Shaw Girl Happenings

Another beautiful day dawned, and it was off to Cascade Mountain. Except for me, as my knee buckled on the descent from Giant the day before, forcing me to hobble down the mountain at an excruciatingly slow old lady pace (which was, unfortunately, exactly how I felt.) I took off with a couple other hikers for Baxter Mountain, an easy hike. Baxter looked, felt, and smelt, just like hiking back home, complete with humidity and bugs, so with an attitude of "why bother?" we bagged the hike, and headed for the ice cream shack that we had passed back on the road. It seemed a much more noble pursuit. Katie and Matthew, however, enjoyed Cascade and the summit.

Then it was off to Lake Placid to see the sights. Matthew and I snuck into the Olympic Ice Arena complex and gave ourselves a tour.


Here we are on the ice of the 1980 Rink, where the "Miracle on Ice" occurred. Shortly after this photo was taken, we were kicked off the ice by a skater who yelled at us in German.





Many thanks to Val and the Adventurer's Group: Ben, Jan, Jill, Becky, Nick, Lindsey, Maria, and Becky, for an excellent adventure. And no bear ever disturbed our camp or food, although I think a couple of chipmunks did.

Labels: Adirondacks, Katie, Matthew, Sue

The trouble with climbing Giant, the 12th highest peak in the Adirondacks, is that you have to start at the bottom. Now this probably seems obvious, but with most of the other peaks, once you drive your car to the trail head, you are already at 2000+ feet. With Giant, or its full title, Giant-of-the-Valley, you start in that valley at the bottom and climb up for 3 miles. Up, up, and then up some more. You scramble over rocks, you hoist yourself up over boulders. You grab onto trees, worn smooth from countless other hands, and pull yourself ever upward. Near the top we entered into an alpine forest. The trees changed, the flowers changed, the aroma changed. The views are magnificent. But I made it, scraped hands, scraped knee, with every ski injury I've inflicted on my body screaming for attention, I made it. I could see Whiteface, including the ski trails. I could see Mt. Marcy. I could see the Lake Champlain Valley. I could see Vermont. I could see New Hampshire. I could see my children, gazing in wonderment.

Labels: Adirondacks, Katie, Matthew, Sue

After an extensive car ride, featuring a scenic by-pass through downtown Schenectady for reasons that escape me, we arrived in the Keene Valley, home of the High Peaks. After a quick jaunt to our campsite, at the base of Roaring Brook Falls, we set up the tent under a canopy of tall hemlocks, packed our food in the bear canister, and off we went in search of the top of the falls some 400 feet above our campsite. You can't really see the falls from the top, as the water just drops straight down from the sheered off bedrock. We hopped across the stream, stood on the rocks, took pictures and enjoyed the view. (On the ride home, I read that people have slipped, plummeted, and died doing exactly what we weredoing. Ignorance is sometimes dangerously blissful...) We gazed to the southeast towards the summit of Giant-of-the-Valley Mountain, our goal for the next day.

Labels: Adirondacks, food, Katie, Matthew, nature, Sue, vacation

Katie's dreams came true on her birthday, yesterday, as she became the proud owner of an Excelsior White Pearl Accordion. I probably am the only mom in the county who has a 17 year old who is enamored with the accordion. She has begged for accordion lessons for a couple of years. Her brothers response? "Oh great, now we have to listen to her practice on that."

Labels: birthday, Katie, music

As a student in "Independent Art", Katie was responsible for her own art show. Here's a showcase of her work from this May.

Some close ups:

Labels: Katie

Now that Brian is in his senior year, I didn't even take pictures of him taking off to college. Stupid, lazy, and I regret it. However, I did manage to snap one of Matthew, and we have Katie on the porch (all by herself, for the first time) on the first day of school and a picture of the teacher going off to school, too.

Labels: Brian, Katie, Matthew

Well loyal readers, I have been absent from the blog scene for way too long. I wandered over to the dark side, the FaceBook side, and have spent too much time reading about "friends" and their high scores in PuddleJumping, and whatever, and have created a virtual life with "friends" I don't give a damn about.

Enough.

I have some issues happening that I would like to explore through this blog. Not for the whole world to read, (although the world can navigate here if they would like), but for those who want to read, want to comment, want to explore.
Here's a picture of Katie, Mother, and Daddy, on Katie's 16th Luau Birthday Party back in July. What a wonderful day! Such a blessing to have my parents here for both Matthew's graduation party, and Katie's birthday. And check out Hannah! She came in full regalia! Such fun!

Labels: birthday, food, Hannah, Katie, party

Friday morning Rebecca and Molly meet us at the house and we all took off for 49 Degrees North. Rebecca announced that she had a new name for Molly, namely "Slow or Stopped". Seems like we're always waiting for Molly, but in reality, it was Katie who we waited for before we could drive off. Katie was poking around, getting her things in order in no particular hurry, while Daddy muttered away with impatience. I looked at him, and calmly said "Katie is our Molly", and everyone smiled and relaxed. We drove off, just 15 minutes behind our schedule. We do like to hit the slopes early.

49 Degrees North is in Chewelah, Washington, about on the 49th parallel, near the Canadian border. The summit, Chewelah Peak, is 5774 ft with a vertical drop of 1851 ft. Dad's got a season pass here. Cost him about $70 for the season. Last year, it was our favorite place to ski. This year, not our favorite. Only half the chairs were running, and the grooming was sub par. Although we did have another beautiful sunshiny blue sky day! Near the end of the day, all of us, including Daddy, headed for this supposedly blue groomer which none of us had ever skied. All started out well, nicely groomed and scenic, then the vertical ran out. We had to skate up the hill. By this time, if we had turned back, we would have had to climb the other way. The trail finally turned back down the mountain, but the grooming ran out. We were dealing with heavy powder, accented with granite and logs. Not good for 85 year-old legs. After maneuvering through this, we ended up on a gentle downward slope that ran over a mile, and then dumped us into the main bowl. After that run, we all called it a day and headed home.

Ahh, dinner! Pasta with shrimp and sauteed portabellas, salad, and a yogurt, fruit, chocolate parfait, all fat and sugar free. My mom's unbelievable. Then we all were ushered to the TV room to watch the Gonzaga Bulldog basketball game. Mother had a running commentary throughout the game. "He's a brute!" and "Look at his skinny legs, I don't think he's eating enough." So much fun!






This tree is an icon of Ullr, the prehistoric god of skiing. If you ring his bell, you will return to the mountains to ski another day. This is Matthew in '08.

Labels: food, Katie, Molly, Rebecca, skiing

Katie and I sure had a great trip out west to ski with Grandpa! Traveling out was a bit hairy, and a strange route to be sure. South to DC, west to Seattle, east to Spokane. Hot coffee spilled in my lap somewhere over the mid-west, and since I was boxed in between Katie and some huge guy who took his seat and half of mine, the coffee just settled into me and burned my skin. When we finally hit Spokane, 13 hours after we started, I smelled like sour milk (from the cream in my coffee), my thighs and belly stung with every movement, and I was not a happy camper. Somehow, our skis and boots got to Spokane 4 hours before we did. As soon as we hit the house, exchanged our hugs and hellos, I stripped off my smelly jeans, put on my pajama bottoms, and helped myself to Daddy's bourbon. Since he can't drink anymore, I figured I'd help him out by cleaning out the liquor cabinet, one drink at a time.



Even though skiing in the western Rockies with my 85 year-old father was the emphasis of the trip, my mother's cooking was the real highlight. That night, we enjoyed a roasted turkey breast, sweet potato fries, salad, and a blueberry cake for dessert. All of my mother's cooking is fat-free and sugar free, but it's hard to believe. One taste, and your eyes close, your taste buds tingle and you "mmmm" with delight. Katie and I didn't last long that first evening, and soon headed to bed. Katie got to sleep in my old 4 poster bed, which she thought was very comfy.



In the morning, we met up with Molly and Rebecca and headed over to Silver Mountain in Kellogg, Idaho. Our favorite run was on the Wardner Peak at 6200 feet. We traversed across this slope (i.e. cliff) on this tiny track until we reached "Meadows" an innocent enough sounding bowl with a warning sign of "experts only, ski at your own risk, death may occur." An ungroomed trail, with mogals everywhere, plus a few chunks of granite and trees thrown in for good measure, fell before us. Before we started, Katie and Molly struck a "heroic pose" to gear us up for the descent. It took us a good 1/2 hour to ski it down, as it was so long, but the effort was worth it, and the skiing was thrilling. That evening for dinner, Mother served us lamb stew with mashed potatoes, and bread pudding for dessert. So delicious, and again fat-free and sugar-free. Heaven. Early to bed again!Katie and Daddy on Silver's gondola and Rebecca & Molly, sporting tams, on gondola

Labels: food, Katie, Molly, Rebecca, skiing, Spokane

Matthew and I have just returned from Rochester from the New York State School Music Conference. Matthew was selected to sing in the Mixed Chorus along with 240 of the top high school vocalists in the state. This is the cream of the crop, and to have someone like Matthew from our little school (his class has 47, count 'em, 47 students in it) singing at the same level (or better) as vocalists from performing arts high schools, Long Island, and the Big Apple, was just a thrill. It was definitely, a once in a lifetime experience! The picture above is of the 3 students from our county who made All-State. Matthew is in the middle.

Matthew attended over 20 hours of rehearsal in 3 days, and performed at the Eastman School of Music, the premier music school in the US. I kept busy by attending a bunch of great workshops for music educators, and concert after concert. Click here for a link to a newspaper article about Matthew.






On another note, (get it, another note...) here's a picture of Katie, the Adventurous, getting ready to try her Sea Urchin Nori Roll at the dim sum restaurant next to the Eastman theater. Katie reports that sea urchin is "tasty, but slimy..." She is eager to tell her biology teacher, who has sea urchin in a fish tank at school, that she dined on one of those spiny creatures.

Labels: food, Katie, Matthew, music

Here's a few pics of our Sunday afternoon hike, on yet another gorgious fall day in western New York. This one is about a 5 mile chunk of the East Overland Trail. This sign is right off the parking lot. Doesn't it make you want to just jump right in and start hiking?












This hollow was just
beautiful,
with the sun filtering through the trees, the scent of fall, and the brook babbling (babble, babble, babble...)

Labels: Katie, nature, Rick

Katie and I had another great adventure! Along with our friends Concetta and Micaela, we planned, packed, paddled, and successfully completed an overnight canoe trip on the mighty Conewango! After a few weeks of sitting around the house, as slugs, while Katie recovered from her tonsillectomy (and, by her choice, in-grown toenail surgery), discovering our long lost canoe muscles, the great outdoors, and primitive camping was a delight!

The old canoe paddled like a charm, even loaded down with all our gear. Astute blog readers will notice that Katie is using an original "Shaw" paddle, that originally belonged to the Thistle of yacht club days.
The Conewango is a slow moving river this time of year. The current was barely discernible. It's mostly flat water, and when the wind was against us, if we stopped paddling we drifted upstream. We stopped at this peninsula, about 6 miles from our start, for a break. Keeping our eyes ever vigilant for wildlife, Concetta spotted the rarely seen, (at least on canoe trips) but always impressive, Holstein cow. The bovine wandered down to the rivers' edge opposite of our peninsula, and was totally unimpressed with our cow calls. Other than the cow, we saw a few heron, but not much else.

We spent the night on an island which has 2 Adirondack style shelters, a broken pit toilet, a fire ring, picnic table, docking area, mosquitoes, and that's it! As soon as we landed and unpacked, we gathered firewood, started a fire, and sat at our table to relax. If you ever want to go primitive camping, you want to bring Micaela with you. "Be prepared" is her motto. She announced "I have nail polish! I have perfume!" So we all painted our nails bright fuchsia pink, to cover up all the dirt we had under our nails, and were welcome to spray on perfume to cover our grubby canoe aroma. We dined on foil dinners, sushi, and wine. Probably a bit too much wine; after dinner I slipped on the river bank and fell in!

The next morning there was a bit of rain, and the day started out gray and cloudy. After our typical camping breakfast of toasted bagels, bacon, and coffee, we packed up and headed out. We paddled around the island, and then headed downstream into Pennsylvania. The sun came out, burning off the cloud cover and revealing another beautiful day. A great blue heron sat on an old log and allowed us to paddle up closely. With our tired muscles protesting, we loaded the canoes on our rooftops, and drove home. We were gone just 25 hours, but it seemed as though we had traveled to another world and back. Maybe, that's just what we did...

Labels: Katie, sports, Sue, vacation

A historic occasion! For the first time ever, the third generation of Will and Shirley (i.e. all the cousins) were together. Meeting in the same amusement park their great-grandparents visited on dates almost 100 years ago, the cousins gathered at, historic, Midway Park for Carrie's and Emily's birthdays. After much discussion on how to take a proper corn row (oldest to youngest? shortest to tallest?) the photo was snapped.

Here's a heroic shot of the cousins with the picnic grove in the background. (Heroic poses seem to dominate many of my photos this year. The common denominator in each shot appears to be Matthew...)
Thanks to Jake, the family's "Ace of Cakes", we had 2 delicious decorated cakes for the celebration.
And finally, a last photo of the sisters: Carrie, Hannah, and Sue. Rebecca and Molly, we missed you!!!
For more pictures of the visit, with rare photos of Rick and Kenyon, click here!

Labels: Brian, Carrie, food, Hannah, Katie, Matthew, party, Spokane, Sue, vacation

Labels: Katie

How many Shaw Girls went to All-County in the Amp at Chautauqua? I went a bunch of times, first on my flute in the jr. high band, and then with my oboe in the senior band. Matthew and Katie were participants this year in the senior high chorus, and the junior high chorus, repectively. It was a nice, warm, beautiful day for the event. Astute blog readers might be able to spot Katie. This shot is right in the middle of the the grand finale "Battle Hymn of the Republic." The finale still gives me shivers after all these years.

Labels: Katie, Matthew, music

I hope you all had a great Memorial Day! We went to the 21st Annual Turnquist/Liuzzo Picnic on Sunday. Beautiful weather here in WNY. Lots of people come to this. Rick's cousins from Ohio and Iowa always make it, and even Mother and Daddy have been to this twice. This is a carnivore event, as demonstrated above by Katie. I bring baked beans and the United States of Jello every year. (I should have taken a picture of the jello.) Rick's sister Tina and her family (Liuzzo) host the event in their backyard every year.


Here's a picture of my nephew Wallace checking out my niece Ylsa's baby belly. In another month, I'm going to be a great aunt!

Labels: food, Katie, party, Rick

Katie earned her varsity letter this fall for the Girls Swim Team. Her two ribbons are from the counties swim meet, where all the teams meet to compete. She is a free style sprinter, and relay member swimming both front crawl and backstroke. Congratulations, Katie!

Labels: Katie, sports

The culminating project of "Big Time Productions" was a delight! Rick's niece Ylsa's married her business partner Angelo of "Big Time Productions" on a beautiful October afternoon. The bride and groom were so excited about their wedding that they could hardly contain their joy. Our whole family was involved (except for Brian who's at college.)

Katie was a "Lady in Waiting" (i.e. the "official skirt fluffer", a job shared with her cousin.) Matthew, Rick, and I sang "Alleluia" by Randall Thompson, in the choral group formed for the occasion. Plus, I did some custom sewing for the groom; I embellished Angelo's jacket with ribbon, sewed up a brocade vest (black with gold and silver thread, trimmed in crimson), an ascot and a pocket square. Angelo's ascot, etc. matched the crimson trim in Ylsa's dress. Very sharp! When I delivered Angelo's outfit to him, he couldn't hug me enough, saying "this is exactly what I envisioned!"

The reception was so fun. As Ylsa and Angelo are professional dancers, we just danced ourselves silly. Angelo, lead us all in the Tarantella, saying "I've waited my whole life to lead this!" We danced the Tarantella around in circles, dancing down the middle of clapping lines, and back around in circles for probably 20 minutes, until the band gave up and went on break!






Here's the cake! It sums up the wedding:
yup it's a wedding cake, but what fun!

For more photos click HERE!

Labels: food, Katie, Matthew, music, party