House Renovation on an Island

House renovation on an island accessible only by ferry is challenging. A trip to Home Depot involves driving 15 miles to the north end of the island, waiting for the ferry (the winter schedule has fewer than hourly trips), a one hour ferry ride across the inlet, and a drive of 75 miles. And then the reverse to come home. Renovation requires careful planning and crossing your fingers that you won't need something that's not available at the hardware store on the island or you will be waiting.

It's now the new year and we have lived in our house on the canal since just before Thanksgiving 2017. We had access to the house in mid-October but had more work to do than we had imagined. Isn't that the way renovation always goes?

First I had to clean out the house. It was a rental so it came furnished. I gave everything away and within a day and a half, I had only a few framed pictures and a box of miscellaneous household items to donate to our local thrift store.

Next came the demolition of the kitchen and needed repairs. There were rotten fascia boards. Some of the rot was obvious but others had been painted over. They were all replaced with new cedar boards and painted white instead of the pale yellow someone in the past had chosen.

We closed up the front entrance to an attached in-law suite and put a doorway leading into it from the main part of house. This would become our master bedroom. The closed up entrance would become my closet.

We knew that there was rot at the back door of the master bedroom and we were hoping that it didn't extend into the joists. It did. The entire sill and part of the door frame were rotten as well as part of the first joist back into the room. There are always surprises in renovation but this wasn't too bad. The cause of the rot was a leaky door. There was evidence that damage had been repaired in the past but not the source of the damage, so it continued. We have a good, solid, airtight (and expensive) door there now.

My kitchen reno was delayed when my cabinets were two weeks late in arriving. Scheduled for the 16th, they finally showed up on Halloween. Our carpenters installed them quickly (of course there were some issues there too!) but then the kitchen came to a grinding halt; the countertops would not be installed until Dec. 18. How could I get through the myriad of Christmas events here on the island without having a kitchen in which to bake? Solution: temporary countertops! We cut up plywood and placed it on top of the cabinets. It worked....I baked dozens of cookies and other items but it was a challenge with no sink in which to clean up. I became accustomed to doing dishes camping style; heating water on the stove and washing dishes in plastic bins.

We found a variety of other issues; leaking plumbing, unusual electrical wiring (this is Ocracoke after all....it's endemic). One of the biggest problems we discovered was a rodent infestation. Rats were not in the house but had numerous access points to the area under the floor. Lots of chewed up insulation, rat poop, and yes, dead rats, were involved. We are still working on that problem and plan to replace all of the plywood under the house with cedar and install new insulation. We think we have closed up the current access holes and hope that in the near future, we will never have to experience the smell of a decaying rodent wafting up through the floor.

So, the renovation continues. There is still so much to do. I'm currently working on installing a tile back splash in the kitchen. I still have unpacked boxes. There is painting to do. There are future projects. It will go on and on but at least I am here, on this island, and that makes it worth it.

Living a Dream

How often do we get to fulfill a dream? I had a dream to be a mother and I did it; three times. I had a dream to design my own home and I did it. I had a dream to go to Mexico for a month, live with a family, and study Spanish. I did that too.

I had another dream that I never imagined could come true and that was to live on Ocracoke Island. However, it came true as well. A series of events led to us being here full time. After Neal's parents died we had the financial resources to purchase a house. We originally planned to rent it but quickly fell in love with the little cottage and decided to keep it for use by us and for friends and family. I was still working at the time and had just started a new job I really enjoyed. I planned to stay there for four years, until my teaching license expired, and then then I would retire.

After working at my new job for two years I began to feel torn between work life and home life. My husband has a variety of health issues and was, by the spring of 2012, unable to work. It became obvious to me as the months progressed that he needed me to be with him at doctor visits and needed my company at home.

I am not the type of person who can leave work "at the office"; teaching was all or nothing for me. I was beginning to feel as if I could never recharge. Weekends, holidays, even summers were not enough. In a 2 1/2 year time span, we lost all of our parents, both of Neal's maternal aunts, Neal's younger brother, a good friend, and had numerous surgeries, hospitalizations, car wrecks, and so on, all within our immediate family. The four years I had planned to work became reduced to three, then two and a half, and finally, just two. I left a job I loved but a job for which I was steadily losing energy to do.

So, we began spending more and more time at our Ocracoke house. I became very involved in community volunteer work and we both loved life on the island. Meanwhile, in Thomasville, our large house on 5.71 acres with it's guest cottage (housing our daughter), large outbuildings, and many tools and pieces of machinery sat, unattended, uncared for, and not maintained.

My niece and her husband mentioned buying our property last fall and came by to look at the house. She partly grew up in this house so it felt like home to her. However, after several months of not hearing back from them we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would need to keep going back and forth between homes, a task that was becoming more and more difficult.

We were on Ocracoke in February when I received a text from my niece; she said that they were ready to get serious about buying a home and they wanted ours.

I freaked out. I FREAKED OUT! I am not really using that term carelessly. We had lived in that house for 32 years. We had raised three children. We had lots of storage space. LOTS of storage space. It was all full. We returned to Thomasville and got to work.

After much cleaning out; after many truckloads of useless stuff to the recycling center and to the dump; after a mega two-day yard sale (I made tons of money...yay!), and after donating lots and lots, the house  at last belonged to my niece and her husband.

It was a wonderful place to raise children; it was a quiet refuge from the world, and now my 6 year old great-niece, champion bug collector and toad catcher, will have a chance to grow up there too. And our daughter stays in her cottage. We needed to sell that house, but couldn't let it go. What a blessing that we could lighten our load and, after moving 8 times in as many years, our loved ones now have their dream home.

Our journey isn't over though. We have made an offer on a different Ocracoke house. Neal wants a house on a canal so he can dock his boat, something we now pay someone else to do. We will be moving around mid to late October and we will be selling this sweet little house in which we now live.

Sometimes dreams can't come true; sometimes though, they do.

Our former house.

The toad-catcher herself.

The New Year

It's strange...thinking about the "new" year. It doesn't seem any different than 2014. I guess we need a way to mark time and thinking about a new year gives people a time to think about change. I have given up on making resolutions. I never keep them. If I can't get up each day and think that I will make it the best I can, what good is making a resolution based on some arbitrary marker of time?

On New Year's Eve Neal and I drove up to Steve and Penny Kilby's house in Mouth of Wilson, VA for for their annual party. Neal had been once a few years ago but I never have. Steve and Penny came to visit us in Ocracoke this past summer and I have gotten to know them better so I really wanted to go to the party. It was fun, although it would have been more fun if we played music. I keep saying that I want to get back into it and one day I will. (Is that a resolution?) The most fun we had out of the entire evening was listening to Wayne Henderson picking with some young musicians; fiddlers Kitty Amaral and Mary Shumway and a phenomenal 10 year old guitar player named Presley Barker. What talent and dedication to music those young kids have and what a pleasure it was to hear them play!

On New Year's Day we went to Bob and Rachel's house for their annual get together. Their son Ben wasn't there, having flown to Seattle to visit family. I wanted to see if he had changed after a semester away at college (Columbia) and a newly acquired girlfriend! We had a nice time visiting with Tom and Marianne, Steve and Molly, Nancy and Bob's friend Coleman. We left about 4:00 b/c Neal wanted to come home and hunt, Jan. 1 being the last day of deer season.

I thought about taking down the Christmas decorations but I am enjoying the air of coziness they give to the house so I'll save that till next week. I finished the quilt that I made for Kathy Perez's baby Gael. I may embroider his name on it....not sure. I cut out a dress to make for our 2 year old Ocracoke neighbor Camryn. I am enjoying having time to sew! I have fabric for Roman shades for my kitchen and another outfit for Josephine. I remember sewing when Rachel was a baby....she would just play on the floor while I sewed at the kitchen table and I could talk to her while I was working. Happy times.

I guess if I have made any kind of a resolution for the new year it is to waste less. I have been trying to throw out as little food as possible, even if it means eating leftovers far after my interest in them has faded! We spend a lot of money on food and I don't want to waste it. I might as well be throwing money away.

I am also trying to rid myself of some of the things I no longer need. I have a collection of Polish pottery....I love it....but I don't need it and I am going to sell it. I have gotten it all out of the cabinet, sorted it by pattern and measured each piece. I will list it on Ebay and since I gave my postage scale to Sarah, I ordered a new one this morning. My old one wasn't really adequate for my needs so this new one should do nicely. Quite often when I want to get rid of stuff I just give it away but I am going to sell the pottery....now that I am retired I can use the money!

Lots to do and it won't get done as long as I am on the computer. Happy New Year.

New Year's Eve

I neglected to post last night, New Year's Eve Eve. We traveled back from Ocracoke and Neal wanted to stop and eat at Cracker Barrel. He really wanted to stop and eat there! Normally when I am traveling home from the 1:30 ferry to Swan Quarter, I go through a drive-in b/c it takes me till 8:30 or 9:00 and I get tired driving. But, as I said, he really, really wanted to eat at Cracker Barrel; it just seemed so important to him, so we did stopped at Rocky Mount. I had chicken and dumplings (or as it should have been called, a small amount of chicken with hard hunks of dough), carrots and turnip greens. I love greens. I really love them. But not at Cracker Barrel. I don't know what they do to them, other than putting what looks like some country ham in them, but I almost immediately got heartburn. It's roughly a 2 1/2 hour or less home from Rocky Mount so I drove the rest of the way in intense discomfort.

Cracker Barrel is just a very interesting place. It's the kind of place to go when you want a large quantity of filling food without spending a lot of money. Oh, and you have to listen to country music. The only good thing about Cracker Barrel is that they have a wood-burning fireplace for cold weather but we weren't anywhere near it. As we were leaving, Neal said "That was good." I replied, "No, it wasn't good. It was edible; there is a difference."

So home now, posting with a cat on my lap. We are going to Steve and Penny Kilby's house in Mouth of Wilson, VA for a New Year's Eve party tonight but right now I am going to Waffle House, courtesy of Daughter #3 who has a craving. Let's hope the food is better than Cracker Barrel.

I Am So Lazy

How lazy am I? Soooo lazy! I didn't do much of anything today but I really enjoyed doing nothing. Well, I hung some pictures and cooked dinner. I took a shower and dried my hair. And I read a book. Otherwise, that's it. Nada.

It was gray and partly rainy today and I love days like this! In the afternoon I decided to install myself in our little sunroom so I turned on the equally little heater and it got so cozy and pleasant that I pretty much stayed there for the rest of the day.

Tomorrow we have to leave for home. I always hate leaving and this has been a super short visit so I am not ready to leave but we have plans for New Year's. Tomorrow morning I'll put my few Christmas decorations away...there is a space under the eaves with an access door from the cupola. I am going to put my entire tree in there, decorated. It's just a little tree...and it is decorated with shells that I found on the beach. Except for the starfish top....I bought that at The Pirate's Chest. And then it will be so long Ocracoke (till later in January) and so long Christmas in Ocracoke, till next year.

Sunday, Sunday

Technology is great, technology is terrible! I was halfway through typing my entry when I tried to insert a picture. The window for inserting the picture wasn't opening so I clicked on the "back" arrow and found myself exiting the blog post I had just written...NO auto-save here! Of course, I don't feel like rewriting what I already wrote so I am going to condense it. (So after I wrote and published this version, I find that there is a draft saved. Ugh...will I ever learn!)

• Didn't go to church, went to the beach instead.
• Picked up a few shells and a grocery bag of trash. People, throw your trash AWAY!! What goes on the ground finds it's way to the ocean.
• Sat on the dunes and watched an amazing performance of hundreds of cormorants flying in a line, making loops and swooping up and down over the ocean.
• Went to Variety store; saw Janie T. and Kati W. Chatted. Shopped for t-shirts which are 40% off right now! Oh, and bought a few groceries too.
• Realized I only had 1/2  hour to get to the quilting group. Ate very quickly and made it more or less on time.
• Phyllis W. came by to see the quilt she had commissioned for her granddaughter...it is a log cabin pattern in pinks and grays...lovely. We basted a section of the quilt for the OPS Museum raffle. It is going to be beautiful and very unique!
• Neal and I went to the Schramel's open house. The food (seafood gumbo, duck gumbo, salad, bread, cheese) was incredible. Stayed for a while and talked to several people. What a lovely, wonderful event!
• Watched the movie "Mud" with Matthew McConaughey. It was very good.

Now Neal has gone to bed and I am typing this. The first, lost version was better. But this gets the job done. And here is a picture of the lovely quilt for Phyllis' granddaughter.

Christmas Time, Again

Curious that I seem to post around Christmas. Maybe it is a more introspective time. I don't know.

I am writing from Ocracoke Island, NC. Two years and three months, minus one day, we bought a house here. It is a sweet little cottage on the edge of a marsh on a fairly busy road but still relatively private due to the trees in our tiny front yard. It has been my dream for many years to live here and now that I am retired (5 months and 26 days) I can spend more time here. If my family lived here too, I'd probably never go back to Thomasville. (Except that Thomasville is much closer to the Ikea store.....)

So today is the annual Oyster Roast on Ocracoke Island, a fundraiser for the Working Waterman's Association. The parking lot at the fish house is cleared out, tables set up and people crowd in to eat their fill of fish stew, steamed shrimp and oysters. And today is lovely weather, blue skies, no wind and the temperature in the low 50's.

After we eat our fill of stew, shrimp and oysters, Neal and I will stroll over to the Community Square where dessert and hot cider is being served in the Waterman's Exhibit building. They usually have a little fire going in the stove and it's wonderful to soak in the warmth along with the warmth of community and friendship. Pictures later!

Ok, so it's later...here are pictures of the Oyster Roast followed by hot cider and dessert.

Seven Months and Sixteen Days

Seven months and sixteen days...that is how long it has been since my mother's death. I still want to pick up the phone and call her about the silliest things that I have heard on the news. I still think how much she would like to travel here or there when I hear about a place I know she would like. But mostly I just want to hug her.

When I think of my mom it is with a very real tactile sensation. At first she wasn't much of a hugger but I was. As a child and young person I would hang on her so I guess she eventually got used to it. As an adult she was very much of a huggy person and whenever I left her it was never without a hug. And when I hugged her I tried to memorize how she felt, as if I were trying to imprint her shape onto my own. And that is what I think of when I think of her; a physical remembrance of how she felt.

My therapist said that it takes a year before it doesn't hurt so much and with time the hurt is not so keen or so shocking. But the other night I heard our dog barking and my first thought was that it was mom's dog and then quickly the realization that my mother was gone. And the realization that the wound, though healing, is still terribly raw.

And So On

I know I am a terrible blogger. It's a good thing I'm not trying to cultivate followers b/c I'd never have any. No one would wait a year between posts.

My life has been full of struggles over the last few years but I think I have turned a corner. I feel hopeful somehow and like I am climbing back up from this pit.

My mother has passed away and this has been one of the saddest events of my life so far. I miss her so much. When I think about her, I always think of how she felt when I hugged her. She was soft and squeezable and it is that physical, tactile feel that I have when I think of her.

Can I say how glad I am that I had her for my nearly 60 years? I am grateful for the time I spent with her and grateful for the trips we took together. I have satisfaction knowing that I made some of her wishes come true.

So I have been working through my grief . I have gone through the shock (although there are times I still can't believe she is gone), anger, sadness, etc. and now I think I am moving into the acceptance part. I have just been so sad for so long and now I feel that lifting.

And good things are happening. Anne is graduating on May 11. She has struggled and her victory encourages me. Sarah is graduating on May 11 as well and moving to Greensboro. Rachel seems to be getting along well after a difficult period of time. Neal is Neal. But that is ok.

I like where I work and am thankful for the job and even though it is very stressful right now I feel as if I have risen above it. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and I just hope it isn't a train.

A New Year, Again

Since my post last fall I have had shoulder surgery for tears in my rotator cuff and bicep tendons and also to remove bone spurs.

I always thought of bone spurs as something that looked like a spur but when I saw the pictures of my surgery, I realized it is a term for nothing more than extra bone where it shouldn't be. So, I am recovering from the surgery and I am at the end of week 3 from 4 weeks off from work.

I can't drive yet and I can't lift my arm, which means I can't do much of anything other than read, be on the computer or watch tv. If I go out anywhere I have to wear my sling to keep me from accidentally trying to use my arm.

I go back to the doctor next Friday, Feb. 3. I am scheduled to return to work on the 6th, so I hope he tells me it's ok to drive. Otherwise someone will have to come pick me up each day.

So, I guess I will go indulge in my favorite past-time...taking a hot bath. Also one of the few things I am allowed to do and since I have a lovely new bathroom in which to bathe, it is a true pleasure.

Can I Come Back?

Can I come back to posting on this blog, that is. I started out with good intentions and fizzled out badly. Or pretty well, depending on how you look at it.

In this last year, both of my in-laws have passed away, Neal started a new job, Sarah had a terrible wreck and was in the hospital for 2 1/2 weeks, Rachel was in the hospital and Neal had surgery for a blocked carotid artery and then had a mild stroke when the artery became blocked.

So, it's been quite a year.

Now I'm back at work and my class is quite a challenge. Out of my 14 current students, 7 seem to have never had to follow a rule. Ever. But, we are seeing improvements.

Sarah has gone to Atlanta to go to grad school at Georgia State University and Anne has moved over to Mocksville. Tonight they were both here and I joined them for dinner at Elizabeth's Pizza. It was nice to spend some time with them.

I went to the orthopedic doctor today b/c I am having problems with my shoulders, so I am scheduled for an MRI next week.

That's about it for now. I think I'll go to bed. And maybe write again. Sometime.

Time Flies

Time just doesn't fly when you are having fun, it just flies. Now it is December, 17 days away from Christmas.

I have no decorations up, no tree up, nothing to indicate it is nearly Christmas except the wrapped gifts on the buffet in the dining room.

I have been busy at work, busy at home, just busy. Although I did get to go shopping at Ikea on Saturday which is like heaven for me. I love being there. I think I'd just like to move in, kind of like that movie where Natalie Portman's character lived in Walmart.

Sarah's bathroom, the project I started in July, is still not finished. Once I get home from work it seems impossible to complete much of anything. For one thing, when I get home from work I usually have more work to do.

Quick update on events: on July 23, on the way to David's and Melissa's house, I rear ended a car on I95 outside of Baltimore and totaled my dear little Subaru. So, no more Rufusmobile...after 230,000 + miles and 12 1/2 years. No one was hurt....I have to keep telling myself that that is the important part.

So, I was car-less until mid September, after Neal got a job. Now I have a Toyota Highlander. I love it, in theory, but I still pine for my Subaru.

On Sept. 29, on her way to school during a horrid rainstorm, Sarah hydroplaned and ran off of I85. She went down an embankment and wrapped around a tree. She broke her left femur and had other minor and not so minor fractures. More about the accident later, but the good news with that is that two months later, she was walking again without even a cane and hardly a limp.

We have had a lot to be thankful for this holiday season.

Hospice

My mother-in-law has been in Hospice House for a week and a day now. She needs more care than she can get at home. I don't know how much longer she will live, but hopefully at least till Sunday morning, till Rachel can get home from Africa and see her.

Today I went to see her and took some decaf tea I made. While I was sitting there, she said "When I wake up in the morning, I think I am in my usual setting and then I remember where I am."

I almost cried over that. Just to think of how she must feel. I'm sure she knows she'll never go home again. She asked me today if her house was clean.

I'm glad I have had extra time to give to them while she has been there. She said I am a good nurse.

Mother-In-Law

I went to visit my mother-in-law today. She actually seemed to be doing pretty well. Jane had put a foam pad under her couch cushions to raise the level of the couch and she can actually stand up from the couch now.

Hospice is coming in and bringing supplies and providing some services. A lady came today and gave her a bath and the nurse will come tomorrow. The CNA will come three days a week and the nurse two days, I believe.

We helped her with some chores she needed done and she had us go through some photos and pick some out that we wanted. She had gone through pictures and had pictures of the family up in the den and she was very pleased with them.

Abandoned

Well, it seems I have totally abandoned this blog...

I was so busy prior to leaving on vacation, then didn't post while on Ocracoke. I came back two days ago, but have been pretty worn out.

So, a little update:

• Ocracoke was great, as always, but the weather wasn't so wonderful: gale force winds much of the time and torrential rain a couple of days. Most of the time it was impossible to go on the beach without feeling like you were getting sandblasted and the simplest task, like lighting the stove for coffee was a challenge. The old tent couldn't hold up under the rain and wind so we got a replacement tent at Walmart. We still managed to have fun, but it was not the restful and refreshing time we needed.
• Neal's mom is now out of the hospital and at home with Hospice care and someone who stays during the night. So, she doesn't have a lot of time left. I don't know how Daddy Joe will manage. He will want to stay in his home but he'll have to have someone with him.
• We leave tomorrow to go to David and Melissa's house. I realize that we may have to cut the trip short depending on Becky's condition. But hopefully she will live a while longer. I know Rachel will be very sad if she passes away before she gets home mid August.

I guess that is it, except for the break-up of a marriage in our family, which I won't say who. Even though no one reads this, it is public and the party involved doesn't want the news spread around just yet. So, mum's the word.

Day 4

I didn't get that much done today. I painted and Neal cut the plywood I needed to alter the cabinet. Tomorrow I should get that put together and primed, and hopefully, painted so I can put the counter top/sink on it and get the faucet hooked back up. Painting all of the trim is slow going though, but it needs to be done slowly to look good.

Played bass tonight with Ward Ring, Kirby Smith and Darrell Howard for the Lion's Club meeting in High Point. I didn't mess up too badly, with one exception, but they didn't seem to mind and the crowd didn't seem to know.

I had a good time and the playing I've done lately makes me want to get back into it some. Maybe we can have another birthday party for Neal in September, as long as we avoid the Hoppin' John Fiddler's Convention weekend!

Day 3

I didn't get that much done today but I did get to Lowes. I really overestimated the size of my car and found that the 4x4 foot sheets of plywood would not fit in.

A couple of guys in the parking lot saw me trying to put the plywood in and they came running to help. They quickly saw that it would not fit so they put them on top of my car. Luckily I had some rope in my car, although I could have gone back into Lowes and bought some.

They were so nice....they even offered to put the wood in their van and follow me home! They were Spanish speaking and the one who seemed to speak the most English told me he was from Peru. We talked about the world cup...he said he didn't like any of the European teams and that his little girl who is 5, cried when the US lost!

I got some paint on the cabinet and the window trim, plus a couple of walls primed and then one of them painted. I hope the primer is going to work to hide all of the white splotches I made on the wall with the ceiling paint. I thought that would serve as primer, but when I painted with the semi gloss, the flat paint absorbed more and it looked awful. Luckily I only did one small part, to see if it would work.

I didn't buy enough Kilz though so I need to get some more tomorrow.

Tomorrow is when I play bass with Ward's band. I sure hope I don't mess it up for the rest of them!

Day 2

This has got to be more than day 2...I am so achy and tired. Plus, I was working outside today for most of the time b/c I was priming doors and painting hardware. It was easier to do it outside than in.

But, I got everything on my list done. I wanted to go to Lowes but I'll do that tomorrow. I need plywood to alter the cabinet and I need more paint, since I decided to paint all of the woodwork to match the cabinet.

Tomorrow I plan to begin painting the cabinets and woodwork, make the changes to the cabinet (building up the floor and putting in the divider and shelf). I also need to sand one of the places I fixed today; it was under the previous towel bar and there was still wallpaper attached there. I had to wet it and peel...a little at a time.

Bathroom Remodel, Day One

Arghh....I am so tired and I have white primer all over my hands because I neglected to wear gloves while priming the woodwork in Sarah's bathroom.

I got a good start today; here's what I did:

• Took down cabinet doors, removed drawers, took hinges and knobs off
• Removed toilet paper holder
• Removed the two doors, removed the doorknobs and removed the hinges
• Filled holes in cabinet with wood putty and sanded
• Disconnected faucet pipes and removed top of cabinet and sink
• Removed shoe mold
• Sanded the woodwork and window
• Primed all of the woodwork including the cabinet, inside and out
• Removed the vent cover from the ceiling and took the light loose
• Repaired the sheetrock up on the ceiling and where the backsplash had been.

Tomorrow I plan to:

• Prime the doors and cabinet doors (outside so it isn't so stinky)
• Sand the sheetrock repair and prime the ceiling part
• Paint the ceiling
• Sand and spray prime/paint the door hinges and screws
• Maybe prime and paint the doorknobs
• If I have any energy after that, I may sand the woodwork in the bathroom.

I am also going to go get some plywood to build up the bottom of the cabinets and some wood to make a divider between some of the cabinet doors so that I can put a shelf in there and use baskets instead of having four cabinet doors; I'll only have two.

Now I think it is time to relax and hopefully get to sleep.

Happy Birthday Anne, Almost

Anne's birthday is Wednesday, July 7 but she wants to go to Asheville for it, so we celebrated tonight.

Thom and Melissa (who just celebrated their 5th wedding anniversary), John and Pat, Mom, Ben, Sarah's friend Scout and Anne's friend Kelly and her boyfriend Juan were here. Anne got a lot of nice presents and seemed to like them all. Now she, Ben, Kelly and Juan are on the patio with sprinklers and other toys doing God knows what.

Oh, and she is also wearing a pink flashing tiara.

Anyway, it was a successful birthday party.