2010 Household News and Events

Erika was supposed to go to this game with me, but she got in big trouble so I took Michael instead and what a great time we had! The Mets lost, but only by one run, and this stadium is absolutely and absolutely beautiful place to watch a game. There's a perfect view of Center City off in the outfield, there are great draft beers, and the bullpen is so close you can practically high five the players. I had expected the fans to be a little hostile towards us, but that wasn't the case - yes, they hate New York and there's not an underlying good-naturedness to the taunting (the way there was at Mets-Yankees). The guy sitting in front of us turned around to chat with me halfway thru the game - wanted to know if I'd been to the stadium before, what I thought of it, and said he comes with his family to every home Sunday game. And in the parking lot after the game, a couple of Phils fans stopped to chat with us about CitiField. They were planning to go to the game there on 9/11, so we told them how to get there via public transportation. So overall, yes the Phils fans despise the Mets, but Michael and I really had a very positive experience at the stadium.

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How cool is it to have a summer birthday? Just ask Erika. We pulled together a handful of her friends and went to the water slide, then grabbed some lunch, then went to the beach, then ate watermelon and then went to Ben & Jerry's for ice cream. All attendees were exhausted and had a wonderful time.

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An annual local event, starting with a parade at 10am. The kids rode in the Historical Society's old Ford, both dressed up in real cute old time sailor type costumes (I'll try to post a picture). I opened up the Old Baptist Church at the end of our street so folks could come in and look around, and I also invited all kids upstairs to ring the church bell. The church is circa 1758, the bell is original, and the piano in the church is over 100 years old (and not too out of tune either). Post parade there are rides, food and vendors in the park. Erika had her last soccer game that evening, then we hung around the soccer fields to watch fireworks. It was an amazing display on a beautiful night, a real nice family event, and a credit to the township for finding a way to continue this event despite current economic conditions.

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Michael and I went to this game, and arrived at the stadium about 4:30 for a 7:10 start. So we headed down to field level and watched all of batting practice (Michael got Pedro Feliciano's autograph). About an hour before the first pitch we headed out to the concessions in center field and got tacos cause we've heard great things about them, and I must say they did not disappoint. Then up to our seats to finish eating our tacos just in time for the start of the game. And what a game! We sat in the fourth level in left field, and had good views of all the singles hit through the right side of the infield. Mike Pelfrey started for the Mets and pitched 6 beautiful shut out innings. Meanwhile, the Mets racked up runs in the 1st, 3rd, 6th & 7th. The Yankees brought the winning run to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the 9th but the Mets held on to win 5-3. The place was packed, and all the ribbing between the Met fans and Yankee fans was in good fun. Since it was so close, we stayed right up to the last out (as did most of the folks in attendance), so it was a crowded and late train ride back to the car. We'll be catching up on our sleep tonight, a small price to pay for a great game and overall great day out. Let's go Mets!

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If you took four classically trained musicians (4 violins, one cello) and told them to take some classical music and do something different with it, you'd end up with this show which was absolutely hysterical. All four of us were laughing out loud throughout the entire performance along with the rest of the audience. These guys were really, really good and on top of it they were really funny. It was mostly sight gags with very little dialoge. When the maestro left the stage to take a cell phone call, the guys left on stage broke into a hoedown version of the music. They performed an original composition for six pieces, so got two volunteers from the audience, put them in tuxedo jackets, gave one a cowbell and the other a squeeky bath toy. The cello player, who did not have a dancer's physique, was inspired during one piece to whip out castanets and dance. In general, if you can imagine guys in tails playing classical music but acting like they are playing hard rock you have the right mental image. We've seen quite a few shows at this theater now, and we decided this one was second only to the Flaming Idiots.

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Erika was a villager in the school play, so I went to see it while the boys went up to Red Bank to see Bill Cosby. The play was quite good, although as all you faithful readers know, I'm not a big fan of musicals. But the kids do a great job up on stage, and Erika did look quite cute in that red hat with the big brim. The boys said Bill Cosby was great, and I'm really glad Michael got to see him. He is a classic, and there aren't too many comedians like that left who provide truly funny family entertainment.

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We were scheduled to go to my brother & sister-in-law's in Medford for a combination Mother's Day/birthday celebration for my nephew Jack. I decided to bike out, something I've wanted to do for a while now. This is about a 40-45 mile ride, but it was a pretty windy day and I felt like I rode quite a bit more than that. Still it was lots of fun, I made it the whole way (had my doubts a few times when heading into that wind), and actually arrived earlier than Chris and the kids (who came by car). No I did not bike back home, I put both my bike and myself in the car for the return trip.

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Marty & I went together, something I've been scheming to do for a while (that is, go to opening day AND go to a game with Marty). We had an awesome, awesome time. We got to the stadium a little more than an hour before game time, and saw all of the opening ceremonies. We sat in one of the first couple of rows in the upper level on the third base side. Not great seats, but in this new stadium, there are no bad seats. And then David Wright hit a two-run home run, just for me! How cool was that! The place was pretty crowded, not too many empty seats, and everyone was psyched for the start of a new season and being at the park on a picture perfect day (unusally warm for April). After the game, we walked around the field level promenade so Marty could see it (his first trip to Citi Field), and we also spent a good 45 minutes in the museum in the rotunda - both being fans from way back, we thoroughly enjoyed this. Safe to say we're both planning on doing this again for Opening Day 2011.

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We flew out for Easter weekend to visit Dave, MF, DJ & Hannah. All I can say is that is one heckuva flat state, with quite impressive interstate overpasses and interchanges. We spent one afternoon at the Johnson Space Center which was great (but would've been better if we'd gotten to see everything). The kids swam in the pool at house everyday, we hung out with the dogs, enjoyed authentic Mexican food, spent one afternoon at the Houston Convention Center watching Hannah & her team compete in a Robot Wars competition, and had a great time over the course of several evenings playing Beatles Guitar Hero. I flew back home on Easter Sunday while Chris & the kids flew onto Colorado to see and ski the Rockies. Yes I would have enjoyed skiing them too, however, my "I don't want to use up a week's vacation to visit Texas" got truncated to "I don't want to use up a week's vacation." I actually enjoyed my solo week very much, and I know I'll get to ski out west again some day.

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The old television finally bit the dust - and I mean really bit the dust as it would no longer play even videos or DVDs or (horror of horros) work with the Wii. And so our roughly three and a half year long "experiment" of living without television came to an end as Chris bought a nice (relatively) small flat panel that is now mounted to the wall of the front room. Just in time for March Madness too, and I took full advantage watching some Villanova games, and also thoroughly enjoying the final (and rooting for Butler). The sports are all I ever really missed, and what I anticipate watching the most. As for the kids, yes, they plop down in front of this thing and zone out, although not quite as much as they might if they hadn't gotten used to living without it.

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I took Erika to see this, and it was quite well down considering it was the high school theater company. There was live musical accompaniament, and the leads all had good voices. Erika was a little disappointed that they didn't sing Bibbidy-Bobbity-Boo, but other than that it was a pretty fun evening.

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Michael & I went to this game together and had a wonderful time. I got tickets (on StubHub) in the first row of the second level. So we had nice seats, and got there well ahead of game time so grabbed some sodas and watched the pre-game warm-ups and festivities. Villanova won 92-81 although it wasn't until Providence's high-scorer got hit with both a technical and personal foul with about 4 minutes left in the game that they pulled ahead for good. I'd still like to take Michael to a game at the Pavillion some time, and see this great team play again - they are currently ranked #4. Go Cats!

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We accepted a gracious invitation to visit friends from school at their condo in Okemo, VT to get in a few more days of skiing this season. We had an absolutely fantastic time, and were lucky enough to ski for what had to be two of the top ten ski days of the season. They were cloudless with temps hovering right around freezing, and snow conditions were excellent. Erika continues to improve, and is now at a point where we can ski with her for the whole day and feel like it was a nice, easy (but still full) day of skiing. She doesn't ski fast or hard yet, but she does keep going. I kept up with Michael for about 1.5 runs, then somehow we got split up and I didn't see him again till the lifts stopped running. We also took advantage of the outdoor pool - pretty cool to be swimming surrounded by snow. And we also caught up with Chris' cousins, who drove down from Burlington to meet us one day. The kids had a great time skiing together, and also apres ski sliding down the big mound of snow at the Jackson-Gore base. We have officially fallen in love with Okemo, it is a wonderful family resort. A public thank you to our hosts (You Know Who You Are), we hope you enjoyed the weekend as much as we did.

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We made our annual trek up to cold, snowy New Hampshire a couple of days after Christmas for skiing and general wintertime diversions. We got 3 full days of skiing in at Bretton Woods, and one of those days was an absolutely perfect cloudless-blue-sky day (doesn't happen often in NH). We also did a tiny bit of ice skating, visited with some sled dogs, Erika went sleigh riding, Michael got three zip line runs in, and we had a great Mexican dinner one night in Littleton. A very successful trip, and a public thank you to Sharon & Sue for their hospitality and willingness to host us.

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