Crafty Kate:)

The first picture is a sunset I painted with watercolors. The second picture I made in my scrap booking class with Brittney.

Who's the biggest baby?

The dog on the bottom is Marley. He's at least four years old because we adopted him from the SPCA in September of 2008, and he was pretty big when we got him. The squirmy six month old with the big smile is Jeremiah, Veronica and Brian's new baby. But Marley seemed to get very needy when Veronica brought Jeremiah over. Suddenly Marley needed a lot of attention. He put both paws on Veronica's knee. He whined. He even turned around and leaned backward against Veronica just begging to be petted. We called him shameless, and opportunistic, and pathetic. It didn't matter. Maybe we should change his name to Baby Huey!

Earth Day pictures

Earth Day

I saw a mother goose that was going to have goslings. She was sitting on a nest at Eastgate Park. But when Tracey tried to pick up an empty bag near the nest the mother goose just stood up and hissed. She had a bunch of eggs she was keeping warm.

We were at Eastgate Park for a clean up and picnic. We picked up some bottles, and plastic and yucky cigarette butts.
The best part was seeing the goslings with their parents in the pond. We threw bread to them, and fish and turtles ate the bread, too. There were eight babies.
My brother grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, and we ate salad and brownies, too. It was lots of fun. Lisa and her daughter Lauren were there. And Margie and Andrew and Austin. Tracey and her daughter Cynthia rode their bikes over. Kirsten brought her dog, Tyler. Marley would have just tried to chase the geese, so we left him at home. Ryan and Allen were there, too.
By the time we left it was pretty dark out, and we accidentally took a couple of bags of trash home!

Tracey Woodward has a farm....

Wednesday I got to visit Tracey, who lives close to us. She has four chickens! The one on her head is named Rocky.
Tracey was holding Rocky when all of a sudden Rocky started flapping her wings and hopped up on Tracey's head. Luckily she didn't try to lay an egg up there!
The chickens lay eggs every day, and the eggs are all different sizes, just like the chickens. In the other picture Tracey is holding Sara Redneck, a pretty little bantam hen who lays really tiny eggs.
I think it would be a lot of fun to have chickens. But I'm a little worried about what Marley would do. My mom has to hang on to the leash for dear life when he sees a rabbit or goose in our neighborhood.

Kate here!

The snowman really isn't part of my support circle, but we made it the day my support circle got together for the first time. It was fun. We decorated cookies and talked about things we'd like to do and places we'd like to go.
We thought about maybe going kayaking and camping, and having a trash pickup. Ryan asked if I could write in a blog to let everyone know what was going on. My mom has this blog called Operation Independence, and she said I could use it.
So we are trying to figure out the best time to meet -- are weekends better or nights? Should we meet every six weeks and do something fun?
We are going to Ohio next weekend because Joe (holding on to Marley in the picture) has a guitar audition. And my mom and I are going down to Florida the third week of March to visit my Oma and Opa. But we will be around after that.
So let me know what you would like to do!
Love, Kate

Snow! It didn't pack well for a snowman, but it was perfect for snow angels. The dogs liked it, too. Watching them try to jump over 20 inches of powder was great fun. We made our annual trek up to Delaware for Christmas, stopping at Lake Mattamuskeet on the way to marvel at the thousands of tundra swans, geese, loons and other birds that spend the winter on this 40,000 acre lake each year. We came home on Sunday, and have spent this week enjoying the opportunity to sleep in, watch movies (Kate received the National Parks DVD set for Christmas) and play games. Tim and I took Kate to therapy yesterday, where Tim met Kyle Covington, her new physical therapist. Kevin Caves, the director of the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center at Duke, watched Kate use a walker and tried to figure out how students in his biotechnology engineering class could slow it down. Many times Kate moves too fast for her own good, and what she needs is a device that senses when the walker is going too quickly and applies some counter force. He wasn't at all sure that they could come up with a workable walker, but if they are willing to give it a try I will be happy to make as many trips out to Durham as they need. The trickiest part of Kate's injury is her lack of balance. She can walk with crutches as long as I am in front of her making sure she doesn't step ahead of her crutch or put it in the wrong position. She can use a walker as long as someone is right there to apply counter force and help her turn. I know I won't be around forever, and I am afraid that the people who help her later in life will find it easier to have her in a wheelchair all day. Wheelchairs obviously have lots of advantages. They can increase independence and help people get around faster. But when you sit around in one all day your muscles atrophy and you don't get any exercise. The people I know who use wheelchairs exclusively get so weak that they eventually need help getting in and out of it. If they gain weight and lose muscle tone they have to use a motorized lift to get into bed, or into the shower. So I guess my New Year's resolution will be to continue to work on more physical independence. I'd better get Kate moving!