Inquiring minds want to know

Clemson Girl asked everyone yesterday who’re they’re rooting for in college football this year. That got me thinking. Where did y’all go to school? Not who do you root for in football, but what’s your alma mater?

I’ll start things off: I went to the University of Virginia for both of my degrees and that’s where I met Pete. I’m very honest about saying that I really hope one or both of our girls go to school there too.

The school was founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819 — the only U.S. President to found a university, not to mention design all of the original buildings, develop the curriculum, and hire the professors. U.Va. is usually ranked the #1 state university in the U.S. and is always Top 25 overall. The school also ranks #1 among public universities for producing Rhodes Scholars. Distinguished alumni and former students include Woodrow Wilson, various Kennedys, Edgar Allan Poe, Georgia O’Keefe, Katie Couric, and Ronde and Tiki Barber.

UVA is the only university to be a World Heritage Site and here is why it is thusly designated:

So let me hear from you. Where did you go to school and what do you think of your alma mater?

Day 1 of 180

So it’s official: Summer vacation is over. Wah!

The girls were really excited and even picked out special outfits, as will be shown in the following photos:

Here, Graceful tries to get into the photo, which is hard to do, given Elegant’s fluffy perky hair.

In case you’re somewhat obtuse, Graceful’s favorite color these days is lavender, followed closely by purple. I like the way she has her fleece zipped all the way up to her chin, just in case she gets cold, but those coltish legs are bare.

[Start humming the soundtrack from "Saturday Night Fever" here... ] I loved the Gymboree shirt and skort and thought they looked great with the red Mary Janes. It would have NEVER occurred to me to add a pink sweater and pink socks. Never.

So now my house feels strangely silent. I’ll get used to it. Right after my hot date with Richard the Hair God.

More later.

Re-entry

Today’s list of essential chores:

• Go for a long walk this morning (DONE — 45 minutes)
• Suitcases unpacked and put away (DONE, sorta — the suitcases are empty, but not in storage yet)
• Laundry (in progress — three loads down, two more to go)
• Fold all of the aforementioned laundry (So. Not. Done.)
• Sort through ten days of mail (DONE)
• Re-stock the fridge by way of a trip to Whole Foods (DONE — and we’re a whole lot poorer for it)
• Put everyone in Jenworld on a high-fiber diet to combat, um, vacation issues (DONE — with clogged plumbing to prove it)
• Plan meals that are highly nutritious, to make up for all that fun food we ate last week. (DONE — we’re having baked potatoes and steamed veggies for dinner tonight)

(I really wasn’t kidding about that high-fiber diet.)

• Take the girls to the school to meet their new teachers and drop off their supplies (DONE)
• Go over to the new house to check on progress (DONE)
• Do a little happy dance over the progress on the aforementioned house (DONE — well, it was a mental happy dance)
• Get caught up on reading y’all’s blogs (in progress — this may take a while)

And, just for kicks, here’s a photo of the Divine Miss El today when we were visiting the construction site. She didn’t like the noise of the power tools, so she decided to chill out in the car:

School starts tomorrow!

Home again

Over 460 miles in the car today.  As far as I’m concerned, other than a couple of short trips to the grocery store and construction site, I’m not getting in the car again any time soon.

Off to do laundry and catch up on everyone’s blogs…

Mamarazzi Monday: Billy Ray Cyrus is an idiot

Want to know what gets the Mamas of Razzi all het up? Click here to find out and then come back here and leave a comment.

Travels with Jen: Too much humanity at Cedar Point

We left Toronto on Saturday morning and headed back to the U.S. of A., whereupon we pointed the car toward Cedar Point Amusement Park, which is in Ohio, right on Lake Erie.

Unfortunately, even though we’re spending an arm and a leg for our hotel room, they only offer internet service in the lobby, which is about eleventy squillion exhausting steps from our room. Pete has taken a short break from the ride-’til-you-puke roller coasters so that I can do a quick post, so here are the bullet points:

• The girls are finding the beach to be a better draw than the amusement park, so we’ve spent a lot of time admiring Lake Erie and digging in the sand, followed by practically using a fire hose to get the sand out of the girls’ various nooks and crannies.
• FAR TOO MANY people here are not wearing enough clothing. I’ve seen FAR TOO MANY tramp stamps and other tattoos, as well as FAR TOO MANY navel piercings.
• Wife beaters and other types of tank tops are NEVER okay for any man, no matter how hot he is.
• Speedos are NEVER okay for any man, other than, say, Colin Firth and Daniel Craig, and even then I’m just not sure about it. Therefore, Speedos are NEVER good on middle aged men with lots of hair all over their soft doughy bodies. I’m just sayin’…
• Did you know that Corona beer sells swim trunks and bikinis? I didn’t either, before yesterday.
• I’m sick to death of the names Kylie, Kaley, Riley, Caden, and Braden.

We leave tomorrow and have a long-ass drive home (8-9 hours). I promise a longer post after we unload the car, get the laundry started, re-stock the fridge, etc.

Travels with Jen: Last day in Toronto

Today was our last day in Toronto. Should we pack in as much as possible or take things at a more leisurely pace? Given that yesterday was a jam-packed day, we decided to take it easy today.

We started off by hopping on the subway:

Elegant wasn’t so sure about the approaching train.

Let me just pause here to say that one sees a lot of interesting people on the subway. Lots of, um, eye-catching wardrobe choices. For example, take a look at this:

You can’t see it very well, but take my word for it, the woman in question forgot an important part of her wardrobe this morning.

Dear Italian Woman on the Northbound train at 10:30 a.m.: Underwear is NOT optional, ESPECIALLY when wearing thin white pants. Trust me honey, it was obvious. XO, Jen

So, getting back to my travel narrative…

We spent a few hours here:

This is Casa Loma, a grand old house built in 1903. Just lovely.

After that, we headed back to the hotel for a last swim in the pool. Too bad it rained for a couple of hours. We eventually got to the pool, but it was late afternoon. Josie joined us for the fun.

Eventually, we decided to head out for dinner. In the hallway, we found a luggage cart:

We all headed off to dinner — same place for three nights in a row. We got ourselves into a rut pretty quickly.

Josie headed back to her house and now we’re in our hotel. I’m supposed to be packing, but I guess this post is evidence of my procrastination.

Tomorrow, we take the train back to Niagara Falls and then we drive to Cedar Point, OH.

Travels with Jen: Laundry matters

So, yes, I did laundry last night instead of doing something far more glamorous, like watching the Smurfs on DVD with the girls in our hotel room.

The laundry issue always comes up on vacation. To do or not to do, that is the question.

It’s so much easier to not take a couple of hours mid-trip to wash our travel-stained jeans and t-shirts, but that means that I have to put together nine or ten or more days of clothes. I can do it, but I’m usually starting to dip into the secondary wardrobe — those pants that don’t fit as well, the underwear that gives terrible wedgies, or the t-shirts that are starting to fade or lose their shape.

Furthermore, the girls and I like to have OPTIONS when we travel. We like to be able to choose from among a few possibilities and even have choices available by the end of the trip. And, we all know that there are those days that involve a couple of wardrobe changes, due to dropped pizza or an intense, sweaty sprint across an airport to catch a plane.

It’s so much easier to pack for only half a trip and then do laundry. There’s less to pack and less to schlep. But, that means taking that break mid-way to actually get the dirty stuff clean and available for the rest of the trip.

My general rule of thumb is, if there’s a laundry room in the hotel we’re staying in, I’ll do laundry during the trip. If I would have to leave the hotel and drag my family’s dirty clothes to a laundromat, forget it. I’ll just pack that extra suitcase.

So last night, I tossed our dirty laundry in a tote bag, grabbed a pile of coins, packed a book, and headed off in search of the Sheraton’s laundry room. Actually, it was more of a laundry nook — in a hallway near the pool. There were exactly two washers and dryers available. Since I had planned to do just one load and to hell with separating whites and colors, it wasn’t a big deal. It was lucky I got there when I did, because three minutes after I arrived, a family showed up with bags and bags of dirty clothes. Then, five minutes later, a backpacker who had clearly spent weeks or possibly months in the wilderness showed up with his rucksack full of, um, odiferous hiking gear.

I expected to settle into a chair and read for the next hour or two, but instead got into an interesting conversation with the Saudi Arabian gentleman who was overseeing his family’s laundry needs. We ended up talking for almost two hours and the time just flew by. This man had gotten one of his college degrees from a university in Virginia not too far from our town, so he was very familiar with the world around Jenworld. We talked about travel and places we’d been and compared notes on our respective visits in Toronto. We talked about American politics, September 11th, the war in Iraq, and international perceptions of the U.S. We talked about Islam, Christianity, and general religious philosophies. We also covered families — his oldest daughter is getting a master’s degree in the U.S. and is about to have her first child — and raising children in the 21st century.

While we talked, people came and went. Two of his daughters periodically checked in before continuing with their exploration of the hotel. His wife showed up for the last 45 minutes of our wash-and-talk. It was hands down, one of the most fascinating conversations I’ve ever had and I learned so much.

Alas, the dryers stopped for the last time and I gathered our now-clean laundry. It was time to go back to my family and see what those crazy Smurfs were up to now.

Today: Our last full day in Toronto!

Travels with Jen: The truth of the matter + we walked and walked…

Several of you have kindly commented on how much fun it must be to travel with us and how you’d like to join in on the fun. Let me set the record straight by saying that it is not 100% fun. We’re just like any family, which means that there’s sniping, griping, grumping, and more. OF COURSE I’m not going to report on that stuff. Who wants to hear about how one child was in a pissy mood during our first day at Niagara Falls and therefore I have zero nice photos of her that day? Or, how another child has been testing to see how far she can push me before my head explodes? As in, I’ll say, “Don’t do [blah blah blah]” and she’ll look at me and then do it anyway. (What happens is that, if said child persists in trying to lick the ice cream remnants in the bowl, both Mommy and Daddy get REALLY angry and one’s pool’s priviledges for that day will be revoked. And there will be some fussing and then more fussing.)

We’re just like any family and we have THOSE moments. If you don’t believe me, ask Alison and Josie, who have been with us on parts of this trip and have seen us lose our cool. (And for the record, Alison never once lost her cool with her kids, for which I get down on my knees in awe.)

The thing about vacations is that we’re together as a family 24/7, with no breaks or respites. No family is like that — even if you’re all at home, you’re in different rooms of your house. Not living on top of each other in a 14′ X 24′ hotel room.

All that said, we are having lots of fun on this trip and today was no exception.

Today’s theme would have to be WALKING, which we did a hella lot of. I’m estimating around four miles, which is a lot for our girls.

First, we walked to the Art Gallery of Ontario. Valuable lesson people: ALWAYS check the website before going, because you otherwise might walk nearly a mile, only to discover that the museum will be closed until November and that your seven year old will not get to see the Impressionists she was promised.

So then we walked a real whole lot up to the Royal Ontario Museum, which is considered to be one of the top museums in Canada. I’d go see it just for the architecture:

That’s the new wing, which has been joined in a spectacular way to the old building.

We checked out the Ancient Egypt gallery and then wandered over to Ancient Greece. In case you’re not familiar with the art of Ancient Greece, there is A LOT of emphasis on naked humans, a fact which was NOT lost on Elegant. She came up to me and said in a very serious manner, “There were lots of statues that were naked. [pause] I saw penises and butts. [pauses] So it was mostly boys.” She then proceeded to VERY carefully examine every single statue in the gallery. If she ever gets a Ph.D. in Greco-Roman statuary, I’ll know the genesis of that interest.

We also checked out the dinosaurs, because you can’t go to a museum and not marvel at T. Rex and his prey:

After our time in the museum, we headed out and WALKED MORE, much to Graceful and Elegant’s delight. Oh wait, that’s right, they bitched mightily about it.

Our feeling is, that walking won’t actually kill the girls, plus they’ll see so much more. Otherwise, we would never have seen this street art:

That’s Graceful imitating art, in case you can’t tell.

And sure, we could have seen Chinatown like this from a streetcar:

… but we would have missed out on signs like this:

How can you resist such a deal? Seven t-shirts for $10? Of course, they’re were pretty low quality…

By the time we got to Chinatown, the girls were pretty pooped out and not really in the mood for it. We stopped in one place and had a late lunch of Dim Sum, which Pete and I enjoyed, but the girls thought was pretty disgusting stuff. Luckily, we had packed for them and they had eaten earlier, so we didn’t feel too badly that they didn’t eat much. Just meant there was all that much more food for the appreciative adults. And, they were very entertained by the chopsticks. In fact, one child had to be told to take the chopsticks out of her nose. *sigh*

We wandered back to our hotel around 4:00, a bit foot sore and weary. Well, not that weary. Amazingly, the girls perked up right away and you’ll never guess where they are right now? The pool! But of course. We do love us some hotel pools. Pete’s watching the girls while I, *ahem*, check my work emails. We’re headed out to dinner in a little while and tonight, while the girls watch a DVD, I will be getting acquainted with the hotel’s laundry room, as we are just about out of clean underwear.

Tomorrow…. Well, we haven’t decided what we’ll do tomorrow. That’s the great thing about Toronto — there’s just so much to do!

Travels with Jen: Miniblogstock ‘08

On Tuesday, the blogosphere got a little more personal when three bloggers met in real life: Josie of No Internal Editor, Alison of Party of 3, and the residents of Jenworld.

Alison and her daughters got up at oh-my-god o’clock in the morning, drove to Toronto, and checked into the same hotel we’re staying at. Josie lives locally and took the train into the city to meet up with us.

We all hopped on a street car and headed to the waterfront to Ontario Place, which is every kid’s dream come true. Rides, more rides, and even more rides, plus junk food, an IMAX theater, and more. We spent all afternoon there:

After that, we dragged four very tired children back to the hotel with promises of dinner and then some swim time in the pool.

Finally, around 10:00, we decided to call it a day.

Today (Wednesday), Josie had to work (*pout*), but the rest of us were able to spend the day together. After breakfast, we spent more time at the pool:

Then, we went to see the CN Tower, which is the defining structure of the Toronto skyline:

One section of the observation deck has a glass floor that had my insides roiling with panic:

Supposedly, the glass plates can support the weight of 14 hippos, but I didn’t even like having my 60 pound seven-year-old daughter standing there.

The views were appropriately gorgeous and I really enjoyed getting the bird’s eye view of the city.

After that, we force-marched the children back to the hotel. (Seriously? When did three-quarters of a mile become a Death March?) Alison and her girls had to leave, which was sad, but I feel confident we’ll see them again at some point in the future.

The four residents of Jenworld had a short rest and then hit the pavement again in search of dinner. We found a place that we liked so much that we’re already planning to go back tomorrow evening.

We’ve had a quiet evening in our hotel, including a very dramatic paper doll session:

Tomorrow, we’re planning to explore other parts of the city, including Chinatown.