What's a ranunc?

Many of you know my brother married an ultra-talented girl. Recently she emailed me about her new blog http://ranuncsandco.com/. I immediately thought "what the heck does that even mean?" Turns out ranuncs is a beautiful flower. My flower knowledge runs from roses to hydreangeas and the detail knowledge that a Gerber daisy is different than a regular daisy. But she was a landscape architect major and loves horticulture so she knows about this stuff and most importantly makes beautiful arrangements

Although my favorite posts to date have been with her artwork. She makes designs on the computer and then carves them into wood to make stamps. She recently entered an art show, won a prize and sold both her works (pictures on her blog). It's amazing! I don't think we'll be tackling her projects any time soon at Pinterest craft night! If you want to be inspired, you should add her to your reader.

That's a ranunculus from her Easter arrangement

A very unorganized parade

Right now there are lots of activities around town for Rochesterfest, a 2 week celebration. Last weekend rained through most of it so we didn't go. This weekend we decided to go to the food extravaganza (think fair food) and the parade on Friday night. It was the WORST parade I've ever been to! It started late and then there were communication issues or something because tons of the participants were jumping into the parade halfway through so the whole thing would stop for 15 minutes while the marching band or all the retro cars cut in line. We could see them doing it from where we were sitting. It was bizarre. I mean I'm not an event planner, but don't you just line everyone up and off they go down the parade route?

Also, I've only been to big city parades in recent years so I'm not sure if these odd things are just Rochester or all smaller town parades:

Pretty much anyone can join the parade...which might be why it was so unorganized. Way too many participants.

Sit in a trailer and throw candy.

Church van. There were people from the church walking around handing out  info about church services. Really? I think you need to at least sing or something.

Tow truck with empty lawn chairs?


All of this wouldn't be so bad if the parade was moving along, but when any of these make a dead stop in front of you for 15 minutes? Not the best time to be spending with a 3 year old.

The amount of candy was extreme. I don't even remember candy being thrown at Sierra Vista parades. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but Penny came home with as much as Halloween. Good thing Chris had a doggie bag in his pocket so she could carry it. 

Penny waving and opening her bag for candy

One float was giving out string cheese. Huh?

McDonalds and Kemp's handed out chocolate milk. This was her first taste of chocolate milk she took a sip and said "mmmm, I like it. I don't want any more. You drink it."

But in all fairness they did have some of the regular things:

Many bands. We didn't see the marching band since they cut the line up ahead, but we got to see a few of these community bands. Senior citizens show up and listen to directions!

Various animal rescue societies. I liked the Greyhound float. They had a bunch of couches and a sign that said 45 mph Couch potato. Very true

Clowns

This church did actually do something. They had a great band of all ages.

I asked Chris if he wanted to join the Rochester All Men's Chorus. He said no. Maybe it was because they were lip synching to "I could have danced all night" from My fair Lady"

Penny being scared by a lion

Chris said he'd join the bagpipers. Can't wait to hear him practice!

Despite my complaints, Penny had a good time. We left at about 2 hours so we didn't get to see the shriners in the little cars. Not sure what else we missed. Hopefully next time they are a little more organized and a little pickier about who gets to be in the parade.

My little gymnast

A couple weeks ago Penny started a 1 month trial at JETS Gymnastics. She is loving it! The first time we went she threw a fit that she had to leave. I think she would have watched the older girls for 2 hours if we'd let her.

I came home and looked at my photos to find that the majority of them were of all the little kids sitting down watching the teacher demonstrate the moves. It really doesn't happen a lot in class, but I'm always amazed that she got 5 3-year-olds to sit down and listen that I take photos of it. It's like a solar eclipse or a sighting of a rare species...

Penny walking on the bars

Jumping into the pit. I love that they have a little version of the big gym for the little kids. No distractions from big kids  doing roundoff back handspring back tuck. 

She is good on the balance beam. She takes after her Aunt Jennifer.

 I feel like home at the gym. Although I was terrible at gymnastics, my mom taught it for years and my sister was a competitive gymnast until she hurt her back. That meant lots of hours at the gym for me and brother. We were sort of allowed to do whatever we wanted as long as we stayed out of the way of the classes. I'd jump on the tramp, sit in the corner with a book, take over for the secretary when she needed a break (yup, as a 3rd grader people handed me checks and I'd write receipts and update their records). What I never did was hang out in the lobby with all the parents watching the gymnasts through the glass window. There was always some mom who was loud and talked to anyone and everyone in the room. Well, now I'm a parent looking through the glass and guess what? 20 years later and nothing has changed. One of the mom's talks non-stop. As Chris put it, she wants to be "leader mom" so she comments on every move every kid makes. I think I could count maybe 20 seconds throughout the class when she wasn't talking. She isn't even making conversation and just talks over you if you answer with a "uh huh" or "you're right. so cute at this age" I'm an obsessive talker and even to me this is really weird. The other moms and I give each other looks. I'm trying to telepathically say "I don't know you, but would you back me up if told her to stop making comments about my kid?" I'm pretty sure they will.

So that's the gymnastics experience from both sides of the glass! Thanks for dealing with my little vent.

Mostly Wordless Wednesday: Triple B

Last year I started drinking Green Monsters. There are many green monster recipes out there, but I did a pretty basic one: almond milk, 1 cup of spinach, banana, sometimes flax seed powder or peanut butter. Now  with the CSA box, I decided to be a little bit more adventurous. We have LOTS of beets to eat, and since I'm the only one who likes them I came up with a new smoothie. Introducing the Triple B!

Blend blueberries (preferably frozen to make it really cold), beets, banana, almond milk and a handful of spinach. I promise it tastes good. Chris took a sip and said "not bad." Plus, I feel like a healthy superhero by having all those fruit and veggies right at the start of the day. Tip: dice the beets really small or else you have to blend it for a long time.

From the mouth of Penny

Penny says the craziest things, and besides a facebook post here and there I rarely write them down. So here goes...

Share Day--Every Friday is Share Day (Show and Tell). Now this is a balancing act. She will invariably pick a toy that she loves so much there is no way she will share it. Since she already has trouble with Share time I try to dissuade her. However, I have to convince her to pick a sort of liked toy, which of course takes some negotiating. I try to go through this on Thursday night, but if I forget it is a rush on Friday morning. This past Friday I said "Penny, we need to get you something for Share Day" Next thing I know she is standing next to me with a ziploc bag of raw eggs. I could see that one was cracked and oozing. She said "Mommy, this is for share day! Me and my friends are going to do magic and make chickens!" I told her the teachers wouldn't want eggs in the classroom and these eggs wouldn't become chickens. She didn't believe me on that last one, but I was able to convince her to bring her bouncy ball with sparkly butterflies. Raw eggs...bouncy ball...you can see how share day decisions can take a long time!

Penny in her pajamas showing me what she wanted to bring for "share day"

No Filter--Three year olds have absolutely no filter. It can be embarrassing some times. The other day on the bike ride home a woman was running towards us wearing a skin colored sports bra. Penny yelled "mommy that woman is naked!!" Unfortunately this was the one runner not wearing earphones. She looked shocked, but really, who wears a skin colored sports bra? She did look naked from far away.

Baby Sarah-- May 25th Facebook Post On the way to preschool today Penny said "mommy, tomorrow I'm going to get my baby sister Sarah. She's in China. You can't come. Sorry just me" It seems she has made friends with a couple of the adopted kids in her class!

June 1st Facebook Post The imaginary future sister Sarah from China saga continues...Penny has now put aside toys in birthday bags. She won't play with the toys because they are only for Sarah. She asked me if I'll make a card for Sarah because she is going to pick her up soon. Sigh...do I play pretend with her? She really seems to believe that she is going to get a new sister and I hate to lead her on. sigh...

The Sarah talk has died down a little over the past week. It was non-stop for a while there. This weekend in the car she said "I have a brother and Sarah has a brother and he is 64 years old" I told her it was pretty amazing that she has a brother older than her Grandpa!

Catch it to me! -- Penny is obsessed with baseball again this year. She always says "catch it to me". We tell her "no, say throw it to me" Today she started saying "Throw it to you" when she wanted me to throw it to her. 

Aurora -- Penny asks us daily "whats your name? Not Daddy, Chris, right? and Grandma's name is what? and Grandpa's name is what? and Mommy is Aurora?" We try to correct her that no Mommy is Laura, not Aurora. She yells at the top of her lungs "It's Aurora! My mommy is Princess Aurora!! Like the movie" Yeah, except for that tall blond, blue eyed princess sleeping beauty thing, I'm exactly like Aurora!

Mostly Wordless Wednesday: First CSA box

We got our first CSA box this weekend! Actually it didn't come in a box. Since we go directly to the farmer's stand at the farmer's market, he gives us a list of what we can take for our share. He said if there were things we didn't like we could swap it out for others. I'm going to try not to do that so I'll be forced to try new things. 

Here's all of our yummy treats from the first week:

 Kale
Snap peas
tomatoes (from the greenhouse)
cucumbers (from the greenhouse)
beets
garlic snape (that's the top of the garlic. Chris grilled it with asparagus. yum!)

Last night I ate roasted beets and brussel sprouts with goat cheese. As I was making it I was thinking of all the arguments my parents had about my picky eating. Dad--I still eat cereal for dinner at least once a week, but I definitely eat my veggies now!

A cool trick Chris did--destem a green pepper, cut an onion in quarters, throw the onion into the green pepper with olive oil and salt, wrap in tin foil and put on the grill. The onion is absolutely perfect!

(and yes, I'm going to put his trick on Pinterest and see where it goes)

(Mostly Wordless Wednesday is getting a lot wordier!)

Penny songs

We need some new Penny videos on the blog! A couple weeks ago I was reading the detailed list of activities on her preschool door. I've read it before, but this was the first time I computed that they do the pledge of allegiance every day. I asked Penny, "Do you know the pledge of allegiance?" and she did the Penny version.

For some reason when we take videos she gets a little loud and angry sounding. She shows a full range in this video :)


At Jardin they had made up a ton of songs to Frere Jacques (no idea on the spelling!). At Primrose "Oh, Clementine" seems to be the tune of choice. No matter what day of the week is she says "Tommorow's Saturday" I can understand. Saturday is a lot of fun!



And one less angry version of the Pledge of Allegiance.

8 mile

Nope, 8 mile doesn't have anything to do with Eminem. It's the number of miles I'm riding on my commute every day. I really wanted to continue my bike commuting. So far it is going well. Rochester has lots of trails. It is one of the top 20 bike cities in the US. After living in #1 (minneapolis) I can say there is a huge difference between #1 and "top 20". I'd hate to be in an unranked one. There are miles and miles of trails here, but it seems like a failed case of "Build them and they will ride." At most I see 2 or 3 other bikers on my morning ride. In Minneapolis on a nice day I could see over 100 riders on my 1 1/2 mile trip to work. Mayo does provide bike racks. My rough estimate is 100 slots available. I think the biggest obstacle is downtown. The cars aren't expecting bikers, the roads are narrow, patients don't know where they are going and there's this misconception that bikers should be on the sidewalk. People, it's illegal for me to be running into pedestrians on the sidewalk. I'm as far over in the shoulder as possible and following the rules of the road. No need to yell out of your car "get on the sidewalk." I was yelled at twice in May. I went to a "Learn to Bike to Work" class and it seems other people have had the same experience. 

The thing is Rochester should have a ton of bikers. As the director of parking and transportation explained on the first day of orientation, Mayo has a math problem. 10,000 employee parking spaces and 35,000 employees.   So there are lots of park and rides, shuttles and passes to ride the city buses downtown. Mayo is really very generous in figuring out ways to get employees downtown, but I'd have to say the parking situation is one of the most common complaints. Yet everyone talks about how great it is to live in a city with so little traffic. Ummmm....that's because 25,000 people are forced to take public transportation to work. Funny how so many people don't see how these correlate. It's like a city planner's dream. With so many employees within 2-5 miles radius of the clinic you'd think more would ride bikes.

So for my bike route, I hook up the Burley, ride 2 miles on beautiful trails to Penny's day care, drop off the burley in daycare's storage area and then ride 2 miles to downtown. I get a few strange looks from the moms. It isn't like Jardin where bike trailer parking is provided and often full by 8 am. Let me tell you though, Penny became extremely popular when we started riding the bike. Every morning when we walk in "Penny did you come on your mommy's bike? Can I come with you next time? can I put on your helmet?" I know from experience that at age 12 Penny will NOT find it cool that her mom bike commutes.

Here's  the great new trail that goes over the train tracks and freeway. This section is what I call the tunnel of chain link:

You can kind of see the trail switchbacks I climb to get on the bridge. Penny is usually yelling "faster mommy faster" It's like a free personal trainer.

 Photo about a mile into the ride. Isn't it pretty?

This was on Memorial Day. That's why Chris is in the photo. It was a beautiful morning for a ride.

 St. Assissi's is on the hill. I don't know much about it. I know there are sisters that still are part of St. Mary's Hospital. I'm not sure if this is where they live.

Then we went to breakfast at Mac's diner downtown. At Mac's, Penny's favorite breakfast eggs and toast is named the Phyllis!! We had to take a picture for grandma. (And yes, it is annoying that Penny wants the easiest breakfast ever at restaurants. We've give up ordering anything else though because she just whines after one bite of pancake "can I have eggs and toast?")

Downtown Rochester

They turned an old movie theater into a Barnes and Noble. It's really fun inside too.

The intricate details were left in tact.

A view of downtown buildings. The one straight ahead is the Gonda Building where many patients are seen.

Appropriately, Rochester has geese statues around town.

You can't really see this very well, but this is the Mayo building. It was built in the 1950s. I was told that they built one part of the building first, but they didn't want one set of marble to be aged by the weather and sun, while the other set remained perfect in storage. So they laid out the remaining marble in a field, then when they were ready to complete the building over 10 years later, the marble matched

This is the Plummer building. One of the Mayo brothers said his best day at work was the day he hired Dr. Plummer. Dr. Plummer actually became a doctor to please his mother. He wanted to be an architect. I understand he was a very good doctor, but he also got to try his hand at architecture and build this building in 1926. He traveled to Europe to get ideas so it is a mix of different styles. It also has a bell tower in top with 56 bells. They are played a few times a week. The massive doors have only been shut a few times. I think one was 9/11 and the funeral of JFK.

 Another shot of the Plummer building. Plummer also created the pneumatic tube system that delivered patients records through the buildings of the clinic. He also created the intercom phone system for the hospital. Both had never been done in hospitals before.

 Sculpture in the children's garden outside of Gonda

I don't have any photos of the route into downtown from Penny's day care. Nothing very interesting...strip malls and apartment buildings.

I'm going to try to ride through mid-October like I did last year in Minneapolis. We'll see if the weather holds out. Maybe one day Rochester will have more riders and one of the parking garages will look like this  bike one in Amsterdam.