Our Trip to Southern New England

For our April break, we decided to go on our first real family vacation with Elijah. On Sunday, we headed down to Rhode Island for my Aunt Nancy's surprise birthday party. Here's Ed and Elijah, glad to finally be out of the car! The "Birthday Girl" arrives!
My aunts and uncles, enjoying a delicious Italian meal at Marchetti's:
My brother-in-law Jim and nephew Kyle (5):After dinner, we headed to my Dad's house for a quick visit while we were in town. Auntie Carole (my older sister) and Elijah:

My Dad and me:

That evening, we drove to Woburn, MA to check into our hotel, approximately 10 miles north of Boston. Here's Elijah on Day #1, getting ready to go to the Boston Children's Museum:The very first exhibit was this set of amazing climbing platforms. It was all good until Elijah lost his shoes and had trouble getting around in just his socks. He started freaking out and Ed had to climb up into the contraption to rescue him!Once we all recovered from the big rescue mission, there were all kind of cool gadgets and exhibits to play with:

A favorite, the sand tables:

And a second favorite, the huge train table:

The next day, we started with the New England Aquarium:

Elijah loved this bronze turtle:

A little interactive play with one of the aquarium educators:

And then back to the Children's Museum,where we hardly repeated a thing from the day before- there's just so much to see and do there!

Ed and I agreed that this was a wonderful trip- very fun and exciting. Elijah was amazing and everything went so smoothly. We would definitely recommend the Children's Museum to anyone who has not yet been there with their kids. It's an incredible, tactile adventure!

Math versus Science

Tonight the MMUHS Math Department challenged the Science Department at bowling. There was a huge turnout- 35 people, including all the spouses and children, 31 of whom bowled (including Elijah).

SpareTime Bowling (near CostCo, formerly Yankee Lanes) is well equipped for family bowling. You can even program automated bumpers to come out when a child's turn comes up.

Here are some pictures of Elijah, enjoying his first ever night at the lanes:

It took him a while to understand that you only bowl two balls and then have to wait for your next turn to come around. With 6 people on a team, that "next turn" took a while to come back up. But mostly, he was a very good boy, keeping the crowds entertained with his "victory dance" no matter how many (if any) pins he knocked down. Towards the middle of the evening, we took a quick cake break to honor our friend Dan's 50th birthday. Then right before leaving, we got one quick group shot of the folks who were still around. Some of the folks with the littlest kids had already left by this point.

I never knew we could bowl with a 2-year-old, but it was really fun. Crazy as the night was, trying to visit with everyone while keeping tabs on Elijah, we had a blast. Ed bowled well both games, and I barely beat Elijah the first game. But then in a bizarre twist of fate, I actually bowled the highest score of my life the second game...can you guess from this picture which one that was?

The Week in Review

To save people the hassle of having to go back and read all of my complainy posts from this week, I thought it would be considerate of me to consolidate them into one big "Week in Review." Now, I know it's only Thursday, and there are still two days left to this calendar week. But I think (hope) it can only get better from here.

The least bad day of the week was Monday- up at 4:30AM to be at school and help unload the American Red Cross truck for our Blood Drive. S-L-O-W day for blood harvesting, our goal was 98 pints and we only logged 80. Better than nothing, but a little disappointing.

The worst day of the week was Tuesday. I was at school until nearly 10PM for the Mr. Cougar contest. See previous post for a better understanding of why this was the worst day of the week. Got home at 10:30PM to a letter from the VT Dept of Taxes stating that I will not be able to renew my educator license in June b/c I am not in "good standing" with my taxes. WHAT?!? Sheer exhaustion is the only reason why I was actually able to sleep that night.

Wednesday-Learned the VT Dept. of Taxes believes that I did not file taxes for 2002 or 2005. Took Elijah for a haircut after school and then to Moe's for dinner. Got home, Ed found our 2005 taxes, I could not find my 2002 taxes (a divorce, 2 houses and 7 years ago). Spent much of the evening trying to get things straightened out on the telephone.

Thursday- hooray! The tax snafu is all taken care of- both returns found by Tax Dept. under husband-at-the-time's social security number. Of course, no warmth or apology from telephone tax lady, but whatever. Whew. In other good news, I learned my Teaching IPDP/Portfolio finally passed. The bad part? We were only home for about 30 minutes tonight to set Elijah up with the babysitter before turning around to head back out to Parent Conferences. The whole night (3 hours long) I only saw 7 parents. That felt like such a waste of time.
Then....The babysitter called me at school, she was at our house throwing up, could we come right home? We packed up immediately (approx. 15 minutes before the formal end of the Conference night) and rushed home. By that point, her mom had arrived at our house and the sitter looked terrible. Poor girl. She headed home with her mom, but not before stopping to throw up in our ditch.

The house reeks of bleach and Lysol, and I am p-r-a-y-i-n-g that Elijah does not get sick.

Possibly the best part of the whole week so far? I got some of those free St. Jude return address labels in the mail!

And the Answer is YES...

...I AM getting too old. Last night was the much-anticipated "Mr. Cougar" contest and it was not fun for me at all. The entire evening, I stood and watched the horror unfold (okay I'm exaggerating a little here...but not much) as contestants performed the crudest, most altered versions of the acts they had worked to make even marginally wholesome for last week's screenings.

Just to give you a flavor for the evening, let's just say the previously mentioned mankini made an illegal appearance. That "phenomenon" happened early on and the night only got worse from there. I am now ready for a complete overhaul of this contest in future years, if it even happens.

Parent Conferences tomorrow night. As our favorite yellow hunny-eating bear would say, "Oh, bother!"

Am I Getting Old?

As most of you know, I am a faculty advisor for the MMU Student Council. I've held this position for 4 or 5 years, and most of the time I enjoy it just fine. We give out grant money, work towards changing school policy, plan the Halloween Costume Contest and host two Blood Drives per year. Sure there are the minor annoyances, such as this coming Monday when I will be leaving the house by 5:30AM to meet the Red Cross truck for our Spring blood drive. But Blood Drives are good. And I am proud to say that we have such a strong group this year, all of whom have worked hard to initiate some really positive changes in our school.

But then there's the annual Mr. Cougar contest, hosted (of course) by the Student Council, and coming up on Tuesday. Sigh...
How do I explain Mr. Cougar? Think talent show crossed with...um...a beauty pageant? Senior boys compete against each other in swimsuits, formal wear and talent displays all for the glory of being crowned "Mr. Cougar." The contest is technically also open to girls, and actually we did have one female contestant last year (she had the comedian Rusty DeWees as her escort). But that's the only time I can ever remember a girl participating.

So Jen, our principal, despises this contest. So much so that I wonder why she even lets it go on. I agree that it can be tasteless and (no matter how hard we try to enforce certain rules), inappropriate at times. But the student body L-O-V-E-S it, and I think there would be a mutiny if it were ended. Personally, I would not be heartbroken if Jen put the kibosh to the contest...I usually have a sicky feeling in my stomach starting about a week before the show.

Yesterday and today were the act screenings. We (my co-advisor Don, as well as the principal and assistant principal) meet with the contestants to go over their acts and basically grill them about appropriateness of song lyrics and clothing choices, as well as stunt safety.

It kind of goes like this:

Me: "So, Mr.Cougar Hopeful, what exactly will you be wearing for the swimsuit portion of the contest?"

(Mr. Cougar Hopeful retrieves a strange, green "contraption" from his duffle.)

Adults in the room: (Collective) GASP!

Mr. Cougar Hopeful: "A Borat Mankini."

(The room falls silent.)

Now, I didn't (nor do I ever plan to) see the movie Borat, and I will not post a picture of a Borat Mankini here on my G-Rated blog. But I will go on the record as saying that the Borat Mankini is....well...um...NOT in following with the MMU dress code.

And so the mankini is nixed, and the questioning continues.

So here's a sampling of the questions you might have heard, had you been a "fly on the wall" at these screening sessions:
"You plan on being suspended from the ceiling how?"
"A Slip-And-Slide down the center aisle of the auditorium?"
"What will she/they/he/you be wearing/doing/singing?"
"What type of dance?"
"Your escort is who?" The most interesting answer here was Jane (the detention lady).

And the questions go on...

Last year when I was complaining about the impending doom of a Mr. Cougar contest, Matt suggested that maybe I'm getting too old to be in charge of the Student Council. Maybe he's right?

So, Blood Drive (good) on Monday and Mr. Cougar (not so good) on Tuesday. And oh yeah- Parent Conferences on Thursday. It's going to be a busy week!

Easter Weekend

We were blessed with the most beautiful weather for Easter Weekend! So many fun things planned, also! On Saturday, Ed, Elijah and I went to the 2nd Annual Fairfax Egg Hunt. Elijah didn't really know what to expect, but he was excited anyway! He got the hang of it pretty quickly!

Look at that full basket! There was an 8-egg maximum to ensure that all kids would be able to find eggs. The eggs were empty, and you turned them in at the end for a goody bag.
Here I am,trying to talk Elijah into "releasing" some of his eggs back out into the wild.

After relinquishing his eggs, Elijah taste-tests some (okay...ALL!) of the candies in his goody bag. Afterwards was the annual Success by Six Birthday Bash. We decided just to swing by for a few minutes, since it was too nice outside to be indoors.

Elijah takes a few spins around the room on a ride-on.And then does some bouncing with Liz's son Quinn. Back at home, we spent the afternoon digging in the sandbox while Ed got some yard work done. Everyone was enjoying the beautiful weather (even the World's Worst Dog- named for her garbage-picking escapade while we were gone to the Easter Egg Hunt...leaving us a coffee-ground-egg-shell-and-diaper mess all over the kitchen). This morning, the Easter Bunny came! He brought plastic eggs with M&M's inside, a new pair of shades, some stickers, a ball and bubbles.There's just something so cool about finding a gift basket in your bed when you wake up!Bubbles!

Yum! M&M's for breakfast!Next was a treasure hunt to look for more presents. There were eggs hidden around the house with clues inside. They eventually led us to the barn. In the barn was a kid-sized shovel/rake/hoe set and a Nerf basketball hoop and ball.
In the afternoon, we were at Joanie's house for our Easter meal. Here's Elijah in adorable hand-me-downs from Dominic:

Wiffle ball was a big hit.

There were, of course, tons of people there- Aside from Joanie, we also got to spend some nice time with Grammie, Cedric & Susan, Peter & Jeannie's Family, Martha & Chris' family, Wes & Darlene's family, and Tyler & Aimee... I was so busy chasing after Elijah that I just didn't get many photos! But it was a great gathering- delicious food and lots of playing outside. Joanie even had an Easter Egg Hunt in the back yard.

Happy Easter, everyone!