The Field of Dreams

The Spring Season Whilst the state funded schools (much like those in UK) could possibly be criticised for not including enough sport in the ciriculum, the same can not be said for our local township (think local counsel but we haven't yet worked out the politics).  Both girls have joined with the enthusiasm expected from their parents the Berwyn Paoli Little League baseball season and the baseball pitches around and about, which have lay silent for the winter, and now buzzing with activity. Well for the little ones it is T-ball, a mixed game for 4-6 year olds.  When batting the skill is swinging as hard as you can if you are 3' 6" tall at a ball a staged on a "T", and then running for your life.  When fielding it involves everyone scurrying like an ant to the ball (or day dreaming making castles in the sand and grit that is the pitch).  Four (yes 4!) innings later everyone shakes hands (well high 5's), the coaches give the team a great morale boosting talk, and the game is announced as ending in a draw with all children having scored a run on each innings.  Quite how the league is decided we have yet to determine but with 10 games in 8 short weeks the season is full on and I am sure that there is some plan (rock, paper, scissors may be the ultimate decider). Well, it ramps up pretty quickly and for the 7 year olds there is no such gentleness.  The game  splits by gender and the girls progress to softball (although there is nothing soft about it if you ask me!).  Batting now involves hitting from a pitcher (although an adult volunteer is roped in) and players have the humiliation of hitting from a "T" if they haven't managed to strike the ball after 5 pitches.  Fielding now involves team positioning - the plum jobs being pitchers helper or first base.  At all the other positions the team seem to revert to the carefully honed sandcastle building skills of their "T" ball days by the 3rd innings (yes - still 4 innings each side per game!).   An innings is over when one team scores 5 runs or the other gets 3 out.  G's team are the slow starters and are usually loosing 10-1 by the end of the top of the 2nd innings but they somehow seem to recover themselves and scrape a draw.  This league is far more competitive though with 14 games in the 8 week season and weekly practices it is keeping us all busy. What's amazing about this league is the absolute army of volunteers that emerge to support the league.  Each team our girls are involved with have at least 2 dedicated coaches and all the other father's get involved too (M has been known to pick up his glove too when accompanying G). The coaching in top notch with everyone keen to pass on their skills of throwing, catching, fielding and batting and the sheer intensity of the season and practice means even the least sporting minded learns something and gets a chance to be involved.  Ours are having a ball.  We will have to get them to a real match soon!

Sight-seeing in NYC

Saturday 21st April This weekend we decided to shun our domestic duties (and hang up our baseball boots) and head to NYC for a spot of sight seeing.   The first piece of excitement is that to get to NYC from where we live we had to drive along the New Jersey Turnpike which prompted some Simon & Garfunkel sing-a-longs.  Next piece of excitement was that 38th Street East New York is NOT the same place as 38th Street East Manhattan (according to our sat nav at least) but eventually we sorted that one out.  One upside of the minor detour was that we arrived well after dark and so the views from the Pfizer Suites where we we staying in the 50th floor were pretty amazing - the Empire State Building at night makes a great view. To fit in with G's school project on immigration, and being legal aliens ourselves, we headed to Ellis Island (http://www.nps.gov/elis/index.htm), an island in New York Harbour through which most immigrants had to pass at the turn of the last century.   The ferry ride to get there first stops at Liberty Island, home to the famous statute, so we got some good views.  Ellis Island itself is quite amazing.  It acted as an immigration centre for USA from approximately 1895 to 1925 and during this time 12.5 million immigrants passed through its doors.   A humbling statistic is that 44% of all US citizens today can trace an ancestor back to someone who came through here, and this also represented the biggest movement of people the world has ever seen.  The immigrants who arrived had paid $25.00 for their round trip (in case they were refused entry) in steerage - anyone travelling in 1st or 2nd class did not have to go to Ellis Island as they were considered to have sufficient personal means to survive.  On arrival they were subject to health checks and a legal test - if failing they were given a second chance but 1% of arrivals were never admitted often splitting up families who had to decide who would stay and who would return.  It puts our day trip to the US Embassy in London in perspective.  Our children were pleased (?!?) to complete the junior ranger quiz as we went around securing National Park badge number 4. By Sunday the weather had turned to the grey drizzly stuff we remembered of old so we were all pleased to meet up with some friends for brunch (http://www.thesmithnyc.com/) - another US habit which we are very quickly getting accustomed to.   We don't know what magic Monica wove but she can come out to eat with us again as G & C have never sat so still in a restaurant before.   We spent a happy afternoon in the Children's Museum of the Arts (http://www.cmany.org/)- making the cartoons was particularly interesting and we all headed home with many new creations.

The Franklin Institute

Sunday 15th April To recover for the disappointment of being outbid on the first house that we had out an offer in on, we decided to head into Philadelphia to visit the dinosaur exhibition which had been tempting us since arrival but which was ending today.  The exhibition was held at The Franklin Institute (http://www2.fi.edu/), the city's science museum named after local polymath and founding father Benjamin Franklin. As expected the exhibition was pretty spectacular with many skeletons and fossils from the Jurassic, Triassic and Cretaceous periods.  We all learnt something when the curator showed us the dinosaur skull and compared it to a modern bird and reptile demonstrating how this is evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs but that modern day reptiles had already evolved pre-dinosaurs.  The children enjoyed getting hands on in the excavation pit. You can never get enough science so we split up and headed off to see some of the permanent exhibitions.  G and I visited the Heart and climbed through an enormous heart, learnt about different coloured blood of different species (and the metals responsible) and saw models of hearts from the tiniest bird to the largest blue whale.  C & M ventured to Machines and had fun with levers, pulled and cogs. With our new annual membership we look forward to more outings to come!

The Easter bunny brought special visitors

Friday 6th April - Sunday 8th April

USA is a bit like France in its desire to keep all things state and religion separate from each other and so Easter weekend comes and goes without a single public holiday (Pfizer though do generously provide 2 days of "religious" holidays for each employee to take as and when it best suits them).  We were lucky enough this year that Uncle J, Aunty A and cousin D decided to join us for the break following a short stint in NYC (it does work rather nicely so ...... come on the rest of you ........ where are you?).

So pleased were with our trip to Gettysburg earlier in the week and polishing off another national park Junior Ranger quiz, we entertained them with a trip to Philadelphia and a visit to the National Historic Park of Independence Hall (http://www.nps.gov/inde/index.htm).   In this historic city park in the centre of the former capital, the founding of USA is there to see in all its glory.  First up the old and dramatically cracked Liberty Bell, cast in Whitechapel Foundry London in 1751, to celebrate 50 years of William Penn's Charter of Priviledges of 1701 (he was the founder of Pennsylvania (Penn's sylvania) who was given the land by King Charles II to repay a debt owed to the family).  The bell became an iconic symbol of liberty and freedom when it was rung in 1776 to call the people of Philadelphia to hear the first reading of the Declaration of Independence and was later used as a symbol of unity for the nation following the civil war.  The most dramatic period of the bell's history was when it was removed from the city in October 1777 and hidden under the floor boards of a church in Allentown (about 30miles away) because it was thought that, if left in the city, the British soldiers would melt it down to make cannons.  The Bell is enscribed with the words “Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout All the Land Unto All the Inhabitants Thereof” and has made it a fitting symbol of the principles on which the founding of USA was (and is) based.  Not only did we visit the bell but also Independence Hall where the declaration of independence was drafted and signed, Old City Hall which was the home of the US supreme court for many years and Benjamin Fanklin's printing press.  It was a busy day of guided tours, quizzes and collecting trading cards but by the time our feet were ready for a rest we had polished off another Junior Ranger programme and had a badge safely tucked in our pockets.  Uncle J's face at lunch when we told him the last thing we had had in our plastic containers were tadpoles from our pond dipping was a picture.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny (again!!) so off to another local state park to explore - French Creek (http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/findapark/frenchcreek/).   I have been getting this inkling of an idea that I would like a kyack to explore the local waterways on the warm sunny days to come and I have only been partially put off by my sighting of water snakes - today's outing confirmed that it would be a fun thing to have - I shall put it on my birthday list.  We had a great walk around the lake and saw yet more interesting wild-life - turtles sunning themselves on platforms on the water, evidence of beavers bringing down trees and building dams and also the amazingly butterfiles and dragonflies that busy themselves around the waters edge - these things certianly are bigger here.

We decided to take it easy on Sunday and test out the new water slide - I can't believe that it was warm enough already - anyway this definitely kept the little people cool.  Thanks to Aunty A for encouraging us to church - the one just around the corner proved popular and pleasant.  We also had an Easter egg hunt and the eggs didn't melt too much.

Thie recollecation of the weekend wouldn't be complete without mentioning the ice-cream sundae competition.  Congratulations to D for making the winning sundae - keep it simple proved to be most effective and the slit stawberry ont he side of the glass very professional.  C broke the first rule which was that whatever the creation you had to be able to eat it - funnily enough after adding in a whole pot of pink edible glitter even she couldn't manage to polish it off so disqualification for her.

Thanks so much for coming to see us and we look forward to seeing you soon.

A Pennsylvania Road Trip

Friday 30th March -  Tuesday 3rd April Joy, oh joy - spring break arrived and we spent a well earned week of rest and relaxation together.  Many possible options for the holiday crossed our minds but due to various inactions and competing priorities we finalised on an easy going road trip to explore a corner of our home state of Pennsylvania.  The state itself, named after its founder William Penn who acquired the land from King Charles II as repayment for a debt owed, stretches all the way from the Delaware River to the great lakes in the north and is bordered by the neighbouring states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, west Virginia and Ohio.  There is plenty to explore. We decided to centre ourselves in what is known as Pennsylvania Dutch Country, home to Armish families and their communities (think Kelly McGillis and Harrison Ford in Witness and you are spot on).  These communities, which have thrived for several hundred years living from the land and only slowly (if at all) allowing modern inventions into their lives, have greatly influenced the area.  Intrigued by the place names alone we found a perfect hotel (http://www.amishviewinn.com/) between the villages of Bird in the Hand and Intercourse (yes - your eyes are not deceiving you) and we found ourselves, as expected, right in the heart of Dutch Country surrounded by fields and grain silos, ponies and traps, wide eyed children peeking out from under large brimmed straw hats, covered bridges and washing lines filled with muted black, green and purple clothes of the men and women (the closest thing we have seen to a uniform beyond the forces and services since arriving in USA).  We enjoyed purchasing some Armish wares at the Lancaster (US capital for 1 day) Farmer's market and seeing first hand the houses and schools at http://theamishvillage.net/ (all very well until I saw the snakes and nest of babies in the village stream - yikes!).   We can see much to commend the simple lifestyle but it is interesting to learn about their trade offs - electricity is forbidden but diesel powered air compressors with fridges and washing machines especially adapted to run from them are allowed.  No motor transport or even bikes but dynamo-powered scooters are derigeur.  They even have a special exemption to allow the children (brought up to be bi-lingual and all educated in a single room school from aged 5) to leave school at 13 and continue their education on a purely practical basis at home. Beyond learning more about the Armish (and the break away group the Mennonites - or was it the other way around?) we also managed some important history with a trip to the state capital Harrisburg (not a place for stopping unless you are going to the Capitol building - http://www.pacapitol.com which gives St Peter's in Rome a run for its money in terms of size and opulence) and the civil war battle field of Gettysburg (http://www.nps.gov/gett/index).  The displays brought the 3 day battle very much alive with both children "enjoying" (scared rigid by) the cyclorama re-enactment.  The battle field, which is scattered with 1200 monuments remembering all the different battalions involved, is a day out all in its own right.  We can all now recognise Abraham Lincoln thanks to the Junior Ranger quizzes (badge number 2 safely secured) and are getting word perfect on THAT speech.  We even managed to understand how the Gettysburg events related to John Brown and the pre-war skirmish at Harpers Ferry (which we had visited several years ago). Finally no trip to this part of PA would be complete without a trip to Hershey - home of the famous chocolate brand.  Fortunately the theme park had not yet opened (!) but Chocolate World was enough all in itself (http://www.hersheys.com/) - we had to go around on the ride twice - all those Hershey Kisses!  We also visited the Rail Road Museum in Strasburg (http://www.rrmuseumpa.org/) but I think, in all honesty, our trip to Strasburg  is more likely to be remembered for the ice cream sundaes in the creamery where we had lunch. All in all a very enjoyable few days off!