Aug/Sept 2022

Since we didn't get around to adding any updates in August, this month is a double dose of photos and updates. Here's the link to all the photos/videos from August/September (it's a lot). 

Visit to House in Binghamton (Rob)

We have been renting out our house in the Binghamton area and planned to have the next tenants move in by the middle of August. So before they moved in, we had some time to clean up the house, do some minor home improvements, and spend some time there ourselves. Binghamton isn't a tourist destination by any means, but it is a change of scenery so we enjoy going to our house there when we can and going back to our favorite places.  On this visit, that included food (The Speidie Pit, Beer Tree Farm), outdoors (Chenango Valley State Park), playgrounds (Recreation Park, Macarthur Elementary), and the indoor mall that has some amusement cars that Alex really likes, especially the blue cobra. They are planning some major renovations to that mall, including a fancy Dick's sporting goods with ice skating (Dick's originated in Binghamton), so good to see an interest in saving that mall and hopefully the blue cobra will still be there. Other good news for the city is the announcement of $100+ million in funding from the state and the federal government (Build Back Better funds) to build a lithium ion battery manufacturing center there, which will bring in a lot of jobs to a rust belt city that needs a boost. Hopefully those things will boost our property value someday when we sell the house. The tenants will be there for about a year, so maybe next time we come back to visit there will be a lot of changes there.

Fighter Jets and Monster Trucks (Rob)

In late September, there was the New York airshow at a small airport in Montgomery where we live. So we heard the roar of jets fly over many times in the week before as they made preparations. Alex and I went up on a hill at a nearby park to watch them fly by on the day of the event, along with many other locals. Also that weekend, I had puchased a ticket in advance (with a promotional free kids ticket) to a monster truck show up in Poughkeepsie. I thought that might be fun for Alex, and I remember my dad taking me to a monster truck show when I was a kid and was really into monster trucks. It was a fun time, although we didn't stay for the whole thing.

Utah Visit (Rob)

We planned a week-long visit to see the Lawrence side of the family over Labor Day weekend. It happened to be a bit of a heat wave with temperatures like July, but we found plenty to do inside and outside. Alex was happy to get on the plane, and was a good traveler despite the stress of boarding a plane and some things we could have planned better. We stayed in the basement at Grandma/Grandpa Lawrence's, where we had a few beds to choose from and a theater to watch movies on. Alex quickly made himself at home and seemed less anxious about being in a new place than last time we visited. We enjoyed going shopping and to the mall arcade with the grandparents, rides in grandpa's 1957 Ford and 1929 Model A, boating  with all the family at Deer Creek reservoir, BBQ with all the family at Victoria/Erik's, pizza and pickleball at Jim/Mel's, visiting the Clark planetarium, and Alex enjoyed playing in everyone's yards. We appreciated the pickleball competition that was at about our level, and look forward to seeing how much everyone improves next time we visit. We were also able to meet up with Becky's brother Nate, who is attending BYU-Provo. He took a break from studying to join us for boating and the BBQ and it was really great to see him post-mission. We also visited the Rensinks in Orem (friends from Arizona), and my friend Adam from college who happened to recently purchase a house in my parent's neighborhood (and in my sister's ward). Our visit coincided with my nephew getting set apart to begin his mission at the home MTC, before going off to the Morristown, NJ mission, which happens to cover our area in NY. So who knows, we may see him again soon. All in all, it was a busy, fun visit and we enjoyed seeing everyone.

Houston and Scranton Visit (Rob)

At the end of our visit to Utah, Becky and Alex flew back to New York (Newark airport, specifically), while I flew to Houston for a work meeting. My flight was a few hours after theirs, so it worked out well having us all go through the airport together. After working at Baylor College of Medicine remotely for the past year, this was my first time meeting those I work with in person. So I had plenty of time to build up anxieties and expectations, but everyone there was really nice and it went well. I work for two professors, who are married, and I stayed with them in a guest room at their house for a few nights. It was really nice there. It was a retreat where everyone in the labs each presented an update on their work, and we did some presentations at their house one day, and others on campus the next day. At the end, I led a workshop on ways to improve research manuscript writing. There was a lot of good food and conversations throughout, and I enjoyed meeting everyone in person in both labs that I have been corresponding with by email and Zoom over the past year (about 20 people total). I took an early Saturday morning flight from Houston to Scranton, where Becky and Alex came to pick me up. We made a day trip out of it and visited the Steamtown train musueum and nearby mall as we have before, and also went to the Nay Aug park with a little hike to a waterfall.

Fall Festivities

There are probably more than a dozen farms in a 10-mile radius of us that do Fall things like corn mazes, pumpkin patches, and hay rides. So far this year we visited the same ones as last year, Pierson Farms and Dubois Farms. Pierson Farms has this roller thing that you ride a sled down, and Alex likes to watch a video on my phone that I took of him doing that last time we were. So he was excited to see that again, and ride down in over and over again. They also had a big sled slide that went down a tube that we did many times as well. We explored the corn maze, rode the tractor bikes, had cider donuts, and did many of the other activities they offered and it was a fun way to spend the afternoon. Dubois farm is a big "U-pick" apple orchard and pumpkin patch, with other fun things going on.

The Last Sears of New York (Rob)

Like many indoor malls, our nearby Newburgh mall and its department stores is a bit of a ghost town. Just a few miles away is  the source of its demise: a ginormous Amazon fulfillment center located here in Montgomery. But we still go to the mall regularly because it has two things Alex gets really excited about: a set of small amusement cars that you put a dollar in, and the exercise equipment on display at the Sears. He gets really imaginative going from car to car, or treadmill to elliptical and playing on them. So I will often take Alex to the mall in the evening and let him run wild between those things, and no one seems to mind because practically no one is there. Recently we were at the Sears, and I was chatting with the guy who works there while Alex was playing on  the exercise equipment, and the guy was telling me it was the last remaining Sears in all of New York. And then only a week or two later, we saw in the news that this Sears will be closing in October. So Alex will certainly miss it. The mall is largely being converted into a casino or gaming center, and they recently took out the amusement cars that Alex likes as well. Although most people around here won't miss the old mall, we certainly will. And so since Alex likes the exercise equipment so much, and because I struggle to be as active as I want to be as a middle-aged guy working from home, I decided to get an elliptical for my home office. I should patronize the Sears in return for them letting Alex play on their machines all the time. But they are going out of business anyways, so I bought a pretty nice one off Facebook marketplace for $70, which is tough to beat.

Swim Lessons

A while back we tried swim lessons with Alex at Golds Gym, but he was so terrified of getting in the water it wasn't useful in any way. So we worked on just getting Alex adjusted to being in the pool by going back to Golds Gym regularly and getting Alex in the water. He eventually did get used to it, even enjoying it despite his anxiety most of the time. So we started up the swim lessons again on Thursday nights. The swim teacher is Ryan and he really does an amazing job. He seems to know just how to get Alex to do things in the water, and just how much to push him. So progress will be very incremental, but its going as well as we could hope so far.

Favorite Things

Rob doesn't like all things pumpkin, but has always been a fan of pumpkin cookies. This is a really good recipe for them that we've used a couple times already this year. Refrigerate the dough before baking if you like them puffy like we do.

Alex has really been into a few things lately: 1) Shapes, and songs about shapes. 2) Saying "school bus" when he is told no or gets frustrated . Somewhat related, Alex's cousin Jaron used to say "Car Bus" as a toddler when he got mad. 3) The Justin Timberlake song "Can't Stop the Feeling" from the Trolls movie. The music video with all the people dancing has been in our video rotation since his infancy, but lately he's been watching it several times a day on this iPad

Bekcy has really been enjoying getting into pickleball. Now that we have a regular babysitter Monday nights, we are getting good practice in and starting to develop some good technique. We enjoyed playing with Rob's family in Utah too, since they were at our level of skill.