some serious lake play

-36 of us at the lake complete with vhs of the
last several cates’ family lake reunions.
cory as a handsomegoofy 13 yr old is my favorite one so far.
-nathan, henry & caroline got to drive the ski boat already today
(granted, c’s was on grandpa’s lap, at about 2 mph and we went
in 3 big slow circles, but she was thrilled)
-feeling sore from the jet ski play
-i think it’s safe to say that there weren’t
less than 15 in the water at all times today
and our four were firstin/lastout
-at the end of the day, betsy was j u m p i n g into the lake.
it’s, oh, a three foot drop from the floating dock into the water.
her laugh was h u g e. huge. couldn’t stop laughing.
and wanted to go again.
baby, we are going to sleep well tonight.

and the 2 plane flights & 4 hr car ride yesterday – a cinch.

tomorrow: nathan has a date with the wakeboard &
henry/caroline/betsy would sleep in their lifejackets
if we would let them. i bet we’re in by 8am.

ps – kinsey was giving me a
facebookfordummies tutorial.
hers is so cute.
kinsey cates on facebook.
i don’t know how
to link to it, though.

(she’ll be a sophomore in h.s. this year,
and i think facebook is esp important in high school &
college, or do i just sound really old saying that?
correct me if i’m wrong & i just need to get on the cooltrain)

the big one-one

07.27.96
eleven years as mrs. cory cates,
my greatest pleasure.
love you, babe.

we saw the new bruce willis movie last night
and i think i almost liked it more than cory,
who has been angling to see it since it came out.

we savored some yolato on the way home;
i can’t say that without moving my mouth all funny
yoLAHto
[you h a v e to go - 83/bway, or is it 84? next to artie's;
yogurt + gelato....say no more]

just before the end of the movie, in the pitchdark,
this woman stood up, turned around
and took a picture (w/ flash) of the
minor-celebrity sitting across the aisle from us,
and then she hustled out of the theatre.
weird.
the girl who was with minorcelebrity was m a d.
hopping mad.
and then when we all exited the movie,
camerawoman was waiting there
and was snapping more pictures of them
from behind (literally, their backsides) as they were exiting the building.
doubleweird.

today’s hilight = christa lou is in town from co
a cheerybeautiful face in our doorway

7am flight tomorrow.
don’t tell, but i think i’m going to bathe the
girls & have them sleep in their dresses.
that way we can wake them right as we’re
tiptoeing out the front door to the cab.
what time do we need to leave here
to make it to la guardia + make it thru security?
i’m thinking 5.

mmmm…check out the
yummy new fonts of 2006
typographica

 

 

 

ps – if you actually think the 6 of us are capable of
‘tiptoeing’ anywhere, i’ve misled you.
more accurately, ‘we hope to not wake the
entire building as we leave in the wee hrs of
a saturday morning’.
we’ll miss our housemates; have i mentioned lately
how much i adore living at 255 w 70. i do.
ted, diane, ethan, jane, brittany, ryan, paula & ida.
oh my.
the Lord is generous indeed.

pps – have i also mentioned that baby morgan
is making her debut very, very soon?
hooray

ppps – let me amend today’s hilights to include
more cheerybeautiful faces in my doorway:
shannon,
carrie,
mrs. williams,
julia &
scott crosby.

miss shannon .. luke helps us build the spaceship

$5

caroline found it!
and then nathan reminded me that
i had offered a cash reward for
whoever helped find the camera.
and then he debated the ethics of
giving young children money.
(sorry, c, no $ for your bank.
I wonder if he would’ve objected
to it if he had found it?)

museum of natural history hilight:
albino frogs & hissing cockroaches
(weloveyou,missshannon)

today’s lowlight:
picking out our things at the store
and then finding i’d left my wallet at home.
6 hot blocks later, we decided not to make
the return schlep for the goods.

sharing pb with annie simmons; henry making a bracelet for dad

timing is everything

here we go:

july 28-31 . cates’ family reunion @ the lake in missouri

aug 1+2 . visit kj’s grandma, aunt kathleen + aunt letha in kansas, drive to co

aug 3 – 27 . the mountains! colorado with grammy & papa, a divine escape.

aug 5 . cory back to nyc

aug 27 . kj + the boys return to nyc, girls remain in co with grammy + papa

aug 28 . cory’s debut at columbia presbyterian; luckily, he looks good in white

sept 4 . nathan + henry start school. n = 3rd grade, h = first day of K!

sept 4 or 5, hopefully . cory home from hosp. home recovery estimated at 4-5 wks

sept 10-ish . grammy flies out with the girls + stays to help us

note to potential robbers:
this play-by-play is not for your benefit;
our apt is happily occupied the entire time we’re away.
don’t even think about it.

waterplay, day 2

today’s was the good kind of water

swimming @ the ragland’s in ct [thankyou!]
+
the water-bucket-dump at madison sq park
(what up with the metal trees & rocks?)

i’ve misplaced my camera.
i miss it and am
wishing it had a clapper attached to it.

supersoaker

nathan: betsy’s going to be the first kiddo in line in heaven.
(as she’s wiping my feet with a baby wipe)

henry: it’s never going to work for me to be a vegetarian.
mom: wha? i mean, why?
h: because i like chicken too much.

thanks to benton for the housecall;
we’re glad to see a friendly non-cates face.

we’re all cooped up in this rain.
but actually, it’s a cheery lego-playing
umbrella-twirling-in-the-backyard
kind of a day.

talk to me

with don cheadle as petey greene.

one of those roll-around-in-your-head
and make-you-google-historical-details
kind of movies.

good movie,
good date.

23K

cory’s high score.
let’s beat it.
pacxon

saycheese

one of our favorite features of this sexysilly new
computer (go, mac) is
the
photobooth.

our record so far is 4.

as in, we’ve only been able to squeeze 4 of the 6
of us into the frame at once.
we’ll keep trying.

we’re on photo no. 208
and it’s only been a month.

verbatim

a transcript of the last 10 minutes with nathan & henry;
i love saturday afternoons.

they’ve been building a mars mission with legos all morning
(and last night with chloe & jonathan, and the night before, and…)

nathan: the mission started; this human expedition was coming to mars.
they were coming to see if there was really life on mars, like some
scientists said because some scientists had gotten life readings on
mars. the new scientists came and they also got life readings on mars.
the new guys get their fighters, which are like hover crafts, it’s like a
plane that goes on other planes, that can fly really high and doesn’t
need gas; it’s a nuclear plane.

their radars actually sensed the life and they came over here
and see this big massive colony of martians. this big city. and these
little green guys are just walking there. so they don’t even notice
them at first but when, like, 2 million buildings are smoking and
lasers are coming out of nowhere, they start to worry. so then they
escape to the outskirts of the city.

henry: then me and nathan got a big idea of putting robots in this
place that fight humans and it ended up robots vs. humans.
martians and robots versus humans. because then they basically
kill all of the people with all of the weapons like bombs, poison
nunchucks and harpoons. and, you know, it just ends up like that.

n: the guys go to the outskirts and they see this dust cloud in the
distance and they’re like okay, it’s probably like a stampede of
martian lizards or something. which they were right about. but
then they get a feeling and they’re like, wait a minute, why were
the lizards stampeding? and then all of these trucks and these
humans with a fighter come in and the robots start fighting them.
so the humans started attacking and the martians started defending.
once they saw that their plan had worked the guys started winding
down their attacks, they started getting weak spots in their defense
mechanisms. so the guys start shooting at the weak spots and the
guys are like, uh ho we’ve got to strengthen our defenses and it breaks
out a total battle with martian fighters zooming all over the place and
lasers flying everywhere.

these space rangers see all of this commotion on mars and they come
down in their spaceships and see the huge battle on the outskirts of
the city. they see that humans have come. they’re like, we’ve done
humans before, but this is more advanced, more advanced warfare.

h: here’s the martian, mom. see that green guy that nathan’s holding?
and these are what these guys fight, humans & robots.

n: in a battle like this between regular martians, you know how
the martians always end up?

h: you’ll see how it’ll end up. it might be a little amazing.
just want you to know, it might be a little amazing.

n: (con’t) just like these martians here. in the middle of the examination table.

h: yep, that’s how they would end up.

kj: how would they get there?

n: the guys release a special gas that makes the guys fall asleep, they put
them on stretchers and into the container. they remain stunned while
they take their pulse and stuff. in the end, all of the humans are captured
and then all of the escaped humans go back to mars and they’re going to
tell those scientists that they never should’ve doubted them. but they
must’ve been really scared to run away, to escape.

h: there’s one head beaten off.

n: no, we don’t want the helmets beaten off or else the guys can’t breathe.
this guy needs this.

h: well these robots and martians don’t need the helmets.
yeah, because robots don’t need air. but humans do.

they’re still talking,
i’m done transcribing;
you get the idea.

note to self: watch out for dust clouds as it
could indicate stampeding martian lizards. 

kristie’s off to tanzania for a month.
feels like just a moment ago she was sitting
in cory’s hospital room telling us about
her trip; july seemed so far away.
{kristie vs. cory in cards . brutal matchup,
but after all the trashtalk i can’t remember who won}
be safe, serve well, and hurry home, cutie.

clever; now i can read calvin & hobbes and
at the park and people will mistake me for a serious reader.
kate spade book cover downloads

delicious in its simplicity: you are beautiful campaign

well, that was fun:

made with flickr toys badge maker

hooray! finally another girl in the cates’ family
congrats, stacy & danny
october 6, 2007

and we’re joining justin & anita for the
HP block party in soho tomorrow night
around, oh, midnight. who else is coming?

movies, revisited

thanks, jonathan, for helping us weed through
the times movie list; i appreciate it.
(and a guy’s perspective is helpful; keeps them
from saying, “annie, again?” “do we always have to dress up
in old curtains when we watch the sound of music?”
but of course we do)

from jonathan gough:

“Of the 100, I think a few may not be suitable for all children…
But many are on my all time favorite movies and fav. movies
as a kid growing up. This is obviously skewed towards a guys perspective…

Thanks for the walk down memory lane… If there is a ** next to it, I have watched it an upwards of 10 times, easily… Public library what can I say.

1. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) (any A+C is good)
**2. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
7. The Bad News Bears (1976)
12. The Black Stallion (1979)
20. Chariots of Fire (1981)
**36. The Great Escape (1963)
**60. The Magnificent Seven (1960)
63. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
64. Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)
65. The Music Man (1962)
67. National Velvet (1944)
**70. Peter Pan (1953)
71. Pinocchio (1940)
72. The Princess Bride (1987)
76. The Rookie (2002)
77. The Secret Garden (1993)
90. Swiss Family Robinson (1960)
**91. The Three Musketeers (1974)
94. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

Anything with Errol Flynn is lots of fun,
for comedy I would also add The court jester (1955)”

thursday

it is a very pretty building : fifteen cpw
(thanks, p, for the article)

[remember when they put up those huge banners on
the ground level showing happy people shopping at
the various stores to come? and someone went thru
and drew huge mustaches on all of them? nice]

morven’s teaching religious education at bankhead academy
in aberdeen this fall and
is coming to visit in october!
hip hip hooray

happy third birthday, brennan.

ny times summer dinner ideas
do not read this if you’re hungry;
your stomach will positively growl

afternoon tidbits

2 boys + 2 girls =

a. lots of lovin’
b. lots of fightin’
c. lots of apologizing & hugging
d. all of the above

‘mr. warbucks likes cheeky orphans!’
grace farrell to mrs. hannigan,
fighting for custody of annie

the boys are enjoying day camp at geneva school
this week. my favorite part is playing chauffer to
nathan, henry, adam, eli, wilson & lucas.
i looked at them in the rear-view mirror today
and almost got teary thinking,
“the future of the church right here in the van.”

{huge thanks to wendy & jason for cheerfully sharing their van}

caroline was along for the ride today
(their van has that tremendous feature: the
jump seat in the middle of the middle row,
making it an 8 seat-er. wow. technology)
and she brought little ziplocs with
sour patch kids for each of the boys;
the girl knows how to win friends.

welcome, abe, jordyn & lydia cho
new fellowship group director at redeemer & his fam

new york times’ list of
100 films for children

british products

one of the interesting aisles at fairway
(our divine local market)
is simply titled
‘british products’

i’m guessing it is fairway’s shorthand for
‘no nutrition label required, so don’t ask us’
(imported products aren’t required to have
the fda nutrition label that american products have,
which is a mite big & obnoxious, no? esp on small pkgs)
so the products simply state
the delicious ingredients included
and
that’s
that.

the thing that caught my eye initially were
the obligatory vegemite & marmite jars in
scary-large quantities
(which reminds me of our fav aussie chris gilbert -
and veg. is an australian product, no?).

many of the items on the little aisle are
in clever packaging, tempting me to pick
up something i’m not familiar with and try it out.
(lyle’s golden syrup? lisa and i were curious)

two of our finds from that section
include the marinade for tomorrow’s grilled chicken,
loyd grossman madras curry &
the children love hartley’s jam.

love me some british products;
i wonder what we’ll pick up next.

f’wy schlepper’s note: it’s the endcap behind
fresh pasta & across from the baguettes and before you
get to the rotisserie/sushi.

hooray for the friend family
chris & jenny,
meredith, caleb & baby boy
(due in nov)

man-yi

katie survived the typhoon in okinawa with flying colors

“Hello Family,
Man-Yi is gone and I have electricity again.
It was out for ~30 hours.
The house is fine. A few water spots on the wood
by the windows but that’s all. No broken windows, roof, or doors.
This place is solid.

The yard is another matter.
The trees are now trimmed but the branches are laying everywhere.
I can’t get it cleaned up yet because we’re in the after storms now.
It’s been raining a good bit of the morning with a bit of wind so
I’ll wait to get everything put back to normal.
Only 1 bit of damage- our tool shed.
It’s a little one about 3 feet tall, plastic, with a garage type door.
I put cinderblocks on top of it and made sure it was full of tools
to weight it down but it still blew 15 feet away.
The door is completely gone but all the tools are there.

So life it getting back to normal. Fun times.
SO glad to have electricity again!

Love you all,
Katie “

caroline & annie

weloveyoumrshannigan

“why anyone would want to be an orphan is beyond me.“
mrs. hannigan, annie

caroline’s starting to sing along with the songs,
to my great juvenile-ish joy.
i can’t wait to do a duet on ‘tomorrow’ with her
(for now charis & i will have to cover it.
or maybe ‘hard knock life’)

good & angry !
no, really, it’s the title of a book ava loaned
me yesterday & i’m halfway thru today;
it’s brilliant in a super-timely-boy-i-needed-this way.
the subtitle reads, “exchanging frustration for character in you and your kids”
by turansky & miller
(parenting is heart work is must-reread on my shelf)

airplane spotting, we heart cynthia, initializing the new cement

now, let’s get the milk

vacation bible school boys, hallway peekaboo, we’re tracking the typhoon that’s about
to hit katie, my sister-in-law, in japan (while my brother is deployed) hi, k

it’s a date

cory’s surgery will be august 28th at columbia pres.

please pray with us that his insides
will hold steady until then.

mcfly

we watched ‘back to the future’ for family movie night.
now we can’t get ‘the power of love’ out of our heads.
and cory really did work with flux capacitors @ cu.
though his hair wasn’t white & crazy.

so now the kids have a new vocabulary
that includes things we grew up with like
“nice one, mcfly”, “calvin. calvin klein”,
plutonium, skateboarding behind a moving car,
the convertible running into the dumptruck of fertilizer…

henry’s still scratching his head:
“dang car? dead car? did he say the bad word ‘dang’?”
no, honey, he actually said another bad word similar to dang.
he still thinks the guy said ‘dead car’
(which makes perfect sense? right).

. . . .

as part of ‘mommy camp’–caroline’s term–
the girls and i went to chelsea market last week. o h m y.
loved it. what’s not to love?
(‘mommy camp’ is her consolation when the
boys were leaving for soccer camp each morning)

and i now can register my vote for
‘best cupcake in the city’: eleni’s.

this photo from saturday reminds me when
someone came over last week and as a greeting
caroline ran and exclaimed, ‘betsy has a baby in her belly!’
i see the room for confusion.

trophy time: luke, henry, ezra & nathan

know thyself

cory’s mid-way through a book by eric douglas,
and he coerced (bullied?) me into a late night self-assessment.

i’m  lying there with a pillow over my eyes
to block the lamp light, practically begging him to come to bed
and he’s giddily pressing me with 32 awkwardly-presented questions
to rate on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 – always describes me, 1 – never),
“i’m not very precise” and
“i’m not peaceful in my inner-self”
(love the double negative of giving the 2nd question a score of 2)

so he’s landed some really amazing conclusions
i mean, anyone who knows us
would never guess that
cory = ‘persuader-explorer’
and
i’m = ’socializer-charmer’

way out, man. super insightful.

we stayed up an extra 1/2 hr for that?
nice.

nope, i’m not going home.
i want to go to the park & i won’t hear of anything else.
so i’m just going to sit down and cry.
right here.
a mere block from our house.
lovely.

subway grime, nah, ‘historical charm’, says the times.
i like that.

(ps – am i going to get away with ‘giddily’? i think it works)

we saw license to wed last night.
funny-ish.
the office cast represents in the movie,
which was one of the better parts.

cartoon by dave walker

an anniversary hint for my loveydove (7.27.96)
love you, babe.

this tshirt is cracking us up, clever.
when you’re traveling, despite the language difference,
you can point to the object & then the question mark, and so forth.
but we can’t agree on what the number pad is.
(n thinks it’s a phone, but i think the phone is top-right-ish.
a bank?)

refocus

“as parents, we desire to have
an attitude of ministry,
a sense of opportunity,
and a quest to be a part of what
God is doing in the lives of our children”
‘age of opportunity’, by paul david tripp

4th of july, a 3-act play:

morning. children’s parade behind the fire truck & picnic @ columbia
w/ the clementes, queeners & crosbys
[the firemen opened the hose at the end for the kids to run thru]



see cory cracking up in the middle shot?
a tourist group was coming through columbia
and they were delighted to see the children; taking their
pictures & even trying to pick betsy up. the kids think they’re
‘famous’ now after the photo shoot & even giving autographs.

afternoon. filming a short clip for the guys’ sketch show
nathan, henry & caroline, actors
(next thurs night@ ucb; way to go, cory cavin)
maybe we can get the edited segment up here at some point

evening. celebrating america’s bday
w/ the simmons, mrs. williams & chris w.

that abby love smith is so talented.
(carrie’s sister, of course)
abby’s dip book, and her wedding, too

carrie & cory clean up real good

5:56

n: mom, mom, are you ready for Bible study?
m: wha? good morning, babe. what time is it?
n: runs upstairs to look at the oven clock, it’s 5:56
m turns to dad: seriously? seriously?
d, chuckling: it’s a good thing, babe. a good thing.

i managed to hold out in my snuggly bed
until 6:32am at which time i (rather cheerfully, i’d like to think)
hopped out and joined him on the stripey couch to
read psalm 33 together (his choice).

he had already memorized verses 20-22. (his choice, again)

the Lord is good.
and we do pray for you, nathan,
that the Word of God will bear fruit in your heart,
that it will penetrate quickly, deeply & exclusively;
His word is our life.

maybe it’ll be SIX:56am tomorrow, though.

no news is…

not necessarily good news.

just wanted to update you
that there’s nothing to update you on
re: cory’s upcoming surgery.

still awaiting a final surgery date &
some signing-off between hospitals.

thanks for your patient encouragement
to us. thank you.

four on stone

remember that game you have to play
when you’re sitting around the table
in the back yard?
keep all four of your chair legs on stone
so that you don’t sink right down into the mud?

[before shot]

we’re sorry to inform you that
we’ll have to find new games to play
because
we
poured
concrete,
baby.

love it.

160 lbs of concrete
15 watering cans full of water
3 trowels
2 packs of gum (thanks to lisa’s care pkg)
1 yankees game on the radio
6 hrs
3 young helpers to manage
1 betsy to distract (so she wouldn’t know what she was missing)
and voila!

all grown up

sunday lunch adventure:
nathan went around the corner to
subway and brought home lunch to us
(11 minutes into the venture,
our home phone rang.
n: i’ve got the food and i’m heading home.
roger, babe. over & out)

caroline waited on the front step the
entire 13 minutes he was gone

it was a delicious lunch
and i have visions of starbucks & a times next saturday morning

(safety patrol note:
subway, starbucks & the newsstand are
all around the corner on our block.
you don’t have to cross any streets)