Los Flemings

Sam tried a knock-knock joke on me tonight that went something like this:

Sam: Knock-knock.

Ben: Who's there?

Sam: Mr. Banana.

Ben: Mr. Banana who?

Sam: (pauses, then matter of factly) No one.

A big storm rolled through our area early this morning and left us pretty soggy. Fortunately, we did not get any bad winds like the folks to the east. Sadly, a trailer home park in a little town outside of Wilmington was hit by a tornado. Our backyard was just starting to dry out from rain on Sunday - so this was the result by mid-day:




On the positive side, Sam and his schoolmates were having a blast creating channels to drain the puddles in the playground at school this afternoon. One group had created a rather large puddle thanks to a sizeable dam. I only wish I'd had my camera to capture them at work.

This past weekend Sam and I joined some of our new friends from UUFR for a camping trip at Cliffs of the Neuse State Park. We were the first of our party to arrive on Friday afternoon and had a nice time hiking around in the balmy fall weather. On one dirt road we found deer and racoon tracks. The rest of our group started arriving around 4 p.m. and by that night we had 7 families in our group campsite. Sam was having a blast running around in the woods with all the kids and then having a big campfire with lots of marshmallows to roast.



Saturday's weather was just ideal and we explored some more of the park and then joined in on the afternoon fishing excursion. Saturday's dinner was potluck with lots of good stuff being shared. Then we battened down our gear with a forecast of rain for early Sunday morning - that arrived on schedule about 5 a.m. Fortunately, it stopped long enough for folks to get breakfast around one last campfire and then packed up for the trip home. As we were driving back to Cary Sam asked, "when can we go camping with our church friends again?"


All of this activity also gave us an opportunity to give Mame some study time. She had clinicals Thursday, Friday and Saturday - so we wouldn't have seen much of her anyway. And then she spent Sunday getting ready for a Monday morning test. The good news is that Saturday was her best clinical day yet - the new rallying cry is "remember 11/11".

a recent view from our backyard - a further reminder that we're not in Tallahassee anymore.


On a positive note - Mame returned from her clinical day on Sunday in great spirits. She successfully intubated a patient and felt (for the first time) that she's starting to get the hang of the whole gig.

Well before Halloween Sam declared that he wanted to be a beatle for trick-or-treating. So with foam ball eyes, pipe cleaner antenna and craft foam wings and chest plate, he became the 40 lb. Beatle. Tuesday morning at school all the kids got to wear their costumes and participated in a parade. Then there were treats waiting back in the classroom.

Trick-or-treating in our new neighborhood was fun but not quite the same as all the excitement back in Tallahassee on Beard Street.