Category Archives: Update

Updates

Our New Grad

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As many of your know, Kyle graduated from pre-school yesterday. The school hosted a very cute ceremony. The class sang a bunch of songs, each led by 2-3 students, along with a few other things. Kyle got to lead the class in counting to 10 in German. He did an excellent job. They also called each child up and handed them each a diploma. Afterward, we had nice dinner at the Westfield Diner where Kyle got to have chocolate chip pancakes.

Snowed Under

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Cars drifted in snow

If you’ve seen the news in the past 24 hours or so, you have undoubtedly heard about the blizzard on the East Coast. It started snowing late yesterday morning, but really started to pick up by mid-afternoon. It was very windy and snowing at a couple of inches per hour for most of the night. It turns out that we’re in the band that got the highest snowfall, 20-30 inches. This is about right as I used a yardstick (a ruler wasn’t enough) to measure a few spots. Where it wasn’t drifted I was getting 2 feet.

Snow drifted against the front storm door

Some of the drifts, including the one along the street, were up to 30+ inches. We even had a good 8-10 inches drifted against the front door. I ended up having to go out the door on the side porch (which had 1-2 inches of snow despite being under cover) and slogging around to the garage to get out the snow shovels. Luckily, while the snow had drifted to 2 1/2 feet against the garage door, most of it had been blown away from a couple of feet in front of the door. After spending a couple of hours shoveling, we managed to clear the driveway from Suzanne’s car to the street and the front walk. My car is still buried, but it’s supposed to warm up by the end of the week, so hopefully at least some will melt.

Suzanne shoveling

The back deck - 19 inches on the table

Path on the back deck

Brief Update

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Kyle & Daddy at the beachI know I have been remiss in not doing an update since July, and that wasn’t much of one. I was trying to catch up the processing of Kyle’s photos, which I finally did. So what have we been doing?

In July, Suzanne’s parents came up for July 4th. We had a nice time and did our normal fireworks (in Cranford, a couple of towns east of us). In August we finally managed to take a day down at the shore. We had been saying we were going to do this for a couple of years but never seemed to make it. We headed down to Point Pleasant Beach which is supposed to be more family-friendly than much of the shore. Most of the beach, etc., is owned by Jenkinsons, so it’s pretty nice, though not cheap as you have to pay to park, pay to access the beach, pay for the amusement rides, etc. There is also a small amusement park which Kyle really enjoyed.

As fall approached, we did a few things. One Sunday in September, the Watchung (Nature) Reservation (10-15 minutes from our house) had a very mice harvest festival. That same day, Fanwood was having it’s own festival, so it was a busy day. On one October weekend, it was time for our annual apple picking trip to Terhune Orchards in Princeton. Kyle really liked this, insisting on bringing his apple picking gardening tool. That next week, Kyle’s class went on a field trip to the pumpkin patch, and he had a great time. Of course, Kyle was very much looking forward to Halloween. Naturally, he was a fireman once again. (This made it easy for us as we could use last year’s costume. Next year, it will time for a new one as the current one is getting both too small and starting to wear out. He wears it far more than just at Halloween.) In addition to doing “stuff”, Kyle continued playing soccer throughout the fall. He enjoys it to a degree, but I’m not sure if we’ll sign up for next spring.

On HalloweenAs most of you probably know, we’re heading back to Germany soon, primarily to enjoy the wonderful Christmas markets. We’ll also have a great opportunity to catch up with some friends from the time we lived there. We’re very much looking forward to this trip, though we’re not sure how well Kyle will handle the eight hour plane ride or the six hour time change. Our first few days are pretty laid back, so that should help with the latter. We’ll be spending a few nights in Frankfurt (where we’ll be visiting friends), then heading to Nürnberg (Nuremberg) for a few nights to visit one of the biggest and most famous markets, and then ending the trip with five nights in Munich. It’s likely we’ll also hit Bamberg (as a day trip from Nürnberg) and Salzburg, Austria (as a day trip from Munich). I’m hoping to post updates here as we go, so be sure and check back.

Of course, I’m sure what many of you want are new photos of Kyle. Here they are:

More Kyle Photos

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I know I’ve been remiss about not getting photos up earlier. Well, I just added a number from May and June including Kyle and Suzanne’s trip to Sesame Place and our trip to Wesport, MA with my mom’s family. Please enjoy.

I hope to have more photos from Westport and some photos from the 4th of July up in the next few days as well, so be sure to check back if you’re interested.

Back Home

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The Blue Mosque at night

The Blue Mosque at night

Well, we are back home. Our trip back was fairly uneventful. The car we had scheduled to pick us up was bit late, and it was scheduled a bit later than would have been ideal, so it was a little anxious. However, we had no problems getting to the airport in plenty of time. After a brief stop at the Duty Free to blow our few remaining Lira (when ended up bringing home only 0.50 TL), it was off to the lounge to await our (45 min delayed) boarding. The flight itself was as good as a 10 hour flight could be. (I did manage to watch a total of seven movies between the two flights.) We were quite impressed with Turkish Airlines and would definitely fly them again, aside from the fact that their only flight from the US is to Istanbul.

We encountered no delays once back in the US. However, on the drive home from JFK, traffic was horrendous. It took us almost two-and-a-half hours for what would be maybe an hour without traffic. Of course we knew traffic would be bad, so we had a car service pick us up instead of asking Mary Lou to drive both ways through rush hour. We were exhausted, but had a great trip.