Marry a thief - again

I am a bad, bad mom. I allowed Big Al to go to my brother's CD release party for Marry a Thief..... held in a Tavern. Tavern is the polite name for a bar that gathers a whole bunch of college kids. We listened to Cayla perform one of the opening acts, but I had to take Big Al outside for the second opening band (way to attached to 4-letter words). Marry a Thief came on, and unfortunately because we had left the place for the band before, we didn't have a place up front to listen. So we found steps on the side and Big Al watched the show from there.

Colin was, of course, AWESOME. My mom took these pictures and more (sorry Mom, I totally ripped you off). You can check them out at www.photoblog.com/widcat . You can also check out www.marryathief.com if you want to hear more of their music. I believe they have posted their new song ONLY on the website.

Thinking of Veterans

Major Charles M. Brown

Lt. Col John B. Davis

Donald Brown

Lt. Col Warren Jolly

Lt. Cecil E. Newman

and of course

Petty Officer Brian Dawson

I love Rudy Mancke

Rudy chasing butterflies

Wednesday night I left the family, and drove to Myrtle Beach with a colleague (and friend). She and I were on our way to the science teacher convention. Sadly, you could really see that budget cuts were taking their toll, as the attendance was MUCH lower than I expected. Happily, I got to meet Rudy Mancke. He is an absolute walking encyclopedia when it comes to natural history in SC. He is currently a USC (the real one, not the one in Southern California) professor, and a former curator at the state history museum.

Now, I have to admit, I vaguely knew who he was (most in SC do), but I wasn't brimming over with excitement UNTIL I heard him speak at the keynote address. WOW. He is amazing. I attended my workshops for the rest of the day, and made a lot of contacts that may pan out for my students, as well as others in my school.

Dr. Michel

The BIG FUN, however, came on Friday when I went on a beach walk with Rudy, and Dr. Jaqueline Michel. She is a geologist who described all of the changes on the coast. It was supposed to be a 2 hour workshop, however, as we walked across the street to walk the block to the ocean, Rudy stopped in the lot that had overgrown..... and then he started showing us EVERYTHING - he knows the name of every shrub, plant, tree, insect, bird, etc. It took us about 45 minutes to walk that one block because he had comments to share about everything we found. When we got to the beach Dr. Michel explained a lot about the erosion of the coast, and the last OBVIOUS beach nourishment project on Myrtle Beach, and why it doesn't have the dunes it should have. When she finished Rudy took us to several places along the beach and explaine every single shell, coral, sponge, etc that we could find. He connected everything back to Dr. Michel's talk about the changes in coast. It was mesmerizing.... I know.... I hear you..... first a math geek, now a science geek. But I was truly inspired. On the way back to the hotel some random person ran up to him, "Are you Rudy from the NatureSCene show." He was of course gracious. Many South Carolinians have grown up watching his show, which he called Show and Tell on TV.

All day, I kept thinking - I shouldn't have blown off all of those biology classes - I mean I REALLY couldn't stand them, but now I'm seeing the value of knowing the difference between a mollusk and an echinoderm. So I'm actually looking into taking classes at the rival to USC, although I'll never buy an orange sweatshirt... and seeing if I could maybe one day grow up to be Rudy Mancke and try to inspire my students with the science they really should have each and every day.

Trick-or-Treating in different directions

Apparently last year WAS the last year that all my chicks would trick-or-treat together.

Big Al went to a party with her friends, after we made those costumes yesterday (they wanted to be "skinny m&m's).

T-Rex started with us, but quickly ditched us for her friends, although Cheesie's friends were still with us.

And the little girls were excited that my Uncle, Aunt and Cousin went with us for a bit. I crack up that they all dress up, but they had a great time (The bee keeper, the Queen Bee, and the two little bees). Tiny Miss Busy Pants hung in there for a while, but had to be taken home when she was walking and yawning at the same time. She also thought she was supposed to go inside everyone's house. FUN!

Corn Maze

Took two different groups of girl scouts out to the corn maze. Each year this guy does a different maze, and this year it was 3 miles of space theme..... which we did in the dark. Sorry for the really bad pictures.

At the end of it they went down a big slide outside of the maze.......

A fun evening - just not a great photo op.

Hiking

Hiking in the fall, in SC, is really the best time (early spring too). The weather is cool, the bugs are virtually gone, and other people are busy.

This time we went to the Congaree National Park. It's free (fits our budget at the moment) but we're always trying to get the girls out and doing something beyond suburbia. The Congaree swamp apparently is one of the last areas of the country that resembles the south (from Virginia on down) from the old days. These are some of the places Swamp Fox, and others, hid in during the Revolutionary War. We learned about all sorts of plants, and how muck filters pollution, and guts help flooding in the swamp. All of the girls now know about Cypress Knees, and saw the 2nd tallest loblolly pine in the nation (the tallest is somewhere else in the swamp).

We chose the easy boardwalk (2.25 miles) because we haven't been there before, and Blondie can't do certain kinds of hikes without me hovering. Both little girls were troopers and walked right along looking for labels for the self-guided tour. Blondie noticed the markers on the trees and announced those for quite awhile. They were both amazed at the pictures of the flooded swamp and how it covers the boardwalk we were on, and how the moss on the Tupelo trees indicates the water line at times.

We are definitely going back to check out the lake, and river, and try one of their canoe tours. Next time we may try the 4-6 mile hike and see how the little girls do (it isn't all on the boardwalk). Photos courtesy of Brian.

Pretty perfect setup

Blondie goes to a physical therapist who started her own business. She really picked the best place to do it. She bought a townhouse (very high end, and 2200 sq. feet upstairs) with a storefront below (probably another 700 sq. feet). She owns the one on the far right where she treats the little kids and has a lot of toys (and she will live in it as soon as her tenent is out) and rents the storefront on the left where she has a Wii set up, her office, and a pilates machine (and other equipment).

This is the swimming pool that Kathy uses in the summers with the kids. Blondie loves her time exercising in there, almost as much as free time swimming at our club pool.

Out of the clinic and to the left is the playground. Blondie can work on balance (she can almost walk all around the perimeter), climb ladders, hold on to a swing with lefty, etc. This playground is right next to the pool.

If you walk out of the clinic there is the green right across a little street (above and below) where Blondie plays soccer with other kids who have appointments before or after her. She is actually running quite well, and we are still seeing progress 4.5 years out.

I'm trying to post a video over on the Rasmussen's site (button above) showing Blondie eating with a fork. She is definitely getting better at using her left hand to do that, even though it isn't necessary. Check back to see the video.