Pink glitter shoes

A recent email from my sister-in-law, letting me know that Target has black glitter shoes for fall, made me realize that Loren's summer shoe obsession has never made it into the blog. When she outgrew the black glitter flats, I picked up an inexpensive pair of pink princess glitter flats from Target. Loren immediately fell in love and has worn them for at least part of almost every day this summer. But we discourage them for outside play--which is what most of the recent blog pictures are of. So here for posterity are the pink princess shoes -- worn nearly to death by the time these pictures were taken at "Thanksgiving" last weekend (they're not very good pictures, which is why they didn't make the original cut for posting). You'll understand why I'm so grateful for R's offer to pick up replacement shoes at Target.

Stardate 62569.56 - Legally Blond, The Musical

Cheryl's sister-in-law, Jen, and her friend Ami came up to New York City for the weekend and stayed with us. On Saturday night we hired a sitter and went to see Legally Blond, The Musical on Broadway. The main star (Elle Woods) had very recently left, having been replaced by the winner of an MTV reality show (Bailey Hanks). She was so new, in fact, that in the program under "Starring" she was listed not by name but instead as "MTV REALITY SHOW WINNER" and her bio was inserted into it as a sheet of paper.

The show was entertaining and I was not, as I had feared, the only man in the audience. There were some very enthusiastic members of the auidence who we assumed had been following the MTV show and were fans of the winner. There were some minor issues with the sound--if the chorus was singing it was sometimes too loud to the point of not being able to understand them. Individually they were fine, spoken lines were fine, but it was difficult to understand the words in the larger numbers several times. Bailey also almost tripped going up a set piece with stairs very early in the show, but she didn't appear to be affected by the near fall.

Overall, two thumbs up. As Cheryl stated, "Don't go expecting great art, but hey, it's a broadway musical!" It did make us want to add the movie (which we've already seen) to our NetFlix list.

NYC

Stardate 62556.6 - AE at Comic-Con

Artemis Eternal has a presence at Comic-Con. If you are at Comic-Con this year, please stop by Jessica's table in Artists’ Alley. In addition, Friday through Sunday actor Todd Soley (ARTEMIS male lead) will be there as well--Location: KK-07. The night of Friday 7/25 she is scheduled to attend the Sideshow Collectibles' party.

NYC

Stardate 62551.44 - Thanksgiving in July, 2008

As I've blogged about previously (in 2007 and 2006), our family does Thanksgiving (observed) in summer to avoid the traffic and headache of Thanksgiving (actual). This year, my cousin Angelique and her husband Laurence hosted at their new place in upstate New York. We took Friday off and drove up there in about 3.5 hours, arriving shortly before 1 PM. The big festivities were planned for Saturday, so getting there a day early gave us a chance to visit with Angelique and her family as well as the people who arrived early. We also could let Loren settle into a bit of a pattern before it got really crowded on Saturday.

Loren had a lot of fun playing with the Nerf rocket-launcher in the front yard. Of course, with the bigger kids playing also two of the three rockets ended up on the roof but one had made it back down to the yard by the time we left.


Here her cousin Zach helps her to drive down the driveway in the "little red car".


Loren also tried out the roller skates, but didn't enjoy them too much.


On the first day she spent a lot of time in the pool, kicking around in a small inflatable boat for over an hour. On Saturday, however, she didn't want to get back into the water and preferred to play in the yard.


Here Nana, Kracker, Aunt Ginger, and Dave chat at the pool.


Loren spent a lot of time pulling toy after toy out of the garage to play with. I'm not even sure what that thing is by my feet, but the bouncy ball was great fun for about 15 minutes until something else caught her eye.


We had a great time, drank a lot of great beer and wine, and enjoyed visiting with the extended family--some of whom we hadn't seen in a year. We had an uneventful trip back on Sunday, stopping briefly at Target in Harriman to pick up some more Disney Pixar cars for Loren (yes, Denise, we thought about calling you since we were so close to your house but Loren kept insisting on getting home and didn't even want us stopping for lunch!).

NYC

Stardate 62535.26 - Sunday at the Museum

Curt here, logged into Cheryl's account. It is too late and I'm too tired to log her out and log me in. On Saturday Cheryl took Loren out to NJ to the beach and to visit with her parents, while I went to see a movie and enjoyed an evening sail in the Hudson. They spent the night, and then came back early Sunday. We decided to go to the American Museum of Natural History, which we've been to several times. We left around lunch, so we stopped at one of the vending carts to enjoy a quick snack, and Loren got ice cream. We just sat on the edge of the sidewalk and ate before entering the building. Loren loves her ice cream!


Afterward we went down to Macy's so I could buy a pair of cuff links (with a quick stop for pizza first). After telecommuting for 6 years and getting by on just a week's worth of dress shirts for the past 3-4, I finally purchased some additional dress shirts and I got two of them with french cuffs, just for fun. I also needed a few new undershirts so I got a 3-pack while we were there. By that time we were all hot and tired and we came on home to a nice, cool apartment.

NYC

Catching up

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. The last couple of months have been crazy busy here. Two weeks of travel for Curt, one week for me, two sets of parents visiting, and July 4 at the beach. And now that Curt works in an actual office with actual people--and, as far as I can tell, back to back meetings all day long--he can't break to do quick posts during the day like he sometimes used to.

So here are some pictures to catch you up on the past few weeks. As Curt mentioned earlier, he didn't take any pictures during his mom's visit, but here are some that Jane took with her camera. Loren had a great time going to the Central Park Zoo and just generally hanging out with Nana and Kracker.






Two weeks later, Curt's dad and Valerie came up for the weekend. Our big excursion was to The Cloisters, the Met's medieval collection up at the far northern end of Manhattan. We forgot to check the subway repair advisories before we went, so the trip turned into something of an odyssey involving multiple subway trains and shuttle buses. And Loren mid-subway ride saw my sunglasses on my head and decided that she NEEDED HER SUNGLASSES RIGHT NOW. And proceeded to scream herself nearly to vomiting for the remaining 20 minutes of the subway ride. Never mind that she won't wear the sunglasses for more than 30 seconds when we do remember to bring them. Luckily most of the people around us seemed to be sympathetic rather than irritated. And did I mention it was about 95 in the shade that day... Anyway, when we finally got there, Loren enjoyed exploring the "castle", especially the outdoor cloisters and fountains and cafe. She didn't care about the art, which meant Curt and I didn't get to see the collection, but we've been there once several years ago and Cal and Valerie did get to enjoy it while we chased Loren. When we left, Loren said "that was really fun"...so at least we didn't drag her all the there only to have her be miserable!

Loren and I check out a fountain:


Loren and Granddad climb on the rocks on the way back to the subway:


For 4th of July weekend, we went to my grandmother's condo at the beach. Unfortunately only Friday the 4th had nice sunny weather for the beach, but on the other days Loren got in some outdoor time in between the occasional rain.


At the beach with Bobby:


With Ken, Great-aunt Marie, Grandpop and Grandma:



And we did get to see the famous Sea Bright dolphins, which have become a world famous phenomenon, once or twice a day from the pier behind my grandmother's place as they swam up and down the river. The parking lots in town were full of curiosity seekers.