Last week, Jordi and Josie joined us. Jordi has himself a new pair of skates, his first non-rental pair. Josie is making a bit of progress.
She and I were sitting in the changing area before the break and I mentioned the Zamboni would be on the ice soon. The loud horn and not knowing what the heck "the Zamboni" is, had her a bit spooked. Once the Zamboni was circling the ice and could be seen though the glass doors, it seemed safe enough for a closer look.
The Patriots played and defeated the Ravens this afternoon. I split my time between watching and baking a pecan pie from the Deerfield's Bakery recipe from "Killer Pies". Not a bad way to spend the day.
After dinner, Bonny played tournament director, having a first round to reduce the six players to four for the semi-final and final rounds. Bert was the evening's winner, with a two roll win over runner-up Karen.
Dinner was quite tasty, with a bit of pot luck contributed. We had a lot of good and tasty food. I had spent the day baking two pies. Here today, apple pie and coffee. A great start to 2012.
The onion and orange were nearby and pressed into service just for color and interest.
Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah to all.
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There were lots of gifts under the tree. We all got some nice surprises. Josie is a whirlwind, with a bit of envy for any gift that someone else gets. Above she is trying on my Rudolf nose. The day was finished off with that holiday tradition: Chinese take-out.
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The candles all went out, so Jen should get her wish.
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Oh, for dessert, three pies. Karen made pumpkin, Jen made pecan, and mine was an apple pie with a few dried cherries tossed in. And some ice cream and whipped cream. Josie is learning a little French: à la mode.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
]]>Here is a photo from Sunday. Celia really is a generally happy baby. I think at this point she just didn't want to get back in to the car. They were headed off to yet another party.
On top of that, in 2009 there was a series of four new pennies to commemorate the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth. All of the new work is on the back of the penny. The front remains the familiar Victor David Brenner likeness of President Lincoln that has appeared on the coin since 1909.
This new union shield is, to my taste, not very impressive. A little web browsing finds many who share this opinion. But that's the web. Who is going to blog about how excited they are to see the new penny? Meanwhile, the conspiracy theorists ... well, let's not say too much, wink, wink.
I also discovered I have a coin with a penny side (tails) and a dime side (tails), like someone had split each of two coins in half and fused the two together, trimming off the excess radius from the penny. Maybe this is a scam to make two 10 cent coins out of 11 cents of material, but can the effort involved be less than 9 cents? No wait, a little searching suggests this is a magician's coin, made to fit into a hollowed out penny. Both sides of the "penny" can be shown. When shell is whisked away, the penny becomes a dime. There are mysterious things going on in my pockets.
]]>Jen got a number of good photos from the trip. The ambient light and background scenery was as good as we hoped for. Maybe the foliage could have had more reds.
The family blogosphere is heavy on photos of our grandchildren, so in the interest of balance, and because Jen and Jordi are just as special to us, here is their picture.
Both cookies and pie are history.
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We came away with a gazillion apples and maybe a dozen or more pears. At home later, Josie spun the crank on the apple peeling machine as we processed a couple dozen plus apples. Most are going in to Jen's freezer as pre-made pie fillings and apple crisps. Be sure to hint broadly before any visit.
Today I just took a pie out of the oven, The apples were huge off the tree. Some were too big to go through my apple corer. This is a deep deep dish. I will post a picture when the light is better.
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More birthday fun on Sunday. Jen had gotten us all Red Sox tickets for Jordi's birthday, which was way back in February. The Red Sox have been slumping the past dozen games or so, and the wildcard race is getting uncomfortably close. Today's game was not played well by the home town team, with a bunch of passed balls and a couple errors. Still up 2 games on the Rays.
Josie had been well prepared beforehand on the rituals of a Red Sox home game: the "wave", the seventh inning stretch, and "Sweet Caroline". Unfortunately, we didn't get to hear "Dirty Water".
]]>This past weekend, we all drove down to Newport for Susan and Colin's wedding. Well not exactly "for" the wedding, Karen and I were coming along to serve as baby sitters. On Sunday, as we approached Newport, the AMs were a few minutes ahead of us. They called back with the report of an organic farm by the roadside offering a petting zoo. We made the snap call and stopped, finding that the "zoo" was basically all goats.
It was a real nice day. This picture is faithful to the blue, blue sky. Cecilia was a little skeptical about sticking her hand near the goat's kibble-hole, but it was a nice way to spend a little time. We stopped again on the way back home. This time Cecilia was fast asleep and missing this second visit. The Facebook cellphone pic was made then.
In between, we hear the wedding and reception went well. The girls appear un-traumatized by the brief separation. I think Jen was more nervous about it than they were. Of course, Jen knows what screw-ups her folks can be. ;-)
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