The Fabulous B@ker Blog

Today was a gift of a day off that I had not expected. It started at 8:30am with a planned staff meeting "on the porch," a yearly occurrence where my coworkers and I start the morning with a pot-luck breakfast and progress into either planning or a team building activity, or both. After eating a delicious breakfast, we headed out to the porch for our "meeting" on a warm late summer's day. It was so beautiful out! We were lulled into not wanting to go back to work...and I decided not to go. Encouraged by my great group, I stayed behind and spent a Friday at home alone with just me and my pup. We got a nap in, as well as a quick walk, and I write this from the front porch in late afternoon. What a lovely gift they gave me!

Today is YET ANOTHER milestone: Annalisse first day of her senior year. You've heard me lament enough on the blog about how fast time passes, but seriously? The Last First Day of School? Unbelievable. She wouldn't even let me walk her to the bus this morning! ; ) The year promises to hold a lot of fun for her between her Downstage shows, the Senior Trip to Boston in November, various dances (I sure wish she would reuse dresses), and graduation-type milestones like the 100 days 'til graduation celebration breakfast and "Decision Day" (when all the kids wear t-shirts from the college they have chosen). In the next several weeks, though, we need to concentrate on getting through the ACT and SAT tests, which are a little worrisome - I'm not sure how that is all going to turn out. Luckily, most of the schools she's applying to, with the exception of her top choice, Allegheny, are "SAT optional" so we'll have to see how that all plays out. So m...

Charles "Chip" Munk Last night Annalisse returned from her walk with Jasper and as they were heading up the driveway she started yelling, "Mom! Mom! Come and get Jasper!" I HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON, and thought the worst:  What was wrong with Jasper?  Apparently nothing more than a mouthful of baby chipmunk. There, on the driveway toddling along and tipping over and getting back up and shaking and squeaking was the littlest chipmunk I had ever seen. WHAT DO WE DO? we asked in panic. I decided to take a walk down to our neighbors, who are both vets, to ask for advice. The husband vet gave me a couple of numbers for wildlife rehabbers who would come to our house to get the chipmunk before nursing it back to the wild. Since it was 8pm, though I had a hard time reaching anyone. We were worried; the poor little guy - who by now Annalisse had named "Jack" - would probably not make it through the night on his own and we had no idea what to do with hi...

The Courtyard, Global Village On Monday afternoon we took Cam back to RIT for his sophomore year. This year he is sharing an apartment with five other guys in the newish Global Village . He and another kid (that he does not know) are sharing a room, and the other four guys (he knows them: one is from Fairport and two are from Hawaii, of all places! The other guy is someone he met last year). You should see this place: Shopping! Dining! Outdoor lounging complete with a water sculpture, fire pit and sofas! Seriously, this place is like a country club - it makes me (and everyone I know) want to go back to college. Cam apparently has a grand plan for improving his grades this year and, while he won't reveal much, it sounds like the plans include getting up early to work out and getting a job on campus. At this point he says he doesn't want to do crew so he can "focus on getting his grades up," so that's disappointing but we shall see. If he does get his grades...

Last night, on a beeeeaaauuuutttttiiiifffuuulll August Friday night we went to the Andy Gramm4er/Mat Kearney/Train Concert at CMAC. The weather could not have been more perfect and made for an ideal setting for this much anticipated concert. The artists/band did not disappoint! Andy Grammer started the night off and played for 1/2 hour. He's an up-and-comer, and has a couple of hits out right now. He did a great job and obviously got a lot of exposure in front of the huge, enthusiastic crowd. He played for just 25 minutes then made way for Mat Kearney, a fave of ours, especially since we saw him in Buffalo last November . Mat was also awesome, and there seemed to be a lot of fans in the crowd even though he's still not super well known. I would love to see him again in a smaller setting like we did last time, that made for a really great experience. Next, was Train (!). What a show! !! They were SO AWESOME, entertaining and engaging!! Pat Monahan, the lead singer, has ...

Today the second Baker kid got her driver's permit. That makes two Bakers unofficially "on the road." Kid #1 needs to retake the 5-hour driving course before he can take his road test (the first 5-hour course expired as they are only good for one year, and this has been a long, drawn-out process...), then he'll be ready to take his big test. Kid #2 needs to get basic training and will be taking driver's ed, probably some time this fall. We learned a great lesson from Kid #1 to Kid #2: TAKE DRIVER'S ED. Without it, the insurance increase is HUGE. We chose private lessons over driver's ed for Kid #1, I think because it didn't work with his schedule at the time, but what an expensive lesson to learn. The cost for insuring him is double as a result. Boy, all this teenage driving freaks me out. I have no idea how my father did this with three girls.

That's what Cam said on his Twitter account after dinner when we were discussing getting his grades up this year and what it would take? There was a bit of banter back and forth, trying to figure out what might pique his interest [let me back up a minute...he's been saying for a couple of months he's going to try to get a 4.0 this coming quarter but, since he's said similar things before, I don't really believe him. Especially since he spends every waking moment (when not with his friends) playing a game on his laptop...). Knowing that a lot of his friends have cars and he's at the age when he'd be interested in that, we agreed that if he was able to finish out the next year with an overall GPA of 3.2 or higher we would give him $2,500 towards a car next summer. Well, that did it (whew!) - it was "on." While I'm not too crazy about being out $2,500 next summer, I really really really hope he can accomplish this goal. By next summer it will a...