Moving on...Literally

The decision was made, the house was found and in three weeks, we'll have a new address. The name of this blog will have to change from "On the Shores of Lake Vermont" (which was in reference to the lake we had in the street in front of our house when it rained) to something more appropriate now that we'll actually be living on a lake. (pic: the back fence at our new home).

Back in March we decided to find another place, and since then we'd been going to open houses, looking at houses online and just cruising neighborhoods in search of "FOR SALE" signs. Then suddenly we found a few places that interested us enough to contact a realtor we liked. So just like HGTVs house hunters we looked at three properties that weekend: 1) a beautiful brick ranch in Cherry Hills in need of some updating backed up to a lovely park with a loft and bedroom upstairs, 2) an adorable condo townhouse in Stone Creek with two bedrooms and bath upstairs and 3) in a nearby town where my grandparents lived when I was young child, a sprawling ranch in Crestlake with too many rooms, but wonderful flow, lake out back and a park across the street. Being in the same basic price range, nothing compared to the underpriced #3. Next summer the area along the back fence will be known as the flamingo garden. Let the mermaid windsocks fly!

Orlando & Cocoa Beach Florida Nov 2008

I'm so ready for spring, but I think the entire country is feeling that way. It was a long hard winter and it started far too early.
Hubby and I went to my conference last November in Florida. We flew down early once I found there was a night launch of Endeavor scheduled for November 14th. I got us a hotel on Cocoa Beach (88 degrees) and that night we simply walked out the back door to a restaurant on the pier where we had dinner and then pulled up a chaise on the beach and waited for launch time (7:55pm). It was an amazing thing to see (see pic above). First you see it, then you hear it and then you feel it. The shuttle lights up the spacecoast beach like it's the middle of the day and you can see that all eyes and cameras and cell phones are trained on that speck rising in the night sky.

Otherwise we just relaxed and enjoyed seeing Cocoa Beach again as we haven't been there since 1972. The waves crashing sounded so good, the sand under your feet felt so good, the warm sea breeze never gets old and the seafood is to die for. It's a large port for cruise ships and I have to say I could have easily gotten on one. The day after the launch we visited Kennedy Space Center's Visitor Complex and I was very impressed. A little worried about what the shuttle experience ride was going to be like, but it wasn't as bad as I thought.

Back in the day (Summer of 1968) on a vacation to Florida with my family when I was a teenager we visited Kennedy space center and I remember my father driving us around the complex, right by the launch pads, not a person in sight, but no more.

Nowdays, as you enter the Visitor Complex you have to decide up front if you want to do a bus tour to see buildings, launch pads, etc. We had a great tour bus guide who showed us around the launch pad from the pervious nights launch, (garbage and chairs still intact) and some of the other sites on the island, such as the NASA Causeway, the Vehicle Assembly building, and the Shuttle landing strip as well as the site where the astronauts come out suited up to board the bus that takes them to the shuttle site. Once the tour ended we saw a movie about the history of space and walked under a restored Saturn V launch vehicle. Back at the Visitor Complex we saw an IMAX movie about doing a spacewalk outside the space station and NO THANKS, that's definately not for me.
In Orlando we stayed across the lagoon from Epcot at the Swan and Dolphin Resort (see pic above). I had one day to play, so we went to Epcot. DisneyWorld opened in Oct 1971, we were married that May and visited DisneyWorld the next summer (1972) for our honeymoon so a lot of things were new to us. We had a beautiful day doing the circle around Epcot and taking in all the shows they offer and took lots of pictures. We enjoyed the spaceship ride inside the large Epcot globe and afterwards sent the picture they took of us to family back home from computers they have as you exit the ride. Canada had a fantastic show in the round of sights and events in Canada, much like the one I remember at DisneyWorld in 1972 put on my Monsanto that made you feel as if you were a bird flying across the United States over the western mountains into the east coast fishing harbors. My favorite thing was after dark, listening to the Celtic group "Off Kilter" (bagpipes and all) on stage in Canada and singing along with the "British Invasion" doing Beatles songs at the UK pavilion. We stayed for the fireworks, but it was desperately cold that night and once finished we rushed to board the first water taxi back to the hotel. Our room had a balcony with Epcot view which was amazing every night at 9pm, but the entire time it was far too cold to just go out there and sit.

The conference was good, but the hotels are so large that things were spread far and wide and finding your way around was another story. By the time you left one session to get to another in perhaps the other hotel, it had already started. This conference has grown very large in the 15 years I have attended with more than 3500 people attending and I expect it will only get worse.

Tanner turns ONE-Bryce turns FOUR

Tanner turns ONE on June 9th and celebrated with his very own chocolate cake this past weekend
He partied with:
his brother Bryce and sister Brooke
Great Grandma C.....
Oma and Opa
Nina and PaPa
Aunt Sarah
Ron, Jan and Allison
Granny J and Bill
Grandpa Ernie
and
Mommie and Daddy


The kids romped in the backyard while the adults sat on the deck. Come evening they had a bonfire.


Bryce, who turns FOUR on June 15th got a very cool triceratops that he had to sleep with Saturday night.

And while it was also my birthday (I'm in the double digits), I wasn't subjected to riding to the party in a car this small....





....or sitting at the birthday table to eat dinner....


...but, I did manage to score some kisses at the end of the party from this guy.



My cousin Ron and his wife Jan from Peoria and their grand-daughter Alli (daughter of their son Matt) shared the celebration since Alli and Bryce were born the same day. Something that surely made our grandparents smile.

April History 101

Another April, another tragedy.

April 16
2007-Virginia Tech-Male student, Cho Seung-Hiu, killed two in a Virginia Tech dorm, then killed 30 more 2 hours later in a classroom building. His suicide brought the death toll to 33, making the shooting rampage the most deadly in U.S. history. Fifteen others were wounded.

April 18th
1775-Paul Revere rode from Charlestown to Lexington to warn Massachusetts colonists of the arrival of British troops during the American Revolution.
1906-San Francisco Earthquake-4 square miles were destroyed and more than 500 died in San Francisco alone. (my gr gr grandparents lost everything they had and died three years later within days of each other).

April 19th
1775-The shot heard round the world....Colonial Minute Men took on British Army regulars at Lexington and Concord, MA.
1993-Waco Seige-The siege at Waco, Texas, ended when FBI moved into the Branch Davidian compound with tear gas and cult members set fire to the compound killing over 80 people.
1995-Oklahoma City Tragedy-The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was destroyed by a car bomb. 168 people, including 19 children were killed.

April 20th
1999-Columbine High School Shooting-Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on a shooting spree at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. 14 students (including the shooters) and 1 teacher were killed; 23 others were wounded.

April 28th
1996-The Port Arthur massacre in south-eastern Tasmania, Australia was a killing spree which claimed 35 lives and 37 wounded mainly at the historic Port Arthur prison colony, a popular tourist site. Martin Bryant (28yrs) eventually pleaded guilty to the crimes and was given 35 life sentences without possibility of parole.

May 18th
1927-The Bath School disaster in Bath Township Michigan USA was the setting of three bombings which killed 45 people and injured 58. Most of the victims were children in second to sixth grades attending the Bath Consolidated School. Their deaths constitute the deadliest act of mass murder in a school in U.S. history. The perpetrator was school board member Andrew Kehoe, who was upset by a property tax that had been levied to fund the construction of the school building. He blamed the additional tax for financial hardships which led to foreclosure proceedings against his farm. These events apparently provoked Kehoe to plan his attack.

Abraham Lincoln Museum/Springfield IL

Illinois State Capital in Springfield IL

The old Illinois State Capital

White House replica at the Lincoln Museum

The Lincoln family (plus one) outside the White House

Lincoln as a young man when he lived in New Salem, IL

Dolls at the gift shop at the museum

Lincoln statue at New Salem visitor center

Cabins at New Salem Park

Cabins and wood fence at New Salem Park

New Salem Park

The old Lincoln Tomb

The 117-foot tall granite tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery contains the bodies of Lincoln, his wife Mary, and three of his four sons.

Visitors often stop to rub the nose of this evocative bronze bust at the entrance to the Lincoln Tomb. It's the work of Gutzon Borglum, who is most famous for his rendition of Lincoln at Mount Rushmore. You can see the original marble bust in the the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Down the street from the Lincoln home.

The Lincoln Home in the midst of renovation.

Road Trippin

We spent the weekend away so all I had was the palm connection and not much of that as we were on the go a lot. I'll eventually post some pics from the weekend, but for now all I have time to post is this antique sampler that I've been in love with for decades. It is found in one of the cabins at Lincoln's New Salem State Historic park where Abraham Lincoln lived as a young man. We visited the new (opened Apr 2005) Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield and it was fascinating. I even got a couple of stitching kits of charming little profiles of Abe and Mary. Anyway, I wanted to take this sampler off the wall and photograph it really well since it's hung over a bureau and is over my head, but the volunteer was a cow about it and I had to do the best I could to get it without any glare. I heard that a local group of women have reproduced some of the other antique samplers they have at the park (but not this one) and I hope to find out about those this week.

Their parents bed

I stole this picture of the boys from my daughters My Space account. I didn't realize it was taken so long ago, but it was taken around Christmastime. This is their favorite place to sleep, mom and dads bed.