Updates and corrections...

Like every endeavor in life, every now and then you need a "do over". I'm using this blog to correct and/or clarify some things I've written in the past couple of weeks.

First - I am not a "true reality TV junkie"...I have to qualify that statement. I DO watch Survivor, Amazing Race, Dancing with the Stars, The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and, yes even Big Brother. On cable, I enjoy Top Chef and many of the Food Network reality shows...they are more like travelogues.

I DO NOT watch: [fill in the blank with name of city] Housewives. I do not watch any show exploiting people who have an inordinate number of children or young people living together and letting TV cameras follow their every boring move. I absolutely NEVER watch a show with a very strange-looking man wearing a giant watch around his neck (I accidentally caught a glimpse of that one and it made me think of the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland). If I offended any "15-minutes-of-fame" cable reality show, I apologize, but given their content I doubt they'll ever read this blog (the operative word being "read").

Next, I realized after my last post that I did have some photos from our Canadian cruise. Before Joe bought a new chip for his camera when we reached Halifax, he used my camera and got quite a few photos. This is a favorite and will probably appear on this year's Christmas card.

Real time update now...on Friday evening our daughter and her family arrived to spend the weekend. Saturday was an all day adventure to Julian for apple-picking. The lovely town of Julian is about a 90-minute drive on winding mountain roads and during September and October their peaceful community is "invaded" by all the city-dwellers seeking mountain air and home-made pies. As a result, we were shoulder-to-shoulder with a few thousand other "apple-seekers". When we finally got seated at a restaurant, the waitress said we had picked the busiest Saturday of the year. After lunch we decided not to wait in line at Pie Shop" for a famous Julian apple pie since the line waiting to get inside the shop was about an hour long. Off we went to the Raven Hill Orchard where we picked three bags full of apples and Jackie got many photos to choose from for their annual Christmas card. On the way home, we discovered another "Mom's" and stopped and got pies. It was a wonderful day that ended with three happy children enjoying cherry-apple-crumb pie with vanilla ice cream (yum!).

It's now Monday morning and the house is very, very quiet. I always forget in between visits how much energy exists in the bodies of three children! The giggles, shrieks (Ava is best but she's been doing it longer), shouting, laughing, and occasional crying (not very often) echoes in this empty house today. Joe is off fishing so it is accentuated. We usually go up to visit them rather than them packing up for five people plus the cocker spaniel so it was a real treat to have everyone here.