School's In

Here are some pics of my classroom. Today was the first day of school for me and the first day of college for my not-so-little-anymore brother. Yea Rob!

Open House

Our first open house is tomorrow night. I have mixed, not-so-great emotions (fear, anxiety, nervousness etc.) each year because of the following things:

1. Parents who speak to me completely in Spanish after I have spent all summer not speaking Spanish. After a summer in N.H. this is even more true since I saw no people of any color for several weeks.
2. Parents who say, "I took X years of X language and I only remember blah."
3. Parents who say, "The only words I know in Spanish aren't appropriate to say...ha ha ha."


Okay, it's not that bad, and open house does get me excited about the year ahead. I understand that folks are just trying to find some common ground, and I do appreciate that.

Baseball Hall of Fame

Best mustache ever.
Jon and the Babe.
Babe Ruth's bowling ball. I just thought that was cool.

Curt Shilling's bloody sock. Doesn't look like ketchup to me.

Soccer on York Beach

Here are some pics of our last night in the northeast. We miss this place.

It's the little things

We spotted a dead bird carcass in the yard, and we didn't want the pugs to roll in it. Jon immediately retrieves said bird in a Target bag and disposes of it in the trashcan before I turn around.

I love this man.

Jiggity Jig

We're home again, home again. It's so strange to be back in Winston. We've been in 6 states just this week, so we find ourselves a little confused at times about where exactly we are. On the way home from dinner today Jon said, "We go east, right?" And I had to really think about which way home was.

It was also strange to come home to our home, which looks exactly the same as we left it. (Thanks to Catherine :) But I really want to rearrange the furniture and get rid of things we don't use. I guess that's what a summer in a very small apartment will do to you. I'm just not interested in having extra stuff taking up our space.

On another note, I have dirt under my nails again. I missed my garden.

Hit the ball and touch ‘em all

Today, with Jon in Athletics green and myself in Cubbies blue, we crossed something off our life’s “To Do” list—a trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame. We arrived in Oneonta this afternoon, set-up the pugs, and hit the road to Cooperstown. An otherwise small village in southern New York, Cooperstown was buzzing with baseball pilgrims waiting to gawk at Babe Ruth’s bat and inspect the newly hung plaques of Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripkin Jr. who were inducted just last week.

After a recent trip to NYC and visits to several museums there, the Baseball Hall of Fame was certainly our favorite. It was the type of museum that makes you feel like they want you there. The HOF is open 9 a.m.-9 p.m. daily during the summer. Upon entrance you get your hand stamped because you can come and go throughout the day. We also loved seeing that taking pictures and videotaping in the museum is welcome and “encouraged.” We didn’t feel like we had to hurry, miss a meal, whisper, or rely on mental pictures and gift shop baubles to remember our trip.

The museum has exhibits and memorabilia from all of baseball, as well as mini exhibits of Babe Ruth, the Women’s Leagues, African Americans in baseball, baseball in the movies, a small sculpture garden, and ballparks (called, “Sacred Ground”).

Live free or die

As we sat listening to the band of the week at the rotary band shell in Dover, we started talking about how we feel in having to leave our new northern home. It’s hard to put into words what has clearly left a mark on us about this town. Jon asked this afternoon, “Are we small town people?”

The town has a number of locally owned restaurants all located downtown and within walking distance from our apartment. Wanting to dive into our new town, we’ve been to nearly all the Friday night concerts at the park, attended Dover night out, explored local beaches, open mics, blueberry picking, and any other local, dorky thing we could. Everything was so close, outside, low-stress, accessible, easy-going, and early enough in the evening that we could do things throughout the week and be back home in time to get enough sleep for work the next day.

We’re going to miss all these things about the feel of this town. I’m not saying Winston is lacking in all these things, but events are too late at night, crowded, hard to find parking for and full of drunken and smoking people (because it takes place in a bar). Many times it’s just not the kind of scene we’re looking for. I like having a summer without getting beer spilled on me.

I love our house in NC. I love my job, my garden, my friends, and the barbecue and iced tea. But Dover is always going to be a special place for us where we explored a new region, grew closer in our marriage, and discovered what we really love to do—sit back, listen, laugh and love the place we’re in.

Pictures from NYC!

Here are some pics from our trip. I also added some to our posts below.
Statue of Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry.
Ground Zero.
Amanda in Times Square.
Jon in Times Square.
Strawberry Fields.

Modern Art and Dunder Mifflin

Wednesday was a busy day in New York. We started out riding into Port Authority and walking up to Rockefeller Center where we saw NBC studios, the GE building, and Radio City Music Hall. Jon had his picture taken at Dunder Mifflin, and we looked for Tracey Morgan and Tina Fey but they weren’t around.

We made our way to the MoMA just after it opened. It has six floors with installations and exhibits of photography, architecture, painting, sculpture, digital media, printing and book making. We really enjoyed seeing Picasso’s works and those of Matisse, Warhol, and Van Gogh. The digital media only had a handful of exhibits but were some of the most interesting and enjoyable. I think computers are going to bring art into a new realm of interactive exhibits that can change and adapt to the viewer. It’s exciting to see the beginnings of this at the MoMA.

We ate lunch at a place that was probably a chain with an utterly forgettable name like “Le Bistro,” but it was really good and full of folks on their lunch break so I feel like it was a good decision. They had stations with make your own salad, sushi, Chinese food, hot and cold sandwiches, and pizza.

The rest of the day was transportation themed. We went to Grand Central Station, Times Square, and Port Authority. We found ourselves trapped by traffic in Newark, so we hung out at the hotel until things cleared out a bit on the George Washington Bridge. We got a good start on the drive home and stopped near Hartford, Conn. Thursday we head back to New Hampshire and to the puppies!

(A and J in Central Park)

Gonezilla and other dinosaurs

The number of homeruns hit last night by the New York Yankees was ridiculous. We went hoping to see A-Rod hit his 500th, but he ended up being one of the few Yanks not to hit a HR. I wouldn't call either of us Yankee fans, but we certainly have a love of the game. It was really exciting to watch the Bronx bombers make history in breaking the their single game homerun record. The folks behind us at the game were from Japan and big Hideki Matsui fans, so they were tickled to watch him hit 2 HRs.

Yesterday we also went to the Natural Histiry Museum and really enjoyed seeing the dinosaur exhibit, especially since at one time I wanted to be a paleontologist. We also liked the origins of man exhibit, eat that Creationist Museum! the museum also provided our quote of the day from a 7-year-old, "(Sigh) I hate bears!"

After the museum, we ate lunch at Big Nick's, famous for their 27 page menu. It's a great place to take a picky eater--not a good place for the indecisive. We then stopped in at Grom for gelato. We also explored Central Park with Strawberry Fields, the Dakota, the Lake, the Belvedere Castle, and Bethesda Terrace.

I must mention the highlight of the day provided by a 13-year-old-boy on the subway. He was with two adult men and another kid about 17. The train pulled into the station, people got off and got on. All of a sudden the 13-year-old looks up in shock and jumps off the train onto the platform just before the doors close. The adults didn't notice, but the 17-year-old said, "Eric, what are you...? Eric just got off!" We're pulling out of the station and the 13-year-old is on the platform making a face that was somewhere between realization and bewilderment at what he had just done, and the other 3 guys are just watching him get smaller in the distance. It was so funny. Poor kid, they were from out of town, and I hope they were all reunited.

(Jon and I in Central Park)