The Fabulous B@ker Blog

Well, we have only one week to go until Cameron returns from Europe. While I hate to wish his great trip away, I really can't wait until he gets back. It seems like ages since we've seen him! To add to our future state of childlessness, Annalisse is going camping with a friend in the 1,000 Islands this weekend from Friday night until Sunday night. What the heck will we do with all this free time?! Maybe I will get that weeding done after all (after my nap).

This article caught my eye yesterday. I think I'll have to start a label for pop culture since I seem to be so into it. And this happened in Salt Lake City, of all places! If you're not sure what I'm referring to, here's the commercial from the 1990s. What would Wayne & Garth think? ---- 'Grey Poupon' antic leads to pointed gun Mimicking a humorous 1990s commercial, three in car get an unexpected response from a fellow driver The Salt Lake Tribune, 07/23/2008 A Sandy man took offense to a motorist, who, after getting him to roll down his window, asked, "Excuse me, sir, do you have any Grey Poupon?" After hearing the request for Dijon mustard, the 22-year-old driver pulled a black handgun from his glove compartment, cocked the weapon and pointed it at the three people in the other car. "Here's your Grey Poupon, roll your [expletive] windows up," he responded. The confrontation happened June 18 at the intersection of 900 East and Winc...

Today marks five years since my father passed away, which also happened to be on a Sunday. I suppose I'm like many others who have lost a loved one and relive that day on each anniversary. But, five years! It went very fast and memories of him are still fresh in many ways. My dreams of my father usually feature him in his last months, when he was losing weight and losing ground against his battle with blood cancer and diabetes. Even if he's "healthy" I know he won't be for long, and that he is dying. Hopefully someday in my dreams my father will visit as the healthy, happy, loving man we all knew, and I'll just enjoy him without thinking about the fact that I'll be losing him. So here's to you, Dad, as the Yankees battle the Red Sox today (which I would not have known about but my sister follows the Yankees VERY faithfully) !

When I heard about the Qantas jet that landed safely after an explosion in the plane's cargo tank, my first thought was 1) I hope it wasn't a bomb, and 2) if it wasn't a bomb, I hope it wasn't caused by a 3 oz. bottle of shampoo exploding. That's all we need, further restrictions on what you can take along when flying. Just because someone lit his shoe on fire, we can't wear shoes when going through security...just because someone made an explosive out of a liquid, we can't carry on anything over 3 oz....just because a handful of people are potential security threats the 80-year-old woman in front of me needs to be thoroughly searched. Ridiculous. There's no doubt there are a lot of crazy people out there, and I'm sure we're all safer when flying because of certain rules and regulations, but c'mon! Isn't it a hassle enough to have expensive flights constantly cancelled and delayed, not to mention the fact that pretty soon all you'll ...

No contact with Cameron this week has made for one of the longest weeks I can remember. Finally, on Friday around 4:30pm we called him at his hotel room (it was 10:30pm in Rome). We enlisted the help of our neighbor, Yolie, who speaks Italian in case we ran into language issues at the front desk. It took a little while to reach him because the receptionist didn't have individual room assignments, so we were transferred to Beth, the delegation leader's, room. She was kind enough to send another leader up to get him. They were all just getting ready for evening room checks. All is well and he's having a good time. There are a couple of kids he's been hanging out with, and if you know Cameron, then you know it was very difficult to get any info out of him…we had to ask MANY questions that were met with a "yup," or "nope." Frustrating, but relieving! Today they head to the Vatican with promises of pizza at some point in the day. On a related note, one of...

A lot of people have asked me if we have heard from Cameron yet. The answer is "no," and we don't really expect to. We made the decision not to by him an international calling card because we had heard, and have since heard, that they are really difficult to use. We also considered adding a temporary international plan to his cell phone, but the delegate leaders expressly said not to bring cell phones. So, that leaves us with trying to contact him at one of the hotels along the way, a hit-or-miss proposition at any rate with the time difference and the chance that the hotel we call will not have individual phones in the rooms. We've been relying on all the phone and e-mail messages from the other kids to their parents to let us know how the trip has been going. The plan right now is to try to call Cam in his hotel around 4pm tomorrow (10pm in Rome). I may try to enlist my neighbor, Yolie , who I think speaks Italian, for the beginning of the call in case I have diffic...

After getting Cameron launched on his European adventure, we welcomed two Turkish students, Ufuk and Hayat, for the weekend. We started their visit with a trip to Genesee Country Museum , the recreation of a 19th century village and one of our favorite places around Rochester. To us, the buildings, furnishings and dress seems so old, but to someone from Turkey it must look really young in relation to the sites they see every day! I love it there and feel like I could actually live there (especially in the log cabin). Ufuk and Hayat were both really nice kids, although Hayat didn't feel great all weekend (sore throat), but was a real trooper. We let them sleep in on Sunday morning, then, after dropping Cameron off for her ride to confirmation camp, we hung around for a while before going to Aladdins for lunch. After that we took a ride out to RIT and the University of Rochester, before a stop at Mt. Hope Cemetery where we showed them the graves of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Doug...