Currituck Light, OBX

We took a long walk through a marshy area on a raised walkway to peer at the sound side.

Here is Austin, trying to fix a leak!

We (the B's minus daddy B) went with Scott, Julianna and baby Alicia to the new pool and aquatic center in Perinton today. The air was a balmy 86 degrees! (Just for comparison, it was 84 degrees in Aruba today; but they have sunshine!) It's a neat place, but too many rules and on the expensive side if you're not a resident. We were there before the water park part opened (bad info from a worker) but it allowed us about 30 minutes of time in the park without having to deal with the crowd that was quickly gathering.

Contraptions!

The three musketeers getting wet!

Miss J enjoying the fountain gysers.

The small slide would have to do for Emma and Julianna.

We spent part of the day getting wet at the aquatic center in Perinton. Austin loved the big slide, but Emma wouldn't try it!

Emma loved it so much we skiied the next day. Ohhhhh my aching back.

We have a 9.85, a 9.9, a 8.0 (darn Russians) and three 10.0's from the US (mommie, daddie and buddy).

How the....What the.....Who the heck but that pile of snow THERE.

Look at me...my skis are straight...but this tall guy next to me still needs to snow plow.

Then came along the strange skiier with four legs.....

Wrong way dad.

This way to the cliff....I mean slope.

I'm supposed to do WHAT????

Small couch under a famous painting by some WEIRD obscure artist.

GG's hutch in the corner.

Chair in corner. Has a built in recliner.

Another angle of large couch

Large couch under front windows

Here is Emma at age 3! She had just learned how to wink. She would later be known for her "thumbs-up, tongue to the side while winking" look.

Winter Weekend Get-Away with Friends

Friends together for a weekend in Niagara Falls, Canada.

We escaped the winter blahs by spending the ML King Jr. weekend in Niagara Falls, Canada. Along with Scott and Sue and family(the N's) and Mary and Paul and family (the K's), we stayed at the new and very beautiful Doubletree Resort Lodge and Spa. The building is gorgeous - it looks like a lodge inside and out, but with the styling of Frank Lloyd Wright. Very natural with wood and stone, decorated with mission style furniture and lamps. Even the lobby was spectacular, with a fireplace and lots of comfy couches for lounging. To top it off, there was a very quaint coffee area that served Starbucks!

The rooms are beautiful and very comfy! The beds really are as awesome as they advertise! Down comforters and many very fluffy pillows. We decided to upgrade to a 2-room suite, which didn't cost that much more per night. Check out the website for all the details on the rooms.

Our days revolved around life at the pool. The pool is awesome, and the kids swam for hours! The setup of the swimming area is ideal; the hot tub is right with the swimming pool, so the parents could soak and still watch the kids swim right next to them. After swimming, the kids would go into the sauna with Mike to dry off.

Saturday night Julianna slept over at our "apartment" and did crafts with Emma. The adults and Austin watched the movie Ladder 49 in our suite. Sue was smart and didn't subject herself to the emotional roller-coaster of watching a movie about her husband's new career choice, and instead headed back to their suite to get the baby ready for bed. Needless to say, I cried like a baby through most of it...for obvious reasons! It's a very good movie, and really captures the behind-the-scenes life of firefighters. The ending is very sad, and hits a little too close to home for me, but I would watch it again. I tried to assure Austin that Uncle Bubba would be fine as he performs his duties as a new firefighter, but one always worries anyway.

When I zoom in my camera all the way, this is the view of the Falls we get. Although you couldn't really see the Falls, the fireworks from our room window were very cool!

This is the view out of our 12th floor suite window. The new casino is the building to the far left. You can see the mist from the falls billowing up.

Emma and Julianna in their matching outfits.

Our suite party on Sat. night.

Austin, Julianna and Emma at the fountain in the lobby of the new casino in NF, Canada.

What a Cutie-Pie!

Scott and Sue came over for dinner and to drop Julianna off for a sleepover. I caught little A in a smile. She is the sweetest baby! I just want to eat her up!

Julianna and Emma decorating sugar cookies.

My Bro, In the News!!

Check this out! Scott was in the paper yesterday for a story regarding the paramedics training at the fire academy. Check out the whole article here.

Life Happens While You're Busy Doing Other Things

Another busy day here in the B household. I'm furiously trying to finish two big projects at once, one being the school yearbook. Even though we have (well... I have; I am the advisor, after all!) decided to pare it down a bit this year, it's still a lot of work. I can't wait to put this baby to bed and forget about it until March. My other project is a paid job, for which I need to finish this week as well. When it rains, it pours.

As if that wasn't enough to keep me tired, Mike and I need to start a big family project that has to be finished by the middle of Jan., when our new furniture arrives. The upstairs living room is now going to be a quiet, relaxing room, and the basement is going to be the new "living room". The big TV and all it's sattelite units (ie: noisemakers) are moving down there as well. No noise in the upstairs "contemplation room". Eventually I may get one of those modern-looking CD setups with the tiny speakers, but that's it. And I'll still have a phone in there. One may need to talk to someone upon the completion of contemplation.

I've decided I want to paint the basement in earthtones, to give it a "lodge-y" feel. The two club chairs and ottomon will move down, and the green couch is going to Laura & Daryl's cabin (and possibly the oak entertainment center, if they want it). For the "contemplation room", we already have two new end tables and a coffee table in the mission style. We'll be getting a love-seat, reclining club chair, and couch, in brown leather of classic styling. (Sound familiar, Doug and Julie?) Once the old stuff is out, and before the new stuff comes, we will have the carpet cleaned (finally). I can't wait! I already purchased the luxurious faux mink couch throw that is the ultimate accessory for contemplating.

Work is going great - I love it. I really enjoy the kids and the details. And to top it off, a place to call my own! Things stay where I put them! No crumbs unless I make them! No laundry! No dirty dishes! (well, except for my coffee mug and water glass...) It's serendipity, I tell you!

Soon we'll heading off for a long weekend away with a bunch of friends to Niagara Falls Canada!
The kids will swim, the parents will chat, and everyone will be happy! I'll probably have my new contemplation room by then, and then I won't want to leave it! (Yes, I'm that excited about it!)

A new day awaits.

A man and his Idol...

Time Flies!

Our 13th New Year together!

Mary and Paul toasting to the New Year!

The girls sleeping, and Emma snoring!

Happy New Year To All Our Friends and Relatives!

I hope that everyone had a safe and fun New Year's Eve. We had a nice quiet evening at home.
It was Ladies against Gentlemen in a game of Outburst, in which the Ladies won, of course! After toasting to the promise of a New Year, Mike and Paul fell asleep, while Mary made it until 1 am reading scandal mags with me. I plopped into bed around 2:30, after cleaning up and vacuuming. (It's always nice to wake up to a clean house the night after a party!) The girls slept until noon! Surprising, considering Emma's tendency to snore. The boys had slept in the basement, so no one really knows what time they got up. I'm sure they got up and right back at the video games, since Austin got a "cheat code" magazine yesterday.

Today is going to be a quiet day. I need to catch up on some volunteer work, and some work for the author I help out every now and then. Maybe I'll watch and movie and take a nap...We have tickets to the Nighthawks season opener, but I may just duck out on that one!

Happy New Year!

It's 2005, and already another year has gone by. Dad came to enjoy in the festivities, but left before midnight. We rang in 2005 with Mary, Paul and kids; a much smaller group than years past.

The girls went in the K's hot tub, while the mommies danced to Cosmo music in the makeshift disco! The boys couldn't even tear themselves away from the video games to participate in the countdown.

Having saved it for a special occasion, Mike opened our coveted bottle of port from Temeculah CA, as we toasted the new year with Mary and Paul. Scott called us from his hotel right after midnight to wish us a happy, and I was so glad that he took time out from his family and friends to remember us. Maybe next year they can join us in our home.

Congratulations to Scott - RFD Badge 258

I'm so proud of my big brother!

Party at Shamrock Jack's

Austin is proud of his uncle Scott

A Very Proud Day

My brother Scott graduated from the Rochester Fire Academy on December 20. I am so proud of all that he has done to achieve his dream of being a professional fireman. Scott has shown amazing determination, ambition, dicipline and perserverance over the last 2+ years. I have never admired him more. Although I'll worry like heck about him, I know that he is doing what he loves and fulfilling a dream in the process. How many people can say that about their lives? He is proof that you can start anew at any age. Congratulations Scott. I love you.

The massive oak trees in Forsythe park.

Emma and Austin posing with a Nutcracker outside a Sweets shop in the City Market shopping street.

As I walked the perimeter of Forsythe Park, I was astounded at the mammoth size of this tree. When I crossed the street I read the sign that said the tree is approx. 270 years old, 16 feet in diameter at the trunk, with a branch spread of 150 feet.

Thanksgiving Break

We took off to Savannah, Georgia and spent two nights checking out the city. It is very old and beautiful, and more industrial than I expected.

We arrived in the city about 4pm, with enough light left in the day to scope out River Street. After checking into the hotel, we proceeded to head out looking for someplace to eat. Our brand-new Westin hotel was on Bay street, very conveniently located near River Street and
one block from the Savannah City Market. We went walking in the market, which is closed to pedestrian traffic. One of the sweet shops had two giant nutcrackers out front, one of which Austin and Emma are seen posing with.

We had dinner at a non-descript restaurant, and then spent our evening walking River Street checking out the shops and such. There are a lot of restaurants, some sweet shops, an ornament shop, and some tacky t-shirt stores. It's definitely more the place to come for a drink and people-watch with friends. The annual St. Patrick day parade brings in 800,000 people to the city. River street isn't that long, so all I can imagine is New Orleans at Mardi Gras time type crowds (yuck!) The street is still cobbled, so it's hard to walk on - thank goodness for the sidewalk! We had no crowds while we were there (a Mon and Tue night), but I was assured by a shop worker that the weekend brings 'em all in. Dad said he and Mom used to make sure they were in Savannah for St. Paddy's day on their way down to Florida each year. I'm trying to imagine my Mom navigating a crowd like that, but Dad said she loved it.

Our first full day in Savannah took us around the city. There are many historical homes and lots of park squares. We went to Forsythe park, where the kids played on the playground while I walked the perimeter of the park taking pictures of the fabulous houses that face it. The sidewalks of the park are flanked with oak trees, the branches spread so wide they cross clear to the opposite side of the sidewalk. My pictures can't even capture the scale of the oaks; they are absolutely enormous! The branches are covered in clumsy clumps of spanish moss, which trail so far down that they sway daintily in the breeze.

Being that I like cemeteries, and Dad likes ghosts, we decided to walk through the Colonial Cemetery when we stumbled upon it accidentally. It is a very unique looking cemetery, especially for one in the US. It has vaults and crypts, along with the usual headstones and monuments. It has the oldest date on a headstone that Dad or I have ever seen, and if I could remember the year I'd tell you, but it was the very early 1700's.

Driving out of the city a way, we visited Old Fort Jackson. It's built of bricks, which is unusual, and is the oldest fort in Georgia. Just as we were paying to get in, we heard and felt a huge explosion. It seems that we missed the one and only daily cannon firing. Good thing; if we had been any closer to it, Emma would've been in tears. There were uniforms to look at, old cannon balls, artifacts and that sort of stuff. It was interesting, as far as forts go anyway. I thought the most revealing part was about the loos. They used to throw their garbage in the "toilets". Ingeniously, the latrines were located on the outside wall, where after the tide came in, it would ostensibly take the sewage back out with it. The first modern "flush" toilet. That must've been lovely.

After much perusing on River street for a suitable seafood restaurant, we settled on Mex-American. Go figure. Hey, it had $2.00 margaritas, of which Dad and I partook. We relaxed and had a fun time, thus the goofy picture of me and Dad.

On our final day, we decided to visit the Tybee Island Lighthouse on our way back north to Huntersville. Having visited many lighthouses on the Cape, we had to see this one. We climbed the 178 steps to the top to be rewarded with a panoramic view the ocean and island. It's still a working lighthouse, so we also got to see the giant lens, of which I stuck my camera up into to get a picture of. Turns out Sandra Bullock has a house on this tiny island. We walked the beach and collected shells, of which I must say are nicer than any we've collected in Florida. It was windy on the beach, but we made do and got to see a pod of dolphins surfacing near the end of the jetty. The day was moving on, and so were we, heading back to Huntersville to arrive by evening.

Colonial Park Cemetery, Savannah.

Colonial Park Cemetery, Savannah.

Fountain in Forsythe Park.

Overlooking the "moat".

This is a canon that is used on a daily basis.

Manning the canon at Old Fort Jackson, are Austin, Emma and Mike.

We visited Old Fort Jackson, the oldest fort in Georgia.

One of the beautiful mansions that surround Forsyth Park, Savannah.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

Here it is, December and I've finally gotten around to updating my life. I owe it to Aunt Madeline, the one and only person who actually looks at this site. So here's to you Aunt Mad! (and any others who may be reading).

Life has been very busy for me mainly because I've rejoined the workforce. Apart from the occasional wedding or doctor's appointment, it's been 7 years since I've had to be anywhere. A Computer Aide position opened up in our school district, and with Emma being in school all day, the schedule was perfect. My hours and vacations are the same as the kids, so I don't have to worry about where they will go while I'm working. Summers and vacations off....ahhh! As if the schedule wouldn't be reason enough to love the job, I get to work with students and technology at the same time. I really love this job. The people I work with are great, and the students are a lot of fun. Most of all, I have have the opportunity to learn something new every day.