A Blue Sky Saturday Morning

The Girls On A Late Afternoon Hike

A Red Tailed Hawk, Looking For Breakfast

First one up at 6:20, came down, turned on the coffee, the latte maker and settled in for another leisurely morning here in Darien.  It's still chilly here, 14º at the moment, getting almost to the 30's by mid afternoon but we may and I stress may have seen the last of the sub zero temperatures.  Not so in Chautauqua which is nine below at the moment.  It's now 7:40 and Rami is up, working in his den but everyone else is still asleep which is great as Marisa needs it and she has a sleep over tonight.

Not much exciting happened yesterday morning, just the usual, a long coffee after taking the kids to school or their bus.  Beth was off at a workshop at 9:00 and Rami was working from home again.  He can close himself off in his office so as to not be disturbed by us which is nice for him and us.  It was another cold morning but I managed to get in a walk with Cody around 10:30.  Evie just potsed around, picking up after the grand kids, a daily chore.  I can remember those days with our kids, and when I was their age.  It seemed silly to pick up your clothes when you knew your mom would do it. That is until I read Mrs Piggle Wiggle, one of my favorite childhood books.  She had the remedy for this sort of thing, counseling the mom's to let the kids' rooms alone until the they could not exit their room and had to be fed through the upstairs windows.  I always liked that story but it made no difference in my messy room. We read Mrs. Piggle Wiggle to both our kids and grandchildren, and they loved it as well.

 Interestingly, the New York Times just had an article about the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books entitled "Mrs Piggle Wiggle, Still Rescuing Parents".  The article can be found at the following address:    http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/the-magical-morality-of-mrs-piggle-wiggle/

Posing For Granny

I also spent a good part of the morning watching the Cavs/Golden State NBA game which I DVRed, one in which the Cavs won convincingly, proving that they have the potential to get to the NBA finals.  Beth returned home at noon and we all had a lunch of schnitzel sandwiches on good bread, with mayo of course and tomatoes.  We all watched another episode of House of Card and felt guilty watching a TV program in the middle of the day.  I then read on my Kindle, took a short nap and Marisa and Mitch were home by 2:30.  Evie had made corn chowder for Marisa, a soup favorite from summers in Chautauqua, so she had two bowls for a snack.  We then talked both Beth and Marisa into going for a hike in a nearby Selleck & Dunlap Woods Nature Preserve, interestingly a stone's throw from Trader Joe's.  We were the only ones on the trail perhaps because it was icy, making it difficult to walk without fear of falling.  We managed however and Marisa loved bushwhacking, charging off the trails with Cody in foot high snow.  It was fun for all of us to be out for forty five minutes in the fresh air.  When we got back to the car, we had to go to Trader Joes, to pick up some goodies for the weekend,  cheese corn snack for Marisa, one of the reasons we were able to get her to go on the hike.

Off the Trail

The Beast And His Friend

A Happy Girl

We all then relaxed in the family room, all of us on a device of some kind, enjoying cheese and crackers and a beer before Evie got dinner ready, an easy one, BLT's with avocados, to kick it up a notch.  They were surprisingly filling, especially if you had a piece of Costco's chocolate cake after a sandwich or two.  We then watched the first two  episodes of The Amazing Race, a program the Albarrans have always liked, Evie and I disliked.  Actually, after watching two and a half hours of it, we both agreed it wasn't too bad.  Marisa then went to bed and the adults watched two more episodes of House of Cards, season one.  We have quite a bit to get through before we can watch Season Three which debuted on Netflix yesterday.

No plans for today yet as it's 8:00 and everyone is still sleeping; we will have to see when everyone gets up.