Few more pics...

Aunt Sylvia sent us some pictures from our Vermont trip and frankly, she's a better photographer than I, so here is a slideshow of her pictures...



Here are a few highlights...

On the ferry across Lake Champlain...

Picnic lunch at Shelburne Farms..


Being pulled by a tractor...
Uncle David, Aunt Diane and Aunt Sylvia watching TV...
Sadie milking a cow...
We had lots and lots of delicious sweet corn from the Nichols farm almost every night... Sadie could have eaten it day and night...Taking a quick swim in Lake Champlain...
Sadie, petting a sheep...
We loved this display at Shelburne Farms...

Now, on to something both slightly embarrassing and amusing... My old high school buddies have been scanning and posting pictures from back in the day on Facebook in the past couple of weeks. Here is living proof that I am a child of the 80's...

I'm guessing this picture was taken in 1985 or 1986 during my freshman year of college. I determined this by calibrating hair length with this particular shade of red. This may have been around the time I took out my short-lived nose ring. Karen Kriner is wearing a leopard print shriner hat. We have the appropriate sullen looking goth facial expressions...

This would be in 1983 or 1984, my junior year of high school. Here's Karen Kriner and myself standing on the sidewalk designated for "punks". To my right is Kim Tharp wearing a trenchcoat. Thom Stanton is behind us, mysteriously clutching a trash can. To our left is what we used to call "goathead wall", where the, um, stoners who liked classic rock hung out. If you could pan to the front and right of us, you'd see "prep wall", which is pretty self explanatory. Can you believe the smoking kids? Back then, the principal used to occasionally come out and smoke with us. The world has certainly changed.

I have absolutely no idea who this boy is. He wasn't anyone I dated. But this is the only current picture I have of me with blonde hair. I have a slew of pictures to scan, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
Here's some of the "motley crew". In the front is Kim, Tasha, me and Karen K.

Here I am- probably early in my sophomore year of high school- I can tell because I still look relatively "normal" and the clothing style was fairly preppy in the early 80's. I was at my friend Elena's house. I'm not sure why I had my palms up- I don't recall ever having stigmata or anything.

Elena lived in a lovely home by a very wide river and we used to hang out in the yard and enjoy the view.
This would have been 1987 or 1988. This was an old boyfriend who was heading across the country on a trip. I was trying to sneak in his suitcase. Gosh, I was so thin back then!
Oh my. Talk about dated! I'm guessing this was early 1983, probably taken soon before the picture of me in Elena's house. This was one of my first boyfriends. Remember back in middle school when the little girls grew so much faster than the little boys?
Karen recently scanned my junior year yearbook photo. I remember picking up this silly purple men's tuxedo shirt at the Salvation Army, and I found these awful purple feather earrings that look like roach clips. Ouch.

Ok- we were dressed for a costume party. This was a bit wild- even for us! This is Amy, Andy, myself, Karen K and John.
My friends threw a surprise birthday party sleepover for me when I turned 16. This photo screams "80s! 80s! 80s!" Look at how young my Dad looks here! He was 46.
This picture was probably taken around 1988 or 1989. Someone should have clued me in that fishnet stalkings look rather silly with denim shorts.
I think this might have been 1989, but after the preceding picture. I chopped off all that hair in the summer, as I often do. Another old boyfriend, who is sporting a mullet!
Technically, this is the 90's, but I thought I'd throw this one in. Obviously, this was taken on my wedding day. Karen K is posing with me. She and Elena actually took the initiative to have their bridesmaid gowns made for them. I planned my Virginia wedding from Montana, Redmond and I were starving students, and I had a lot of help from friends and family to pull it all together. The stunning floral arrangement was made by Debi, my father's wife. There were succulents in the arrangement, so I had another bouquet made that I could throw without spiking anyone...
I am very much anti cake-smooshing. I believe that there is most likely a positive correlation between cake smooshing and whether or not a couple ends up divorcing... Redmond was a very gentle cake feeder.



This weekend, we are going to Grayson Highlands State Park with a few families to camp for Labor Day. Here's hoping we can actually make it there this time!

Sadie and her silly noises

Sadie likes to make silly noises. She usually has a current favorite at any given time, so when you ask her to make a silly noise, she'll regale you with her noise du jour. She is multi-versatile with these noises- she can impersonate a penguin doing the silly noise, or a pirate, or any other bizarre combination on command.

More vacation pics...

If you haven't checked the blog for some time, you might want to look at the entry immediately below this one as well, as I uploaded some videos last night.

I'm still sitting here in this spartan Red Roof Inn somewhere in the outposts of Boston, and am getting ready to hail a cab and attempt to come home today, as my flight last night was canceled. I'm going to post a hodgepodge of photos from my trips the last couple of weeks but will probably hold the commentary to a minimum.

Here are some photos I snapped on a tour of Harvard's campus. I was in a daze that day, as we often were up until after midnight doing homework, so unfortunately, I remember little about specific building names, etc.

Here is the quintessential "Ivy Leaguers studying under a massive shady tree" shot...
A statue of John Harvard. What I do remember from this tour is that a fire burned down all of his personal books and portraits, so that by the time this statue was erected, no one knew what he actually looked like. This statue is called the "Statue of Three Lies". The plaque says "John Harvard, Founder, 1638". We already know the statue was not in the likeness of John Harvard. Also, he was a contributor but not the actual founder. And the school was founded in 1636.

This was our tour guide. She is studying cultural anthropology, and was very typical of the Harvard students I encountered. Supremely self-confident, outgoing, and very type A.

This is an example of why it breaks my heart that so many colleges received an insurgence of funding in the 1960's and 1970's. This is the Science Center building, and is apparently universally considered an eyesore by students and faculty alike.
Here is a picture of our mock "graduation" ceremony at the end of the Harvard Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians .
This is my discussion group. There were about 100 librarians enrolled in the seminar, but we were also assigned to smaller discussion groups that met each day to discuss each others' case studies. It really turned out to be much more like group therapy. I met several people in my group that I would like to keep up with in the future. There were some great folks with great ideas in my group!

On to Vermont... These pictures will be somewhat out of order, as Blogger is acting up today....

We took Sadie to Pizza Putt a couple of times to play in the room of inflatables and the ball pits.... She found another little girl the first time named Addy, I think, and they stuck together like glue... Here they are in the ball pit pretending to be sleeping...

Aunt Sylvia introduces Sadie to Uncle David's pheasants...

The beautiful main structure on the grounds of Shelburne Farms.

On the tractor ride around Shelburne Farms...

Aunt Diane takes Sadie into the chicken building on the Nichols Farm.

Sadie pushing a wheelbarrow...

And riding a tractor...
Stomping around Shelburne Farms with big wader boots... There's a cute film of this in the entry below...

Though you can't really see it, Sadie is milking a cow here! There are some better pictures of this coming in the mail from Aunt Sylvia and I will post them when I get the disc...

This is Uncle David and Aunt Diane's house on the farm. The house is at the tail end of a mile long gravel road and is very isolated and peaceful. There are wild turkeys and even coyotes that cross the property.

A view of Mount Philo from the farm...
Sadie talks to the chickens...

Another shot of Aunt Diane hoisting Sadie around the chicken building.