March 21, 2015

We hosted a baby shower luncheon for the daughter of a friend from church today.  The daughter/mom-to-be lives in Charlotte now but there are a lot of people here in Wilmington who love her...we had about 40 ladies.

Her colors are baby pink/mint green/gold, with a beach theme.  This was a challenge to work with because I love saturated colors (and my house is full of them).  However, I am now officially a fan of pink and mint, even if it's not in my house.  :)

This photo is dark but it's the only one that shows the garland in the window...I so wish I had a better picture of it because it was beautiful.  The garland was made of simple strips of fabric tied onto a piece of twine, but the fabric choices were so lovely.

This was my favorite part!  We gave these mason jar drinking glasses as favors, but the chalk names helped the ladies keep track of their drinks while they were here too.  I bought the lids separately - they have a daisy design punched out with a hole in the middle the perfect size for a paper straw.

The gift table before the shower...

...and after the guests arrived, groaning under the weight of so many lovely things.  :)

This was another favorite part - I made this little banner!  Well, a little bit, anyway.  :)  I used Rub 'n Buff on chipboard letters to spell out the baby's name and added a little bit of pink to the ends.  The driftwood garland was a separate garland, but I added it to provide a darker background so the mint garland wouldn't fade into the white cabinets. 

The mom-to-be's mother provided the food and another friend from church made the cupcakes and arranged the flowers.

The guest-of-honor, April...she is just as lovely and sweet as she can be.

It was a wonderful day.

March 6, 2015

We went on a field trip to the Fort Fisher Aquarium today, for a look at the behind-the-scenes operations.  It wasn't very picturesque (hence no pictures), but it was really interesting to see how much work it takes to keep an aquarium going. 

 We walked around a bit after the field trip, enjoying the fruit of the aquarium staff's labors.

February 25, 2015 - Part 2

I took this picture about 9:00 this morning.  The marsh was still looking pretty icy and frozen.  I'm glad I took it, because things started to change pretty quickly.

This is the same spot, just a short hour later.

And here it is now, about 4 hours later...like it never happened.

February 25 2015 - Part 1

Things were still pretty icy this morning, but thankfully we didn't lose power last night.

February 24, 2015 - Part 2

 Things changed later in the day, though...the rain turned to sleet and things got icy.

February 24, 2015 - Part 1

This, folks, is honest-to-goodness snow.  The first we've seen since we moved 16 months ago.  This is as good as it got, too, because not long after this picture was taken the snow turned to a "wintry mix" which was more rain than anything, and just like that, it was gone.

February 14, 2015 - Part 2

We exchanged little gifts this afternoon before heading out to dinner at an Irish pub.

(I was hoping to order haggis but they didn't have it on the menu!)  :)

Jed loved the Cartoons from Maine book.

This was his favorite frame.

My favorite was the whole book.  :)

February 14, 2015 - Part 1

Our church has a brunch every Valentine's Day to reveal the previous year's Secret Pals.

It was a really nice way to begin our Valentine's Day celebrations.

One of the retirees, who are the Secret Pal recipients, gets some hints on the activity they were doing.

This lady has become a friend and a favorite girl's-night-out dinner companion!  :)

This couple were married on our anniversary right after we moved to Wilmington.

They are now expecting, with the baby due on April 1.

I'm hoping it arrives on its due date; they're not. haha

This retiree just found out who her Secret Pal was and had quite a bit to say about it to her.  :)  

Note she's got hold of her Secret Pal's scarf. :D

Is that bag not a hoot?!  :)

Click on the pic to enlarge so you can see what Patti did there.

February 10, 2015

Jed's homeschool class, Classical Conversations, has been really good lately...the kids seem to be settling into a rhythm and things are clipping right along.  Plus it's just be plain fun.  :)

 The science experiments have been especially fun!

Each student prepares a presentation each week; Jed's favorite is when he gets to select the topic.  This week he chose Minecraft.  

*sigh*

America's future leaders.  :)

February 6, 2015

What a treat!

My dear friend Peggy came for a visit today, and brought her friend Doris too.

Peggy and I used to work together, before Tracy and I got married.

I haven't seen her in 11 years...Jed was 2 months old.

It was a delightful afternoon spent with two sisters in Christ.

January 29, 2015

Jed has to prepare a presentation every week in his Classical Conversations homeschool class.  The topic for his next presentation is something from the timeline he's been learning this year, so he decided to research ancient Egypt.  In the process he learned about shadufs, which were an interesting invention the Egyptians used to make accessing water from the Nile River a bit easier.  The operator pulls down on a rope attached to the long end to fill the bucket and allows the counterweight on the short end to raise the bucket. 
 

Jed created his own version of a shaduf using the putty from a melting snowman.  The problem is the putty melts, so his creation was doomed to be short-lived. :)