Athens on Maybank Highway

Due to some recent auto issues, my family is having to experience the just once car syndrome. Papa Bear has been chauffeuring me to and from from work. The traffic this afternoon convinced us to stop at Athens for dinner rather than deal with the bottleneck at Harbor View Road.

To entertain the kids, I whipped out my new refurbished Blackberry Pearl which is a steal with Cingular....err...or is it AT&T these days?...with a 2 year contract. While waiting for dinner....everyone tried out the new camera gadget on it. Unfortunately, I was the guinea pig.

Here is Mare Bear's photo work.

Here is Miles Child's work (with a little help from Papa Bear)

and here is what happens when you give kids free reign in a restaurant!

Now for the FOOD! I had the veal parmesan.....

Papa had the gyro platter.....

Mare Bear had the greek chicken..... and not pictured was Miles Child's pasta that he chose only to put olive oil and parmesan on...and asked for seconds. There was also greek salads, garlic bread and adult beverages.

After all is said and done....there is a big ditch...ummmm play area for kids to let off some steam before you pile them in the car car for home.

Retiring so young??

After 20 years serving in the Army, my brother has retired.

I couldn't find the Army song, so the Air Force song will have to do. After all he was attached to the JSTARS for the past 5 years....so it should be OK.

My sister-in-law owns a dance academy and made arrangement to tie in my brother's retirement with her recitals. The theme was a salute to the military...as she planned the retirement before choreographing the dances....that is why the backdrop so dramatic. Family and friends watched a matinee of the younger performers (ages 3-12) at 3:00 pm. At 5 pm there was a ceremony that listed by brother's biography for the 20 years he served in the army. He was presented awards, plaques & whatnot and then was released back to his wife as a civilian. He then thanked personally everyone attending and gave members of the family attending flowers or military coins. The family then formed a receiving line to greet everyone and we had cake and drinks and talked. I left with Miles at 6:30pm because he would not have lasted for the evening performance of the age 13+ dancers... and attend a late dinner. Here are some photos of the ceremony:

Memories of a Wicked Game

Chris Isaak always brings back memories of my late teens /early 20's.



Wicked Game in particular reminds me of my highschool sweetheart. We broke up the day I turned 21. One morning soon thereafter, I went to my car to find a single rose in my seat and the stereo was set to play Wicked Game the moment I turned the ignition.....

It's a Wild World Mary!

Mary had another birthday last weekend. It makes me just a little sad to think she is getting older and will be leaving the nest in what seems like only a few short years......

Greek Festival, May 11-13

After our little jaunt to Rosebank Farms, it was time to head out to enjoy the food and music of Charleston's annual Greek Festival.

Mary & Papa Bear. Photo courtesy of Miles.

A few of the vendors.





I wish I had thought to zoom in with this movie. I was caught off guard when Miles began dancing alone between acts. There were several times he received applause. Even though the music was Greek, he was attempting to dance an Irish Jig.

The Hellas Dance Troupe from the Greek Orthodox Troupe performed for us.



This is the first movie that Miles took. It is a dance around the May pole.

Afterwards, Mary tried out a few of the dances for herself.

This is just of Miles striking one of many poses.

The girls enjoying themselves. Photo courtesy of Miles.

Rosebank Farms Revisited

I went back to Rosebank Farms this morning. This time my goal was to get a bouquet of flowers for my Mother-in-law. Mary picked out the sunflower arrangement below. The kids thought the freshly laid eggs were neat...and I even caught Mary sneaking one to her room. She thought if she could keep it warm it might just hatch for her. :) The kids enjoyed feeding the animals on the farm and I did remember to bring a camera this time.

Literature Meme

Stolen from Sara who stole from JLynn, who stole from Claire who stole from Holly, etc. The first rules I read would have you place in bold type the books you've read from this list of 100. If there are others you've read by the same author, include those in bold, under the original, without the author's name in parentheses.

I have removed 14 books because the authors were redundant. Do we really need to list all of J.K Rowling & JRR Tolkien individually? Hmmmm? The rest of the list was as I found it.

Additional rules that deviate from the first I found include:

Place in italics books you have the book in your house begging to be read
Place in Blue if you have seen the movie / mini-series
Place in Green if you have read aloud to your children
Place in Red if you listened to the book on Radio Reader or Audible.com

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings (Tolkien)
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers
The Hobbit
6. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
Anne of Avonlea
7. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
8. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
9. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Rowling)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
10. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
11. Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
12. The Stand (Stephen King)
Carrie
Christine
Dolores Claiborne
Firestarter
The Green Mile
Pet Cemetery
The Shining
13. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
14. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
15. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
16. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
17 . Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
18. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
19. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
20. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
21. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
22. Dune (Frank Herbert)
Children of Dune
Dune Messiah
God Emperor of Dune
Chapterhouse Dune
Heretics of Dune
Hunters of Dune
Dune: The Butlerian Jihan
Dune: The Machine Crusade
Dune: House Atreides
Dune: House Harkonnen
Dune: House Corrino
Dune: The Battle of Corrin
- A friend /coworker is coercing me here…including the pre-lending of the books!
23. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
24. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
25. 1984 (Orwell)
Animal Farm
26. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
27. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
28. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
29. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
30. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
31. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
32. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
The Valley of Horses
The Mammoth Hunters
The Plains of Passage
The Shelters of Stone
33. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
34. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
35. Bible
36. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
37. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
The Three Musketeers
The Man in the Iron Mask
38. Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)
39. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
Of Mice and Men
East of Eden
40. She's Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
41. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
42. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
A Christmas Carol
Oliver Twist
43. Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
44. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
This Side of Paradise
45. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
46. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
47. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
48. The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
49. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
50. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
51. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
52. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
53. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
54. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
55. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
56. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
57. Les Miserables (Hugo)
58. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
Et aussi…Le Petit Prince
59. Bridget Jones' Diary (Fielding)
60. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
61. Shogun (James Clavell)
62. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
63. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
64. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
65. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
66. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
67. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
68. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
69. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
70. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
71. Wizard's First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
72. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
73. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
74. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
75. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
76. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
77. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
78. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
79. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
80. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
The Mermaid Chair
81. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
82. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
83. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
84. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
85. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
86. Ulysses (James Joyce)
87. Saints at the River (Ron Rash)
One Foot in Eden
The World Made Straight
88. A Series of Unfortunate Events (Lemony Snicket)
All 13 – some I read to the kids and some Tim Curry read to all of us
89. Dracula (Bram Stoker)
This Audio book on a road trip to Ohio is what got me addicted to audio
90. Jordan County (Shelby Foote)
Follow Me Down
The Correspondence of Shelby Foote and Walker Percy
91. Collected Stories of Eudora Welty (Eudora Welty)
92. Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)
93. Black Elk Speaks (Black Elk)
94. The Republic (Plato)
95. The Sun Also Rises (Ernest HemingWay)
96. The Messenger (Lois Lowry)
The Giver
Gathering Blue
97. A Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy O’Toole)
Absolute genius!
98. The Plague (Albert Camus)
99. The Adventures of a Simpleton (Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen)
100. Candide (Voltaire)