Thank God it's..."Reading" Week

Well, I'm not sure about the "Reading" part, ;-) but I've been enjoying the week so named by Princeton Theological Seminary. Actually, all of my reading is going to get done at the tail end of the week, but with mom in town from WA we've been doing a lot of playing--and what a beautiful week for playing it has been! Here's the week in review through pictures:

After church on Sunday, I took mom on the pretty country drive out to Doylestown to have tea at the 1814 house and to meet Kevin. Check out Kevin's blog for his account of his first time in a tea room having Afternoon Tea. It's pretty cute!



On Tuesday, mom and I headed into NYC and spent the morning at the Chelsea Food Market (foodies that we are) and then went to a taping of the Martha Stewart show. We tried to get lottery tickets for Wicked but were sadly unsuccessful. However, we had a LOVELY dinner at Le Pain Quotidien including a "wicked" piece of pumpkin pie (with FRESH mint tea) for dessert!



Wednesday night was Raclette Reunion night complete with a Raclette dinner. Lexi's Mom loved meeting Pidge, Bitsy, Gigi and FiOna and we all shared lots of laughs! Gotta love the girlfriend times!


Thursday: Not wanting anyone to ever doubt our commitment to tea, we made the 300 mile roundtrip trek to the Harney and Sons tea shop and tasting room in Millerton, NY. Let me tell you, we stocked up tea BIG TIME! It was a beautiful fall day and the fall colors out our window for much of the ride were spectacular! We are up to our ears in tea now, but that is how we like it! As mom and I like to say, "Seize the day!" :-)

Happy Turkey Day???

Well wonders never cease! I finally became used to looking out my apartment windows last winter and seeing groups of deer wandering about looking for food, but I never would have guessed that I'd peer out my window one October afternoon only to find a pack of 5 TURKEYS strutting about my shared backyard! Is this common in New Jersey? This is going on my 5th year in Princeton and it is the first I've ever personally seen some wild turkeys walking around as if they owned the place. I mean, how cool is that? I remember learning in 8th grade American History (with good old Mr. Seaholm) that Ben Franklin loved the turkey and wanted it to be our national bird. In a letter to his daughter, Ben said he found the Eagle to be a bird quite lacking in character whereas "the Turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America . . . He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on." Hear, hear, Ben! Well put. Enjoy the pix!

When at all possible, go hiking!

Like the Israelites wandering in the wilderness and complaining to Moses about their sorry situation, murmurings have arisen as to the outdated post on this 'ole blog of mine! What's a girl to do but satisfy her readers! :-)

Indian summer or not, hiking in the fall on the East Coast has to rank right up there as one of the best weekend activities out there. I mean, with all the fall foliage (even IF the leaves aren't as brilliant this year because of less rain), it is simply spectacular! And of course, hiking with someone special always makes it even better. Kevin and I had the best day hiking at the Delaware Water Gap two weeks ago. We had it all, great soundtrack for the trip there and back, yummy picnic, invigorating exercise, beautiful scenery on the hike and out the car window, great conversation along the way and even a little excitement--what would you know but crossing a small stream we came across a little snake! I did my best to be brave and calmed myself and made my way past it without much more than a little extra adrenalin pumping through my veins. I had to laugh, too, because somehow I had this distinct feeling that the warm weather and the vegetation around us might easily make for a run-in and sure enough, it happened. I feel like I've made significant progress in coping with my fear of snakes. Not only do I now run again on the Canal Path with confidence and ease but I can encounter snakes suddenly on a hike and not turn and run away. Let that be a lessen to all of you wusses out there! Ha! Just kidding! :-)

Aren't Kevin and I a cute hiking couple? :-)