Los Flemings

Sam woke up this birthday morning to find Spiderman riding Sam's new bike in our living room! He (Sam not Spiderman) was jumping with joy.

On top of all the birthday excitement this is Sam's first day at school. He and I went yesterday for the open house and he had a good time exploring the new space. His new teachers are Ms. Liane and Ms. Kristal and he already made a new buddy with a Heartwood veteran named Henry.

The last few weeks have been pretty exciting with more projects getting settled in to our new house, Mame getting in to her new study routine and some time in the mountains with Grandma Maxine and Grandpa Glenn. There were lots of highlights to the mountain trip like jumping off the dock into the lake (repeatedly), exploring in the woods, cooking hotdogs and marshmallows over a fire and a visit to Uncle Jake's house in Greenville. But the best part for Sam was getting to ride home on the train. Mame drove home on Sunday and Sam and I stayed over until Friday when grandma and grandpa dropped us at the Amtrak station in Charlotte. About 3 hours later we got off just blocks away from our home here in Cary. Now we're plotting our next train destination...

Mame went off for her first day of nurse anesthesia class this morning in a carpool with two other RNs from Cary. They made it there safely - and on time but the best news is that Mame says she plans on going back tomorrow.

We've gotten settled in enough - and enough boxes are unpacked that we were able to treat ourselves to our first canoe trip as NC residents on the Neuse River yeseterday. We picked the Neuse for its proximity and certainly not its water quality. The river basin is north of Raleigh and near Durham in an area that has seen significant development. We chose a stretch of 10+ miles that flows just to the east of Raleigh. So it was a short drive but we were rarely out of earshot of the city. The one positive was that there is very little development so there was some nice scenery and good bird life (great blue herons, ospreys and kingfishers to name a few).

Getting unpacked was greatly facilitated by Grandma Maxine and Grandpa Glenn who hosted Sam in Mt. Pleasant from Tuesday - Friday. Sam got to play at the beach and had another visit to the aquarium. It also gave Mame a chance to get her textbooks out and organize her study space for her first day of school tomorrow. She's already connected with two fellow RSNA students here in Cary and they're going to carpool tomorrow for strength in numbers. Wish her well!

We've arrived safely in Cary on Saturday and our house was still standing and waiting. Our possessions caught up to us yesterday and with the help of some young folks we got connected with through church by about 6 p.m. Tuesday evening the trailer was unloaded. Now the house is full of boxes but we all got to sleep in our own beds last night and eat from our regular dishes (not our camping supplies). We were very happy with the service from our moving company, ABF.
Sam really loves the new backyard and every morning asks if today is the day we are going to start work on our garden. So this morning we walked to the library to check on NC gardening books for fall vegetables. The first step will be to rent a tiller but the second step will be building a fence to deter the rabbits that we have already seen traipsing across the yard. We'll be looking for gardening tips so feel free to drop us a note.