Sunday night – end of vacation / begining of Voices

AN amazingly full day… Diane woke up at 5AM and started getting us ready to drive back to Vermont. We said goodbye to Marcia and Gabe got in the car and were driving by 6 which is pretty good for us !. On the way out, we stopped at the old IBM site for me to place a SamStone. Somehow that felt like the right thing to do.

In the Steps of the old IBM Building

That’s about the last thing I remember of the trip.. Diane was driving.. I feel asleep immediately and slept for 225 miles. The boys slept all the way home to VT.. We made it home in 5 hours.. which is record time for us.

We came home to a quiet and clean house. Meredith had been staying here and keeping the home fires burning.. we almost needed a fire it was so cool and wet when we go home. IWe spent a few hours puttering around the house . I noticed a strong smell coming from the ‘old lab’ in te front of the house.. I poked around and found 2 dozend very ripe easter eggs sitting in there.. Yuck !.

We kept cleaning until Sam’s friend Pucket and his family showed up. Tomorrow is Pucket’s 16^th birthday and they were throwing the party at our house. Which was great…

The almost birthday boy, Puckett

We could only stay for the first part because we’d been invited to a picnic by our friends Joan, Bruce and Dan. They’d also invited our mutual friends Lori, Paul and family. Paul and I have worked together for 25 years and Lori was Max and Sam’s 2^nd grade teacher .. We had both our boys and our friends Meredith and Ruby from the Voices project in tow.. so we had a pretty good group of people. It was great seeing everyone .While the others played Bocce, Paul, Bruce and I retired to Bruce’s shop. Bruce is a fantastic welder/artist. He was working on a design for a ‘fire organ’.. which is a pretty simple thing. You put a torch underneath a length of heavy steel pipe and it resonates.. It’s a really ethereal sound. Paul and I helped Bruce fiddle with the design for awhile until we got it working (more or less) . The clue was to use a small torch which could fit up inside the pipe.. It was a pretty cool sound.

After a nice dinner Paul, Bruce and I went back out to the shop and Bruce showed Paul and I how to TIG weld Aluminum.. it was really fun and much easier than I thought it would be. That said.. I’m pretty lousy at it.. but it’s something I would like to practice.

Pual trying TIG welding

Our results.. not too pretty

It was fun hanging out at Bruce and Joan’s.. they have a nice little pond in their back yard, an active birds nest with a mother on eggs.. and a very, very cute rabbit called Fuzzy Russell. .. It was a really nice visit.

Johna nd Bruce’s Gazebo and pond

Fuzzy Russell

Mama bird with eggs

.. and papa bird none to happy that we were in there looking at his family

Around 7, Diane took the Voices kids up to MMU for their Kick off meeting while Gabe and I headed home. Pucket’s party was still in full swing so we played with those kids.. The trampoline was really getting a workout.. We even hooked up the strobe and used it with the tramp once it got dark.

Around 9, Diane and Max showed up with our 4 new house guests from the Voices project. John. Corrio , Nathaniel and Jordan (who show’s up tomorrow) will be staying with us until Aug 18th when the Voices movie shooting is complete. The kids will be working about 10 hours a day 6 days a week.. should keep them very busy… It will be fun to have all that activity in our lives.

Now I’m up in the Bell Tower writing this blog post and trying to get myself ready for being back at work after a good week off. I think I’ll be doing more of my writing from up here in the next few weeks because of all the people in the house..

Before I end.. I wanted to share some pictures I found when I was working on my mother and father in laws old computer.. they had asked me to wipe it clean.. but before I did.. I went through and took off some great old images.. They are so precious to us now.. Here are a few I liked… Beautiful kids.. really beautiful..

vinvent, sam and victor