Lake Placid, NY

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Dear Everyone, Today's the 1st back on the blog after a wonderful Thanksgiving break. We had a wonderful time with Paul's parents and enjoyed their Albany hospitality. They took us to the Sienna vs. Stanford BB game which was a great one. Sienna pulled off an upset and left the #20 team Cardinal out on a limb...79-67; sorry all of you down on the farm. The student body went wild; you would have thought Sienna had won the NCAA Tourney. Then, we ate many of Joan's wonderful meals, had the grand tour of Albany watched football, and took off in a rental car with Charlie's ice scraper, snow brush, and maps. We had a lovely 2 hr. drive to Lake Placid, checked into The Golden Arrow Hotel on Mirror Lake and got ready to see Abby. North Country School is about 15 min from downtown LP. There was a lot of excitement as students reunited with family. Art work, craft projects, book fair, maple syrup sales, and classroom visitations were the order of the day. We saw 2 of Abby's wood block pictures, her woven Adirondack back-pack basket, and followed her normal daily schedule. Her teachers all seemed enthusiastic about their subject and went over the material they were covering, with lots of student participation. We had time to visit, meet other parents (and grandparents) and see her room back at her house. There we had an informal dinner, chatted, and learned that her houseparents had both been in the Peace Corps...Kenya & Vanawatu (sp? where Jeff had just been & loved). Small World! We left to return to the hotel which had hot showers & TV. Thanksgiving morn we set out so we could take in the barn tour; unfortunately, since it had been snowing & freezing the school thought it was too treacherous on the icy paths so we saw animals from a far...horses, pigs, llama, sheep, chickens, ducks. We saw the maple trees which are tapped every year, the ice skating pond, and looked up at White Face where they ski/snow board on Tuesday afternoons. We witnessed rock climbing on the inside rock wall, saw all the craft/fine arts areas and then waited while the kids all dressed up for the Feast. We had assigned tables with name tags and Level 4 (Abby's 8th grade class were the servers). How she managed to keep all the bowls at our table filled wearing 4" heels escapes me, but she did a great job and we ate a delicious organic, school-grown and picked meal which was wonderful. I wish I could remember the food statistics, but they harvested a lot of food and we ate a lot of it.
A good-of-the-order speech was made by the headmaster who seems committed to this school and urges the kids to think outside the box. We think it has been a good fit for Abby. We also saw a dance program, chorus, and slide show of the kids doing various activities. We picked up her gear and got back to the hotel for a swim in the indoor pool & hot tub. We spent a lot of time visiting, shopping, walking Timmy, seeing friends from school, relaxing, sleeping in, a movie "Enchanted", and Scott Hamilton's Stars on Ice show which begins it's nationwide tour each year in LP. Sasha Cohen, Todd Eldridge, etc. were all fabulous. We enjoyed our visit with our oldest granddaughter on her turf and after church & Ben & Jerry's we had to say "good bye." The nice thing is knowing that she'll fly home in 3 weeks for Christmas & her 14th birthday & to hold her brand new baby brother (whom Judy K. saw in Safeway!)
Back to Albany for more food & football & friendship. Then with extra apple pie & brownies from Joan, we set off for the return trip. We didn't even get to rake another leaf as they had all fallen and Charlie had scooped them up without us. We are in Lickdale, PA outside of Harrisburg, and will continue heading south. It was a nasty drive today as we were on the Interstate 81 and it rained, lots of splashes from big trucks, and then dense fog. But, we are heading home. love, DWT

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Photos

Charles & Joan Cappellano
"Mr. and Mrs. Hospitality".