Meg's Class Goes Hollywood

Meg's class made an anti-bullying video to play at the all-school meeting this week. She makes two appearances - once as the bully and once as the hero. I hope the video will show up here...let me know if there are password issues or other problems.

Okay, apparently it does require a password.
Try: S102
Thanks, Heather, for the heads up!

The Early Spring Slog

March. It gets me every year. It feels like it should be spring by now, but it is really still winter. This year, maybe more so. On the one hand, we enjoyed a week's vacation in February this year, which is an unusual treat and should help. On the other hand, it is still March. In fact, the only month on the calendar this year without a single day off school for the kids. They are tired, and I am too. Still, there are many moments of joy. I think I need to recount some of them:

• It is now light outside when Jeremy leaves for work and when he returns. That is a wonderful difference. The kids have taken to meeting him at the train stop when he comes home. Well, really, Meg started it, wanting some time alone with Dad. The younger ones have tried to make it competitive so we sometimes have to take turns. But still, it is nice that they can go get him. 
• Warmth. Several days in the 50s this week. We aren't out of the woods of winter yet - still single-digits several mornings this week. But the thaw is coming.
• Humongous icebergs. Well, maybe that isn't quite the right term for them ... I mean those ice mountains next to the parking lot at school. There is one that started about 20 feet high a few weeks ago. It is down several feet now, but still rock-solid, and John's favorite place to play. We try to stop after school most days for a few minutes. (For some inexplicable reason, the school authortities haven't been chasing kids off of this lethal liability.) James and Meg are of course too old to want to just climb ice mountains. However, they very kindly (and quickly) offer to escort Helen on it. Fine by me.
• James had a super-cool program at M.I.T. this weekend (Spark). It is run by an army of M.I.T. student volunteers which makes it nearly free, and he gets two full days worth of classes on pretty cool topics. Today he had 2 hours on the Philosophy of Law; 2 hours on Cryptography; 1 hour each on Absolute Zero and Modern Rapid Fabrication. Tomorrow's classes include A Brief History of Time (modest undertaking for an hour); Programming Simple Math in Python; How to Land on the Moon; and Languages of Middle Earth. Even though he is pretty worn out after a very long week of rehearsals and performances of the middle school musical (he was stage crew), he has been keyed up for these classes.
• Roller skating. While Jeremy took James in for his classes today (and spent the day working), I had the 3 younger kids for a long Satuday, plus Meg's friend Rachel. We decided to go roller skating. We found a rink about 30 minutes away. The older girls liked it. John loved it. Helen wasn't too keen on the skating, but liked the corner with the fancy disco lights where she stripped off her skates and danced liked a maniac for over an hour. Nice way to break up a Saturday. 
• Work. I actually made significant writing progress this week. My manuscript is still far from done, but I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. And while I don't yet feel like an expert on the psychology concepts I have to learn, I do finally feel like I am progressing from student to ... knowledgeable, at least. Able to hold my own, soon, I hope.
• Tumbling. Helen goes once a week to a sort of pre-gymnastics class. It is actually with her daycare group, but I take her in on a Wednesday, when she is home with me otherwise. The teacher is great and Helen loves it. She now runs about everywhere turning somersaults and "making a cat-tail." (That is her teacher's talk for early-stages of learning a cartwheel - two hands down and one foot up in the air, like a cat's tail.) 

Florida Vacation - Day 5 and trip home

Jeremy had to work today - he had a looming deadline and spent the day at Jim and Barb's on his laptop. Barb went with me to take the kids to yet another beach. We started in the town of Venice, at the gift shops, where the kids wanted to spend their travel money. For John, a shark's tooth necklace. For Meg, earrings. For Helen, a dress (in a batik print). James was feeling frugal and still making up his mind. :)

We then drove over to the beach near Venice which was yet again different. The sand was coarser and there was a full line of jagged rocks/boulders at the water's edge. There was also a stiff wind and steady waves today. This made swimming tough, but the kids had chosen this beach to search for shark teeth fossils. They entertained themselves for several hours with digging and sifting through the sand in 2-3 feet of water.

Then, in the late afternoon, we picked up Jeremy and took a long walk along the Casey Key Beach from our first day. The kids doubled the size of their seashell collection, which was already substantial. 

I may have photos to add to today's post later, or maybe not. I had the smaller (pocket-sized) camera with me this day, and I haven't transferred those photos to the computer yet. However, it turned out that the camera card was nearly full when I set out that day, so I don't know if I have any photos of worth, anyway. 

Still, even without pictorial evidence, we had another great day. Well, except maybe for Jeremy.

The drive home (7 AM Saturday to 10 PM Saturday in southern VA; 8 AM Sunday to 8 PM Sunday) was fairly uneventful - we pushed hard. The only remarkable event was that Helen got sick - again. Strange, after a whole week of being fine. Then again, maybe it was her diet. To keep the kids happy during a 15-hour travel day, we let just about anything go. Including that Helen wanted to eat only baby-food pouches of applesauce (several) and an oversized bag of Cheetos from a gas station. Ugh.

This time, when she threw up, it was at 1 AM, in our hotel bed. Still, NOT in the car! (Yay, Helen!) A bit of an embarrassing mess to leave at the hotel, but nice to leave the dirty sheets and towels with someone else, for sure. And nice to be able to have room service deliver clean sheets when you are dealing with this in the middle of the night. I need to figure out how to get that at home, sometimes.

Florida vacation - Day 4

Thursday morning, the kids swam in the pool again with Jeremy and Jim while Aunt Barb took me shopping at her favorite consignment stores. I made out like a bandit, finding the new slacks for work that I have been needing as well as several nice blouses and sweaters. After lunch, we drove about 20 minutes to Myakka State Park, which was inland. The whole landscape changed. Suddenly the land was scrubby, ferocious biting bugs made an appearance, and the freshwater heralded the appearance of... the alligators.

The lookout tower above the treetops gave us a bird-eye view of a Florida-style forest. It definitely looks different.

Under the forest canopy, it was a completely different place. The light was eerily gray under the thick, tall vegetation, and everything looked brown and dead (yet thickly grown). 

Dr. Seuss trees!

Finally, along the shores of Myakka Lake, we saw our first alligator. We soon saw that he had many, many friends. Could that be why this state park lake is posted "No Swimming?" But they did have canoe and kayak rentals. We declined.

Alligator bait.

Thursday evening, we attended Circus Sarasota. It turns out that Sarasota is the winter home and training grounds of several circuses. (Ringling has his name on many things here.) We picked up the "cheap seats" tickets under the one-ring Big-Top, and were so glad that we did. None of the kids had ever been to a circus. Jeremy and I hadn't been since we were quite young kids. I enjoyed it, but the kids loved it. Helen didn't sit down for the entire show. She stood gripping the back of the seat in front of her, mouth hanging open. I understand the ban on flash photography during the circus, but I was sorry not to be able to capture the excitement in the eyes of all my kids, especially Jeremy (whom I think loved it more than any of us.)

Waiting for the circus to start.

The one act I captured without a flash - the aerial gymnasts.

Florida Vacation - Day 2 and Day 3

On Tuesday, Jim took us out on his sailboat all day. Meg loved getting to use the radio to call the drawbridges to open so we could motor out the Intercoastal waterway to the gulf. We all enjoyed the relative peace of the wind and sun once we cut the motor and unfurled the sails on the Gulf of Mexico. It was a very calm day so the kids could climb out on the front deck and take turns at the helm. They liked yelling out the locations of crab pots to avoid - mostly because it gave them a chance to boss around the sibling steering at the time. I don't have any photos of the trip as I decided not to chance a camera on the water. I thought just coming back with all 4 kids would be enough of an accomplishment.

On Wednesday, Jim and Barb treated us today to a "Sea Life Encounter" boat tour sponsored by the Mote Marine Aquarium in Sarasota. We toured the Intercoastal waterway on a pontoon boat with a marine biologist guide, spotted dolphins off bow, and trawled a net behind to haul in a "catch" to inspect before tossing it back in the shallow waters. After the boat ride, we went in the aquarium, where we enjoyed dolphins, manatees, a shark, jellyfish, and many smaller sea creatures.

After the aquarium, we visited a new beach - Siesta Key. It was voted the best beach in the USA last year, and not without merit. The sand there was incredible (soft and white) and stretched for miles. The kids swam again.

The best treat of the whole day for me was that my cousin Brian was able to join us for the day. It was great to see him for the first time in over 20 years!

Jim and Barb, waiting for the boat trip with us.

Helen exploring a small island in the gulf, and learning about the mangrove trees and palmettos.

Our boat, at the island where we took a short walk with the guid.

We cruised (quietly) past this protected bird nesting rookery. It was crowded.

One thing that continued to astound me on the trip was the real estate. Along the waterways (two banks of the intercoastal, plus the ocean/Gulf facing shore, there were miles and miles of beachfront property, all of it crammed with these multi-million dollar homes. Where are all of these tenants coming from? How many millionaires does the world hold? Jim says most of them are only occupied a few months each year...which doesn't help at all in answering my question.

Helen gets up close and personal with some small crabs fished out of the ocean.

John, Meg, Aunt Barb watch to see what else our marine biologist found in the net.

Cousin Brian manages to not look too overwhelmed at meeting all of my wild kids at once.

Florida Vacation: Day 1

Today we basked in the sun, enjoyed the warmth, and generally lazed about. We visited the marina and saw Jim and Barb's boat; we went to the ocean beach on nearby Casey Key and hunted up (many) seashells; we swam in the clubhouse pool. No one was sick, the sunburns were minor, and we had a great time. I guess there isn't much more to say.

Helen can't quite decide about the weather - shorts and a jacket. We had a nice walk in the neighborhood up to the marina along the intercoastal waterway.

Notice Helen is ready to commit to the weather, now. The jacket is off to reveal the swim suit.

Looking at Uncle Jim's and Aunt Barb's sailboat.

Enjoying a view of the Intercoastal waterway and the houses that look out on it.

This big heron swooped right in over our head as we sat near the marina.

John liked the water, even if it was a tad cold.

"Look at the size of this seashell!"

Jim and Jeremy are hopefully having more fun than they look like. :)

For the kids, a day at the beach isn't complete unless someone has been buried in sand.

Or, several someones.

Florida Vacation - the drive down

We had a lovely time a week ago in Florida. I think I will mostly try to tell the story via photos, but who knows - those of you who read this blog know that I can't resist writing a long-winded story.

Thursday (Feb. 13) we had another blizzard and snow day from school, which made us very ready to go Friday after school. We made it as far as Aunt Betsy's in NJ, arriving around 10 PM. She had had a worse winter than us - could barely find her sidewalk, which she said she spent a whole day chipping out of the ice-banks piled waist-high there. We had a really nice (if too short) visit with her, but left a bit later than planned (11 AM) because Helen decided to throw up several times Saturday morning. Betsy was a really good sport about it, and I must confess I was glad it hadn't happened all over Helen's carseat, which is nearly impossible to clean while on the road.

As it turned out, we scooted out just ahead of yet another snowstorm, leaving another several inches of snow in the north. We drove hard all day, other than a stop in VA for a bathroom that turned into a shopping trip for new shoes. (John has had these good sneakers since the fall - but they have laces. He insisted when we bought them that he would learn to tie them. He didn't, and wouldn't wear them. So Jeremy found him some no-tie laces with a pull-tab. Except they turned out to be too big, and dragged on the ground all the time. At this particular fateful stop, John finally tripped on them, and smacked his cheek badly on a concrete curb. We were at a strip mall anyway, so...we actually found some velcro shoes that he loves (they have a puma on them because that is the brand, but John seems to just think they are actual puma shoes, and that is what he calls them). While Jeremy and John did that, I took James next door to the Old Navy for a pair of shorts, since he announced the day before we left that none of last summer's shorts still fit him. Thus, it turned out to be our most efficient rest stop by far - in 30 minutes we used the bathroom (where Helen got sick all over the floor - but again, NOT in the car!), bought shoes, bought shorts, threw in socks for Helen and John for good measure, and I got the best cup of tea of the whole trip (from Panera, where the clerk actually seemed cheerful to have me inform her that for my purchase of less than $3, I had left her a horrible mess in the restroom). 

Our dinner stop was going to be just gas and a drive-through, but as we piled out of the van, John got sick all over the parking lot (again, NOT in the car! Woo-hoo!) So, we added a trip into the Food Lion for saltines and Sprite and were on our way. We finally found a clean but inexpensive hotel in Fayetteville, NC, and stopped about 10 PM. Despite my being awake at 6 AM Sunday, we somehow didn't get on the road until 9:30. We did have a very substantial breakfast at the hotel, though. Given that both John and Helen seemed to be making up for a day without much food, and James was eating as usual, and that all 6 of us had a shower (after all the illness, we wanted that), I think we paid less than $10 for the beds. The rest covered our hot water and "complimentary" breakfast.

By early afternoon, we were approaching Savannah, GA and the kids needed a break. Fortuitously, the exit we chose for fast-food happened to have an air-force museum where the kids ran around for a half-hour, looking at the planes around the parking lot. Then, we all enjoyed weather finally warm enough that we ate our Burger King at the OUTSIDE tables for lunch.

Letting off some steam - out of the car for a few minutes.

We crossed into Florida in the late afternoon and enjoyed the free orange juice at the Welcome Center on I-95. However, we still had 4 hours of driving ahead of us. I would complain about how stinking large Florida is, but it turned out that the weather got significantly even nicer as we went, so I concede it was worth the last push. We finally arrived at Uncle Jim and Aunt Barb's around 9 or 10 PM, where they proceeded to spoil us all with chocolate chip cookies before bed. 

All in all, not bad for traveling 1400 miles in 2 days and an evening.