Miles and hi class went on a trip to the zoo 2 weeks ago. Here he is with his 5th grade buddies (4th from right). Thanks to sarah for the pic!

Slugs are eating all my lettuce. I put out saucers of beer last night and am quite shocked at the instant results. Look at all the slugs lured to their deaths, away from my lettuce! Thank you Nan and the Kennys for this tip I remember you mentioning years ago! Liam and I are discussing who should empty out the saucers… it’s really icky in there.

The Newberry Band performed an extra gig last weekend at the Newberry spring celebration. They sounded great! Miles is in the back row with the rest of the percussion section.

We’re so proud of Liam! He was inducted in to the National Honor Society branch at his high school in a ceremony on Tuesday evening. For readers unfamiliar with NHS, it’s a national organization in the US (and according to Wikipedia, other countries too! Did not know that!) established in 1921, that recognizes students based on scholarship, leadership, character and service. This reporter was hoping to also get a photo of Liam in his nice clothes by the greenhouse at school, to nicely capture the other piece of news: he’s been appointed Greenhouse Manager for the next school year! But…

We’re just hanging out in the back garden on a very hot weekend, and I thought i’d share some pics of how it’s all looking! Photos show how big the oak leaf hydrangeas have grown, a lovely prairie iris in bloom, how tall the garlic stalks are, and john in his favorite reading spot.

Mysel, Miles and Cynthia went to a great neighborhood festival celebrating all things related to mole sauce, but also included Luche libre or mexican wrestling

John and miles looked so nice dressed alike one day last week I had to get a photo of them together!

I had a great working vacation to New Orleans last week, where along with some UX folks who design websites and mobile apps for Twitter, Google, Obama for America, I spent 5 days in NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana) talking to muscians (from buskers to rising hip hop stars), record producers, managers, promoters, and social services, trying to figure out what tools could be developed to help the artistic community there.  The whole initiative was called “UX4Good.”  A lot of hard work, but met a lot of amazing people, in a really amazing city.  Definitely will try to get back there…

Miles went to work with John on Thursday and got to live the life of a “madman” ad guy, including writing, performing and shooting an ad for KFC

Installing plumbing at the community garden Garlic, parsley and swiss chard that overwintered in the back yard