Special guest and water woes

Last Saturday, we had our first house guest! My niece, Emily, came from Vermont for a visit. Isla was so excited to have Emily come and visit on Valentine's Day. She made a Valentine for Emily a month ago and had been waiting and waiting to give it to her. On Saturday night, Benjamin, Oliver and Isla had Emily read all of their library books. Then we played Forbidden Island and lost. Chad made a GIANT batch of spaghetti and meatballs that fed us for the next three days. That night, Chad and I took advantage of having a babysitter in the house and went to a lecture by Ira Glass. We really enjoyed it and even got to cheer when he talked about Bill Kling and Minnesota Public Radio.

Mind wave games. Chad is soooo relaxed.

On Sunday, it was a blustery, severe wind chill day. Emily had wanted to see some of the waterfalls, but it wasn't a good day for hiking. We saw a little bit from the car, and then went to the Sciencenter of Ithaca. We had such a good time during Emily's visit that I didn't get any decent pictures of her with her cousins.

Turning the crank to 1,000,000. We really want to see the glass fall.

Balancing nails

On Monday morning, we woke up to no running water in the house. We weren't sure where the problem was going to be, but eventually Chad figured out that he could crawl underneath the house with a hair dryer and thaw out the pipes. That did the trick for that day. On Tuesday I sent him back under to find the cold water line to the laundry machine. Wednesday and Thursday were fine, but this morning everything was off again. He's gotten very quick at getting under the house and to the right pipes, so in no time he had the water flowing again.

A standard afternoon family pile-up

On Thursday of this week, Benjamin, Oliver, and Isla stayed in their pajamas all day long. It was a school pajama party.

Snow, snow, and more snow

Thanks to the Ithaca visitors' bureau, everyone knows that we have lots of snow and cold here right now. Since our last post about Philadelphia, it's been snowing a lot to a little almost everyday. We drove home from Philadelphia in a blizzard - I believe it was that same blizzard that shut down Lincoln schools that Monday. By that Monday night, we had about a foot of snow, but Ithaca has lots of plows running non-stop and people here know how to drive and get around. It was warm and the kids could play outside in piles and piles of snow. It wasn't quite warm and sticky enough for building snowmen and forts, but the kids made up a fun tunnel and burrow game. They even gave themselves a "scientific" name and declared themselves new-found species of trenchers and burrowers.

Hiking toward a replica of the Cornell bell tower in the woods.

In all that snow, we went for a winter walk in the woods with some plant biologists from Cornell. The snow in the woods was up to Isla's waist, but she did a great job of trudging along. The kids and I also did a decent job at staying interested in all the plant biology talk for about three quarters of the way. Then the cold, wind, and snow started to settle in. I don't think the others noticed our not always subtle whining. If they did, they were very nice about it.

Anarog getting the wintergreen smell from a black birch tree

The next day we went skiing about 30 minutes away from Ithaca. As is often the case with Isla, I was pretty surprised at her ability to pick up on a new physical activity. The weather was perfect, and obviously there was lots of snow, so the hills were pretty packed. We tried to get Benjamin and Oliver into a lesson twice, but we were so slow-moving that they missed the beginning both times and the instructor said they couldn't start late. Oliver claimed that Dad and I were fine teachers, and we probably had more fun learning together on the bunny hill. We even managed to get on and off the chair lift without shutting it down!

The following week was filled with more snow and colder temperatures. The wind chills picked up and even Chad said he was reconsidering his plans to retire to northern Minnesota.

Poetry unit

Poems by Oliver

Mom's Sock 

Fluffy and furry, 

small, hole.

Mom's sock

Has a hole,

Has foot,

There's two black spots,

Fuzzy, warm,

Gray, Mommy reaction,

Big,

Has lines.

Poems by Benjamin

(untitled)

A gray, fuzzy, feather

from the land below

not, finking, for going

to and fro

(Haiku)

My topic is socks.

No, they're not made out of rocks

Nor good old, plain blocks

Atoms

small, small, small, small, small, small, small, small, small, small, small, small, small, small

Trenchers

The snow falls

We make walls

We dig a trench

Without a bench

Then we throw snowballs

t  fa

don'          a

I                    a
hope                     a
I                                 a
tall.                                 a
so                                        a
are                                            l
mids                                              l
pyra                                                          l
the                                                                l

Poems by Joyce

My Sock

Why does my sock have a hole?

Did I use it to shovel coal?

No, that's not it.

I will submit.

Maybe I should hang it from a pole

Philadelphia weekend

January 26-February 1

We spent the whole week of school preparing to visit Valley Forge and Philadelphia. We found some fun curriculum about being a Continental soldier, so Benjamin and Oliver were super prepared to see the military huts and had a pretty good layout of the land and living conditions before we got there on Friday. We spent Friday driving through the snow and got to Valley Forge just after lunch time on Friday. We spent 1-2 hours there before going to Philadelphia.to visit the mint. Oliver really enjoyed visiting the mint since he started collecting pennies this year. 

Examining the huts at Valley Forge

Valley Forge posing

After checking into our hotel, we walked to City Tavern for supper. This was the tavern built by the gentry of Philadelphia in the 1770's and the chef there has worked to replicate the food of the times. He has television shows and lots of cookbooks on the subject. It was a really great experience and our server was extremely friendly, informative, and nice to the kids. After supper, Vince came to see Chad and we all walked down to see the Liberty Bell at night before heading off to bed.

City Tavern dessert tray
Chad was enamored by the wine soaked pear, but we had chocolate mouse cake and raspberry linzer torte instead.

Our hotel had Liberty Bell waffles

Saturday morning we walked down to Independence Park to tour Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell pavilion. All of the park rangers are passionate about history and gave such good presentations that the morning flew by. The rangers carry trading cards for the kids to collect after answering a simple question. I haven't counted how many cards we ended up with, but it is a hefty pocket full. 

Independence Hall Assembly Room

At lunch time, we walked down to Reading Station to meet Vince and Oscar for lunch. We all enjoyed the cheese steaks, amazing soft pretzels, and rich ice cream. Then we walked to the Franklin Institute together. Oscar was very excited to show his new friends (us) all around his favorite place in Philadelphia. We crawled through a giant human heart, and explored a very complicated neural network in a brain model. The museum closed too soon for us, but we had to leave. We walked back toward the city center and found a small Korean restaurant for supper. Then we walked Vince and Oscar back to the train station and took a nice long night walk back to the hotel. Everyone slept well that night!

In his preparations, Chad had found that the first Catholic church in Philadelphia was just around the corner from our hotel. Sunday morning we went to Mass at Old St. Joseph which had been originally founded in 1733. It felt very much like the Jesuit church that Chad and I used to attend in Baltimore, both in architecture and atmosphere.

After some food, we were back to Independence Park to visit Congress Hall and to get the kids' National Park Junior Ranger badges. We walked around the Old City some more, passing Benjamin Franklin's house and printing press, Betsy Ross' house, and Christ Church Episcopal church that Franklin and Washington attended. On the way out of Philadelphia, Chad drove us through the neighborhood where his Grandpa Joe had grown up. From there Chad drove through four hours of blizzard to get us back home to Ithaca.

Benjamin Franklin's printing press office. We had the BEST interpreter there. We talked to him at two different sites.

Outside Benjamin Franklin's grave, Christ Church Burial Ground

Christ Church, the First Episcopal Church

Pinewood Derby weekend

Saturday, January 24 - Sunday, January 25

In the morning we went to Sapusucker Woods to hike. I was surprised at how many more birds we saw there than just around our house. We saw chickadees, woodpeckers, tufted titmouse, cardinals, blue jays, mallards, and one Canada goose.

A morning hike in Sapsucker Woods, Cornell Ornithology Lab

Benjamin is receiving his 1st place ribbon

In the afternoon we were off to the races. Oliver and Benjamin participated in the Pinewood Derby with a cub scout Pack here in Ithaca. We were surprised when Benjamin took first place and Oliver took second place for the Pack. Chad and I were a little embarrassed since it was the first time we'd been to that Pack, but everyone was very nice about it.

On Sunday we went back to St. Catherine's parish and the boys went to faith formation class after Mass. Isla enjoys the children's liturgy during Mass. Then in the afternoon we went to see Curious George Live at the State Theatre in downtown Ithaca.

Oliver is learning to knit

Enjoying our New York "snow globe" snow