Family

Greg's birthday was two days ago but we got the chance to celebrate with him today. Looks like everyone's overanxious to get their hands on his cake!

We cancelled invitations to Deck Day knowing that the house wouldn't be ready for a big party but we still have some family members coming for Memorial Day weekend. We hope we will have a deck by then...

On Thursday we flew from Asheville to Boston to help Greg celebrate his graduation from Boston College with his Masters in Mathematics. We'll stay a few more days and continue to enjoy the ambience of Boston and leisure with Greg and Rachel.

With the semester over at USF, Phil and CJ climbed in the car and made the journey to visit us for a belated CJ birthday celebration. It's a visit of living amid the mess of constuction, running errands related to construction, and catching up on one another's lives....

With all the furniture except the bed stuffed into the library and the studio, there is nowhere in the house to sit down. Camp stools and our temporary dining table give a little comfort but nonetheless everything feels upside down.

With all the activity going on around the house, Sam the neighborhood dog came to visit and spend the day. Trouble is, he's terrified of thunderstorms so when a ferocious one rolled in at midday we broke our rule of no dogs in the house and offered shelter to Sam....

We made a quick overnight trip to Cincinnati. Steve's cousin Chip passed away unexpectedly on Saturday. We drove six hours through messy conditions to get together with family in Montgomery last evening and to participate in a wonderful celebration of Chip's life this...

What were we thinking? The house had plain drywall painted contractor white until Steve painted it back in January/February. Then we had the opportunity to strip the popcorn off the ceiling and add texture to the walls. We decided to go ahead but didn't realize that...

Came home yesterday to the news that we had a water damaged ceiling but today's new is that it was limited to a very small section, easily repaired, and that the attic and galvanized roof are in excellent condition.

They are a beautiful iridescent blue and black. They've been spending as much time as possible sitting in our driveway and on the road apparently drinking. We drive carefully down the road to give them time to flutter out of the way.