Feast of the Hunters' Moon

After living in Lafayette for almost ten years, today we finally got around to attending The Feast of the Hunters’ Moon. It is an annual weekend festival held at Fort Ouiatenon. The weekend is a historical reenactment of a time over three hundred years ago. At that time this area was known as New France, and the Fort was a launching area for voyageurs that headed north to Canada each year to hunt and gather supplies for the winter. The feast is held to welcome their return when Indians, soldiers and voyagers all celebrated, traded and bartered a host of furs, game, baskets, leather goods and much more. Tens of thousands of people attend over the two days and the weather today was perfect for a day of entertainment. The girls loved it.

Bye Bye Auntie Eilish....

We said goodbye to Auntie Eilish today. After spending almost two weeks with us, she started her long journey back to Ireland this morning. She will stay with Kay in Chicago for a few nights before ultimately flying back on Monday evening. It was great having my sister here for a couple of weeks. I have not spent a lot of time with her over these last few years and getting to know her better was great. The kids adored her of course; Connor came with me this morning to drop her off at the bus and was quite upset when we finally left. Thank you so much Eilish for taking the time to come see us, it was so nice to have you here. Come back again soon. We love you and have a safe trip home.

Happy Birthday Dad

Happy Birthday Daddy. Today my father reaches a milestone, 65 years old and officially becomes a pensioner in Ireland. I hope you have a great day Dad, I know that you likely will given that you’re at a wedding. Thanks again for everything that you did for us over the years, we really appreciate it. Shown below is a picture of Dad asleep in the back garden that my brother Davey took recently. Looks like retirement is going well for him.

A Night Out....

We had a night out at the theatre in Indianapolis last night. Lynne, myself, Randy and Lorraine went to see The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde at the IRT. It was excellent and we all had a wonderful evening. We also managed to get to our favorite, Abyssinia, the best Ethiopian restaurant in Indy.

Auntie Eilish was holding down the fort at home and by all accounts everybody had a great time. There was pampering, makeup and nail polishing to everybody’s enjoyment.

Lynne's Project for Kay

Shown below are a few pictures of a project that Lynne worked on for over two weeks. Kay, our good friend from Chicago, had an old World War II Army Air Corp footlocker (made by Shwayder Bros. Inc.). It took her fancy some time ago but she had grander plans for it. She liked the idea of using it to create a symbol of peace and Lynne was willing to have a go at the project. She stripped some paint off, sanded it down and changed it’s color. The final touches required peace symbols, doves and the classic CND symbol. I brought it back to Kay this weekend who was thoroughly thrilled with the result.

Auntie Eilish Arrives

There is lots of excitement here this morning; my sister arrived yesterday from Ireland. Auntie Eilish is a big hit with everyone, with each of the kids vying for her attention. She brought lots of gifts for each of them so it’s a little like Christmas morning. Great to have you here Eilish, we’re really looking forward to the next two weeks.

Back Blogging...

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you should now be able to tell when I have exams for my MBA course; the blog postings grind to a halt. I have been up to my ears studying these last two weeks for the final exams of this quarter which were this Friday and Saturday. I’m quite pleased to have passed through this milestone. We had one final lecture yesterday after the exam; they provided refreshments to keep us all there, shown below is a picture of our class and a cool picture taken by my classmate Ram Bala (also pictured).

Isabel's Story

Since today was an extremely wet day, remnants of hurricane Issac, the girls entertained themselves with writing stories, on the computer. I was not given permission to post Anja’s story but Isabel didn’t care. She was very proud of her efforts, which made perfect sense to her. I’m sure you can figure it all out.

"Once upuntim therwr a kigdom and that  kigdomhad a princess a and that  prnicessluvt t o red wun dae the pricess hrd a nock on the dor et wus the mail man

The mail man had brot a packig the prnicss oped et en et wus a goges ganthet nit he wet to a bal athe he dast wef a hasum man un the bol son the bol wus ovovr ad he wet to tobed the next mon he went to the library

Aftr he wet awtsid and he pek sum berries ad he prekt hr fedr o the fon

Sudl he wup theend"