Gary Conquers the Monster Mile

Today, we went to the Dover Speedway for Gary to drive 10 laps on the "Monster Mile!" We showed up at 8:00 and everyone was very excited. The drivers were suited up and ready to roll and then the rains came and finally, at about 11:00, they cancelled out the morning session. They gave us a little garage area tour and then we left the track, trying to figure out when we might be able to fit another Dover trip into our schedule.

We headed over to our new favorite restaurant (shown in the slide show below) for lunch and decided before getting out of the car to head back to the track and see if we could talk our way into the afternoon session. Thankfully, they decided they could fit in one more driver, so we were able to get in! The skies were still threatening, but Gary was first to drive, so he got in his run before it started raining again! It was a very exciting day. Gary successfully finished the race and had a great time. I enjoyed my exciting 14-passenger van ride around the track at what seemed like break-neck speed, although I checked the speedometer and it was only about 65!

A highly recommended experience!

Dillon's Job

Dillon's job is to keep all tables cleared. Here he is clearing the coffee table. All magazines must go.

NYC Revisited

We went back to New York at the end of June to visit with Gar. We had lots of fun and I think we walked about 400 miles. We stayed at the Helmsley Hotel in Manhattan. The highlights were the double-decker bus tours that Gary and I took while Gar studied, checking out the Today show on Sunday morning, and the Spamalot Broadway show. Spamalot was hilarious - I highly recommend it. Lowlight - getting drenched on Sunday at the Pride Parade and my cell phone getting ruined from being wet! We had some nice meals and lots of fun. I kept trying to get into one of the 4000 Ann Taylor Loft stores that we passed, but we were either busy on our way to somewhere or the stores were closed. I had two coupons for $25 off each that were about to expire!! As we were walking back to our hotel on Saturday night, the Loft store near the hotel was having some type of party and I got invited in (maybe because we were peeking in the window trying to figure out what was going on in there at 10:00 PM)! I didn't go because my invitation consisted of some dancing young guy in there dancing in our direction and waving us in. I would have preferred a more official invitation, so we just kept walking, but I thought it was really funny, especially since I had been trying to go shopping there all weekend. I finally did get to do some shopping at the Loft in Brooklyn on Sunday right before we left to go home. :-)

I have to publicly announce that I am now a Jenna Wolfe fan. I had previously not been crazy about Jenna (the Sunday co-host of the Today Show), but she turns out to be such a really nice, down-to-earth girl that I am now a fan. She stayed outside after the show, talking to people and posing for pictures until everyone that wanted to meet her had met her and gotten their pictures, autographs, etc... Lester Holt ran back inside immediately. He may have had someplace to get to right away, so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but Jenna was nice. Also nice was Janice Huff, who always stays out and talks to people. I have seen her there before and she's always extremely friendly. Watching the Today Show from outside the studio is a lot of fun and I highly recommend it. It's neat to see how the TV business really works.

Progress on Queen St. house

Here are some pictures of the latest progress on the Queen St. House. We are coming down the homestretch. The hardwood floors are being refinished right now. We just found out that a Maxwell House commercial was filmed in this house way back when. I need to find out more details, but I hear that it was filmed in that pretty landing with the circular window section at the foot of the main stairs. It is looking so pretty that we are tempted to move in there ourselves! Check it out!

New York in June

The Benjamins and Standiford Descend Upon NYC

Well, Gar's summer vacation in MD was rather short this year. On Sunday (June 8), we all headed up to NYC to drop Gar off for the rest of the summer. He is enrolled in an intensive program in Ancient Greek through the Latin/Greek Institute, part of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) and also hooked in with Brooklyn College. His school is located at the corner of Park Avenue and 34th St. in Manhattan, right next to Macy's and also the Empire State Building. Pretty nice location!

He is living, however, in the Brooklyn Heights section of Brooklyn. Although we had been to NYC many times, we had never been to Brooklyn. Brooklyn seems to be a very nice place, with lots of big brownstone homes with wide steps, like the kind you see in movies like "You've Got Mail" and shows like "The Cosby Show." There are lots of trees lining the streets and it seems like a very nice place to stroll around - plenty of restaurants, shops. It actually seemed more like a small town than a big city.

We spent Sunday moving Gar in to the St. George Hotel (a hotel converted to dorm-type living for college kids from colleges all over the city) and then strolled around Brooklyn. Just up Henry St. from Gar's place is the 1st Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn and on Sunday, they were having World Arts Day. We just happened to be walking past as their choir was belting out broadway-quality music from the front steps of the church. It was really a cool thing. The choir was made up of all different types of people, but they were all very energetic and enthused about what they were doing. Really neat. If I lived there, I think I would try out that church.

We had a late lunch at the Heights Cafe and sat outside. The food was good and they had lots of things for the vegetarians to choose from.

We walked down to the Brooklyn Promenade, where you can look across the water at lower Manhattan, where the twin towers used to stand. It is an eerie feeling looking across there and thinking how horrible it would have been to have been standing there and looking across on 9/11. You can also see the Broooklyn Bridge from there and the Statue of Liberty.

Before we left, we took a test ride of the subway over to Manhattan to check out Gar's school. It takes around half an hour all together, between walking and subway riding. Manhattan was really crowded and not anywhere near as clean and relaxing as Gar's Brooklyn Heights neighborhood! We located the school and walked around a bit and then headed back to the peace and quiet of Brooklyn.

Right across from Gar's hotel is a park with an artificial turf surface. We strolled over there and the Garys got into a pickup game of Ultimate Frisbee with another father and son. The Garys proceeded to kick the other guys' butts. Of course, those other guys claimed they had just finished running across the Brooklyn Bridge.

We had a nice day in NY and hope to head back up soon for a visit.

Trip to Sicily - Nov 2007

Boston - April 08

We went to Boston last week to attend the Suffolk University Awards Ceremony because Gar received the Harald T. Reiche Memorial Award. It is an award given by the Philosophy Department in memory of a former Suffolk Philosophy professor. It was a nice ceremony and and a nice reception afterwards at the Omni Parker House. (The video from the award presentation is in the blog post right before this one.)

Dad, Gary and I flew up to Boston on Tuesday and back home on Wednesday. We walked about 500 miles in those two days! Thank goodness the weather was great.

Gar's Award

Gar received the Harald T. Reiche Memorial Award from the Suffolk Philosophy Dept. at the Recognition Ceremony on Apr. 22. Afterwards, they had a reception next door at the Omni Parker House Hotel. I took video of the award presentation:

Inside the Friday Night Jamboree

Mastergrass playing outside the store before their show inside the store.

Virginia Weekend

Weekend Getaway to Virginia

Gary and I took advantage of our Friday off this weekend and had ourselves a little getaway down to the land of sweet tea and bluegrass! We left rather late on Thursday night, so we stayed overnight in Harrisonburg, VA. It broke up the drive a little.

Friday, I was reading an article in the Roanoke Times about the author, David Baldacci's, second home at Smith Mountain Lake, which is near Roanoke. So, we decided to make a little detour and check out Smith Mountain Lake. It is really pretty there and since the weather was so nice that day, we had lunch outside on a deck situated right over the water at Harrison's at Sunset Cay. The atmosphere was very nice and the food was yummy, too.

We made our way to Buffalo Mountain and before long, it was time to head into Floyd for the Friday Night Jamboree at the Floyd Country Store. This is an event not to be missed. It takes place every Friday night, but on warm spring and summer nights, there are bands playing outside all over town, not just in the Country Store. The local folks are always there and we now recognize several of them from our many trips to the hoedown, as we have nicknamed the jamboree. But, along with the local regulars, there are always visitors from all over the US and from abroad. This time, there were people from Scotland and Australia in attendance. A really good band named "Mastergrass" was playing that night.

The town of Floyd is in the middle of a revitalization project. They have built a 14-room hotel and converted an abandoned grocery store into several smaller shops. Sidewalks are being refurbished and they have built stone seating areas, a public restroom building, and they are in the planning stages of a town park. It looks nice, although I kind of wish they had left the town as it was. I liked the old Floyd. They did leave the old cemetery untouched. It sits right in the middle of town behind the new hotel. There is even a civil war soldier buried there, who died in 1862. Very interesting walking through that old graveyard.

Over the course of the weekend, Gary and I ate at least three meals at the Poor Farmer's Market, also known to us as "Felicia's." That's what dad calls it because he knows the lady that owns it and her name is - you guessed it - Felicia. Two of those meals we ate there were breakfasts centered around biscuits. Very tasty. Mabry Mill is also one of our go-to restaurants, but it doesn't open for the season until this coming Saturday, so we missed that by a week! Oh well, next trip.

The trip was nice, although a few more days would have been nice. These jobs of ours really cramp our style!

Doug's Birthday Weekend

Some Video From Doug's Birthday Weekend

Dillon is now "crawling," I guess you could call it. He gets from point A to point B, anyway!

Doug's birthday was celebrated with lots of family, food, and a really bad rendition of Happy Birthday. I think we need to get a recording of some talented family singing and we could all just lip sync!!

Pat's Birthday Party 2008

Trip to Okemo, Vermont

In March, we took a little weekend jaunt up to Okemo, Vermont, for a few days of skiing. Lauren was home for spring break, so she rode up to Boston with us and we picked up Gar and headed on to Okemo. We had fun in Vermont, skiing and hanging out. The Huangs came up and spent Saturday night and Harry and Brady did some skiing the next day. We had some good dinners in Ludlow - the town right next to the Okemo ski area.

We spent that Sunday night at Gar's apartment in Beacon Hill and Gar fixed us a nice dinner. We played some Cranium and I forget who won. I just can't seem to recollect that. It has been a while! The next morning, we ate breakfast at the Capitol Hill Coffee Shop and then we headed home, this time taking Gar with us and leaving Lauren in Boston to resume classes.

Boston 08

Here are some pictures from three different trips to Boston - the first trip was a 27 hour trip right after Christmas to go up and find Gar an apartment so he would have a place to live during the spring semester. He ended up in a very cute 1 bedroom apartment in Beacon Hill, really close to school and about a two minute walk to John Kerry's house, if anybody cares about John Kerry.

Then, we went up in mid-January to move Gar in. Doug, Ruth, and Kathy also went to Boston that weekend and we all helped celebrate Brady's third birthday. Bill and Deb Standiford were also in town moving Lauren in to school and were able to attend Brady's party.

Then, we went back three weeks later to celebrate Gar's 21st birthday. Dad and Pat went along on that trip and we had a very nice time. However, we did experience some freezing cold rain and gale-force winds on that Friday night as we were walking from the Common to Quincy Market! By the time we got there, our pants were all completely soaked through and we were miserable! We stayed long enough to eat and dry our pants before we ventured out again! Dry pants are a really good thing when the cold winds are blowing!

We decided to stay in the city on that first night in Boston, so big Gary, Pop, and Pat all stayed at Gar's apartment and I stayed with Lauren in her dorm room. In case anyone thinks this might be a good idea, just think about what kinds of things go on in a college dorm or apartment house on a Friday night. Not the most peaceful sleeping accommodations! Very comfortable, but not at all quiet! Earplugs would have probably done the trick.

Christmas 2007

Christmas was very nice. Lots of good times, good food, good fun. Here are some pics.

More Tree Farm Pictures

Here are some more pictures from the tree farm. It has been pretty busy lately, so I haven't been adding to my blog lately, but I will try to catch up. The tree season continued to go pretty smoothly throughout our December weekends.