Three cheers for our girl!!

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So, some of you may recall the fiasco that was Junior National Young Leaders Conference a couple of years ago (brief recap:  Meredith was actually nominated by a teacher…who didn’t know what the deal really was.  In the course of researching it, I was able to register our dog, Hammie, up to the point of sending payment.  So much for elite, exclusive and “select”).  After such a disappointment, Lars and I were a little (more than a little) skeptical about another academic nomination that Meredith brought home a few weeks ago.  But this one has checked out!  Her science teacher nominated Meredith for the Billy Lancaster Forestry Youth Camp. 

This Camp provides an indoor and outdoor classroom for energetic, inquisitive students to learn about forestry, wildlife, ecology, tree identification, fire protection, forest products and the people who manage these resources in Georgia’s vast forests. It was founded in 1988 by Billy Lancaster and is sponsored by the Georgia Division of the Society of American Foresters.

Most public schools in Georgia nominate just one student to attend – and for Crabapple Middle School….it was our girl!  And since we all know Meredith is really just a forest sprite disguised as a human child, she couldn’t be more excited about spending a few days in the woods.  AND they have horse back riding and lake activities.  Does it get any better than this?

You can read more about the program and the camp here.  We are so proud of her!!

Costa Rica – Day 2 – Travel to Arenal – Canyoning

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photo of Jack rappelling in Costa Rica

Now THIS Is What I Call Adventure!

The stay overnight at the Grano De Oro was really very pleasant. Just what we needed after an international flight and a big dinner. I can’t say enough good things about the Grano De Oro, it truly was wonderful. The man who helped us arrange our trip, Eliot Greenspan, proprietor of Costa Rica Custom Trips and also the author of Frommer’s Guide to Costa Rica (excellent!), said it was one of his favorite hotels in the country — and TripAdvisor rates it as #1 in San José. In short: stay there, if you can. Here’s a bit more video I shot of the hotel – especially the gardens – from the inside.

I don’t want to spend too much time on the details of the Grano De Oro, since we’re here only one night and I neglected to take any pictures of our actual room (other than the number ’25′ on the door outside in the video above). But I’ve already described the wonderful dinner we had in the restaurant at Grano De Oro last night, and if you clicked on the photo album in that previous post, then you’ll have already gotten a preview of breakfast this morning. It was less fancy than dinner, but what breakfast isn’t? And it was just as delicious. My first taste of Gallo Pinto, the famous Costa Rican staple of rice and beans, cooked together. Rice and beans together provides a pretty complete meal, so it’s no surprise that this dish is what many Costa Ricans will eat exclusively for breakfast and sometimes lunch, too. I can see why – though it’s as humble as it sounds, it’s very tasty and filling. Just the thing to start off our first full day in Costa Rica!

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Costa Rica – Rest Of First Day, San Jose

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I have a pretty great son.

After landing and getting to the Hotel Grano De Oro in San Jose, we went out to see what we could see. The answer, unfortunately, was “not much,” because it was Easter Sunday, and many of the businesses are closed for the last part of Holy Week. We knew this would happen; it was a function of the timing of our flight and of Jack’s spring break. But it really is amazing how a Catholic country will roll up the sidewalks on an Easter Sunday.

photo of Jack in a tree in San Jose, Costa Rica

Our first monkey-sighting in Costa Rica ;)

So Jack and I went to La Sabana Park here in San Jose, just blocks from the hotel. It’s a huge public park, with a track (for people, not dogs or horses), pickup soccer (er, I mean “futbol”) games, and a bunch of other stuff. On the way, although we hadn’t seen any monkeys quite yet, we came across this, and my very own monkey-boy had to…well ===>

Then we continued along to the heart of the park. People were walking around the racing track (made for humans, not dogs or horses). Others were playing pickup games of soccer. Street vendors were selling little things (including a chocolate bar that Jack bought along the way), and the locals were just generally enjoying their Easter Sunday off in the nice – and already fairly warm – San Jose afternoon weather. So…in the midst of that, what do you expect Jack would seek out? If you know Jack, you’ve already figured it out! Follow me after the jump to see if you were right:

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Costa Rica – Early Morning, Flight Out and First Day

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Well, we’re off!

photo of Jack with Frankie on flight to Costa Rica

Jack with our seat-mate, Frankie, on the flight to Costa Rica

I assume we’re somewhere over the Caribbean right now, winging towards San Jose. It’s been pretty uneventful so far…which is fortunate, since about the only thing I can think of that would make a plane flight – even an international one – “eventful” would be a hijacking or engine failure. I don’t think I want that kind of eventful. I suppose Jack and I could’ve been seated next to a celebrity or something, but those folks would probably be up in first class, not back here in steerage with the rest of us air-cows. In fact, the person we did get seated next to was a student from the United States named Frankie. He was going to college in Costa Rica, and had been flying home visiting his family.

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Crafty Jack Wins October

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Jack with 'insert candy here' sign

Fire away!

Every year, the city of Roswell has an annual Youth Day Parade in the fall. There’s floats from various civic and community groups (schools, organizations, etc.) which wind down about a mile-long stretch of old Canton Street. As they pass, it’s a tradition for many – even most – of the parade-floats/marchers to toss candy to the people watching on either side of the street. I assume this is because October is also the month wherein another major candy-acquisition holiday also occurs, so the city father decided, in their wisdom, to see how many diabetic comas they could cause in one month.

But whatever the reason, it’s something my kids look forward to every year. This year was no different…at first. As we were gathering up our stainless mugs of coffee and folding chairs (for us old folks), Jack suddenly dashed off and got a thick piece of styrofoam that had been part of the packaging of some large thing we’d had shipped to us a while back, grabbed a Sharpie and wrote “Insert candy here” on it, with an arrow pointing down. Then, he got a leftover cardboard box, and, well, you can see the results (click for larger image).

The kids always clean up in the candy department on Youth Day Parade day…but this time, all the people passing by were laughing and taking pictures of Jack…and throwing absolute gobs of candy. That box – which must have been nine or ten inches square – was probably at least half full. You couldn’t have carried it by its flaps, or it would have ripped. We’re going to have candy until 2020!!

Spring Break 2012, Day One

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Great Wolf Lodge, Concord, NC. A little decompression before continuing on to DC. Nothing says “vacation has begun” like, well, this:

or this…

Here’s Isabella Austen Anderson!

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photo of Isabella Austen Anderson

'AWESOME! Um...NOW what?'

And congratulations to both Dad and especially Mom, who I hear is still under sedation, poor dear. ;o)

I know mom and dad will be calling you Ella – which is lovely – but what they might not have figured out yet is that giving you a name was literally the LAST time they will ever get to make a decision about your life in a vacuum with no other input from anyone else. They will learn this the hard way the first time they try to force-feed you something you really aren’t interested in eating. ;o) So go easy on Mom & Dad: they’re new at this.

But this time, to help ease the transition, Imma (already) buck newly-established tradition of calling you Ella and say: WELCOME, Izzy! We love you!

High Anxiety

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Last Thursday, in the wee hours of the early morning, I awoke in a cold sweat, with the entire room spinning so badly I could not control it. I’m only now recovering from what I thought was a terrible virus of some sort. The only thing was: unlike most every virus I’ve ever had, this one had no other symptoms: my throat didn’t hurt, I wasn’t coughing. Wasn’t congested in my chest or my sinuses. No, uh, “abdominal issues” (except nausea; see below).

poster for Mel Brooks' 1977 comedy High Anxiety

Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup.


Soooo…turns out that what I had was NOT a virus – although a mild virus may have caused it. Or not. Might’ve just happened on its own. What I had was full-on vertigo. Apparently (and this may be old hat for some of y’all, but it was new(s) to me), we all have these little “grains” in our inner ears. Everyone knows the inner ear is responsible for a human’s sense of balance. But most people don’t experience “dizziness” on the scale I did. I put “dizziness” in quotes because to describe what I experienced as dizziness is an understatement on the order of describing the thermonuclear destruction of Seattle as “a seismic event.” ;o) Turns out these little grains in the ears are the culprits. They’re usually distributed throughout the fluid in your inner ear. But if you get too many of ‘em in one place (unevenly distributed), you get this vertigo.

The closest thing I can liken it to would probably be extreme seasickness, or being really, REALLY drunk (but without all the fun “loss of inhibitions” stuff). The kind of drunk where even lying down doesn’t keep the room from spinning. In fact, it makes it worse. For about the first thirty-six hours, I couldn’t even WALK. I had to crawl to the bathroom if I needed to use it…and even then, I fell over. While crawling. That’s how bad it was. I couldn’t read, couldn’t even watch TV for the first couple of days. Just had to sit there and try not to feel nauseated (seasick). I barfed a few times.

The medical types dunno why it happens — these grains getting out of whack. But the end result is two things: one, let’s just say I don’t recommend it. ;) And, two: through the good graces of modern medicine (Meclizine) and some grain-rearranging exercises (no, really!), I am mostly better. I’m still not entirely sure I should be driving, but my doctor said it ought to be on the wane by now, and he assured me this is temporary. Which is good, because I don’t think I could go through the rest of my life like this. ;)