Greetings from the I-40/I-85 interchange (Hi, Mandakini!)!
Here’s some pics of Jake from his ice skating lesson at the Cary Ice House today. The lead counselor, Tina, let Timmy and me don ice skates and join Jake on the rink.
Jake is a very careful kid — ergo, he is a very careful skater. He did a great job negotiating the little course Brianna set up for the beginners. But he’s also very very slow…the other kids attempt to put some speed in their course, but also would fall down quite a bit. The other kids didn’t mind falling, but I guess it’s something Jake doesn’t care to do.
Jake proudly told us that he only fell one time all week!
Enjoy!
Out of nowhere, about two months ago, a Monkey Joe’s opened in Cary, one of those bouncy house centers. Incidentally, it’s around the corner from a place called Jumpin’ Beans, the exact same thing.
I took Timmy today to meet some of his former preschool classmates and he had a blast!! He was incredibly well-behaved, no hitting or any mal-behaviors. He bumped heads with another child at one point and Timmy was in tears asking “Can we go home now?”, but after a couple cookies, he was recharged and ready to continue on!
I’ve been showing a lot of Timmy pictures lately, tomorrow I’m hoping to visit the Ice House while Jake’s in his skating lesson and will try to get some photos of him. Today apparently Jake did a little obstacle course on the ice, I’m impressed!
“So, what on earth have you been doing? I haven’t seen a substantial posting in a while!”
Well, now that Timmy is napping and Jacob is in NEW YORK with his grandparents, I have a chance to catch up a little!
On Thursday of last week, Dave’s parents flew into town. Right in the middle of all that smoke mentioned here .
Friday morning was Dave’s dissertation defense at NC State. This is his one-hour-long opportunity to give a summary of his 3-years of research. The general public is invited — well, the general public in this case is anyone who is interested in stratospheric turbulence — and this is the part Dave’s parents and I sat in on.
As is the tradition for a morning defense, we put out a small breakfast spread from our local Panera Bread shop.
Unbeknownst to Dave, I had taken a couple pictures of his presentation. Lots of vertical profiles of the atmosphere. I guess I understood most of it with a little brain effort.
After the presentation, Dave was left to his PhD committee behind closed doors for another 1 1/2 hours or so, and when that was done we received the happy phone call: “I passed!”. Wonderful news!
That afternoon we went to Dave’s office where one of his professors, Dr. Yuter, gave him this clever cake:
The family had a celebration dinner at the Angus Barn Restaurant in Raleigh…a place we’d been trying to visit for some time. It was most wonderful — Dave and I were reminded of one of our favorite restaurants in State College, The Tavern. The menus are a little different, but the atmosphere and the friendly staff brought back many nice memories.
On Saturday, several of our Raleigh friends (and my sister’s family) threw us a delightful going-away picnic. We combined the celebration with one for Dave completing his PhD, so we had invited his NCSU colleagues, too. Several of them paid a visit to the park. We had a great visit with so many of our friends and family…
And here’s the cake I’d made to celebrate:
Several of the families we’d befriended here presented us with a precious photo album that included pictures going back the past 3 years — from the very first playgroups my boys were in when we moved here! It must have taken hours to gather the photos and assemble them for us. I was definitely in tears going down memory lane with my boys and their friends…and my dear friends, too.
Dave’s parents had a nice relaxing rest-of-the-weekend, and on Monday they took Jacob with them back to New York. This coming weekend is Dave’s family reunion in Lancaster County, PA and we’ll pick up Jacob there and have a great weekend at Uncle Jack and Aunt Shirley Henderson’s farm.
Maryann did it again , she beat me to the blog, so we’ll start with her post.
Update: Here are my pictures! These are a combination of pics from my Canon Digital Elph and my iPhone camera. Can YOU tell which is which???
I couldn’t have said it any better myself!
UPDATE: I’ve added my own pictures:
“Wait just one doggone minute! It’s mid-February! Spring isn’t for another month!”
(At least, that’s what the Groundhog said!)
Well, someone needs to tell my flowers about that, since my crocuses and daffodils are opening up, just like all over the rest of central North Carolina. Seriously confused, they are.
I didn’t mind the pretty pictures I was able to take, nonetheless. These were from Monday. Click on the photos to access the entire album. Enjoy!
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| From 2008 02 18 Da… |
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| From 2008 02 18 Da… |
Yesterday Dave and I took a field trip to the Carolina Brewing Company for one of their weekly tours. We had a nice time (without the kids).
Dave did a description of the brewery and nice review of their beers here.
I just can’t believe we’ve been living right up the street from the place all this time and never thought to do this. It’s a great free activity for when family or friends come to visit.
Every Saturday afternoon from 1-3pm (perhaps even 4pm) they open up the taps for free “samples”, although you’re basically getting full pint glasses and you’re welcome to get as much as you like. Needless to say, we saw a lot of college kids.
Get there early, though…Dave and I arrived at 1pm exactly and there was a 10-15 minute wait before we made to the taps the first time. And we went straight back to the end of the line after we got our first pint, because we had drained our glasses when we got back to the taps (another 15 minutes). The taps are turned off during the tour portion itself, which is about 1/2 hour around 1:30-2pm.
We bought a set of 5 pint glasses, each of them featuring a different one of their beers. I was really wanting one of their Groundhog Day Imperial Stout glasses (go figure!) and the gentleman said they were out of new ones for me, but if I mingled among the crowd and found someone with one for their free samples, I could provide a clean drinking glass and take the used Groundhog’s Day glass. So that’s what I did! (I had 1 1/2 beers in me by this time, I had no problem batting my eyelashes at a guy to do it).
About a week ago I rearranged my bird feeders. I also changed the type of bird feed I offered, from a general small seed mix to only black oil sunflower seeds. In addition, I took down my windowside hummingbird feeder and replaced it with a windowside standard feeder, filled with sunflower seed. I also switched one of the feeders into a nijer seed feeder, hoping to bring back my goldfinches.
From that point up till this weekend, there was very little bird activity. The new arrangement and feeding options probably spooked everyone for a while, but starting this weekend, our friends started to return.
Today I was able to photograph both Mr. AND Mrs. Hairy Woodpecker, a red finch, a tufted titmouse, a Carolina wren, a Carolina chickadee, and Mr. Bluebird. The cardinals were around, too, but I didn’t get any pictures of them. The goldfinches have been around, but I didn’t see any of them today.
I was crouched towards the floor of my kitchen, camera in hand, all the while trying out different settings in an attempt to get the best closeup shots. Here are some of the best ones I got this afternoon. This was at about 3pm.
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| From 2008 01 30 Bi… |
Mr. Bluebird on the gutters along our back porch. If this were a cloudy day he’d probably appear much more vibrantly colored.
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| From 2008 01 30 Bi… |
This is Mr. Woodpecker chowing down on suet. This is typically how he’ll remain for up to 10 minutes. After he finishes, Mrs. Woodpecker will come by.
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| From 2008 01 15 Ha… |
Here’s a shot of him from Jan. 15th, you can see the red patch on the back of his head better.
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| From 2008 01 30 Bi… |
Mr. Housefinch looking right at me!
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| From 2008 01 30 Bi… |
This is the first picture I’ve been able to take of a bird at the window feeder. ANY motion usually scares birds off. This is a Carolina chickadee.
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| From 2008 01 30 Bi… |
Here’s chickadee’s cousin, the tufted titmouse. They’re in the same family.
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| From 2008 01 30 Bi… |
So here’s MRS. Hairy Woodpecker for her meal. How subservient — she typically waits for the man to finish his meal, then she takes whatever’s remaining. Not that Mr. W has taken everything. That’s the squirrels’ job!
Enjoy! Click here if you’d like to see more of the pictures. I’ve uploaded 36 of them, out of the 65 that I took.
I don’t need to repeat what’s already been told quite nicely. Click forth and enjoy. Thanks Maryann!
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