And Now the Boredom Sets In

Where's the deck?

Where's the driveway?

            

Looks like a monster trying to get in the window. In the background middle you can barely see the bottom of the bird feeder.  The little chickadees fly from the feeder to the inside of the bush, which looks like a small cave.
  We have plenty of food, and no need to drive anywhere. But just knowing we're stuck here is bothering me. The roads are plowed, and the neighbor should be by again to plow soon, but I feel like we're all alone in the middle of nowhere. I've cleaned my room, folded laundry, read every magazine, and eaten a ton of cookies and chocolate. Now what?

Sleds!

I'll trade you for the green one

Half snow-dusted from his tumble

Give me that green one, the orange one is too scarey(and too small for my big rear-end!)

 Half a century old, and I've never been on a sled.  Boy, was that obvious.  I can't believe how much fun we had. We had to send Rusty back in the house, because all the yelling and shouting made him overly excited, and he started jumping on whoever was sledding, and then tried to attack the sleds.
 ...don't worry, we let Walt play with them, too.  He got such a kick out of our attempts that he had to get the camera to document our super athletic abilities.

Big Snow

He wasn't  too pleased with the depth of  the snow this morning

Neighbor helping--he's got a plow on the front of his 4 wheeler

This is much better...thank you very much, guys!

Hey, guys- make a path over there for me!

A Very Rusty Christmas

Christmas Eve

The kids are always the best part of a family party

Just about every small town up here looks like this one

Spooky Amish House

Amish Gas Station

                       Our driveway... I thought the sun looked so pretty.  Maybe because we haven't seen it much lately.

Traditions--Part One

  In our family, if we do something 3 times it automatically becomes a tradition. We start off the holiday season watching Pieces of April and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. We then move on to
the classics: The Grinch, The Snowman, Little Drummer Boy(just so I can cry),  Funny Farm,  and Uncle Buck( just because we love John Candy). Then there's Holiday Inn and It's A Wonderful Life. Somewhere in there we watch a couple old versions of  Dickens'  Christmas Carol.
Then on Christmas Eve, as we've done for 17 years,  we end the evening with The Muppets Christmas Carol. That's the one we love the most.
   Of course, nothing beats our freaky Christmas cookie making. We can bake delicious cookies, we just don't possess any decorating skills. It somehow evolved into a contest of the bizarre. I think the 'upside down trees turned into spooky faces' won. Those were mocha flavored, tonight we're decorating vanilla ones(since I forgot to buy almond flavoring).
 

Crunchy

  The snow is hard and crunchy, with a layer of ice below it. Rusty isn't enjoying it as much this week--it must feel weird to him, and he wobbles around like a baby. Walking down the driveway to the mailbox was quite enough for him this evening.

He Must Know That Santa Bought Him New Ones

  This is what happens when you have days of dreary drizzle  and muddy ground, people who don't feel like going for long walks outdoors or wiping muddy dog feet repeatedly, a ready supply of old tennis balls, and one old, bored doggie.
  It got worse as the evening wore on.  The fuzz was all over the floor, stuck in his teeth, and scattered down the hall. A third ball was completely de-fuzzed.  On the positive side--he kept busy all evening without bothering us continually for treats, he forgot to ask me to take him out in the cold, scarey  dark for his late night tinkle, and he fell into a deep sleep while we watched stupid tv shows in peace.

Empty Nest

Sun Worship

This picture was taken a few weeks ago. There's a bit of snow on the high parts now. See that white speck? We drove around for an hour or so trying to find that farm, but never did. We wonder if they can look out from their house and see ours in the distance. They get so much more sun than we do. I timed it this morning--the sun peeked over the hill outside the bedroom windows at 10:40. No wonder we all seem to sleep so late; the house is so dark in the morning. There are times I've gotten up in the middle of the night to use the restroom, only to discover it's already past 7 a.m.

  I've started getting emails again, asking for stuff I've already sent in with the applications. I'd hate to be an admissions counselor. W got his first acceptance, to Ursinus College outside of Philadelphia.  We've never visited there, but he had a letter from the dean with a free app waiver.  It sounds like a good school. Their science dept has a program funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.  Ws been watching their science lectures for years, and K thinks that alone makes the place worthy  enough to consider it seriously. Looks like they'll be visiting it soon. It's about 5 hours from here, so most likely I'll get to stay home with Rusty.

Happiness

All essays have been written...all applications sent...all fees paid....two whole days since colleges have emailed stating things are still missing...

Cold Hearted

Trying to poke his only eye out

Speak Softly And Carry A Big Stick

Favorite Type of Weather

First Mouthful Of Snow

  I bet it tastes even better down the driveway.

SAT Subject Tests

He just missed it by this much, Grandma. How about that Camaro?

SUNY Geneseo

Most of the campus looks like this

I think this is the hall for English , Philosophy, and Languages

Science Hall

Sorting Hat/ Seuss Hat tree

This is proof some say the campus is too "rural and isolated"

Periodic Table in his favorite building

Foucault Pendulum (they also have a particle accelerator!)

 

    We spent Friday at SUNY Geneseo.  This looks promising. The campus felt comfortable, the cafeterias smelled very good, the student union was crowded and full of happy, noisy kids.  The dorms seemed like any other dorm. There were only 2 other kids there for the Physics tour, so we got to have a good talk with the department head. Nine professors in the dept, only 200 physics majors.  We saw their labs, the particle accelerator, and got to listen in on a class.
   Last week we spent a day at RIT.  More money, fancier surroundings, much emphasis on finding a career. We really liked the professors there, too. The students seemed a bit more "out of the box" here.
I was happily surprised at the student diversity of both. I think the physics dept is about the same size as Geneseo's.