David and Matthew do New Jersey Triathlon

What a weekend! Saturday afternoon David and I drove to Mercer County New Jersey, the site of David and Matthew's first attempt at a triathlon! They were both wonderful! David did a Sprint and Matt an Olympic. I'm not sure of the exact length of either, just know the Olympic is the longer of the two! So the drill is first swimming, then biking and finally running. We sat through the orientation and by the time they were through explaining what you had to do I was totally lost! From what I understand, each participant has an area the width of a bike, where they can put all their stuff (bike while you're swimming and running; sneakers while you're biking and swimming, etc). There are different routes depending on which of the events you are doing. The coordination and planning for this experience is amazing! The facility itself is outstanding. There is a beautiful lake as part of the park. Unfortunately Rachel and I arrived too late for the swimming part of the race, it must have been quite a scene. There were 2500 participants overall! Winners are determined by age group. David came in second for his group! Interesting, they write your age in black marker on your leg along with your bib number. No hiding how old you are!

Here are some pictures.

Left out 2 people!

So very sorry, I left out Surjit (Marlene's mother-in-law and Tylia.

Pictures from the Tea for Rachel

OK, as promised, here are some of the pictures from the Tea. It was not only lovely it was also delicious!

In the middle picture Rachel is opening some tea cups from her sister Emily; they came from the Republic of Tea. The holey paper she is holding up is the leftovers from making the tea bags! Cool, don't you think!

Great Weekend it DC

Just back from DC; what a great weekend. Rachel's sister had a Tea for her in celebration of the upcoming wedding! What a fun event! The sandwiches were yummy, my favorite being chicken salad and also cucumber with butter I believe, very delicious. However, the best was the chocolate brownie! I have NEVER had such a decadent brownie. The chocolate was fudgey and the icing was creamy and yummy! Definitely worth the calories! The other tempting morsel was a petti fore; white cake with creamy filling, a layer of marzipan and then iced all over with white very sweet fondant (I think that's what it was). If you were looking for your sugar fix for the month this was the route to go. Let me tell you, I would definitely put my trust in Emily (Rachel's sister) and Jenny (Rachel's long time friend and growing up next door neighbor) to spend my discretionary calories! As Grammie would say "What a way to go!" I'll post some pictures tomorrow.

My Kindle FINALLY has success!

Are you familiar with the Kindle? It is an electronic reading device developed by Amazon. I thought it would be such a cool, convenient item to own; so approximately a month ago I decided to splurge and buy one. I had all kinds of rationale. first, it would get rid of all the books on my night table; second the books would cost less than the average book I buy now. The books cost $9.99 or less. The other benefit is you can put approx 20 books at a time on the device. It all sounded so very practical to me. The day arrived and waiting at my door was My Kindle. So, I charged it and got ready to go shopping; one problem, I couldn't get an Internet connection. Well I tried for several days...no luck. Before I could call the Kindle help line they were on the phone with me. We tried all kinds of experiments, no luck...could not connect. Somehow or other the book that I ordered for the device did arrive on Kin during the night. I was able to read the book but not make contact with the site here at home although the customer service dept could not understand why there was a problem. The staff was so very lovely but the connection could not be made.

Several days later a new Kindle arrived at m door. I quick opened the box charged Kin and tried again; nothing! With the old Kindle I could sign on away from home; this new one would not even let me do that. Well, several days later the CS people contacted me again;still not idea why I couldn't log on. The thought, maybe I needed a new device. We talked about it and decided that was not going to solve the problem; I would just have to be patient again!

Well, here we are another 3 or 4 days later and what is waiting at my front door? You're right, another Kindle. At this point I have very little if any hope of it working. However, I do hook it up and would you believe, it worked! I was able to download a new book and reload a previously purchased book to this device! I can't believe it! Let's see how it work tomorrow!

On a loosing streak for Mah Jongg

Well, if you're looking to make some easy money at Mah Jongg, I suggest you invite me over. Today I lost a total of $12! That's a lot of money! Next time I'll see if they take credit cards! Not sure why my stars are not aligned but will have to work on some new strategies.

On another topic, David and I have been working on putting together a butterfly garden. I have a book that tells what flowers each butterfly is attracted to by region. We'll see how it goes. They are such lovely insects I would be so happy if they adopted our yard as one of their summer homes! Will keep you posted on how that's going.

Where does the time go???

Tonight we went out to the movies with friends and saw "When Was The Last Time You Saw Your Father?" We all thought it was a fantastic movie. I spent a lot of time thinking about the name of the movie...when was the last time I saw MY father as I knew him? On that same theme, I was looking through some old pictures this afternoon. There was one with a picture of my dad cutting his birthday cake for his 85th. Now, looking at that picture, even then, he was not my father! One of the things that really brought this home to me today was that Uncle Paul (Dad's youngest brother) was visiting this week. I have always felt the two of them look so much alike. So, how far back do I have to look to see when I last saw my father. One of the women tonight commented that out of the 8 of us I was the only one that still had her father. Do I really have him or just physically someone that looks like him?