My Job

Here is the link to the blog for my class. my co-teacher, Liz, does all the entries, but it also reflects what I spend my time doing. Plus I take a lot of the pictures.

http://www.cnslex.org/frontroom/

user name: frontroom
password; CNSFR

Rainbow

We had bit of rain today and then this beautiful rainbow. It was Laura who noticed it. They are having fun at school though the everyday thing is tiring for them. Chiara had a play date with Isabella this afternoon, its always fun to have her around. Chandran is happy with his classes and is currently very busy writing recommendations for former students. I am slowly going crazy over the whole middle school business, though I know it will all turn out well in the end

Canoe trip to Ads

I am in the last minutes of packing, always a worry..what did I forget?.. I will take the car up the hill to collect Kalyani and Susi and their gear plus the canoe.

We will probably stay the night in Tupper Lake at Shaheen's. And meet the others at the 'put in' at 9:30 tomorrow morning. We have reserved our favorite island, Pope Island.

Madhu and Ashwani will go to the Brockport Homecoming game tonight. Hannah and Jo are both in the band.

Jim Conquers Cancun!

We had a great trip. The resort was beautiful w/ gorgeous pools, a white sandy beach, and good food. Jim had switched us to a King Master Suite which was great for Saturday when it poured all day-we had two rooms and bathrooms, and a big balcony. I read The History of Love, The Whole, Wide World and The Glass Castle, all of which I recommend, especially Glass Castle, a memoir.
The highlight, of course, was the race (1.2 mi. swim, 56 mi. bike, and 13.1 mi run). Jim did in 4 hrs 50 min. (he was hoping to do it under 6hrs), and came in 5th out of 70 in his age division. He was 85th overall out of 770. This finish qualified him for the Half Iron Man World Championships on November in Florida, and he is planning to compete. I enjoyed watching very much and really liked Mexico-it would be a good snorkeling trip, Mom and Aunt Brenda.
The kids did a great job holding down the fort at home-both dogs still alive! Suzanne visited yesterday and left this am. Great to see her;much excitement about DOJ. It was good to get back to work, but I'm pretty tired.

Victory

Chiara’s team won! The score was 2 to 1.

HOW ABOUT THE VILLAGE?

Suzanne is here for dinner and mentioned something which I remember her mentioning before, that she had been talking about with Jay: DOJ at the Village. It has a lot to recommend it:
-Close to Don&Brenda’s
-Plenty of sleeping/cooking/hanging out space
-Historical interest (am I alone in having spent some of my youth wondering what it was like there?)
-Above the fog
-The cost would be reasonable, no more expensive than Irish Beach/KOA.
Just throwing it out there. I think all the options we have are excellent.
Chandran

East Coast Clan

Bapu is suggesting the weekend of August 22 for a gathering at the lake. Save the date!

Suzanne

Suzanne came for dinner last night. It was great to see her. We did discuss the reunion briefly. She suggested that her mom go check things out, so it was interesting to see Brenda’s comment on the KOA post this morning.

Message from Jo rocks

Hey everyone, right now I'm very tired. I'm thinking about taking a nap,but I still have to do my homework.Schools good especially band(wink wink, hannah)!! I haven't gotten lost this week and its Wednesday. You Know whats weird I don't want to go to school tomorrow. I don't think mom will let me though! I think I'll have a bagel again for lunch, but I'm considering a salad.

KOA

Should we be making reservations?

Susi B'day photos

Susi

Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday, dear Susi. Happy birthday to you! From all of us in Lexington.
I will shop for you in sunny Mexico!

pics.

i can't sleep :( i feel kind of sick....

back in lexington.... it's been pretty ok so far. shira's living at home too so i see her a lot. i need a job! kbye.

p.s. still not completely decided on the camp front next summer, so i could be going to california.

Soccer

Chiara had her first soccer game of the season today. Her team lost. Chandran coached, an experience he hopes not to repeat in the near future. The team’s coach was out of town, he is a photojournalist, and so Chandran as assistant coach got to do it. Chiara did have fun, they are playing in Central Park at the north meadow and it was really quite lovely and the weather was perfect.

Brockport Marching Band

The above picture was taken this morning at the Homecoming Parade. Hannah is 3rd from the left.

Joanna, is the clarinet player, 5 from left. This was her first parade and she did just fine. A marching band is a wonderful sight to me.

Madhu and I went to Ithaca yesterday afternoon and visited Noah!! He is unpacking his goodies that his mother sent to him. We had a good, and very large dinner. We drove home early this morning for the parade. There was a heavy rain overnight and Cornell looked gorgeous this morning in the clean bright sunshine.

And Kalyani gave Ashwani a bicycle built for two for their 20 th anniversary last week. They looked like Butch Cassidy and his girl friend in the bicycle scene from the movie. It was fun!

Well, I may be catching onto posting photos! The bicycle shot was not the one I intended, but there it is.

elm

California

I think that the opinion of the kids should be taken into account too. Especially Susi.

KOA looks AOK

Hi-Just commented on the blog about this. It looks great. I would spring for a Kottage myself, although a Kabin would be AOK (hey, I know it's kampgrounds of america, but I bet they used K because of A "OK"!!).

Plus they have group cooking areas. A heated pool and hot tub. Plus a game room. Our children could relive our Loon Lake experience-I still remember what songs were on the juke box- Bad, Bad Leroy Brown, for instance. As I said in my comments, we should cement some dates and reserve:
http://www.manchesterbeachkoa.com/
Think I'll post this, as well.
K

CA 2

I'm certainly open to Irish Beach, also.

California

I think we should give serious consideration to camping. Remember that most camping misery is related to rain. (Sleet and hail are also a drag.) So you wouldn't have to pack for being soaked all the time. If Aunti B. and co. could come up with the gear, it would certainly be cheaper, and possibly cleaner. And we could all stay there together. Right on the beach. It would be a lot of work coming up with the gear, though.
Anyway, just a thought.

BIRTHDAY!

Guess what! 3 ½ days until my birthday!






Jaques Strap

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first day of school

Nick and Laura had great first day of school. They went into their class happy and had no problem separating. Lets hope it will go as well on Monday when they go back.

Just in case you didn't realize:

I was actually serious about the election thing. I'm running for one of the freshman seats on the student assembly at Cornell. My slogan is "Hop on the Ark!" It's working. Apparently people think it's really funny. Except these Indian kids that didn't get it. But I set them straight so now they're gonna vote for me.

~Noah

Triathalon Central

Sam and Jim did a mini triathalon on Sunday. Sam came in 59th out of 200 people.His girlfriend from Rhode Island came up to watch. Jim did well also, and his ankle is OK, so we are off to Mexico next Thursday for the 1/2 Iron Man in Cancun. Our hotel looks great-very resorty. Am feeling guilty about missing four days of work at the beginning, but looking at the hotel on line made me feel much better! Also, I'm paying for my sub-it's just that the kids are so new. Am excited about the CA trip. I like Jay's suggestion-do not want to pack for camping. Shout out to the left coast blog!

Huge Celebrity Encounter

In Salzburg, we had dinner right next to Daniel Barenboim! My heart went pitter-pat the whole meal, and I only knocked my wine over once. He smoked a cigar.
Chandran

So who's thinking of going to California next summer?

Cornelldecision 2007

I'd just like to take this opportunity to formally announce my candidacy for a freshman seat in the Cornell University Student Assembly.

Platform:

~Augment the Student Activities Fee, by a minimal amount, so that student activities can have the funds necessary to provide the best Cornell experience to students

~Provide paper plates and plastic flatware in the dining halls so that a single serving of desert could be taken out (not just fruit)

~Equip all residence halls with proximity sensors for card access

~Harsher punishment for parole violators....and world peace

~ More money to bring bigger performing artists to Cornell

~Free net-print

~TCAT Bus Service free or at a reduced rate for all students

~Get rid of the 5GB bandwidth limitation



As far as the pictures are concerned,
there's a kid on my floor that is a god
with photoshop. We had a photo session
in the hallway and he made these.






The one is just
me with and an
American Flag
background, but
the other is
me saving this girl
from 4th Floor Kay Hall from some sort of apocalyptic inferno. You can't really tell but my friend thought the space between two toes on my left foot was too big so he added another one.

Back at Work

Have started work again. I was saying to Jim that I was looking forward to this year's start up more than ever before and he said" It adds structure and meaning to your life." It is very true (who knew Jim could be so underatanding!)-as my children near adulthood, I am happy to have this venue where I can express that part of me which, as a parent, is long gone. We have done wonders to the room, involving hard work and trying to incorporate the principles of Reggio Emilio. It looks terrific. Had a great parent orientation and first visiting day. In other news, have spent at least $800 on vet visits in the last two months. Is it worth it? You vote.

Prelim

I passed. PASSED!

First day of school.

Chiara had her first day of school today. Her teacher seams very nice. I spent all morning on the phone to private schools asking for applications. We still don’t know if that’s what we will do, its best to keep all options open. It was Chandran's first day of school too.

APPLES!
A message from Jaques Strappe.
I'm going to go Gradudancing!

Hola Amigos

C'est moi! Jaques Strappe! You know what's really good?

More Photos

We were all very exited about the fact that London was the host of the 2007 Boy Scout Jamboree.Here is Hannah posing next to some of the Scouts.

We had to go to King's Cross Station and pose for this one. Yes there was a line to take the photo.




This was in Brussels.


The skaters were also in Brussels. It was the perfect place to hang out. We were right above some railroad tracks. So Nick and Laura had fun looking at trains and we enjoyed looking at the skaters.


This was in Bruges, a lovely medieval town in Belgium. We went for the day.

Chandran in our hotel room in Paris, The Louvre is in the back.




In Geneva

with my dad in Zurich


At Salzburg castle, unfortunately the crossbow booth was closed.

Newark

Europe

It’s been a busy summer. We had a month at the Lake and three weeks in Europe. Now we are home and I am relishing the fact that we won’t have to leave it till Thanksgiving.
Our trip to Europe was very nice; Hannah was a good sport through it all.
Our first stop on our grand tour was London, and it’s a place I won’t be seeing again for a long time. I’ve vowed never to set foot in that city with anyone under the age of 21. I don’t particularly care for English food and it turns out the kids care for it even less.
There is the added problem that children are not allowed to eat in pubs, eliminating most of the eating options. We became regular patrons of the local Pakistani Pizza joint. Not to mention the fact that London is one of the most expensive cities in the world (the taxi from the airport was $160). That being said it is a wonderful city and I look forward to going there in the future.

After London we went to Brussels. Getting to Brussels was quite an adventure. The Eurostar was beyond our budget ($900) so we decided to take the ferry. This turned out to be a bigger deal that we had anticipated. Traveling with four large suitcases, we took a train from London to Dover, a bus from Dover train Station to the ferry terminal, another bus from the ferry terminal to the ferry. Unfortunately we had to get off this bus twice, once to check passports and a second time to have our luggage inspected. Took the ferry, landed in Calais, took another bus to the ferry terminal were we could catch the bus into town to catch the train to Lille. There, we walked from the train station that handled trains from Calais to the one where the train to Brussels stopped. Took a train to Brussels (which had originated in London an hour and a half before). To avoid taking two cabs from the station in Brussels, Chandran walked to the hotel with Nick and got lost. But we did save $600.
Brussels was worth it. The old town is small and beautiful. The food is wonderful, even for kids, and the waffles and chocolate are to die for.






From Brussels we had an easy trip to Paris. Our stay there was very pleasant. We stayed at a very nice hotel, Kamala’s suggestion. Our rooms had a lovely view of the Seine and the Louvre. The food was good and the wine was better.
From there we went to Geneva. There we stayed at my dad’s apartment. It was small but I think everyone was relieved to be out of Hotels and restaurants for a few days. My father met us in Geneva and together we traveled to Zurich, another lovely town.










From Zurich we were supposed to take a train to Salzburg. This plan was abandoned when we discovered that there is no train connection between Zurich and Salzburg (you have to get off the train at the Swiss-Austria border and take a bus for a few hours), and my dad hired a car. It was a lovely trip through the Alps; our driver took us through Liechtenstein and some back roads in the Austrian Alps. I hope the next person who joins us likes hiking, because we may go back and stay in some of the places we passed in the Tirol.
Salzburg was great as always. The Opera was lots of fun, the concerts very good.
Amsterdam was nice; I think we were all too tired and eager to get home to appreciate it.
Yesterday was spent unpacking, cleaning and doing loads of laundry (the trip + Laura had a spectacular stomach bug, she has recovered). It is good to be home.