Blogging Backlog I - Charleston walking tour with Mom

Mom and I took a walking tour of some homes and gardens in Charleston. Every year at this time there is a Home and Garden Festival here for about a month. There were 11 homes/gardens on the tour we took (East Battery) and we got to 10 of them. We got rained on at one point but the weather was good most of the time. Naturally, the rain really started when we were done and walking back to the car. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to photograph IN the houses and gardens so this is a sampling from outside. The tour was 3 hours and I let Yeshi roam Charleston on his own during that time. He was pretty excited about that. Nice to be someplace where I feel comfortable letting him do that. Here's Mom at the beginning of our walk - look! her hair matches the building!

Mazel Tov!

Yeshi and I had yet another trip to Virginia Beach, this time for the Bat Mitzvah of Sarah bat Adam, shown here:

Afterwards we all went back to their house where the kids had a great time playing football, paddling around in kayaks, jumping on the trampoline, etc. Just general kid fun. Her Dad grilled burgers and dogs and served up some tasty chili. After sunset he lit a good sized bonfire for them - end of a perfect day....

Wintergreen, VA

We're up at Wintergreen for some snowboarding (for the boys anyway). I skiied last year but decided to save money this year and just take some pictures of the boys and relax. They had beautiful weather today...about 50 degrees and sunny. They were on the slopes most of the afternoon, came back for dinner and then went back for a couple hours. Flo baked chocolate chip cookies for them when they came back, yum. We're staying in a condo with a beautiful view of the slopes.


It was so nice we could stand out on our deck without a coat. Still had snow on the slopes and almost all of them were still open. I was hoping to post a few more pictures but the internet is a little dodgy up here. And besides, I'm relaxing...

Discrimination!

Here we are in NYC. My sister Molly thought it would make an interesting picture to get Yeshi and cousin Josh reading Chinese newspapers in Chinatown. BUT, they had hardly picked up the papers when the lady shopkeeper came out and yelled at them "leave my stuff alone! You put my stuff back!" Yeshi put his paper down and Josh was in the process when she snatched it from his hand and stuck it back in the rack "you stupid boys! leave my stuff alone!" GOSH, maybe I'm culturally ignorant but I didn't think they were hurting anything. The only thing we could figure is that she figured 2 teenage boys handling the papers must be up to no good. Then she got mad at Molly for taking the pictures! "Oh, you want to take picture?!! I get my camera and take your picture!" Yeah, whatever, hurt me ok?

See, there she is snatching the paper right out of Josh's hand.

Pretty in Pink

This is my Mom's house on Long Island - it's pink! We go up every February for her birthday and usually get a nice blizzard. Not this time. This picture is from '06. (I'm dumping the 20 part of the year - Atalya thinks we need to get over it and do the years like we used to, last two digits only. I'm with her) It was actually pretty warm. We went in to the city on Monday and ended up carrying our jackets around. Mom took me down to the beach to get some nature photos on Sunday (we forced Yeshi and his cousin Josh to come with us) and I got some nice pictures by fooling with the white balance on the camera (it was overcast and a bit dark out). Ever watch Sunday morning with Charles Kuralt? You know the end of the show where they just showed some nature footage and had no narration or music, just the critter-sounds? I always enjoyed watching that with my cup of coffee, ahhhh. This is the online version. You'll have to imagine your own critter-sounds. Get your coffee..... (oh, pink picture first for a nice segue from the pink house :)

Wrestlemania!

Behind on my posting since I've been out of town and sick but trying to catch up now...This is my son's younger brother Braylan.(He's the one about to stand on his head...We lived across the street from him for 10 years and he and his brother Avery are like Yeshi's younger brothers. Danny melded their names and calls them "Bravery") He was ahead on points most of the match and I guess Rami managed to get the upper hand in the end and win. Still, you can see Braylan is truly enjoying himself. That's why we love watching him compete. He's a fierce, agressive competitor but no matter what - he always enjoys himself. You go Bralyan! w00t!

This is Iraq

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is Iraq - or more accurately, my husband in Iraq. This picture was taken at Abraham's Oasis, it's on the base he was stationed at, Al Asad. This is supposed to be where Abraham camped and received the promise that G-d would make him a great nation. Danny is wearing one of his favorite shirts featuring one of his favorite treats - peeps.
The shirt says "chillin' with my peeps" - which appears incorrect here - well there are a couple peeps chillin' behind the camera. Not sure who but this expedition was headed by the Jewish chaplin. So there you have it, peeps, in a war zone....and thusly I have piggybacked onto someone else's blog war.....

Unharvested Broccoli

Now you are probably wondering "what IS her blog about?" I'm wondering the same thing. I haven't really decided where to go with it and in the interim I've decided to at least pick out a photo a day and just write something. So here's today's shot. My broccoli. We left a lot of things behind when we moved from Virginia - friends we'd had for 10+ years, the neighborhood my son and daughter grew up in, furniture (3 rooms of it and we still needed 2 trucks - yes, this has been a massive de-cluttering expedition) and almost every day I wonder "where is...." only to realize it's among the left-behind. And this morning I add my unharvested broccoli crop to the list. It's not much of a crop, you're looking at the whole thing. But hey, I finally managed to coax my little broccoli from the ground and there it sits in frosty uneaten glory. I hope someone has steamed and savored it by now. Farewell little vegetable.

Marsh

Yeshi and I went on a bike ride around the neighborhood. I discovered a bridge to a little island just a couple blocks from our house. Unfortunately this will be a gated community so we'll just have to enjoy it in its formative stages. So today's post is primarily a look into the wetlands in my backyard... The view from the bridge

Sometimes I feel the need to pinch myself - I look around and say, wow, I live here.

Yeshi thinks it's cold...













I did not break the palm branch, it was like that...

Here are my babies - Atalya, Yeshi and little ROS still in the works. Yeshi has a broken left arm from falling off a scooter (some jumping was involved..) that was ER visit #3 of 6 this past year. This one was significant because it was the day after I had taken him to ER for visit #2 - sprained neck. Now THAT one was rough, some kid put him in a choke hold at a grappling tournament in Richmond, he felt his neck pop, got dizzy and then his neck went numb. Great - got to go to the hospital in the ambulance on the backboard in a neckbrace. And to make it even more fun, Dad was in Iraq at the time. Fortunately it turned out to be just a sprained neck. Hence the subsequent injury to the arm because he's a "get back on the horse" kind of guy. And there's Atalya, sitting there looking all maternal and uninjured. Nice. What can I say? Hashem is watching over my babies and I'm pretty relieved about that. I'll have to write another post on ER boy and my daughter the Uber-mommy.....