We just finished a great dinner with friend Elizabeth and her kids Burke and Izzy.. It was fun having them over….

As you probably know, I’ve been working on a paper about getting kids more interested in engineering and science.  It’s a topic that’s near and dear to me..so I enjoy the material..  but a paper is a paper and I just hate writing..  we’ll.. it’s not that I hate it so much.. it’s that it’s difficult for me. As you may have noticed.. spelling and grammar are not my strengths. Anyway,  I finished the first draft about a month ago.. now the final draft is due Friday. I’ve gotten feedback from about 10 folks . I stayed up most of Monday night worked all  those comments back in.. It’s fun but hard to try and make sense of people’s comments.  

Yesterday I gave the ‘finished’ copy to good friend Kathy who works as a professional proof reader and editor.  TonightI went up to Kathy’s and she walked me through all the punctuation and wording bugs that were left.. and there were a TON of them..My 19 pages now all look like this

And this ….

And this ….

It’s abotu 11 PM now.. and I’m just sitting down to work in all those corrections.. It’s goign to be a long and boring night.. I’d best get to it..

Lou and Kathy have a picture of the bicentenial photo the town took at the round church.. I always stare at it as I go in their house… 1994.. wow…

And here we are.. Diane with Sam and me with Gabe… frozen in that moment.. surrounded by freinds..
It makes me happy to see…

Remember that, Sam ? Nite
-me

Rabbit, rabbit rabbit.. It’s december already.. hard to believe..   The Townsends really, actually and truly left Vermont today.. Last night we went up to Tim and Jen’s for their final (of at least 3) goign away dinners…

It was really emotional.. I can’t even guess how many times our families have all come together at one of the houses for dinner and companionship in the last 2 years.. In the months after Sam’s passing I remember eating with these guys a couple of times a week. The Townsends house was the first place we came after getting back after Sam’s passing..   Now.. the house belongs to someone else.. and Deb and the kids are world class nomads…

Diane spent several hours last night help Deb and the kids empty out the condo where they’ve been staying… then they all slept here last night.. The house was full of the stuff that they would be taking or storing .. It was was a really nice sort of chaos until about 1 AM..

This morning we all got up around 6:30 to see them off. We fed them then bundled them into the van to take them to meet Barry at the park and Ride.. It was so hard seeign them go. I’m going to miss them like crazy.. and I’m so very excited for them..

As soon s they were gone I got dressed and ran off to work.. I’d been out 2 weeks (!).. and needed to dig my way back.. On the way there I saw a rainbow… ! A good omen for the Townsend’s travel..It’s a bit hard to see in this photo.. but it’s there..

I took the photo into Photoshop to see if I could bring out the rainbow .. instead I accidentally did this.. no rainbow.. but it suited my mood…

Wow.. I wonder if those guys are in Peru yet ? If you’re interested in following Deb and family’s travel check out the blog I helped them start here.

Speaking of bloggin.. I have a paper to complete.. so I’ll sign off.. Talk to you all soon.. Safe travels friends.. ‘Nite Sam !
-me

Just back from a whirlwind 680 mile trip to NYC and back last night to take Max back to Pratt. He had some schoolwork he had to get done over the break so Diane and I opted for going down last night rather than today..   We left around 6:30 yesterday afternoon.. Just before we drove off, Gabe ran inside and told us to look at the sky.. Jupiter and Venus were right next together in the south west sky.   It was beautiful Tomorrow night the moon, Jupiter and Venus are going to be very close.. I hope we can see it.

Diane and I got on the road this morning around 7AM.. I wrote Max a thank you note with the only writing impliment I could find my finger dipped in A1 sauce…   

While goign down last night proved to be a good idea for the traffic.. it was  not such a hot idea for the weather.. The roads this morning  were covered with ice and snow this morning which made the first few hours of coming back  pretty trecherous . We got home around 2  .. went for a run.. then just hung out the rest of the day gettign ready to go back to work/school etc.

It’s now abotu 6PM  and we’re getting ready to go up to Jen and Tim’s for the Townsends final goign away dinner. Deb, Hannah, Matt and Ian are driving to Montreal early tomorrow morning then flying from there to Lima Peru. Brit is already down in Chile at her grandmothers. From there they’ll go to Chile , argentina, NewZealand (where’s old Zealand ? ) And who knows where else ?! They plan to be gone  2 years….

It’s goign to be hard to see them go.. at the same time I’m so excited for them. They’ve been such a part of our lives since Sam died..  

OK.. gotta go clean up.. now.. More tomorrow… ttyl folks.. nite Sam
-me