Thanksgiving Festivities

Wow, there has been a lot going on during this Thanksgiving holiday.  Last Friday, CJ's school held its Thanksgiving feast.  The feast itself was quite impressive with a full spread of food, decorations, and even a singing performance by the students.  The hall was noisy and crowded, and people were rushing around to and fro.  CJ gets a little freaked out in large crowds, so he was not at his best initially.  After about a half hour though, CJ was running around with the rest of the kids.

A few days before Thanksgiving, my niece Melissa came into town.  We hadn't seen her in a while, so it's been fun to hang out with her.  I took her in to the office and she attended a Web site kickoff meeting.  I even asked her to test a new Web game we hope to unveil on Monday.

Thanksgiving itself was fun.  Our friends Judith and Frank came over, along with Maki's brother. I didn't want to mess with cooking a turkey all day, so we ordered a Honey Baked Ham and then made a bunch of side dishes.  We made:  cream of crab soup, roasted vegetables, roasted asparagus, salad, homemade stuffing and biscuits.  For dessert, we had pumpkin pie and chocolate cupcakes (thanks, Judith!) .  We even opened a 1992 Silver Oak cabernet sauvignon.  The wine needed time to breathe but it was terrific.  Yum!

Yesterday, CJ, Melissa and I went to see the movie Bolt.  CJ has been to several movies now, he likes going to the movies, he can sit through an entire full-length movie, and he's mostly quiet.  I can't stop him from asking questions and commenting on what's happening on the big screen, but all in all, it was fun to go to the movies with my little man!  And since we went during a matinee showing, the theater was full of laughing and talking kids.  Oh yeah, CJ enjoyed the popcorn and chocolate, perhaps best of all.

Look mama, I can go down the stairs!

During my last parent-teacher meeting with CJ's teacher, she told me that CJ can go up the stairs with alternating steps, but he doesn't go down that way.

I asked myself if my little guy is even capable of going down the stairs with alternating steps.  He's not tall (not short either, just the right height for his age), and I always worry when he's going down steep flights of stairs.

Is this some sort of important developmental milestone?  Apparently it is, because CJ's school "taught" him how to go down the steps with alternating steps.  A couple of days ago, CJ proudly showed me that he could do it.  Check it out.

Sunday Night Playdate

CJ had a special treat this evening.  His friends Beckett and Peyton came over for a playdate.

CJ and Beckett are best buddies.  Beckett lives in the neighborhood and our nannies organize afternoon playdates all the time.

This evening, Seana (Beckett and Peyton's mom), Beckett and Peyton came over for dinner.  The boys played trains, Peyton played with various phones and drawing toys, while the moms chatted, made pizza and drank wine.  It's so cool that CJ and Beckett play so well together.  Seana says our house is Beckett's second home, which I love, because that's what being neighbors should be all about.

We made homemade pizza with dough from Trader Joe's.  The kids loved the pepperoni pizza, but then again, what kid doesn't like pizza?  The boys took a bubble bath in my big jacuzzi tub; pizza, bubbles and trains?  The boys were in heaven.

CJ's Terrific Tracks

Yesterday, CJ made some amazing train tracks, the best he's ever done. He made a track that went around the carpet and coffee tables, as well as inside tracks with lots of curves.

CJ is still just crazy about Thomas the Tank Engine and making tracks. He calls it "playing trains." So now, we have: wooden tracks, brown tracks and Lego tracks AND take along trains, wooden trains (CJ calls them lead alongs), battery-powered trains and Lego trains.

CJ has asked for more trains for Christmas. He's even asked me to make this Christmas list and put it on the fridge.

Only in Omaha

Last week, my VP and I were in Omaha, Nebraska for a meeting. I was staying at the Hilton Garden Inn because the regular Hilton was full. Guess what? The Garden Inn turned out to be a great decision.

An hour after checking in, I got a call from the manager, asking me how the room was and if I needed anything. The room was perfect for a business traveler: the desk chair could be raised and lowered, and Internet access was free. There was even a scrabble board in the lobby with a sign for guests to spell out the name of the person they'd most like to meet. So what did guests spell out? Obama, Jesus, Charo, to name a few.

The next morning, we checked out, had breakfast, then asked the front desk to call us a cab. We had a 10am meeting and it was 9:45am. The hotel had a shuttle but it didn't go as far as our meeting location. Trouble was, the cab company called back and said they wouldn't be able to send a cab for another half hour. So the shuttle driver said, "come on, I'll take you." He drove us four miles, in the rain, got lost, but promised he'd get us there.

Oh yeah, since I was suffering from a head cold, I picked up a couple of Alka Seltzer cold tablets. The woman at the front desk didn't know how much they were (they just came in) so she just gave them to me.

Would this happen anywhere else by Omaha? I'll recommend this hotel and this city anytime.

Moms Group Meeting with the Superintendent of Alexandria Public Schools

So my moms group invited Dr. Mort Sherman, the new Superintendent of Alexandria public schools, to our meeting tonight.  He came with Kimberly Graves, the principal of Jefferson Houston (our designated elementary school), another school administrator, a few parents, and the head of the Jefferson Houston PTA.

CJ will be in kindergarten next year, along with a slew of kids in our neighborhood, and there is a lot of teeth gnashing over the issue of where to send our kids.  I had heard so many awful things about Jefferson Houston, but based on what I heard from Dr. Sherman and Ms. Graves, I will definitely pay a visit to the school.  Unlike Maury and Lyles Crouch, Jefferson Houston still has declining enrollment, and even if every family in Old Town Greens and Potomac Greens sent their kid to the school, there apparently would be lots of space for more classes and teachers.  The school will definitely be accredited again this year, so we won't have the option of opting for another school, unless we use the lottery system to try and get into a special school.

This will be Ms. Graves' third year at JH, and there have apparently been huge gains at the school; Dr. Sherman is certainly impressive.  We are still looking at our many private and parochial school options.  The rubber meets the road in February, when all private school apps are due.  I've already sent in apps to St. Mary's and St. Rita.  St. Stephen's and St. Agnes, Burgundy and Grace are also contenders.  In addition, I'm definitely interested in the Spanish immersion program at one of the other schools.

My mom laughs at all of this teeth gnashing, but hey, I have one kid and I want to make sure we make the right decisions for him.

Lost in the Corn Maze

We finally did it!  We visited a corn maze!  Yep, a maze in Bridgemont Farm in Quicksburg, VA.

I had always wanted to visit a corn maze since I hear about them on some local newscast many years ago.  All this Fall weather and an itching to see the colors in the Shenandoah Valley got me to finally make plans.

Quicksburg is two hours away from the DC area so I was glad that our friends Jeff and Monica (and their two daughters) agreed to come out with us.  We set out on Saturday morning and made the beautiful drive in a little over two hours.

My assistant, Timothy, had researched lunch options for us, and we picked Godfather's Pizza, which turned out to be a pizza place attached to an Exxon gas station; thankfully, the pizza was decent.  CJ and Norah (the older daughter, she's nearly 4) got along famously while munching on pizza, drinking chocolate milk, and playing with some Thomas trains that CJ had brought along.

The corn maze was great fun.  Bridgemont Farm creates a different maze each year (unbelievable, isn't it?) and this year the maze was a kangaroo and a koala.  There are different ways to enjoy the corn maze:

• You can find your way through one maze.
• After completing one maze, you can cross over to the other and complete the other maze.
• While making your way through the maze, you can look for kid stations, where the kids can read about Australia, find missing words, and do rubbings.

We were told that it takes 2-3 hours to complete both mazes and do all the activities.  2-3 hours didn't sound practical with a couple of toddlers and a baby, so we just wandered and wandered and wandered. After about an hour, we just headed back toward the barn, used a couple of shortcuts, and made our way back to the entrance.  Afterward, CJ and Norah were just as happy to play in the hay maze, the line maze, the swings and the slides.

The drive to and from was gorgeous.  The hills and low mountains were covered in yellow, orange and red trees.  I told Maki that I want to visit Luray Caverns next.  

What an Election Night!

Maki and I decided at the last minute to hold an election night party at our house. I figured it would be more fun to watch the returns with friends and this election was just too important to not share with family and friends.

So Maki, CJ and I and about 20 friends + a few kids got together on Tuesday night. We had CNN on the big TV + FiveThirtyEight and MSNBC on a couple of laptops. I loved the CNN touch screens and MSNBC's voter by category analysis. It cracked us up that Catholics who attend mass once a week went for McCain, while Catholics who went to church less than weekly went for Obama. We made homemade pizza and chocolate pudding, drank a lot of wine and had a blast.

CJ and his buddies played i the living room with CJ's trains. Gosh, they played together so well and clearly had a blast.

I knew the election was over around 9pm when Ohio turned blue. And it was definitely over when VA turned blue. What a night! Obama's speech was great; McCain's speech was more than gracious, even lyrical.

I'm excited about the election but also worried. As a small business owner, I feel like I would have been screwed under either Obama or McCain. But I do feel that Obama is a fresh start and if he's the economic moderate I hope he will be, then Maki, Matrix Group and I will be okay.