Finally a quiet moment in a busy day.   My day began down on the Cape. I am so glad that I made the choice to go to my Dad’s birthday last night.. I could tell that it meant so much to him and my mom. It was great seeing them and my baby seeeeeeeeester and her little squids. 

 

Dad in the mirror

I woke this morning at about 8 after over sleeping my alarm for an hour.. After a quick breakfast and some more pictures, I got on the rode. I had a full day of meetings scheduled around my drive back.. Unfortunately, I hadn’t figured in some of the areas of bad cell coverage. I had to stop several places fro and hour or so to keep from dropping my meetings .  In the end it took me almost 9 hours to drive the 265 miles home  And I was on the phone for work all but about 20 minutes of it. !. The mornings meeting were continuations of the meetings I’d been attending in Minnesota.. it was tough doing it remotely.. I think it would have been much  easier and maybe even have gone better if I’d stayed in Minnesota.. but again.. I really made the life choice.

 

I did have a 15 min break in a meeting that let me dash into Hooksett Fireworks (http://www.nhfireworks.com/)  again and saw my friends there. I just love  that place. Christina helped me pick out some good stuff for Gabe.. She even gave me some tomatoes to take home ! 

We had a blast this afternoon. I love making my own.. but nothing beats professionally made stuff.  Gabe and I had great time setting some off  before dinner.

 

Gabe wears an octopus on their face 

I got back to Burlington around 6 and Max picked me up at the airport after dropping my car.   We got back to find the house full of Voices kids, Gabe and Will. By the end of the night I think we had 16 kids come thorough and visit/eat.  Around 6:30 my friends Kim and Kathy showed up .

Both of them teach at MIT. They have a summer house in Rochester Vermont and  were up for a week. It was great seeing them again. Kathy is a biochemist who taught school for 16 years.. Now she’s helping develop clever ways of teaching kids and teachers about biochemistry. She’s worked with Lego to develop a set of magnetic lego pieces that let kids explore how protein synthesis works (DNA, mRNA, all that !). I’s the coolest stuff. Kim is the Dean for Undergraduate Research and the Director of the Edgerton Center. The Edgerton center (http://web.mit.edu/edgerton/main.html)  is a laboratory at MIT which is open to anyone who needs a machine/electronic shop for research projects. They have some fantastic outreach programs where they get students to invent to help people all over the world. For example, their students have helped invent bicycle powered ambulances  for crowded 3^rd world streets. It’s one of the most innovative innovation centers that I know of on the planet…   I would love to find a way to work with Kim and Kathy on outreach projects… I’m going to find  way to make it happen.   It was really great seeing those guys

 

In honor of our friends, Diane had made a real Mediterranean   feast: pita,  roasted brie , home made hummus, tomatoes and fresh mozzarella,   spanikopita, tzatziki, fresh feta, roasted veggies and fruit strudel. It was really, really, really wonderful … Gven all the folks eating, we made a huge pile of dirty dishes.

I just finished an hour and a half o dish washing… It was still worth it…

 
So… it’s now about 1 AM and I’m about to go to bed.. The interesting thing is when I read what I’ve written here.. and look at the pictures, I see how it only shows what I’m doing.. not what I’m feeling.. The truth is .. I’ve been really missing Sam all this week. It might be the prospect of school starting that has me  blue.. not sure.   When my friends were here I reached in my backpack and pulled out some pictures.. and came across thee two from my birthday last year…  

When everyone left I pulled them out again and looked at them.. and finally managed to find the good cry I had been needing  all week. Sometimes you just have to dive in… don’t you Sam ?

 

-me