Continuing our activities from October – December, 2006.
On the morning of Sunday, October 8, the day of Allie’s 11th birthday party, we unexpectedly found a kitten in the construction site next door to our house. We brought him in, scrubbed him up and wondered what to do with him. We made every effort to see if any of the kids at Allie’s party wanted a new kitten — the perfect goody bag item! Unfortunately, all the kids were old enough to know they needed to ask their Moms first, so there were no takers. Later, at Barb’s insistence, I went around to our neighbors to see if anyone was missing a cute little kitten. I even went to various neighbors I’d never met, the ones with farmhouses and prospects of outdoor cats. They all thought I was nuts. By the end of the day, Allie named the kitten George and it was a foregone conclusion that he would be the newest member of our family. See his full story.
Birthday time! A return to Splashdown in Columbia for #11.
Allie, Ellen, Erin 
??? and Paige 
Kristin and Maddie 
Blair and Jess 
??? and Blair 
Saraniya and Katie 
Kevyn Ann, ???, Sydney and Sammi 
Emery, attached to Leslie 
Leslie and Emery
Cake time, featuring a portrait of Harry and Buster.
Harry and Busty say Happy Birthday 
Light them candles 
Licking the candles 
Getting the plates 
Cut and serve. Sydney is giddy with anticipation.
In mid-October, the county started working on the water-retention area in the back of our community, just beyond our property line. We knew they were going to do it eventually, but it was still a little shock to see them start digging. I wished they would put in a proper pond, but it was not to be.
Meanwhile, we had landscapers in to work on our backyard. Since we moved in it was too steep to mow and I knew I wanted some stacked stone wall work and a garden area to plant. I worked with the landscaper (from Sun Nurseries?) on the design and got recommendations from our neighbor, Janice, on what to plant.
This area would be a source of aggravation for the rest of the time we lived at Pfefferkorn. I struggled to get a good mix of plantings and keep the weeds under control. Some things worked, many didn’t. Each spring brought new experiments, each summer resulted in losing battles, and each fall required more landscape work to clean up and start over. Some years were worse than others.
On October 22, Allie and I went to the National Zoo to see the pandas and other animals. There’s no evidence of anyone else in the pictures, so I think it was a Dad and daughter outing to see the pandas.
We checked out our brick in the panda house, I believe. This is separate from our brick by the big cat enclosure…I think.
Other animals encountered at the zoo.
Fishing cat? 
Leopard? 
Otters 
Red pandas 
Capybara? 
Cheetah 
Sloth bear? 
For Halloween, Allie went as Dorothy from Wizard of Oz. I’m not sure if this was a Miss Faith costume or something we bought. Nice shoes, though. And Toto, too!
Work continued on the water retention area in the back.
November 3rd was a good day to rake up the leaves in our front yard. For Allie, nothing beat a good pile of leaves.
Barb’s tradition of making apple bread for her co-workers hit a peak.
Allie and Paige play a video billiards game, professional commentary by Allie.
On November 9, Allie and Barb take George for an abortive walk in back to see our new plantings. The county also finished installing a bunch of trees (with selection help from Janice) by the water retention area, plus our cherry tree is in.
Allie had been growing her hair for quite a while in order to make a contribution to Locks of Love. I’m not exactly sure where she got the idea and motivation, but it was a good cause and she was very excited. She did this twice but I’m not quite sure if this was the first or second time. November 18 was the appointed day. The night before we got some “before” shots.
Then the first set of “after” shots…but this is not at our house. Whose?
And some slightly more formal “after” shots the next day.
At some point in the fall, we learned about the People to People Student Ambassador program. I was surprised to learn that they took students as young as middle school. We looked at their catalog and one way or another, Allie got hooked on the notion of going to Australia in summer 2007. We’ll cover that journey in more detail in other posts. By this time in December I think we’d already attended the first of the recruitment meetings and signed her up.
As a result of the Australia bug, the country became a focus of Allie’s. She did this 4-page research paper on Australia for her geography class. I was pleased she was interested in international travel and learning about different parts of the world. Barb and I were jealous that she would see Australia before we did, but we supported the notion of her going.
Getting our Christmas shots in on December 22, some with a cooperative and photogenic Georgie, some with a much less cooperative Harry, and one with both where Georgie is giving Harry a lesson.
Check out the final result in our holiday letter, Some Memories of 2006.
After Christmas, Allie and I went with Laurie to see Mom and Dad in Riviera Beach. The rental car company offered me an upgrade to a convertible and for once, I took it. We had a fine time in our Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder.
Sue came down from Gainesville and we all had a nice visit with Mom and Dad, including an outing to see the Nutcracker.
Here are two pictures of Mom and Dad at Sugar Sands, dressed up for another occasion. It may be from a year or two later, but I’m putting them here until I know better.
Next Post: 2007 First Half
Previous Post: 2006 Second Half, Part One
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