Camera overload!

So, we made up for lost time this weekend by taking twenty ton pictures... I'm going to divide the pictures up into two or three entries... Scroll down to see all the pics... (Unless, of course, you don't feel like it) ;-)

On Saturday, we attended Twyla's birthday party in Wilson Park in Carrboro. Along with the birthday girl, we saw Griffin , Dana and Finley (and baby #2, who is on the way), and met Mary Alicia and Paula's little girl Katie for the first time.

On Sunday, we decided to go to the zoo in Asheboro. It was an absolutely beautiful day- blue sky, low humidity, reasonable temperature. Sadie is in a serious animal stage, and she regaled us with various and sundry animal noises all day. She especially loved the elephants and the monkeys (she called a gorilla Daddy).

Here's the first set of pics...

First, various and sundry "CHEESE!" pics. Sadie has all of a sudden taken to posing for pictures. She will hand me the camera, wait for me to turn it on, and say "CHEESE!". Here is a collection of recent cheeses....

Diaper-only cheese...

Cheese with hat, which she put on herself....
Cheese, after eating a brown crayon...
Cheese in Halloween outfit... The first day the temperature slid ever so slightly under 80 degrees and I'm already pulling out the fall wardrobe...


Twyla's party...

Here's the birthday girl! Twyla just turned 2.

Sadie and unidentified child with binky on the playground set....

Looking contemplative... Or sullen... Take your pick!


Daddy being the baby whisperer... One meltdown averted!


Katie, basically being 1. I had forgotten how precarious the "pulling-up and cruising" stage was for Sadie... This cute little girl was constantly grabbing the tablecloth and pulling, and cruising for things to put in her mouth. I take for granted now being able to leave the room temporarily without worrying that Sadie will choke to death on something or pull down a bookcase on her head, but I remember not being able to take my eyes off her for one second...

Getting sleepy on the playground floor...

Taking a brief rest...

Swing time!

Twyla and her grandmother, Mary Alicia and Katie, and Daddy and Sadie... Two swings and three kids= potential recipe for disaster! Luckily, we worked it out.. Sadie can be very possessive of her swings...


Finley and Griffin... I had a picture of Dana, but it came out all blurry..

Sadie found a little cloth book full of animal pictures and was temporarily fixated.



More to come...

New pics, part two

Here is part two...

Sadie dozed off on the way to the zoo, which made us happy. Otherwise, she would have either passed out in the stroller, thus missing all the animals, or she would have had a lack of nap meltdown at some point. In fact, as we left the zoo, we crossed over a body of water and found ourselves on Meltdown Bridge. Every few feet or so, a toddler hurled him or herself to the ground and kicked and screamed. Here she is, groggy and stretching.

And then she wakes up, realizing something is up. I think she knew we were in the zoo parking lot, because she commenced with the animal sounds right away...

We started off having a picnic lunch. Here is a Canada Goose who shamelessly begged throughout the meal.

Zebras and a giraffe...


Sadie finds some elephant statues and couldn't resist climbing on them...




And then, the real thing... We saw several elephants... They are red because they wallow in red clay mud. Sadie made elephant sounds the whole time...


There were some cute little "broken" eggs in which kids could climb. She was all over that...

This egg was inhabited by a woman. That didn't stop Sadie. She crawled right in and basically snuggled with a complete stranger. Luckily, the woman didn't seem to mind...

Chillaxing in an egg...

And out we go to the next adventure...

Sadie watches gorillas. First she said "It's DADDY!". Then she said "It's MONKEY!" Then, she proceeded to make monkey sounds...


Hmm... That really IS Daddy, isn't it? ;-) *ducks and runs from Redmond*



We finished up the day with a ride on the carousel. This was Sadie's first carousel ride. I have had the lousy luck my entire life of picking the ONE animal that doesn't go up and down. This time was no different...


A couple of other pics... We just bought Sadie the more modern Little People Parking Garage... I have a "vintage" parking garage from the seventies, but it's in poor shape. I have finally given up my insistence that I will only use the "vintage" original Fisher Price Little People toys. Sadie likes the modern toys as much as she does the older ones, and I fully admit that some of my original childhood Fisher Price toys are a wee bit... musty and damaged. She scandalized me at first by mixing wooden Little People, you know, the ones with no arms and legs, with the more "chunky", realized modern people. Eh, who says 1969 is superior to 2007.

Anyway, she has a slightly different use for the parking garage than I intended... And yes, she does hang out at home quite a bit in just a diaper. And her Crocs. She demands to wear her Crocs ALL.THE.TIME. I'm almost getting to the point of being absolutely tired of seeing Crocs everywhere I go. Yes, they are cute, but they seem to be the ubiquitous kid shoe these days.


I also have a couple of videos I'll put up some time next week....

Jury Duty, or I Have No Poker Face....

First of all, I have no Sadie pictures this week. Sadie was exceptionally blurry, I mean, active, this weekend, and she absolutely would not stand still long enough to snap any shots. We're going to try again this weekend. Plus, we went to the Carrboro Farmer's Market and the Museum of Life and Science yet AGAIN, and really, how many blog entries can I possibly have with the same jaunts we've had fifty times before. Habit or rut? You tell me...

I had jury duty on Wednesday. I somehow thought I'd slip through the cracks as I called on Tuesday, but unfortunately, my number was up. I drove into Hillsborough and found the downtown area completely torn up with construction, and had to practically park in Virginia.

We waited until 11:30 am for the defendant to make his plea. Really, how long does it take to declare guilty or not guilty? Ugh. They trotted all 80 something of us into the courtroom. Guess who was the first potential juror called up? Yes, indeed, I was juror #1.

The defendant was charged with domestic violence. He had allegedly beat his girlfriend, who was a local research physician. She had a teenage daughter, who was there to support her. There were going to be police officers testifying that he beat her. When the defendant was introduced, he rose up, hair slicked back to a spiky peak, and gave us all a smarmy smirk and waved.

The prosecution questioned us, the first twelve jurors. One gentleman reported that he had been arrested and tried for spousal abuse. Another stated that he thought domestic violence should be handled in the home and that the penal system has no place getting involved. Guess which two jurors were excused. Then, we broke for lunch. Justice moves like a glacier.

When we returned, the defense attorney had his way with us. Though I tried to appear impartial, I found myself glancing sympathetically at the alleged victim and glaring at Mr. Slickmeister. The funny thing is that several of the first 12 jurors either worked with battered women or children, had spouses who did, or volunteered in the community to assist victimized women. When asked if the courts should become involved in a domestic violence case, even if the victim did not wish to press charges, I stated that by the time physical violence occurs in a relationship, the victim has most likely already been isolated and mentally beaten down, and may be incapable of advocating for herself (or himself, I suppose). In these cases, we as a society have an obligation to advocate for them, and if a crime is committed in general, the perpetrator needs to be prosecuted, regardless of the personal feelings of the victim. A crime is a crime, and assault is assault. Many battered women are terrified to prosecute, and others have been so manipulated that they have been made to feel responsible for the abuse on some level. Many battered women grew up seeing their own mothers being abused and thus, are replicating what they know.

I was excused promptly. So was the woman and man on our panel who worked directly with abuse victims. I hope that whatever happened, justice was served. I know that men are occasionally falsely accused of abuse, and in those cases, I hope that they are found innocent and that the false accuser has to suffer serious consequences, but I guess I make a horrible juror in that I tend to veer towards giving the alleged victim the benefit of the doubt, as I believe that false accusers are outnumbered by actual victims. That places me in direct conflict with the court's assumption of innocence before being proven guilty.

One point that hit home for me after this experience is that domestic violence occurs across the spectrum; that affluent and well-educated professionals are as much at risk of being battered as those of lower socioeconomic status. This woman appeared to be a Type A, driven, professionally accomplished woman, and yet at home, she was dominated and cowed into submission. Abuse can truly happen to any of us.

Sadie's Amazing ABC Adventure...

Ok, this is WAY too cute. And WAY too addictive...



Make your own for free at http://www.myabcadventure.com/index.htm

Camping! Yay! Finally!

If you haven't checked our blog entry, I posted two blog entries at once, so be sure to scroll down the the previous entry when you finish this one...

Well, it's finally happened! We finally managed to have an uninterrupted trip to the mountains! As you may recall, our first attempted mountain vacation in July was truncated mid-week by Sadie's first bout with enterovirus. Then, over Labor Day, our long-planned long weekend camping trip to Grayson Highlands was aborted after we had traveled 2 and a half hours, when Sadie developed an ear infection. So we decided that three times might be a charm, and planned a trip to Fairy Stone State Park in Virginia, which is only about 2 and a half hours from home. This park is noted for the large number of cross-shaped staurolite mineral rocks, which are apparently quite rare outside this park. Also, the park borders lovely Philpott Lake.

We were not completely bereft of bad luck. Note that we are in the middle of a severe drought in this area, and I don't think it's rained in months. On Friday, the remnants of Hurricane Humbert passed through the area, and we drove to Virginia in torrential rains and frequent tornado warnings. We set up camp in pouring rain and had to hide in our tents and under the picnic table canopy that night, and our tent was a bit leaky. But the weather on Saturday and Sunday was absolutely perfect.

We were a bit nervous about how Sadie would handle the outdoors and the drastic change in routine, but she was an absolute champ. She was in her element, and had a wonderful time playing with sand, rocks and pine cones. We were a bit worn out from chasing her around and around the camping loop, but the tent was large enough that we were able to occasionally just hang out in there and let her play with her toys.

I find that some people must camp for very different reasons than we do. We enjoy the absolute peace and quiet of nature, and the exertion of long hikes. Many campers must come for social reasons, and some seem to be tethered within 50 feet of their camp sites. The campground was a bit noisy and we were occasionally disturbed by loud music and loud talking. In fact, we had an "amorous" couple across the loop from us who proceeded to "serenade" the entire campground at 9 pm. There was a family with several children only 15 feet from their pop-up of seduction and I wondered what the parents told them was going on next door. Luckily, Sadie was sleeping like a rock and missed the free adult entertainment act.

Anyway, here are some pics...

Our tents... I'm not sure why I am posting pictures of our tents, but here they are...

Redmond takes a break from Sadie chasing...

Sadie peers out the window of the tent...

We had a roomy tent and a pretty comfortable setup. She slept between us on a Thermarest pad and actually seemed to sleep better here than at home, with the exception of her once a night wakeup to try to get us to play with her. Mommy and Daddy don't generally play at 2 am.


Walking around the campground... We spent much of our weekend chasing after Sadie. There are no walls in campgrounds.


Every pair of pants we brought ended up with all kinds of dirt stains. She was either kneeling on the ground or rolling around in mud...

Brian chatting with Lila. Lila also did very well on her first camping trip and has Sadie beat, as she camped for the first time at a mere 11 months.


Ok- we do realize that there are folks out there who still have their Bush/Cheney bumper stickers on their cars, years later, but what does a good latte have to do with one's political proclivities? Don't we all want a good latte?


Missy, Brian and Lila at picnic time...


Here is one small cove of Philpott Lake. There were different kinds of boats for rent, but we didn't dare attempt to take Sadie out in a canoe. I suppose we could have strapped her to her seat with a bungie cord...


Sadie in a tube slide...
We took a couple of hikes... On Saturday, we hunted for fairy stones and found a few of them... On Sunday, Missy and I took the kids out while the guys packed the cars... Both Lila and Sadie took a nap...

Isn't Lila adorable?




Sadie, passed out in her stroller...


We found that occasionally, allowing Sadie to play in the car bought us a few minutes to catch our breath. She climbed around, chirped "Beep Beep" every few minutes, and eventually would find the car horn, after which we removed her from the car.

Note that she's wearing a fleece jacket. On Sunday morning, it was 47 degrees when we woke up. Brrrrr...



Lila, all bundled up...


I had to sneak this picture in... This is the Pop-Up Chamber of Lovin'.... If this Pop-Up is rockin', don't bother a' knockin'...

Sadie, playing with her chair...

And here is Sadie clutching a bottle. Yes, a bottle. She's pretty much day-weaned off bottles, but we decided to allow her a couple of bottles on the trip, as we knew this would be a huge change of routine and thought the familiarity of a bottle might soothe her.


Mommy, sans makeup, shower or hair combing, with Sadie...



Brian, Lila and Sadie hovering around the campfire...

Whee! Sand to roll around in!