Thanksgiving in Newfield, then visiting in Tivoli and Sinterklaas

We loved seeing Grandpa Jack and Grandma Deb, as well as the Gosa family and Brian and Marykate, for Thanksgiving in Newfield. Deb put on a delicious dinner and Terrill contributed his delicious mac'n'cheese and sweet potato pie. A good time was had by all!

Terrill helped me set up my birthday camera so I got a shot of Papi, Terrill and the kids at breakfast at our hotel:

We took our possibly traditional Thanksgiving walk to Taughannock Falls with Kira and Grandpa Jack.

Fer and Wendy love all the technology that their cousins from Virginia bring! They greatly enjoyed their iPad and DS time with Jasmine and Marcus, while Grandma Deb and Terrill were at it in the kitchen and the rest of us went back and forth between visiting and helping.

The day after Thanksgiving we went to the mall, not for Black Friday (!!), but to take the kids to a movie, which has also become sort of a tradition. They enjoyed "Wreck-it Ralph" and Kathy and I did too, sort of. I think our husbands who went to "Lincoln" may have gotten the better deal! Afterward we went back to Grandpa Jack and Grandma Deb's for delicious Thanksgiving leftovers and some more family time. Just one picture, of Kathy and me with Brian and Marykate.

On Saturday we headed over to Tivoli, another 4 hour drive, but with the recent unearthing of our DVDs, the girls were quite happy to watch a movie. (The movers "lost" our extensive DVD collection and since being in South Orange, we have been "mystified" by where they could be. Every so often Mami would "find" one or two in a random box, but the whole collection was nowhere to be found, at least by the girls. But we decided that it seemed time, so hero Papi located them in a place no-one had thought to look, amidst the boxes and boxes that hold the papers of his life that are stored in the back corner of our basement.)

In Tivoli we loved our time with Gigi and Grandad, Christine and Matt and Jack and Daphne, and Amy and Alison who came for the night to visit as well. We went down to Rhinecliff for the arrival of Sinterklaas (the Dutch Santa), a slightly wacky local affair with Grumpuses in costume, much music and merriment, and the grand finale of Sinterklaas's arrival by boat from Kingston! It was fun but extremely cold, so after waving Sinterklaas to land, we headed back home posthaste.

After Sinterklaas, Fer and Wendy had a sleepover with Apple and Milli, one of the great delights of their lives, and Chris and I went down to Matt and Christine's to hang out and spend the night, also a great time.

Girls on the Run is So Much Fun!!

Today's GOTR 5K in Somerville was great. I coached this past season for Girls on the Run, working with a group of 6th-8th grade girls doing the middle school program called Girls on Track. Fer and Wendy were each on a 3rd-5th grade team, so it was a fun way to spend some time on Monday afternoons and Saturday mornings. I ran the 5K with one of my Girls on Track, Fer ran with Chris, and Wendy ran with Jillian and Patricia. We all finished strong and had a great time!

Sandy

It's hard to remember everything that happened during Sandy, though it was less than three weeks ago. It was a really intense and disorienting time, but thankfully the girls were amazing throughout and overall we were so lucky that we never lost heat or power and that we came through it all unscathed.

The night of the storm as we did have power we had our usual noise machines going (to help with sleep we have a noise machine in the hall, ocean waves soundtrack and two fans in the girls' room) so they really didn't hear the wind. We did and were somewhat nervous, especially as a neighbor posted in the late evening that she had lost power and that a large tree across the street from her had come down. We weren't so worried about the tree in our back yard, but went to bed not knowing how it all would be in the morning. The next morning the wind had gone, everything was quiet, I went out for a run, and when I came back 2 neighbors who had lost power (another tree had gone down in one yard and taken out the power for 4 houses further down our block) were in our kitchen trying to sort out how to get their frozen food into our freezer. All that worked out and for the next week and a half we were on deck and engaged with entertaining kids, charging phones and electronics, having overnight guests as needed with people having lost power, enjoying and helping to put on several large dinner parties as people tried to eat up what had been in their freezers and also host friends with no heat. We were so lucky to have such a community feel on our block as the girls really enjoyed lots of time back and forth between several houses with a big group of kids, and those of us with power were able to help out nieghbors without by having them and their kids over at our houses.

One casualty of the storm was Halloween (which I hate anyway, if I can be honest, so it was no loss to me and with all the excitement and topsy-turvy nature of the 2 weeks, the girls didn't really seem to notice either). A family down the street from us did put on an outdoor costume shindig on the 31st, so Wendy got to wear her costume (Fer had kind of lost interest). The night we went out to vote, they had some candy out for the kids, so each girl took one piece, and Fer even asked, "Can we have it now, or should we wait until after dinner?" Oh, go ahead, kids, eat it now and happy Halloween! :)

A few pictures of the costume party:

Fer and Wendy missed 7 days of school, and the 8th day they went back, but to a different building as their building still didn't have power. The following day they did go back to their regular school. Chris and I were home from work for a week with the city schools closed. He did as much as he could from home -- I was totally involved with caring for kids, having guests, cooking, etc., so I did nothing work-related. The following week we both started trying to get into the city for work -- he ended up staying over one night, going in with a friend who drives in at 5:30 a.m., just trying different things as the trains weren't running and the commuting times were insane, 3-4 hours each way. I ended up having some crazy days spending more time commuting than working, though things were more normalized the second week back.

We don't have a TV and cable in the area was knocked out by the storm, so we barely saw any coverage in the few days following. But since then we have been so struck by and concerned about all the damage and trauma in Staten Island, the Rockaways, the Jersey Shore. We've heard lots of stories from people around here of flooding and loss that their friends and family who live on the shore have experienced, and it's just awful. We hope for rebuilding and relief as soon as possible.