Matching

 Orin has been dressing himself for a while now,

and puts great thought into his choice of outfits.

This morning he decided that he wanted to look just like dad.

 I think he nailed it, what do you think?

 I was going to just post my favorite of these pictures,

but honestly couldn't decide so you get to see them all.

Thumbs up!

The Days

The days since our arrival in NC have consisted of 

a variety of activities:

we have gone golfing

(Orin has finally aged enough to be deemed safe for the golf course

and has thus joined us on our journey of bad shots and 

muffled cuss words)

We have gone to the aquarium

where, I might add, we discovered a rather cute baby in a fake pool.

We played games and 

posed for pictures with the baby for a while...

but eventually lost interest and fed him to a crocodile

(in our defense, the crocodile was hungry).

Later we waited patiently to touch a sting ray.

The waiting paid off.

We saw huge sharks.

We posed for pictures.

Lots of pictures.

And we even found that darned baby again.

But misplaced him somewhere.

It has certainly been a busy trip.

More to come.

Puppy sunrise

 This morning I awoke to the all-too-familiar

"I have to pee... right now..." whine.

Knowing that my options were

get up now or clean up later,

I begrudgingly rolled out of bed

and followed Paley out to the beach.

 It took me about 2 sleepy-eyed seconds

to forgive my dog for her small bladder

and to start feeling lucky that I was the only person

in sight enjoying one of the most beautiful sunrises I had ever seen.

As with most truly extraordinary things,

the pictures I took just couldn't capture it,

but it was well worth the lost sleep.

Thanks, Paley,
I guess you are forgiven... for now at least.

Bracket Madness

So, despite the fact that I have completely blown off blogging

for weeks, I am going to just pretend that I didn't.

So here we go, time travel back to...ummmm... lets see:

Saturday March 10th!

Today, after a fantastic 16 hour car ride,

we arrived at the beach house. 

Although the weather was gorgeous

and the salt air was beckoning us through the open back door,

we were able to effectively prioritize the list of events for the day.

The list went like this:

1. Bracket time!!!

2. Everything else

So we pulled out the computer and made our selections

with approximately the same amount of consideration

that Ardian employed for his picks (he chose his teams 

by swinging right or left in his bouncer depending on which

team he thought would be the winner)

After hastily throwing together what is bound to be one of the

least-successful brackets of all time, we moved on to the rest of the day:

And, yes, I did say it was March 10th,

meaning the ocean temperature was hovering around 

"really, really cold"

and, yes, Orin is completely crazy and 

possibly part Eskimo?

 I will keep you updated.

Day and Night with Oxalis

 Last night, Casey came home with a little present... an Oxalis.

The store was apparently already prepping

for St. Patties day because the clover-like look 

of the leaves gives it its other name "false shamrock"

Anyway, the most interesting thing about this plant

is that it "wakes up" in the morning, opening its flowers

towards the sun before closing them again at night.

And now, I am off to bed just like my Oxalis.

"Work"

 Today I pulled up at the job site I was working at

and was greeted with this perfect parking space.

I am currently working part time for the Conservation

District and I suppose that being able to work in places

this beautiful is just one of the perks.

 A couple minutes later, Abby pulled up next to me and we donned

our awesome yellow construction hats

for today we were going to get to check out some large machinery.

 I was working in Chatham at a site

where, in just a few days now,

two tidal marshes that had been tidally restricted

(in other words, deprived of tidal waters by some man-made obstacle)

were to be restored to their former beauty and function.

Below is a picture of the currently very sad patch

of land struggling to maintain tidal marsh status

that is soon to be completely inundated at high tide

(trust me, it is all you would want if you were a tidal marsh).

 So there you have it, I spent my morning 

watching the sunlight sparkle on the ocean

while listening to the sound of bulldozers and excavators

that were actually doing something good for the planet for a change.

It doesn't get much better than this...

Wrong

I had some work done on my car a couple days ago

and ever since my outdoor temperature display

has been, well... shall we say, rather inflated.

And by "rather" I mean "very"

(it snowed here this morning)

I have been meaning to take the car back in to see if they can fix it

but I have to admit there is something about reading

a temperature in the high 70's that just makes me feel warmer...

Fishy

 Casey and I have gotten into a habit of tackling projects on Sundays.

I don't know when it started, but it is as if every Sunday

must be project day and if no project comes to mind by 10am

we make one up.

Last Sunday was one of those no-pressing-tasks-on-the-to-do-list,

sort of days, so in order to starve off the possibility

that we might spend a Sunday actually relaxing, we invented a task:

It was time to get a fish tank.

To be fair, we loved having a fish tank in Portland and 

have missed our fish ever since my idea

of taking them in the car with us across the country was vetoed.

(Fine, so it wasn't my best idea...)

So, by 10:30 we had found a tank on Craigslist

(Have I mentioned I love Craigslist?)

and were on our way to pick it up.

After setting up the tank and the stand,

we stopped by the fish store to get a couple extra accessories

and our first batch of hearty fish that would create our "biological filter"

(basically, their activities over the course of 5-6 weeks

make the tank hospitable for other, more fussy, types of fish,

As a fun addition, I nestled these spider plants

in a gap over the water at the back of the tank.

When their roots get long enough, 

they will dangle into the water and collect nutrients

from the fish waste.

Our first little venture into aquaponics,

so exciting!