The Fabulous B@ker Blog

It is with mounting anticipation that you are visiting the Fabulous B@ker Blog to read all about Girl's Weekend 2013, aren't you ? Well, then, let's get started! Back in the cold of winter we settled on the date of this year's annual Girl's Weekend, and it finally came this past weekend in Hershey, PA. The location seemed perfect since it was a reasonable distance for the North Country girls and those coming up from the south. The exciting part was that it is our 10th Girl's Weekend (Which means we are all 10 years older than the 40th birthday we celebrated at the during the first Girl's Weekend in 2003, right after my dad passed away. The math is pretty depressing...). On Thursday, Mark drove me to Syracuse to meet Heather, Lorie and Gina to hitch a ride to Hershey (we were down to one car last week as Cam needed the other one to get back and forth to Naz for his Organic Chem class). I hadn't been to Hershey for probably 20ish years so I was lookin...

No, this post was not written by one of the kids. It was written by me. You know, the B@ker blogger. Reflecting on the kids' secondary school years as they come to a close, I was thinking about what I'll really miss about the kids being part of the daily fabric of the Fairport Schools: Seeing the kids' friends and their families on a regular basis. In the case of Annalisse I will especially miss seeing the Dorseys (shout out to our girl, Jackie! ~ a regular reader of the blog) and the McJurys. The comforting thing is that I know we will still bump into them at the Fairport hot spots since we're all empty nesters now. That excited feeling the first and last day of school. Especially the last day. There is nothing like it ~ the summer looms ahead like an open highway with no end in sight. "Free" textbooks. The great, great teachers. Having someone get home early to take the dog out. Of course, I will miss seeing my kids every day. This will become pa...

The kids drove off in the CRV today at noon for their training week at Camp Bristol. This year Cam is the Shooting Specialist (he had to go for shooting training - an NRA program...don't ask), and Annalisse is a junior counselor. Cam had to take the car because he'll need to go back and forth to Naz this week while he finishes up his Organic Chem class. I guess you could say the coming weeks will be a little like "empty nest in training" for us. Cam will be at camp right through the first week in August (home Friday night, back Sunday morning), and Annalisse will be there five out of the seven weeks as we will be going to Las Vegas from July 10-15, which will cut across two camp weeks. So, yeah. They're gone.  It's a little different than when they used to be gone to camp and we would have our "week of eating out," trying new and old favorite restaurants around Rochester. Now, with college looming, being by ourselves will be more the norm and OBVI...

The excitement starts at :29 Well, both kids' formal education has come to an end. Everything from here on out is "optional!" (Not really, but still an interesting thought.) Last night was Annalisse's graduation. After a year of basically being weepy everytime I thought about graduation I was actually pretty cool, calm and collected when the event actually happened. I remember thinking the same thing about Cam's graduation two years ago - I was a basket case in the months and days leading up to graduation, but did a pretty good job keeping it together at the ceremony itself. I spoke with a fellow mom afterward who echoed the same sentiments. Weird, huh? The ceremony was admittedly long with not too many inspiring speakers. It didn't seem as engaging as Cam's graduation, but that was probably because of the really dynamic speakers and special video they showed during his ceremony (see right sidebar of the blog). The new principal, who has bee...

The whirlwind continues. On Friday after work (at the College, we get out at noon on Fridays), I picked up the kids and we traveled north for a much needed visit to see Mom. She's been in the nursing home for several months now and my Auntie is there as well, so we were able to have a nice visit with both of them.  Mom is always a little confused when I just "appear" in front of her - I'm not part of her every day life and she has a hard time understanding the context of me just walking up and saying hello. Where did I come from? When did I get there? And I think it also takes a second or two to know that it's me. She hadn't seen the kids in a while so she really didn't know who they were, but when we told her I think it was also hard for her to believe how grown up they are. Although it hasn't been all that long since she's seen them, with their busy lives they don't come along for visits as much as they used to, so it's been a wh...

Today Annalisse had her last final - Health, which she said was easy. Let's hope she had a successful week academically with her English and Political Science finals on Monday, and today's test. She's happy to yell from the highest mountain "I'M DONE WITH SCHOOL!!!!" Of course, killjoy that I am, I remind her she starts back up again in September. Still, pretty exciting stuff!! Onto this weekend's Senior Bash and next week's graduation celebration!! It's all fun from here, kids!

The Bakers have been consumed with all the much needed home improvements that are becoming the theme of Summer 2013. Here's where we are so far: The sewer pipe from the upstairs to the basement has been replaced . This project entailed cutting the drywall in the dining room, replacing the pipe, patching it back up and a refresher paint job. The eight of the windows have been replaced. What a dirty job. Everything is back in place but some not so great side effects of that project is that the shutters no longer fit on the windows and I have to get our painter back in to fill in where they cut the windows out, followed by painting of the moulding and surrounding walls. Don't you just love all the hidden costs? The new side fence has been installed. BUT, they installed the swinging door backwards so the hardware (not attractive) is facing the street vs. facing internally into the yard. They are coming back next week to fix that. The garage floor has been replaced, the back w...

And...here is this year's Downstage movie . Great job, kids!

A Gaggle of Grecos. Is that a legit collective term? This weekend was another totally memorable one. Is it possible to fit worlds of fun into just three short days? Yes! And it was wonderful!! Hosts of friends and relatives descended upon Fairport this weekend for the double whammy celebration for Annalisse's last downstage show and Fairport Canal Day s, our village's yearly arts & crafts festival. The really special thing about the weekend was a visit from my dearest friends, Sue and Ken, and also having both my sisters come for the festivities. At work we are now on half-day Fridays, and let me tell you, last Friday morning was the longest in recent history. I was counting the minutes until I could be free since I knew I had a lot of prep for the weekend, not to mention massive cleanup at the house resulting from the installation of new windows. (Which, with each room, has caused a total move out of all furniture and other stuff. When complete, we need to mop the fl...