Memorial to Memorial About

We got a visit from one of our favorite people last weekend, Aunt Dannielle (Mat's Sister). We took her around to the oh so southern sights.
Thursday we went to a late night raging concert at Cat's Cradle to hear from independent bands Jenny Owens Young and Jukebox the Ghost. Highly recommended if you ever get a chance to come to Chapel Hill, but bring your earplugs, they like to jam (hard).

Friday was breakfast at a German bakery called Guglhupf. They sell excellent pastries and artisan breads. We then took her on the campus tours of Duke and Carolina. Later that night, we met on the Carolina Inn Back Porch for a picnic, live music, duck-duck-goose and dancing.

Duke Chapel


Becket dancing at the porch


Cool Fiddling Music


Fun with Dannielle


Saturday was spent at the lake house with Doctor Fowler and other co-workers of Mat's. The water is always warm and distilled since it is used to cool the power plants near by. Sounds weird, but it's the best of both worlds and a beautiful relationship that the plant and the lake have--everyone wins, including the people!

The kids jumped from raft, to tube, to trampoline, from raft, to tube, to trampoline, repeat, repeat, repeat


Canoeing and looking at the wildlife through the trees


The Popcorn Machine


The Sunset


Shooting a few hoops before we hit the road.


Sunday we went to the Duke Gardens just after a fresh rainstorm. The weather was just right with a side of --cool breeze

Scenic Bridge


Newly found Japanese House where we could practice our meditation as a family


And of course the flowers

My week vacation (Sunday)

We went to church in Morehead City, then headed home. We took a circuitous route heading over to Harker's Island near Cape Lookout, where they have a museum about the sound and the lighthouse. We had lunch there and found some seagulls that were very interested in our bread.







We then headed back through New Bern, a city at the end of a large inlet that was the colonial capital of North Carolina and also the home of Pepsi-Cola. It was invented in a downtown pharmacy, which is now a soda fountain/museum.





To finish it all up, the kids got to do there business in an empty downtown lot because there weren't any open restrooms on Sunday. The trip back was very rainy but uneventful and we were grateful to have had such a nice safe trip.

My Week Vacation (Saturday)

We had intentions of hiking along the sound first thing in the morning, but within a few hundred yards, we were attacked by hoards of bugs and saw piles of poison ivy. So we aborted that mission and headed back to the beach.





Gretchen and Becket later went to the aquarium with the Cutlers, which left Micah alone with her parents. We headed back to Beaufort on a mission to get over to one of the islands to see the wild horses up close and personal. When we arrived in town, none of the ferry operations were still running, so we talked a few local fishermen into dropping us over on Carrot Island, although we didn't negotiate a return trip.





Luckily, we were able to flag down a couple in there boat cruising by the island and they graciously dropped us back on the mainland.

My Week Vacation (Friday)

We spent the morning at the beach, the kids enjoying running in the waves and building sand castles.





Then we took a trip to Beaufort and enjoyed the quaint downtown and beautiful homes along the waterway.







That night we headed to Cherry Point Naval Airbase near Havelock and saw part of a nighttime air show. Unfortunately, some sporadic rain curtailed most of the events, but the kids still enjoyed seeing all the parked planes and tanks and such.

My Week Vacation (Thursday)

Traveled down to Emerald Isle for a little getaway with family and friends. On the ride down, there were lots of wild flowers growing on the freeway.



Micah didn't like them so much


It was a little late and rainy when we arrived, but we just had to check out the beach


There were five in the bed and the little one said, "roll over, roll over," so they all rolled over and one fell out...Goodnight to the little ones!

My Week Vacation (Wednesday)

Graduation was held in the new Yankee Stadium. Hillary Rodham was the keynote speaker. Like her or not, she has paved the political road for a lot of women, so in actuality you can be respectful and thankful for her (right Cassandra?). She was pretty general when addressing us, but it was still cool to see her tiny spec on the field.


They provided us with these much needed hats as we walked into the stadium.



Brian was on the Jumbo-tron in a movie presentation for the 8,000 graduating that day. It was an emotional high for me to be his sister. I could not believe that this small town Utah boy was on the tron in this massive city they call New York. It was so amazing that all I could shout was, "THAT'S MY BROTHER!"



We had a lot of sun that day in the perfect 70 degree weather. Maybe you can notice Brian's nice cap line from the midday hours.



We ate at a crepe cafe of sorts. I had a curry chicken crepe and a dessert crepe made of nutella, banana and strawberries. Across the street, I found this odd Chinese restaurant (in Spanish) across the street. One can only find this in the melting pot of New York!



I then flew home to return to my family. Bye, bye my brothers.

My Week Vacation (Tuesday)

Central Park in fall, how you tore your dress, what a mess....well it wasn't fall, but had fun kicking around Central Park for much of the day. I had never been to Belvedere's castle (built as an observatory when the park was designed)




We then headed to the Mets and Braves game.


These two are surprisingly still married after having opposite tastes in baseball. Cassandra has been a long time Mets fan since she was young and went with her family to the city to watch them play. Brian has been a long time Braves fan since the days of Dale Murphy. They both have their own fan garb and wear it proudly.

Casey and I got burgers at the game, do you notice anything different about our burgers? Something unusual...

Mets ended up winning in an extra inning. Bases loaded, 2 outs, and the batter walked. Brian was ticked, Cassandra was happy, and I was just glad it was an exciting game and got to dance.

My Week Vacation (Monday)

Monday:
Flew to New York City to see my bro graduate from NYU.

I also got to see these corny two, Casey (my younger bro) and Tiff (his wife since July of '08)

Get it---the Bullock's at the Bullock? Hey what did one Bullock say to the other Bullock? Sounded like a start of good joke...

Brian ended up winning an award for service at his convocation. It was a lovely night with Brian's professors and friends and of course, the lovely Cassandra.

But what made it the loveliest, is that we were all together(especially at this hands down restaurant called Mirandi's in Greenwich, I'm still thinking about how I can get back there).

PS stands for Priority Seating on the Subway.


Look for Tuesday tomorrow.