Vacation, Day Three: Arrival and the Bronx

We got up very early to catch a flight from Atlanta to LaGuardia, in New York. We weren't sure how long it would take us to get from the airport in Queens, to our hotel on the east side, to the game in Manhattan, so we had several plans and backup plans.... the one we executed was going to depend on the flight.

Well, the flight landed right on time, and since we hadn't checked luggage, we had plenty of time. So we executed Plan Cheap, which was taking a bus into Manhattan. I know we're grownups now, and believe me when I say that Mark and I are way less cheap now (even when travelling) than we were even five or six years ago, but we just don't like to spend more money than we need to. Anyway, we took the bus and it went fine.

We got to the game in time to explore the stadium a little (which was nice, since seeing the stadium, which will be torn town after just 10 more games, is the reason Mark wanted to come to New York in the first place). We also had time to get some lunch.... I had the best spicy sausage I have ever had (and I lived in Germany, people). The people in front of us seemed to enjoy their Chinese food. (Only in New York would people eat Chinese food at a baseball game.)

The Yankees lost, which was ok. Our choices were to pull for them or a Canadian team. We really couldn't have cared less who won. But the experience was neat.

We had dinner on the upper east side, and then wandered around for a while, just enjoying the city. Our hotel is great, and is in a great location (midtown, on Lexington and 49th), but we can't extend the stay past Tuesday, since a bunch of UN delegates will be checking in then. But that's ok... our next hotel is in an even better (if louder) location near Times Square, so we'll get to enjoy staying in a couple of different neighborhoods.

For more pictures of our first day in NYC, click on the stadium below.

by mgoetts

Vacation, Day Two: Atlanta, GA

Today we experienced Sporting Event #1 for this vacation.... Clemson vs. Alabama at the Georgia Dome.

We started early this morning from Mark's parents' near Lake Wateree, SC.... we drove about an hour to the Charlotte airport, took a city bus to the Greyhound Station, took a Greyhound bus to Greenville, and took a small sedan with our friends Joe and Brittany (and unborn Baby Law!) into Atlanta. Whew.

I was expecting my first Greyhound experience to be more of an experience, but to be honest it really wasn't. Sure, some bus stations were in less-than-desirable neighborhoods, and the people on the bus weren't the classiest set on the planet (that includes Mark and me, for the record), but everything ran on time and the most interesting part was the driver who was equally passionate about the no taking your shoes off rule, and how to get his passengers to be saved by Jesus. I think I have had too many adventures on the budget travel circuit to be fazed by much anymore.

The game was... um... well, it was something. Clemson didn't play well. Mark was livid with the refs (who couldn't hear him any better from our nosebleed seats than from the tv in our living room, but he yelled just as loud anyway). I always forget how crazy he is at sporting events until I am with him again. His friends just take it in stride since they see it all the time, but it's not a side of Mark that he shows anywhere except in a crowd of Clemson fans.

The Alabama fans were really great, with the exception of one obnoxious guy (who was sitting right behind us, since I'm a jerk-fan-magnet like that). And the atmosphere was good. Since it was a neutral-territory game, they sold exactly half of the tickets through Clemson, and exactly half through Alabama. Where the sections met, it caused a neat line in the crowd between orange and crimson (which you can see in the picture below, behind the Clemson end zone).


Next sporting event Yankees vs. Blue Jays, in the Bronx, NY. Yep, that's 12 hours and 900 miles away. Here goes nothing.

For more pictures of our first two days, click here.

Vacation, Day One: On the Road

Well, we're officially on vacation. We made it safely to Huntersville (and dropped the dogs at my mom's) and then to the infamous double-wide (where Nathan is playing on the floor with new toys after a yummy spaghetti-o dinner from Oma).

I don't think that Nathan knows yet what the suitcases piling up by the front door mean, but Simon sure knows, and he was in his usual pre-vacation funk today. By tomorrow he will have forgotten why he didn't want to be abandoned on five acres of land with lots of dogs to run with (read: heaven).

He was even a little clingy with Nathan in the car on the way here, as you can see.

We also said good-bye to Brad for the indefinite future -- he heads back home to St Croix tomorrow.

Right now I am more focused on leaving Nathan for a week than being on vacation. Also, I can't help but wonder if his bedtime nursing tonight will be the last time I ever breastfeed a child (we'll likely be gone before he's up in the morning). If he wants to pick it back up when we;'re home, that's fine. But if he's done, then my heart won't be broken either. (The fact that he drew blood earlier this week helps cement that sentiment.) But I think once I have given my hugs and kisses and we're on our way tomorrow morning, I will be in full-on vacation mode.

Next stop: Atlanta, Georgia.... for Sporting Even Number One: Clemson vs. Alabama (by way of Greyhound, an adventure in itself)!

Big Apple, Here We Come!

Mark and I are headed to NYC on Sunday for a week of vacation. Besides the anxiety about leaving Nathan for so long (we have only ever spent 2 nights apart, and one was only 4 hours and Mark was there, so it doesn't really count), I am really excited to be on vacation!!

Neither of us has been to New York in our adult lives, so we need your help! Can you email or post a comment telling us your favorite place in the city? Restaurants, shopping, sightseeing, whatever. What would be on your "Can't Miss" list for a week in New York?

We're leaving for South Carolina tomorrow (to leave dogs and children with various grandparents), then to Georgia on Saturday (to see Clemson play Alabama... yes it's in Atlanta for some reason) then we fly out on Sunday. We should have sporadic internet access through all that so keep those emails and comments coming!

Thanks!

Happy 90th!!!!!

Remember last summer when I introduced you to my Grandpa Schnackenberg? (No, I did not make that name up. Yes, it's possible for someone to grow up a Bumganer, marry a Goettsch, and be descended from a Schnackenberg. I've been blessed with bad names.) Well, Grandpa turned 90 this weekend!

We had a golf-themed breakfast party (he's 90, people) at a country club near my mom's house in Huntersville. Highlights included Nathan being terrified of a giant inflatable golf club, my other Grandpa putting out a golf-ball candle with his fist when his smoker lungs couldn't blow it out, appearances from Schnackenbergs as far flung as Illinois and Florida, Grandpa's edelweiss suspenders I got for him in Austria years ago (yes, in honor of that edelweiss),and Grandpa's "baby" brother Roy (74, but clearly of a different generation) taking pictures and showing Grandpa how to look up medical info on his iPhone.

Happy Birthday, Grandpa! I hope the next 90 are just as great! (I'm not saying that to be mean... since he'll either get to be reunited with his wife and other daughter in that time frame, or he'll win a record for being the oldest man ever. Either case, the next 90 years will be awesome for him.)

A few more pictures are below; click on the fruit flowers. (Hopefully I'll get the rest added relatively soon.)


by mgoetts

Nathan, Opa and Oma... at the Lake

While I was helping my mom get ready for my Grandpa's 90th birthday celebration tomorrow, Mark and Nathan went to spend some time with his dad and stepmom, Cindy (Nathan's Opa and Oma) at Lake Wateree. Yes, they're still living in the double-wide while their house is under construction, but The Marina (as we like to call their dock and array of sailboats) has been done for a while and gets plenty of use!

I wasn't there, so I can't attest to the fun times on the boat, but I think these two beautiful pictures speak for themselves.



For more pictures of their visit to the lake, including a baby "driving" a boat, click on Nathan and Mark, below.

by mgoetts

ErinAshleyBrad

Tonight I got to enjoy a very rare pleasure in my life: the company of both my sister Ashley and my brother Brad. We're almost never all together anymore, considering Brad lives more than 1800 miles away, in the Virgin Islands. I can't even remember the last time the three of us were together... wait, I think it was when I was in Charlotte for Brad's going-away dinner. I remember that was right after I found out I was pregnant with Nathan, so that would be November of 2006. Almost two years ago. Wow.

The three of us are really close in age -- about 2 1/2 years between Brad and me, with Ashley (somehow) wedged in the middle. Because of that, we got along pretty well as kids, and even had lots of mutual friends (apparently that's rare in other families). We might bicker amongst ourselves, but we would defend with a vengeance if someone else lashed out at one of our siblings.

Some of my favorite (ok, maybe not favorite, but ones I can think of right now) memories of growing up with Ashley and Brad:
1.) making Brad be the motor when we commandeered his bunkbed to be our pretend boat, and we didn't want him to talk to us.
2.) calling who got to be Mario and Luigi before we even got off the bus, we were so excited to play with the new super-awesome nintendo system.
3.) playing "college kids" and "cowboys and indians" which both somehow involved our swingset as a flying machine.
4.) terrorizing sitters on their first day by beating them home from school and hiding behind the furniture, then saying "ouch" when they sat down.
5.) sorting the socks by putting them on the ceiling fan. then deciding pennies would also be fun to put on the ceiling fan.
6.) sleeping (and fighting) in the den on new years.
7.) swimming together for Nomad and North Meck.
8.) playing with our food... specifically when Brad's spaghetti "fell out" of his mouth across the table at me, and when he bit the end of his grapes off to make them into mini Death Stars.
9.) playing drinking card games at the beach in college - I don't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure 10 was the "dumbass" card, where all Bumgarners had to drink.
10.) playing the opening track of The Lion King as loud as possible to startle ourselves (and our parents).

I think I hate them a little for getting at least 80% of the good looks genes.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I love Ashley and Brad, and I'm glad we could go out for drinks tonight, and I'm glad Brad was willing to look for my camera (even though I eventually found it in the glove compartment) so I could post this picture, and I promise if we're ever on a road trip where we all have to sit in the backseat, that I won't look out either of your windows. Or breathe your air.

Date Night in Qum'ram

Mark's mom was here last weekend and she offered (ok, agreed after we asked) to take care of Nathan on Saturday night so that Mark and I could have a date. So we spent a lovely evening together in the Qum'ran caves.

Well, not Qum'ran, exactly. We went to the Museum of Natural Sciences here in downtown Raleigh to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are on exhibit for part of the year. There's a lot they don't know: exactly who wrote and copied them, why there are Biblical texts as well as religious texts not included in the (Protestant) canon as well as texts not relating to religion at all, why the people using the caves near Qum'ran had split away from that community, or even if they had anything to do with them at all.


What I know is how amazing it is to see something 2 inches from my face that was hand-written by a contemporary of Jesus or his disciples.

And it's now also a well-known fact that the best way to preserve Biblical texts is not to scotch-tape them to pieces of cardboard. (They did that. Seriously.)

If you ever have the chance to see this exhibit, you should. I'm not usually drawn in by the painstaking efforts of archaeologists (though I can appreciate them for what they are), but the history and culture and religious implications of this find are fascinating.

And if you can top your education off with a seafood dinner, compliments of an unused gift card from friends who now live in Kansas and don't want to eat seafood there, even better. (Thanks Sarah and Neil!)

Lezak Fries

I have mentioned this to a couple of people, but now I am making an official motion.

What say you, we change the name from Freedom Fries to Lezak Fries? I think Jason Lezak (my favorite person this week) deserves that over the Frenchies, don't you? For a really funny faux-motivational poster about the whole ordeal, click here.

Is it wrong that this whole episode makes me feel more patriotic than I did on July 4th?

The Eel from Equatorial Guinea

When I was watching the opening ceremonies the other night, I had three interesting (to me, at least) observations:

1.) Chinese drummers rock my face off. As a former band geek of a drumming nature, I can assure you that what they did on the Fou-shaped drums, completely in sync, was stunningly difficult. Playing and making sounds come out cleanly is hard enough. They managed to spell out numbers and make pictures with the lights on their instruments. I almost don't care if it was fake (please don't tell me if it was); it was that good.

2.) As good as I am at geography (go ahead: challenge me... it's the one subject I didn't study in college that would have really helped in my job... but I've learned a lot from work experience anyway), there were entire countries competing that I had never heard of. Andorra? Read a book about it, thought it was fake, it's for real. Burkina Faso? The capital is Ouagadougou, betcha didn't know that. Cape Verde? Yeah I changed planes there once. Palau? Anyone who loved Rudy Boesch as much as I did knows the first Survivor was taped there.

But Brunei Darussalam? Timor-Leste? (I don't even know it under the name East Timor.) And Sao Tome? Apparently some of the world's greatest athletes come from these places. Hence I observed my own doofusness and my geo-pride was shamed.

3.) An unaccomplished (in the most severe sense of the word) swimmer from Equatorial Guinea, named Eric Moussambani, redefined how I feel about the Olympics in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. But somehow I missed it then, so I didn't find out about said redefining until today. The announcers at the Beijing opening ceremonies briefly referenced a story about this man who earned a wildcard spot to compete in Sydney in the 100m freestyle when he had never swum that far before, nor apparently even seen a regulation-sized pool. He had been swimming only 9 months when the events below transpired.

(You should know that he just set a national record for his country, too.)

I love how into this race the crowd is. That's what the Olympics is supposed to be. In ancient times, it was all about physique and strength and speed. (If you don't believe me, ask my brother. He recycled a report about the Ancient Olympics at least four times through middle and high school.) All those things are still important now, but so is sportsmanship and effort and national pride. So my point is, yay for "The Eel" and what he did in Sydney. I assure you if I were a blogger then, and if this event had been shown on German television so that I could have known about it then, I would have shared the story with you earlier.

(You'll be pleased to know Mr. Moussambani can apparently now swim this event in less than 57 seconds. In case you're not a swimmer, I should tell you: that's fast.)

Summon the Heroes

When Hayes spent the night with us last weekend, he and Mark and I came up with a theory. (Ok, one of us came up with a theory. I can't remember who. Probably Hayes or me, since we both talk a lot more than Mark does. But for the sake of this post, I am giving us collective credit, since it's a good one.)

Our theory is that the nationality you consider yourself probably has less to do with the country who issued your passport than we originally thought. Or where you currently live. Or where you were born, or where your parents were born. Know what we decided is the best indicator?

Whom you cheer for in the Olympics.

I like to give Mark, a first-generation US citizen, a hard time for being Dutch when it's convenient (like when we're talking about the poor state of public transportation here in the states) and American when it's convenient (like when the idea of putting mayonnaise on french fries comes up into conversation... just kidding Mark will totally eat mayo on fries, like the Dutchman he is).

According to our theory, then, Mark must feel more Dutch than American, since he only cheers for Americans in the Olympics when there's no one from the Netherlands competing. (And he never cheers for the US in the world cup, which is a whole nother issue, as my generation likes to say.) Don't hate him, though... I think Hayes put it best when he said, "that's just unamerican." Yep. My point exactly.

The theory applies strangely to me... I'm all kinds of patriocurious. (You like that?) Of course I'll pull for the US athletes. But also the Germans, because I like them and they were very welcoming of a foreign student living amongst them, with their wine and cheese and awesome trains (ICE what?) and uebercomplex methods of waste disposal. And I'll also be pulling for the Iraqis -- I'm glad their athletes finally get to compete in an Olympic Games.

Mark, in front of the Beijing marker for the Olympic countdown. In case you don't feel like counting backwards from today, it was March of 2007. Yes, that's MY raincoat he's wearing. We had to switch since mine didn't fit me well, being knocked up and all.

And I'll be cheering for the Chinese, since I am so desperately rooting for them to have a successful hosting run. They're due some good PR, I think.

Anyone else out there having trouble defining their nationality this way? Maybe it's not such a good theory after all...

Team USA Duathlon

I know I have entertained hundreds of you (ok, twelve of you) with stories of my mom and her athletic antics. You already know she did her first half-ironman in the fall. Then she and my sister conquered St. Croix's Beast in another far more difficult half-ironman in May. Now she's currently training for her first full ironman-length tri in November, and another one in Germany next summer. This stuff, you already know.

What you don't know is that she's really good.

Like, good enough to be on the national team (for her age group, not in the elite category... but come on, that's still awesome!), which has its international long-distance championship in Geel, Belgium this week. (There isn't a duathlon event in the Olympics, so they have their own championship... apparently in Geel, Belgium.) The event is an 18k run, followed by a 75k bike, followed by a 9k run. So while all eyes turn to Beijing, my thoughts are in Geel.

Know what's a bummer though? She found out a couple of weeks ago that she has a stress fracture in her femur, right at her hip joint. (I don't like to call it a "broken hip" since it makes her sound old and feeble... and she might be old, but she's not feeble.) So she is travelling with Team USA in Belgium anyway, but she won't get to compete. If you're desperate you to watch the action live (you know you are), you can do it by clicking here.

Another thing you don't know is that she has only been really good for a couple of years. She was a cyclist in a previous life, sure... and a swimmer and runner too, kind of. But just two years ago, she went on a get-healthy campaign that resulted in losing a ton of weight and getting ridiculously strong (except for that whole femur thing). Before that, she was a total novice. (Sometimes she says she still is, but I don't think anyone believes her anymore.) She's mum on the numbers, but a picture says a thousand words, so here they are. (She doesn't like looking at the "before" pics, so I hope she doesn't kill me for posting this... but I'm really unbelievably proud of her, so that's why I'm doing it.)

Marmie and me... February 2005 (in Boston)

Marmie and me... October 2006 (in St Croix)

I'm pretty sure she really is half iron. And she can totally kick your butt.

He Can Crawl!

At one year and one week old, little Nathan is finally getting across the floor using something resembling a legitimate crawl!

As you can see, the (loud, of course) maraca that Ashley got him for his birthday was quite the motivator. Between that and his desperation to close all the pops on his new pop-up toy, we're thinking his slow start to crawling was less about a developmental delay, and more about needing better toys!

[So that it won't interfere with this video, or if you're tired of hearing Louis Armstrong sing "Beautiful World" -- and who could blame you by now? -- you should scroll down and mute the slide show by clicking on the speaker in the top left corner of the slideshow box... or just click the title of this post so it's the only one on the page.]

Ok, time to baby-proof, for real. How have we not done it yet?

Lake Logan Triathlon

Mark went on a journey this week to Canton (by way of a Braves game in Atlanta) to do his first international/olympic distance tri. It's longer than the sprint triathlons he has done before, but not as long as a half-ironman or anything.

He swam 1500 meters, biked 40 kilometers, and ran a 10k. I wasn't there, but he says it was a success! He finished, which was his goal, and he really enjoyed the scenery along the way. (The race was alongside a gorgeous mountain lake, and the run was partly on the Blue Ridge Parkway... which might have been easier to appreciate without the hills!) And he got back in time to play at all three church services in the morning... which just sounds exhausting to me!

This triathlon is part of the TrySports Development Series from Set-Up Events, which is designed primarily for beginner and novice triathletes (like us), so it's supposed to be more about fun and less about ueber-competitiveness. (But I find that even normal triathlons tend to have a fun, encouraging air about them, especially for first timers.) So if you're interested in doing a real legitimate tri in North Carolina, but are put off by all the professional and sponsored athletes, you should check this series out.

If I can get my act together and plan logistics better for next year, I would love to do Lake Logan (any volunteers to come up there with us and hang out with Nathan?)... but I need to whip my butt in shape to ride 40k on my bike!

Congrats, Marky! I'm proud of you and you just got at least 2% hotter.