A mayor, an assemblyman and a rabbi walk into a courthouse...

Holy jamoly - where have I moved to!

My title above was the beginning of an editorial cartoon in my paper today. It's being said by a middle-aged man reading a newspaper. His friend asks "Is this a joke?" to which he replies "No. It's New Jersey."

A two-year FBI investigation in NJ covering both bribery and money laundering resulted in 44 people being arrested yesterday and charged with various offenses. Those arrested included five rabbis, 15 appointed public officials and six elected officials, including the new mayor of Hoboken who had only been on the job 23 days and has declared a zero-tolerance policy on corruption (isn't that always how it goes!). As one columnist pointed out, it is a surreal tribute to the diversity of New Jersey. Virtually every age group, skin color, religion and level of education available seems to be snagged - the defendants are white, black and Latino; men and women; range in age from 28 to 87.

So while I left an area with a Good Ol' Boy political history, I seem to have entered a state with a worse pedigree. Wow.

More beach pics

Here's a few more from Cousin Camp...


At least a few of us made it to the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi. Have to get a picture on the whale sculpture out front.


And always have to look at the otters there. Luckily this year they were in a very playful mood when we came by.


I gave each of the cousins with us a penny to toss in the fountain before we left. Since everyone only had one we tried to coordinate the throw going in. This is right before the toss.


This is right AFTER the toss. I had to include it because you can see what form my son has when throwing his penny into a fountain.


Thanks to Aunt Kathy we were able to make our annual Cousin Camp tie dye items.


And when our kids weren't out on the beach or in the pool, they could usually be found like this.


Or like this.


Everyone loved helping out with tiny little Eva. This was probably Grace's first time to feed a baby, and she did a great job (though after a couple of minutes she was ready to hand Eva off to the next set of cousin hands).


And as always, we end the week with a cousin picture in the mouth of the shark. The light wasn't in that great of a location for our shot - I haven't looked yet to see if anyone else in the family had better luck.

Summer vacation fun

I'll break these pictures up into a few different posts to not overload everyone at once.


This is my little boy's hand in mine on his first ever flight. He was a little nervous, but did great (as did Grace, who hadn't flown anywhere since she was 2).


Very nice that the place we've been staying in the past couple summers also has a decent pool. Here's Grace showing off her newest trick.


This picture I love because of the little cousin hand on the shoulder. Couple of buddies (most of the time!).


Here's the boys from the front so you can see some faces.


And these two soon-to-be-second-grader cousins had a great time together this year.


Love this happy beach picture. That's our "compound" of two awnings you see in the distance.

Back from vacation

Finally arrived back in New Jersey after three weeks in Texas. I've weeded through some of the photos and will start posting tomorrow. It was a very fun trip, and we saw lots of friends (though not as many as I'd like), but now it is time to return to reality and officially start the summer!

How we are getting Grace to Texas

Oh, just kidding. Alex wouldn't get in the new suitcase for photos.

NOW what's growing in the garden

Lilies and roses, that's what.

I'm a little intimidated by the roses. I've never had any before, and I've got two at the end of the sidewalk that are totally crapping out on me. But most of the others are just living their lives with no additional help.


Lots of these lilies all over the flower beds. They are probably around 2 feet tall.


These little red tea roses I love. They are on a low rounded bush and there are TONS of them covering it. I tried taking a photo of the bush itself, but didn't it didn't look as fantastic in the picture as it does in person.


We've got some single-petaled pink ones.


And some double-petaled pink ones.


Speaking of pink, I have this alstibe (spirea) blooming in one of the front beds. Unfortunately when these were sprouting I had no idea what they were so I pulled up tons of them. Oh well.


And I saved the best for last (in my opinion). Isn't this just an absolutely gorgeous rose? Right now there are two of these blooms on the bush, with a couple more about to come. This bush is right next to one with all yellow roses, but I missed my chance to get a shot of that one blooming.

He's got super powers, he's no ordinary kid...

Alex is so happy I bought him a Ben 10 t-shirt from Target that he wanted to sleep with it last night. Not IN it, but with it.

A little gardening action

After a week of rain I took advantage of our two sunny weekend days and finally did a little planting. Alex has gotten into helping me pick out plants and dig in the dirt, and it was nice having a little helper (he really likes to pick up the earthworms). Here's a little bit of what we did.

The pots we finally filled up. Looks like I might need to invest in some little clay pot feet - the bricks make it look like my pots have big clown feet. Also need to find the small broom to get rid of the potting soil on the deck and get after those remaining stickers on the pots. Thanks to Mom who helped me pick out a lot of these plants when she was in town a week ago. This is the only "sweet" pose Alex wanted to do for me.


The beginning of Alex's monster/action poses. He wouldn't let me take a picture without being in it.


A good monster/scary pose with the flowers the kids picked out. Grace picked both the gerber daisies while Alex picked out the vinca.


I wanted to get a shot of the pots from the other side and was going to crop out the white-trashy crap underneath the deck, but of course Alex had another pose that I felt like I just needed to share. He would stand perfectly still in these poses until I took the picture.


Our garden we are trying out, at least until the garage is rebuilt at which point it will probably be destroyed. Both kids really helped out with this one. Mainly herbs with a couple tomatoes, a jalapeno and a cucumber. We'll see if it gets enough light back here - hopefully once we get the trees trimmed it will. Note the cheap push-in-the-ground fencing we used with the hopes of keeping Lucy out of the area.


And of course I had to get a shot of our newly-sprouted grass. We were getting discouraged after 4 or 5 days of the seed just laying on the bare dirt, but those two days of sun was just what the yard needed.

Coming soon: I may be living in the Garden State, but I'm a little sad about a few things that won't work up here...

Uh oh

Real Simple magazine sends out a Daily Thought email. Today's quote is "If you can organize your kitchen, you can organize your life." Can I plead that I'm still getting used to my new, smaller kitchen?

Belated birthday shots

I realized I'd never posted any pictures from Grace's birthday party. Didn't get much, mainly because most of her party was at the movie theater. We took five little girls and Grace to see the Disney nature movie Earth (two other girls couldn't make it), then back to the house for cake and presents.

My beautiful 7-year-old girl.


About to blow out the candles. Look close and you can see where my homemade cake cratered after icing (I don't normally make two-layer cakes; I'm not sure what happened). Once I stuck all those mini-Oreos on it the kids didn't care one bit. And Grace really wanted the big number 7 candle this year - that stuck on too early may have been the cause of the crater now that I think about it.


Alex ate his cake and ice cream in the back room. Not only did he not want to be near all the giggling girls, he also refused to eat his cake on a Hannah Montana plate or use a Hannah napkin. I've got a girl-classmate's birthday party to take him to this Friday and I'm thinking I will need to stash a plain paper plate and napkin in my purse for it.

I missed having our big party in the backyard with all our family and friends, but I must admit this year was much easier on me. But I am so happy we had Bonnie here to help out. Even with a small party it is nice to have at least one other family member helping out!

Art Show

Grace had been telling me that her art teacher put a picture of hers into an art show, but I never received anything about it so any info I received came from the mouth of a 7 year old. Well we discovered this week that it was in the district-wide art show for Westfield schools. I don't know how many people from each school got entered, but I know there we only two kids out of Grace's class of 20 who had entries (there were entries from every school from Kindergarten through seniors at the high school). Anyway, today was the last day of the show so Alex and I stopped by for a minute to check it out. Unfortunately I didn't realize there were night hours earlier in the week, so poor Jim didn't get to see it.


Sweet Alex wanted me to take a picture of him next to his sister's artwork, without me even suggesting it.


Grace's penguin picture on display. That's a fish in the penguin's mouth, and the little things to the right of the bird are not penguin poops but footprints (I got a "No Mom!" with a big 7 year old eye roll when I suggested the poops).


Alex and I looked at a lot of the art, and he likes a lot of the paintings and drawings. But of course the oversized sculptures were the most exciting.


This was my favorite. Truly show-stopping to me. I would have gotten a closer shot, but wanted Alex in the picture for perspective on how big it was. Beautiful rendition of Van Gogh's Sunflowers.


Alex wanted a picture with the big Coke bottle, though I'm not sure he knew what it was because I don't think he's actually seen a glass Coke bottle.


Funny boy acted out the poses for the big Keith Haring cutouts, but wouldn't do it for the camera.


Alex's favorite piece. A big fishbowl made out of saran wrap wrapped around bent wires, with seaweed twisting up in it and fish (which you can't see here) dangling in it.

Sunday paper tidbits

- Historians say many of the legends of Geronimo are more myth than reality. It is most likely NOT his skull being used by Yale's Skull and Bones group. While he was a prisoner at Ft. Sill for the last 15 years of his life, he lived in one of the tribal villages on the post and did not wear a path in the stone floor of his cell by pacing as school children touring the fort were told for decades (he only spent about three weekends in his cell house). A common story was that he had a blanket made from 99 Mexican scalps (yuk), but the problem is that no one ever saw it that can remember it. Geronimo was apparently a master of PR. And the use of yelling "Geronimo!" before jumping was first used by a World War II-era paratrooper who had seen a Western movie about Geronimo the night before a scheduled jump. Do kids still use it when jumping off the swing set?

- A new independent bookstore just opened up in NYC. First off, kudos to bookstores still opening up. The store is called Idlewild, and out of it's more than 7000 books in stock, about half are travel books. And the books are not organized alphabetically; they are sorted geographically by state, country and continent, mixing novels and memoirs with travel guides. They strive to personalize their book choices for people. A cool feature they have are "Destination Kits," a selection of books tailored to individuals. A customer calls with information about the traveler's interests and destinations (and amount they want to spend) and the store will pick out appropriate books. For a trip to Berlin for an architect they offered up TimeOut Berlin, the Knopf Map Guide, "Berlin: The Architecture Guide," Christopher Isherwood's "The Berlin Stories" and Peter Gay's "Weimar Culture." Go to www.idlewildbooks.com to check them out; and if you aren't near the NYC area I'm sure they can ship to you!

- The last tidbit comes not from the Newark Star-Ledger, but from our local weekly paper The Westfield Leader. This week they published their annual "This is Westfield" section, which gives all sort of information about the area. But since the paper has been published since 1890 they also included reprints of past stories. One fun one to read was titled "Martian Invasion Broadcast Provokes Polite Yawns Here," referencing the War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938. While about 30 phone calls were received at Westfield police headquarters from frightened residents about the "Martian attack" (some were hysterical), Maplewood and Newark, NJ, both reported 1,500 calls. Trenton received 800 inquiries and an Elizabeth church was filled with worshippers praying for deliverence. An Orange movie theater emptied in two minutes when a man rushed in announcing the state was being invaded. Many residents of Montclair and Orange packed belongings and headed into the mountains for safety. Women fainted when they heard the news second-hand (maybe these were the ones too delicate to listen to the broadcast themselves?). I had never realized the story centered on aliens invading New Jersey, which I guess explains people freaking out so much here. But apparently the Westfielders were able to keep level heads and reassure each other that it wasn't real.

What's growing in the garden

As I've said before, one of the fun things with moving up here is seeing what will erupt out of my ground as the weather gets warmer. I missed photos of the grape hyacinths, the lily-of-the-valleys and most of the azaleas. But coming back from Field Day across the street (have I mentioned lately how much I love living next to the school???) with camera in hand gave me a chance to show off a little of what is out there now.

And I'm still trying to figure some plants out, so if you notice I have the type of plant wrong please correct me!


I have one bleeding heart in front of the house (and these are some of the final blooms on it). I think I want to plant more of these because the flowers are so cool, even though they only bloom in the spring.

I'm not exactly sure what this is, also almost totally bloomed out as you can see. Before turning brown the entire section of blooms were light purple. I first thought it was butterfly bush, but after a little research I actually think it might be lilac. I have about three of these in various spots around the house, but I think at least one is not getting as much sun as it would like, making it a little leggy.


I finally have azalea bushes! I have one that is still covered with flowers. The other 3 or 4 are pretty much done. None are huge - most are about a foot or two in diameter. But one lavender one is about 3 feet across and is right next to where we park the car so we can see it all the time.


A little patch of dianthus is growing in front of the house. I may plant some more of these because I like their spiky gray-green leaves.


My FAVORITE currently blooming. I've always wanted poppies, but never had the sun in Dallas for them. These are at the end of the driveway, actually on the side facing the neighbor. But they are impressive (you can't tell by this picture, but the flowers are about 4" in diameter.


I don't know what these little guys are, but they are popping up all over the place. Only about 4 or 5 inches high. I should know what they are, but got tired of looking in the books.


The hostas are coming up all around the house. Also something I never had much luck with in Dallas - snails, slugs and roly polys seemed to eat mine up.


I did a double-take when I noticed the size of these leaves. But I don't think it is an elephant ear - I think it is just a giant-sized hosta. I'll be interested to see if they grow bigger.


Alex holding one of the flower pods I've been finding all over the ground. I couldn't tell where they were coming from, but I think it might be from the sweetgum trees (however I haven't noticed them in the back yard, where we end up with a lot of "pokeyballs" from the trees).


Alex's favorite thing to find in the yard right now are these big thorns that have dropped off the same trees as the blooms. He likes to think of them as tiny swords. That's what he is holding up in front of him in the hosta picture above.


And I don't want to forget my viburnum. There are two of these blooming on the opposite side of the house from the driveway, so didn't realize they were there until I looked up from the table and saw these big snowball-looking blooms right outside the window next to the fireplace.

The yard guys are here today to treat the weeds. There are so many in the back yard that we have to just get rid of everything and reseed the entire yard. But hopefully soon it will end up looking as nice as the rest of the areas around the house.