Cousins Holiday Dinner

Once again, I treated the young adult cousins to dinner before they all had to return to their grownup lives. What a great group of professionals and students. We had a very nice visit and were stuffed with food.

Kudos to Jamies Grandmother Dennison who coicidentally was dining at the same time at the same restaurant. She stopped by and snapped the photo for us. Jamie got a chance to visit with the Dennisons after dinner.

We ended the dinner with a yummy birthday cake. Happy birthday Annie!

A few photos

December 28th at Dwight's house

A small impromptu birthday celebration for Dean

Visiting with John and Monika via the internet and web cameras

We all got a chance to chat with John.

Family gathering

Sydney has a camera. I think she got it for Christmas.
She took the most pictures by far of anyone tonight as we met at Dwight's house. They were very good too. Maybe she will share them?....

I wanted to visit more than snap photos so I don't have much to share.
It was a good visit too. Thanks family. You all are great.


By the way,
Happy 50th too little brother.
Margaret

HER - SHE

It turns out the kitten is not a HE...those were just fur tufts...

Hersey is a she. HER-SHE. They liked her so much at the vet today that I think I could have left her there and they would have arm-wrestled to see who would get to take her home. Good reports - healthy kitten with just the normal issues. Estimated to be about 12 weeks old. That means she showed up at my house when she was only 3-4 weeks old.

Thankful Family

OK, these are not in the exact order that I expected. But, wellfed restful naps are characteristic of a blessed Thanksgiving.



We gathered the day after in our traditional break from Turkey and leftovers for a family pizza party. We had a pretty good turnout...Thanks for hosting Jay.

We missed Jamie, Mary, Dan, Kyle, Dean and family, and of course Johnika.






The venue provided plenty of entertainment in the form of pool, air hockey, movies, music, and plenty of corners and sofas for conversation or board games.



























Michelle with Grace and Sara.















Scott, Christine, and Robin














The youngest sib and the oldest cuz. The younger brother and older brother they never had. Eventually, they got the movie to play.


















Annie, Julie, and Jane. Anne shared stories of her adventures and challenges in her first teaching job in an urban school. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.












Ben has his own adventures. He is looking at an internship in Chicago this year. Sounds like a great opportunity.

















Sorry Dwight...
You were awake all evening.



I didn't get photos of everyone who attended. Others took photos that may be worth posting so stay tuned in case someone decides to put them up...

December blooms

I always get a nice flush of blooms in December.

I get plants I would consider sharing at my club meeting or a show. Of course, it's the holiday season so there are no regular meetings or shows. So I will share here. Please indulge me.


The tropical orange cattleya had no real name tag when I acquired it. It is labeled Bonsai Jim. I like the name and it suggests the history of the plant (it was probably a gift from Jim in the local Bonsai club). It will be more open in a day or two but the color was good and I had my camera out. The flowers are about 5-6" across.


The purple spray of orchids is an Epi Cat.
It is "Viola Susan" or something (another tag mishap). There are about 10 blossoms on this single inflorescence. There is another inflorescence coming on with another 8 blossoms or so.

















This is the one that prompted me to post. Last year, it was a very short yellow spray of flowers. This year, it bloomed orange on a longer inflorescence. I thought the buds were "blasting" (dying on the stem) because of the darker color and I only realized this weekend that it is happy and going gangbusters. The flowers are tiny. What you see here are maybe 30 blossoms on a 4" stem. The individual blossoms are about the size of a pencil eraser (maybe smaller). Pretty cool. Sorry, my camera doesn't get in closer than this. This one is a "species" and has a definate name: Liparis grossa.

Orchids are fun and not that difficult to grow.

Hersey

Hersey is adapting well and generally is being a gentleman. His new favorite perch is next to the goldfish aquarium.


He's still a cute kitten...so the snaps are just for fun. Don't worry, it won't be long before he is just hairy, sleepy, and uninteresting.

Windfall

Remember the hurricane that roared through town
in September? A buddy of mine was helping clear some
fallen trees and asked if I wanted some black cherry.
"Are you kidding? Of course I do!"

The fallen tree yielded four logs about eight feet long.
We painted the ends to prevent splitting.

Add one bandsaw mill and the fun begins.

First cut on the first log.

Making lumber. This was quite
an operation to watch.

The lumber has to dry for at least a year

before we can use any of it.
Four wheelbarrows of sawdust later,
400 board feet of black cherry. Yippee!!

Hersey finds a home

OK, I didn't want another cat.
My prior cat (Kiki) got hit by a car last winter and I had kind of gotten used to not messing with taking care of a pet.

But I had never seen a kitten on his own that was this young before. He could have fit in the palm of one had and he still had baby blue just-opened eyes when I first heard him mewing under my deck. In these pictures, I've already been feeding him a couple weeks, so he is just now about weaning size.

He seems to be pretty well adjusted for one abandoned so young. I've just starting introducing him to the house and he has pretty good manners so far.

I've never seen a cat with this coloring. He has dark face, feet and tail, On his body, he has very dark undercoat...like chestnut but he has a bit of a white overcoat. In a horse, this color is described as Roan. I considered that for a name but Olivia helped me come up with some much better options. Some were just silly but most of the names had a coffee theme.

"DeCaff", "Starbuck", "Latte", and others. I settled on "Hersey-Mocha-Latte" with Hersey for short.

Now if any of you need or want a kitten, I could let him go. I'll break him in and have some fun with him for now, but, like I said, I really didn't want a cat.



But he seems to have found me.

Pentawards

I have to brag about Christopher.
As most of you know, he works for a big graphic design firm downtown. They follow a team approach but Chris has had primary responsibility in the last four years for packaging and labeling of P&G's Vicks product line (Vicks, Dayquil, Nyquil, etc).

His company recently won an award for the Vicks labeling and packaging.
Congratulations Chris!!

Check it out by clicking the title above. Scroll towards the bottom of the webpage.

what would lawrence think?

In light of economic and political tension at the moment, I thought a little humor might be in order. We must confess we have laughed outloud at this from abroad. I can almost hear Jim clearing his throat and jingling coins in his pocket in measured protest:

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/the-lawrence-welk-show/727501/

Sorry for the commercial up front. I couldn't get the video to embed properly.

Northeast Ohio Trip

September 12th through the 14th we visited northeast Ohio to ride the
Ohio & Erie Towpath, and visit family in Canton, OH.

We planned on riding the towpath Friday and Saturday.
It rained and rained. We got wet Friday.
Didn't get any pictures of the times we crashed.
Saturday we decided to stay dry.

Instead of riding we drove
to Carroll County and saw the house at New Harrisburg.

Gone was "the Minerva", the sand pile, and the garden shed.
The yard seems smaller now that I'm an adult.
It was really big the time I had to cut all the grass.

About 3 miles from Dad/Grandpa's boyhood home
we saw this hawk.

We ended our trip visiting the Canton Clan.
It was good to see Arch and Gail.

Even More Bikes

I like seeing the Westsiders travel all over the country on their bikes.

Remember when you were a kid and you could travel everywhere with your imagination?

Riding the C&O Canal Again

We enjoyed our May bicycle tour so much that we decided to do part
of it again. This time we took the girls along.
We rode the towpath over 5 days instead
of four and went downstream instead of up.
It made for a more relaxed pace.

Biker Babes

Got weeds? This is what happens when Biker Babes trade seats.

Ribbit...

Emily emerging from Paw Paw tunnel.

Looking east from Paw Paw tunnel.

We visited historic Fort Frederick.
Here's Dwight & Julie on the balcony
of one of the fort's buildings.

Taking a break along the Potomac River.
In the background is Dam No. 4.

Our Babes in a cave. During the Civil War people from
the town of Sharpsburg Va. took shelter here
during the battle of Antietam.

Didn't get enough exercise riding all day so we decided
to schlepp our bikes up three flights of stairs.
Actually, this was the only way to get across the river
to Harper's Ferry, WV. where we stayed overnight.

Buzzards or Vultures? Is there a difference?

The Biker Babes at Great Falls. Much less water
than was here in May.

This was a great vacation and a wonderful way to
end the summer together.

More Mileposts

Remember our bicycle tour in May?
We rode from Washington DC to Pittsburgh PA.
The trip was a combination of the C&O Canal Towpath
and the Great Allegheny Passage, a rail-trail.

These are the first mileposts we noticed.
The one on the left is an original, maybe 180 years old.
On the right is a typical milepost by the National Park Service.

Mile 184 was the goal of our toughest day.
We were elated to finally see it.

While near Hancock MD we took advantage of the Western Maryland Railtrail.
Here is a milepost left by the Western Maryland Railroad.
It's just a piece of rail with paint.

Below is a typical milepost on the Great Allegheny Passage.
It's not vintage by any means.

Above is a concrete milepost of the WM Railroad.
I think the 'B' indicates miles from Boston.

A milepost remaining from the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad.
The P&LE met the WM at Connellsville PA.

Railroads used whistleposts to alert engineers to blow their whistles.
Road crossings were / are not always easy to see.

The perfect tri-fecta, a railroad milepost, a whistlepost,
and a Great Allegheney Passage Milepost
all in the same shot. Does it get any better?

Bon Voyage

Dear Family,

I just wanted to let you all know my send off date is this Saturday August 9th. There will be no party or celebration just a big ol' long 12 hour drive. So if you could pray for my parents and I for safe travels. I hope I don't forget aything!! North Carolina here I come!!!!

Love Always