saturday night board game

 explaining the rules of the harry potter trivia game to greg . . 

and greg won! but that's because she picked such an easy final question for him! she chose all the difficult and obscure ones for me . . "what were the envelopes that were delivered to harry at the dursley's made of?" "parchment," he answered. "yellowish parchment," she said. she didn't think it counted since he was missing part of the answer . . but i said he had given the main ingredient . . she's a tough cookie . . 

morgana in austria

 after visiting christine in denmark, morgana flew to munich and waited overnight in the airport for a flight to zurich where she transferred to the train or bus for tarrenz, austria. (i believe this happened on april 18th.)

 on the bus to imst or tarrenz or . . . innsbruck! 

 she was so happy to be back in the alps.

lotta and ylvi had a flute/recorder concert while she was there . . 

it's so lovely!

 a tyrolian selfie photo . . 

 manu's beautiful garden . . 

 happily rock climbing again!

 visiting a castle with little lotta . . 

 showing me how cold it was and that it was snowing . . 

 the beautiful snow . .

 a neighborhood cat . . 

 preparing delicious bread . .

and beginning her la bien aimée shawl .  .

taking shape

 chanda's dance is really starting to take shape. for the longest time she felt like it wasn't going anywhere and didn't know what it was about . . but now she has a title and a focus . . 

blue into green . . 

she has the music on her phone, which is convenient.

dinner tonight was shrimp and hot-root soup from the redwall cookbook . . 

sense and sensibility and the dogwood tree

breakfast this morning . . pain au chocolate! and buttered eggs . . 

and sense and sensibility! chanda and i began reading it this morning and find we don't like to stop.

the dogwood is in bloom in the courtyard.

and it's now thursday . .

the forsythia is in bloom everywhere. the above picture is of my mom's forsythia bush out on montauk that we got for her years ago. every year it never ceases to delight me.

here are the buds on my mom's lilac bush. it's slow in growing each year and we always wonder if it's going to come back. there's a similar bush in our courtyard here in the city. there's probably some special nutrients we could add to the soil to make them stronger . . i just haven't researched it.

 it's been a funny week with all the running around i've been doing. i can't believe it's thursday already. it's a really beautiful day . . cool and cloudy . . only 59 degrees. i like that it's not too warm. it just feels great to be back home. google is celebrating british scientist hertha marks ayrton. you can read the telegraph's article about her here. in her life she registered twenty six different patents! she also was awarded the hughes medal by the royal society for her work on electric arcs and ripples in sand and water.

travels with fuji

 yesterday i traveled with fuji and korrina again . . up to connecticut to see my dad (yes! i was just there on saturday!) it was a rainy drive but at least it wasn't dark out . . the headlights on my car are so bad.

 this is the beautiful view of hartford from the hospital window . . 

 the hartford capital building always shines beautifully even on a cloudy day. the dome is made of gold leaf with marble from east canaan, connecticut and granite from westerly, rhode island.

 waiting in the chilly air for the car (we used the valet parking). it was cold out!

 cuddling with toby . . 

 we had stuffed shells for dinner with rolls that korrina and i picked up from a local restaurant (bertucci's in glastonbury . . under seven rolls were free!)

 waiting while i helped nana get ready for bed . . 

this morning toby watched wide-eyed while a big backhoe rolled by. the neighborhood is having sewers put in.

 we got breakfast to go at guida's . . 

i had a fried egg and cheese and bacon sandwich and she had the breakfast special (it comes with home fries).

 it was a quick and smooth ride home . . no traffic or rain . . only sunshine . . and i found a parking spot (after driving around for almost an hour) next to obi wan kenobi.

 chanda had finished up her metals lesson page.

 i thought it came out really nice . . 

 i like the drawings of the metals . . 

korrina went off to work and chanda and i had lunch.