Mobile, Alabama, My New Home

I arrived in Mobile on Thursday evening and got the keys to my new house on Friday morning. The moving truck was here when I arrived. They had the truck completely unloaded by 2:45. I have been cleaning and unpacking boxes since. I still have dozens of more boxes to unpack - but I am making some progress. I thought you might want to see pictures of my house.



This is the street front of my house.














My house sits on a corner, so this is the side view of my house. Notice that I have a carport instead of a garage. But the house does come with quite a bit of storage room.

This is the one room I am pretty much finished unpacking - my bedroom. I have more closet space in this room than in my house in New Hampshire.










I haven't really unpacked in my living room, but I thought I would show you how bright the room is. The windows are huge; they go down to about a foot from the floor!











I don't have a porch, but I do have this covered patio. My porch furniture fits here just fine. The back yard is completely fenced in and very private. I have banana trees in the yard!


Come visit sometime!

For Sale

A cozy four bedroom cape in Manchester, New Hampshire. I have put my house on the market. It is a cute place with plenty of bedrooms for a growing family. Here is a link to the market listing. Anyone interested?

http://www.mlsfinder.com/nh_nneren/kw_538/index.cfm?action=listing_detail&property_id=2715987&searchkey=683b2e88-91c5-185e-888d-4f58ea0c72e5&npp=10&sr=1

The summer look.

The winter look.

The Goodbye's Have Begun

I have begun saying "Goodbye" to friends and co-workers. I have some great friends. I am going to miss them. Sunday friends from my old office here in Manchester "kidnapped me" and took me to a surprise going away brunch.

These are some of them from that party. These individuals were all candidates for the same position as me. They all were sporting these red sweat shirts with an "L" on the front indicating "Loser." They were such good sports about it. The guy on the far right currently has my old job as the Director of the Manchester Hearing Office. He has just been selected to fill my current position as the Boston Regional Attorney.

These are the ladies from my Tuesday night Ladies Bible Study. They took me out for dinner on Tuesday night, our last time together. I am going to miss these ladies. I have been having the Tuesday Night Ladies Bible Study in my house since the fall of 1991. I don't think any of these ladies were from the original group, but some have been coming for a long time! They are such a great group of friends.

Yesterday the people in my current office gave me a send off as well. Some of these people I have worked with for quite some time, even before I started working in Boston. The gentleman on the far right I have worked with, in some capacity, since 1995, but I have known him since about 1988. The lady standing next to me on the far left, is the current Regional Chief Judge. She has only been in the Regional Office since October. I have very much enjoyed working with all of these people.

Of course what is a "send off" without food! Oh my, it has been good food. This is a cake one of the ladies from my Tuesday night had made for me. Those are real strawberries making up the flowers! This was a great cake!











I thought I would show you a picture of my new office in Mobile. When I was in Mobile, I did not go into the office, I just drove by.












This part, however, is the most impressive part of the office building. This is the parking garage, attached to the back of the building. All the employees have FREE covered parking at the building! In our office building in Boston the spots are in great demand and simply not available. Even if they were available they cost $380 a month! So to be able to park for free and to keep the sun from beating down on your car all day will be simply great!


Mom and Dad are coming on Saturday and the "For Sale" sign will show up on my lawn on Saturday as well. (Anyone interested in a cute red cape in Manchester, just let me know.) I have about two more weeks before I leave for Mobile. Today is my last day in Boston - so I better get started.

The Garcia Family

Some of you might remember my friends the Garcias. I haven't seen them only but briefly over the past four or five years. We finally got together for a long afternoon of visiting and chatting. I thought I would publish a few pictures that Clarissa took with my camera yesterday.


These are six of the seven kids. Aaron is away at college. He is studying at Liberty University in Virginia. He intends to become a pastor.










These are the three girls, Miranda 13, Vanessa 12 and Clarissa 17. Clarissa is also going to Liberty next year. She is going to study nursing, with a minor in music. She taught herself to play the piano! She is very talented. I heard her at a competition recently where my friend Kenny was competing.









This is Jesse the youngest. He is five. He looks exactly like Ric, his Dad. Ric works at Velcro (for those that do not know it, Velcro was invented by someone in Manchester and the original plant is here). He works 10 hour shifts, four days on and three off. So he was working this weekend and I did not get to see him.






This is Jeremiah, he is eight. His nickname is Jerry. So that makes him Jerry Garcia - he doesn't look like he belongs with The Grateful Dead!










This is Javier, he is 16; a sophomore in High School. All these kids are home-schooled and are doing really well academically. Jav plans on college and then to military. He wants to be an Officer in the Marine Corps.










This is Naomi (the mother) and me. We had a great visit. I had made clam chowder and cornbread. I had a plate of veggies and crackers and cheese along with some fresh fruits. So we had plenty to eat and visit over all day.

Kathy's Birthday Celebration and Easter Egg Hunt

Just a few pictures from our afternoon today celebrating Kathy's birthday and Easter. We had Clam Chowder with Corn Bread. It had been a while since I have made Clam Chowder - boy did it taste good.

Enjoy the pictures. Happy Easter - may each of you enjoy time at church and then with family and friends celebrating the Resurrection of our Lord. Happy Easter!



Happy Birthday Kathy. It was a good excuse to make chocolate cupcakes!















"Play it again Sam." Whoops, I mean Thomas.



















Easter eggs everywhere!
















Ponytail Lauren.












Egg Hunt results, plenty of eggs and lots of fun things to eat!

A "Long" Weekend

I had a chance to spend Saturday and then Sunday with my friends Tony and Susan Long and their two boys Josh and Jason. Josh is now married to Randi and Jason is dating Randi's sister Katie. On Saturday we had homemade Chicken Pot Pie with an apple cobbler for dessert. On Sunday we celebrated Tony's birthday with homemade pizzas and a Cherry Nut cake for dessert. We played Fictionary on Saturday night and Scattegories on Sunday. It was a great weekend with good food, good fun and great friends. I am going to miss the Longs when I move. So I was glad to have some extended time with them this past weekend. I will include a few pictures that Katie took with my camera yesterday.

Sunday we celebrated Tony's 54th Birthday. He was a little pleased at this point, we had just watched the naming of the teams for the NCAA Basketball Tourney. He was afraid Kentucky wouldn't make the tournament this year. But they did, so he was pleased. I was very pleased to see that Kansas was the top seed in the Midwest.

Susan had a busy weekend cooking for us. Everything she fixed was absolutely great! I enjoyed everything she fixed, and I still managed to lose three pounds when I weighed in this morning!

Josh and Randi both work for Fidelity. They are on vacation this week. They both work the "second shift" at Fidelity. Randi's sister Katie and her brother Jarrod, both work at Fidelity as well. Josh just recently passed his "series 7" tests, allowing him to be a "broker." This gives him a great opportunity with Fidelity and any other investment company. He managed to pass these very difficult tests on one take! Congratulations, Josh!

This is Jason and his girlfriend Katie. Jason is going to school at UNH in Manchester, living at home. He made straight A's last semester and made the Dean's List. He is studying business. I don't know whether he is hoping to get on at Fidelity as well. But I keep trying to talk him into something more interesting than business. I am not being very successful

I just liked this picture of Jason concentrating. He and I were trying to find out the score for the Kansas/Texas game. Fortunately, Kansas won, but I don't think we ever did find the score.

Sunday Afternoon

Today was a tough day for Kathy and her family with the death of her father. While she and Tommy were out today, the kids stayed with me. They wanted to do cards for their Mom. They were so thoughtful, wanting to give her something because she was sad. So they made cards and pipe cleaner sculptures for her. They played and watched television. Steven told me that my house was "quiet." They helped to make it less quiet. I took a few pictures. I thought you might like to see the boys watching the movie. Tommy said they are so "focused" when they're watching television. I told him I didn't know where they learned to be that way at all! Kathy and I laughed about his "innocent" denial of being that way himself!





Smiling for the camera.














Focused on the movie "Fluke." He watched the whole movie sitting sideways in this rocker.













Lauren and I looked at pictures, hunted for Cinderella's missing slipper and brushed her hair. We weren't into the movie.










Pillow time!














"Okay, I will take time to smile for the camera, but I need to get back to the movie."












Doesn't this look like Tommy 35 years ago?

March is Here, Spring must be Coming!

It snowed all night and into the afternoon today, breaking the record for the snowiest winter since 1900. But even with all that snow, Tommy and Kathy and the kids came in for supper this evening. It was such a nice evening. I took two pictures and then between Thomas and Steven, they managed to take quite a few more. Scroll on down and you will see some snow pictures.


Steven has learned to read. He was reading and writing on an eraser board with Tommy, but he took time out of his reading to let me take his picture. Isn't his smile so sweet?

Thomas was hamming it up in this picture Steven was taking. He practiced on the saxophone tonight. He wants to do something with music - so Tommy and Kathy are looking into it for him.







Isn't she just adorable? I had gotten her this dress for Christmas, she loves the polka dots, but what I really love are the stockings. Pippi Longstocking syle?














I thought you might like to see some of the snow that we have been graced with this year. We had about six to eight inches last night.


That snow pile is about six feet tall and it is sticking out in my driveway a little too far so I have to angle my car out of my garage.










It is pretty, isn't it. This was before I shoveled this snow.














Mountains and Mounds of Snow!












This is my front yard. The Comcast van is parked on my side of the street, so you have a pretty good picture of how much snow is in my front yard.

Mobile, Alabama

I have accepted a position as an Administrative Law Judge in Mobile, Alabama. I am so excited about moving someplace warm! I will be reporting on Monday May 12, 2008. After a couple of weeks in the office, to orient myself to the office and problably begin to give them a schedule for my docket, I will report to Baltimore for a four week training session. So I will settle down to really working about June 23rd.

I will be about six or seven hours from Beth and about ten hours from Joye. It looks like it is about 14 hours from Salina. It is almost 1500 miles from Manchester. That is about a 22 hour drive! I just checked about airlines, neither Jet Blue nor Southwest Air fly to Mobile. But US Air does fly into Mobile! I hope I can expect a lot of visitors in Mobile.

I am excited about the opportunity of a new adventure. But I know that leaving Manchester will be extremely hard.

Atlanta!

We had a great time in Atlanta. It was warm and there was no snow! We visited the Coca Cola Museum. I am a Pepsi fan, but it was still fun to see how the "other one" is done.





This is Beth and Marybeth in the Museum beside an old car that was used to advertise and deliver the Coke products.








Standing with Marybeth outside of the Museum is Mr. Pemberton, the pharmacist that invented Coke. (Now you know why I prefer Pepsi, Coke tastes like medicine!)












We ate a Montana Buffalo - it was pretty good, but none of us had the interest in trying the Bison meat. Chicken and steaks were our choices.












After Atlanta we were back at Beth's for a few days. I got to meet Solomon and this was the first that I had seen Walter and Laura since their wedding. I enjoyed getting a chance to look through their wedding album. They brought some chocolate fondu with strawberries and pound cake! Yum!








I had the chance to go to Beth's classroom and see her kids and the computer lab. She is really quite something keeping 30 computers running while monitoring a bunch of kids. I enjoyed meeting some of the teachers and seeing Beth at work!









Do you love our Funky Glasses?













We didn't tour CNN, but we did take a few pictures of their logo and ate in their food court.













I had fun with Kush and Kishan. They posed this picture, wanting to get a good picture in front of this fountain at their school. You can tell that Beth has trained them well in the fine art of taking pictures!