fall

We've been so busy for the past few weeks, pretty much since the beginning of September. Two weekends ago (when this picture was taken) we worked on updating the teaching pages of my website: http://www.andreaveal.com/voicestudio.html. I owe Michael something major for his work on this. I love how it turned out, but it was definitely a ton of work. This past weekend I had a table at the Rochester Oktoberfest, which was an all-day thing outside on Main Street in Rochester. They closed some of the main roads in downtown and local businesses and craftspeople had tables on the road. It was a lot of work to get ready for that, too!

I took this picture when Michael and I hiked Blue Job two weekends ago (the same hike as the rotten tree picture, which reminds me of the carpenter ants we had in our window sill, now gone, thankfully). The foliage was really pretty, and I liked this long grass.

The Oktoberfest was on Saturday, and then on Sunday I had church in the morning, and in the afternoon we went to Boston to see the countertenor Andreas Scholl sing with the Handel and Haydn Society. I got free tickets because they offer them to the musicians from time to time. I hope they will keep hiring me for at least one concert a year so that I'll still get free tickets!
We didn't do much today. We need some time at home to just be at home and not be working! I had to teach a few lessons, but it was nice for us to be home together today. I think we're both exhausted from all the activity lately.
Amanda, I love the pictures you posted! It's been a long time since all of those were taken. We need to take a few more now.

Here's one of Michael and I in Texas. I'll tell you about our trip sometime soon. I think my grandparents felt really honored by everyone. I hope it gave them a great memory to cherish for the rest of their lives. I had a great time, though Michael had a really bad sinus infection and cold/flu thing, so I think it was hard on him!

That's it for now. Hope to talk to you all soon.

Love,

Andrea

A few memories...

Hi everyone. I thought I would post a few pictures that I found while looking through the 'My pictures' folder on our computer. Some of you have seen some of these already but I hope you don't mind seeing them again. I have some older pictures that I want to post but I need to go to my parent's house and use their scanner. Or maybe I need to take a trip to Rochester, NH....

Andrea came to visit a couple of times after Callum was born. Here we are hanging out in the garage. I think this was in July or August of last year.

Andrea, remember when you took me to see 'Wicked', and I told you I was pregnant? That day was one of my best memories of all time! It was so much fun to just spend the whole day with you... We need to do that again soon. I often think about that day and it just make me smile. I really treasure those times that we spend together and I don't know why we don't do it more often. I know we're both busy, though...

That same visit Michael taught me all about his bees.

Here we are before the show. My hair is really short!

Andrea & Michael, I hope you guys had a good trip to Texas! And I hope that the anniversary party went well! Brian, we'll need an update from you - I hope you're doing well too! I miss all of you...

Toilet Buddies

Hey everybody!

We miss you all!

Done

Hey everybody,

I am pleased to announce my return to the Blogosphere.

I successfully completed my project this morning at around 5am. My advisor seemed pleased with it. To quote him directly:

"Este es el análisis más profundo y detallado del tema del empleo variable de los pronombres personales sujeto del habla en los rascacielos que se ha hecho en la historia de la lengua española. ¡Increíble! ¡Los rascacielos son realmente impresionantes!"

I'll be sure to get you all a copy. I think Jared would find it especially intriguing.

I also started a glossary of Adirondack terms in the column on the right. Feel free to add new ones or change any of the ones currently up there. My primary motivation for creating it was to get Jared to contribute to his "other" blog.

That's it for now. Hope everyone is doing well.

- Michael

more pictures, more writing

Hi!

Michael is working on entry number 28 as I write this. He's hoping to have all 30 entries done by early tomorrow so that he can have them waiting for his advisor, who returns from a family trip tomorrow. He thinks the paper will be comparatively easy to write, since he has an outline and has just been through all of his sources, so what he wants to say is fresh in his mind. I'm excited for him.

I'm feeling much better, and I'm not worried about singing tomorrow (for two church services this week- a friend of mine asked me to sing at a chapel in downtown Portsmouth, so I REALLY needed to be in singing condition this week).

Congrats to Callum for walking. You'll be doing it all your life now, so don't expect me to be impressed for too much longer.

I'm almost finished with my family photo project, so be on the lookout for demands for pictures on Snapfish.

I'll be at a voice teaching conference from Monday until Wednesday of this week, so don't do anything really important while I'm away!

Here's a good one from my family archives, from when I was still cute:

Nice hair, everybody. Seriously, everyone looks pretty good through the eighties, but when the nineties hit, watch out!

Love to you all,
Andrea

Feelin' sneezy

Hi, everybody,

I, too, am loving the blog. I think we get to see a different side of each person in their posts. Sometimes I am surprised by the things Michael says. I had to think for a few sentences before I figured out it was Amanda and not Jared writing the last one, too. It's very interesting.

Michael sends his greetings to Callum.

We found out today that Michael's project has to be all finished (written AND revised, and approved by Sr. Chaston) by August 21, which is a pretty tall order. We're hoping John (that's Michael's advisor) won't ask for too much revision, since Michael is a good writer and is doing a very thoughtful job with the first drafts. This project, since it's not original research, feels like a hoop that has to be jumped through (I know, dangling preposition!). We're ready for him to just jump through it and get his degree. I know Michael has other projects that he wants to do after he finishes this one, projects that actually are original research and that would start to build his resume. There is another Spanish professor who is constantly publishing things and loves Michael, so he's thinking he might like to work with her on something to start getting his name out there.

All of this is to say that Michael won't be blogging for the next ten days, because he'll be constantly working on his project. He's finished 19 out of 30 bibliography entries, and after he has completed all 30 entries, he has to write a fairly short paper on his topic (of subject pronoun inclusion). I'll keep you posted on his progress. Be rooting for him! I know I am.

Believe it or not, I came down with a COLD on Friday. I forced myself to sing at church and go to a rehearsal on Sunday, and then I rescheduled a couple of my Monday students for today and tomorrow so that I could rest yesterday. I'm still feeling really quite terrible, but at least I can breathe today, and I have a little bit of a singing voice back (yesterday was scary). Let me know what your personal cold remedies are; I do extra vitamin C, water on the hour, and Mucinex (which I think at least sometimes keeps me from losing my voice completely). Other suggestions are welcome.

I am buried in this family photo project, but once that's under control I will set up a Snapfish group album for our Adirondack pictures. I love the ones you posted yesterday, Amanda!

Love to you all.
Andrea

Amanda's turn...

Hi everyone. First of all, I am loving this blog and the way that we're staying connected. Secondly, I thought I would post a few pictures from our time together that I thought were particularly amusing and nice. Whoops... I think I just made a dangling participle. Sorry. I meant that the pictures are amusing and nice, not our time together. Got it?

Michael teaching Jared how to use the Aquaskipper. You guys look kind of silly.

Here is Michael doing his best advertisement for the infamous game "Cinco". You've convinced me Michael! I'll take five! I mean cinco!

A nice shot of everyone at the table together. I can't believe that even Callum is looking at the camera...

Next I thought I would post a couple of pictures from our house. Here is our new compost bin. Yes, it's just a Rubbermaid trash can but Jared drilled some holes for air circulation and voila, you have a compost bin. Our old compost bin is the wooden structure just to the right of our new bin, but since we live on a lot smaller than a postage stamp we figured this trash barrel will be better in terms of space. Plus we'll be able to have fun rolling it around the yard as we "stir" the contents inside...

Lastly, here is my garden which is doing practically nothing this year. I have 3 green peppers coming, a few cherry tomatoes, and some romaine lettuce but I think that's about all we'll see. I may get a couple of New England pie pumpkins, but I'm not holding my breath. Thanks to some little green worms we won't be seeing any broccoli. Oh well, it's my first attempt at a container vegetable garden and I will try again next year.

I guess that's all for now. Jared keeps our other blog updated with daily stuff, and I am planning on updating this blog more often. Love to all of you!

Angel Babies in Flowers

Hello gang,

Today's picture is dedicated to Jared. It is the picture from the front of a card that Andrea's grandmother sent us in the mail. Everyone is welcome to enjoy it, but Jared must enjoy it the most.

I enjoyed listening to Brian's sermon this morning. You sounded good Brian. It makes me feel a little sad though that I have not been a better friend to you.

I hope the congregation appreciated the introduction. I'm sure they would all like getting to know you better at one of your "famous" doughnut breakfasts. (wink wink)

I was also happy to hear that your parents were able to be there. That must have been a rewarding moment for both you and them.

So anywho... I look forward to more sermonicles on mp3.

And for all of you who are complaining that I didn't directly acknowledge them in my entry today (Amanda and Callum) I have posted a new little survey just for you (and everybody else).

- Mikey

Settling into Virginia

I'm now almost two weeks into my new call in Virginia. Today was my first sermon which you'll be able to download from churchoftheapostles.org. These two weeks have passed quickly and been very full. Art is now hanging on walls and I'm thinking about replacing one of the lamp shades with an Adirondack Map lamp shade.

I've looked at two possible places to live and am beginning to get housing leads faster than I'm ready to process them. Today my parents and I drove around looking at possible neighborhoods as part of my thinking into where to live.

Oh, and reading through the blog I didn't see the keyboard cat link so I've linked to it here. Everyone in the office particularly likes this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XESKaH5CNU0 There may be a number of lake houses with aquaskippers despite the video's existance in the near future.

Brian

Amanda

These pictures are from 1999 when my mom's friend Cheri had a party at the beach in Newcastle. Since I'm painstakingly going through my mom's photo boxes (photos from 1974 on), I decided that if I find pictures I like that aren't related to my grandparents' anniversary, I'm still going to scan them so that I can look at them occassionally.

Amanda and I have been friends for a long time now! It's nice to think about that.

Andrea

Perfect Day

Hi, everybody,

I told Michael today that I wish every day could be like today.

My breakfast was beautiful fresh fruit picked by Michael and I, I taught one lesson to a student who is smart and respectful, and then I practiced (which hasn't been a daily occurance lately). We met with a contractor to give us an estimate on replacing some of our windows because one of them is badly damaged, and I also went to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore to see if they had a window the right size (no luck). On the same trip, I got rid of a giant bunch of plastic hangers at Goodwill (they take them as donations). On the way home I went to the Rochester Farmers' Market and talked about bees with the organic farmer. Michael and I laid in our hammocks in the back yard, and from that spot you can't see the road or any other houses except ours, so it feels like a little resort. Michael spent most of the day working on his bibliography project (from his hammock, but he really WAS working), but at 5:30 we hiked Blue Job and picked two quarts of wild blueberries from the top of the mountain. The blueberries are late this year because of all the rain we had, but there are a lot of them, and the weather was perfect for picking (not too hot!!). We topped the day off with going to Fat Tony's Italian Restaurant in downtown Rochester. If you come to visit us, this is one of the restaurants you should try. The food is great. All in all, it was a perfect day. It was a balance of work that I felt good about (both paying work and work to take care of the house), fun, and just everyday life. I don't think my life could get any better, seriously.

The picture is of our rose bush that we discovered limping along in the flowerbed in front of our house this spring. It got almost no sun there, so we immediately decided to move it somewhere else. It seems to like its new spot, which is behind the rock garden. It started sending out huge creeping vines, so when we got home from the Adirondacks, Michael built an Adirondack-style trellis for it. We're hoping it will climb instead of creep!

Another thing we did today was to hatch more plans for our house for NEXT summer. It's fun to think ahead like that. It makes me feel very connected to this place and my life.

Anywho, guess that's all for now. What's your perfect day?

Love to you all,

Andrea

Links

Michael Aquaskipping:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHJHfcSAZ6I

Brian Aquaskipping:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPecszYZYHM

I think I'm becoming a bit of a group historian here, but it makes sense to have these links on the blog where we can all get to them easily.

Vintage Adirondack

This is the very first picture taken of us on Seventh Lake. Look how young we all look!!!

Brian rowed over in a guide boat to meet us, as he thought it was a fitting introduction to camp life. And it really was! You can see that we do indeed have some considerable luggage in there.

This was the summer of 2001. Thanks to the guest book at Meenahga, we know that Michael and I have been to the camp in:

2001

2004

2005

2006

2008

2009 July 18-22

Maybe I'll fish through my planners (which I've kept; I know, I'm weird) and see if I can find the exact dates. Then again, the exact dates would be in the guest book on the island, too.

Today I had to look at pretty much all of the pictures I have here- digital and paper- to find photos of my Dad's parents and us with them. Their 60th wedding anniversary is in September, and my family is planning a big party for them. My mom, dad, Michael, and I are all flying down for a long weekend to surprise them. My cousin and her roommate are making a slide show of family photos for the party, and they asked me to collect some of ours for it. All of this is to say that in my travels I came across some pretty good Adirondack pictures, so you'll be seeing some of them.

I was thinking that we should all gather our camp photos and deposit them into Snapfish in a group album. I was on Snapfish today (searching for lost Texas pictures) and saw that this is now an option. Wouldn't that be great? We could at least start with this year's pictures, which none of us have lost yet (probably).

Jared, I make a lot of parenthetical comments.

Also, Jared, do we need to have a recording session for this year's song sometime soon? Maybe you Goldsmiths need to come down and stay overnight to make the recording. I think this year you should play piano; you could use our Clavinova, just like Craig's (well, Craig's is better, actually). We have a digital voice recorder, so we could have really GOOD audio quality, and we could make a real classy-like music video. Or, should I say, MICHAEL could make a real classy-like music video. I would just sit next to him and drive him crazy with my constant comments. Why would anyone think that "Constant Comment" would be a good name for a tea? It doesn't sound relaxing at all.

Also, Jared, I may want you to write a poem for me to fit to the tune of "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas." I have to sing at my grandparents' party, and my grandfather used to sing "I'm dreaming of a white biscuit" in the morning while making breakfast. He also made us cackleberries for breakfast, which were eggs that he swore he had gone out early in the morning to harvest off the ground. If I can't do a good job with the poem myself, you may be getting a call.

I miss everbody.

Love to you all,

Andrea

Bubba leaves North Korea with pardoned journalists (Thanks to Dr. Craig Smith)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has departed North Korea with two American journalists newly released by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il after he granted the pair a "special pardon," said two nurses on a cigarette break.

This picture is hilarious! What a pair.

Some FAIL for youse......

A real, live family portrait from www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com. What. The. Heck. Is. Going. On. A true "Choose your own adventure" type of portrait. Hilarious. This is mostly for my grammar-buddy A-rock. I have a whole file at school filled with this kind of stuff. This will surely go in it. Or, "in it this will surely go."

As will this. On a similar note, I once saw a real bumper sticker...right in Winslow Maine....that said "This is America. We don't press wone for English." Seriously.

I probably won't put this in my school file. Even though it IS part of a back to school sale! Obviously, they are catering to people who live in Englehart hall (wah wah wah....)

This is funnier if you know the backstory. "Creatine" is a body-building powder athletes take in order to allow their bodies to metabolize water in a quicker fashion--thus giving them (somehow) more energy to lift more weights. These clever advertisers combined some clever stuff....

That is all for now!

Where is B-Real? I hope you are settling in nicely Brian. Hope to hear from you soon

Jared

collecting memories

Hi, everyone,


Well, congratulate me, because this is my very first foray into blogging, or into the world of sharing my personal life online in any form (blog or faceplantbook or otherwise). I never thought I'd go here, but here I am.


I think all I wanted to do in this entry was share some memories so that they're up here instead of buried in our e-mails.


Here they are:
Versicles
St. Olaf’s
Amanda yelling “sorry” during the first hymn she played at church
Michael turning pages (or page, to be more exact)
“Miao”
Bobsey eating cat litter
Finger buddies
Jared tipping the new gamp (Brian, your clan really needs to find a better name for this boat!)
Amanda getting punchy while we looked at the stars
Pie
Cinnamon raisen bread (how is it that they spelled “cinnamon” correctly, which is the harder word?)
Collectables
Adding "icle" to any word, making it a 'very small' whatever it is
The Scandanavian resort with its totem pole
The never-ending (and Jared's favorite) Uno game. When can we play this again???
Smores with Lindt chocolate (thank you Michael & Andrea!)
Running everyone off Sandy Beach because Callum is a sissy when it comes to sand and water
The thrill of receiving a "Camp Meenahga" shirt
Just being together.


Starting with "adding -icle," the second half of the list was written by Amanda, so I can't take credit for them (though I DO remember them!). Maybe the rest of you all will add a few now and then. If I think long enough maybe I'll be able to remember a few from years past. I have a terrible memory, though. For this reason I'm glad we take pictures, so that I know I existed back then!


Here's the link to "Aquaskip them off, keyboard cat":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XESKaH5CNU0
And yes, Jared, I'm using the British placement of the colon because I think it makes MUCH more sense than putting it inside the quotation marks. Plus, what do you do if the quotation has punctuation? I think I need to review my copy of Eats, Shoots, and Leaves.

Signing off,
Andrea

7/30/2009 - a sting on the kisser

(To be read in the voice of Matisse)

I am so happy to be climbing up a ladder to retrieve bees from a tree.

It hurts so much for me to receive a sting on the kisser.


I will just sit here and pout in my hot corner.

Oh, it hurts so much!

Will someone please get me some ice?

Welcome to the blog!!!

ARE YOU TIRED???????? (no) Want some BBQ sauce for that finger?

Callum's first trip to the Adirondacks wouldn't be complete without a stop at "THE CHAIR"

I hope this will work out!!! This could be very cool! Basically, we will all have access to not only view the blog, but also to write, add changes, post pictures, etc. Essentially, it will be like the emails we've had going back and forth....only this could be a more "central" meeting place to post....and all of our entries will be saved and organized effectively.

Amanda and I really want to keep in touch with you all better, and we thought this could be a great way to do it. This is NOT simply an "Adirondack" blog. Rather, we can all post little snippets about what we've been doing lately, videos, pictures, etc. I have this image of logging on to the blog each day and seeing, for example, a posting and a picture concerning Uncle Fibbers's new pad....and then the next day a short video of Michael's bees....and then some pictures of Andrea's latest concert. So, you get my drift: This will help keep us abreast of what we are all doing (for example....Brian went skydiving like 7 years ago, and no one knew!)

I'll let you all play around with how to use this. It is actually very easy to post things. Rather than write step by step instructions, I'll let you guys take a look at the "dashboard," as it is called, and then just ask Sally or me anything!

To GET to the "dashboard," do the following:

1. go to http://www.blogger.com/

2. when it asks for you to sign in, enter the email address amanda@sprindpong.net

3. for the password, type "garylee1"

4. That is it! It will bring you to the dashboard, and you can let the exploring begin!!!

I hope this works out. If not, that is fine too!

ALSO, there is a link on the bottom where you can click to get to our own "Goldsmith" blog. I update that daily!

See you soon!!!!