Blueberry Festival Music
Originally uploaded by jmodule
This past weekend was the Blueberry Festival. MD and I stayed longer to wait for the band to start playing. The morning rain showers had delayed everything. But they finally got started and we were able to listen to a few songs. MD liked their rendition of “Carolina Girl.”
You can see more pictures on Flickr
It has been a while since I last played music with anyone. So recently I decided to invite my brothers over for a jam session. We got together this past Saturday.
I had to get the Slingerland kit back in tune, but once that was set we got right in sync. The guitar led it off with a number of songs by some 90’s bands (Rage Against the Machine, Smashing Pumpkins, No Doubt, Greenday) and then we moved on to other songs, whatever someone decide to kick off. I just tried to play along, whether I knew the song or not.
I was happy with things turned out, and despite being in the living room, we were about to play at a comfortable volume level without driving everyone out of the house. LP even slept through most of it!
Technorati Tags: icecream
CDF and the girls gave me an ice cream maker for Father’s Day this year. I had occasionally talked about getting one for a while now, but I had forgotten about it recently and was surprised by the gift.
So Sunday afternoon I went to the grocery store and got what we needed to make mint chocolate chip ice cream! I asked MD if she wanted to go with me and she said she didn’t — but of course she changed her mind as soon as I left. But she and CE got to help me when I got back.
CE really wanted to help, and got upset when she couldn’t stir and taste as much as she wanted (she had also gotten up from her nap in a cranky mood). But they both had a chance to stir and taste the ice cream as I took it out of the mixer and put it in the freezer to set.
It was getting too late to eat the ice cream that night (it was supposed to set for 2 hours), so we rode bikes the A. B. Grill to get ice cream there.
CDF’s sister had her baby this morning. He weighed 9 lbs. and was 21 inches long. Tonight CDF is going up to stay with them in the hospital.
Dom and Amber had their baby today. Lucas Philippe was born around 1:30 PM and weighed around 9 lbs.
Dom called me this morning at 6:50 to say that he and Amber were going to the hospital because she thought that her water broke. He didn’t know anything then, but would let me know what the doctor said. Around 9:00 they had been admitted into the hospital and sent to a labor and delivery room.
The baby arrived much quicker than I expected. After talking with Dom, it looked like we could expect to hear something in the evening. Fortunately they didn’t have to wait that long (and Amber didn’t have to go through labor all day).
A month after (!) I finally sat down to write my thoughts about the wedding. It was a very nice ceremony, even though there was a last minute change from the beach to a Bed and Breakfast (due to cold and rain). The Bed and Breakfast was in downtown Wilmington along 3rd street south of Market Street. I’m not sure what style the house was, but in one of the sitting rooms they had a whole cabinet with old cameras. But back to the wedding…
The groom was in military dress, as was his best man, and groomsmen wore tuxes. The bride’s entourage wore red dresses and looked very fetching (in fact they fetched quite a few comments from the groomsmen [pardon the pun]).
This past weekend I took off Friday and had a holiday Monday (MLK) so ended up with a four-day weekend. Originally we had “big” plans to go to a park with the girls, or have some other outing. But that changed when CE got strep-related tonsillitis on Wednesday.
So with the baby sick, we decided it was best to keep our plans low-key. Then Thursday afternoon she had a fever and broke out with a rash. The doctor said it was probably a reaction to the antibiotics and to not give her anymore. Also we had an appointment Friday morning at 8:30 AM.
That night CE slept fitfully and would wake up every hour or so. Giving her Tylenol like the doctor directed didn’t help much. Also it must have disturbed MD, because whenever I would just be getting back to sleep after soothing CE, I’d feel a tapping on my shoulder and it was the other daughter wanting water, or her CD player turned on, or something.
Finally by Sunday CE was on her new antibiotics and was feeling, and sleeping, better. We were able to rest Sunday afternoon and she was up to playing with her aunts G and H when they came over for a visit.
Monday we were back to the regular routine. We were talking about what to do when MD got invited over to Mackenzie’s house to play for the day. So CE had us to herself and MD had a great time playing with a friend she hadn’t visited for a while. At home CE helped me bake oatmeal raisin cookies (mostly by being the batter taster) and spent time playing and reading with CDF.
Today we had a memorial for Dadu at his house. It was scheduled for 10 o’clock, but got started a little late. JoAnn and John, Dadu’s neighbors, were there, as well as Sitome who played in his string ensemble. Tony Langley came for the service (Tassy and Deedee arrived later), and Andrew Thompson, a friend of Ruth’s from Lagniappe church in Mississippi, stopped on his way to Pennsylvania.
Pop opened with a prayer and a short reading. Wavy followed with her remembrances and read a passage from Ecclesiastes and some other thoughts from a famous author (who’s name I can’t recall). Niddie had a few words about Dadu’s love of music and played a recording made by a student who had purchased Dadu’s cello. Then the service was opened to anyone who wanted to say something. Jo-Ann talked about how she had enjoyed living beside Dadu, and all the conversations they had together. Finally after everyone had said something, I closed with a few thoughts of my own, read Psalm 23, and ended with a prayer.
This was the second year we went to Airlie Gardens in Wilmington when it was decorated for Christmas. We went later this year, from 7 to 9 PM on Friday. It was sold out and rather crowded.
The tour starts in the new administration building where the Cape Fear Railroad Club sets up an O-scale layout of Lionel trains. After that the path heads around the Airlie Oak.
Some are the trees are illuminated with lights from below and others are draped with long chains of colored lights. This year they introduced “trees” made from bottles and lights.
The girls ran around in the lawn at the Airlie Oak to let out some of the energy before we went on. Then we walked over to the board walk that looks over the bay — across from Airlie Lake where the swans live.
Near the end of the tour, the path goes under a “tree” of lights. I thought it would be neat to get a picture while standing under it.
After that the Railroad Club had a display of outdoor trains (garden trains?) set up along the path. The girls enjoyed watching the trains go by. On the passenger train, each car was almost two feet long.
We took some more pictures this weekend.
The girls do really well when we take these pictures, even though they get very antsy by the end.