Three Years Old!

A few weeks ago, I went with Robin, Matthew, Nicole and Natalie to the Strong Museum of Play. It was a great museum (more pictures will follow), and we had a lot of fun. Here in the post office, Matthew is putting mail into some PO boxes which you could open on the other side. He, of course, has a USPS shirt and bag to accessorize. Today Matthew turns 3! Happy birthday Matthew!

Lee Family Reunion

Doug's mom's side of the family gathered on July 21st for the annual picnic/party in the Lockport area. I was taking teacher tests, but Doug was able to go. I heard it was fun. I don't know who took this picture. Doug's grandma could not be there either because she had her gall bladder removed the Wednesday before.

The sand

I think this is why Daru came home so stinky!

Stinky Dog

Daru loved swimming in Lake Erie, but she came home really smelly. She was washed, rinsed and repeated, but she still has a certain dead fish/rotting algae odor. The lake did not really smell, but we did see numerous dead fish and she rolled all over in the sand.

Presque Isle

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.

Walking the dog

Matthew always wants to walk Daru, but she could take him out in a second (she has escaped from much larger people) . So we found the solution, the indoor walk! Daru was surprisingly cooperative, and Matthew was happy to finally get to walk her.

Heartache and Hope

The story of Elyse was sent to us by Rachel's mom because the doctor in the video is Rachel's Uncle Tom. He deals with similar stories of babies and cancer every day - I can't even imagine how difficult that would be. It is a touching story and I thought I would pass it along (if you have ~ 9 min). Maybe you could help, or someone you know could help. She also has two websites - http://www.elyseyu.com/ and http://www.elyseyu.blogspot.com/

Techno-children

I remember life without cell phones (vaguely), the Internet (how did we get anything done?), e-mail (stamps?!?), etc. I watched my nephew Matthew last week for a few hours and he fielded some phone calls for me. He'll be three in a few weeks and it was pretty hilarious to watch him multi-task while chatting away. It is amazing to think how different his childhood is from mine. I think I even remember rotary phones...

Ducks in a row

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.

Delta Fun

Though the weather at Delta was not always cooperative, we did have fun! Matthew enjoyed the bouncy castle thing as you can see here. You can also see that I didn't know how to make the camera focus on him instead of the net around the castle....

Nap time

Lazy summer days!! We're off to Delta Lake tomorrow- not Kina though.

15 Miles on the Erie Canal

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.

The Female Peloton

The women's race had a photo finish with a large pack up until the last lap or lap and a half when one woman broke away and won by probably 20 seconds. We can't remember who won, but it might be one of these ladies.

Rochester Crit

Doug's sister Robin's sister-in-law gave us a book on summer events in Rochester, so we looked at it last Friday night and saw that there was a bike race downtown on Saturday. We went to Sinbad's (sorry Dawn!) for supper and then decided to go check it out. We didn't really know exactly what it was or where it was, but we headed in what I thought was the general direction (not usually a good idea though Doug is somewhat familiar with downtown because of looking for places for us to live and I had looked at a map.) Anyway, we made it there easily, parked, and arrived on the course of the Saturn Rochester Twilight Criterium just in time to see the end of the women's race. Basically a crit is a short, technically difficult, road course that you ride for a certain length of time and then the officials decide when the race is over, i.e. the number of laps remaining, near the end of the race. It is apparently the most common type of bike racing in the US. The men, from all over the world, rode for 2 hours around the 1 mile course at about 30 mph. I thought it would get boring but it really didn't. We walked the whole course and saw the race from all different angles. At some points in the course, if you put your hand out, you could get your arm whacked off as the riders in the peloton rode by. An Australian won it in the end (which was weird because I had looked at the website earlier that day and he was the only rider whom I had read more about- he had the closest birthday to me). It was challenging to take pictures of because we were very close to fast moving objects in the twilight and night hours, but I like this picture that Doug took.

Moving: the pets

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.

Moving Crew II

I did not get a picture of the people helping us out on the SC end: my apologies to those there- Frank, Eric and Kim, Kim R., Luke and Megan, my mom and dad, Isabel, Matt and Gaby. Without Frank and Eric we would never have gotten the piano on the truck.
This is the unloading crew on the NY end- from left to rightish: Uncle George, Christine, David, my Dad, Doug (Daru not so much a helper), my Mom, Doug's Dad, Paul, Robin Matthew and Steve. Unloading was much faster except of course the piano. Hopefully our next move will be our last for awhile!

Moving: the junk

It takes a good move to realize how much junk you have- say 12', 16', 22' or 26'? We opted for the 22' of junk truck. Of which we needed say 21.5' of space to contain all of the junk. Some junk did not make the cut to get on the truck to the North. Below you see the truck of the South which came to pick up the junk. I gave him muffins; he took some stuff. My dad took the picture.

Good-bye SC!

This is my last post from south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Catch y'all later!

Where is the love?

Apparently it is in Philly- this is Love Park. You may recognize the love logo from one of the years of love stamps- probably one of those good old days when stamps cost in the 20 cent range...

I want you to wish Andrew a happy birthday!

Today our friend Andrew hits a milestone in his life- 30! Doug and I spent Memorial Day weekend in Philly a week and a half ago, but Heather and Andrew were out of town , so we caught up with them (and I caught up with Dave Shaw who was at the conference like Doug) Tuesday morning. We walked around Philly some and then had lunch at a pretty trendy restaurant before I caught the train to the airport. Here we were looking at a fountain somewhere downtown. Surprisingly, Andrew came to town without his camera! It was the first time seriously that I have seen Andrew in the last probably 5 years without a camera. So, I got to take a picture of him for once! You can go to his photoblog to wish him a happy birthday.