We certainly had a crazy week here in Ellicott City last week. Some of you may have seen our town on the National news. Unfortunately, there was a train derailment on the bridge in Old Ellicott City which dumped its load of coal onto two college freshmen girls killing them both instantly. The two girls were enjoying their last days of summer sitting on the bridge and texting friends with photos of their feet dangling over the edge when a train came around and derailed, dumping the coal onto both of them. Crazy. The two were graduates from Allison's high school, so Allison's school was on tv quite a bit too, along with the principal. Sadly, the teenagers enjoy sitting and partying on the bridge overlooking the river and the old downtown even though it is a restricted area. Guess we know why. Apparently there were a lot of parents that took their kids over for a look and lecture on the dangers of sitting next to the railroad tracks afterwards.  They still aren't sure why the train derailed. The train didn't actually hit the girls.  The funerals were last weekend which had an impact on Allison's field hockey schedule since some of the girls on the team were friends of the families. The team was supposed to have a pool party last Friday but just ended up going out to lunch. They did not want everyone to miss out since several members were at the funeral.  And it took a week to clean up all the coal and the train cars in a narrow space. They just reopened the road this week.

On a better note, Ellicott City was once again rated the top 10 places to live in the US by US News and World Report(just don't sit by the railroad tracks). However, we did drop from #2. And we were pleasantly surprised to see Carmel, IN was the #1 place to live in the country! Home of Mom and Dad Seitz and near home of Mark, Eric and Linda Seitz, somewhat near home of Stacey and Matt Draper and in the same state as Sue and John Potts. Why then did Mom and Dad Seitz move away from Carmel to Venice,Florida? Guess they will have to work on that town next.

We also attempted to enjoy our last week of summer vacation. Tom took last Friday off to take Scott to Busch Gardens to finally ride the new rollercoaster, VerBolten. They drove all the way to Willimasburg. The park was not crowded as there was a bit of drizzly rain, but everything was running. However, the park would not allow Scott on any rides with his cast except the Sky Buckets and Dark Kastle which is a 3D ride. And the water park was not terribly cooperative either. We did not have this problem many years ago when our neighbor's son broke his arm also right before Labor Day Weekend. We were all headed there together and we felt horrible because we had walked the kids up to the park the week before and their son fell off the monkey bars on our watch, breaking his elbow. But he still made it to both parks and swam and rode on the rides with his cast. Busch Gardens has a new ownership and it is just not as fun as it used to be-especially after they did away with the free beer! We still plan on going down for HallowSCream right after SCott's cast comes off. And we will probably visit Busch Gardens in Tampa in October when we head down there for one of Tom's conferences. But after that we think we will cancel our membership. Scott did enjoy one fun day of camp last week as they visited DAve and Busters, the restaurant/video arcade/bowling and pool hall. At least he could still play video games! But he really missed the outings to the water parks and lakes(no rope swings or high dives with a cast).

Instead it looks like Scott can ride the coasters at Hershey Park, so we plan on visiting this coming Labor Day weekend. We usually try to go to Busch Gardens over Labor Day Weekend as they have always scheduled a terrific end of the summer concert, but not this year. And wouldn't you know, we had lots of extra time this holiday weekend since Allison only had a half day of school, work was cancelled for her Friday night, and no Field Hockey games or practices.  Scott had the day off of school on Friday and Tom had the day off of work Friday too.

Well, I am sure we will still keep busy. I signed up to work this SAturday for a half day, and we need to stop into the library and get passports for the kids. I finally signed Allison and I up for an International Trip next summer with the Girl Scouts to travel to London, Paris, and Florence and Rome Italy. Looks like an amazing trip. So I can use the extra spending money and the passports!

Both kids started school this past Monday. Allison is driving herself to school. She is quite busy with two school based internships and 5 classes. She started her internship on Monday afternoon in the Kindergarten class at Scott's school. Last week she went in for a few hours during the Kindergarten Open House. She was busy making name tags for the desks and pulled out an old box that had SCott's name tag as an example(only 8 years ago!). She seems to be enjoying the kids-she says they are cute. I am sure they enjoy having her, and I know the teacher can sure use extra help. She was Allison's Kindergarten teacher many moons ago. Allison also started piano lessons again and has had a busy Field Hockey week. Her team had a full day of tournament games last Saturday. We just got rained on once. I helped man the fund raising concession stand all day, along with donating supplies. And Allison got to play an entire game in goal herself. The girls won a game, tied a game and Allison's game was held at 0-0. I just wish I had felt better last week-I actually think I had the flu which has lasted into this week. As long as it is not the West Nile Virus! We just lost a Marylander who died from that flu.

We tried to squeeze in a few more activities last weekend before the kids went back to school. I finally got the oil changed on the van(only several hours at the dealership), bought the rest of the kid's school supplies, got Cookie to the vet for her kennel cough injection and made pasta salad for dinner at our neighbor's house Saturday night. On Sunday, Scott got a substitute for altar serving(they don't want him dropping anything with his cast). So we headed out early for the Maryland State Fair. We had free tickets for my volunteer work with the Girl Scouts. We enjoyed seeing the animals-Scott was watching the chickens hatch and milked a cow with one hand, Allison had her jumbo corn dog and red velvet funnel cake, I saw one horse race and Tom talked to a gutter guard salesperson. We also enjoyed watching Allison try her best at driving and texting on a new computerized simulator. She made it home(eventually) without an accident. Scott hit a sign with his casted left arm getting in the way. Before he could try a carnival game, they were shutting down the fair due to tornado warnings. Guess they learned their lesson from INdy last year when th concert stage collapsed. So we got rained out-we actually thought Hurricane Isaac had taken a wrong turn. And afterwards we were supposed to have a family end of summer boy scout picnic and awards ceremony which was also rained out(torrential rains).

Instead, Scott got all his badges he earned this summer on Tuesday night. I missed the picnic, and so did Allison, but I stopped in to see the award ceremony after my Dragon Boat race practice. Just one more week until race day!

Enjoy the photos of Allison in goal(Field Hockey), Sweet treats from the fair-corn dogs and a peppermint stick in a lemon, Scott milking a cow, First Day of School and Court of Honor Boy Scout Award ceremony.

I'll be sure to let you know how Labor Day Weekend turns out!  Hope everyone enjoys some time off. Glad to hear niece Sarah Bozyk got home safely from LSU to Houston until the hurricane blew past Louisiana.

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