The Big E on film!

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The Big E on digital

We went to the Big E a couple of weekends ago. We took Sienna out of school on Friday and had big plans on meeting up with “Uncle Peeder” and Mike. Both parties even reserved a hotel room for the night! Well, Mother Nature had other plans for us. I forgot the name of the hurricane but they were predicting heavy rains, flooding and wind. It didn’t turn out as bad as they said but we opted not to do the fair on Friday but went Saturday instead. Saturday was a perfect sunny day. Unfortunately, because Mike had work Saturday night, they could not do the same. It was a bummer not being able to spend the day at the fair with them. I hope it will work out for next year.

Driving up to the fair on Friday morning took FOREVER! What would normally take about 3 hours, took 6! Lots of traffic and congestion (and not at the spots we thought there would be-smooth sailing on the Whitestone Bridge!) We weren’t in a rush but it was bizarre how we were stuck in traffic not very far from our house and it was so long that Sienna had to pee. We had no choice but to put a pull up on her and at first we had to coerce her to pee in the pull up! We felt so bad that we were reprogramming her. We stopped for lunch at a place called Sherwood Diner. Not bad, your standard diner fare. We got to City Place Inn at around 3:30, went into the pool for a bit, showered and headed to the mall in search of dinner. We ended up eating at Friendly’s. We got back to the hotel and was surprised to see Pete and Mike sitting outside! We finally get to meet Mike! Of course Sienna was delighted to see Uncle Peeder!

Anyway, the next morning we had breakfast at the hotel. We didn’t want anything fancy so we can save room for fair food. Honestly, there really isn’t that much to say about the fair. We got there early (9:30) and breezed right in. Got the yummy mini donuts, saw some animals, Sienna rode some rides, Sienna started getting cranky, we started getting cranky, we ate some lunch and pretty much left. That was in 3 hours. I know we weren’t going to spend all day at the fair because we had to drive home but I was hoping to squeeze at least another hour out of Sienna. Oh well. Sienna was pretty tired because I don’t think she slept very well in the hotel. She ended up climbing into our king size bed in the middle of the night and spent it mostly keeping Yves up while I snored away on my end of the bed.

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Needless to say, Sienna enjoyed the mini donuts as much as Yves!
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Her first ride. I don’t know if you could tell but she wanted to get off by the 3rd go around.
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No drama on this ride
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She seemed to enjoy the ferris wheel although she said she was scared even though we were all sitting together.
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I know she doesn’t look it here but I think she liked riding the pony. She wanted to ride the elephant afterwards but it was vetoed (only because we told her to pick either the pony or the elephant to ride and not both!)
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This pumpkin was over 1,000 lbs!

I had some fun fiddling with some photos and applying some retro actions and putting them in retro frames.
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I also did some fake lomos.
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I’ll post some holga shots soon.

CSA farm

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Our CSA is over in November and I haven’t really written about it. It started in June and I was a little overwhelmed in the beginning. I got better at it but there were still a few things that ended up in the garbage because I waited too long to use it or didn’t know what to do with it. Some pluses are that we discovered a like for swiss chard, mustard greens and leafy greens of that nature (and that they taste extra delicious when you saute them with turkey bacon!) Also Yves also discovered that he likes pesto!

We also got a fruit share and got some really yummy peaches, apples and pears. There was some fruit that was a letdown such as the watermelon. It wasn’t very sweet and it had seeds (I got spoiled eating the seedless!) But that’s from a different farm.

Anyhow, we were invited to visit the farm at the end of September. It took a little over 2 hours to get there, it was up by Warwick, NY. We got brunch with fresh squeezed orange juice (totally wasted on Sienna because she doesn’t like the pulp.) The french toast was a little disappointing as the crust of the bread was really hard. The omelet was better but I could have eaten 3 of them and the potatoes were cold. 🙁 The “tour” consisted of a girl telling us the history of the farm and allowing us to pick some stuff. Sienna and I picked a couple of edible flowers and I tried to find some basil but the season was pretty much over for that.

We were disappointed with the trip but at the same time, it was interesting to see the farm where our vegetables come from.
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Cool city girl waiting for her country breakfast
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BB park

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Easter Sunday I had in mind to go down to the newly opened Pier 1 of the {still renovating} Brooklyn Bridge Park for a picnic with Yves and Sienna. Sienna had a slight fever of 100.3 so we opted not to go. Her fever was gone on Monday so I felt it was ok to go to the Etsy Labs and had some time to check out the area before going to the labs. Not what I had imagined but very pretty anyway. There is still a lot to be done with the park and I’m really surprised about all the things they are planning! A beach! A tidal pool! Here’s the plan!
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Raya playdate

Sunday we had a playdate with Raya, the 3.5 year old daughter to my old friend Tami. Tami and I were best friends in elementary school. We hooked up again around 2001 because she knows Tommy from college, what a small world. We lost touch after that and then hooked up again because of Facebook. We met at the playground by the Brooklyn Bridge. I love that playground mostly because I love the view of the Brooklyn Bridge, it’s my favorite bridge. Afterwards, we had lunch at Bubby’s.

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I love that smile on her face in this shot!
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Tami and Raya
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Robert and Raya (and my shadow)
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Raya kisses Sienna
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Going down the slide
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Sienna eating a biscuit at Bubby’s. She got a scrape on the side of her face from a fall.
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Yves cutting up Sienna’s french toast
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Even though Yves cut up little pieces, Sienna grabs the big piece he didn’t cut up!
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My smoked chicken salad sandwich

Shopsin’s Visit

Once again I am behind in my posts so I will try to catch up in the next couple of days. A lot has happened last week! On Tuesday I met up with Pete for lunch at our favorite Shopsin’s. It’s been awhile since we have gone! We have to get back on going regularly again. We opted to get some sandwiches and share them. We decided on the Rooster, chicken salad with avocado on cheesy garlic bread. YUM. Then also we got High School, turkey and sausage with mushroom gravy. YUM.

The rooster came first and I was pleasantly surprised that the chicken salad was warm! OH MY GOSH! Heaven! I would never have thought something as simple as warm chicken salad would make such a big difference. Then the High School came out. It was in a bowl!! It had bread in there but I guess they put it in a bowl because of the gravy. Thick and gooey gravy. Delicious!!

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Pete was on his lunch hour so we started heading back. I got home to find that Sienna has a fever (she had felt a tad warm when I left but I was hoping it would subside). More on that in the next post.

Dark Was The Night

Sunday I went to see Dark Was The Night at Radio City with Joy. She first lured me to go by saying that Ben Harper was supposed to play it. He didn’t – DOY! (I think he was at the Pete Seeger celebration at the Garden) but it was a great show anyway! It started around 8:15, had a 20 minute intermission and ended about 11:115ish. We had pretty good seats, first mezz in row C. Alison was there with Josh in the orchestra. ;-p~

Dark Was The Night is a compilation that benefits the Red Hot Charity Organization and all the benefits go to prevent Aids and for Aids research (I believe). You might  remember past compilations such as Red, Hot and Blue or Red, Hot and Rio.

Stand outs for me were David Byrne (I was surprised at how good his voice sounded as I’ve only seen him live with Talking Heads), My Brightest Diamond, Feist, Bon Iver, and Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. Honestly, I really enjoyed everyone!Here is the setlist taken from brooklynvegan.

Dark Was The Night @ Radio City Music Hall 5/3/09 – Setlist (started by Happy Genius Heroes)
1. Dirty Projectors – “useful chamber” and ‘stillness”
2. Dirty Projectors – “Stillness Is the Move”
3. Dirty Projectors – “Ambulance Man” w/ David Byrne
4. Dirty Projectors – “Knotty Pine” w/ David Byrne
5. My Brightest Diamond – “Feeling Good”
6. The National – “Slow Show”
7. The National – “England”
8. The National – “So Far Around The Bend”
9. The National – “Vanderlylle Cry Baby” w/ My Brightest Diamond
10. Dave Sitek – “With A Girl Like You”
11. David Byrne – “Don’t Fence Me In”
12. David Byrne – “Dreamworld: Marco de Canavezes” w/ Justin Vernon
13. David Byrne – “Waters Of March” w/ Leslie Feist
14. Bon Iver – “Brackett, WI”
15. Bon Iver – “Blood Bank”
16. Bon Iver – “Big Red Machine” w/ Matt Berninger
17. Bon Iver – “Flume” w/ My Brightest Diamond
18. Feist – “The Wagoner’s Lad”
19. Feist – “Look At What the Light Did Now”
20. Feist – “Train Song” w/ Justin Vernon
21. Feist – “Someday Baby”
22. Sharon Jones – “Not Gonna Cry”
23. Sharon Jones – “When I Come Home”
24. Sharon Jones – “Inspiration Information”
25. Sharon Jones – “100 Days, 100 Nights”
Encore
All – “This Land Is Our Land”
(they were playing the song rather mellow and then Sharon Jones came out to show them how to really sing it!)

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David Byrne with the Dirty Projectors
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My Brightest Diamond
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The National and My Brightest Diamond
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Feist
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David Sitek of TV on the Radio
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I loved these drummers that came out with David Byrne and I loved that he played 2 songs from past compilations that were never heard live!
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Bon Iver and My Brightest Diamond
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Sharon Jones
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The Finale

Grandma March Visit

Some cute photos of Sienna and Grandma that I wanted to post before I forget about them! It’s amazing how fast Sienna has grown!

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Jamaica Holgas

Here are some holgas I took in Jamaica. I’ve never been a beach person but I’m sure that would be different if I grew up with beaches like the ones in Jamaica!

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Pumpkins and a cow, oh my!

Saturday we met up with Tammy, Mark and Vitamin Z at the Queens County Farm Museum for some pumpkin picking (or pumpkin picking upping as corrected by Yves as we weren’t literally picking pumpkins, just picking them up off the ground) I was unsure about the place, it being Queens and all, but it wasn’t bad! It was actually perfect for Sienna. Not too overwhelming but enough things to entertain her. There were farm animals (a cow, sheep and horses) and some sort of birds roaming around (which I thought were turkeys but no one agreed with me) and chickens and roosters. There is a corn maze but there was a sign that said it was a bit muddy so we didn’t bother. And we picked up lunch at the lone food stand where they made gyros and kebabs which were actually pretty good! Go figure! Zack ended up having to leave a bit early as he was cranky from being woken up from his nap to meet us.

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running after the unidentified birds
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Mark and mini Mark
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Zack as snuggle bunny
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Sienna kept trying to pick up huge pumpkins!
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So many pumpkins! Which one to pick?
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This one!
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Tammy & Mark choose 3 pumpkins. I asked what they were going to do with them and Tammy said roast the seeds. She asked what I was going to do with ours and I said ‘decorate it and let it rot!’
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At first Sienna didn’t want to go up to the chickens or the cow. We had to convince her it was ok.

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