My mom and I met at Presque Isle State Park in Erie, PA, yesterday. It was a nice day- a little overcast, but not raining really. This is one of the 2 lighthouses on the peninsula. Someone actually lives in this one, so you can't get too close. It is lit in the picture, but I am not sure you can really see that.
. So we found the solution, the indoor walk! Daru was surprisingly cooperative, and Matthew was happy to finally get to walk her.
So this is not a Delta picture nor is it a picture of ducks in a row....we have a park about two blocks from our house which Daru and I walk in almost every morning. We have watched several duck families (with 2-12! ducklings) grow up in the last month. Here you see a male mallard, but not in all its glory. Males molt after the babies hatch and they look like females until the fall. This is the only time they also shed their flight feathers so they can't fly (according to World Book). This guy is losing his pretty green head and by now all of the males do look like girls. We did see some ducks at Delta too- they were not molting yet. We fed them from the boat and the mama duck actually ate from my hand and tried to eat my finger too.
One of the nice things about being in this area is that we are half a mile from the Erie Canal canalway path. We have been biking on it (though clearly here there are no bikes involved) and we took Daru for a walk as well. The canalway path runs over 300 miles across New York with some parts paved. We rode towards Rochester one day, but didn't make it downtown, and west a couple other days. Our goal is to ride to Doug's grandma's house in Lockport sometime- 60-70 miles away we think.
Moving the animals was perhaps the most challenging part of moving- at least keeping them happy. It started with getting the proper drugs to put them to sleep. Well, it probably starts with losing Kina in an empty house 2xs and her hiding in the fireplace for hours....When we (my mom and I) went to close on the house at the lawyer's office, we had to take them with us. So the plan was for my mom to walk Daru, the fluffy black furred dog, outside in the 90+ degree/100% humidity while I signed papers in the cool, ACed lawyer's office. But the lawyer took pity on the dog (and/or my mom) and let them sit in the waiting area of the office. Kina got to stay in there instead of the car since she was in her carrier. The lawyer said it was common for dogs to come to closings. Who knew!? So, then we got on the road for our 13 hour trip. Which went surprisingly well since they slept most of the way, except Kina didn't use her litter box for the whole trip (just the details you wanted!). We arrived at my parents' house early Sat. AM, and Daru was fine since she had been there before, but Kina was a little unsure, although she loved having multiple floors to explore. Once they had gotten settled, we packed them back in the car again to come to Rochester. I couldn't get the drugs into Kina (not cooperative like dogs- dogs will eat anything coated in peanut butter), so we just left. Kina cried. When I stopped at the end of my parents' street to make sure the truck started okay for my dad and to yell at one of the neighbor's kids for burying his brother's head in the sand pile, Kina jumped out of the car window. Into the road. She ran under a parked car, then my dad stopped the truck to help me and we chased her out and he caught her. We travelled with the windows up from there. She hadn't eaten much in 2-3 days and she started panting now with her tongue rolled and her lips pulled back. I called Doug to tell him Kina was going to die, perhaps a little over dramatic, but it didn't look very pretty. She obviously survived and is now completely embarrassed by her ridiculous behavior. Both of them are settled here I think, though they still are working on their escape plans.
to catch the baby squirrel who was about to fall out of its nest. To make a long LONG story slightly shorter, at 10 PM that night we had rigged up a large pole and Luke and Doug were alternating on the ladder trying to knock down the nest while Megan and I held a sheet. We miraculously caught the nest and found not 1 but 2 baby squirrels: Epil and Spaz. The story has a tragic end with Epil dying the next day and Spaz dying the following Wednesday. Both of their parents and one sibling had died earlier that weekend of unknown causes, so they may have been ill already or they may have been separated from their mom too long before we got them. Baby squirrels are very cute.
, but Doug is not officially done with his program until August. Nevertheless, since he was in town, he decided to go to his pseudo-graduation-- as did some other people from his class, but not me! It was a very sunny day even though they moved the graduation inside because of rain forecasts; they were given 3 sets of instructions: outdoor graduation at MUSC directions, in case of sudden downpour directions, and indoor at the Citadel instructions. I guess they are used to rain! I think the middle girl is Laura and I quite honestly should know some of the others but I don't. His class started with 11 boys and 49 girls. I am not sure what the final numbers are going to be. 
My first limo ride was from the church to the reception. Here you see Paul 
