Ahoy, Mateys!

It be (the day after) Talk Like a Pirate Day, and Piper and I dressed for the occasion! Yar, and such!

Rrrrr!

Happy birthday to me!

Whoops, forgot to post this last week! We have a birthday hat at work... I wore the birthday hat for my birthday.

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

Yes, we did the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge! For the unaware and for posterity, this is what I'm talking about: someone who does the challenge nominates you (and a couple other people). Then, you have the choice to either donate $10 to ALS (amyotropic lateral sclerosis) research and dump a bucket of ice water over your head, or donate more (I've heard varying rules, from $25 to $100 or more).

My husband, whose name is also Alex, was nominated by his friend. Since we have the same name, I decided to do it with him. You can see that here if you like.

Piper wanted to join in the fun/donations, so I made an LV-friendly version of the ice bucket challenge. Her video is below:

Disclaimer: No LVs were harmed in the making of this video! (The water-less version seemed more appropriate for someone made of fabric. My other LV, Damson, did this version too!)

My mother-in-law actually matched the donations from me and my husband, so I'm calling that a donation for each of my LVs.

And here's Piper with me after I got soaked:

Things to Come

About a week ago, we went to Husband's white coat ceremony for medical school, where they take the Hippocratic Oath and get their coats (symbolic of the medical profession)...

And this week, we attended convocation for the school I work at (where the president gives out awards to faculty/staff, tells us about the budget and projects the school is working on, etc.)...

And while both of those events were interesting and informative, that's a lot of sitting still and listening quietly. So we need to do something a little more... fun? Here's a clue:

Stay tuned to see if you guessed right about what we're going to do!

Happy Birthday to the Library!

Our library just opened a year ago, so today we had a big celebration! Patrons could follow the "Trivia Trail" with green feet on the floor to take them to stations with balloons as markers, and each station had a photo of an event we had in the past year, and information about that area of the library.

The staff all wore little buttons to commemorate the day, and I grabbed a couple for Piper and Damson:

We put up banners at the service desks so everyone would know what we were celebrating.

And of course, we had a pot luck lunch, with a beautiful cake!

Since we are a joint-use library, we abbreviate ourselves as JUL,
pronounced "jewel." Thus the "crown JUL."

Cosplay & DCI

Piper and I visited my friend Beth so we could start making my Margaery Tyrell dress for New York Comic Con!

Piper and Damson supervise Beth's sewing

What a great pattern!

The pieces are cut for the top

I stopped taking photos so I could help Beth, so the next one is
the mostly-finished product! We have some tweaks to make,
but I had to leave to get home to start the next part of the trip...

Blue Devils drum corps at the Charlotte NC show!
They're currently first place for the season. Their show is "Fellini-esque."

Hanging out by the pool...

...which is on the roof of the hotel and has this awesome view straight up.

And this awesome view straight out.

Ahh, pool day.

Another neat building from the pool on the roof.

Glimpsing the mountains on our drive from Charlotte to Salem.

Piper enjoys the encore performance by my personal favorite corps, Carolina Crown.

It was quite a week of learning for Piper! Sewing techniques, drum corps lingo, how to drive in a giant triangle all the way around the state of Virginia (and into North Carolina)...

Olive Bread, Churro Bites, Make It So

It was a crafty weekend for me and Piper! We made olive bread and churro bites for dinner at a friend's house, then cross-stitched a gift for my boss!

Churro bites = diced angel food cake rolled in cinnamon & sugar!

Mmm, warm olive bread!

For the boss... er, captain.