sarahmichelef | Entries tagged with interests: travel

Didy ou miss me? Did you even notice that I was mostly offline for two weeks?

Yeah, didn't think so.

The last weed in July TRex and I were in Maine with my maternal family as well as

samueljl ,

relentlesstoil , and MC. Having them there was awesome, because then instead of just me and the kid we had our own little mini-commune. 3:2 is an awesome parent-to-four-year-old ratio. We didn't get to pull the "Big Love" joke on any meddling old ladies, though.
( pictures )

We were home for 36 hours or so and then drove for approximately ten gajillion hours down to the Midatlantic so Grandma could pick up TRex and the two of us could stay in DE with Josh & Jacy and help out with three-week-old Cora. Which was also fun, and we got more sleep than I had expected. Oh, and I got an awesome dress for the wedding we're going to over Labor day weekend!
( cutecutecute )

We lived the jet-set lifestyle and went to DC for the weekend - left on a 7:30 flight Saturday morning, came home on a 7:30 flight Sunday night. On tap was Ethiopian dinner (advantage of mentioning things off-hand to the in-laws: they make them happen!) and the Children's Concert at the Kennedy Center.

Ethiopian dinner was at Meskerem, and it was fabulous. Ethiopian is some of my favorite ethnic cuisine and we didn't have it in WMass and we haven't found it here, either (though I'm sure we could find it in Toronto and I will gladly drive an hour and a half for Ethiopian food). We got a vegetarian sampler and then 2 non-veggie dishes (spicy chicken and then a sweetish shrimp dish) and everything was STUNNING. They were great with TRex, too - she cuted her way into 2 hardboiled eggs (much to Opa's chagrin - M comes by his egg issues very honestly). It should not surprise anyone who knows my child that she tried everything and ate most of it with gusto, no matter how spicy it was.

The NSO Children's Concert was cool but slightly disappointing from the grownup perspective. The orchestra is of course amazing, as is the space. (I have a great picture of TRex dashing towards Maestro Mouse past the bust of JFK.) The programming was not as kid-friendly as I would have hoped; TRex loved the "compose yourself" piece where the audience got to vote on their preferred melody, who should play it, and the accompaniment. There was a world premiere story piece for orchestra and one narrator/actress that needed to be about 10 minutes shorter if it was going to keep the four-year-old set interested.

We also managed to go and get manis and pedis for the adult girls (TRex has declared that she's going to get a manicure when she stays with Grandma and Opa this summer) and enjoyed our last chance to see Josh & Jacy before cousin arrives in July. I took full advantage of my blanket permission to molest Jacy's belly at will and got to "hold" my niece's hand as she stuck it out at me. At least I think it was a hand - it was the right size & hardness & location to be a hand.

On August 1, TRex and I will be at loose ends in Boston for the afternoon/early evening. Who is going to come out and play with us?

...did I miss anything major?

;^)

We had a good time, some jerk took a chunk out of our car in a parking lot and didn't leave a note, TRex is an awesome road-tripper (16 hours in the car, 0 time spent watching videos on the iPod - plugging her in is our entertainment of last resort), got a tour of the Capitol from

amuntari, and pictures are on Flickr.

OK, really it's a month away, but the fabulous & talented

relentlesstoiljust booked a couple of rooms for our two families to get away for a weekend next month. There will be playing by the little girls, and evenings of sitting around enjoying consumables and playing games by the grownups. I can feel myself relaxing just thinking about it. :^D

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BRT yesterday, I already linked the pictures. We had fun. TRex refused to nap, like you do, and passed out in the car on the way home, like you do.
We had a small caulk failure in the upstairs bath. I think I have licked it; we will know for sure tomorrow or Tuesday when I shower in there.
When TRex and I traded bedroom/sewing room, one of the challenges was closet space. See, the closet in the small room (now my sewing room) is under the eaves, and the hanging bar is about 4' off the ground. There is a row of hooks in the tall wall, though, and so when we first swapped I just put all of our long tunics on hangers on the hooks. That proved to be untenable, though - if a garment was at the back of a hook, I couldn't get to it without taking everything in front of it down, and the clothes blocked access to other stuff in the closet. So today I got a standalone rack and moved things around a bit to make space for the rack (the bookcase was in pretty much the only place where the rack could go). Thus far, it's working fine - I'm reserving judgment because this rack got mixed reviews on the Target website.
There's something to be said for lounging in bed with a laptop, a beverage, and a sporting event about which you could not care less as background noise on the tv.
TRex has no school tomorrow. It is supposed to be 90 again. If we don't end up over at her friend J's house in their pool, I'm willing to put money on at least one of us being out in the sprinkler at some point during the day.
Oh! Last week we got an e-mail from my FIL telling us that he (and all of us by extension) had been invited to join a nine-day trip to India over Christmas/New Year's 2009-2010. At this point, it seems like we are going to try to go. ZOMG!

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Any concerns I had about road-tripping solo with TRex were all for naught. Seriously, the kid was practically an angel the whole trip - we had two whole tantrums, both on Saturday afternoon and she passed out for two and a half hours shortly thereafter. And that nap actually made it possible for us to make it home yesterday in just two legs rather than three - because she was good to go for an hour after she woke up, which got us as far as Utica where we had dinner and then pushed on into the sunset until we got home.

Socializing was productive, work was productive, miss WMass both for geography and people.

baronessmartha and

mittenydoom are lovely hosts even with a three year old who wakes up "ungodly early" and likes to watch things like The Little Einsteins and has a mama who vetoes episodes of Saddle Club that would require me to explain the death of a horse, which conversation I was not in the mood to have.

( Pictures )

Our initial itinerary had us leaving BWI for Philly at 9:05 last night. We started checking flight statuses pretty early in the day - and soon noticed that our connecting flight which was supposed to leave Philly at 11 was delayed by an hour... an hour and a half... two hours. When it was listed as arriving in Buffalo at 2:30 in the morning, I got on the phone with US Air and asked if they could rebook us. And lo and behold, the nice man in India (I think - do they staff their Asian call centers 24 hours?) was able to rebook us almost immediately, leaving BWI for Charlotte at 8 with a rather close connection (40 minutes) and arriving in Buffalo before midnight. The flight out of BWI was slightly delayed, making it so that we had only 15 or so minutes to make our connection - M grabbed as much stuff as he could carry and dashed ahead to try to stall them while TRex and I waited for her stroller (which was actually already up by the time we got off the plane - and bless the flight attendant who carried the carseat out for me). As it turned out, we only had to run 3 gates down the concourse and I got there just as M was saying "I'm here to stall you and my wife is coming with our kid" and on we went. We actually landed a bit early and were home by 12:30; I was asleep by 1:45 (having made lunches, packed school bags, etc.).

*tired*

Lovely & relaxing weekend with childsplay7 and T. All houseguests should be as low-maintenance as they are!

Procured plane tickets to Portland for Christmas... we have to stop twice, but they cost under $600 apiece, so y'know. We have a redeye back here Christmas night and I'm not too proud to dope my kid up with benadryl if that's what it takes to get her to sleep. MIght dope up the husband, too, but with just a half dose.

TRex loved going to see the Wiggles, but hit her overwhelmed threshold about halfway through.

Went to a dinner/meeting for March of Dimes this evening and actually managed to go to the whole meeting part - TRex was perfectly happy playing with the other kids under the supervision of the staff & hired teenagers. She was the youngest one there, too, and was totally wiped by the time the meeting was done.

I found the midterm essay that had gone missing, much to my relief (and my student's as well!).

I can't draw a deep breath without coughing. Must go locate inhaler. Also, my voice cracked like a thirteen-year-old boy's for the whole of my 35-minute lecture today.

Oh, and the sears guy from Friday. Yeah, he wasn't supposed to come, we really were supposed to wait for the parts. Fortunately, he had the requisite stuff on the truck so he was able to do the repair anyway. I just shook my head.

It was a good trip - conference was overwhelming, as they always are - met tons of famous Internet people - ate good food in a way to big group at Steamworks Brewery - went to Seattle to see Laura, Brian, Pat, and jennybeast - read a weird book - came home - now it's Monday again and I have to do progress reports on a bunch of students which means grading their midterm essays.

I'm getting excited about my trip to Vancouver in three weeks, not least of which because I feel like this is kind of my re-entry into the world of Internet research. I had TRex 48 hours after I arrived home from the last AoIR conference I went to. I've had my plane tickets for months (there was a supercheap SWA fare to Seattle a while back), I have a hotel reservation and am desperately hoping to get someone to share the room with me so I don't have to pay for it all myself (will be applying for a travel grant from UMass, but still...). I have just booked Amtrak tickets from Seattle to Vancouver and back again (thank you

jennybeast for suggesting this - it's FAR preferable to the stinky sick-making bus!), and I am making plans to hang out with

jennybeast and Pat and whoever else we manage to acquire for fun and hilarity (hopefully Brian and Laura and who knows who else...). Jenny, I apologize, but you may get stuck hanging out with me and 3/4 of my roommates from my senior year at Carleton. We're fun, though, I promise.