Is James sleeping? Nice picture Mike.
Back in December/January I wrote about our friend James finishing the classes for his degree. Last week he officially graduated from George Mason University. He focused on Information Technology. (Short Bio: He’s a geeky Australian who likes reading the Economist.) He already has a new job. Liz and I are really happy for him and enjoyed being a part of his graduation party. After seeing Shawn Marie and James struggle to make it happen over the years, it felt good to see them so happy.
While we were there, we thought E was getting better. She had been on antibiotics for about 48 hours. She still didn’t want to eat though. We’d find out on Monday that the antibiotics weren’t working and that the infection in her ear had gotten really bad. The doctor would also say that the rattling in her chest could possibly be the start of pneumonia. It’s hard to tell with E though. She stays in such a good mood. Here is a picture of Shawn’s mom, Mrs. Avery, feeding E some fruit juice. E really liked it.
She worked the room with one of her few tricks. Mom or Dad pats at her open mouth while she sings a single sound. The resulting sound is modulated. It has the ‘Aaaahh’ sound going up and down in amplitude. She’s also figured out how to do it with her own hand, though not as fast.
I really didn’t take enough pictures. You can tell by the artistic rendering of Shawn and James taken on their couch. I put together a few videos from the party though. If you’d like, you can check them out here.
This post is about two weeks late. Christine and Todd came down from New Jersey on May 14-16 to visit us in Apex. I’ll explain in subsequent posts, but E got sick just after Christine and Todd left. Actually, E has been sick off and on for about 2 months. The last two weeks of May though have been pretty bad and I couldn’t get to the computer and post. I also didn’t email or call people that I should have. Along with E, Liz and I have also been sick. E is now on a pretty strong antibiotic and things seem to be getting back to normal. I’m going to catch up on the last three weekends.
Todd and Christine came in on Friday night. We had a fun weekend. Inspired by the previous week at IHOP for Mother’s Day, we decided to go back. The idea was to have breakfast and then Todd and I could go to Tiger Direct (a geeky computer store). I thought they were going to have a ‘Sale Extravaganza’ that weekend. It turns out that the big tent sale in the parking lot was the week before. When I asked an employee if we’d missed the sale, he acted uncomfortable. I had to pry it out of him. The geeks must have gotten out of control the week before and he had to keep it on the down low.
Breakfast was nice. Usually my idea of breakfast is anything that soaks up the most syrup. Todd and I went for the breakfast burrito instead. Liz and Christine had souped-up French toast. It’s a good thing that the IHOP is 25 minutes away.
Later on Saturday we went to the zoo. It was a beautiful day. Liz and I have a membership now, so you may see many more posts with Asheboro as a backdrop. For those who have gone with us before, we made it all the way to the buffalo and actually saw them this time. We went to the chimpanzee house too. E was right next to the window so she could see. One chimpanzee stopped right in front of her and started making faces. E’s face lit up and she started making excited noises and jumping around in her seat. It was fun to see the recognition in her face. She watched the animals a lot more than on previous trips. It is still only about 15% of the time though. She spends most of her time watching the humans. [She really works a room. She’ll wiggle, squirm and then stare until she catches your eye. Then she flashes a big smile. She’ll repeat this until you smile back at her.] Her is a cute picture of a Mama monkey and baby that we saw.
On the way back home we drove north and stopped by Replacements Ltd. It is a store that stocks all kinds of china, even discontinued stuff. Christine was able to look for some pieces for her mom. In the meantime, Todd, E and I searched the store for the most embarrassing figurine. They usually involve colored tights. I taped a ‘mood swinging’ video with E there. I’ll post that one in a little bit. Here is a picture of us. I’ll leave you to guess what Christine has just found.
Sunday we had a nice leisurely morning debating the filibuster. With all the talk there was still time to fly around the kitchen. If you’d like to see Todd and E practicing, you can check them out here.
After breakfast we went hiking. Liz and I had debated going on a shorter trail. We didn’t know if Christine and Todd would like our usual hike through Umstead. They seemed fired up, so we went there. It was a beautiful walk filled with lots of late-spring greenery. The photo at the top is of us on the trail. The lighting was low, so it came out blurry. I played with it a bit in Photoshop with a fresco filter to make it seem like it was intended to be that way. Later we had a nice dinner and topped it all off with Matt’s Battlestar Galactica DVD. Todd has seen the Firefly series and is also waiting intently for Serenity to come out in the fall.
I glued together a few camera videos of E from last weekend. If you’d like, you can check them out here.
“Sure as I know anything, I know this .. I mean to misbehave.”
On a completely separate note, Matt sent me some movie news a couple weeks ago that made my day. There used to be a science fiction series on Fox called Firefly. I’d never seen it while it was on TV, but Matt liked it so much that he gave me the series on DVD. There was only one season and then it was cancelled. I definitely got hooked. It was so good that I felt bad when I’d finished watching the last one. The movie news is that there is a Firefly movie coming out in the fall. It is called Serenity. That is the name of the ship. You can check out the trailer here. With this news, I don’t feel as bad that Enterprise is going off the air. Once 24 is done for the season, I won’t have any reason to watch TV.