Saturday, September 29, 2007

Game Day


Game Day twenty years ago:

Restock t-shirts - check.
Restock sweatshirts - check.
Restock hats - check.
Restock sweatpants - check.
Restock face tattoos and decals - check.

Game Day today:
Cooler for Calvin
Cooler for Bailey
Cooler for Sydney
Cooler for Bailey's team.
Cooler for Sydney's team.
Snacks for Bailey's team.
Chair for Tara.
Chair for Me
Chair for Sydney
Chair for AJ.

Friday, September 28, 2007

Field Trip



Sydney's class had a field trip to Ivy Creek Natural Area today. It was a beautiful day for it. It was nice and cool in among the trees. Our guide answered our questions and pointed out the things we should notice as good hikers. The creek was almost nonexistent thanks to this awful drought we're experiencing. We did come across a nasty yellow jackets' nest, and one child was stung. He was extremely brave and stoic, however. The kids then went on to fun and lunch at the park, but I skipped out on that part.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Happy Me

Forty-five years ago today, I was born here in Charlottesville.

I never imagined the first half of my life would turn out so great.

Why just this morning, we finally got our shower unclogged. The plumber "only" charged us $147.50.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Chapel Hill

All of us went to Chapel Hill for the big game on Saturday. Our good friend Bill was kind enough to host the six of us. And what a wonderful host he was! Ice cream sundaes to welcome us at 10pm Friday night, French Toast and bacon first thing Saturday morning...we were all spoiled!

Once we parked at the UNC campus, we hooked up with some good friends from home, Tim and Andrea, and the kids had great fun at Tar Heel Town. Cal and Bailey particularly liked this blow up game where they each had to try to shoot a ball in a hoop. The complication was that they were harnessed together on either ends
of a rope creating a kind of tug-of-war. We created a small scene as we posed in front of the giant UNC tee making scowling faces.

Tim provided a special treat when he took us to the Rams' Club for a unique view of the field and plenty of M&M's, chips, pretzels and soda before the game started. Needless to say, we stood out like sore thumbs wearing our navy and orange in a room full of Carolina blue. One of us maintained our life-long 44-plus-year streak of never setting foot inside the Rams' Club.

The day was a huge success, especially when UVA held off UNC to win 22-20. The only casualty was my diet - the worst 24 hours of the past three weeks! We had to come straight home after the game, to be here in time for Calvin's football game on Sunday.









For the record, we don't know how to fix the wacky spacing of the photos relative to the text. It must have something to do with the Blogger software.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Eighty Thousand Miles



For the first time in my life, for the first time in our lives, we are the proud owners of a vehicle with 80,000 original miles. The Excursion passed this historic milestone this afternoon on my way home from work. I was headed north on McIntire Road near the intersection with Nelson Drive.

Our minivan came close. It had just passed 79,300 when we sold it earlier this year.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Ellen's Birthday


Happy Birthday, Ellen!

We wish we could have been with you, of course. Hope it was a wonderful day!

Ellen was here on Father's Day, and we had a little photo opportunity after our lovely dinner with Grammie and Granddad.

I'd like to take a moment to plug one of my favorite online shopping sites for shoes - Zappos.com. I've used them several times, and I'm always amazed by their selection and speed of delivery. I ordered Ellen's gift yesterday morning, and sure enough, she received it today! (I'm not proud of my procrastination problem, but Zappos keeps rewarding me for it!)