Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Back in Business

Mental soundtrack: "My Romance" from Jumbo, by Rodgers & Hart, arr. Kirby Shaw

Sorry it's been quiet recently. There was vacation, followed by a weekend visit from my college friends, then a week of learning to make digital scrapbooks (I'm 1/3 of the way through our trip now).

School started today (yes, one of my children is a night owl like me, and one isn't):


It was nice and quiet here most of the day, then from 3:30 on it was all a blur. Picked up the carpool (line was long today), dropped kids off, went to the grocery store, made a quick dinner, signed a gazillion forms, went to dress rehearsal for S&P's House Music fundraiser (Sunday at 4:00!), then off to Voci rehearsal. Got home at 10:15, "helped" M with his math homework (only had to sit next to him and watch him finally solve on his own the problem that had been stumping him), reviewed some French verbs with M. Off to have a snack and go to bed!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Not a Hummingbird

We've had a steady stream of hummingbirds at the feeder outside the dining room window, but today's visitor was a little more unusual. During dinner, B looked out and saw a black-capped chickadee drinking out of the feeder! He was chased away by a hummingbird, but eventually came back for a few more sips.

Monday, August 2, 2010

SuperAlto's Travel Reviews: Osprey Porter 46 Travel Pack

All ratings are out of 5 possible points 


Overall: 5

Website


We bought four of these packs for our trip, and would recommend them to anyone who wants to travel light. They are small enough to carry on the plane, but roomy enough to hold all of our gear for three weeks. The straps are adjustable: the packs fit both my 5'0" daughter and my 6'3" husband. The hip belts enabled us to carry a reasonable amount of weight. My pack weighed around 18 pounds, fully loaded, and DH's weighed probably twice that (he bought a lot of books along the way). We were especially grateful a couple of times during our trip to not be dragging giant wheeled suitcases behind us: the time we had to sprint to catch our train (which had moved to another platform), and the day we arrived in Venice to find all the vaporettos on strike, leaving us to walk to the hotel with our luggage.

Yes, that pile is all the luggage we carried for a three-week trip!