Ryan's Saturday

"Everything at the airport went to plan. On the plane I had two meals which were alright, and vaguely watched some film, I slept for about 2 hours. Everything in Newark airport was fine & I arrived in New York at about two then drove back across George Washington Bridge to see a glimpse of the city. When we arrived in Chappaqua we went to the swim club for about an hour, then home for a barbeque. After the barbeque we went to the Ben & Jerry’s shop and I had an enormous cone of chocolate fudge brownie. When we got home from there we played basketball on the drive way, two on two. Then I went off to bed after watching some American cable T.V. It was a very fun (and hot) day." Ryan.

Ryan White

We picked up Ryan White yesterday. Ryan is Giles and Sarah's eldest son. He has come over for a week of work experience with me. He told me that other pupil's work experience isn't quite the same as this! Ryan is going to make some posts whilst he is here.

Ollie Blog

Ollie wrote a few words about what he likes about American and what he will miss:

"What I like best about America is that I have really good friends and leaving them is painful. What I also like about America is the schools and they have great teachers and that makes it painful too and missing all the nice neighborhoods. What I mean is that they hold parties and they are all nice. I wish I could stay."

Here is one of my favourite pictures of Ollie, from last year's summer vacation. It is appropriately American:

Baltimore Independence Weekend

Its usually feels a little odd being a Brit in the USA on Independence Day. Not this year. We had a fabulous weekend with Arthur, Kym, Will and Ella in Baltimore, where they are staying for the summer. We watched the fireworks in the Inner Harbor from Federal Hill on the Friday (and had some of the best hamburgers I have ever tasted from Arthur's grill). We went to the aquarium,

the USS Torsk,

and the American Visionary Arts Muesuem,

with a fabulous meal at Obryckis on the Saturday.

Sunday was the Science Muesuem,

and a boat trip to Fell's Point whilst Nadal just pipped Federer at Wimbledon.


It was great.

Homeward UK

Yesterday was the day that the last gasp attempts to keep me in the States really finished. We are heading back to the UK.

Walking to school

George and I walked down to Bell school today, for possibly the last time in Chappaqua. It was sad. It has been wonderful walking down with George. I don't know how often it will happen in the UK. We beat the bus more than it beat us. We gave the little waterfall a points score everyday, we sang "lurder, lurder, downtown lurder" and "sweaty pants" and we saw the funny 'L' shape carved in the tarmac. We also saw the building and relandscaping of the area by the duck pond and the river. I shall miss this.

The Rovers

"Chappaqua Rovers. That’s us. 2007-2008 Chappaqua’s travel soccer team, C team. This is our team photo. We are proud of how we played, that we got 3rd place in our league. But that’s not important. We played well, always getting better. Or at least I thought I got a lot better. Our team looked like it knew when to dribble, pass, get open. In our games we played like a team. I am proud to be on this team for my last American team." George

The Quaker House

I decided to go to the Quaker Meeting House. I have wanted to go for a while. Partly because it is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, buildings in Chappaqua but mainly because I was interesting in going to a Quaker meeting. I had been going occasionally to the Congregational Church where Charlie goes to nursery school but inspite of a absolutely brilliant sermons by the priest and the stillness of the short periods for reflection, I was getting a little bored of all the other 'stuff'. I knew Quakerism put some emphasis on personal reflection in the meetings so I stopped in one day on a cycle ride to ask a couple of questions. I liked the answers and thought I might like to go to a meeting. There is no alter as such, and no obvious 'preist', and very little other' stuff'. The benches are laid our in a rectangluar shape, with no obvious 'head' of the room. At the first meeting I attended we sat in silence for almost 50 minutes before anyone said anything. It was both very liberating and disciplined. I liked it.

Charlie's Graduation

Charlie graduated from Play Care. These are pictures of his graduation day.

Tom's Trip

Tom Handley came for a week. It was quite an adventure, and I think he had a good time. In Chappaqua it was BBQs, swim club, cycling (rather a long cycle in fact!), playing great with the boys, Ben and Jerry's, and Dunkin' Donuts. Tom was also around for Memorial Day so we went to went down for the Parade. Here are some pictures of this visit:

A couple of shots from the Memorial Day Parade. Firstly, Tom and Jill with the Taubs: Johnathan being George's coach in this team this year. Secondly, Ollie with his cub scouts; Alexanda Stasko to his left.

Tom also had a couple of trips into the city. He came in with me, and with Jill. He bought some cool sneakers, shorts and a t-shirt.

I wish I had thought of asking him to post a couple of entries on the blog with some photos as it would be signficantly better than this post.