Day of quiet
Saturday October 27, 2007 - 08:04pm (EDT)
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The rules are simple: no national chains (small state or regional ones are ok), neither one of has eaten there, it's within a 1 hour radius from home, and it needs to be affordable.
I didn't want to set a price limit, but "affordable" gives us some flexibility. I also know the one hour radius sounds extreme, but if we limited it to half an hour we would only get as far as Novi, Chelsea, and Belleville. Plus, we are both used to driving so much that an hour isn't a big deal for us if it a good meal. So, now we can go as far as Lansing, Flint, Jackson, and Detroit.
We will be taking turns picking the restaurant, so this weekend is on me and I am thinking Mexican. I will write a review after every new visit.
Friday September 28, 2007 - 01:00pm (EDT)
Blog 2 of 2 today, but this one will be short. We have made the switch to football from soccer and it has been an adjustment. Jason is one of only two 6th graders on the varisty team, he is the smallest, and he is a rookie. So, the blocking has been horrible by the whole team, and I did not see Jason completing plays let alone getting the ball. This has been driving me crazy.
So, Ira is now on the coaching staff and informed me that the coach had them working on blocking big time this week and the reason Jason was not finishing his blocks was because during practice the coaches would only put him up against kids closer to his size. They were actually pulling him out when a bigger guy was put in the drill - hello, he has to go against the big guys in the game. So, Ira stopped them and had him blocking some of the big guys - wow, what a difference, he looked great on Saturday - blocking, chasing after the ball carrier on the other team (he kept running past 4 of his teammates, but unfortunately didn't catch him in time), and he even got his first 1st down. I was so excited, I think I might have cried if he would have had a touchdown.
6 more weeks to go, and hopefully the coached have learned not to baby my kid even if he is the smallest. If he is not playing, he is not having fun, and we will end up back at soccer. He is tough and he can handle it.
Monday September 10, 2007 - 02:00pm (EDT)
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Okay, so I have been swamped and I am a couple of weeks behind on this blog. Ira went with me on my annual UP trip the last week of August on my to visit my 4 schools. Unfortunatley, I could only get appointments at 3, but I take what I can get and there is not much you can do when your librarian is still on vacation.
So, we headed up to Sault Ste Marie on Monday afternoon and had dinner, stopped at a little ice cream shop, walked through the park, and visited the Soo Locks. Tuesday afternoon we headed to Marquette. While it was beautiful drive, we had some rain and mostly worked, but we did have a great dinner at Upfront and Company. This place has a really cool history - it was a grocery store, bowling alley, hotel, etc and was actually scheduled for demolition 5 times before Upfront bought it, remodeled it and opened a great restaurant and they even host various bands and comedy acts. Wednesday it was up to Houghton, where we did fit in a couple of hours of fishing (BTW - I don't really fish, but I even through in a line) and did not even get a nibble. We had dinner at this little place I went to last year with fresh fish and a great menu.
Thursday we headed to St. Ignace before going home on Friday. We decided to stop for lunch around 2:30 and my normal method of finding decent places to eat that are not the normal chains was not going to work. Usually, I can base a decent restaurant on the amount of cars in the parking lot - it was 2:30 and it was the UP, nobody was anywhere. So, we stopped at this bar/restaurant off of 41. We were customers 2 and 3 at that time, but it was some of the freshest food I have seen. Ira had a great looking burger and he actually overheard the bartender on the phone with a local fisherman telling him that she was all set on whitefish, but if he caught anything else to let her know. Wow!
Friday we headed home from a long, productive, and still relaxing week. 1208 miles and close to 19 hours of driving. If you think 5 days is crazy, I did it in 3 last year and still loved it.
Monday September 10, 2007 - 01:51pm (EDT)
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Niagara Falls
Warning - it's a long one, make yourself comfortable.
I feel like my blogs should be named - Vacation Blogs of Summer 2007, but honestly I have had scheduled so much time off this summer that I blog about vacations and spend the rest of my time working to catch up. Which hasn't left much time for day-to-day blogging.
So, Ira and I headed to Niagara Falls Friday morning for some much needed together time. The ride went fairly smooth (just one little wrong turn), we talked and listened to music as we headed across Ontario. Can I just Ontario is like driving through Ohio or Iowa - cornfields and not many places to stop and eat. Well, other than Tim Horton's and Wendy's. Once we hit Hamilton, it was beautiful the rest of the way to Niagara Falls - green trees and blue water.
Friday, we walked down to the falls, had dinner at Shoeless Joe's, and had drinks at the Coco's patio (good service that night) while listening to music and watching Canadian football. Saturday, we walked, and walked, and walked. Our hotel was up Murray St, which requires a downhill hike to Niagara Parkway - 10 minutes to the left is Maid of the Mist and 10 minutes to the right is Journey Behind the Falls. Now you can see both falls from our central point but, essentially Horseshoe Falls is to the right and the American Falls is to the left. Now, that you know my logisitcs....we walked (10 minutes) to the Journey Behind the Falls ticket location to buy tickets and wait 2 hours for our tour time. So, we went to Maid of the Mist to buy tickets (20 minuts). We bought tickets, but there was a 45 minute wait. Not being sure of the length of the boat trip, we walked back towards Murray St (10 minutes), for a cafeteria style lunch at the gift shop/restaurant. And then on to the Journey Behind the Falls (another 10 minutes). Now, did I mention I have hurt my right foot from playing softball (actually it has been hurt, but I have really messed it up now) and I have a blister forming on my left foot. Note to self - bring tennis shoes, not just flip flops. Fortunately, you can cover blisters with band-aids.
So, we get to Journey Behind the Falls which was pretty cool. It was a fairly short walk (thank goodness) through two tunnels behind the falls where you see a water curtain and out the observation deck where we were right next to the horseshoe falls - it was beautiful!
Back up the very steep hill to our hotel (probably another 15 minute walk from Journey Behind the Falls) and we relaxed and hung out by the pool. We saw how great the pizza looked at Coco's the night before and decided early in the day that it was what we wanted for dinner. However, at 7:00 they do shift change - um, I have never worked in a full restaurant, but hello - isn't that the middle of dinner rush?? Needless to say, we had to convice the busboy to get us menus, we had one waitress take our order, some other guy brought our drinks, somebody else brought our food, and finally the waiter that showed up to work checked on us once. The poor people behind us never saw a waiter and had to go get their own drinks from the bar. I will say the pizza was great and 10 minutes after our pizza was gone and the one drink we each had was finished (yes, one, we were never offered any more than that) the waiter finally shows up with our bill. Which I hand delivered to the manager for my change, and informed him that it was the worst service I have had in my life and that I would not be leaving a tip (which for the record, it has to be really bad for me to complain and not leave a tip). Frankly, he is lucky I paid the bill. Ugh, still in good spirits we decide to take a leasuirely walk downtown and then walk back to the Fallsview Casino across from our hotel (Holiday Inn by the Falls). I had such good luck at roulette and the sales meeting charity casino night I wanted to try it with real money, however, with an error in my commissions I am low on money and don't want to spend any more than $30 or $40 (I am not a big gambler). Let's just say there were not any $5 tables like I was hoping for. There were 2 $15 tables and a bunch of $25 tables. So, no roulette, since I didn't feel like blowing my money in 10 minutes. We were both so tired and I have been sick the whole trip (cough/congestion - I sound horrible) that we both decided to just go back to the room and relax - yes, it's Saturday night at 9:30, in Niagara Falls, and we are in our room exhausted. Can you say pathetic??
Sunday we decide to hit the Casino breakfast buffet and head down to Maid of the Mist. Breakfast was good and as we are in line for our 1st boat ride of the day when I notice the little note on the ticket that says valid on date of purchase only - uh-oh, that was yesterday. Hmm, let's see how we can pull this one off?? Everybody along the way is just checking to make sure we have tickets - so far, so good. We have our lovely blue water trash bags, oops, I mean ponchos (the ones yesterday were yellow) and we are ready to get on the boat while I am eyeing the lady taking the tickets. She is taking the tickets and putting them at the bottom of her little ticket pile without even looking at them - JACKPOT! Let me tell you that you do get up close and personal with the falls on this boat, especially the Horseshoe. These poor little Asian men in the dress shoes were dumping water out of their shoes when we headed back to the dock. The trash bags do work well to protect your clothes if you have shorts on, but bring shoes you can wear in the water. I was glad I did have the flip-flops for that.
By 12:30 we are back in our room, chilling out before we go up to Niagara-on-the-Lake for our 5:30 Whirlpool Turbo Jet boat ride. So, we head up early through wine country, I honestly think we passed 15 wineries. Beautiful countryside and a beautiful drive up the Niagara River. We had a great lunch at a little hotel about a block away from the mouth of the Niagara River and Lake Ontario. Since we still had time, we went to the park and walked on the beach, sat on the rocks, watched the boaters, etc. Finally, we head down for our 2nd boat trip of the day. No trach bag ponchos with this one - full water gear - thick poncho, life vest, and water shoes. And we are off to play in the rapids...class 5 rapids that is. This trip is an hour long and 18 miles round trip from the edge of the Niagara River to the whirlpool (class 6 rapid) where the river coming down from the falls bends to go towards Lake Ontario. It is illegal to go into that rapid, but Devil's Hole which is on the way to the whirlpool and back is not illegal and as fun as you can imagine. We sat in row 2, rows 1 - 3 are the controlled drowning area - you will get soaked, water gear or not. But image being on a big turbo boat and crashing around in a class 5 rapids - it was awesome!! It was like the biggest, best water ride you can imagine.
Out night ended with a walk to Clifton Hill (past Maid of the Mist for those of you keeping track of all of this walking that we did) for dinner and a chaos of people. Clifton Hill is definitely designed for the kids - Wax Museum, Ripley's Believe it or Not, Marvel Superheroes, WWE, arcade, etc. All we wanted was dinner and to watch the fireworks from the ferris wheel. So, we had dinner at Montana's (another good meal) and unfortunately, we were not done in time to watch the fireworks, but we have all seen fireworks before, so no big deal. However, we did ride the ferris wheel and walked past the falls to see them illuminated with the various colors at nighttime. By the time, we made it back to our room it was 12:00 and both of us were sore and tired.
Due to the fairly flat drive through Canada to get to Niagara Falls we decided to take the longer trip back through the US - NY, PA, OH, and MI. I do have to say even though it is a couple of hours longer, it is much prettier and does have more food options :-) However, we are both walking like penguins, especially me - my legs did get a true workout this weekend.
All in all it was a great and well-needed trip. Back to work tomorrow - LOL! I will be planning my UP trip at the end of August to visit the 4 universities up there, which Ira will be going with me so, I am sure I will have more to blog about then. Pictures will be posted soon.
Monday August 6, 2007 - 07:15pm (EDT)
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vacation ends tomorrow - sigh
Just thought I would do a quick catch up. The visit with my Mom has been going fine, everything has reconfirmed what jerks my stepbrothers can be sometimes, but I will not dwell on that. However, they fly out tomorrow and my vacation ends after tomorrow so everything will go back to normal.
I can say we have ate well - I have made ribs, pulled pork sandwiches, jambalaya, spaghetti salad, taco salad, sausage gravy and biscuits, waffles, and one birthday cake. I have tried to stay out of restaurants if you cannot tell. Even while entertaining my Mom and Stepdad, I have been able to see some of my favorite friends (and ex-coworkers). My friend Mike came out to have dinner and watch fireworks with us last Tuesday and on Saturday Ira, Jason, and I went out to my friend Scott's to hang out with him and his family for tubing, swimming, and having dinner lakeside.
We also had Jason's birthday party which was only disappointing due to the low turnout (I tried to warn him July 5th cound be a little limited on guests). But, we still had fun. Ira and I took Jason and his buddy Rory to the batting cages, they drove the go-karts, and we played 18 holes of mini golf. To which, Mom had to school them all - I won by 9 strokes. They went swimming and we had a campfire where they camped out under the stars. Anybody who remembers that storm that rolled through the area around 3:00 last Thursday - picture me and one of the other Mom's putting up a tent as the storm was rolling in.
I also gave Ira his birthday gift a little early - a 80 gb Toshiba laptop - he literally teared up, he was sooo happy. And, we had furniture deliverd that fit. Okay, I have a few new scratches on my walls and I had to fix the basement door. But nothing major and if anything, this will motivate me to now paint some of the rest of my house.
Well, I think that summarizes everything. I will sooo be ready for a fruity margarita by tomorrow afternoon.
Monday July 9, 2007 - 10:55pm (EDT)
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Countdown
Only 2 days left until my Mom gets here and I am just about ready. I did order new furniture, but I knew when I ordered it that even with all the checking and confirmations that it may not fit into the basement - sure enough, it was too long (102 inches) to make the turn into the basement from the stairwell. This is disappointing because it was a sleeper sofa and I was hoping to have it for the visit. Anyway, I went back and ordered our 2nd choice (this sofa is only 88 inches so that should fit) set to be delivered next Friday, which will be too late for this visit, but it will be nice to have for other times.
The deck is done except for a second coat on the new step that Ira put in and the stair rails. The upstair rooms has been steam cleaned, I just need to clean the living room carpet and mop. Some minor sheet changing and grocery shopping and we will be all set. I relaxed most of today - read on the deck, took the kids to the lake for a couple of hours, and went to Farmers Market this morning. I have tomorrow night (after Ira's kids leave) and Monday to get the last bit of stuff done and then I can spend the rest of the week enjoying the visit and preparing for Jason's bday party Thursday night. I am so close to Ahhhh that I am starting to feel it.
Saturday June 30, 2007 - 09:12pm (EDT)
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Family visits
For those that don't know, my Mom and Stepdad are flying in from Arizona in few days to visit. While they will be splitting their time between my house and my Stepbrother's house, most of their time will be spent here. Now, any of you who have any insight into my relationship with my Mom - this is driving me crazy. Fortunately, travel time is light due to ALA and lack of customers wanting to see me in the Summer.
So, I feel like I am vacuuming every day, I am finally finishing staining the deck (hopefully today!), I have been putting up pictures that I have procrastinated on for a year, been throwing things away that we don't use anymore, hung wind chimes that have been sitting on the bathroom window sill since we moved in two year ago, etc. I feel like I am nesting!!! I feel like everything that I have not been in a hurry to do, I am doing now at breakneck speed.
I only have 2 rooms painted and that won't change, but I do need to put up some molding in the downstairs bathroom, we need to fix the steps on the deck that broke last Summer and I need new vertical blinds in the living room and 2 new pull blinds for each for the kids rooms. Heck, we even went to Art Van last night looking for a comfortable, inexpensive, sleeper sofa (I know, good luck) for the basement. It's not that they can't sleep in the full size beds upstairs, but a sleeper sofa is something I have been considering for awhile.
10 more days to go, let' see how much more I tack on to my list.
Saturday June 23, 2007 - 10:27am (EDT)
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