Tag Archives: Ben

New pets added to our menagerie

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This beautiful bird is the type of bird we bought Dove - Jardim dos Louros, Funchal, Madeiratoday at the Spring show of the Greater Chicago Cage Bird Club held at the DuPage County Fairgrounds. None of us had ever been to one of these shows. We decided to go because Tristan really wanted to get a bird as a pet. He still remembers Ben and Jerry, our two parakeets we had many years ago when he was little. We went expecting just to have a good time looking around and seeing some interesting birds. But when Tristan and I saw an Asian American lady with two cages full of these birds, we thought they were quite irresistible. The woman who raised them gave us them for $5 off the list price because we were buying them for the children. I have never seen such birds before. They are called diamond doves (Geopelia cuneata — see more information at http://www.diamonddove.com/) and the specific kind we purchased is a blue diamond dove. We were able to purchase a pair; the male is about six months old and the female is about a year old, we were told. I think these birds are originally from Australia.

We bought a cage and food for the newest additions to our menagerie, and at the moment they are cuddling together going to sleep for the night.

After thinking about names for a while, we decided to call them “Onslow” and “Daisy” in tribute to two characters from our favorite BBC show, Keeping Up Appearances.

(Photo Credit: jmaximo)

What’s been happening

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I haven’t posted anything in a great while and that’s a good thing.  I just haven’t felt like writing anything.  Now that it’s January 1, 2008, I felt I should write the first post of the new year.

So, what’s been happening in my life?  Well, I’ve been enjoying the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.  I had to work last week, which was dull.  But I’m thankful to have had some time off anyway.  We hosted Christmas Eve (which is when my family gives presents and does the usual Christmas-y things).  It required a tremendous amount of work to make our house somewhat presentable given that it usually looks like a bomb has exploded.  But we managed to pull it all together and we had a good time.  Michele made a lovely meal, there was plenty of yummy things to munch on, and even some Bailey’s Irish Cream was on hand to enjoy.  Christmas day was quiet and relaxed.  We had a nice meal then, too, and sat around watching movies at my brother-in-law’s house.

This past few days were spent with my side of the family in east central Illinois.  We hadn’t been there in several months — quite a long time.  It was great to see everyone, including little Russel, my niece’s baby boy.  My nephew Ben was with his cousins in Canada so we didn’t see him, and my brother, Dan, wasn’t feeling well so we missed seeing him, too.  But everyone else was there.  One of the fun things we did was to go on our first geocaching adventure using the GPS unit my brother-in-law gave me for Christmas.  I looked up three geocaches in the area and we were able to find two out of the three.  The children enjoyed it and in the process we were able to spend some healthy time tramping around in the outdoors finding lots of interesting things like a cecropia moth’s cocoon, and seeing a flock of pheasants (something the little kids had never seen before).

Of course we enjoyed giving and receiving lots of presents.  The little kids each got some special things such as kiddie digital cameras, MP3 players, cute big fluffy animal slippers, and much more.  Michele got an iPod nano — cool!

We are thankful for many blessings, including the opportunity to spend time with both sides of our families.

The sound of silence

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The entry title is a nod to the classic Simon and Garfunkel song…and is meant as a lead-in to an explanation of why there haven’t been many entries in this blog of late. Stuff happens. Mostly, I needed a bit of a break from blogging due to preoccupation with other matters. There is always plenty to discuss here, but the motivation isn’t always plentiful!

During the 4th of July weekend, my family and I went to visit with my side of the family in east central Illinois. We had a good time, and it was especially good to spend time with my mother and to see my many nieces and nephews. They have all changed and grown up a lot somehow in the last six months or so, especially one nephew, Ben. I really enjoyed perusing a scrapbook of his recent three-month stay with his cousins in Manitoba, who own a farm and raise pigs and cattle. The scrapbook of photos and a diary of the daily events was put together by his aunt. It was quite well done and gave me a real picture of the fun, but also hard work, that Ben had on his trip. Ben’s dad, my brother, Tim, had just finished laying new hardwood flooring in his house and that was duly admired. Michele wants that kind of flooring in our house, so I asked some questions of Tim as to how to lay hardwood floors. He and Linda chose a nice birch flooring from Bruce Flooring.

Keegan had a lot of fun Sunday night (the 4th), playing with his cousins and lighting off lots of firecrackers. One of the days we were there, we drove through some of my old stomping grounds, the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It has changed a LOT since I was a student there. Of particular interest was the new Siebel Center for Computer Science, which just opened and is likely one of the world’s most technologically advanced buildings. I was pleased to hear that my oldest nephew, Nils, recently began a full-time job as a systems analyst for the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, working on a five-year grant that relates to the Deep Tunnel Project in Chicago.

Another highlight of the trip was going to an incredible bakery in downtown Urbana, called Mirabelle’s. I bought an olive rosemary loaf, as well as a honey walnut loaf, and some raspberry brioches — all very delicious! I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t have their almond horns, which is a kind of pastry that, well, is to die for. Michele’s comment was, “We badly need a nice bakery like this where we live!” To which my response is, Amen.