Little Feller

William David #2

For the remainder of the pictures, go to William David #1

William David

Born Sept 10, standing 19" tall and weighing in at 7 lb 6 oz...little William was born to my little sister Kate. I posted a few pictures here. I'll post the other good ones tomorrow.

A Final Vacation Post

Looking through my camera, I realized there were a couple more pictures that didn't make the blog. Here they are...in color!
No, you're not hallucinating. That is the REAL halo guy. He dropped into Wildwood for a slice of 'za and to pose with the children. He said he'd let me buy him a drink, but got word that a group of the Covenant were heading this way. Needless to say, dude had to bolt.

Willy C Makes a Housecall

A couple weeks ago Will was able to venture from CA to VA then eventually here to WV. Although a major shock for him to enter the fiddle and banjo state, he came through with all smiles.
Most of the time was spent either eating or goofing off here at the house. We had a couple late nights (somewhat like the old days). Not a lot going on in the eastern panhandle. Man...next time we'll have to rustle up some trouble for the establishment.

I'm on a Boat aaand it's Goin' Fast aaand...

Encompassing two days, this post is all about being on the water. The first of the two days we all went waverunning which was a blast. The biggest selling point from these guys was "We won't run you in circles." They sported a three square mile area in which you could go any direction as long as you stayed a respectable distance from everyone else in the square. Let me tell you, three miles goes fast when you're full throttling a waverunner. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures since we didn't have a waterproof camera, but I do have pictures from the next day when we went parasailing.
What you see above are from the journey to our spot. The captain and his mate (who were both riots) and then us sitting by while they were driving. Finally, you'll see Kelly scooting out to the platform while I wait to be called. The winds were not great, so we were taken up two at a time. Kelly and I were the first and the only ones who requested to be dipped which everyone later followed after they saw it wasn't bad.

Wildwood Ultimate 2009

Ultimate Frisbee has been a fun sport for me since college. Unfortunately, I've been unable to play lately due to an ankle injury but that's another story. Anyway, this year we had the privilege of watching an organized gathering of literally hundreds of teams do battle in a single elimination tournament to see who comes out on top [link]. Below are some of the shots I was able to get when walking around through all the fields.

Vacation First Look

And so another year has passed since the last vacation 1 and 2. Loaded with the same bathing suit and an attitude of maintaining no internet presence, I set off. Below are some images from the first couple days. The first two are from the pub we ate at the first night. Pictured are Stacy and Travis with Kristy seizing the moment.

These next images were taken on the 2nd night in which we watched a game of bocce in which two teams compete for points based on which team (by use of bowling a large polished ball) is closest to a smaller ball called the jack. During play, we were able to watch fireworks which are held every Friday night in Wildwood during the summer months.

And yea Johnny Appleseed settled in...New Market?

Last Sunday, Kelly and I went south to meet Mom and Kate for lunch. Upon arrival, I was asked if I wanted a soda or sweet tea. Now, I'm usually not one for judging a book by its cover but this place was awesome so far. We were first treated to some complementary apple fritters with powdered sugar...not a bad way to start the meal. The whole thing was very good (what with my roast beef platter) but the best part was getting to see family and hear how Kate's been doing with the little one.
As you can see, the building designers cleverly used baskets from the old orchards as part of a wall separating dining areas. What follows are some images of all of us posing with a statue of the man himself.

Went for a Housewarming, Saw a Wedding

Just over a week ago, Kelly and I went to my sister's invitational housewarming party. We did not suspect, however, that we would end up staying for her wedding to Steve! This was announced as I was cooking the burgers & hot dogs for all the guests between bouts of rain. The words of the speech were basically the title of this entry..."you came for a housewarming, but you're here for our wedding." There was a large "bring a covered dish" style of food for the "housewarming." Kate came out looking great in her white gown posing with her bride's maids. Below are a handful of images from the wedding itself. We're all very proud of little Kate!!

Bacon Revisited

As with Dom's blog about the bacon explosion, you'll soon learn that there are other applications for the bacon weave. One such is the bacon bowl/cup described here. With the upcoming beer club, I needed a vessel for chips...the leap wasn't a difficult one. With Dom's help, we made our first attempt:

A modified bacon weave to be 1 1/2 times the size of normal bacon. We had to splice 1/2 pieces into the regular slices. We had a need for such a large weave to encompass a full size pyrex casserole dish. The latter picture depicts an attempt to repair the failure of the bacon weave due to the bacon getting warm and the bad splicing. The following is the result of cooking:

As you can see, the weave failed. Upon cooking, the bacon's weight caused the splicing to fail even further. We learned a few things: don't try splicing and use thicker cut bacon. Luckily, we had three pounds of bacon to work with. We found a loaf pan and used it to make a bacon boat:

I put little goldfish for snacking on the boat, and chips on the larger weave. What was left of the three pounds of bacon was used for bacon cheeseburgers.