Our dining room, with Mom & Dad's dining table, chairs, china cabinet and chest.

Mom & Dad's Table, Mirror, Books & candle in our foyer

NYC 5 Boro Ride

NYC 5 boro ride.

I left Murphy on Tuesday 4-26 and drove to Raleigh to spend a day with the Fields. I get to walk the girls to and from school and drive Kate to her class. She called me to say I did not stay long enough to wave to her as she went up the stairs. I thought I had but maybe I just waved to the wrong kid.

On Thursday I took the bus to NYC  leaving at 11am and getting in to NYC at 9:15 with about a half hour layover in Richmond and an hour in DC. The ride was easier and cheaper than driving. At $22.50 round trip it was cheaper than most things these days. One down side to the bus is the Terminals. The terminals are parking lots or curbs. It was not a problem for me this trip but to wait in the elements could be if it were hot, cold, or wet. When you have more time than money it is a great way to go & I would not mind doing it again.

DC Terminal

After quick subway ride to Queens where I met Joe I had a taco from one of his favorite street vendors.

Friday I went to the City to see Evelyn get John’s bike and we all went out to dinner.

Sat Joe took me on an 18 mile bike ride tour of Queens which was fun. My first stop my leg got hung up on the seat and I ended up in the gutter with a knee scratch that was a good match for the one on Kate’s knee. I am not sure which hurt more, my pride or my knee.

The 5 Boro ride was a lot of fun, great weather, well organized, and the flattest 42 mile I ever rode.

Joe who had started training on Sat, had no trouble, his only complaint was a little sun burn.

32,000 riders is huge, we never saw the beginning or the end of the riders. I think at times we could look at least a mile ahead and a mile back and see nothing but riders. In all over 1,300,000 riles were ridden! I think we were in the first or second group of 5,000.

There was a guy in Central park who must have been 40 who was on a skate board going as fast as we were. He would get a tow up inclines from his friends and then zoom past us on the down hills. At one point he jumped off at full speed and did not fall or crash into any riders. That was pretty amazing.

Monday before I returned the bike, I rode around Central Park and then I went back and hung out with Evelyn. We listened to some jazz and got the recipe for big bubbles

Tuesday was the bus trip back to Raleigh where I met up with Mary and stayed until Saturday. I came home to get the grass cut and Mary followed on Monday.

Ryan wanted to share some news...

Ryan wanted to share our news with you.  Did you catch it? Did you read his shirt?  This is how we told Mom and Dad the news! That is right, Ryan will soon be a Big Brother!

We are happy to share that we are expecting a baby this fall. We are due on October 24, which means I am finally at the end of my first trimester tomorrow. Hoping that will mean that I start feeling better and/or some kind of food starts sounding good again.  Not too much seems different this time around, but we got the see the baby wave at us on Friday which was fun.  It seems like when I was pregnant with Ryan, our lives revolved around the pregnancy. Now, I am often reminding myself that I am pregnant, usually when someone orders a glass of wine or when I try to button my jeans. :-)   All in all, we are all really excited to add a new member to our family.

Andy's work is keeping him busy and my work is keeping me super busy.  The conference that I spend the year planning is in New Orleans at the beginning of June.  I think we all will be thankful when it is over. 

We celebrated Dad's 65th birthday today over at Mom and Dad's house with Jim and Sarah.  It was fun to have everyone together on such a beautiful day in Atlanta. Lots of food and great company.

Hope you all are doing well. We miss seeing you all.

Love,
Emily, Andy and Ryan

Weekend in NYC

Mary and I had a great time in NYC this past weekend. We went up there so Sarah and John could have the weekend off. We got there late Thursday afternoon. Friday the regular baby sitter was on duty, so we took off and wondered around China Town. Mary picked up some items for her book club since they were reading the Good Earth and she was hosting the meeting at our house. The Chinese Grocery stores were so much fun with all the stuff you have never seen before. Mary got some candy which when we got to the airport did not pass the scanner and had to go thru a second time. If it had been a month or two later I would have wondered if it was from the radiation from Japan. But now I am left with guessing what goes into the candy.

 We went to Queens for lunch with Joe.

Sat and Sunday we played with Evelyn with walks in the neighborhood and Central Park. There are musicians playing throughout the park and it is fun to sit on a bench and listen. We heard a sax player, Dixie land band, hammer dulcimer, jazz quartet, a bongo drummer, a high school orchestra from England, and a drummer playing pans. I would go there every day to hear the music.

Joe brought us takeout on Friday night from and Asian restaurant in Queens.

Evelyn was a champ, never a cry even when we had to put some drops in her eye for some pinkeye. Put her to bed and she just goes to sleep. Amazing.

She loves her bath, I took her out after 30 or 40 minutes as I was getting afraid the wrinkles were never going to come out of her fingers and toes.

We left Monday morning as the painters arrived. Sarah and John are repainting the whole apt. in anticipation of putting it on the market. The realtor said it would be sold by July. We have suggested that they throw in a NC mtn retreat house as a bonus.

Sarah and John had a fun weekend in Philly and we had one too.

Bill

Sibs & Rents

Taken on the back deck in Dothan

25 ways to wear a scarf

As a big fan of scarves I was super excited to come across this video today. Who knew there were so many ways to wear a scarf! My new goal is to try one of the different knots the next time I reach for a scarf. I'm a big fan of "The Wrap" because it feels like I'm cheating when I'm out somewhere, and that I'm really at home snuggled into a blanket, but it is time for me to branch out!

Her 'behind the scenes' post is a pretty interesting read too. The amount of work and time that went into that 5 minute video is very impressive.

http://www.wendyslookbook.com/2011/04/behind-the-scenes-25-ways-to-wear-a-scarf/



Rikki

Home safe and sound

Hello!

John and I had an uneventful trip home and arrived back in LA on Saturday evening. We had a great honeymoon in Thailand and Cambodia and will be posting trip stories hopefully in the next few days. We came home with a ton of mosquito bites, poison ivy and about 1,500 pictures. Once we sort through them all, (the pictures, not the mosquito bites) I'll put them up so you can look if you are interested.

Lots of love,

Rikki

Anna and Rex in Guatemala City

Anna and Rex left on Sunday with about 15 people from church to build a house in Guatemala City...

Please send to the family...we arrived last night safely.  We are
staying in a guest house.  We arrived after dark (7:30pm) so didn't
see much.
Today, we went to the ghetto.  The neighborhood looks like Slumdog
Millionaire.  Little alley-ways between shanty homes.  Flies
everywhere so you have to keep your mouth shut.  Children and dogs
running around.  Kids are only eating junk - loads of candy.  I guess
it is cheap.  We saw several men that sniff.  It helps ease hunger but
it also melts their brain.  They are dazed out with mucus coming from
their noses.
I have never seen anything like this - it's really mindblowing.  We
worked all day and went back to our house during rush hour - the
cars/vans/buses are Thick!  Traffic is congested and the smog attacks
your eyes.  There seems to be always something burning.  Not sure if
it is the trash heap or the traffic pollution.
We are building a one room house with cinderblocks.  They demo'd the
existing structure and right now there is only a piece of fabric that
seperates the home from it's neighbor.  The neighbor will hopefully
enjoy the new concrete wall too.
The work was EXAUSTING!  We stired by hand concrete mix, shoveled it
into wheel barrows and then poured footings.  Tomorrow we start
stacking the blocks.
The team is really fantastic and the Young life team is really warm,
kind and fun to be with!
Say a prayer for us!
Love Anna and Rex

Another picture : hands of time(!)

posted by Kate (from my scrapbook album), After the manicure!

Another picture

Posted by Kate - from a scrapbook album

Posted by Kate

Our Houses In EGR

Steve was in EGR last weekend and he sent me these photos of the three house we enjoyed growing up. I was surpised at all the snow in early March. Isn't the Lake Grove house is missing the front steps? They all look great.

Enjoy???

This is a blog Joe found.  Sarah is pretty sure Dad wrote it.  If he didn't, Billy has a twin brother that Grandma never told you about...

http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=16831

BTW, Dad you should write this guy and let he know you can get to a clean carcass without nearly all that cooking!  Your years of experience might be appreciated by no one as much as this fella.

Oldie

Dad has been going through old pictures and slides and each day it is like a present to see some great pictures of the past.  This one dad titled "love his outfit".  Seems Grandpa didn't mind mixing prints!  Love, Anna

Weekend in Raleigh

Mary and I spent the weekend in Raleigh with the Fields, Bickleys and Dalenas. Mary and I volunteered one morning in Mary Grace’s Class as they worked in centers. With 24 kids it is one busy place and they are happy to get any assistance that they can. I had lunch with Riley as her class eats in their classroom and Mary ate with MG in the lunch room which Mary said was very loud.

I did a listening center where I read a story & then had the kids complete a worksheet.  There is a huge variation in the level of the kids. One kid could read most of the work sheet questions and another had trouble completing a drawing.

It was fun & I’ll do it again. When you go in to the school you have to register in the office. There is a terminal where you enter your name, Birthday, Social Security #. You smile & it prints out the photo pass to stick to your shirt, I thought that was pretty high tec.

Maria was putting Kate to bed on Sunday night and she was messing around upstairs. <Maria called out”Kate Fields get in your bed or I am going to come up there and lock you in your Room”

Kate Replies “It won’t do any good because the lock is on the inside and I can still get out.”

It is hard to get past her as she is always a few steps ahead.

When John woke up Sunday morning he looked in the monitor at Evelyn who was sleeping in a bedroom on the second floor. He said to Sarah, There is somebody in Evelyn’s Pack and play. Kate had crawled in and was laying next to Evelyn stroking her hair. That was a total surprise.

 It was fun too to get a nice taste of Spring, it was warm sunny and the trees were in bloom.

Great weekend

Bill

Soup for a chilly day

Hello!

This is Rikki here and I was thinking of everyone today as the temperature dropped down into the chilly 50s. I know that isn't cold for many people, but when it gets below 60 in LA, it is big news! In the spirit of cold winter days, I thought I would whip up a batch of my favorite soup and then share the recipe with everyone so that they could maybe make their own chilly day soup.

I love this recipe because it can have pretty much anything added to it and still turn out great. I basically go through the fridge and toss everything in the pot that looks a bit wilty or sad. The spicy turkey gives it a great kick as well. Plus now that we have a food processor (Yay!) the prep takes about 5 minutes tops.

From my kitchen to yours, here is Turkey Lentil Soup.

1 lb dried lentils
1 tb olive oil
1 cup onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 cup celery, sliced
1 8-oz can tomato sauce
1 cup water
a bunch of vegetable broght
2 bay leaves
1 tb chopped rosemary
1 package spicy turkey sausage
black pepper
salt
red wine vinegar

In a large pot, heat oil until hot. Remove the sausage from the casings and brown in the oil, adding the carrots, celery, garlic and onion after a few minutes. Cook until the onions turn translucent and the vegetables are tender. Add tomato sauce, water, veggie broth, rosemary, bay leaves and lentils.

Bring the mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and let simmer for 25 minutes or until veggies are slightly soft. Add salt and pepper to taste, along with a dash of red wine vinegar.

This makes a huge batch but is so yummy I'm sure you won't have a problem eating it all!


Enjoy!

Rikki

Found this picture

I was doing a bit of homework, and when I clicked on my Gmail tab, the Block e-mail opened. I noticed this picture sent from Barbara and thought I'd upload it to the blog!

Update on us!

Just a nice, relaxing Saturday for me (Hailey) and Steve. We woke up this morning to reach for our iPods, iPhones, and laptops -- Phish tickets went on sale. We ended up getting a couple pairs for ourselves and some friends, so that's something to look forward to. Meanwhile, looking out the window reminds me of anything but summertime. The weather can't seem to decide if it wants to rain, snow, sleet, etc. I'll be glad when all of the snow is gone, and we can look forward to nice summer sunshine.

Steve and I went to a job fair -- err, career fair -- yesterday. It was small, but it was angled to capture business students. The IRS was there! Scary, right? :) They were promoting positions as IRS agents, etc. It was surprisingly the organization there targeting masters level students. It seemed the majority of the companies were looking for more undergraduate/entry-level work. Regardless, it was nice to head over and see who's hiring and what they're hiring for. Steve and I put in a couple resumes, and I suppose this week, he'll fill out some of the online applications. It's really funny how in this technological age, at job fairs, they hand you a business card with a website on it and ask you to go online and apply... Hmm... Whatever happened to face-to-face resume drops?

Update on my schooling: I know I posted it on Facebook, but for those of you who might not check Facebook as often, I was accepted into Michigan State's Epidemiology program. It's a Masters program that has 2 tracks -- after the first year, I could choose whether I wanted to do a PhD and have the rest of my college paid for by university grants/assistantships, or I could finish the Masters and head off to look for work. They have a longstanding relationship with the Michigan Dept. of Community Health and the NIH, and about 85% of their graduates choose to work for one of the two. I applied to do research on cerebral palsy and Guthrie cards (the little blood spots on filter paper that they take from babies at birth) or environmental contaminants and male reproduction (sperm mobility/motility). So, that's option one.

Option 2: this is the big one. This is the reason I quit my job (besides the fact that my boss was completely neurotic and drove away almost 75% of her employees in one year). I started the process to applying to the Masters in Occupational Therapy (MOT) program last year -- about this time, actually. It is now a year later, and I have just received word that I'll be moving on to the interview process. I volunteered with the Autism Collaborative Center last summer, and I fell in love with the idea of working as an occupational therapist with children with autism. It seems like such a great, fulfilling line of work and a growing, necessary field as well. The frustration comes from waiting so long -- we were supposed to find out in late January, and here it is -- mid-March, and we're still not even to interviewing. I am not holding my breath. I am, however, hopeful. Last year, there were 300 applicants, and they chose about 34 to move on to enrollment. This year, I'm not sure how many total applicants there were, but there are 42 of us being interviewed. I met with the interim director of the Autism Center (the center is heavily tied to the OT department -- most of the staff work at both the center and for EMU). I decided to be a bit "sneaky" and explain that I couldn't start working for them until I knew where I would be next fall, because it'd be unfair of me to start working now and then quit in April when I find out I didn't get in. So, she made it quite clear that she would move the process along. About 3 hours later, I received an e-mail letting me know I'd be moving on, and my interview will be on Wednesday at 1:30 p.m.! Sometimes, I guess it pays to be sneaky...

My job will be volunteer coordination. I will be managing the volunteers and placing them in groups as well as recruiting new volunteers from social work, special education, occupational therapy, and speech/language pathology. I think it'll be fun, but the organizational freak inside of me is a bit petrified. I personally think the system needs a complete overhaul to be an organized, well-oiled machine, but I keep reminding myself that it's only part-time, and this is not my career!

Well, signing off. It's the Big Ten Basketball tournament, and today, our favorite teams play. Mine is Ohio State, and Steve's is (obviously) Michigan State. :)

Enjoy your day, Block family. I miss you all. xoxoxo.