Hall of Fame Induction

The big event around here was Jim's induction into the Greater Rochester Track Club's Hall of Fame tonight! He was one of 2 inductees and we are soooo proud of him. People said glowing things about him as a runner, a teammate and a person. The banquet was held at a local party house and in addition to recognizing the new Hall of Famers, the Rochester Runners of the Year were given awards. Jim and I were thrilled that we had a table-full of family and friends to share this time with us. Here are some photos from the evening:

Our table was waiting for us~ front and center!

GrandDad and Sally catching up before dinner.

Bob greeting Grandma and Grandpa.

Corey and Gram are glad to see each other.

Our table of family and friends just before dinner.

What's a party without cake?!

Jim with his coach, Mike.

Both inductees were given a beautiful mantle clock as a gift of recognition. So, it was a great evening and we are all very proud of Jim. Way to go!

We had an overnight guest last night as Jim's running buddy, Steve, came in from Virginia to run in a race in Ithaca today, with Jim. Steve and Jim both ran well, with Steve beating Jim by .12 seconds in the one mile race. Steve was unfamiliar with Wii so we got him trying out some Wii Fit and Wii Sport. Then we psyched him up for a little Rock Band. I think he enjoyed it once he got the hang of it!

I finished knitting my pastel orange scarf and got it blocked on my basement floor. 
I used the blocking wires that I bought a while ago. The wires helped to make the long edges of the scarf straight and even. I have a hat that I knit even longer ago that matches the scarf, but there are a couple of finishing things I need to do on the hat before I can wear it. I am motivated to do those finishing things now that I have a scarf  to make it a set!

Tomorrow I have to take Corey back to SU early in the morning. He needs to get his long run in before going to the SU/Louisville b-ball game. 

I am feeling better every day and will be ready to go back to school on Monday.

Hope all is well. 

Washington, DC Report

The bulk of this post is by our Washington correspondent, Liz.

I had an amazing time at the inauguration! It was an overwhelming
experience and such a wonderfully positive day. We spent hours waiting
in huge crowds of people, and no one was upset or annoyed. It was a
day of a shared sense of joy and awe and inspiration! We met people
from all parts of the country - South Carolina, Texas, California,
Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts. It was so inspiring to know that
this event energized people not just in the DC area, but across the
country, and the world. At various times throughout the day
spontaneous chants for Obama, patriotic songs and cheering erupted. It
was awesome!

My friend Lacey and I were near the Washington Monument, and watched
the big event on a huge jumbotron. We couldn't even see the Capitol
building, but no one seemed to mind. In fact, we were almost a mile
from the actual event but it didn't matter! We were there to witness
history!

Thanks Liz for that first-hand account. I'm glad I knew someone who was in that big gathering.

I stayed home from school again today and on the advice of several people calling themselves "doctors", I have called for a sub for tomorrow. I have never missed so much time at school with the exception of when I had to have knee surgery after an accident at school. I feel better today, but still am quite fatigued and if I talk for more than 5 minutes, I go into a coughing fit. Now my students might like it if I couldn't talk, but that is just not an ideal situation for a teacher. 

Tomorrow night Jim's running buddy, Steve, will be here from Williamsburg, VA. We are saving the really cold weather until he gets up and out on Saturday morning!

Tucker called tonight telling us of his final preparations for his month-long trip to Mexico. He and his buddy leave on Sunday. Tucker has been studying Spanish and when I asked how that was going, he said, "Bueno!" The boy is brilliant!

Hope all is well. And thanks again to Liz, for making today's blog entry much more interesting than the Kleenex count I was going to post! 

Sick Days

I have been home sick for the past 2 days and will probably be here again tomorrow as there is no way I could face 400 children in my current state.  I won't bore you with the symptoms, but they have been obnoxious enough for Jim to choose to sleep on the couch so he can get a decent night's sleep. When he is sick, he sleeps on the couch. When I am sick, he sleeps on the couch. What a guy!

Jim has been out every night for this world-wide meeting that is being held here in Rochester. I think he is having dinner at Richardson's Canal House tonight. I'm happy for him as I'm not very good company and I sure don't feel like cooking dinner.

I have gotten a fair amount of knitting done. I am about half way done the first sleeve on Jim's sweater. I decided that I wanted to make a scarf that I could wear to the RIT Hockey games and I decided that if I made it plain orange (RIT has orange and brown or black as their school colors), I could also wear it to SU events. Then I remembered that I had started a scarf that was a pastel orange color a couple of years ago when I wanted to learn to do cables. So I dug that out and have knit about a foot on that in the past 2 days. I probably will need to do another foot to finish it. 

Did you see much of the Inauguration Ceremonies? Being home all day I watched the coverage of all the events. It certainly was inspirational and moving. I saw some photos that Liz took at the event, so Liz, send me your impressions and commentary of the day and I will let you be my guest blogger! I was amazed to hear that there was not one arrest during the festivities which is unbelievable, considering people with tickets were turned away. Today I turned on Ellen and there she was wearing a copy of Aretha's hat! It was pretty funny! Did you notice how joyful Yo Yo Ma looked as he played his cello? That image clearly represented what many people were feeling that day. 

The weather is supposed to warm up to more normal temperatures in the next 2 days before it goes back into the deep freeze. One of Jim's running friend's is coming into town from Williamsburg, VA this weekend and historically we have welcomed him with temps in the teens and single digits. I don't think the guy even owns proper clothing for those conditions, but he is a good sport and we enjoy his time in town. He and Jim are racing in Itaca on Saturday. 

Here is another interesting photo from our time at Jenny Lake over New Year's. 

Please excuse any typos or incomplete thoughts that are in this entry as I am full of cold medicine and my editor is in the middle of a 7 course dinner as I write this!

Hope all is well. 

Weekend Update

Here is Sunday afternoon and it has been very relaxing. And the reason for this relaxation is that I have tomorrow off for Martin Luther King Day! 

So what have we been up to? We've been to 2 big sporting events~an RIT hockey game on Friday night and to SU for their big basketball win over Notre Dame! The hockey game was fun and the RIT team pulled out a win in the last few minutes of play. We got to the game early enough to get seats, good ones, but we decided we could see more of the rink when were standing along the railing. I took my knitting with me and got some progress made on a pair of toe-up socks that I started a long time ago. I only knit before the game started and between the periods. 

Yesterday we left home shortly after 9 AM and drove to SU. We took a slightly longer route to get to Corey's apartment, but it saved us a lot of time because the traffic for the game was backed up onto Interstate 81. So we circled around the city and came into Corey's place on the back roads. We unloaded a bit of food and some clothes that Corey had left at home and then walked to Manley Field House where we picked up a shuttle bus to take us to the Carrier Dome. SU does a great job of moving people to and from the games, so it is not a problem parking at Corey's apartment and getting to the game. SU was playing Notre Dame, another Big East team and there were over 30,000 excited fans at the game.



Our seats were way up high in Dome and were not as bad as we had feared. Here is the view we had.


The energy level was super high, especially since SU took an early lead and ended up crushing the Irish, 93-74. We saw some great plays and were impressed with the 3-point shooting of Notre Dame.

After the game we went back to Corey's apartment, before heading out for a short walk to the water towers for a nice over-view of the city. It was a cold walk, so we were glad it was a short one.

We tried a new place for dinner and we were joined by one of Corey's friends, Curtis. The restaurant, Delmonico's Italian Steakhouse, was a nice place and we all had a good meal.

We dropped Corey back at his place and then headed home. I got really tired on the way home, surprisingly tired. Once home, I couldn't keep my eyes opened, and went to bed at 9:00 PM.

My tiredness is explained by the cold I seemed to have caught. My symptoms right now are a runny nose and fatigue. Hopefully it won't develop into anything more. 

I got some spinning and plying done this afternoon while watching the football. Once we know who is playing in the Super Bowl, I will put a poll up on this blog and you can vote for your team. 

By the way, boys, we moved the TV back into the corner and it works well there. We can now get Channel 13's digital broadcast.

I got a couple of inches knitting done on the front piece of Jim's sweater. I'll work some more on that tonight.

Jim has a busy week and probably won't be home much for dinner this week. A world-wide meeting that he has attended in Europe in the past is being held here in Rochester this week. So he has dinner meetings and social gatherings some of the evenings. 

I guess that is all for now.

Hope all is well.