Moving Bryan back to school

Bryan is living off campus in his frat this year. It was realively painless: one trip out to Bed Bath & Beyond and Target before we left home, one trip out to Mattress World and Target in State College yesterday, and lugging his stuff up 2 flights of stairs on a hot, humid day! The best part is that we purchased his bed at 2:30 in the afternoon and they delivered and set it up by 5:30! Amazing.

His frat has about 20 guys living in it so its reasonably small and less chaotic (I hope). The guys all seem really nice, polite and friendly. Not having much association with Greek life (not big on Canadian campuses in my day), I wasn't sure what to expect. It was actually quite nice ... notice I didn't say "clean", but it wasn't too bad. Here's the front and side views:

Good luck to Bryan and all returning college/university kids!

Visiting John & Vicki, Cole & Haley

We are just back from a fantastic week in San Francisco! We spent a night in the Fisherman's Wharf area and then the rest of the time was spent with my brother and his family. They were all awesome hosts.

The quick details:
1st day: wine & hot tub, dinner & firepit
2nd day: Napa wine tastings (Gloria Ferrer, Orin Swift, J & Rodney Strong), Dinner (tapis and wine flights @ Willi's ... need name, town), back to hot tub
3rd day: Watched Haley exercising her horse. Lunch & shopping @ Rockridge in Berkeley, [Guys @ baseball game], Dinner (Gordon Biersch, San Fran)
4th day: Lunch (Va di Vi @ Broadway Plaza in Walnut Creek), massage at luxurious spa followed by shopping in a relaxed daze, hot tub, dinner a la Vicki (yum!)
5th day: Monterey - lunch, strolling, dinner, followed by night cap in Carmel (Hog's Breath). [Guys golfed in Pacific Grove]

Some of the wine purchases:

The cousins, Haley & Carolyn:
The whole gang (minus Bryan who couldn't come due to work):

It was truly a perfect visit!

Birthday weekend

This past weekend we celebrated another birthday at our home - mine. I had a great time!

First, the 4 of us went into the city for dinner and a show. We were intrigued by the pedestrian area where Broadway has been closed off to traffic at Times Square. Hundreds of lawn chairs have been provided for tourists to sit and watch the lights! We saw "Hair" which was enjoyed by us all.

Second, I received lots of funny and touching cards, phone calls and emails. And flowers from my family! Thank you all!

Third, my parents came down for the weekend and took us out for a delicious dinner at the Chart House in Weehawkin (on the Hudson R). You can't tell in these photos, but our table had a magnificent view of Manhattan so as we enjoyed our dinner we saw the skyscrapers go from daylight, to gray with gold reflections from the setting sun, to black with all their lights. Very pretty. Here's Don, Carolyn and my Mom, followed by Me, Bryan and my Dad.

Fourth, we joined the July birthday babies party on the beach with our other young friends and had a great time! Check out the photos taken here.

And lastly, the celebrations continue this week with friends. Getting older is fun when we do it together.

Tims comes to the big apple

Tim Hortons has arrived in New York City!

We look forward to checking it out to see if its the Tims we know and love from home or a modified version. One thing that is different between Tims in Ontario and Tims in upstate New York is the size of the cups. In Ontario a 'small' looks like a thimble by U.S. standards. Either way we will definitely patronize the store whenever we get a chance.

Now we just need Tims to come to New Jersey. And Swiss Chalet.

Timbit anyone?

Birthday girl & brother

Carolyn turned 17 last week!

Paris & Canada Day

Don and I had a wonderful spur of the moment 5 days in Paris about a week ago. Don was overseas for work and had to spend a weekend away. We found enough British Airways points for me to fly over so I did. The trip was perfect.

I missed my opportunity to do a Happy Canada Day post yesterday. I was going to try to find an old photo from a past celebration but that would have required flipping through old photo albums and I didn't have the time. So instead you are getting photos of Paris on the day after Canada Day.

I've been feeling back-blogged lately. If I let it go too long without posting it gets harder to get back into it.

Happy Canada Day to our friends and family at home!

The beauty of book club is ...

... reading a good book that you would never have chosen to pick up and read if not for book club.

Just finished reading our May book (about 2-1/2 weeks too late) but the discussion in May was so interesting. Glad I didn't miss it. For anyone looking for something a little different, try In the Land of Invisible Women by Qanta A. Ahmed.