Ithaca is Gorges

I had a nice visit to Ithaca.

Got to go through customs and use my new passport card. That made me happy.

Sibley Hall is where I will spend most of my time.

NERD ALERT! NERD ALERT! NERD ALERT!!!

The bells in this tower are rung by hand. Sometimes during the day they play songs by various artists such as Coldplay and the theme to Harry Potter.

This is the view from the Herbert F Johnson Art Museum designed by I.M. Pei.

This is the river that runs through campus. It's very gorges. :)



Parents' Weekend is 10/30-11/1. I'm going to call it Family Weekend because, of course, everyone is invited. And while they emphasize freshman, I don't really care. I'm a first year student at Cornell as well. Hope you can come! I'm sure the leaves will be gorges.

More Birthday Party

Here are a few more pics from Mary's FOURTH birthday party that I have been meaning to post.

The birthday girl herself.

The lovely cake decorated by the author of this post.

Lunch prior to the dance at none other than Red Robin.

Most of the attendees.

Bagels and a walk

I couldn't stand having that picture of Gracie at the top, it made me sick to my stomach. So here are some picture from this weekend.

I made some bagels using a recipe from the bread book Mom gave me for Christmas. They turned out very tasty. It's a 2 day process (like most breads in that book), but I must say they were quite delicious. I put cheese on top of some of them before baking (but after boiling).

The weather was beautiful on Sunday... even though there is still snow on the ground, it was pretty nice, so we went for a walk.

Even though this picture is the right way on my memory card, for some reason blogger keeps uploading it sideways. I guess that's how blogger thinks the picture looks best.

But it didn't do it to this picture. Very curious.

Mission accomplished. Gracie's porcupine face is no longer at the top. Hopefully that will save some people's stomachs.

SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!

This really makes me want to cry..... Last night, Dad and I went to a play downtown. When we got home, Dad took the dogs for a walk, and Gracie found a porcupine! She tangled with it once, and Dad got her away and back to the house. He was taking the quills out, and she slipped her collar and went after the porcupine AGAIN!!!!! He had to get her away and back to the house, which he did. She had gotten about 100 quills in her face and mouth. He pulled out MANY.... She didn't like that one little bit. We called the vet's emergency service, but the vet wasn't interested in going in at 11:00pm! Anyway, he took her in this morning so that they can get the remaining ones out..... She's SOOO SAD!

A few more snow pictures

Alina wanted to help Jay shovel the snow yesterday... I think at that point we had about 12 inches. It was also the very heavy type of snow, so Jay had his work cut out for him on our driveway and deck. The pile on the side that he made is taller than Alina!

We got about 4 more inches last night, for a total of about 16 inches.

Alina's birthday, blizzard

Here is the cake I made for Alina's birthday.

She liked it. Note the missing areas of frosting from some areas of the cake before we actually got to sing and cut it. She liked the frosting quite a bit. She is wearing the pretty dress Aunt Libby gave her. Thanks, Aunt Libby!

Finally got to eat some!

Shandi came to help celebrate. Here she is with Ania.
We were expecting a blizzard today. No one thought it would really come, but I put Ania's cute coat from Aunt Libby on to celebrate the occasion. Lucky thing I did - it is a terrible snowstorm!

Here is our back yard and deck. This does no justice to the horrible driving conditions I came home in. I couldn't see intersections until I was almost in them... couldn't see stop lights until I was at the actual intersection, and took a few left turns just HOPING no one was coming in the other direction. It was BAD! These pictures at least show how much snow we got, but not the white out conditions that we had a bit ago.

Catch Up

Pictures from the pfun time we had over MLK weekend..... Katie's such a good babysitter.... ALREADY!

Six little CUTIES!

Leaving for the park...


Pflum pfavorite..... Meal time!



Arvada Rec Center.....


Five little CUTIES!





Aunt Joannie was kind enough to invite me down to Naples for a "Spa" time before going to Michigan. It was absolutely a glorious time.... WARM! The weather couldn't have been better, and we had SUCH fun! THANKS Aunt Joannie!!!




"Thelma and Louise" in Key West.....




PFANCY hair Day!


Not Pfancy hair, but CUTE!



Aunt Rhoda shared her PFANCY monkey picked tea with for a High Tea.... VERY PFANCY AND PFUN!!!


Grandpa and Vittoria......


Happy Birthday, Mary! Aunt Joannie sent a Birthday Crown for the girls to wear...... We had a WONDERFUL lunch at Red Robin before the party. Mary isn't afraid of Red Robin any more, but he wasn't there...... Lucky for her!




Aunt Libby borrowed Aunt Rhoda's FANCY hat to wear to the dance party.

The girls LOVED the dance party.




Happy Birthday, Alina! We had a very pfun time at Chuck E Cheeses. It just doesn't get any better than that!



Ania's enjoying Chuck E Cheeses as well! So is Babcia!





Alina's practicing her "Queen of the World!" thing.....