Day 1.161: Sweet six scene

Happy Birthday Exile #3 - six today!

Once again, it was cupcakes on her birthday - although she only has one day to wait for her full-size birthday cake since her party is tomorrow.

It was a normal work day for me - in between present-openings and cupcakes - which was something of a surprise since I thought I had an early meeting and an afternoon interview. Both were postponed until next week.

The other excitement of this week has been the first instalment of our CSA share - this is a vegetable scheme, but unlike the one we used in the UK, all the produce comes from one local farm. As well as some excellent looking fruit and vegetables, we are enjoying the 'Operating instructions' - you can read them for yourself but here are some highlights:

We know that you understand vegetables. Nobody needs to tell you what to do with lovage or how to make a great pasta sauce with garlic scapes.

You may wish to wash the produce before preparing it ... grown in close proximity to soil due to unavoidable circumstances...

It even has a section of small print full of equally tongue-in-cheek disclaimers. Tasty and amusing - my life is complete.

Day 7.001: Happy Birthday (NY)

What could be more appropriate than combining the anniversary of our first day as residents of the US with the anniversary of my birth (observed).

Yes it was birthday part 2 today. It included presents and cards, cleaning and tidying and leaving the house for a viewing, Doctor Who cupcakes, The Hobbit part 2 (without E5N1) and lots of hugs.

And so begins the eighth year of the Exile.

Day 3.161: Happy --- Day to us!

What could be more appropriate than celebrating Father's Day on the anniversary of the birth of my first-born child? Incidentally, since she has now learned to ignore me calling her middle name to attract her attention as she did some time before with her first name, I sometimes address her as 'First-born Daughter' - she isn't too keen on that.

Here we are at her birthday party - she chose to go with three friends (only two could make it) to Hoffman's Playland in place of a big invite-lots-of-friends get-together. It worked out quite nicely and since Dads rode for free because it was Father's Day - I had a few more rides than I would normally have done.

But I am getting ahead of myself. The day started with the kids waking me up to mark Father's Day with various grilling accessories. We moved from that into present-opening for Exile #3's 8th Birthday - Eight? Seriously??

Her friends arrived in the late morning and, after a quick lunch we headed out to find birthday cake - or to be more accurate, half a dozen birthday cakes - at 'Betties Double-decker Cupcake Stand'.  What a great selection of varieties, gluten-free and vegan and even dog-friendly cupcakes!  Everyone chose their own and we went up to the top deck to eat them - fantastic!  As a bonus, this bus has made nearly the same journey in life as me so far - having been made about 30 miles away from where I grew up.

From there it was off to Hoffman's where it seems like some fun was had.

More pictures on my Flickr account.

Day 3.046: Two-year-old emergency!

After work today I was at a second birthday party.  Not for one of E5N1's little friends, but for a blog.  It was a great party - full of interesting local people - writers and readers, fashionistas and foodies.  It took a little while to get going for me - partly because getting out of work and driving into the city and parking took a while, and partly down to my social insecurities. 

After a while I got going and had lots of nice conversations including with all these people as well as some without their own internet locations.

 The birthday blog was All Over Albany - which in its two years has not only kept up with generating excellent content every day but has developed a really nice little community - as I saw first hand today.   I had a delightful chat with Mary - one of the editors - who asked me how I found them.  Unfortunately I don't remember how or when I discovered AOA for the first time, but I know I was reading and commenting a year and half ago and I know that Exile #2 and I were already advertising it by a couple of weeks later because we mentioned it during this conversation.  More recently, they have been kind enough to link to some of my posts in their weekly round up of local blogs.

I spoke to several people who claimed to be there because they were promised cupcakes.  They were present as you can see and were very good indeed.

This is AOA Mary doing her little birthday speech.

And there was very nice non-cake food too!

As I was leaving I remembered that Albany is in the middle of a 'snow emergency' which means that parking is only allowed on one side of the street (odd or even numbered) at certain times of the day. I hadn't given it a moment's thought when I parked. I was relieved to find the car where I left it and un-ticketed. I was even more relieved when I saw the snow plows out as I drove round the block and yet more relieved when I saw cars being towed a little further along.

So, thanks to AOA for a great party and to Albany's snow clearance teams for not turning the snow emergency into...well...an emergency (for me).

Day 5.086: Cold, party cloudy

Today was E5N1's 5th birthday party day. He celebrated at school (it being the nearest school day to his actual birthday on Sunday) and had his birthday party after school at lunchtime.

I took the day off to be there and to visit Exile #4's classroom to take some pictures for the yearbook.

The party was at the park because of the chaos at our house.  It was a little cold (very when the wind blew, only marginally when the sun came out), but the eight preschoolers and one school-age kid ran around and had a blast:

Presents were exchanged in full winter coats:

And Exile #2 had managed to make Cookie Monster cupcakes to go with the low-key monster theme.

He really didn't need any encouragement this year, but I imagine he's going to be very much in the birthday spirit for the next few days!

Day 7.078: Now who would like some cake?

We have a pretty crazy couple of weeks ahead. Tomorrow, I go back to Maine. After a week of work I come back here for a final chance to get the house ready for the packers who arrive on Tuesday - which happens to be E5N1's birthday. So, with all that in mind, Exile #2 smartly decided to schedule his birthday party for today (and not at the house).

He and his friends seemed to have a blast. Here is the blowing-out-the-candles moment, a view of the homemade cupcakes and E5N1 after the party sorting through the loot:

And this is how we were forewarned not to have E5N1's seventh birthday at the house (and perhaps some cake decoration inspiration):

Day 2.088: Two today twice

E5N1 has had a pair of second birthday celebrations today. The first was in the mid-morning when he opened some presents at my parents house and then had some birthday cupcakes.

We then set out to drive to celebrate the second half of his birthday with his other grandparents. We ran into some more classic UK gridlock.

The kids coped pretty well with the nearly twice-as-long-as-normal journey.


After he opened some more presents, we took E5N1 and his sisters to run off some of their cabin-fever at the local playground. The girls declared the tall spiral slide to be the greatest ever. Not surprisingly, E5N1 wanted to try - so he did!

The day ended with another birthday cake. I think Exile #3 managed a more directional blow than her brother - but you can judge for yourself with this mouse-over.


And the cake was good!

Everyone else enjoyed it too.

Day 5.116: Frosting, noses

One of the problems with finding yourself in a foreign culture is that you tend to assume that whatever you encounter is completely culture-normal however strange it seems to you.

So, having returned from a Cinco de Mayo birthday housewarming party that the following are the traditional ways to celebrate:

False noses and green teeth-staining cupcakes.

It's always possible that these things are not entirely normal.

Day 5.154: Spies like them

At Exile #4's party, she and her friends became 'spies' and followed an elaborate trail of clues to fill their party bags (black with black lettering) with spy-themed prizes and collect jigsaw pieces for the final clue.

It started with invisible ink:

After various experiments, we found that half and half baking soda and water, allowed to dry and brushed off, followed by painted on orange juice was the best recipe for invisible ink (in terms of invisibility before and visibility after revealing).

There were some riddles:

And word puzzles:

And finally, the jigsaw, with another puzzle to solve once it was complete.

They also had a good amount of crazy running-about time.  They seem to really need to let off steam after they get out of school (especially at this time of year) and of course, there was food and cupcakes.  I think they all had a good time.

Afterwards, Exile #4 opened her friends' presents,

some of which were very popular with her and her siblings!

Day 2.134: You can't make a cake...

Exile #2 managed to fit in making a dozen rather attractive cupcakes this afternoon for a charity bake-sale at the Memorial Day Parade tomorrow. I don't know where she gets her inspiration - do you?

The rest of the day has been quiet as predicted. We managed to get a prescription for E5N1 even though it was the Sunday of the holiday weekend which was a pleasant surprise. Other than that, Exile #2 did some gardening, the girls ran off to play with a neighbour for a while and I took a few photos and found out that my cheapest and oldest lens has a faulty aperture mechanism - so we all had some 'me'-time. Even E5N1, although he slept for a lot of the morning, managed to cheer up significantly this afternoon and sang along with gusto with an episode of his favourite show Hi-5.

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Day 2.134a: ...without breaking eggs

At some point Exile #3 was excited to discover this egg-shell. I suspect it's an American Robin egg, but whether it was consumed or hatched I don't know.

Day 2.153: Rained, ate...

After yesterday turned out to be cloudy but dry - the threat of thunderstorms coming to nothing - we were concerned that invoking the rain-date for Exile #4's birthday party would have proven to be an error. Let's see...

First we packed up the car. Fortunately it was only a small party with two of Exile #4's best friends and their families joining us at the beach. It didn't look like the fixings for a small party mind you!

As we approached the park we drove up the hill into a rain cloud and it was raining steadily. After ten minutes or so it stopped raining and we ventured out.

Soon despite the lowering skies, the kids were getting into the swing of the beach-party.


Gradually the skies started to clear,

and we had a very nice time - including an encore by the birthday cupcakes and a Exile-special group-shot!

As we ready to leave, the windscreen wipers came on and reminded us of our less-than-hopeful arrival,


and before long we were on our way home with a car full of happily exhausted kids.


Success!