What a nice week! Off from work (which we know by now I really hate) I was a little upset that I hadn't heard ANYTHING about that Albany position, and I guess I'll call them tomorrow morning but I got to stay home with my little one. My oldest was at Gettysburg, at a workshop for yearbook committee kids. My stepson is in summer school :o( so it was me and the "baby". People always tell me I wouldn't want to stay home, are they kidding? There is nothing better in this world than taking care of your kids, I work because I have to, I hate when people put down the idea of staying home with your kids, especially at jobs like we have, that we know we don't like!

Anyway...Sunday we were back at Snug-Harbor for another freebie concert with this group called "Spiced Punch" doing maritime type songs, we didn't enjoy it as much as the Air Force band we saw last time, but it was a pleasant show, on the lawn eating ice cream and listening to old sea tunes.

Monday we went to the mall so we could have some air conditioning, bought some school supplies, and went over to K-mart and bought our first houseplant in years. We bought a beautiful Peace Lily, which is now enjoying itself in its repotted glory in a huge container in Alex's room. They have those new self-checkout registers in K-mart here, where you scan your own, slide in the credit card and keep moving, I know they take jobs away, BUT, K-mart here has the WORST cashiers I've ever seen, the lines can be winding from the register to the back of the store while cashiers play hunt and peck at the cash register, with that self-check one I was out in 5 minutes! (I know k-mart UGH! LOL!)

Tuesday the kids went to the pool, we live down the block from a public pool so they went down there as soon as Andre got home from summer school (yeah I'm still annoyed with him for screwing up his first year of high school like he did). They stayed all afternoon, came back browner than sunshine and we went off to a ballgame. I'm truly loving my neighborhood now, with all the stuff there is to do now. Of course we won, in fact we destroyed that Brooklyn team LOL! Intercity rivalries are so much fun :o) Minor league games are so much more fun than the majors, Could it be that since you don't have to put out $100 you just feel better?

Wednesday was hang out and relax at home for the morning. We woke up late and then the kids went to the pool for the afternoon, the city in one of its moments of generosity kept the pool open until 8 instead of 7 because of the extreme heat this week. So the kids stayed until, and naturally fell asleep as soon as they got home! A day almost entirely to myself YAY! Thursday I took Alex to see Cat and Dogs. It wasn't on my list of movies I thought was worth seeing, but I had freebie passes that my job gave out awhile back (everyone thought it was real nice, I thought it would have been nicer if they gave us REAL passes that you could use ANY TIME ANYWHERE.) You can only use them when a movie has been playing for 10 days and at certain theatres, and if you use them in Manhattan you have to pay $1.00 surcharge, but still a bargain, since movies in Manhattan are between $9 & $10 at most theatres. We went up to Kips Bay LOEWS, where there is a beautiful theatre, nice and clean with stadium seating and the movie wasn't bad for a buck :o) Alex liked it, so that's the most important thing. We almost always go into Manhattan for movies, the theaters here are filthy, with broken-down a/c and obnoxious teenagers working at them.

We went back to Snug-Harbor Friday, to the Botanical Gardens. Alex wanted to see the Chinese Gardens, which are absolutely beautiful. I haven't seen them since they were under construction. The rest of the gardens are free, but you have to pay $5 to see the Scholars garden so I never bothered, as Alex was too young to enjoy them. Friday she was mesmerized by the lovely architecture, she imagined living in that cool rooms surrounding the gardens, we talked about what gardens mean in China, about how each style of doorway, path, plant means something. Then we went to the small Secret Garden which was just built, it's for little kids, but there is a wonderful tower entry with a moat and you can climb to the top and look out over the gardens. The little maze is adorable and leads to a walled "secret garden". After wandering a bit we came on home, knowing we had to get up EARLY to take Erica to visit U Delaware. We went today down to Newark Delaware, it's one of the colleges Erica really wants to go, a bit expensive for us, but terribly beautiful, not too big, a real college town, and most importantly,they have a "Figure Skating Science" program which had my daughter all excited, still, even if she got in, we're talking about $25,000 a year between tuition, room, board, ice skating expenses (which are actually cheap there as compared to in a non-academic setting)... she might not be able to do it. Her other choices are Miami U and Bowling Green in Ohio, both which have competitive Figure Skating teams so we will probably we checking those out too.