Happy New Year!!
When I think of all the things that happened in 2007 (mostly good things, as shown in
my video clips) I say to myself "OMG, what will happen in 2008?!" and by that I mean, I expect that my girls will continue to do well in school and stay in good health, but I wonder what will happen with the election, the economy, and so many other things going on in the world that affect our daily lives. Meanwhile, here are links to some of the videos and links from our biggest events of 2007 that I want to share with you.
We just got back from spending the long holiday weekend in Philadelphia where we watched the
fireworks at midnight at Penn's Landing. Our daughters Elisabeth (12) and Alexandra (9) aka "Boo" spent the whole week up in New York visiting museums with grandpa Alfred, their cousin Sydney, and aunt Stephanie, and Boo got to see a Broadway musical ("
Curtains") with her aunt and cousin while Elisabeth went shopping with her grandmother Judy.
What an amazing year! The year started out with a wedding and ended with a funeral. In the middle, Boo turned 9, Elisabeth turned 12, Susan and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary, Boo had several more great seasons (both indoor and outdoor) with her girls soccer team "The Blue Angels," she went to overnight camp for the first time, and she learned to ride her bike without training wheels. We went on several family vacations... to Williamsburg & Jamestown, Massanutten resort near Skyline Drive with our friends the Frankfurts, Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg with my friend Rod and his family, and the Poconos. Susan and I spent our 20th wedding anniversary at a secluded inn on Maryland's Eastern Shore in July, and also spent a few days in Boston and Andover (w/o children) in August.
The single biggest event of 2007 here in Virginia was the 400th anniversary of the founding of the
Jamestown settlement. Alexandra's fourth grade class studied Jamestown this year, as part of their curriculum on the regions of Virginia, and she got to go there on a field trip with her class in November. But even before that, I had planned several excursions, in order to be there close to the time when the
Queen of England visited in May.
President Bush also visited, as did a number of international dignitaries for the official 400th anniversary celebration. Boo was assigned the Blue Ridge region for her class project this fall, so I helped her put together a
slide show using pictures we downloaded from
Flickr and elsewhere on the internet. The pictures and music were all her ideas, I just helped. ;-)
During our spring break in early April, we went to
Busch Gardens on what turned out to be a cold, blustery day, but that did not stop us from riding several roller coasters. We were amazed that some hearty souls were brave enough to go on the water rides(!). But on the weekend of my birthday, which also happened to be Easter this year, it actually snowed on the day we were planning to visit Jamestown itself. So I had to schedule another trip for Memorial Day when the weather was much more pleasant, as you can see in the videos. In addition to visiting the site of the
actual fort, we took the
Jamestown Scotland ferry over to the south side of the James river, and ate peanut pie at the famous
Virginia Diner.
July 2007:
Boo went to overnight camp for the first time. Susan and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary at the secluded
Robert Morris Inn on Maryland's Eastern Shore with no phones in the rooms, but they did have wireless high speed internet access in the main inn, so we could connect to the
Capital Camps website to look for pictures of Boo every day. If you want to see more pix of Boo's camp experience,
email me and I will send you a link to a photo gallery (there are pictures of the other girls in her cabin, so I did not put them on my main web page, without the permission of the other parents). Also remind me to tell you the story of how Robert Morris Sr was killed by a fly.
August 2007:
For our last big family trip of the summer, we spent a week in the Poconos at the Fernwood resort, and we got to see
Bushkill Falls for the first time. On the way we stopped in Harrisburg to visit Susan's uncle Stanley and Aunt Phyllis, and we watched the Perseid meteors from the back porch of Todd and Robin's house, while the girls played with cousin Nicole. Then we left the girls with their grandparents at Frank and Stephanie's house in New York, while Susan and I drove north to Boston, and spent a few nights in Andover, walking around the
campus. We also had
fried clams in Essex, between Ipswich and Gloucester, and of course, we held court at grandpa Louie's lobster store, sitting outside while everyone from the old neighborhood stopped by to say hello, like my friends
John and Al, and even my cousin Robert who I haven't seen in years.
