Blizzard 2015

 Today, my colleague Brooke and I had day 1 of our 3.5 day adventure in NYC, that coincided with the onset of the massive Blizzard Juno! We had two appointments today (would have been 3, but one person needed to cancel), so I thought I would document the onset of the storm!

From 8am to 8:30, here's the difference in the view from Cornell Medical School on the East side 

Check out how much less visibility there is just 30 min later!

11:30am: After walking around some, we go to hang out in our room and work before our afternoon appointment. Times Square doesn't look too different from this morning, just far less busy than one would anticipate on a Monday 

1:20pm: everything is getting prettier. View is from the Icahn school of medicine on the upper east side 

1:45pm: there are now icy pellets banging against the window. This probably isn't good, since we are supposed to be here until 4

2:45pm: definitely more snow!

3:45pm: even more!

And visibility is gone. 

At that point we were done, so we headed back to the hotel. It took a while to find a cab, so I took a selfie in the snow!

Then we changed and wandered around Times Square a bit on our way to find some dinner 

And the view from our room around 5pm

During dinner the snow tapered off a bit, so I took my real camera back outside for some snow photos of Times Square. Once I can get internet on my computer I will post those! (I'm posting this from my  phone)

As of now (about 10:15pm) the wind and snow are picking back up...it will be very interesting to see how this looks in the morning!

Society for Neuroscience, 2014

In 2014, the annual Society for Neuroscience conference was held in November in Washington, DC which made it easy to get there, and meant I didn't have to spend 5-6 days away from my family, which was really nice! I attended the conference for the first 3 days (Sun-Tues), and then went back for just a couple of hours with Natalie on Wednesday (more on that below).

We grabbed some photos of ourselves in our snappy (e.g. exceptionally bright) shirts (we wore different colors each day - green way Day 1.

And I took some photos of the booth, as it looks a little different each year!

Day 2 was purple

And Day 3 was our new snazzy day-glo orange. We were certainly spottable!

Remember I mentioned above that Natalie joined us? On Day 4, I spent the morning at the office and then picked her up a bit early from school and drove into DC with her. I figured how often does a 1st grader get the chance to see a neuroscience conference with 30,000 attendees? She had a great time; even wanted to put on one of our orange shirts. She got her own badge, and we walked around the other vendor booths checking things out as well. It was really cool that I got to bring her!

 

This fall we head to Chicago for the conference (in October), so Natalie won't be able to join in. The conference hasn't been there since 2009, so it'll be interesting to see how it is there now. Before then I'm going to two other conferences and I'm sure will have some fun things to share from them...particularly the second one, which is in Vancouver in June. Should be stunning!

Henry's winter party

My goodness...it looks like this is the penultimate holiday-related post! This one, one more, then my back-log from October and November...so maybe 2014 can get finished up before January is over?
(I wrote the above at the beginning of the week, and then traveled and didn't get this post up. So I'm not sure I can squeeze this all in before the end of the month, but I'll see what I can do!)
Here's hoping so! I've still got a week left in the month, so I think I can, I think I can!

First up, Henry's winter party! They do 3 big parties at preschool every year: Halloween, Winter, and Valentine's Day. In the past, the Winter party has been my favorite (as I've either helped with it or run it!), but this year I did the Halloween party instead, to mix it up a bit. So it was kind of nice to get to just enjoy the Winter party...and with an added guest: my sister! Carrie came up for that whole weekend before Christmas, and was able to arrange it to be here all day Friday as well (so we could do our sister day together, but also to attend Henry's party). Henry was very excited to have her there too!

The moms did a great job with the snacks. Fruit cups decorated like Santa, jello cups decorated like the Grinch, snowman cheese sticks...so cute!

 

But not as cute as my little guy!  The photo on the right was after Carrie and I helped him to make a snow measuring stick. Sadly, we really haven't gotten enough snow yet this year to use it, but we hope we can soon!

 

The kids played a game, then got "dressed" to do their songs for us!

Then it was time for my favorite part: the adorable performances!

Listen at the end of this one for what the girl says to Henry after the song is over - adorable!

They asked the parents to join in on this one, to help...you can hear the point where the kids no longer need our help!

Gingerbread contest at NIH

I had hoped to get a "better" post up tonight than this one, but I'm experiencing some computer issues currently (it seems that my computer has decided to no longer recognize my power cable, which means the battery won't charge, and everything is running extraordinarily slow. To the Amazons!). Anyway, I did want to post something, as it's been 5 days (oops!), so I thought I'd throw up this kind of random post as it'll be quick and easy.

In December I needed to go to NIH for a day to meet a couple of clients. When I was walking through the clinical building (Building 10), I saw the entrants for the yearly Gingerbread contest that apparently they run every year (I worked there for 4 years and didn't know about this!).



There was of course a Star Wars entry!

 I enjoyed this submission from the NIH library staff (left), and a group who did an interpretation from the LEGO movie (right)!

 

 There were winners for this contest too. Third place went to this beautifully constructed house.

Second place went to one of about three Frozen-inspired castles; this one was by far the best.

And first place went to this beautiful Dr. Seuss-inspired creation!

Really cool to see! One of the things I love about my job is stumbling across random things like this in my travels :)

Natalie is so grown up!

Remember how last month Natalie turned 7? I can still hardly believe it. Today we had her 7 year check up - everything is great! She's just over 49" tall (69th %) and 52 pounds (56th %). She answered the doctor's questions very maturely, and did very well overall (with the minor freakout over having to get a flu shot, which of course was nowhere near as bad as she had psyched herself out in her head!). 

In addition to that, we've done a couple other "big girl" things since she's turned 7. Based on a few recommendations, we decided to get her vision checked at the eye doctor (not just the quick pediatrician test), and she did amazingly well! I could hardly believe how well she did with everything. She let the doctor do the puff test, shine a light right in each eye...very impressive! And even better, everything checked out normal, so no need for glasses yet!

 

 

I also took her to the "new" Sweet and Sassy Spa near Wegmans. It's been around for at least 6 months or so, but this was the first time we could get there. She told the stylist what she wanted; I didn't even really need to be there!

 

After the cut, she received an "Elsa" braid complete with glittery hairspray. I think we found her new favorite place :)

 

It's so great to get to watch her grow into the person that she is, and see how she handles each new thing we do. I'm very much looking forward to what 2015 brings in that regard (with both kids, of course)!

Christmas Part 2: Christmas with the Macbeths

Ok, finishing up Christmas! We celebrated Christmas Eve and Day with Evan's parents visiting, and continued our now-tradition of going out to eat for Christmas Eve, and cooking dinner on Christmas night. We went out to eat at Firebirds, in the shopping center just behind Wegmans. We had actually gone there two years ago for dinner, also with Evan's parents, but this year was better in that I wasn't very sick this time! I was actually starting to feel a slight cold coming on (which did really hit by Dec 26), but was definitely feeling a lot better than in 2012! I even decided to wear the same dress, to make this year a complete redo of the previous time there at Christmas. This year, we even got Henry to dress up!

 We then walked down to the Village at Leesburg Christmas tree to take a few pictures, despite the spitting rain! It was too pretty to miss.

 

 The kids were being so sweet together, walking back to the car!

 When we got home it was time to put out cookies for Santa and the reindeer!

 And then change into jammies and read "Twas the Night Before Christmas"

 Then, "Santa" came and I took a photo of all of the gifts that were left for Christmas morning.

 Christmas morning was very good for the kids! They loved everything that they got. I love seeing the looks of excitement on their faces! I enjoyed taking a few photos, but I really didn't want to spend the whole time snapping pictures, so I took a few and then put my camera away. It was more fun to just enjoy the time with them!

 As I've posted about previously, the kids love  playing "Face/Off". This year Santa stepped up the game, bringing the kids model heads, play doh, and tattoo pens so they can really make their creations! I think this was the first thing they really played with on Christmas morning.

 And I had to get a photo of the aftermath - everyone did pretty well!

 Including Calla, who received special carob biscuits!

There was actually one more Christmas surprise....a new keyboard! The kids were so excited to discover this in the basement, and since then we have made good use of it, as Evan has ordered some sheet music and been recovering his piano skills, and Natalie has begun taking piano lessons.

 It was a pretty musical Christmas!

 

After that Natalie started to feel a bit rundown and ended up sleeping for a good chunk of the day; poor thing had a fever for about 24 hours and was just totally run down! I felt so badly for her. She wasn't even up to eating the shrimp and scallops that I got and made for dinner, which she normally loves and we only have on special occasions! Poor thing. I was glad it passed within 24 hours; definitely not a fun time to be sick!

 Speaking of dinner, here was our lovely Christmas dinner at my dining room table! Evan cooked steak, I made the seafood, Lynn made mashed potatoes, and we cooked up some green beans and rolls. At that point, my Aunt Linda had also joined us (she stayed in town until Sunday morning, hanging out with us), and so she ate Christmas dinner with us too. It was fun to have a full house! I hope everyone else had an enjoyable Christmas too :)