New favorite restaurant!

To celebrate completing our new back patio, James wanted to go out for dinner. He was in the mood for fajitas, so we headed up to the BWI airport area to Los Portales. (Un)fortunately, Los Portales had a waiting line of 20 groups before we could get in.

Rather than waiting somewhere close to an hour, we decided to try the Asian restaurant next door, Nini's.

This is a FIND! All of the food is prepared fresh. They prepare food from a variety of Asian traditions-a bit of Chinese, sushi, Thai, Vietnamese, Filipino, etc. Portion sizes are generous-even Samuel needed a to go box. James was the only one who didn't, and he'd spent hours building the patio since he'd last eaten.

The first thing that caught our eyes was the variety of offerings we could eat. It is the only non-vegetarian restaurant we've ever visited that gives us more than a dozen vegan options. I ordered General Tso's Tofu! James chose Kung Pao Tofu, and Liza had Vegetable Lo Mein. And they said they could make anything else vegetarian by leaving out the meat.

The next delight was the presentation. Food is served in large shallow bowls. My bowl was edged with orange slices, diagonally-sliced cucumbers, sliced tomatoes and shredded carrots. Sitting atop my entree was a swan carved from an apple. James's and Samuel's bowls "only" had fancy cut orange bowls. Liza had a rose from a tomato, and Tori had a toasted turnip rose. The highlight was probably Miriam's-a goldfish cut from a lemon, with an orange-peel dorsal fin, a cucumber slice tail, and cloves for eyes.

The food was fabulous! I eagerly recommend it to anyone in the area!

Nini's Asian Restaurant-Cromwell Center-just off I-97 near Cromwell Business Park. The actual address is on MD-176. 7-11 is next door to the strip mall where Nini's is located.

A busy week

James is picking on me! At least I'm not following his mother's suggestion to load a can of tomatoes into the pillow before I bap him with it.

For some reason he seems to think it inappropriate for me to nag my sister for updates on her adoption process without updating my blog, so here goes. . . .

Last Saturday my friend/sister Lee and her family stopped by. They happened to be in Annapolis and called to "pull a Mary" and stop by for a short notice visit. It was my first opportunity to meet my new "nephew", and I have to agree he's a keeper. The twins seem to think he's a fine addition to the family, but much prefer playing with their twin "cousins" to discussing the baby. Samuel was worn out after taking them to the park, racing Kyle home, and playing hide-n-go seek with Noe & Gil. Gil, on the other hand, was NOT ready to leave when Dad suggested getting his shoes back on. He figured he'd just have a sleepover at Aunty Mary's house. Fortunately, he agreed to delaying that since his Grandma was coming in the next day, and he also wanted to see her.

I could really fill the house with preschool-aged nieces & nephews since my brother Rob's kids think it's time for another sleepover at Aunt Mary's also. We spent Sunday afternoon in Alexandria taking time for a more extended visit than we usually manage around returning Kyle to his mother's care. Lisa took advantage of the opportunity to tease James about how complicated his vegan diet makes it for her to plan a meal for us to share. Once she finished "working" on the computer, Aria was delighted to entertain us all, and enjoyed having her cousins join the audience for her performance. Once again, Samuel earned a star for entertaining his adoring cousins.

Tuesday I joined Rob & Lisa for a trip to the neurology department at Johns Hopkins hospital. I was supposedly there to entertain Evan when he got bored with the adult conversation, but he was just fine, and we spent the hour and a half in the room with his parents and the doctor. It's wonderful to have the time to spend with him one-on-one. With such an exhuberant big sister, it isn't easy to have extended time to interact with Evan. We spent quite a bit of time playing with and learning about a set of magnets I'd brought to keep him occupied. Dad wanted to play also, and kept asking for his turn, but Evan was busy learning all about these curiousities, and wasn't ready to share. (Have you had a turn to play with them yet, Rob?) Something about the experience watching him reminded me of his dad (I can do it myself!), and also his uncle Rich (Let's see, how does this work? How does it come apart? What could I do with this piece???). Look out, Lisa!

As much as I enjoy the explorations of my young nieces and nephews, I am enjoying my teenagers venturing into the adult world even more!

Thursday I joined Eliza's entourage in a trip to the Hungarian embassy in DC. One of the Rotarians is a former ambassador, and happened to know Ambassador Simonyi personally. Mr. Penner arranged this trip for Eliza, myself, himself, the president of the Rotary Club that is sponsoring Eliza's trip, her teacher and one of the school vice principals. We spent over half an hour with Ambassador Simonyi, and more time than that with one of his staff. They gifted Liza with a beautiful book about Hungary's history, and invited her back to spend the day with Dr. Zoltan Fehr once she knows where she will be staying. They'll go over the history and other details of the area, so she goes into this even better prepared than she currently is. I may be biased, but I keep hearing how impressed other people are by Eliza, so I think there is reason to be proud of my girl!

And Miriam had a wonderfully successful day on Thursday also. Her chorus group took first place in the county competition.

Now that I've pretty muc brought you up to date, I'm going out to admire James's work installing our back patio. He's using the rest of the reclaimed pavers and a bunch of reclaimed bricks and laying out a patio to match the one in the front. We'll fill the squares between the bricks with soil and plant thyme when it gets a bit warmer. Then it will be time to plant rosemary, etc. on the hill.

Life is great!

Loving this weather!

It sure feels like Spring is here! We turned the heat off on the 10th, and haven't had it back on since. We open the windows in the morning, and close them in the evening. Our first daffodil opened yesterday.

It looks like we may not get to mudding and painting the livingroom until next Fall. The weather is too nice to be inside, and it feels so good to get out and work in the yard or ride our bikes. The yard is looking great, especially in the front where James spread 6 cu. yards of double-shredded hardwood mulch. Combined with the woodchips in the paths, the bulbs and a few perennials that survived the winter, it's marvelous.

Liza's mock trial team made "the play-offs", and was supposed to compete this afternoon, but a barge hit the Route 50 bridge over the Severn River and has really messed up traffic, so that's postponed. Having enjoyed mock trial so much, she's decided to enter the poetry recitation contest and audition for MouseTrap (a play based on Agatha Christie's mystery). I don't know how she gets everything done, but she seems to do so excellently. For those of you who might like to plan your entertainment in advance-the recital her viola teacher organizes each Spring will probably be the evening of Saturday, June 3rd. (Planned to work around her Rotary farewell dinner on Sunday-since she'll be playing her senior spotlight piece this year.) Liza and a friend are planning a graduation party in August, since they won't walk the stage for their diplomas. Other than that, did I mention she has an appointment with the Hungarian ambassador next week?

We're looking forward to hearing about Kyle's first Scout camping trip that he went on last weekend. Samuel is working to master front flips at his kung fu studio. Miriam is preparing for the county chorus festival, and working lights for the school talent show later this month. And Torri is juggling work, finding a new job, midterms and trying to organize the Spring theater production. Stage manager has turned out to be quite a project!

I understand better and better why my mother said that the teen years were her favorite part of parenting. These young people are SO much fun!

Political activism. . .

Samuel and I made our first tentative steps into the world of political activism this afternoon.

I had taken on the responsibility of presenting a Minute from last Sunday's Meeting for Worship with attention to Business in the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting this afternoon. I carefully printed up thirty copies of the Minute Friends approved. Samuel and I dressed up, and we "rushed" down there after picking him up from his dad's. We parked at the Naval Academy Stadium and caught the shuttle into town, since parking tends to be limited closer in. We made it in time to sign in on the witness roster, and handed the copies over to the secretary. Then we waitied and waited and waited.

The hearing was delayed from 1:00 to 1:30, because morning sessions ran over. Then the sponsor of our bill was tied up in another committee, so her bills couldn't be heard until they finished her first bill in that committee. By the time she got back to Judiciary, and we got around to "our" bill, it was 4:00, and Samuel and I had to leave to make it home in time for my students. A F/friend ended up presenting our Minute at 5:10 pm.

Samuel reports his learning for the day as, "Senate committee meetings are as boring as (school) board/bored meetings." At least the architecture was worth it.

Spring is sprung

The grass is riz, I see my little crocuses.

And, with bright sunshine and a good breeze, I decided it was time to hang laundry outside again. The first load of the new year is up on the line. The birds sat in the trees and fussed at me the whole time. I guess they aren't comfortable having a person so close to the feeder (about ten feet away). But I learned what the titmouse song sounds like!

James is busily installing our new kitchen faucet, with only minimal cursing. He figures the plumbers earn such good money because they have to be contortionists to work on plumbing.
He has been quite busy working in the yard as well. We now have woodchips on most of the paths in the backyard. (I got him a load of free wood chips from the guys who were trimming trees around the power lines this week. Unfortunately they don't match the all-poplar chips we got in the last load, but what the heck. Given a few months of aging, I doubt the difference will be that noticable.)

Now that the ground is thawing, James and Samuel will finish moving the dirt at the end of the path, smooth the hills, level the top, and we'll be ready to start planting. James wants to lay a brick patio (like the one under our front yard swing) between the big window in back and the french drains. Then we'll fill the spaces with something low and fragrant, like thyme. Liriope is the current thought for groundcover on the slopes. We'll be splitting hostas to line the paths, and planting bulbs between them in the fall. We're still thinking about what we're going to use to cover the visible side of the compost bins, but may continue the theme along the back fence.

We're open to suggestions if anyone knows of a beautiful, shade-loving, evergreen vine or climbing shrub, preferably one with some flowers or berries for color. . .

The last of the winter indoor projects is the livingroom/diningroom rehab. The thought of sanding and mudding is daunting enough, but we have to move all this furniture (and junk!) before we can even get to that point. . . The effects are worth all the effort, as the other rooms have proven, but we really know how much work is better where we are and getting finished. I'm experiencing some motivational issues. . .

Guess I ought to get back to doing something productive.

Aloha!