SWCAMBORNE

At the end of our trip East in September we went to visit Rebecca in Budd Lake. She has two lovely cats Belle and Evelyn.

Belle under the couch is shy

Evelyn

Rebecca took a day off work and we went for a drive and a hike. We crossed the Delaware River at Dingmans ferry that now has a classic truss bridge.  The toll is collected by a man standing in the middle of the road.

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Speaking of birthday gifts. Way back in May I had bought Nurit tickets to the Carmel Bach Festival for our anniversary weekend. I organized a room and dinner with our friends John and Mary C. It turned out beautifully. The hotel was excellent the meals were delicious and the Brandenburg Concertos were wonderful.

If you think about it I got a twofer a birthday gift for Nurit and our anniversary celebration. Thirty-second for those of you keeping score.

John and Mary C in Italy 2004

We drove up to Carmel on Wednesday during the day and had dinner with John and Mary C. that night. It is about a six hour drive up highway 101 with a stop for In-n-Out in Santa Maria. The weather was perfect. We love the golden hills with the oaks on them. In fact Nurit realized that we didn’t have a painting of them and so we had a theme for our trip. We looked at about twenty galleries for a picture that captured our vision of rolling hills with oaks. We didn’t quite find it but we had a wonderful time searching.

Golden hills

with oaks

one of the closest paintings

I’m going to do another post about the festival and build an album on flickr of the trip photos.  Life is good.

I helped Rebecca move last week which was pretty easy.  She did all of the packing.  We had a disagreement about whether she had enough boxes to pack all of her stuff.  Her comment was: “don’t worry I’ll put it all in bags.”  To me this sounded like the recipe for a disaster.  Everyone knows that when you move you pack your stuff into boxes.

Well it turns out that using plastic grocery bags and Target bags are a much better way to pack for a move.  They are flexible, so you can crowd thing into every cranny in the car.  They are strong enough, none of the bags broke on this move.  They give you much less stuff to clean up after the move.  Grocery bags  are inexpensive and they are not to heavy.

Bag Moving is a very creative idea.  I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t experienced it myself.  Thanks Rebecca.

Last Sunday, June 1st, 2008, Rebecca graduated from Swarthmore with a BA in History and a BS in Engineering. It was a wonderful day and I am extremely proud.

Life is Good!

Click here for an album of graduation pictures with pithy comments.

Spring beauty is elusive.

We have been visiting Swarthmore College where Rebecca is a senior every spring for five years. This was the first time that our visit coincided with the full glory of the spring bloom.

The flowering trees were particularly beautiful.

The Scott Arboretum at Swarthmore is the custodian of the grounds and woods around the college and does a spectacularly good job as the photos in this flickr album attest.

The lesson to be learned from this is “In the face of uncertainty (spring flowers) don’t give up, keep trying.”  Everyone who has come in contact with Swarthmore knows that it is a wonderful institution for students and by extension alumni.  What is less well known is what a delightful resource the college, the grounds, the faculty and the staff are for the parents who choose to get involved.  For us joining and being active on the parent council was a way to be close to our daughter while she was 3000 miles away without hovering over her.  An unintended consequence has been that Swarthmore has also enriched our lives, intellectually and with its special beauty.  Life is Good!