Los Flemings

The college baseball season has started and Saturday we made the first stop on the 2007 tour of Triangle area stadiums. It was a beautiful day for baseball in Chapel Hill as we watched the UNC Tar Heels cruise to victory over the Stony Brook Seawolves, 8-2 in the first game of a double-header. UNC is ranked No. 1 after losing the College World Series last year to Oregon State.

In several ways it was a different experience from our days at Dick Howser in Tallahassee. It was a thirty minute drive instead of a 10 minute bike ride and the crowd was much more subdued. We (or at least I) missed the Animals. And the stadium is in much need of next year's planned renovations. The biggest surprise was that despite a test on Monday, our favorite SRNA joined Sam and I. Spring fever has hit the nurse anesthetist class of 2008.

Sunday Sam and I got out of the house to allow for a more conducive study atmosphere. After church we headed downtown to the NC Museum of History for a production of 'Jack and the Wonderbeans' by the NC Theatre for Young Children out of UNC-Greensboro. The students did a great job keeping all the kids enthralled. We particularly enjoyed the giant puppet costumes when Jack climbed the bean stalk.

Saturday's project was recycling an old shipping pallet into a box for what had become a not so attractive compost pile in our garden. So we bundled up on a chilly morning and went to work.

Sam found the dismantling of the pallet to be his favorite part. He helped to pull nails and push on the pry bar. This part proved to be more work than I'd anticipated and actually took more time than it did to put the pieces back together into a box. Below is a picture of the finished product.




To reward our hard work we decided to eat out and explore one of the many Indian restaurants Cary has to offer. After being turned away from one by a long wait we found a gem at Biryani House in a little shopping center right around the corner from our house specializing in Pakistani food. The highlight were Sam's kabobs - ground, spicy chicken pressed onto a metal skewer and cooked in a brick oven. The tandoori chicken was not so spicy and also popular. I chose to try the Saturday night special stew of mutton and potatoes. Mame and I were impressed with how much Sam liked the spicy flavors. He took a sample of everything. Then for desert we just walked across the parking lot to an ice cream parlor owned by the same family.

Chilly weather kept us indoors on Sunday afternoon and Sam went to work on the kitchen floor with his paints. The weather and his health have also kept us from ranging far afield for any other big adventures lately.

We did make it out yesterday to a county park for a kid's program about squirrels. Sam's thought the stuffed squirrel was pretty neat but he especially liked the nut collecting game the kids played at the end.

Mame continues to study diligently and has been feeling more confident in the clinical setting. My new teaching gig is going well - although attendance was off a little on St. Valentine's day. This morning as I was dropping Sam off at his school, one of the staff grabbed me and asked if I could stay and help in one of the classes. They had four teachers out unexpectedly and were scrambling to get all the rooms covered. I jumped into the class where Sam spends the afternoon while he was in his regular class. Now it's time for me to walk back over to help a bit longer on the playground.

Last Friday Mame celebrated her birthday - and to respect her privacy we won't be disclosing her age in the blog. She celebrated along with her nurse anesthesia classmates after a day long writing workshop here in Cary at the Hibernian Pub.

Thanks to Mame's dad for the lovely tulips.

More snow yesterday in the morning.

To the right is early in the day as it was just starting to accumulate. Sam's big project was to collect what he could into a bucket. It got taller and taller until it was about his size and he turned it into a snowman with raisin eyes and hay for the mouth.









By lunch time the snow had turned to a light drizzle. We got out our umbrellas and trekked up the road to downtown Cary for hot dogs at the old time lunch counter in Ashworth's Pharmacy. Then on the trip home we dropped in to the library for some new books to read on a wet afternoon.








The neighbors daffodils...