Nancy's Retirement Party

One of my favorite library people retired this year my former boss/co-worker/friend Nancy. Her party theme was Cinderella - complete with a tiara for her to wear at the party. Here is her princess cake.

Here is Nancy opening some of her many gifts.

Here is a picture of me & Nancy at the party.

Nancy's blanket

I made a fleece blanket for my former boss/co-worker/friend Nancy when she retired at the end of March. Here she is looking at the blanket after she opened my gift.

My cats were very interested in this blanket while I was making it - maybe because the of the cat pattern. Here they are checking it out.

2009 NCAA National Champions!!!

Carolina won the 2009 NCAA National Championship! And even better for all the fans out there was the fact that almost all of the games in the tournament - including the championship game - were won by double digits. What a great way to end the basketball season! Here are some pictures to commemorate.

Cat Pics

You can see how excited Sandy and Roxy are about the Carolina Championship!

Here's a close-up of a sleeping Sandy.

New Bird Feeder

We recently bought a bird feeder for the tree in our front yard. Either we have a LOT of birds eating from it or the wind is blowing the seed out because we've already had to refill it twice in just a few weeks! Here's a picture of the new feeder.

Here's a picture of two birds eating at the feeder.

2009 Spring Plants

Since we're finally heading into spring and summer we planted some new flowers in the bed in our backyard. Here's Chad digging the holes for the flowers.

Here are the new flowers all planted!

Easter at Verizon

Our church (Mecklenburg Community Church) had our Easter service at Verizon so that we could have one service with everyone there. It was pretty cool to have a church service there when you're used to going to concerts there and dealing with hundreds of drunk people - not the case at our Easter service by the way! They also had egg hunts for the kids and Chad's sister's family came with us, so one of our nieces participated in the egg hunt. Here's a picture of Karissa (in the blue and pink jacket) in line for the "hunt".

Here's a picture of the egg "hunt" in progress - I lost track of her at this point!

Inside Looking Out

Sandy and Roxy love to look out the windows - especially if we open the windows and they can see and smell what's going on outside. Since the weather has been so nice recently I got this picture of them both looking out the same window.

Facebook

Well, I finally caved and joined Facebook! Chad has been on for awhile, but I stubbornly didn't want to be on a social networking site. But, then almost everyone I know is on there now and I just couldn't hold out anymore. Now, I'm glad I did. I've already reconnected with some old friends and it's such an easy way to keep in touch with a bunch of people. But, I'm sure many of the people who check out our blog already knew I finally joined because most of them are on there too!

Mom's NC visit

My Mom was able to come for a 3 week visit. For the first week she stayed with us and with my brother, the second week she went to Wilmington and the third week Chad & I went to Wilmington too. While she stayed with us we had the futon in our office set up as a bed and the cats LOVED it. That room gets the most sun, so they were in there all the time! Here's a picture of them lounging in the sun on the futon.

I took this picture while my Mom was staying at our house - two bluebirds landed on the tree right outside our front window. Even though there is some reflection on the glass it's still a good picture of the birds.

Good Times in Wilmington

While my Mom was visiting Chad & I went to Wilmington for a week to see her and other family. While we were there we spent a lot of time playing cards like the picture below shows. When we get together we love to play a card game called Spite & Malice - I think over all the time we played each of us (me, my mom and my grandmother) all won close to an equal amount of games.

Here's a picture of my grandmother's cat Sweet Pea lounging in a chair.

Cape Fear Museum

While we were in Wilmington we went to the Cape Fear Museum with my family from Florida, but somehow I managed to not get any pictures of them that day! Here is a picture of me & Chad in front of a giant sloth skeleton replica. This skeleton was found in Wilmington while they were working on some roads in 1991, but the original is in the NC Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh. I love sloths, but even though this giant one was still a vegetarian I don't know if I would have wanted to meet it in person!

More from the Cape Fear Museum

Since Michael Jordan is from the Wilmington area the Cape Fear Museum has a display of his memorabilia and you can see that Chad is pointing to his hat which is a Carolina hat of course.

Here is a picture of me & Chad both crammed into a phone booth from the pre-cell phone days!

Inside a Beaver Dam

At the museum they have a fake beaver dam that's really more for kids to play in, but of course Chad and I both had to get in it!

Dioramas

The Cape Fear Museum has some really detailed dioramas that depict historical scenes in Wilmington. This one shows all the trade that was done by boats and how the riverfront was full of activity.

This one shows the battle at Ft. Fisher. You can't tell from the picture, but they used cotton as smoke from the guns.

Aquarium visit

While we were in Wilmington Mom and I decided to visit the Ft. Fisher Aquarium. It's really nice and Mom hadn't seen it since they renovated it about 8 years ago. I love going to the aquarium and try to go whenever we're in town. Here's a great picture of Mom as a fiddler crab!

Some aquarium animals

In the freshwater part of the aquarium there are now some quail. These two let me get really close so I could take a picture.

Here's a picture of a sting ray.

Sea Horses

At the aquarium they have a sea horse tank that is really cool. We were able to find about 4 or 5 sea horses, they are really camoflauged so you have to look closely. Here are two of the better pictures of them:

Puffer fish

This big puffer fish was just hanging around by one of the tank windows, so I was able to get a great picture of it.

Then later I got this picture of it all puffed up! I had never seen a puffer fish actually puff up before. I was so glad I was able to get a good picture before it deflated.

Me & Mom at the Aquarium

Here is a picture of my Mom and me in front of the aquarium.

Here's one of us in front of the biggest tank in the aquarium, but as you can see with the flash on you can't really see the fish and it reflects off the glass...

...but with the flash off you can see the fish, but not us. Oh well!