Quote of the Day

Matt (walking through the front door in from the rain): It's warm in here and smells like bacon... this is home!

Corey;s interview on FOX about the partial building collapse at NU

Here's the video link to Corey's interview on Fox:

Partial building collapse at NU

Corey's dorm roof collapses onto Huntington Ave

My poor brother awoke this morning to stone dust filling his room and the police evacuating the 60 or so Northeastern kids residing in the dorm at 377 Huntington Ave for the summer. Looks like no one was injured (thankfully!) save for a poor traffic officer who was hit by some flying debris and stone work, which fell from the roof.

The students have been moved to another dorm for the time being, until the building is deemed safe to return to - Corey only had time to grab a few things. He was interviewed by FOX (see the link to follow) while waiting outside of the building. The green line was halted for most of the morning for fear that vibrations from the train would cause additional rock to fall. The E train is up and running now, but Huntington Ave was partially blocked off into the evening, the huge piles of window-sill lengths of granite in heaps on the ground! Yikes! Thank goodness Corey was ok, and no one was hurt!

Peep-show!

Peeps on the beach

The third place winner: Escape from Danvers State Mental Hospital, 1882 (based off of a true ancestral event!)

The Family Peep Tree

Peeps on the Green Monster

The first place winner: The Wrestler!

The Wicked Peep of the West

Hire the Expert Peeps

The second place winner was the deranged Barbie (who is eating her Peeps!)

New space, new blogging efforts!

It's been awhile, but blogging efforts renewed!!

First of all - happy birthday to Mom! This evening I was able to arrange the last part of her birthday presents - but she will have to wait until Easter to enjoy them!

Matt and I recently bought a fabulous new computer at a great discount - loads of space to fit all of my genealogical documents; and awesome graphics for Matt's games (our biggest use of computer time besides general emailing, blog reading, news-catching-up-on, etc.!). I'm still getting used to using Vista and the new Microsoft Word 2007 (ok, so "new" in the sense that its new to me, despite the fact that its now 2 years old!) With the new computer, I quickly realized that we were long-overdue for a better printer. Years ago when Matt bought his laptop it came with a free Dell printer which never printed great quality images to begin with, and recently had been consuming ink at far quicker rates than normal and printing all sorts of wobbly misaligned lines where none should be! So I picked up a wireless HP printer that comes with a scanner/copier built in - what a difference!

Last night I worked diligently on creating a "Peeps" masterpiece, which was a blast to do! Haven't a clue what that means? Well, each year the Washington Post has been hosting a Peeps diorama contest in which people creatively use Marshmellow Peeps (rabbits, chicks, and more!) in funny or creative scenes. One of the ladies at work decided this year to host a staff contest to compete for the best Peeps masterpiece. The judging takes place tomorrow - photos to follow!

In the meantime, check out previous years "peepshows" winners:
2008 Peep Dioramas

Westminster Dog Show

Matt loves dogs, and Tivo'ed the Westminster Dog Show this year, trying to avoid any mention of the winner until we had the chance to watch it this weekend!

Last year's winner was the adorable Uno the Beagle:

And this year's winner was the oldest dog to ever win at Westminster, Stump the 10 year old Sussex spaniel! We had fun watching the variety of breeds (both those on their best behavior, and a few who were not!). One caught our eye, the Black Russian Terrier: who the announcers stated was being shown for the first time at the show, and had been "developed in the labs in the USSR". That definitely caught our interest, and we quickly searched Wikipedia to discover that indeed they were bred as military and working dogs in the 1950s from a number of different breeds. One of these was the extinct "Moscow Water Dog". I felt bad at the idea that the breed was extinct in such a short period of time; although apparently the decision to stop breeding the dogs was a conscious one - according to O. Krasnovskaya, "That was not a good idea as [they] were not willing to save drowning people, but mostly were looking to bite them so this breed was never developed". Yikes, imagine the tests in which this fact was discovered!

Of the finalists, we were rooting for the beautiful Puli, Scottish Terrier (whose chances were lost when he peed in the final round!), and Giant Schnauzer!

And although our first dog will probably be a golden retriever or a Lab, Matt has high hopes for the Great Pyrenees:

A holly jolly month

Despite the fact that I have been struck down with the killer cold that started with Corey and then went to the siblings, Mom, Matt and finally me, here's a review of the festive month of December:

• The first weekend, Matt & I took a trip to Cambridge to locate the office where he was having an interview at, and we strolled around Central Square, had a tasty lunch, and ended up at the Harvard bookstore. Then Greta and I did Christmas shopping and had pedicures!
• A few months ago, I was invited to join the staff advisory committee at work, and one of our tasks is organizing the holiday party. The party was a blast, and I ran the raffle (we raised a lot for charity!)
  
• On the 13th, Holly, Greta Natyra and I went and saw the Nutcracker, always a beautiful production! This year was fun because we went to the matinee, and so many cute little kids were there, dressed in their finest dresses and little suits. Then a send-off party to Jeff, who was leaving for California the following day, followed by a surprise party for Nenna's 80th birthday with a funny and touching "This Is Your Life" slideshow with her family and friends
• The next day, I went with Greta to a Handel Messiah Sing, where we rented the musical scores and sang along with the entire audience ( I wanted to sit with Greta, so I faked - pretty successfully - being a soprano!)
• next weekend was the major snowstorm, soI got to work from home instead of fending my way through the snow-emergency streets of Boston, and Kevin's winter party was (sadly!) cancelled. The Kiwanee family reunion was also much smaller than usual, because of the bad roads (Matt and I became friendly with a snowbank in Hanover on the way down!), and when the kids came up to visit us for our pre-Christmas party, the heavy snow was cause for an early departure!
• Then came Christmas, with much celebrating (amidst our lovely decorated apartment, decked with all sorts of Christmas decor). Present highlights included history books, video games, a GPS, and (at last!) a snow shovel to finally help dig us out of the parking lot! I created genealogies as a number of presents, which was a blast to share.
• We ended the festive season with our annual New Years Eve party which (surprise!) was also a major snowstorm. The Yankee Swap included some great prizes, and we played a new game - Wise or Otherwise, which was a blast! (Perhaps due to the fact that yours truly was the winner by a landslide! Apparently in a former life, I was a proverb-writer!)