Valentine’s Day with Gage

February 16, 201411 Comments

This year I was happy to find Shrek Valentine cards, he’s one of Gage’s favorites. He practiced writing his name on them – with lots of help.

I was invited to his class party where we decorated bags to collect cards and had snacks. Doesn’t he look so grown up passing out his cards?

After school and lunch with Grandma where we went through his bag, we went to the community center and passed out more Valentine’s Day cards. I have no pictures of this because I was too busy encouraging and enjoying the fun. We had extra stickers and on Thursday Gage let me put Fiona on his hand. As of this morning she was still there. Must be true love.

We had lots of fun this year and he loved redecorating his Valentine’s with the stickers he received from his teacher.

I hope you all had a day with as much fun!

Sundays with Gage – Where is home?

January 19, 201429 Comments

My parents moved into their current house before I started 1st grade, that was 1978. I lived there until I left for college at 18, came back for the next two summers and for 5 months after I graduated from college. The house holds a lot of memories. My parents both come from bigger families and many of the them live fairly close by. When I think of home that’s where I think of, a house full of memories and close to the family I love. This past weekend we took a very quick trip down for a surprise 40th birthday party for my cousin’s wife (a fun time was had by all, too much for some ;)) and spent maybe our last night there. My parents will be moving close to us next month. I am excited for us all, especially Gage, but I will miss that house.

And this leads to the question, where is home? When I say home now, will it be here, where we make new memories and have cherished family close by or will it continue to be the place I grew up and spent every holiday until age 42? Time will tell. Gage loved to go to Papaw’s house but it would mean two and a half hours in the car. I can’t wait to see the surprise on his face when the trip takes 12 minutes! They will be living closer to Gage’s school than we do! Here’s the picture we took before we left for the party last night. It’s full of great memories and the next people who live there will be lucky to be in a house so full of love.

Our road trip to Vermont

November 2, 201313 Comments

Thought I’d share some camera phone pics from our road trip up to Vermont, first vacation sans Gage 🙂

We stopped in Westfield, New York, for lunch. Ate a a cute local diner and then decided to take a walk through the neighborhood before getting back on the road. As we were walking through this cute residential neighborhood, we saw this

Really? I stopped, curious. Jason refused to even acknowledge what he was seeing until I said I was going in and then he refused to come with me into some stranger’s house just because there was a sign in the yard. (I blame this on The Never List that we were listening to in the car) Well, as soon as he refused I was even more determined. I assumed that I was going to walk up that back deck and in. Um, no. As I got closer I saw that I had to go down these stairs to the basement and once there I had to ring a doorbell. Lucky for me Jason got nervous and followed me down. The man was very nice and we left $200 poorer. You just never know what places you will find to spend your money 😉 (we bought Gage’s birthday present – a Thomas Lionel train set, plus some other cute train stuff)

We spent the night in Syracuse and went to Destiny USA , which was awesome. It was an incredible place to spend time, a mall/movie theater/entertainment experience. Jason raced a car and we went to Wonder Works (LOVED) where I did fun thinks like get in a space shuttle and lie on a bed of nails.

The next day we arrived in Burlington and enjoyed finding the Earth Clock without a map (hey, it was at least a few miles from the hotel)

By the time we got there the sun was setting over Lake Champlain and there were a few people there talking about gods and goddesses. When they started beating the drums they brought from home we decided to try to find the hotel again. We enjoyed our few days in Burlington, great city that I’d visit again.

On our 15th anniversary we headed to Stowe, but with two quick stops. One at the Ben & Jerry’s factory where we took the tour (I am a loyal fan now. They are doing it the right way).

Then we stopped at the once home, but now hotel of the real von Trapp family. The family still owns the inn and they are also starting a beer label. There were no tours but we walked around and visited the gift shop. That was cool enough for me since I can’t count the times I’ve seen The Sound of Music.

This was the view. Beautiful, right? I need to watch the movie again!

Then we headed to the beautiful Stowe Mountain Lodge. When we checked in and told them it was our anniversary we immediately got upgraded to a suite that was nicer than our first three apartments! We loved our stay and felt very pampered. They even had shuffleboard out back. I was winning until I started talking smack and then Jason crushed me.

The hotel even provided babysitting so next time we can take Gage 🙂 We had a great trip and loved what we saw of Vermont, so relaxing and beautiful.

I’m on vacation

October 13, 2013October 28, 201316 Comments

I was so hoping to be more organized than this. I hate to leave my blog dormant for a week 😦 I should have used some of my read-a-thon time to write reviews!

Jason and I are taking our first Gageless vacation. Today, we’re driving up to Vermont and staying the week. On Thursday we’ll be at a resort in the mountains on our private balcony celebrating our 15 year anniversary 🙂 We’ll be back to celebrate Gage’s 3rd birthday on Saturday. Thank goodness for awesome parents or else we couldn’t do it.

I am looking forward to some relaxation. A few of you know that last week we bid on a new house, negotiated a good price and then it fell apart during inspection. It was a stressful week. (ie sorry I haven’t been visiting your blogs)

I’m sure I’ll be posting pics on Facebook. If we aren’t already friends, look me up.

Here’s one from last week that I can’t even believe I’m putting on here because I am a total mess. Oh well, can’t be a cover girl everyday, LOL. Here’s Gage helping me blow out the candles on my birthday cake.

Shutdown

October 1, 201317 Comments

Gage knows a mess when he sees it. If the government can do it, so can I, at least for a week! The House of Representatives has drained me of inspiration. I’m hoping they can give it back soon 😉

Saturday Snapshot-first full week of preschool status

September 14, 201317 Comments

Gage went to school 5 mornings this week for 2.5 hours each day. I don’t get a lot of conversation and what I do get takes so much effort I’m usually tired by the end. He has no problem telling you things that he wants you to know, but is less interested in whatever question I may have. I think this may be a boy thing. Anyway, on Wednesday I had to pick him up early from the city school to take him to orientation for the Jewish school. There was nobody in his room, but I did take notice of this…

Hmm. Think I should be worried?

It was also picture day on Tuesday so I’m excited/scared to see what those look like. This is the one I took when he got home…

So, first full week done and he’s still enrolled at both schools 🙂

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Melinda of West Metro Mommy. It’s easy to participate – just post a picture that was taken by you, a friend, or a family member and add your link on Melinda’s site.

Saturday Snapshot – Versailles

July 20, 201337 Comments

We took a train from Paris to Versailles. I want to say that it took about 45 minutes, but don’t hold me to that since it’s been a few years. When we arrived we started to walk over and were told that they weren’t giving tours that day because of the rain. We took our time and walked over anyway and were pleasantly surprised that the official looking lady by the train station had been wrong. The ‘home’ was over-the-top opulence as you would expect and the gardens were so perfect that even the intermittent showers couldn’t diminish them. I wish we’d had a whole, sunny day to discover all the nooks and crannies.

(don’t tell Jason I put this one in, okay?)

(courtesy of Bookbath)

Saturday Snapshot – Lyon

July 13, 201321 Comments

Lyon is the second largest city in France and its beautiful. These were all from our 2010 trip. Ever been?

(courtesy of Bookbath)

Fave Film #46- Chocolat

July 12, 201317 Comments

(2000)

Cast-Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench, Alfred Molina, Lena Olin, Johnny Depp

Vianne and her daughter, Anouk, are travelers. In 1959 they blow into a small, devout village in France and open up a chocolate shop at the beginning of Lent. This angers the mayor and moral leader of the village and the two struggle against each other for their place in the community.

Why I Love It– There are so many things I love about this movie, but the thing that stands out the most is the mysterious and mystical storytelling. It is magical realism with a message. A story of the good (the godly followers) and the bad (everyone else) it was told in such a lavish way that it wasn’t the same, stale story we’ve seen before. There is whimsy but it also gives you something to think about.

I thought the casting was perfect. Juliette Binoche was perfect as Vianne. She was kind but almost eager to stir the pot. The glint in her eye let you know that things were not as calm as they seemed. And Judi Dench was flawless as usual. I’ve seen Alfred Molina in many movies, but this is the role I usually associate him with in my mind. And, Johnny, oh sweet, sweet Johnny. He is a sexy man ‘cleaned up’ as a river rat. His subdued performance was a change from some of his more flamboyant roles and he worked well with Juliette.

And the chocolate…oh the beautiful chocolate! It made me want to go out and buy some handmade works of art. Vianne liked to guess people’s favorite chocolate and I like to think that she would have chosen her hot chocolate for me.

There is beauty on the screen and in the movie’s message. I can’t say that the message of tolerance didn’t have its problems but I found them easy to overlook. I was too busy looking at Johnny and the chocolate to care 😉

Even though the movie was set in a fictional French town I can see Vianne setting up shop here, in the Montmartre area of Paris.

(courtesy of Bookbath)

Rainy Paris in July

July 11, 20139 Comments

It’s rained here every day for the last 16 days and yesterday I even had to wake up Gage from his nap to take him to the basement when a tornado warning rolled through town. When we visited France in 2010 our time in Lyon was perfect but Paris gave us more than one day of rain. Enjoy some gloomy pictures from around Paris and Versailles. Paris, even is the rain, was still beautiful.