Los Flemings

Thanksgiving weekend found us on the road - and for many hours. As soon as Mame rolled in from High Point on Wednesday afternoon, we piled into the van for the trip to Mt. Pleasant and Thanksgiving festivities with Glenn & Maxine, Jake & Erin, and our old family friends the Del Benes. It was a great day and a terrific meal.

On Friday Mame & I struck out for Tallahassee while Sam stayed behind to entertain his grandparents. Our destination was a wedding for friends Demian & Maggie. I worked with Demian at FAVACA and Mame knew him in middle school. We met Maggie early in their courtship and we all did some canoeing together. We knew she was a keeper when she tolerated a day long trip with our toddler. The wedding was Saturday afternoon at Wakulla Springs State Park and everything was picture perfect.

Sunday morning we got back on the road and made a pit stop in Mt. Pleasant to collect Sam and get one more treat of good home cooking before making the final push to Cary last night. Our big thanks to Glenn & Maxine for the hospitality and Sam-free time.

Sam's latest recycling creation explained.

Another of Sam's recent creations - "Catepillar House". Mostly consisting of items reclaimed from the recycling bin, string and his favorite medium - tape.

This was Sam's pre-Halloween mini-pumpkin display stand. He decided to add the sticks and make them "scary alien pumpkins".

Life around here often feels like being the middle of the studio of a budding folk artist, our own little Howard Finster without the messages from a higher power. Here's a chalk creation - over the next few days I'll share some other recent works.

The North Carolina Association of Nurse Anesthetists held their annual conference last weekend in Asheville and we took advantage of the event to do a little reconnaissance. Friday we visited four schools in the Asheville City Schools System (there's a separate county system for folks outside the city limits) and really liked what we saw at Dickson and Vance elementary schools. We also enjoyed getting to do a little dining tour - returning to one of our old favorites The Laughing Seed and discovering a new favorite in W. Asheville at the Sunny Point Cafe (which is also an area we're interested in exploring more for a future residence). Mame also had a pleasant chat at the conference with the chief CRNA (and hopefully her future supervisor) from Mission/St. Joe Hospital. Overall, we got very excited that after all of our talking and daydreaming and planning we are finally taking concrete steps to make it a reality. (Our thanks to Donna and Frank for entertaining Sam for the weekend.)

The big night at last. Sam and his support crew.











We roamed the neighborhood with his buddy Xander. Sam got a kick out of putting down his visor after ringing the door bell and waiting for someone to answer. When the door opened he would pop up his visor and say 'boo!'.

Whenever he got chocolate he ran to his mom and showed her his prize since they both love chocolate. Xander's favorite part was a trio of teenage girls we followed for several houses. He is quite the dashing little sheriff.

Tuesday before Halloween we carved. Sam did the design (note the ear holes) and I did the carving.

A little taste of the Heartwood Halloween parade. Keep your eye out for the astronaut in his orange jump suit - he'll appear about half way through the clip.