My future barber!

Camden may have his career lined up! He loves to cut! At the beginning of school his teacher told us to work on his cutting, so I bought a book that has lots of cutting activities. His skills have improved and he really enjoys cutting. He also enjoys pretending to cut hair; but last week he actually cut his own hair! He had been placing my niece's dolls in her hair dresser chair and playing barber, but then he and his cousin Josiah found real scissors. Uh, oh! they come running out all happy about their adventure, while I screamed in horror at the sight of him holding a clump of his hair in his hand!


Fortunately you cannot tell where he cut...he did a good job I guess! But we have had a firm talk about what you do and not do with scissors!

Road Trip!

It is Spring Break and the perfect time for a road trip! It began with my sister asking us to come to Memphis for Easter, and the kids begging to go, so we decided to make it a little interesting. Mom wanted to come to, so we waited until she got off work today, Wednesday, at noon, and then hit the road. Our destination for tonight was Chattanooga. But first we had to stop in Atlanta for a snack at the Varsity. Their orange slushes, Varsity Orange or Squirt One, are really good. We also had strings (french fries), ring one (onion rings), a hot dog (hot dog with chili and mustard) and a naked dog (self explanatory).





We then got back on the road and made our way to Chattanooga. Nathan had been there before and had had a really fun time in their waterway beside the aquarium. So bathing suits on, we walked up to the waterway only to find that it was dry for the season! Oh well! Camden at least found a puddle to jump in. So it was off to dinner at the Mellow Mushroom and Ben and Jerry's.


The dry waterway

Grammie, Nathan and Camden by the river


Camden always seems to find the water!


Couldn't resist taking a picture of the bathroom sign!?!



Can't finish a night without ice cream!


Now the boys are in bed and I am relaxing! One more stop tomorrow at the Huntsville Space Center before we make our way to Memphis!

My Garden

The other week I went to the grocery store just for a tomato and some other produce. After paying over $2 for one tomato, I decided to make sure my garden actually produces this year! For the past few years I have planted a few plants, but have not had much to show for it. Last year I harvested maybe 4 tomatoes and then just had a green bush growing. I also did not get any eggplant last year (after getting several the year before), and my cucumbers were bitter.



So I am determined to feed my family from my yard this year. In fact, I have been telling Nathan that we are all becoming vegans by the end of the summer! Well we would be very skinny vegans if we only ate the veggies I grow, but I do plan to have more vegetables on our plate this year.




So I had Dave build me a box. The dirt in our yard is full of clay, so my thought is that is we added good dirt in the box, then this would help our produce grow better. I don't know if this will actually work, but the box looks really nice!








And then I started a commpost pile. I have a coworker that has been telling me how to do this, so hopefully I will have lots of good dirt soon to fertilize my garden. At least it has been more fun putting bannana peels and eggshells outside in my bin instead of in the trash. In fact, I look for opportunities to peel and chop vegetables and fruit!






And I have my own sunshine for rainy days!

So that is my summer plan. Eat more veggies!!!

The Real Thing!

Well, after trying to make a black and white, I have been craving one! So Saturday night my sister and I go on the hunt for one around 9:00. We first went to the Publix bakery in Columbia where we found out that they had some the night before, but not that night. So off to Panera bread, but they were closed. We settled for red velvet cupcakes at Publix. (yes, we went back!) The next day I was heading home to Charleston so we stopped at Atlanta Bread where Nathan said he used to get black and white cookies. But alas, they only had shortbread cookies dipped in chocolate on one half. Nathan was satisfied, but I could only satisfied with a chocolate croissant (which was yummy!). But finally, Monday afternoon on my Publix run, I spot black and whites in the deli!! What joy! About the time Nathan was to have his, he turned on Unwrapped and guess what they were talking about? Black and whites!!!

After watching the show and eating our cookies, I found out that they were reportedly first made at a bakery called Zora. And they are not really a cookie, but a cake. And you have to ice the white side first because that is how grandad did it! And they were invented because a mom had two children and one liked chocolate and one liked vanilla. Of course our cookies were not authentic because you are supposed to use NYC tap water. Maybe that was my real problem! Oh, well, authentic or not, they were delicious! And if you want to try one, try the Sam Rittenburg Publix, but don't ask me to make one!

I am no pastry chef!

I like to try new things and sometimes I find out I am good at them and other times I find out that I am not so good! That is what I found out last night when I tried to make black and white cookies. The recipe seemed so easy; at least until the icing Part. Although that was not hard, it was very time consuming to ice, 2x, 3 dozen cookies. Nathan and Dave were watching a movie aNd Nathan was very anxious to get a cookie. I finally finished them and although they were really brown and white cookies, I thought they turned out okay. I took one in to each of the guys and then went back to get mine. On return I found Nathan had not finished his and although Dave had, his review was not too positive. I did finish all of mine, if for no other reason than I had spent so much time on them I was going to enjoy it!! Well, at least the icing tasted good. The cookies were not disgusting, but certainly a little on the blah side. I think I am going to blame it on the fact that I only used plain flour and not cake and plain flour. Or on the fact that I am not a pastry chef. It always looks so fun on TV!

But I will say that my blue cheese sauce and homemade potato chips were superb!!! I only wish I had more potatos to cook up tonight!

May We Never Forget

Every trip to NYC should include a visit to Ground Zero. I have now been three times now and have seen changes each time. It is a sobering trip, but something needed in order to remember. To remember the awful tragedy that took place on September 11, 2001. I remember I was home with Nathan who was not yet one. He must have been taking a nap, because I was watching Seventh Heaven. I remember that Dad called and said to turn on the TV because a plane had just flown into the WTC. I remember that I turned to the news, thought "that is awful and how could an accident like this happen?" I turned back to my show that was almost over because I didn't think it was anything but an accident. For whatever reason I can't remember, I didn't finish Seventh Heaven, but turned back to the news instead. At that time, I finally realized that it was not an accident. That a group of hate filled people had attacked our country and killed many innocent Americans. Our lives were changed forever that day.

So that is why Jennifer and I decided to go the the WTC Tribute Tour. This is a tour led by people who have been affected personally by 9/11. Our guide was named Howie and he lives about 4 miles from Ground Zero. We also had two other men who talked with us. One was a guard at the WTC and had just left his shift that morning before the attack. The other man lives within view of the site and was in his apartment when the second plane flew over it before hitting the second building. It was a moving tour that focused on what happened on September 11 and how the buildings themselves collapsed. We also learned how and when the memorial will be finished. They are planning on finishing the memorial by September 11, 2011 for the 10 year anniversary. With all the political hemming and hawing that has taken place around the construction, it was good to see it finally happening and to see the patriotic spirits of our guides. Howie called the halfway completed tower the Freedom Tower even though he said that is not it's official name. He also said that it will be a little higher than the original Twin Towers and that "we are going to build it back and build it higher." He was a true New Yorker who was loves his town and his country and doesn't want any terrorist to break his spirit. He also has to go for a physical every year to keep check on any possible problems caused by the poisonous products that were in the air after the buildings collapsed. That is something I had not thought about. I knew that when Dave and I had visited the site in Feb 2002, it was very dirty and dusty looking. Howie explained that FEMA had sent people 2 times to clean his apartment because things like copier toner and other office products, in addition to building dust and debris were in the air after the attack.

The memorial they are building will be in the footprints of the Twin Towers. They are planning two waterfalls over the perimeters of the footprints with the water cascading over the names of all the victims in NYC, the Pentagaon, and in Pennsylvania. There will be lots of trees around and it will be a peaceful place of reflection. It sounds like a fitting memorial and it will be right beside the new Freedom Tower that is halfway finished in terms of height. I definitely plan on visiting this memorial the next time I am in NYC. The rest I can only say with the pictures.


The firefighter's memorial and our guide Howie. He works for a cummunications company and helped get power back on in the city after the attacks.


The building on the right is completed and I think he said about 80% filled with working office space. The tower on the left is the Freedom Tower and the height it is now is about half of what it will be when completed. He said the memorial will be completed by Sept. 11, but I don't know if that included the building.


It is hard to see in this picture online, but behind the red crane is the footprint of Tower 2 that collapsed. To it's left, behind the building is where Tower 1 was. That building on the left is the halfway completed Freedom Tower.



This is a memorial that American Express built to remember the workers who were in the AE office in the WTC. Eleven men and women died in their office. This has a quartz in the middle of a pool that has eleven sides. Above it, eleven water holes randomly drip drops of water into the pool to make ripples.

Our Final NYC day

Our last day in NCY was rainy. We both had our rain boots though, so we got on the subway and headed downtown to get a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. (We had planned on doing this on Friday, but due to our sleeping in, we didn't have time.) Our glimpse, however, was obstructed by the fog, so we hopped onto the ferry and rode out to get an up close look at her. We were able to walk around the statue, and then on the way back, we got to stop at Ellis Island. It was a wet and breezy trip, but a good time.


Many of the subway stops had nice tilework that told you the name of the stop.



The ferry ride



This display was neat because is shows the flag on one side, and the people who make up our nation on the other.

After our boat ride, we went to Canal Street and walked to Chinatown. We did not stop to buy any knock off purses (mainly because we had no room in our bags for them!), but I did buy a $5 umbrella that broke within 5 minutes! We also stopped at an authentic Chinese restaurant to get an eggroll appetizer. Right beside the ducks was where we waited while they cooked them!

The menu was in Chinese...glad they understood "eggroll" in English!

Jennifer beside the ducks! We had the opportunity to order duck later at our dinner, but somehow it was not too appealing!

For the entree, we went to Little Italy and ate at Da Nico. We had a hard time deciding where to eat with all the men standing outside their places wooing us with promises of homemade pasta while blowing kisses! We enjoyed our lunch and even heard the men in the back talking what we assumed was Italian and saying "Forget about it". It was fun.


A walk through Soho was the most crowded of our entire trip, so we decided to head uptown to Macy's. It really is a huge store and the wooden escalators were fun to ride on.

Shopping in Macy's!



Shopping at Times Square to get our last minute gifts included a turn on the Toys-R-Us ferris wheel. A store with it's own ferris wheel is definitely unique! Too bad we had to ride the Nickelodeon car with Sponge Bob and Rugrats!

Superman in a super big store!

Riding the ferris wheel!

We both love Castle!


We bought giant Hershey bars at the Hershey store!

We had our last dinner at a Yum Yum's Thai restaurant. It was, well, yummy! Then to our final show, Mary Poppins. It was, well, supercal..., sorry, didn't learn how to spell that!




We ended our evening with cheesecake at Carnegie Deli. Although we didn't get one, we couldn't help staring at other people's sandwiches. They were at least 6 inches tall full of corned beef! The cheesecake was better than the first night's and Jennifer was finally satisfied with her dessert!! A chocolate torte cheesecake! It was to die for! And a great way to end an awesome trip! Thanks Jenn for going with me. And thanks Dave and Rob for watching the kids for us to be able to play! Can't wait until you turn 40 Jennifer!