30. June 2008 · Comments Off on 168 oz. · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,
That’s how much beer I just dumped down our kitchen sink.

My current mission: To combine the contents of our garage fridge with our kitchen fridge. The garage fridge is moving with us to NE, while the kitchen fridge will stay here, so I need to get the thing emptied and thawed before Monday.

Most of the contents of the garage fridge was beverages, plus any overstocks on frozen foods (like spare whole fryer chickens and frozen waffles). So beer, soda and juice boxes.

Last summer, towards the end of our Ft. Fisher vacation, Dave and Andy bought a 24-pack of Coors Light.  I think Dave was thinking, “Hey, Andy’s from Colorado, maybe he drinks it.” Nope.

So we kept the extra cans in our fridge from the end of our vacation last July until now. I just noticed that there’s a 2 Sep 07 expiration date on the cans.

14 cans, 12 oz. per can = 168 oz. Down the drain.

Alcohol abuse at the max!

110

26. June 2008 · 6 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

I removed 31 more batteries tonight, from Jake’s electronic keyboard and Timmy’s 8 (count ’em: EIGHT) Shake ‘n Go cars. Wendy reminded me about each of those cars having 3 AA batteries! Phew, I almost forgot!

So the current battery count is 110.

25. June 2008 · Comments Off on Moving Preparations Continue · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,
“Oh my gosh, what on earth are you doing with that enormous pile of batteries?”

Um, yeah…this is one of those fine-print sorts of things they don’t tell you about having young kids while in the military.

You know all those cool toys my kids have? The various Christmas, birthday, “gosh, I’ve missed you” gifts? The “congratulations on potty training”, “Preschool graduation” and “You were good today at Target” gifts?

So many of those toys have batteries, and when you have a commercial mover coming in 2 weeks to pack up your stuff, you want to start early on the quest to get as many of those batteries removed as possible.

The packers/movers don’t remove the batteries…you do. When the packer comes across something with batteries…if they’re nice they’ll give you a chance to remove the batteries so it can get packed with everything else. If they aren’t nice, they quietly set the item aside and continue packing around it…and before you know it, Jake’s bedroom is full of sealed boxes with one Lamaze lullaby toy lying in the corner.

What you’re looking at in the picture is a view down into a plastic storage bin of batteries. The bin is about 1/2 full, and these are all the batteries EXCEPT for the boys’ GeoTrax and Tomy “Blue Track” Thomas the Tank Engine sets. Those two train sets will probably triple what I’ve already removed…but the boys are still playing with those sets at least daily, so I’ll wait until just a couple days before the packers come before I tackle that.

The bin currently contains 79 batteries. Most of which are AAs, not enough of which are rechargables. Most of our rechargables are in the GeoTrax, thank heavens.

Also, I came across at least a dozen corroded batteries, so those are discarded.

Ugh.

And let’s not forgot those other “illegal-to-pack” items: light bulbs, cash (i.e., the contents of my boys’ piggy banks), and liquids.

Back to work!
24. June 2008 · Comments Off on Back from PA okay… · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

But just okay.

We got back from Pennsylvania around 5pm tonight. In Richmond, on I-95 right through downtown, a car in front of me rolled over a piece of tire and it whipped into the front end of the Prius. I wish I had more time to react, but I didn’t. Even though Dave and I were thinking about pulling over to check out the damages, downtown Richmond is NOT the place to just pull over anywhere. While our car was driving fine afterwards, two pieces of the 3-piece plastic grill for the air intake were destroyed.

There’s also a slight dent on the right side of the lip under the intake area. Just enough that we’ll probably have to get it repaired/replaced before we can replace the plastic grillage.

As if we didn’t have enough to do before we move… 🙂

Ya know, it’s always so wonderful when we’re in PA — and stuff like this always happens when we get home. In 2006 it was Jake’s broken leg…in 2007 Dave was wrapping up his changing of advisors/offices on campus. I guess this is relatively small by comparison…but certainly par for the course!

19. June 2008 · Comments Off on Timmy playing at the park with his cousins · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags:
17. June 2008 · 4 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

“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.

13. June 2008 · Comments Off on Holy Smokes! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,
Part of why you guys saw a series of posts about Magic Rocks was because the Raleigh area was under smoke from the “Evans Road” wildfire. The fires are originating near the east coast of NC and today’s easterly winds brought the smoke plume RIGHT OVER Raleigh.
It was definitely hazy, with visibility down to 1/2 mile at the Raleigh Airport this afternoon. You could also distinctly smell the smoke today. I made sure to keep the boys inside today, where our A/C did a good job of keeping the air clean.

The fires are nowhere near contained as of this writing, and best of luck to those who are working hard to keep it under control.
10. June 2008 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

I have started watching “Weeds” on Showtime.

I seem to be attracted to these twisted shows that have a hint of black humor. Since “Six Feet Under” finished on HBO a couple years ago, there’s been some close ones (Nip/Tuck on FX), but nothing close till I caught my first full episode of Weeds a couple weeks ago.

But it wasn’t till tonight, while I was watching 3 episodes in a row, that I realized a different artist sings a cover the theme song, Malvina Reynolds’ “Little Boxes”. As some have attested, it’s definitely a way to keep someone in today’s Tivo/DVR world from fast forwarding through the opening credits.

Dave was sitting on the couch across the living room from me working on his defense presentation slide show, when tonight’s last episode started and he asked from behind his laptop screen, “Is that Laurie Berkner singing the theme song?”

Laurie Berkner? Timmy’s favorite singer?

After all, “I’m Gonna Catch You” is his anthem…

NAAAAH! She sings CHILDREN’S SONGS!

Right?

After some Google-sleuthing, it turned out Dave is right! He’s very gifted at figuring out voices…you should see him work our kids’ animated movies!

The song is actually very cute, remove it from the show and it would sit perfectly on one of her CDs…really!

09. June 2008 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags:
…You have a good-sized length of wrapping paper left and it’s NOT QUITE enough to cover the gift???
PS: Can you see what I’m wrapping??? Good, then Dave won’t know either 🙂
09. June 2008 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

I just have to refer you here — Maryann captured some million-dollar smiles of my boys on Sunday. It was horribly hot all weekend, so she and I were looking for indoor activities for our boys.

We turned them loose with some crafts, and the painting went from “let’s paint with sponges” to “let’s paint with hands, arms, lips and BELLIES!”

I’ll need to upload a picture of Timmy’s art work — a belly print, complete with belly-button hole!