for getting through residency--Diet coke--by the filecabinetfull, no less! I was so happy to see them all I was reminded of how much I wish that I could make everyone that I like live near by. I don't know what match day will bring, but I am glad to know that there are good people everywhere I applied.

Stilt walkers everyone should know about

Dave first learned about these French Stiltwalkers. I just had to share the links.
From Scientific American:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13640/13640-h/13640-h.htm#misc2

Someone who picked up on the knitting angle:
http://pencil-roving.blogspot.com/2006/08/what-i-learned-at-nyplorg-yesterday.html

Modern-day French stiltwalkers:
http://lous.tchancayres.free.fr/index-eng.html

The last of 2009.

Wow, the fall and early winter flew. Calvin and Isabel continue to astound me. They keep growing and learning new things. Dave and I also have been having more fun in the interstitial time. Sarah has been traveling for interviews and gone far more than she'd like, but has also enjoyed seeing old friends and new places as well. We spent Christmas in California with Sarah's Aunt Debbie and their twin boys. While there we went to Monterrey and spent a few days on the beach and seeing the Aquarium. Then we went to Yosemite for a few days afterwards. It was in a word, amazing. We hope you all had a good holiday season and a great 2010. Here are some pictures of the highlights.

Margaret and Me

That should be the title of a book. Margaret Rowley is a great soul that I am so glad to have gotten to know. The Indian gentleman who took our pictures saw the two of us and said to Margaret, "you look like a true Vermonter." Nothing could be truer. And what a picture the two of us make. I was just ending my interview day at UVM and she was meeting me for a cup of coffee. I am amazed at the family resemblance despite the difference in age and height. It's all in the cheeckbones.

Pictures from the last few months

Here area a few pictures from the road, old friends from Albany. Although medical school has been busy, it's nice to reconnect when time allows. I surprised Elena by showing up in Albany at her birthday party of all things. Asante has had a baby since I saw her and she's already going on two. How the time flies. Calvin has really taken to soccer. You can see the grin on his face for yoursef.

I'm still constantly drawn to art and am dying to have time to make some of my own. The books are from a bookstore in concord. Since I saw them we have been working on a few folded books ourselves, pictures will follow. The Chains of colorful stickers are from an exhibit at Mass Moca and are made from all those pesky stickers on fruit. I droppped in on my dad for the first time in a couple of years and we walked in the bangor bog. I love the little poofs of grasses in the fall. I've forgotten the name of this particular one, cotton grass might be the common name.

The last gasp before the kids went back to school was a neighborhood expedition to the cabin. We The kids all climbed to the top on the first day. Christina, Max and Bela's mom was very good at keeping the kids going and knowing when to stop for a snack or a rest. Calvin lost his shoe to the mud monster and then got wackek in the face when yours truly (mom) stepped on a branch that rolled the wrong way. He was incredibly upset by this and wanted to get me back. immediately thereafter. He was looking for a stick and I was trying to help him find one. He insisted it had to be dry and at first I thought he was looking for a walking stick. When I asked what he wanted it for, he surprised me by saying he wanted to get me back. The important detail that was holding him up on implementing his "get back at mommy" was the paucity of dry sticks the right size. An eye for an eye, a good whack with a dry stick for a good whack with a dry stick. I managed to persuade him that a deliberate attack was not equivalent to an accidental swat. The negotiations, after walking for hours were, as you might imagine, were quite delicate. I'm still waiting for him to accidentally whack me with something so that I can let him now he's gotten me back.

We got three families besides our own to come up for the weekend and go for a walk and swim at Giant's bathtub. The kids slept in their own tent and Shander and Michael overheard what appears to be the first of their budding interest in kissing. They spend a considerable time talking about how much they would need to be paid to be kissed by "so and so" and how much they would pay for the opportunity to kiss some other "so and so."

oh boy... puberty is just around the corner!!

The trip to Giant's bathtub was a bit of an adventure too. Dave led the way and his memory served him right. It was a perfect length walk and we got to swim just before the sun went down. Greet got the award for getting wettest in his jeans. Valerie was the biggest chicken, but eventually got wet. Thankfully, we found a good last patch of sunshine to dry off on and have a snack. I'm incredibly grateful to have such great neighbors and friends to share these adventures.

Providence

The stay in Providence was interesting. I got to see old friends and make new ones. I thought all the students from other schools were excellent and also the residents at Brown. I also got to meet and talk to Jay Baruch, writer and EM physician. One night after I got the dreaded needle stick, I drove out to see my old drosophila lab partner, Joel, in Wood's Hole. We had dinner, walked on the beach, and talked about life, liberty and the pursuit of education under eccentric advisors--something we both know a little about:). The highlight of the trip besides getting a look at another program outside of Syracuse, was my artist room mate who make great paintings of horses and also this crazy Donkey Wand. I'm hoping to make one of my very own when inspiration strikes. Providence also has clouds and weird street art and the ocean is nearby, which I loved.

Ola and Ziad's and Terek's triplets

Ola, my beautiful--she has no clue!-- friend from Lebanon had her triplets. All healthy. We went to visit and Isabel and her friend Olivia were crazy about the babies. In fact we all were and had to take turns even though there were three to go around. Their names are Mustafa (the chosen one), Noor (light) and Ayman. I'm not sure how to spell any of these so will ask Ola to correct these. Ola's mom is visiting and she has a very nice helper from Thailand. Enjoy the picutres!

Belated birthday pictrues and that crazy water balloon silly string war the kids had

The kids are a year older now. And they are finally both riding bicycles and getting proper bruises. I'm living with my heart in my throat again, just like when they were learning to walk and climbing the stairs. They are getting better by the minute though and my anxiety will drop back to baseline any day now....

And enjoy the misc pictures from the summer, including Isabel climbing at camp and the crazy party our neighbor Shander put on. The kids spent a month making armor out of the large cardboard boxes we've accumulated in the basement.

We just got back from a mini-vacation to camp. We stopped over in the Adirondacks and visited our friends, Kerry, Claude, Hannah, Crishna, and Zack, who are heading to New Mexico. We had a delicious dinner of lasagna and garden salad, and met some new neighbors from down the street who are crazy travelers. I took pictures of Kerry's prayer flags, which I will miss dearly. I have grown so used to seeing them when we pass by. It was Zack's birthday, so we added our voices to his birthday song. Then we went up to Vermont and saw Rowley's and our friends Carrie, Mark and Lucca from Hudson. All the kids and adults played well together. It was a very nice getaway before going back to the grind of school and work for everyone.

Isabel's 10th Birthday Week: Syracuse and Hudson

Isabel kicked off her 10th birthday party at home with a sleepover with her two good friends Sophie and Olivia and then she headed off to Hudson to hang out with Luca and his dog Olive, his mom Carrie and Dad Marc. We picked her up at the end of the week to celebrate Hudson's 300th birthday with some Dutch music and a tour of the Clearwarter, a reconstruction of Henry Hudson's original boat. The picture of Isabel with the black scarf is from the restaurant where we had dinner and it reminds me of Vermeer for some reason. We got caught in the rain and had to move inside for dinner and Isabel stole my scarf to keep warm, then couldn't resist tying in around her head.
Calvin who insisted he didn't want to go to Hudson at all, had to be dragged away after watching Ghost Busters, swimming in the old tub and sleeping over. Never wants to go and then never wants to leave-- He's nothing if not predictable:)

Summer 2009

Now summer has finally come to us and we are melting. It's hot and humid. The tomatoes are coming in and a volunteer pumpkin from the Garden. Sarah got through OB/Gyn without too much grumbling. She cried at every birth whether it was in the OR with a C-section or the way nature intended. But she's pretty sure she couldn't do this for a living.

Uncle Patrick came to visit for a week and finally made it up to the cabin. It's hard to believe that in took 14 years to get him there, but hopefully he will come around more in the next while. Here is is with Sarah on top of Crane. They went to Vermont together to bury Grandma and Grandpa Rowley near Miton and saw the place where everyone used to get drunk on the weekends--Irish tea!! It's been nice reconnecting with the Rowley clan even if there's some lingering bitterness these many years later.

Margaret Rowley gave me lots of garlic which she had to pick in the mud because the rain would not let up. Patrick made himself welcome by actually cleaning up the dishes--made Anne say he was the nicest man she'd met in a long time. I couldn't agree more.

The kids have been having fun at camp--although they still want to stay home all the time, maybe just to go to POP's and buy candy. Sarah finally let them walk to the store together to buy some candy. But they had to promise not to eat it until after they have big bowl of Chili for dinner. Now, Calvin wants to eat an early dinner. Hmmm. Can't make a habit of this.

We visited our friends the Jennings --A Deep Springs Connection--up in Lowville and admired their life on a farm. They sent us home with enough Zucchini to fill the front seat of the car. I've now made two batches of zucchini bread and tried out three ways to cook zucchini--with nuts, pan fried, in soup. Andy wants to make cheese instead of fixing the windmills up there on the tug hill, one of the windiest places on earth. There's lots of farms, including some big kosher milk farms.

Heather and Sarah went for a Kayaking/Canoe trip on the Black and saw some stunning Cardinal flowers along the banks. We are hoping to get up there again for another boat trip before the weather turns. We need to get an earlier start to the day a hard thing with 8 kids.

We've also been hanging out with Hoover's, another Deep Springs connection, down Binghamton way. The kids get along marvelously, which is a huge incentive to get together. Here's Calvin and Orion on the front Porch in July. They are like puppies together.

Sarah is desperate for time to paint or take pictures. There simply hasn't been any time between clerkships and residency applications. She recently had one photo from her abandoned houses series accepted for publication in the 2009 edition of The Healing Muse. Hopefully there will be time to work on some new ones before the snow flies.

Calvin's Kicking and Yelling Still But Still a Sweetie Most of the Time

Calvin's learning to read this year and developing a love of sports as well.He's also learning to defect his icecream from parental encroachment. At Left picture of Calvin at the cabin reading from the Bug Bingo Card--no doubt some terrifically difficut thing like Ichneumon Wasp. Running in the underwear in the rain to cool off on a prematurely hot spring day. He's still a terror when he's tired, but thankfully he puts himself to bed. To our great amusement even when he's in the middle of a temper tantrum he will declare he's going to bed and march upstairs. His screams abate and he turn on the water and starts brushing his teeth, then puts himself into bed.  It's a small thing to be thankful, for and something I wish more grumpy people would do--go sleep it off!!  

Here' some pictures of him at his best. 

Team Hubble

Contra dancing has continued to be great fun. About a month ago Isabel stayed until the last dance and we went out with a group of people afterwards and we named ourselves Team Hubble, which felt very fitting after the inspiration talk I went to by Neil Degrasse Tyson, the amazing Arican American Astrophysicist. Isabel and Oliva have become experts at it and Calvin has a growing appreciation too, although he's a bit young to deal with the complexities. I took him last week to give him a taste and it was hard convincing him to go home at the break. Isabel and Olivia sometimes get a bit tired out by the end and find other diversions--in this instance a bit of mischievous tandem ride in a wheelchair, which at leat provided lessons in cooperation. We have met some interesting folks through the dances including a young woman named Jay who works for the red cross as an educator, and another artists/engineer, Mark who made this amazing installation at Syracuse University. Isabel enjoyed exploring it. Mark and I are talking about doing a project together sometime in the next year where we build on his forest of pinwheels. I was thinking it would be fun to make two sets, one made out of his old engineering overheads (shown) and one made out of the old discarded textbooks from the Medical School library. We shall see if I can get anyone at the medical school interested in letting us set an installation up somewhere in a place where kids could have fun exploring it.

Adventures of Isabel Spring 2009

How many positions can you take in the course of the afternoon? Even if you're captain of the debate team, probably not as many as Isabel who is incredibly strong and flexible. I can't stand to watch her bend her elbows because they're so loose she can nearly turn them inside out.

She's been taking everything from academic to acrobatic poses. I was proud of her researching calorimeters for her science project (above). Here she is in the midst of my projects and medical school textbooks.

She did a great job helping Dave out building the addition on the pirate fortress (over the fence and into the neighbors' yard -- not sure if we've annexed their yard or they've annexed ours, but we both have a double-sized back yard now, anyway, big enough for kids to run in circles in.)

Isabel has been having lots of fun in her more formal gymnastics classes after school, but also really likes hanging out in the backyard where Dave has set up some interesting improvisational swinging ropes and platforms to swing from. And here she is practicing hanging upside down like a bat--after taking lessons from the best of them. >

Art and Shadows in Hudson

Isabel and Luca visting in Hudson. Isabel confided in me that Luca has gotten much more interesting to her now that he's a little older. We had a great little get away to Hudson about half way through the Surgery clerkship, about the time I was starting to feel like I was not getting to see enough of my kids. It's amazing how fast I can feel out of touch with them. In February whe I took a couple of weeks off to help Dave through his knee surgery and I was doing more to get them around and put them to bed, I started to feel closer to them again and I love it so. I'm not sure I agree with Pauline Chen's assessment of balancing motherhood and medicine. THat is I'm not sure I will feel either more satisfied in my medical career because I am a mother, or more satisfied at home becuase I am a physician. And I guess until I'm a full fledged MD in another year I won't be qualified to know for sure.

What I do know is that when the time is sliced thin, I appreciate the moments of connection because they are exquisitely sweet. This day and night in Hudson with Isabel was one such juicy slice of time with my daugher. Isabel went with me and Carrie Waldman to an art opening in Hudson. Here's isbael getting her picture taken by the artist. The shadows on the was were in perfect focus so that every hair could be seen in detailed outline. I'm not sure how that is done, but would like to find out.

Science Fair Fun

Isabel and Olivia did a science project this year with alittle help from their parents. It was a roaring success--even calvin got in on lighting the peanuts on fire. 

Where did the winter go?

So Long Winter--The snow castle shrank into a snow pile which got made into a snowman which shrank into a snow blob and away he went underground. I feel like I nearly missed the onset of spring, I was so busy with the surgery rotation, up before dawn and home after dark. My consolation was the occasional glimpse of the moon as I drove to the hospital. When it was full and just setting one day it almost made up for how tired I was all day to see the giant orb hanging over the hospital. It was another magical moment that made the day worth living for.

I just got through a gruesome 8-week surgery rotation, which despite my best effort resulted in a mediocre exam score.  I'm not sure if it's because I was so tired, or if it was trying to organize the community art project that made it so hard to do both well. Sometimes somthing has to give and I guess I wouldn't give up the time I spent with the kids at Blodgett School for a better exam score. As Sarah Greenberg in the class ahead of me said--sometimes you have to take charge of your own education.

As tired as I was in surgery I was amazed at how much I liked parts of it. I'm not sure I'm cut out to be a surgeon, at least not in this lifetime, but all the tools and the creative inventions and strategies that people have come up with over the last hundred years are very impressive.  I also I really loved the variety of things surgeons get to do from seeing patients in clinics and offering advice, to cutting and sewing and patching broken bodies back into functioning units of humanity.   I was most wowed by watching a modified radical neck disection on a man with neck cancer.  I could not believe the incedible intricacies of the surgery and the depth of knowledge and expertise brought to the operating table.

I was, however, at times falling asleep on my feet--something I didn't think was really possible before I experienced it myself.  The other thing that I was really amazed by was pediatric surgery. Kids absolutely astonish me with their honesty and resilience. Two days out from a very major abdominal surgery one kid simply didn't want any more pain medication and he was up and at it, ready to get back to life. The same surgery on an adult would take weeks of recovery.  There is a lot of hope in it.

The week I spent in pediatric surgery was my favorite, although Ear Nose Throat was close behind.  Perhaps I can take it up in the next lifetime. For now, I'm terribly torn between a residency with a global/preventative medicine focus and radiology, which appeals to the academic in me.  Here are some picutures from the last few months.

Calvin and Isabel skiing at Salmon Hills about an hour north of here. I was so impressed by Calvin's perserverence despite his frustration skiing. He made me laugh till I cried racing Isabel tot he bottom of the hill on his hands and knees, skis still on, after he fell down. He has an incredibly competitive streak, fortunately tempered by good humor most of the time.

My friends Woinam and Yorum at Alison DesForges' memorial in  Buffalo.   This was an incredible shock. The most recent information from the investigation suggests that sleep deprivation among the crew members may have played a role--not news to me given how I feel when I'm getting under 6 hours most days.

Isabel at the All City Orchestra rehearsal. She has made great strides on the cello this year with her teacher David Ledoux. I can actually recognize tunes and she seems to be taking more initiative to practice. It helps when Dave plays dulcimer with her.  Do I see family duets in the future--only if Dave can find more time to practice too. We shall see. We are hoping that when I start residency he can cut down a day from work, which hopefully won't just fill up with annoying housework.

Igloo Party 2009

Igloo Party January 31, 2009 Dave outdid himself this year with his two story Igloo. There is a tunnel in and a tunnel out --in case of what I don't know -- as well as two slides, one black diamond that generated a lot of howling from the children, and one more tame that came down into the driveway. We did manage to get the kids to stop jumping down off the 90 degree vertical face when it got to be over eight feet tall last week.

I finally went inside, which impressed me. You certainly can't stand up in there unless you are under five feet tall. Just a few candles lit up the place because the snow is so reflective. Half a dozen people can squeeze in there and shiver together, although out of the wind it is a lot warmer than I expected.

I have dubbed Dave a snow beaver, a one-of-a-kind animal that can't stand to see snow lying flat on the ground. He has an irrepressible urge to pile it up. He laments that there are not more of his kind in the world: just think what a dozen snow beavers could accomplish, working together!

Other residents of Allen Street pass by regularly with quizzical looks and/or effusive compliments, but few of them seem to have started snow projects of their own. But our next-door neighbors have started working industriously on a large snow maze -- perhaps all hope is not yet lost.

At the party last night we had a good turnout of the neighborhood kids who were drawn in mostly by the Igloo, but found time to take in a few waffles and hot cider before they froze in the cold. I made some mulled wine, which was not to my taste, but which some friends who had spent time in Europe found authentic enough to have several cups. The kids stayed out playing in the snow for hours, and no one got hurt -- the safety precautions (mainly the hidden internal support structure) were apparently adequate.

Happy Inauguration Day

Hi all,

I hope you are all warm and well fed on this cold January day. While I am growing tired of the constant news coverage leading up to inauguration of our first African-American president, I am very glad to see that shrub-for-brains out of the white house. I hope Barack can make good on his promises and that the economy does turn around before too long.

We are snuggled up in Syracuse. Dave is building his most amazing snow fort ever --he'd declared it both his art form and his sporting event. I will send pictures along in another week after he collects with week's snow fall and piles it up on top of the second story. Isabel is now in 4th grade and a better speller than I ever was. She is also Contra dancing and playing cello. We finally found a new teacher for her. Her former teacher is now in London, studying at the Royal Academy of Music, and recommended a teacher from the Syracuse Symphony, who turns out to be a young and fun teacher, good at communicating with kids.

Calvin is learning to read and making new friends in Kindergarten, many right here in the neighborhood. Unfortunately Dave hurt his knee this year and can't ski. Fortunately kneeling in the snow has been good for it. He will have surgery sometime in the next month.

Sarah is a little more than half way through her third year of medical school. The fall was tough, but now in her family medicine rotation she has a more normal schedule until March when she will start her surgery rotation and find out what it is like to watch the moon set on her way to the hospital in the early morning.












We had a good Christmas visiting Sarah's brother in Bonita Springs, where the kids enjoyed co-captaining his boat on the Gulf of Mexico. As usual the best part of Florida were just spending time at the beach and relaxing. We did take one crazy air-boat ride in the Everglades, which nearly killed Sarah with fright, but which the kids, very predictably, enjoyed. It was much more of a motor-head thrill ride than we expected, and we recommend that the more environmentally minded of you find a nice guided canoe tour at one of the local state parks instead.

Weather permitting, we are planning to have an Igloo party on the 30th of January. If any of you happen to be in town are looking for something silly to do to help make it through the winter, please feel free to drop in!

September 2008 Calvin Starts Kindergarten (and Sundry Other Topics)

Calvin turned 5 a month ago now! However did he get so big and tall, and LOUD? We had a little gathering for him at the house with some of his friends. My mom was well enough to come and helped to cut and serve generous portions of cake to everyone.

In August we also saw Bill Staines perform live at the Inlet Town Hall, up in the western Adirondacks. Dave's been singing me Bill Staines songs for as long as I have known him, and I've finally seen him perform live.





That same weekend, Dave's mom got my mother out in a Hornbeck boat -- and she paddled around in the beaver pond out back of the cabin at Crane. She's still game for a few things despite the darned tumor.

The garden is still yielding lots of beans, tomatoes and squash, but we know when school starts that it's not too long before we say goodbye to the fresh basil and the last of the ripe tomatoes.

Calvin started off his first day of kindergarten looking rather forlorn. His teacher is Mrs. Janisch, and she reminds me of Glinda the Good Witch from the Wizard of Oz. By the time she asked us to leave Calvin was able to put a bright face on -- at least until I and all the other parents were asked to leave so that they could start their day.

By the middle of the second week he declared he wanted to go back to his pre-K friends, Tarek and Josh. In the fourth week he has one good friend, Eli, and is working on making another two that we can have over for play dates.

Isabel, on the other hand, settled right into life as a fourth grader. She is back at gymnastics and cello and has been selected to part of the school-wide chorus.

I'm back at it too now in the last week of my pediatrics clerkship. I feel far more comfortable than I did just a couple of months ago when I thought I'd faint from the stress of adjusting to life in the hospital. A few things surprise me about it. One is that most decisions are made by teams of people, not a single physician, at least in a teaching hospital like Upstate. The team discussions and problem solving are actually a lot of fun. When babies are sick, it's stressful no matter what, but I am reassured to know that many decisions are made after careful consideration.

Furthermore, most people turn out to be quite nice. Neurosurgery aside, it's been a fun 12 weeks, and even neurosurgery had its high points. The late nights with the residents taught me a lot about how much they care despite being burned out and overworked.

Dave helped me to celebrate my birthday by inviting people over for brunch two days in advance of the actual day and surprising the heck out of me. I was out jogging in my pajamas while they packed everyone into the attic. Then Calvin led me upstairs for a surprise and I sure was. I promptly escaped and did a little grooming before returning to the scene of the crime.

Dave and I climbed Baldhead Mountain, one of the few hundred mountains within view from the top of Crane, and therefore on his list of lumps to climb before he gets too much older. It was a gorgeous day with a good view from the top. I fell in love with lots of the rocks along the way, including this one that was shaped like an arrow. And we got to pick the first of the peaches and the last of the blueberries in Todd Kelsey's garden when we got back to the car. Todd is building a new studio, and the whole place gave us some fresh ideas about the kind of home base we'd like to aim for, sometime just past the foreseeable future.

We are still getting up to the Adirondacks some weekends for things like Aunt Gertrude's 98th birthday. Here's Isabel swinging on the front porch of their place on Edwards Hill. And Isabel, Dave and Megan up the apple tree. Everyone had a good time that day eating lots of very rich chocolate cake.

Summer In Syracuse

The summer came with a great thunderclap and much rain. It has been very cool, but the garden has grown and the children have had fun despite the cool weather. I made a baking soda volcano with Calvin between rainstorms, and Dave made Calvin a DADA guitar that reminds me more of Miro than of real musical instruments. It was a hit at the daycare.

My mother has moved to town and is living at the old house on Beech Street. I caught her off guard having a smoke in the basement while they finished painting the upstairs. The scene reminds me in a way of Van Gogh's potato eaters. Something about the grey walls of the basement and the smell of earth that reminds me of potatoes.
We made it to the music festival in Schroon Lake and enjoyed fiddle players, cloggers, and a crazy hail storm before heading for home.

Another week has passed and I've finished my first clerkship of third year. I enjoyed making pie and cooking dinner for folks after my exam. We had a little home-Suygrown blueberry pie party for Calvin today to begin the celebration of his birthday, which is actually next Sunday. Here he is blowing out the candles and opening his presents, legos and a tether ball, something he got excited about at Isabel's camp family fun night.

Snapping Turtle

We saw this giant snapping turtle in the road in front of the barn. Calvin was fascinated and also a little freaked out. Isabel practiced taking a flying leap. And on the trip to the top of Crane Mountain I practiced staying upright while my knees turned to jello every time they got a little too close to the edge of the cliffs for my comfort.

Calvin has taken to calling me a scaredy-cat and takes great delight in watching me trying to control myself when the kids do something brave and daring that pushes all my mommy buttons. They are growing up, yes, but they are a long way from having much sense yet, so I'm gonna trust what those knees tell me until they are out on their own in another ten years or so... And even long after that, I expect that I'll be taking messages from those jello cups also known as knees.

Lessons in Levitation

We climbed Crane on the first day of summer. There were almost no black flies. Unfortunately the ones that were around did find Calvin and Isabel and they did get a few bites. Calvin has finally gotten his mountain legs. He climbed all the way up and all the way down with only a little bit of carrying after bonking his head on a big rock. There were some great views and clouds at the top. Dave gave Isabel a brief lesson in levitation and Calvin seems to be finding his own way there without much help from anyone. We look forward to warmer pond water later in the summer.

Mikala Sarah (Spelling?)

As usual the spelling eludes me. I guess I can keep falling back on the fact that I learned to read and write in Spanish: "slippi" is the logical spelling for "sleepy" and so forth. The English spelling rules just never stuck and I'm terrible with names. This little baby girl is a much-welcomed addition to the Rowley clan in Binghampton. Here are a few pictures of her with her mom and her cousins Ashland and Isabel, each of whom had a turn holding her.

Calvin's Blue Tongue!

Wow, I don't think I want to know what was in the lollipop Calvin had after his last immunization--but I think it may be more scary than what's in the shots. At least he looks good in blue. Here he is at his pre-K graduation.

International Fiber Collaborative Gas Station

This gas station had a makeover thanks to the International Fiber Collaborative. I like it much better now. Stumbling across it last week was an incredible surprise. It made my day. I hope some of you will find time to check it out. It's at the corner of Colvin and Nottingham across from the P and C grocery store. There is also a website.

Leah's Wedding

My sister is now happily married. Sometimes you really can tell that things are going to work out for people. They are such a happy and comfortable couple that you just can't imagine either of them with anyone else. It was a hot weekend, but everyone managed to stay cool despite the weather. We got to see lots of relatives that are scattered across the country; even my aunt Debbie and her twins made it. I especially enjoyed meeting Josh's sisters and talking with his mom again. They seem like a really nice family.

Isabel and Calvin were stellar travelers. They read, watched movies, read license plates -- for hours -- played word games, sang songs, slept, ran around at rest areas, and were generally civil to each other for the long ride down and the even longer (14 hours!!) ride home. I don't know how they managed to be so good, but it sure made it fun.

On the way down we stopped in D.C. and spent the night with our old college buddy George and his wife Molly. They have three boys and another baby on the way and managed to put us up in their basement apartment too. Molly helped me to pin money on the back of Leah's quilt the day before the wedding.

Here are some picutures from the trip. My mother is still battling her Glioblastoma. She looked great despite the lack of hair under that amazing hat she wore. It's hard to see her so sick. She enjoyed seeing all the kids running around and was happy to see Leah getting married. When she got the diagnosis in March, she wasn't sure she'd make the wedding. My mother's cousin Nancy is a minister and she performed the wedding ceremony for Leah and Josh.

Isabel danced with Leah as did a bunch of other kids. The music was great for dancing. Then they played a game of tag and duck-duck-goose on the grassy slope outside the reception area, while the band played on.

Medical Forms 2007

There are prints and collages here. The collages are actually in an existing book about trees that was part of Dave's parents' collection at the Cabin. It was one of those coffee table books that didn't really have a good reason to exist after it got a little old, so I decided to give it a new life by using it to collage into with other images from old medical school books that had also lost their reason for existing. The birds were from a miniature book of Audubon illustrations.

It was fun making new images from these old books and letting my mind do something with them other than study them. The prints were done last summer at the Women's Studio Workshop. I made a lot of stencils from the bones and vessels in the old medical texts. The shapes reminded me of branching patterns from trees and streams. I don't intend for them to mean anything in particular. I simply responded to the strange juxtapositions they made. I like tilting into this visual world and exploring this non-linear, irrational way of thinking and feeling.

The Skunk Cabbage

So, Chris and I have run this race for the last three years. The first year we both ran the half marathon. Last year I ran the 10K and he ran the half. This year we both ran the 10K and he looked kinda pooped out at the end. I think next year I'll run the half and let him run the 10K. We had fun anyway.

Winter to Spring Update

Not much snow this winter, but Dave made the most of what came late in the season, with a few small forts that the neighborhood kids made good use of. School for me has fallen into a manageable routine for the most part. In just 8 weeks I will take my step one exam. Dave continues to add onto his walking trail at work. Calvin has a lot of fun with his friend Tarek. They love to run around and get covered in mud, or just hang upside down like monkeys.



We went to Florida and visited Dave's aunts and cousins and my brother to get a break from the cold. The kids loved the beach: the sand, the shells, the sun, the waves. They also enjoyed the rides and the shows at Busch Gardens in Tampa. We try to stay away from these things, but sometimes you just have to cave in and take in a little "culture."

I'm still working on my photography and writing project of the south side of the city. Syracuse University and LeMoyne are going to use my essay and photos on their website as part of their community education/multicultural awareness initiative. I've gotten to see some interesting things on my walks.



Just when you think you are settling in, life always seems to throw a curve ball. My mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor in late February that announced itself with a seizure. She has been given less than a year to live. She is doing her chemo and radiation in Buffalo and spending weekends here with the grandkids. Her energy is up and down depending on how her body responds to the stress of the treatment. Last weekend was a good one. We went to a puppet show and then she made cookies with the kids, which were mighty good. I ran the Skunk Cabbage 10K with my friend Chris Schaeffer for the third time. Running still keeps me sane.

Dear Friends and Family,

We have had an incredibly busy but good year. After a rough start in medical school for Sarah and a rough job search for Dave in late 2006 and early 2007, we are grateful to have settled in to Syracuse. We have found many wonderful things about this little city including a fabulous year-yound farmer's market, an outdoor ice skating rink downtown, and the new five-story playscape inside the Science Museum.
We have great neighbors, including some recent arrivals from Texas of all places, although they were originally from Boston. They have two kids about the ages of Isabel and Calvin and they will all be going to the same school. We are glad that the house next to us, which was abandoned when we moved in to our house, is now occupied with an interesting family.

They think that the Northeast will be an increasingly attractive place to live based on their experience paying air-conditioning bills in Dallas for the last seven years. We hope they are right as the Northeast needs an infusion of people to live in the old neighborhoods and revive the economy around here.

Isabel is singing with the Syracuse Children's Chorus and learning to read music and sing all kinds of songs from around the world. This spring she will have two more performances with local theater and dance groups. She continues to study gymnastics as well and is excited about learning to do more complex back bends and flips. She is in her second year at Edward Smith Elementary School, where more than 20% of the student body has learning disabilities or autism. This is her second time being singled out and praised by her teachers for being tolerant and cooperative with people who are not like her. We are very proud of her for this.


Calvin is still at the Upstate Childcare Center where he has enjoyed making friends with children from other parts of the world. His best friend is a little boy named Terek, whose parents are from Lebanon. At Terek's birthday party we got to eat all sorts of delicious desserts. Calvin's sweet tooth shows no signs of going away anytime soon--although we are glad that his asthma seems to be abating somewhat.

Dave is working for a small engineering company writing and testing software for their machines. He finds the work challenging intellectually, but still pines for the woods. As an excuse to get outside he has taken on a trail project on the land surrounding the companies' new building. He works on his trail during lunch hour to keep from going crazy sitting at a desk eight hours a day. When we went to the annual Christmas party for the company he got an extra round of applause for his ongoing project to build a walking trail. People use it to walk to lunch at a nearby restaurant.

Sarah worked as a coordinator of the migrant farm clinic this summer, translating and doing physical exams on workers from Mexico, Guatemala and Jamaica. She enjoyed practicing her Spanish and visiting farms all around Syracuse. She got to spend a little time writing and paintng over the summer, but has had to put that aside again once classes started. She misses having time to work on her art projects, but is keeping her spirits up despite the rigors of medical school. She found that she could study while hiking, if Dave let her bore him with the details of drug pharmacology or whatever biochemical pathways she happened to be studying at the time.




It wasn't the most efficent way to study, but it was better than sitting at a desk all day--every day. She's also become fond of her iPod, which allows her to ski or run or pick cranberries while listening to and reviewing lecture materials that the college records. She is over halfway done with her second year and looking forward to taking step one of the USMLE in June, after which she plans on taking a few weeks off to rest and visit friends before starting third year.

Since the kids came along, balloons have become a bigger part of our life and we continue to find new ways to use them (the balloons, that is). For the third year running, we decorated our Christmas tree with balloons. We used long squiggly balloons this year because we thought it would please the Flying Spaghetti Monster to no end. We hope you will join us next year in following the prompting of his Noodly Appendages as you see fit: more peace, more pasta, and/or more pirates, according to your preference. We wish you a joyous year and good health in 2008.

Keep flying!

Love,

Sarah, Dave, Calvin and Isabel

At the end of August We had another lovely visit to Sunset Lake. Both Calvin and Isabel got out in the canoe and rowboat. We saw turtles and harons out there and some strange sponges growing on sunken logs. We took our traditional sauna and slept with hot sauna rocks as the night was cold. Then there was the most perfect sunset that we watched on the dock. Now I'm back in school and I wish there were a sauna in Syracuse to get me through the upcoming winter. At least we have a cape cod lighter, thatnks to Anne's generosity, to light the fireplace here.

Labor Day Weekend Adventures

Johnsburg --

Sarah elected to get off on the right foot on her first weekend back in medical school, by staying home and studying while Dave and Calvin took off for the Adirondacks for the long Labor Day weekend. Grandma Evelyn showed up and dropped off Isabel on Saturday afternoon, stuck around for an extra hour or two to let Dave get some trail-clearing done, and got some tasty peach cobbler in return... but after that, Dave was on his own for a couple of days. Outnumbered!

All things considered, he did OK. Brunch on Sunday morning was cleverly pre-arranged, with Kerry Leigh and kids Hannah, Zachary, and Krishna showing up and bringing along a good part of the actual food, including blueberry pancake batter and the eggs for the all-important omelettes. But the fried potatoes and sausages were fairly well-received, too.

Theoretically the brunch was supposed to be a prelude to a trip to the Cavelings, a little-known group of small water-carved caves in the surface limestone at the base of Crane Mountain, on a small flat corner of state land toward the north end. But I hadn't been on most of those trails for nearly a decade and had no idea what condition they were in, and Krishna's legs are still pretty short -- seems like he's about half Calvin's size, though he's just as mobile. So suddenly a two-mile bushwhack seemed overambitious, and we settled for the Pine Ridge horse-trail loop instead.

This was still a triple-A Authentic Adirondack Adventure, with a short bushwhack past the Great Hemlocks to the horse trail, and a stop for a snack in superlative sunny breezy weather at the top of Pine Ridge. After which we completed the loop down the Putnam mail trail without any noticeable difficulties. The sphagnum slopes were fairly dry, but still green and inviting for anyone in need of a short rest.

At the iron bridge there was almost no water flow -- not nearly enough for Poohsticks -- partly because of the drought, and partly because the beavers upstream were catching just about all of the flow in their dams. They're in the process of re-converting the old beaver meadows below the barn into an active beaver empire again, and right along the road below the cabin are several newly flooded ponds, with beaver-chewed alder stumps sticking out of the water. At this rate the brush problem will be much reduced for the next decade: dozens of young white pines that Dave was starting to worry about coming up in the old meadows now have their roots underwater and are looking decidedly sickly already. (Pictures of the Empire are from the previous week, when Sarah took her camera out for purposes of artistic appreciation in Grandma Evelyn's Hornbeck boat.)

Saw a few newts on the cabin trail in the mornings, and wandering box turtle in the parking lot on Labor Day. It has been the best year for monarch butterflies -- apparently the caterpillars we saw on the milkweed a month ago have successfully made their transformation and will soon be on their way to Mexico, or whatever their improbable destination is these days (we didn't ask them).

But the highlight of the weekend was on Labor Day, when we had made no prior social arrangements and the trip to the Cavelings was still beckoning. Calvin and Isabel were ready to try it, so we started out behind the cabin, re-clearing the old trail over to the Sandhill, which was suffering from a decade of neglect and littered with the detritus of several storms. Slowly but surely we worked our way up to the high point below the Crane Mountain cliffs, on the boundary between the old Hewitt and Putnam properties (now Jim Tarry's and Greenes', respectively).

The results of the survey were pleasantly surprising: where ten years ago the blackberry brambles and downed branches from lumbering made travelling difficult, the underbrush had grown up into trees and shaded out most of the difficult vegetation, and it was mostly a matter of threading through saplings and throwing occasional blowdown out of the way.

Getting to the Cavelings was a near thing, though -- touch and go for the last half mile. The trip was a democratic affair, and it required fairly relentless campaigning on Dave's part to make sure that there was never a point at which both Isabel _and_ Calvin wanted to turn back before the objective was reached. Gummy-bear bribes worked well for the first hour and a half; when they started to run out, some quick work produced an Elevator Tree that kept both kids busy while Dave ran ahead and cleared a good length of the trail ahead, to reduce resistance both for outbound travel and for the trip back.

(An Elevator Tree is a slender sapling growing near some climbable high point, providing a quick trip back to ground level for anyone putting their full weight on it.)

To make a long story short -- Calvin was only starting to get tired when we looked up and found the Elephant looming over us -- a mammoth house-sized boulder fallen from the Crane Mountain cliffs a quarter mile uphill, that split into several parallel fragments like a loaf of sliced bread. You can walk between two of the fragments and come out the other side -- or climb up a good distance by putting your back against one face and your feet against the other. There's also a dry overhang full of wind-blown leaves at the north end, a possible destination for some future camping trip.

Just below the Elephant is a natural stone bridge with a hole in the middle, which you can jump into and down a sandy slope into a wide overhang with a water-carved limestone floor -- which Isabel immediately christened the "Gnome King's Palace": she's been reading the second book in the Oz series lately. There are other minor wonders upstream from there, but it seemed prudent to save some sights for a return trip.

Eventually it was time to tackle the hike back to the cabin. Calvin was fairly well out of Gummi Bear energy by this point and was drooping a bit, pining for a nap... but we threaded our way back through the network of logging trails without too much difficulty -- depending on whether you classify Dave sometimes carrying both Calvin and Isabel simultaneously as "difficult". Calvin still fits in the packbasket Dave was carrying, so that was nice for a while, until the novelty wore off and it turned out to be a bit too cramped for comfort.

The last apples and water in the packbasket apparently provided enough blood sugar for a final surge, anyway, since both Calvin and Isabel finished the trip in good spirits -- racing each other back along the newly cleared trail to the cabin, in fact. And we can all testify to the interesting fact that a long walk makes the same old food back home taste ten times as good, when you get back to it --

We went to my cousin Dan's wedding in Pen Argyl PA a couple of weekends ago, my last before going back to school. It was fun to see him so happy. We laughed we cried--that's how I knew we were at a wedding. We also saw little Patrick, my grandfather's youngest son. He a couple of years younger than Isabel. My Aunt Millie is going to adopt him this year.

Isabel's 8th Birthday Party: The Reincarnation of the Pirate Fortress in Syracuse

Valarie, Olivia and Sophia helped me decorate at the last minute.

Dave finished rebuilding the pirate fortress late Thursday night and early Friday morning.

I made the cake with 8 candles and the pie with one to grow on for Isabel. She insisted on blueberry pie as we had just picked two gallons the weekend before, and spaghetti and meatballs. Our new Polish-speaking neighbors connected with the parents of one of Isabel's new friends, who had been in the Peace Corps some years back. As the kids have gotten older, both Dave and I found t hat we actually had a little time to talk to the adults at the party, mostly our still newish neighbors, but also Matt and Becca who go many years back.

In the end we caught Isabel and Lucas in the Hennessy Hammock and wondered what long-term alliance this might foretell --

We went up to the Adirondacks this weekend. Isabel's friend Sophia May came along. They had a great time. They danced merily in Pleasant Lake where we stopped to get Sophia some fresh air. She was feeling a little carsick from reading the latest Harry Potter on the way up. Then we went blueberry picking in the Ski Bowl in North Creek. They managed to find some sand duned to jump off of when they got sick of picking. Then we went back to the Cabin for dinner, a marshmallow roast, beaver watching in a mosquito tent, a dessert of chocolate.













The next day included exploring The view from Adam's Rover top tent and the limestone Cave at the Base of the mountain. It was a nother beautiful weekend in the Adirondacks and we hope some of you will join us the weekend of the 4th/5th if you are up for it.

We are just back from a short trip to Vermont where we stayed at the old Rowley Camp at Colchester point on a rainy fourth of July. Calvin and Isabel got to know their second counsin Amanda as they romped in the cold waters of Lake Champlain and painted rocks and shells they gathered on the shore. We enjoyed getting away from the many projects at. We have beenrenovating the attic for most of a year so that Sarah and the kids have a space to quilt and paint. Starting in the late spring we also addeed rebuilding the pirate fortress we moved from Albany for the kids. The top railing in now done so that no one can swan dive into the driveway.

We have also been recreating the garden we loved so much in Albany. Unfortuntately we've been invated by a pair of cute little woodchucks. The little devils ate our spinach and strawberries. Fortunately Calvin and Isabel picked some of it first. And we are excited that the college kids two doors down are going after them with a bibigun. Sarah offered a bounty of $25 for each woodchuck they presented to her. We hope they don't start showing up with pelts by the dozen or we won't be able to afford much other than what the absense of woodchucks brings from our garden.

Just two weeks ago Calvin and Isabel climbed Crane Mountain. All the way to the top! This was Calvin's first trip on his own two feet and Isabel's first trip up and down on her own two feet. They really liked the ladders near the top.

Syracuse --

Short summary: A good time was had by all at the Igloo Party on Saturday afternoon -- at least if smiles on the faces of Calvin, Isabel, and friends mean anything:

Separate series of photos follow for Calvin's Castle (in the front yard) and Isabel's Igloo (in the back yard.) And there's still a little snow left in our yard, and lots of unclaimed snow in our neighbors' yards, so stay tuned for further endeavors. There are several miscellaneous arches and tunnels still in the works, along with a possible pyramid if the weather holds.

Isabel's Igloo, Syracuse --

Calvin's Castle, Syracuse --

North Creek and Syracuse --

A couple of days ago, I took Calvin to get his first set of skis at Garnet Hill. He and Isabel are both enrolled in the "trade-up" program now, and thus are safely supplied with appropriate-sized ski equipment no matter how tall they get.



Calvin is inordinately happy about this. Here he is in his Invincible Cold-Proof Power Ranger Suit, enjoying a quick jaunt behind his grandparents' house.

Today Sarah picked him up from daycare and took him out again -- helped stabilize him a little on the downhills, but he's clearly well on his way to independent skiing.

Thanks to the aforementioned Invincible Power Ranger Suit, Calvin has been getting outside a lot, even in the coldest weather. We're working on two projects for this next weekend. In the front yard in Syracuse is Calvin's Castle, which is a work in progress using all the snow from the yard, sidewalk, and porch roof.

And in the back yard is Isabel's Igloo, constructed by piling all the snow in the back yard on top of our two plastic play structures, and then carving out the entrances again after the pile solidified. Here is the beginning of the project...

And the final result, after the big snowfall that closed Isabel's school for three days at the end of last week:

There's currently a tunnel through the back part, and access to the front part through a window -- but we're waiting for Isabel to get back to dig out the connecting room between the two, at the igloo party this weekend.

It's also possible to climb up one side of the pile and slide down the other, as Calvin demonstrates here on an early stage of the Igloo -- Uncle Patrick (and Harley, of course) were here to help out with laying the foundations:

We just got home from our week and a half trip through Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire, which started with some end of season blueberry picking in the ski bowl in North Creek New York. This was Calvin's first time picking and he managed to cooperate rather nicely with Isabel in filling a bucket.

When we left New York, we headed for Vermont where we visited the Rowley farms in Milton and their camp on Lake Champlain, where my mother longed to go as a child, but due to the dastardly deeds of her father, was excluded. Isabel and I went for a pirate adventure in a giant tractor inner tube with Margaret, while Calvin stalked the beaches throwing stones at imaginary invaders.

From there we visited a man named Dog in West Corinth who lives on 600 acres with several families that are all alternative types. They are very dynamic and active people with lots of interesting ideas about securing the future. They don't have health insurance because it's too expensive, and luckily they are in good health...!

From there we headed to the boondocks of Maine, where my father was born, north of Rumford and visited him and his new camp where he wants to live until he dies. Shortly after that we ran into what we think is the birthplace of HENRIETTA the giant chicken of Pinkwater fame. Note the more normal sized chicken in the foreground.

From there we went to Portland where the kids played in the fancy children's museum. We made a brief trip to Old Orchard Beach where the water is freezing, even in August. I don't know how I swam in it as a child. In Portland Dave connected with one of the kids that he used to babysit (and play chess with) at Deep Springs College, now a carpenter whom we hope to lure to work on our cabin before he settles down permanently -- or goes off to Southeast Asia. Dallas wants to save some travelling money, so we are bribing him with free room and board in hopes that he will make some improvements on the place.

Finally we went to visit Anne Huberman in her empire on Sunset Lake, where the kids took Finnish saunas, canoed, rowed, swam, and otherwise delighted in the Huberman camp traditions.

Calvin and Isabel had a joint birthday party at the new house, which is officially broken in now. We had people from all directions, including my uncle and cousins from Binghamton. It was nice to have a social event after a very busy week of school. Isabel helped me to put the layers together after camp on Friday.

Due to the rain, yes more rain, we had the pinata in the attic, which was actually a comfortable temperature for July. The kids had a good laugh when it was my turn because I missed the donkey with a little help from Dave. Wielding baseball bats was never my forte. Calvin was later found under the coffee table in the living room munching his way through a handful of the candy he collected from it. He's got a real sweet tooth that boy -- in fact he was more interested in the candy than in opening presents! He reminds me of someone else I know. ...

Last week I spent some time volunteering at a migrant farm worker clinic at Emmet Farms, a large operation outside of Syracuse that has over 40 farm international workers, may from Chiapas. As a first-year student, the only thing I was much use for was translating for the doctors and upper-class medical students who were doing the actual physical exams.

My team saw four patients: several young men who simply wanted to have their blood pressure checked for the hell of it, and a couple of people who had serious medical problems that didn't have access to pharmaceuticals. One man was 46 and had uncontrolled diabetes with very high blood sugar levels. His habitual consumption of 4 to 6 beers a day wasn't helping him either. The university pharmacy is able to donate a certain amont of medicine so at least he was going to get that for free.

It's frightening to think how the changes to immigration law could ramify through society. I think that it is in these underserved populations that emergent infections diseases are likely to show up and go undetected, with potential dire consequences. Clinics like these, where there is no danger of being turned in to the "Migra", are important both for providing access points to care and also for keeping an ear to the ground for new diseases.

Isabel was excited about my suitcase of bones. Here she is in the kitchen checking the hip bone out, which I'm working on learning. The iliac crest, iliac spine, pubic symphysis, pubic tubercle and the plane of the pelvic inlet are just a few things I need to know about this particular bone. Meanwhile the garden is growing. we expect to have our first summer squash in a few days, and maybe a cucumber soon after.

Good-bye Albany (for now) and hello Syracuse. As the house emptied out the kids got creative with the last of the things that were around. Here's Calvin exploring Newtonian Physics with a roll of tape and some matt boards.

We are settling in here in Syracuse. Calvin cried the first day of Camp, but not the second --to my great relief. They have had peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches for lunch for three days because we can't think of any non-meat lunches that they like. We are open to any suggestions from the larger world if anyone has them. They like climbing on the play house we won in the end of year show raffle. Dave amused them to no end blowing bubbles out the window. I am getting to know my younger colleges in medical school--a very earnest bunch. I don't think I've ever seen so many people eating healthy snacks(carrot sticks and RAW greenbeans for Christsakes!) in my life. Bring on the Doritos!

I couldn't get Dave to dress up and go out with me Salsa dancing, but at least he was a willing babysitter for me white I went out for a farewell evening with my friends from work: Tamira Palmetto de Spain (the most beautiful name I've heard on the left) and Paul Goebel and his girl friend Carrie on the Left). These are some good friends that I will miss dearly when we move to Syracuse.

Dave and his endless inclination to play with food. The kids sure eat it up!

We got one weekend up north just as the blackflies were getting going. We planted potatoes in the garden, russet fingerlings and some old sprouting things from the pantry. The kids were a big help. Isabel also worked with Dave on a trail into the swamp. Then they went into the cave under the limestone bridge. Calvin was afraid of going all the way through, but Isabel was fearless. We've been busy since getting ready to move to the hosue in Syracuse. It's a madhouse right now, but we're still finding time to have a little fun. Dave made stilts and showed them off to the kids.

Even Dave found a spot of shade to hide from the too-bright New Mexico sun at this Leathers playground.


Here are some pictures of all of us at the Robert Leathers playground in Las Cruces. There are over 1600 playgrounds around the world that this guy has inspired and worked on, all community built. We love some of the fun kid-sized crawl spaces. These playgrounds are for kids of all ages---witness Josh and Leah having fun as well as Calvin and Isabel.

We had a good trip to New Mexico. It was a relief that my mom didn't have ovarian cancer. Just the radical hysterectomy was enough to get through. The kids had a good time playing at her house and swimming. Isabel had no trouble getting into the pool. Another week later and it would have been easier for me to get in.

(Calvin insisted on taking everything off but the goggles. )

We also got to see Josh and Leah, who are now officially engaged to be married. They have a cute little dog, part Dalmatian, named Tope as in Spanish for speed bump, a good name for a dog. They seem happy, which makes me happy.

My mom got amazing flowers from our cousing Liz in California. Isabel posed with them, looking like some art-deco goddess in a 1920's painting.

And we got to visit some interesting sites in Albuquerque in the Old Town area. More on this later.

Albany -- Sarah writes:

This year has been one of the best of my life. It's strange that I should feel this way doing lab research, of all things, but I think it's because both at work and at home, in my neighborhood, I feel part of a community. And it's not as though its been a cake walk. There are lots of different personalities at work, and we've had to work hard at times to understand each other and to learn to work together at solving problems that come up both technically and interpersonally. With the guidance of Prof. H.V.B. Hirsch, the fly daddy of the lab, we have done great things together, and had a lot of fun. Here's a picture of him with his son, and one with me -- just for the record. While I'm looking forward to moving on to continue my studies in Syracuse, I'm going to miss the lab too.

We went to Ithaca this weekend and stayed with Brad Edmondson and his wife Tania at their house on 106 Short Street. The excuse for going was meeting up with Chris Schaeffer, who is getting divorced after a long effort at keeping a difficult marriage together. It was a fabulous weekend of catching up with friends. As a bonus we got to see Shep Smith, who still remembers a weeklong hike at Deep Springs with Dave as one of the best times of his life. We hope to get our families together one of these years. Here's a picture of the kids throwing rocks at Fall Creek. And one of me and Chris pre-race.

On the road Calvin said some funny things, one of which was "Please may I be excused from the car," a novel way of saying "are we there yet?" ingeniously extrapolated from his previous training in table manners. When the sun was setting he said something else that struck us poetic: "My eyes are in the dark."

It's so much fun listening to the way both Isabel and Calvin express the way they experience the world. It makes me realize how much I take for granted that because we use the same words we understand things in the same way. So often we really don't, even though we think we do because we use a common vocabulary. This "common" language is still full of nuances and shades of meaning that makes true understanding more an art than a science.

Calvin and Isabel helped me to make dinner a few weeks ago. Isabel sliced tomatoes and asparagus. And calvin just broke the stems in half and then--well--bit them. I guess there is a little ways to go yet before they'll be cooking dinner, but there is hope.

Calvin and Isabel are playing together more and more. Last night Isabel spent a long time quizzing Calvin and playing a game of memory with a set of 'Mothers and Babies' puzzle pieces that Anne Huberman gave us when she was his age. They were absolutely, heart-breakingly cute sprawled out on the dining room floor. It is all and more than the happiness I could have hoped for. Dave and I celebrated ten years of marriage a few weeks ago, and as far as either of us can tell it looks like it's gonna last because we both still really like each other. Not such an uncommon thing, but not so common either, so we feel very lucky.

Isabel still likes art, partly her mother's influece. Last week she was painting at the dining room table when Calvin took off his clothes to go to the potty. He then climbed on the table to talk to daddy-o, making a scene that I couldn't resist documenting.

We haven't had much snow this year, but we did manage to build one snowman. He was pretty goofy and ended up looking like a cross between Robin Williams, Frosty, and the Great White Buddha. Here he is laughing at us.

The snow melted pretty fast, so we didn't get to do any sledding, but we did get out to Five Rivers on a glorious sunny day with Annie and Megan. Here's the gang eating lunch in the picnic pavillion.

Here's Calvin and Dave balancing sticks. This structure lasted about 2 minutes, a world record for a 15 stick structure with five kids running aroud it.

Isabel's first Karate Tournament was a success. It was a long day. I can't imagine being a karate mom! I am very proud of her for getting out there in front of such a big crowd. She got a second place medal for her Bo performance. the Bo is the long stick that is supposed to be some kind of a peasant weapon.

Isn't it true, the box is the best present from Christmas!

It's now halfway through January. The two months since Thanksgiving have flown by. This year, Isabel didn't puke on Christmas. Calvin puked a few days before, but didn't manage to pass it to the rest of us.

So we finally managed to have Christmas dinner with Bob and Alex! We spent the morning at Don and Evelyn's opening presents, most of which we left at their house. We just can't handle any more clutter at our small place. It will be relief when we are finally have a bigger house to sprawl out in.

Here are some pictures from Christmas. There's Calvin feeding the chickadees with sunflower seeds. Evelyn read them both stories, and Don once again gave in to Isabel's insistence that he make a puzzle with her. Calvin has even gotten to an age where he's able to "help."

We were all together for the first time since Patrick graduated from Thomas Jefferson. Here's the picture of Harley, Leah and Josh. She told me to take it. Harley, Leah and Josh. Aren't they a cute threesome?

A Philadelphia Thanksgiving.
We drove to Philly in our old Prizm and made it there and back. The kids has a great time with Harley. We all had a good time together. Debbie made the best damned turkey southern collard greens. Calvin ate a pickle and some corn, even after licking the whipped cream beaters. We made southwestern turkey soup with green chilies the next day and kept eating pie until we dropped. Harley ate the oatmeal cookies and Leah's friend Warren (?) ate the chocolate chip cookies. Isabel and I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and saw some interesting artwork.

Oh, and _that_ picture: Leah won the funny-face-making contest.

Sarah continues to work on her painting in the evening hours formerly devoted to cramming science into her brain. One painting incorporates some of her father's photographs of wild flowers in Maine. Another one has photos of one of her lab parters, Asante Ship-Hilts, and a poem from Irving Feldman's book, Teach Me Dear Sister. Here is what they look like right now.

Froggerona and Bunny are Calvin's newly inseparable buddies. He insists on eating with them. They generally get tucked in and don't get too messy at the table, but sometimes Calvin wants to tuck them under his arm as he eats. As you can imagine they would profit from regular washing, but just try finding a stretch of time long enough to get them through a wash and dry cycle that he doesn't cry out for them. Photos for your amusement...

November at our house has been a whirlwind of leaf raking, knitting lessons, quilting and painting. The logs for the bunkbed were harvested up north. It was muddy and Adam's tractor got mired in the mud. But this didn't stop us. A couple of logs ended up getting pushed a few feet into the mud under the tractor, but we got the tractor out.

And we got the rest of the logs to Albany, too... eventually. Really a small Honda Civic hatchback is not the ideal vehicle for carrying eight-foot-long green logs -- but it did make a good excuse for multiple trips back to Putnam Farm.

Albany --

Dave writes:
Right now (2:30pm Saturday November 12) I'm at my office typing this up, with both Calvin and Isabel alternately hanging off of me, drinking hot chocolate, and playing around with various office paraphernalia. Ordinarily we wouldn't be here on the weekend, of course, but we dropped in to the Family Fun program at WMHT radio (next door in the Tech Park) to say hello to Gord the Dragon and Clifford the Big Red Dog.

For canned entertainment, this was moderately amusing -- but then we found a nice patch of Fragmides (ten-foot-tall invasive grass) in the empty building lot nearby, and we stomped out a nice grass-maze for ourselves, and tickled each other with the fluffed-out seed heads from ten feet away. So that was even better!

-- Except that when I tried to harvest some grass stems to try to weave a basket, I found that the broken edges were surprisingly sharp... so I had to stop in here for a Band-Aid. Back to our regularly scheduled program now -- there's a bunk bed to be built, or at least worked on, this weekend...

Albany --

Dave writes: Isabel and I stayed up rather late last night, trying to get a comb through Isabel's hair (which is still suffering somewhat from two- or three-times-a-day swimming this summer) while simultaneously working on solving the first six chess problems out of a book of over 5000 board positions. We got through that first page pretty well. Maybe by the time we get to the ones that I can't figure out how to do, a few hundred pages farther down, Isabel will be able to solve them for me.

In spite of the late night, we all got up together for a bowl of oatmeal with raisins early this morning, and Isabel got to school ten or fifteen minutes early, instead of the usual just-barely-on-time. Here's hoping it's the start of a new trend! We're going to try the school breakfast some of the time now, so that I can get to work earlier (and much more important, come home earlier as a result.)

Calvin and Isabel had a good time at the MapInfo Holloween Party. Calvin especially enjoyed his KitKat bar.

Isabel has learned to knit and talk on the phone, almost at the same time. She's very proud of herself. So far she has made a small red blanket for her doll-house doll and a fuzzy pillow with some fancy yarn, which she can't believe she can use because, after all, it is so fancy.

My cousin Shannon came to visit Albany, and stayed with my sister Leah in Altamont. We went apple picking at Indian Ladder Farms and then had dinner at our house. The kids played together and tickled the dickens out of Leah.

Calvin had fun flying on Leah's feet.
Leah made the best lasagna that I've had in a long time, even if it wasn't as good as Shannon is used to getting at home (Aunt Kim must make some amazing lasagna). I made apple cobbler with the Northern Spy apples we picked -- which was a hit with everyone even though I forgot to put sugar in the crumb topping. The vanilla ice cream made up for it.

The Princess-Samurai Isabel doing daring acts of acrobatics and dramatic artistry. The other little girl is Laiana Dandles. She comes home with Isabel after karate class, and they play together. It has been lots of fun to have such a good friend come over after school. Calvin likes Laiana's little brother, too.

The warmest cranberry picking ever. Isabel and I picked a gallon of cranberries at the Thurman bog last Sunday. It was very buggy. I was surprised by the number of mosquitoes on the first weekend in October. I was actually afraid to mention them because I thought Isabel would start whining about them. Then I started to scratch like crazy because my ears were all red and hot from being eaten alive -- and I couldn't help complaining out loud about them myself! Isabel said, "Yeah... mosquito bites -- I just scratch them a little, like this, and keep picking."

Wow, she's an Adirondacker bred true. Here she is in the morning, with the fruits of her labor.

Adirondacks:
My friend Asante and her husband Edward came up for an overnight at the Cabin. It was a beautiful weekend without rain or a dark cloud in the sky, just the best of what the North Country offers: peace, quiet, beauty.

Isabel started first grade this week. We all walked her to her classroom, including Calvin, who did not want to leave her behind. Isabel's teacher's name is Mrs Shepard and the classroom helper's name is Mrs Hettie. Isabel knows both of them because last spring she started going to 1st grade for reading. We aren't sure what will happen this year, but since she's been working on her reading all summer, we suspect that she may go to 2nd grade for reading this year. But for now, she's just getting used to the new classroom and getting back into the school routine. Karate starts next Monday with the amazing Shihan (Master) Butler. We are off to another good year.

More pictures from the party. Boy, it was the best one yet with lots of people from Albany and Margaret from Vermont. Thank you Margaret for all of your help getting ready and cleaning up afterwards.

Isabel and I had fun getting ready for the party. She kept asking to help with painting the various things I was painting. I kept trying to find time when Calvin was sleeping so that she and I could concentrate without his wild interjections of messy paint strokes. Finally, I gave up and let Calvin get in on the action with this rocking chair. About halfway through, covered with mustard yellow paint reminiscent of the color of his infant poop, I sent him off to take a nap with Dave, while Isabel and I attended to the finer details. Isabel insisted that there be some point of assymetry in the paintjob and so painted one of the knobs on the back left leg a differnt color from the right. This way, we won't have insulted any of the gods. Our joint efforts resulted in the drap black rocker looking like this:

Adirondacks:

Dave says:
Calvin and Isabel's combined birthday party at the cabin was apparently a success -- lots of old and new friends showed up, and the food was plentiful and tasty, and all the kids seemed to have a good time. True to my standard pattern, by taking a day off to start the final assembly of the new deck on Friday, I almost got it completed by the time the party was due to start. Streznewskis used the deck that evening to set up two tents for sleeping in (until a downpour at three in the morning drove everyone inside.)

Sarah got to climb the mountain and go swimming twice over the weekend, once on Saturday night with Cousin Margaret and once on Sunday with Isabel, Fiona, Kelly, Alex, and Bob. Meanwhile, I took Calvin on an expedition to Putnam Brook, where we threw in 150 rocks -- and then we bushwhacked all the way along the old logging road around the Great Swamp, where Calvin enthusiastically learned a whole set of new words: "hobble-bush", "hemlock tree", "fern", "moss", "newt" (after two rainy nights, there were newts everywhere in the woods.) We'll see if he can still apply the words to the right objects, on our next walk.

Isabel finally reached her long-standing goal of climbing all the way up to Crane Mountain Pond Lake and back down again, without needing any help from anyone. I think next week when we're both on vacation, we may go looking for some new mountains to climb...

Three Generations of Greenes. Just look at them!

This Indian pokeweed started as a small volunteer last year. Now it is a giant umbrella over the kids' sandbox. The combination of green, pink and blue-black on the clusters of berries (poisonous) is spectacular.

Sunday, August 7th, 2005: Escape From the Great Escape

Adirondacks:
We had been planning to use our Great Escape tickets on Sunday, but the previous day's perfect weather and congenial surroundings had brought us to our senses: a _huge_ number of people were going to be at the Great Escape on a day like this, standing in interminable lines in the sun waiting for rides. (I was able to confirm this afterwards, since my fellow MapInfo office-dweller Jennifer Tadros had taken her family there the day before.) Even Isabel was intermittently persuaded to agree that we were much better off right where we were.

I started the day relatively early, removing Calvin from the tranquil scene (Isabel, Sarah, and Ed all asleep in various corners of the cabin) before he could tweak any noses or let out too many piercing screams. We went first to the site of the previous evening's bonfire, and piled up the various unburned ends of logs and planks into a couple of piles, to finish the cleanup.

It was still too early to disturb the sleepers at the cabin -- so we took the car out to Johnsburg Market, which had opened shortly before we arrived. Calvin had gone back to sleep (the ride out Crane Mountain Road is apparently quite soporific) but I bought breakfast supplies -- eggs, milk, bacon, juice -- and dropped in at Pearsalls to see if anything exciting was happening there. Luckily my Crane Mountaineer seventh sense (sensitive to incipient food preparation) had not failed me, and peach pancakes were just coming into existence, fresh off the griddle. Calvin woke up just in time to have a pancake, with plenty of maple syrup; perhaps this seventh sense is inheritable as well as infallible...

Eventually we returned to Putnam Farm to deliver our own breakfast offerings, which were reasonably well received. And since the rest of my day was largely taken up with cooking and eating said breakfast, wrestling with the support logs for the new 12x17 deck, taking a nap with Calvin, and driving back to Albany, it's probably better if Sarah tells the rest of the story.

Saturday afternoon, August 6th, 2005: Putnam Farm

Dave says:
After racing the train and losing honorably -- we did catch up with it eventually, after all -- we went on from North Creek to Johnsburg, and found the Pearsalls hard at work at Putnam Farm, putting new first-floor siding on the barn.

In the early afternoon, a contingent made up of three generations of Putnam descendants, along with Al Huggard, our next-door neighbor over Pine Ridge, arrived for a surprise visit -- Jasper Putnam's daughters Myrtle Putnam Boyce and her sister Doris Lasselle; two of Doris's children, Linda and Dick, and Dick's wife Karen; and Linda's daughter Linanne and her husband Tom Conroy.

They all headed up the road eventually to find the cave and natural bridge, but were temporarily sadly misled by Adam's new road to the Sand Pile (really the old road to Kenyontown -- though it looks much better these days than the road up to Putnam Junction.) Adam and Sara had made signs to clarify where hikers should go, but someone had since absconded with the key one that pointed out the trail. We'll have to come up with a more permanent solution sometime soon.

In the late afternoon Isabel really wanted to climb Crane Mountain, so we went up together around 4:30 while Calvin got a long-delayed nap.

Isabel's first words when we reached the swimming spot were, "This isn't a pond." "What is it, then?" I asked. "It's a LAKE!" [Obviously a true Crane Mountaineer: almost from Day One, Adam has insisted on calling this body of water "Crane Mountain Pond Lake."]

Perfect weather for swimming, and I'd brought just enough warm clothes along to keep Isabel happy afterwards. We bushwhacked up the back of the Northwest Ridge, and found one patch after another of the very last blueberries of the year -- big and blue and sweet. We wanted to get to the crest of the ridge, to see if the crop was any better up there, but were reduced to quoting Frog and Toad as each new patch came into view: "We -- need -- more -- willpower!"

Eventually did get to the ridgetop, where no really good patches of blueberries appeared (probably already picked out) but there was a gorgeous sunset to remind us that we'd really better be getting back down the mountain. Isabel climbed halfway down on her own, and was headed for a complete ascent and descent on her own two feet... but we were running out of time. It's dark at the bottom of the mountain when the top is still up in the sunset.

So for a while I helped her jump off rocks, and we made great time until I chose a more ambitious landing spot for her than she had chosen for herself, and she bumped her shin on a rock as she aimed for the lower target. So I carried her the rest of the way down to the base of the escarpment, by way of apology.

-- And the day _still_ wasn't done: Ed DeWald, an old fellow Tech Supporter from MapInfo, had arrived after all, and with no direction but a couple of scrawled notes from me, had managed to construct a square pyramid of old rejected barn boards that flared up into a beautiful 20-foot-high bonfire after dark, with sparks reaching up a hundred feet. From the barn, the entire Great Maple was backlit with an amazing orange glow.

We put Calvin and Isabel into the wheelbarrow to see the show, but Isabel fell asleep snuggled up in the sleeping bags very shortly after we arrived in the upper meadow. Calvin, on the other hand, stayed up watching the fire for some time, finding small sticks to donate to the cause, and generally looking very impressed by the whole affair. Hope we haven't given him _too_ many ideas...

August 5th and 6th, 2005 -- North Creek:
This weekend had so much in it that we had to start half a day early to get it all done --

Dave says:
I took half a day off from work and we all drove up the Northway, singing "The Keeper Would A-Hunting Go" (with Calvin joining in with his private version of the Alphabet Song: "A, B, C, B, A, B, C") -- so as to get to North Creek for a good night's sleep before Racing The Train on Saturday morning.

Grandpa didn't seem too put out to see us all... but he had long since declined to provide any babysitting for the big event, so we'd arranged for Sara-without-an-H to show up just before race time. In the morning we hiked over to the railroad station in plenty of time for the starting whistle. (Well, actually, at that point we just caught the train south to Riparius; the starting whistle was down there, and we had to get back to North Creek under our own power.) Tried to do some warm-up stretching on the train, but our hearts weren't really in it; if we made it back those 8.5 miles in any kind of pseudo-jogging-like speed, we were going to be happy.

And so we did. Sarah jogged along at her patented slow-and-steady pace, which I utterly failed to match: had to either run faster, or walk slower -- so I alternated, and thus avoided having to run on any of the uphills. The run started at 9am, so the trees along River Road shaded us for most of the trip -- perfect weather for train-racing.

Passed Grandpa's house just a little beyond Mile 7, and Calvin was mighty glad to see me arrive but didn't want to watch me go -- so he got carried in to town the last mile and a half. 135.5 minutes... slower than my last train race by a fair bit, I think, but we had plenty of good excuses -- and neither Sarah or I arrived at the finish line feeling particularly tired this year. There's hope yet.

At 11:00 Isabel ran her first one-mile race -- in flip-flops, because her running shoes had mysteriously disappeared somewhere between Camp JCC and the North Country. Switched universes, no doubt. Isabel was a very good sport about it all, so we're betting she'll do much better next year, when she doesn't have to keep running back to retrieve flip-flops that fell off her feet. (We'll be sure to bring three pairs of shoes next time.)

Isabel did some great drawing in Kindergarten. Here is just a sample of them. She sometimes wrote whole words backwards, including her name. Over the summer she has continued to read books, and has impressed her camp counselors. We hope she continues to draw too.

Sarah with her most recent painting inspired by her research with fruitflies. For once, someone else is behind the camera!

Here's the latest from the fly chicks at the Hirsch lab. These are the people I work with at SUNY Albany studying the effects of heavy metals on the brain and complex behavior of fruitflies. Who knew that they had any?

The long-awaited wheelbarrow rides. Last weekend the kids got two wheelbarrow rides, one during the day and one snuggled up in sleeping bags for late-night stargazing. Oops, Calvin bumped his head.

Isabel is now officially six years old. We continue to be amazed by her sense of humor and developing self-assurance. Here she is in all her glory, birthday dress, birthday cake and party hat.

Adirondacks:

Frolicking in the Bracken Ferns. These bracken have taken over the garden spot in front of the cabin at Putnam Farm. Where once we tried to grow lettuce and tomatoes in the deep shade of these hemlocks, the more rightful inhabitants have once again taken over.

Albany:


The Pirate Fortress fits well in the garden. We are now eating vegetables out of the garden every day and enjoying the flowers. This week, I made the first jar of pickles using cucumbers and dill that keeps self-seeding from year to year.
-- Sarah

Adirondacks:

Red Efts by the Dozen

Calvin and Isabel liked these red efts, found near a rotting log on the old lumber road near the end of the northwest peninsula of (soon-to-be) Slingerland's parcel. We had decided to walk the horse-trail loop that was cleared for skiing last fall, instead of attempting the climb up Crane.

We didn't trust Calvin to hold one of the newts (and he wasn't quite sure he wanted to, anyway) -- but he did carefully touch the one Isabel was holding.

Cherry Pie! --our favorite. After moving to Albany we noticed our neighbors had a beautiful sour cherry tree. They thought it was a "bad" tree, not knowing what to do with sour cherries. We tried to teach them the first year, by sharing one of our pies with them. They have let us have them every year.
Isabel helped me pick the cherries. Calvin wasn't much of a help, although he enjoyed climbing on the ladder, while Dave picked.

We hope to stay on our neighbor's good side because my, oh my... They are good. Here are Isabel and Monica putting together the second pie from this year's crop in the kitchen at the "castle" in Keene, NY. I made the crust and took the pictures.

Here's me and my brother Patrick. Everyone still says we look just alike. Calvin was fascinated with his big dog Harley.


Here are a few pictures from our recent trip to Philadelphia. We visited the Please Touch museum which we visited with my old highschool classmate Frances Poodry.

Sphagnum moss, what keeps us in water and in soft seats.

Here's Isabel and Calvin testing it out on Pine Ridge on July 3rd 2005. Calvin is an amazing walker, saying "walk, walk" everytime you try to carry him. Isabel, of course, is an old hand at walking and moss testing.

The Helderbergs --

At the end of the weekend we went to the Indian Ladder Trail in the Helderbergs, and started at the playground. There was a secret trail in the woods, from the playground leading right down to the beginning of the stairs down the cliff.



Isabel says:

We went a little farther and saw the first waterfall. The trail goes behind the waterfall. Sometimes when it doesn't rain, I'd go under a little bit of the waterfall. It was near the second waterfall. I was leading everyone most of the way. I liked the part where the cliff was very tall and there was an overhang way up high. In another place there was an overhang just a little higher than my head, and my parents had to duck to get underneath but I didn't.

On the way back we had a kind of pillow fight except we were throwing Calvin's pants. And Calvin was riding on Daddy's shoulders, and decided to twist his ears really hard...




When we got off the trail, we played on the playgrounds a little bit more, and then on the way back we had milkshakes at the Tollhouse Ice Cream place. I thought it was the best day I ever had!

We have finally finished the Pirate Fortress (except for some minor reinforcements to make it wobble a little less.) Its Grand Opening was a little before we finished it -- spent a couple of days putting it together, just before we had invited all our friends and neighbors over for a brunch. Otherwise we would never have gotten it done...