Flooding in Cooperstown

This is taken at the Mill Street Bridge in Cooperstown. The water is overflowing the dam.

This is looking across Mill Street by the bridge. As you can see, the whole street here is under water.

Mary's Recital

Poor Mary was stuck with me putting on her make-up for the recital last year, a role Aunt Donabeth filled last year with much better proficiency than I will ever have.

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Helen fixed Laurel all up too.

In the end, Mary looked fine (until she put on her own lipstick just before the second performance). Here she is with Nora

Morocco

During April Owen and Sam went on an amazing trip to Morocco.

Last night we had the Morocco reunion with the other people who had gone on the trip. We watched a slide show that Owen had put together plus a video of one of their soccer clinic/games at a center for street kids in Fes (I think).

This is a picture of their camel trek out into the Sahara. Owen and one of the other guys took a "shortcut" which enabled them to snap this picture.

Ballet

This was last week at "Picture Day" at the studio where Mary takes ballet classes.

The ballet recital is using Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" for their dances, with each class taking a different season. Mary's class is Autumn. The teen ballet class will dance with them and wear a similar long tutu but in brown.

Where is Mary? She's standing up by the mirror peeking around the screen at the other class that is getting their picture taken.

Kitty Pools and Doggie Pools

Here is Laurel at Myrtle Beach.

She loved to play in the kiddie pool. It was only 14 inches deep and fun to run around in although she definitely still needed watching (both Helen and Karl saved her the first day there after she lost her balance and couldn't stand up).

Sometime during the week, Laurel started talking about the doggie pool. So when I said "kiddie", she heard "kitty" -- and I could understand that. But where was the doggie pool?
I assumed it was the big pool that her brothers swam in.

I was wrong. After we got home, Laurel talked about three pools in Myrtle Beach: the kitty pool, the doggie pool and the big, big pool (her words). So if the doggie pool was not the big pool, that only left one option -- the doggie pool was the hot tub!

Amanda

Amanda is the beautiful girl shown here. As you can see, Philip kind of likes her. She also graduated from Roberts the other day, but her name was listed in many places in the program: magna cum laude, who's who among students in american colleges and universities, alpha kappa sigma honor society, etc. Isn't she lovely?

Philip's Graduation

Big day in our family -- Philip graduated from Roberts Wesleyan yesterday (5/13/06).

The day started with all of us frantically trying to get ready to leave before 8 AM. Mom and Dad (aka Grammie and Grampa) came right on time at 7:45 AM to pick up a couple of the kids to ride with them (Mary and Karl) and we all left at about 8:05 AM. It is hard to get 9 people showered or bathed and dressed in nice clothes and on the road so early in the morning, but we did it! The only complication was that the house had to be semi-presentable because the house inspector was coming at 9 AM.

We arrived at Roberts around 11:30, just in time for the graduation buffet at Garlock. Philip met us in the parking lot and we went right in to eat.

After lunch we walked over to the Art Gallery to see Philip's senior show. He went with a "skull" theme for his works that were on display.

We sort of wandered the campus after that until the doors opened at Voller for the graduation. Our seats were good -- we were able to snap this picture of Philip as he went up for his diploma.

The speaker was Dr. Barry Black, chaplain to the US Senate. His charge to the graduates was "Venture Something."