Run Fox Run

A bit of accounting

We are at 67% Grandparent capacity for the month of January, having been visited by four out of six of Leda’s grandparents in the last few weeks. It’s been great fun watching Leda explore Northlandz, the Guggenheim, Rutgers, and Loantaka with Grandpa and Grandma Jane; no one but Grandpa Larry could’ve taken Leds to her first jazz show at Shanghai Jazz, and no one but Grandma Jane would’ve made sure she got a personal handshake from Winard Harper between sets. That week alone would’ve made January a fine, memorable month. We are still hearing about the choo-choos and having to explain that Grandpa and Grandma J. went back to California.

But wait…there’s more. Leda also got to spend a great day with Papa (while Mom and Grandma Lynn lunched and checked out Bill Nighy’s Broadway awesomeness in NYC), visit the gardens at Duke Farms with Grandma, swim with Papa, see the Natural History museum, make her own pizza, AND see Raybird and Papa in the same place at the same time (quashing rumors that they are actually the same person). She seemed to forgive them for not having brought the beach and her cousins with them. What a fantastic couple of weeks we’ve all had!

Still, we can do better. As Leda is fond of announcing, as if taunting her less-endowed friends, “I have 3 Grandmas,” and we hope to hit 100% using Grandparent telemetry soon. In the meantime, we will review the photos, and hope you like ‘em too.

Leda Sees Yet More Trains

Continuing our Train Tour through the Tri-State Territory, we took a short trip to NORTHLANDZ (Home of the Great American Railway) Museum which is in Flemmington about 30 min away. This is certainly the largest model train layout I have ever seen. It occupies a two story office building and has to be at least 300 feet long. It isn’t a continuous layout, but rather individual “rooms” which house a huge setup in each. These guys love levels: every train layout was at least 8 feet tall with houses and factories perched precariously on the edges of many cliffs, gorges, and canyons. There were a few valleys which were two stories tall, with train tracks every two vertical feet on the sidewalls. Whoever runs this place is a master at vertical layout.

Leda enjoyed walking around and seeing all the “choo-choos” appearing from and disappearing into the many tunnels. There were also some stupendously constructed suspension/trestle bridges that were wonderful to see, especially when the little trains cross. The place feels incredibly cheesy and a little dated, but the trains are “A” awesome, espcially the floor to ceiling layouts they have with the handcrafted structures.

Also offered outside Northlandz, is a small “full-scale” train ride shown above. Leda was very excited to board this one as you see her jumping ahead of the line and running to get to her spot. She opted for the caboose (with every other kid) and had a ball going through the tunnel and sitting with her Grandpa Larry and Grandma Jane on the return. After the trains, we continued our journey down to Lambertville/New Hope for lunch and general strolling about. Unfortunately, the wind and winter has picked up, so things are getting pretty chilly (esp. out near the Delaware river). We did, however, make it over to the New Hope train station just in time to see #40 pull in. We’re trying to make the most of Leda’s train phase (but in truth, her parents probably are fascinated almost as much as she is). Next stop, Brick Church!

Ay Mon… No mon, Cayman

The Rossmann Christmas has become a biennial trip to the Caribbean to enjoy the warm weather and the company of the cousins and extended family from Colorado and California. Leda’s pictured above with two of her three cousins (…next time for you, Andrew) sitting on the dock of our bay. This time we were off to Grand Cayman with a stay on the Cayman Kai side of the island. Our house had its own beach and was teeming with sealife. Starfish, Caribbean lobster, urchins, hermit crabs, and loads of fish could be had within a short walk in waist deep water.

The cousins had a great time re-acquainting themselves and then endlessly playing in the ocean, pool, and on the beach. We buried each other, collected sea-life, practiced our swimming, and enjoyed family meals created by our in-house chef-de-cuisine, Grandpa. Leda loved playing with her cousins, aunt/uncle, and Grandparents. She learned many new things: both good - like swimming bravery and how to share her daddy and not-so-good - we’re still working on removing the “raspberry” from her lexicon. Leda sends many thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for their organizing and making it all work.

We had so many great days and activities: Trips to Smith Cove, the Turtle Farm, Tortuga Beach, the Queen Elizabeth II Botanical Gardens, and Rum Point. We got to go out in a sea kayak as well as snorkel right off our own dock. Grandpa taught us all how to search the sea for the local fauna and Grandma helped us record the trip for posterity, all with great evening light. She even managed to snap a great picture of Leda and Jenn.

All in all, it was a great trip to the Caribbean and we can’t wait to do it again, with even more cousins to play with and more activities to fill our days with fun and sun. You can check out all the other photos from the trip in the Cayman Christmas album. See you around Cayman….

Sunday morning in the Bronx

Leda and I took a trip to the New York Botanical Garden on the last day of this year’s Holiday Train Show. The lush conservatory gardens are loaded with 100%-organic replicas of various New York landmarks, and model trains and trolleys travel through and around them.

Like many of her friends, Leda is semi-obsessed with choo-choo trains these days. Jamie’s mom and I used to time our walks to the train station cafe to aid our kids’ trainspotting, and the model trains are always the most coveted toys at playgroup. On the third night of Hanukkah, Leda received her very own train set — Daddy spent hours designing a complex layout with several bridges and tunnels, which Leda promptly began rearranging. On the subject of train route design, like so many other things, we have much to learn.
Leda’s growing awareness of how the camera works means that most of the time when you try to take her picture, she wants to see the image displayed on the LCD screen, so we take a lot of blurry shots of a girl grabbing for the camera. Every once in a while she will stand still, but even then there is the risk that she will want to say “Cheese,” and present you with her “teeth-brushing” smile, which is more of a grimace:

Then again, since she was so fascinated by the trains in the Bronx, most of my shots were of the back of her head as she anxiously awaited the next arrival of the choo-choo, anyway. So perhaps it’s better to stick with the scenery, here a twig-and-vine mock-up of the very bridge we took to get to the Garden this morning.