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(Chose Haiti on the “Would you like this gift to be earmarked for a specific use?” pull-down menu)

We started the day with a nice walk around the neighborhood; he had his bottle on a rocking chair by the front yard; and he played his first game of soccer, chasing the ball up and down the driveway on his walker. (I was thrilled!)

Soccer 101

The afternoon was not much different. He would not play with any of his toys, and he would only stop fussing once I brought him outside.  We played another round of soccer; we played “hide and seek” with a couple of small lizards; he had a great time crushing dry leaves; and he had another snack and bottle while rocking on the front yard’s rocking chair.

As you can imagine, Paolo always reach the perfect state of bliss after a good feeding.  We were just rocking and enjoying the sun and the bird songs, when all of a sudden a flock of 20-30 Tufted Titmouse landed in the American Holly right in front of us.  Paolo was fascinated by them.  What happened was that a Red-tailed Hawk was patrolling the area, and the flock of Titmouse landed on the Holly to get out of sight.  To our enjoyment, they were pinned down for quite a while. They were finally rescued after a group of crows harassed the hawk way.  Then, as fast as they landed, the whole flock flew away as a single bird.  It was quite special!

We ended the day with another walk around the neighborhood, followed by a nice bath, and lots of captial ZZZZZZZs.

Sunday was just as glorious, and we enjoyed a very similar routine — although we went to feed the ducks and geese at Memorial Park, instead of playing at the yard.  And did I mentioned we played another game of soccer in the afternoon? 

It was not as nice as being with Ashley and the kids at Disney, but Paolo and I  certainly can’t complain.

(More Flickr photos)

March, 01 2009 Snow

We haven’t had any “real snow” here in Athens for 4 years now.  But, this past Sunday (03/01), we got a little taste of winter, and at least 8-10 inches  of beautiful, fluffy snow.  The conditions were just warm enough and humid enough to make the snow flakes to bind into HUGE clumps; and just cold enough to make it stick.  In fact, you could see cable lines, which are only about 1/4 inch in diameter, with 3 inches of snow miraculously piled on it.  Amazing!

Needless to say, with so much snow the kids were ecstatic! They would go outside and play  until their lips would turn blue, then come back in to warm up just enough to hurry back outside.  They had a blast! We had a blast!

But I must say it was also a little scary.  By late afternoon, everything had a nice think layer of snow, and we started hearing quite a bit of tree limbs cracking, and even a few trees falling…  A couple of  years back, we had a very large Pine tree just miss our neighbors house during a wind storm.  That same week we hired a logger to cut all the big trees from around the perimeter of our house (and the neighbors). The loggers were extremely precise on dropping the trees, but extremely clumsy getting them out. Thus, until this past weekend, I had always felt a bit of guilty for cutting them.  Not anymore. Several of the neighbors now wish they had.

Next morning Lorenzo and I surveyed the neighborhood, and we found quite a mess.  I guess after over two years of drought, the trees were not ready to bear all the extra snow/ice weight, and they simply snapped.  Luckily no one got hurt, and a lot of the threes did fall towards the street…which explained why we were out of power for 24 hrs.

As a bonus the Unversity was close the next day, the kids’ school for two days.  More snow ball fights!!

(Link to Flickr photos)