Carbon Copy

Abstract Expressionism

I accidentally left my camera at Matt and Izzy's on Christmas. When I picked it up the next day, I found these brilliant pieces by my niece waiting for me.

Now I'm not one of those people who disparage modern art by saying a child could do it, but these are pretty damn good.

Christmas Morning

We went back to Matt and Izzy's on Christmas morning for brunch and to see Claire enjoying her new presents. Mostly, though, Claire followed the example of her dad and played gameboy. It runs in the family.

Christmas Eve

This year we celebrated Christmas (for the most part) on Christmas Eve. I love opening presents on Christmas Eve with the tree lights sparkling. While I love Christmas lights, they don't always provide the best lighting for taking pictures. But of course I did anyway.

Claire Amelie

The hardest thing about these pictures of Claire is narrowing them down.

Claire loves her uncle goo-goo.

And her new bouncy ball.

Taking pictures in the car makes a boring ride fun. Claire's such a great little actress.

Claire also makes waiting at the doctor's office fun.

And if none of those melted your heart, this surely will.

Gardner Village

Sorry I haven't been posting much. I've been busy doing Christmas shopping and catching up with friends and generally being lazy. (When you're lazy, there's not much to post about.) But one of the highlights of my time home so far was going with my bff to Gardner Village, which has all sorts of little boutiques housed in historic buildings (mostly old homes). Here are some pictures.

There's even some local wildlife.

The ducks were very noisy.

You can also find some really strange things at Gardner Village. Such as these:

Photos

I'm getting behind on my postings, so here's a little catch-up piece.

Lately I love taking pictures from airplanes (if you haven't noticed), but this evening was particularly beautiful because it was storming at the airport. My flight was delayed 2 hours! Once we made it through the thunderstorms, it was absolutely perfect. And the clouds formed their own landscape.

And then I was home. I've used the last couple days to spend time with those I care about. Here's proof that you can be five months pregnant and totally sassy.

I love seeing Christmas trees through windows. Here's Matt and Izzy's.

Tanker and kitty:

It started snowing while Tank and I were at dinner and then kept on all through the night. When I left his house, I stopped by the City/County Building because I couldn't help but take some pictures.

I continued taking pictures on the way to my mom's.

And even snapped a few on the walk from the garage to the front door.

Gingerbread Houses

Last weekend, Jenn had her annual gingerbread house decorating fest. She spent hours mixing and shaping and baking gingerbread (we nibbled on the scraps throughout the week), and by Saturday there were two large stacks.

Everyone contributed some candy (but mostly Jenn did).

And then we all set to work. Last year, my gingerbread house collapsed. Apparently I didn't use the right frosting. So this year I made sure to follow directions. However, I still had structural issues, which led all the engineering blah blah blah boys to make cracks about how it's a good thing I'm in liberal arts. ha ha.

I didn't like how mine was going, and Meredith and James were having so much fun making creative houses that I decided to start over.

Meredith wasn't settling for the traditional shapes. She created her own bridge-like pieces, which we eventually turned into a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired beach house complete with palm trees.

Ok, there's snow at this beach house (and a snowman), but that's only because it's Christmas.

James made a trailor house. He consulted my first-hand experience living in a trailor for some authentic touches.

Meredith is James's US Government instructor, but they have a relationship (not that kind) outside of class, too.

Liz's house turned out classic, just like her.

Seth's is kind of flaming, just like him. (j/k)

Kyle and Jenn had a good time, too.

And here's my final result. I was going for kind of a Le Corbusier look (with some traditional gingerbread flare, of course). As far as I know, it's still standing.

Chuzzle

I have become addicted to Chuzzle. I play it at work while Christine is away for lunch and I am manning the phones (that rarely ring). Christine plays it, too. Once she got up to level 11, and I knew that I had to at least get to that level, too. So I practiced and practiced. But it was hard because Christine could potentially dedicate almost 8 hours a day to Chuzzle, whereas I only had 1 hour tops. Last week, though, all my hard work paid off. I got to level 11!! Before I died, I took a picture to celebrate and verify the event.

Fare Thee Well, Fall 2006

I've been up all night writing my final paper for my Levinas class. It's awful, but at least it's done! Now I can clean my room, pack my bags, and do a little shopping before I leave for home tomorrow.

Only one semester left!

Good-bye Kiddos!

I had my last 7:30 am English 106 class today. I brought donuts. There were no lingering good-byes, and I will admit that it felt strange to me. I resisted the urge to send several sentimental e-mails. One thing I will miss is the sunrise. I know I won't get up and out of the house early enough any time soon to see it again. Lately, the winter cold has created crips, clear lines of color. This morning, the clouds hung low in perfectly straight lines that almost (but not quite) looked like mountains. I really wish I had my camera, but I didn't. Instead, I will post a picture of the sunrise over New York as I flew out of town last October.

My Visit to North Carolina (Day 4)

Sadly, my visit with Mike and Amanda came to a close. My flight left in the afternoon, but I couldn't remember for sure what time so we walked across the street to Duke's East Campus to use the computers. Duke is so pretty!

This is where the hobbit lives (according to Amanda):

I find this statue so fascinating. It's rare that you see memorial statues of someone sitting.

Even the stairs at Duke are pretty.

And check out the plush seating in the Math tutoring lab. Mike says it's like this everywhere.

Mike and Amanda's house. It's where the president used to live, but now it's split into apartments.

Their porch:

Mike does a pretty good impersonation of Jefferson, as you can see from comparing this final picture with one from when Amanda and I went to William and Mary.

I made Mike and Amanda take me to the airport early because I was convinced there would be long lines. I made it through check-in and security in less than 20 minutes. Oh well. At least I had time to grade papers.

Babies

For about 5 seconds all my friends and loved ones having babies were going to get these prints from Modern Tots, but then I saw the price. Sorry!

My Visit to North Carolina (Day 3: Part 3)

After traveling the byway, we headed back towards Durham. Growling stomachs required a stopover in Winston-Salem for some dinner. We tried (unsuccessfully) to find a local diner, but wound up at Pizza Hut. However, it was not a pleasant experience. Tacky tables, tacky waitresses, smokers, and the lack of red lighting forced us out. We ended up at the campus of Wake Forest University where we followed the bright lights and cheering only to find an NCAA championship soccer game between Wake Forest and Santa Clara. What else could we do but join the crowd?

Taking pictures of innocent bystanders at sporting events (like little boys and dogs) has become a habit of mine.

(oh yeah... in a surprising turn of events, Wake Forest won 3-1. woohoo.)

My Visit to North Carolina (Day 3: Part 2)

The Blue Ridge Parkway!

(Amanda really liked the sunlight here, but it took a while to get one of me.)

(Sunset from the car)

My Visit to North Carolina (Day 3: Part 1)

I went through and got all my photos ready for the next day of my trip. Turns out there are quite a lot of them, so I decided to split the next day into three sections. It was a pretty eventful day. We left early for a daytrip to the Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge Parkway. This included a stop in Boone, the firefly capital of the world (according to Byways). This first section (the smallest one) is dedicated to our adventures in Boone.

Sadly, there were no fireflies during my visit. It's a little too late in the season, but there were Christmas trees. Lots and lots of them. Apparently the big thing to do on the day after Thanksgiving in North Carolina is to travel to Boone and chop down your own tree at one of the Christmas tree farms. Our first order of business was to make some turkey sandwiches from our leftovers. We chose the Appalachian State University campus as our picnic spot. Here's Mamers making the most delicious turkey sandwich ever.

After our dinner, we meandered into town (along with everyone else) to browse the stores. Here's the adorable Boone Post Office.

Candy Store!

You can't go to Boone without antiquing. As Mike says, it's the black hole of all the junk in a fifty mile radius (that's not verbatim).

The problem with these "antique" stores is that they are totally overpriced. They wanted $2 for one old postcard. Not worth it. And I was skeptical about the antique status of some of the items. For instance, we have this bell at home. I don't think it was ever worth $20.

As a shopping experience, Boone was a little disappointing. I only got a few postcards. As a wandering around amongst lots of other shoppers and with two fun people experience, it was one of the best. Next stop, driving on the Blue Ridge.

My Visit to North Carolina (Day 2)

Turkey Day! (and my five year anniversary from being home from my mission.)

The day starts off by watching the Macy's parade, and I realize anew how much I hate watching the Macy's parade. It's so dull. It's like a football game - one big commercial for its sponsors. Mostly I sat around while Mike and Amanda did the cooking, which worked out really well. Although, I did put together the stuffing (not Stovetop) and it was delicious! Amanda set the table. Growing up, this was traditionally my job. I loved putting the table together and pulling out the crystal, silver, and china. Here's our table this year:

Amanda and Mike invited Val, Roxanna, and Carlos over to share our meal. Afterwards, we all sat around and talked.

We lit some candles to set the tone for the evening.

(This last grouping also acted as a fire to warm cold hands.)

Amanda and I took advantage of the soft light by taking some self-portraits.

Mike doesn't really do self-portraits, so I had to take one for him.

Later that evening, we went to visit some of Mike's officemates for dessert. Grad students are pretty much the same everywhere.

A New Look

I've been wanting to update the look of my blog for a while now. I figured I would do it over Christmas break, but I found I had some extra time tonight so voila. We'll keep this one for a while.

My Visit to North Carolina (Day 1)

You've already seen just a bit about my trip, but there's so much more! I thought I'd be a little more systematic. I finished my first paper early Thursday morning, so I feel I have earned the right to procrastinate and enjoy my Friday evening by blogging.

As aforementioned, on Wednesday afternoon, Amanda, Mike, and I went to the ultrasound and got the good news about the baby. Then we stopped by Southern Season (about which I've already posted) and then by the preschool Amanda works at. It was so fun to see her cute room and the projects she does with her kids.

The kids get to take this little guy home with them and write stories about their adventures.

Here are some pictures of Amanda when she was a little girl.

That night, we ordered some delicious burritos from a taco stand called Miranda's. Mmm... I wish I could have one right now.

I couldn't wait to play Yahtzee, so after dinner we pulled that out and cleared the table to make room for rolling the dice. Mike won each game. BUT he's been practicing by playing online. I was rusty.

Maybe Mike is so good because he whistles while he plays?

Amanda tallied up the score.

THEN we played Fahtzee, a game we made up last year. It's a quick version of yahtzee. Here's how you play: You get three rolls, just like in Yahtzee, but the only thing you are trying for is a yahtzee (or all five dice showing the same number). Then at the end of your third roll, you count up how many dice out of five show the same number. I might have lost Yahtzee, but I was doing awesome at Fahtzee! I was totally ahead. Amanda had to work hard for a yahtzee.

All that hard work paid off. Amanda got a yahtzee!!

High five!

Let's try that again.

But I still won every game!

Here's some table decor:

I never know how conclude these things. Oh wait, I'll borrow something from my freshman. In conclusion, fun was had by all.