'Tis the Season

Today was the annual Christmas in Moravia event - chock full of all of the festivities of a Skaneateles Dickens Christmas, without it being, well...Skaneateles. Lots of fun, but I needed to write myself a schedule to keep up.

Our 4-H club does a cookie decorating event every year during Christmas in Moravia at Coffee 'n Cream, my friend Sarah's cafe/gallery - where kids can come and decorate (and eat of course) sugar cookies. So we were there helping to set up at 9am, Anna and her friend Hailey were Mary and Joseph respectfully (hey...they were short on boy recruits) for the living nativity scene on main street (the baby, by the way, was a very old cabbage patch kid...hysterical!). Cara, Jeffy and I rang bells for the Salvation Army at 11am, Cara's 5th grade chorus sang at 12:30pm - she was really excited to have a solo this year - so had to be there. Then we were on cookie decorating helper duty 1-2:30pm.

Jeff was away this weekend helping his folks move to their winter retreat...so I was flying solo (now you know why I needed the schedule). And Jeffy during all of this, was a trooper...although no one really knows how many cookies he ate :).

As for the picture! Anna's friend Haley's mom has a fairly new photography business...and we thought we'd reach out to her for some help on Christmas pics. She spent part of the afternoon with us last Sunday - and caught some fun family time (thanks Tracy!) One of the options is above.

Workbench Adventures—with Jeff and Company.

Well, project momentum has slowed from the last newsletter report. I do not have nearly the successes to report. Part of the reason is time constraints and the other is that I injured my knee in September and have not felt up to doing much. But those are just excuses.

I did make some improvements to the chicken coup; the old dog house that has been converted to a 4-star Poultry Bed and Breakfast (when the chickens get big enough, we’ll have them for breakfast - ha ha ha). Actually, once you name the chickens, it is likely they will have a long life (assuming they can outrun the coyotes). I installed a door on the coup and also hung shingles on the roof. Maybe next year we will install siding and indoor plumbing. Still have not built the other Adirondack chair, I think I am waiting to get an air compressor and pneumatic hammer for Christmas (hint, hint). We have cleared out the garage and are now parking cars out of the rain and snow. The shed is now packed full again, definitely one of our better investments. Speaking of snow, we have gotten quite a bit so far. We had some in October before Halloween and for the last week it has looked liked Christmas .

Wood-burning season has started and it is nice to have two strong girls to bring wood over to the window, even Jeff Jr. contributes. Still haven’t covered the wood though, waiting for the snow to melt so that my friend Todd can bring over an old pool cover that he has promised.

Cara and I have been taking voice lessons this fall on Saturday mornings. I wear a flannel shirt and my Carhart to the lesson so the real men of Moravia think I am actually going hunting instead of singing. I think the gun rack in Toyota Echo has them fooled. I have also been taking classes at SUNY Cortland through the Educational Leadership program. I feel that I am not educated enough and need more degrees.

As far as the knee injury, Shelley and I had been running this summer and fall (well, running may be too strong a word, but how about a fast walk without all the hip swinging). Anyway we sprinted at the end of one of our runs in Sept., she started it and I had to demonstrate that I still had the legs of a gazelle (if it was fat and 40). I won, but my knee didn’t...

Cost of an unforgetable Halloween? Priceless!

Some of you may know that I was one of those kids that went trick or treating until I was...17?! I realize how insane that sounds...but the costumes and candy were so much fun!

Now that I’m a mom...in Moravia, I’m motivated by other factors—namely—the Moravia Halloween parade and costume contest. It isn’t the prize (a big $5) just the inspiration of it all. We have a good time dreaming up costumes—often times with friends—and creating something strange or magical.

Although we didn’t win any prizes this year—we had fun. Jeffy was a knight and his gal pal Taryn was a princess. The first half of the parade they walked hand in hand—very sweet. Then something happened. The princess dropped the knight and ran for Han Solo. Jeffy of course didn’t care...he was pretty enamored with the sword, and his friend Spiderman walking on his other side.

Anna was Little Bo Peep. Truth be told, her costume started out as Raggedy Ann. She made an awesome red rag wig—that looked a little freaky when she put it on. Then we thought maybe she would just go sans wig, until Jeff noticed that she looked uncannily like Little Bo Peep. So we added the shepherds crook and a stuffed sheep and whala!

Then there was Cara. Cara and her friend Ellie wanted to be I dream of Jeannie girls. The pattern and the materials stretched my sewing skills—but Cara enjoyed the sparkles and glitter...and the girls looked beautiful.

You can see Cara her here with our friend Jordan Crossgrove who was a prize winning “green thing with a beak”.

We ended our Halloween with the annual candy swap and dinner at our friend’s the Crossgroves. A good time was had by all!

Incidentally...just want to point out all of the re-use of materials for the costumes this year. See all of the muslin? It is from discarded (never used) bed covers from the NYS Fair! And Jeffy’s hat and sleeves? Old curtains! Cost of an unforgetable Halloween? Priceless!

Indianapolis Adventures

I'm still here in Indianapolis - at the Extension Galaxy Conference. In case you are wondering what the "galaxy" stands for - it refers to the fact that all of the Extension professional organizations are involved. So this conference serves ag educators, consumer family science educators, 4-H educators, natural resource educators...and there are even more. I think I heard that there are 2,400 people at this conference. Wow!

The workshops have been good, and there have been a fair number of activies that have just been plain fun (those are the things that I have shared in pictures here). Kim and I have been running every day - it's allowed us to see the fun stuff around town. We

ran along the canal today (it reminds me of the riverwalk in SanAntonio) - it was gorgeous. We've shared some good meals with friends, and done a little sight seeing. You'll see the skyline here...it is quite a nice one.

The odd thing has been the smell. Apparently the barametric pressure change here has released some sewage gases. Yep. It stinks - throughout the whole city...just in occasional sudden whiffs. The funny thing is the the acronym for the university here (you see the acronym everywhere) - it is IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University at Indiana). The way the signage is done it looks like this IUPUI. Ha! PU is right :).

Here in Indianapolis

I am here in Indianapolis at the NAE4-HA Conference. Indianapolis is a really pretty city...not that I have had much time to play :). Lots of meetings and sitting during the day but the nights have been fun. Last night we went to the State Museum for a reception - where there was an Imax movie of racing and the Mario and Michael Andretti, tonight we saw a screening of Secret Life of Bees with Dakota Fanning. You would like that book Anna. It is a good one...and a good movie. I did drag Kim out this morning for a run - she loved it :). Note the picture here of Kim looking up at the skyline under one of the skyways (they seem to connect everything downtown).

Choosin' Health

Last summer our office began an educational campaign called Choose Health as an effort to promote childhood obesity prevention. I did a lot of the work developing the logo, taglines and promotional pieces...and I guess the messages began to slowly sink in. I started wearing a pedometer around (and realized that chasing a then 3 year old around isn’t really “active”), we began using sandwich plates for dinner plates, bought a treadmill and I started checking serving sizes on everything (drives my girls crazy I’m sure).
My new year’s resolution this year was to run a 5K. Although you may be thinking “no problem”, my 40 year old lungs thought differently. But after several months of training...I ran (along with Jeff, Anna and Cara) in the Tompkins County 4-H Duck Race in April. My goal was to finish the race—and I did it! We ran again in the Millard Fillmore 5K in July. And, Anna is running with the Cross Country middle school team this fall. I’m still trying to get 3 runs in a week...and enjoy running with my dog (sometimes I drag her, sometimes she drags me), and with Jeff on weekends. If you want to feel good about yourself, go ahead and challenge me to a race (5’2” doesn’t equate to “built for speed”)...I don’t mind.

Growing Stuff

This year’s garden, thanks to the plentiful rain, was incredible! I don’t think that I’ve ever had such luck or such beautiful tomatoes. It was touch and go for a while—a sheer battle between me and the cucumber beetles, but in the in the end we both got to eat a lot.
And recently I bought a neat little gadget called a Foley Mill that is allowing me no excuses for using up all of the nearly perfect tomatoes that are being produced this year. With the Foley Mill you cook tomatoes (or whatever you’d like) with skins, seeds and all...and then run the cooked product through the hand-cranked mill to squeeze out the good stuff and leave the skins and seeds behind. Come to think of it—I think my grandmother did the same thing with a cone shaped ricer and a wooden spoon, but it didn’t look like fun. My kids are fighting over whose turn it is to turn the Foley.
More on growing…Mr. Haight, one of Anna’s teachers, assigned the class to make a “project box” where they built a simple kit, and wrote directions for someone else to follow. There was much deliberation in our house about what kind of kit would be fun to do, and simple enough to explain. In the end Anna decided to build a kit for home-made chia pets—something that is always done as a hands-on project in the youth building at State Fair. She took lots of time to create her kit, label the contents, neatly write the directions and try it out. She was so excited to bring the project box in to school.
Well, when it came time to trade her box with someone else who was going to try it out, and grade her...she ended up with one of the boys...who doesn’t like projects. “This is stupid” he said as he added half of the soil. Anna tried to point out that he was supposed to decorate it. “I’m not going to do that, you can bring it home” he said. “Boys!” was her comment. She brought home his discarded, half-headed, chia pet and we got a chuckle as it began to grow.

Workbench Adventures—with Jeff and Company.

This summer saw a few projects completed around the house. I re-arranged the wood pile and made it much more attractive - no more pallet walls with big metal poles sticking out. Shelley and I finally painted the master bedroom; almost two years since we bought the paint for it. I kept waiting for my sister Beth to help me - but she moved to North Carolina. Also, got to add new parts to the John Deere lawn tractor, steering lever broke and battery went dead. While Shelley and the girls were at State Fair, Jeffy was my helper for a few projects. We had to paint the bedroom and closet doors in the bedroom, 6 doors in all. Jeffy helped with the power sander and the vacuuming of the doors after we sanded them. He really enjoyed the vacuum, especially when he saw a bug. He also liked to paint with the roller more than the brush, but he didn’t like getting paint on his hands. Good thing we still have baby wipes around. When he got bored, he rode around and around the garage with his bikes. Then, we had to patch the garage floor. There were numerous holes in the floor that needed fixed. I tried a new patching compound that worked really well. Now I can move the grill around without getting stuck in potholes. Finally, Cara and I (and Jeffy too) put together 1 of 2 Adirondack chairs that Shelley had gotten me for Christmas. (Hey, I was waiting for another piece and it just came in.) It is really comfortable and only one mistake (that you can’t really see). I should have taken some BOCES classes back in school instead of English or German. Come see for yourself :)

Owasco Lake “Staycation”

Some of you know that we found out this summer that Jeff’s dad was going to be busy undergoing chemotherapy for a soft tissue sarcoma (cancer) in his thigh. With this news and the outrageous price of gas...we thought this would be the year to stick closer to home.
While searching for a place to rent, we were asked to be guests at Ashland, a cottage owned by the Newhart family. What luck! We loved it, had such a nice time, enjoyed the company of friends and family the whole week, celebrated Anna’s and Jeffy’s b’days, fished, enjoyed the company of the Wells family—our friends who were renting just two doors up, kayaked, ate leisurely dinners as late as 8pm…
We spent most of the week wondering why we had never done this before. Owasco Lake is in our own little community, beautiful...and a destination for others. It may just be a destination for us again.
Special thanks to the Newharts for sharing their little slice of heaven with us! And to the Wells family for sharing in the fun and bringing the family out for some boating adventures. Did I mention that Anna got up on water skis?

Lookout Goober Ahead

Jeffy had a great summer, with lots of highlights including his wiggly eyes (see picture), and his millipede bracelet (see other picture).
His quote of the summer was, “I’m 4 and I don’t care!”. That sort of sums it all up anyway.
He is playing soccer this fall. If you are thinking—”wow, a four year old playing soccer!”. You are quite right. It is, as I see it, a strategy to keep him busy while Cara plays soccer (they play at the same field on the same nights) and to try to tire him out a bit.
He spent much of last Thursday with a cone on his head, sitting where one of the goal cones should have been, explaining to any other 4 year old trying to kick a goal that “he was a cone”.
So I guess we have a cone head.

Cara Meets the Jonas Boys

I often say that I’d like to skip to the end of the book of life to find out what happens with my children. Some things do seem predictable.
In Cara’s case, her pleasant persistence is what drives me crazy, but delights me at the same time.
When she heard that the Jonas Brothers were coming to the NYS Fair she started saving her money, writing letters to Jeff about why she should go, making lists of the things she would bring if she did go...the list goes on. But we held our ground as we didn’t really think she needed to go.
While at the State Fair I had a casual conversation with a friend who works for Ag and Markets, who had tickets for his daughter to go the concert. His comment was—I’d gladly give up my ticket for Cara to go.
Although I forgot about the conversation, he didn’t... in the end Cara did go with his daughter. The most amazing part were the seats in the meet and greet section. Good thing we had originally said no—eh?

What is NOT to like about September?

The end of the summer means State Fair for our clan. Shelley, and now the two girls, spent 13 days and 12 fabulous nights at the 4-H Youth Building—working, playing, eating, seeing old friends, and meeting a few new ones.
The girls worked in the incubation and Embryology exhibit where Anna got to hand out chicks and show small children how not to squish them. Cara’s talents for being a general fun loving goof-ball were quickly discovered and she was made the voice of Eggbert—the talking egg for nearly all of her working hours. When we heard Eggbert singing opera style—”Hellooooo, My Name is Eggbert, what’s your question?” We knew right away where Cara was.
One night at home...then it was back to school. Anna was nervous to start 7th grade in the middle school—lockers, bells, changing classes...yikes. But the team of teachers at the middle school set us all at ease. The middle school has “Houses” (think Harry Potter), where the students earn points for their house and are recognized for their individual and house achievements regularly. The teachers work together in a team approach to stay on top of behavior and academic problems. VERY different from the nuggies that I recall from my middle school science teacher for late assignments.
Jeffy started UPK this fall—attending every afternoon in Mrs. Denman’s class. Bless her heart. She has called twice to report what a delightful young man Jeffy is. She might have him confused with someone else—we aren’t sure...but he seems to love school, and Mrs. Denman.
Shelley, as usual, took the first two weeks of September off to recover from the Fair, and get a handle on the garden and house after a busy summer.

Last Night in San Antonio!

Another great day at the CYFAR conference. Followed by a little fun out on the riverwalk. Tonight I went on one of the riverwalk cruises with our CITY Project teens and adults - very cool, minus the obnoxious and loud tour guide. What I was hoping for was a river cruise minus the guide...just a chance to observe and chat with some friends. It was cool to see more of the city this way though. Sure is beautiful here. Then, I did a little shopping for the kidlings and hubby. Lots of shopping to be done here...even for non shoppers like me. I am giving a presentation in the morning - Creative Communication Tools - Simply Done -- things like wikis, blogs, meeting wizard, moviemaker/youtube, and facebook. After that, closing session then - home (after about 12 hrs of travel that is). See you soon!!!

Day 3 SanAntonio

Today was the first official day of the conference. I was part of the CITY Project team that presented this afternoon. The teens that are with us did a fabulous job - I was very proud of them! I also learned more about a project called ACCESS 4-H a new web based initiative from National 4-H Council that is not quite ready for release yet - but looks really promising. There will be lots of fun tools on this page - from video editing equipment to blogging for clubs.

Then I went out to dinner with my friend Lucinda from NYC. We had some good food and again enjoyed the riverwalk. My camera batteries gave out today...so not many new pics to share.

Day 2 San Antonio

Most of today was spent in a video/podcasting workshop put on by this really awesome program from the University of Montana called TERRApod. The concept is exactly like something we are trying to get started in NYS 4-H -- training youth to develop short videoclips related to science. The difference is that this program has a foundation in creating documentary nature films.

Montana State University offers the world's only Master Of Fine Arts program in Science and Natural History Filmmaking. So TERRApod connects the MFA students to 4-H kids and video projects prompting/training them to develop podcasts that are of sound video and content quality. I was so impressed.

The rest of the day was spent catching up with friends. When you get to be an adult - you call this "networking"... hard work and great fun :). Dinner included a mariochi band (see picture). It brought me back to Sunday dinners at Nonni's when I was a little girl. No - no mariochi band members in the family...but Grandpa would often have a little too much wine to drink and seranade us in Nonni's little kitchen. He had a nice voice...and looking back - I think he just didn't have a chance to sing at church :) . The other pics are of shops around town.

At the Riverwalk

All kinds of interesting things here in SanAntonio. Today I visited the Alamo and walked around the Riverwalk (beautiful and quite inspiring). I also enjoyed a little (ok more than a little) tex mex food & the best salsa I've ever had. This is a very beautiful city...with incredible landscaping. I thought the girls would be interested to see that many of the signs are in both English and Spanish.

There are these really great live oaks at the Alamo that long to be climbed....except there are also signs preventing such fun. I think if lived in the south I would want to have one of these fabulous trees in my yard.

Thoroughly Modern Mille Fluer

We welcomed 4 new gals to our humble (Cara likes that word) home today. Jaime, a student that is working for me, passed on four of her Mille Fluer Bantam chickens to us. They are so very pretty. Mille Fluer, I'm told, means "tiny flower". And they lay the tiniest eggs! (Beth - want to come blow out some eggs with me??? :) ) Like every other pet around here - they are expected to earn their keep. I'm hoping that they will eat bugs from the garden, provide us with petite eggs, and fertilize the gardens. I'll post some pics when we get some.

We did it!

BK (Before Kids) I used to exercise pretty faithfully. Running, aerobics or biking...nothing for competition...but just because it felt good. After we started our family I always thought I'd get back to it "when the kids were old enough" - whatever that means. This January I realized that it has been 12 years - YEARS since I had done more than walk as a form of exercise. Yikes. And so it began...slowly I've worked my way up. My goal was to run a 5K - not to compete, but to run it...whole thing. Well I did my first 5K on Sunday - the 4-H Duck Race in Tompkins County. The family joined me. It was great! Jeffy spent some time with our friends, the Youngers, but the rest of us ran it. There might have been a few sore muscles on Mon and Tues...but it was a good experience...and it was a great thing to do together. Hope we will do another one soon...

On the way home...

Thanks to the NC and SC Carmichaels & Gees - for another fun family
get-away! We had lots of fun and adventurous adventures.

We slept at a Comfort Inn last night in Greencastel, PA. That is some of
us slept - actually all of us - except Jeff. Someone's car alarm went off
at 2am. Jeff thought it was ours (we don't have one) and went to check it
out. Mr. Hoowiggins (the 80+ year old fella who was at the registration
desk each time we went through - midnight, 2am, and 7:30am) and a couple of
other annoyed people were there as well - all joyful I'm sure.

It is 8am, and we are on the road - again. Jeffy is singing in the back
seat. He has my ability to carry a tune :). Cara is reading Charlotte's
Web out loud to us, and Anna is doing her best to annoy Cara, and
Jeffy...us...and maybe the other drivers around us. We are sort of like
(use your imagination) the Incredibles - Anna is much like Violet, Jeffy
like Jack-Jack and Cara reminds me most of the enthusiastic babysitter.

High points of the trip:
Getting to see the Gee's new place. Playing B'ball. The Swing. Running
with Beth and Sandy. Celebrating Cara's b'day a few more times. Sitting
around the fire at Jim's. Playing hot spot. Seeing the cousins. Hanging
out with Beth and Matt watching as Sandy relentlessly tried to smell Georgi
(and G showed her how much she approves of this behavior).

Seeing Gram and Pappers. Building a city on the beach (then watching as
the tide tore it down). Swimming in the pool. Swimming from the "3 steps"
to the "2 steps". Running on the beach. Having a crabby waitress at Joe's
Crab Shack. Window shopping at the River Street Sweets shop (Jeffy left a
few noseprints)...and caving in to have pralines and choc covered
oreos. Visiting the Aquarium (we brought Jeffy here - he liked the
octopus, nemo fish, jellyfish, and the sharks) and MagiQuest (girls went
there and enjoyed it). Eating at River City Cafe. Making some new friends
(Cole and Tooty-Toot-Toot - a stuffed turtle). Grandma's famous mac and
cheese. Visiting MB State Park and doing a little geo-caching
there. Visiting and picnicking at Huntington Beach SP with Gram and
Pap. We always enjoy going through Atalaya - and were pleased to see that
there is a zealous new effort to protect the house and promote the work of
the Huntingtons. We also did a little geo-caching there - though we never
found the cache -- we did find a cluster of rat snakes on a tree branch at
the correct coordinates. Cara hightailed it out of the woods :). Saw a
symphony of fiddler crabs lifting their big claw up and down...very cool.

Low points:
only one - sitting in a turn-around on 501 in SC while the tow truck and
Dad were coming to rescue us. In case you didn't hear...we had a flat tire
on 501 about an hour N of Myrtle - and since the Sienna has run flats we
had to get a tow and new tire. Worse things can happen, for sure...we all
survived AOK.

Thanks for the memories! We are looking forward to the next family
adventure...anyone up for Disney 8/03/08? ;-)