Tag: albany

Albany Weekend, Days 3 and 4 (plus me when I was 5-years old)

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Day 3 – Independence Day

We had great weather yesterday and that helped a lot. The kids didn’t have to linger around the house to wait for the rain to stop. As soon as the local swimming pool opened up, we were there to take part in the aquatic festivities. It had been quite a while since I’d last seen the Little Man swim. When he and Kelly were in Florida this spring, he was jumping into the pool. I finally got to witness that first hand today. He seems to really love the water, although he doesn’t yet know how to swim. He stayed in the pool for a long time, despite his chattering teeth. Finally, we got out of the water to take a break and have a picnic lunch. When lunch was over, we headed back into the pool for a while.

After swimming, we all headed over to the playground just behind the pool. It was pretty warm out and we were all hoping to wear out the kids so that they’d get in a good nap before the evening festivities. Thus, I encouraged the Little Man to run around. A lot. And he did. For an hour or so he dashed around that playground, wearing himself out. I was certain he’d fall asleep as soon as he got into the car. But the car ride back to the house was only about a minute and it took him a little while longer to finally crash. But crash he did and I think he managed to get close to 2 hours of sleep.

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Albany weekend, day 2

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We got a lot of rain yesterday. That means that for much of the day, we were trapped indoors with a 6 month-old, a 2 year-old, and a 4 year-old and eventually, they were bouncing off the walls. So finally, around noon, we headed out to a place called Tree Paad, which is a kind of indoor kids paradise and let the Little Man and the Dude run free. There was a huge “fortress” that they could climb around in with all kinds of slides to slide down and the kids had a blast. The adults had a blast, too, chasing them around, racing them down the slides, and watching them smile and laugh.

It did bring home an unpleasant truth, however. I am really out of shape. After half a dozen times climbing up into this fortress with the Little Man and sliding down the slide, I was out of breath. Kelly and I took turns and despite being over 31 weeks pregnant, she probably took him down the slide more times than I did!

It didn’t help that I filled myself up with an assortment of comestibles all of which were designed to be both delicious and as unhealthy as possible: a hot dog, a slice of pizza, some french fries (with mayo) and a soda. I was hungry and I wolfed that down quickly–and then proceeded to chase the little man around, all the while sloshing that poisonous mixture around in my stomach.

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Albany day 2/Stony Point day 1

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I was up at about 7:15 AM this morning, in time to see strausmouse head off to work for a little while. I hung around the house with rmstraus and little Damian until Eric got back. We went for lunch along the Hudson River at a nice riverside cafe. There was a great breeze blowing and it was not too humid out either. After lunch, we headed back to Eric and Ryane’s house and I got my picture taken with Damian. Then it was time for Damian to head to the doctor’s office and time for me to make the drive down to Stony Point.

It took a little under 2 hours to make the drive and toward the end, I was going against traffic, which was kind of nice. vickyandnorm live on the edge of Harriman State Park, and the drive down Palisades Parkway was a nice one. I arrived at their house just before 5 PM to find their cars parked on the street–apparently, there was some work that still needed to be done to all of the curbs in the neighborhood, and their driveway still requires it’s final surfacing as well.

And their street doesn’t exist yet. At least, as they explained to me, they have to go to the post office to pick up their mail. Until their street shows up on some map, I guess it simply doesn’t exist. I wonder if they could get away with temporarily being their own country?

It was nice to see the house completely finished and furnished and it looked great. In fact, I was jealous and I decided at once that I’d never be able to buy a house because I’d take one look at the places that I would be willing to pay for and picture Norm and Vicky’s little kingdom and be disappointed with what I had. I got the full tour, of course, including the long awaited “Jamie Rubin Memorial Bedroom”, which was done up in a beach motif, like the other “beach room” in the house.

At 6 PM, we headed out to the Palisades Mall in order to go to Tu Tu Tango for dinner, which is a kind of tapas joint. Very, very good, especially thanks to the spring roll recommendation by strausmouse. Vicky had gotten us tickets for the 9:30 PM showing of The Simpson’s Movie. We finished our dinner with plenty of time to spare and so we wandered over to Coldstone for some ice cream. By the time we got in line for the movie, it was just being let into the theater.

The movie itself was hilarious and I really enjoyed it. I’ve only ever seen a handful of episodes of the cartoon, but I could imagine myself seeing more. It’s the kind of movie which, when released on DVD, could be watched over and over again, with something new being discovered each time.

Tomorrow, we pick up Norm and Vicky’s new kitten.

Second day in Albany

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My second full day in Albany was strikingly different from the first–mainly because it snowed overnight and the temperatures plummeted. Where it felt almost muggy out on Saturday, there was a cutting wind and several inches of snow (and ice) on Sunday. With the windchill, the temperature never broke -5 degrees.

But we didn’t let that bother us. After breakfast, we trudged out into the cold weather, headed over to the local golf course, and did some sledding. This was the first sledding I’ve done since I was a kid, but it was fun. We found a good hill and off we went. I think I did about four runs. Coming up the hill was tough and none of us (except, perhaps, Cali) lasted longer than 30 minutes in the cold, cold weather. But we had a good time.

Eric and I had a rematch of Yankees vs. St. Louis on ESPN Basebal and I lost once again, but did a little better than yesterday.

After lunch, Eric and I went downtown and I got a birds-eye view of the capital of New York, from the top of the tallest building between New York City and Montreal. (It was somewhere around 40+ stories). By then, the skies had cleared up but the temperatures were still below freezing. Eric let me borrow his camera to take some pictures:

Eric made dinner in the evening–chicken and tortillas, with a salad, all of which was excellent. We closed out the evening watching the season premier of 24.