Mmmmm, tasty! Emma was watching us eat dinner, and decided to try out my thumb for practice.

Peeping Emma. Emma is now getting tall enough to see out over the top of the carrier we have. As usual, we took her down to Farmer's Market, and she was looking at everything.
On Monday, she was measured at 24" and a bit, and 10 pounds 14 ounces. By today, at 11 weeks old, she should be 11 pounds. She is healthy, hungry, and alert, and got her latest round of immunizations.



Last week, we had a tornado warning, with the storm predicted to pass very close to the airport. Since we live very close to the airport, we became very concerned. Sienna was looking for a place to hide for about an hour, even after the storm had passed. When I got out a pan to make dinner, she decided to try out that latest opportunity.


Last Sunday, my brother Steve did the latest Opera Cowpokes show, which was Emma's first concert. She seemed to enjoy it; we certainly did. He has also released his DVD, which is fun. I had a little trouble playing it on our older DVD player, but it turned out great played on the computer.

Big Leaf Magnolia. This tree is in the gardens at Cornell Plantations. The flowers, as you see, are twice the size of my head. Emma is entirely hidden by the size of the leaves. These normally only grow in the south, but this is a protected spot at Cornell and so has grown taller than a two-story building.

Two faces of Emma. The first is her inquisitive looking-around face. She uses it alot. The second is one she uses when she's happy and in the midst of smiling. It is fleeting, and blossoms into a full, glorious smile. Those pictures, of course, didn't come out.

Fort Hardy. My current project is locating the French and Indian War fortification, Fort Hardy. The pictures here are of what is left of the earthworks of the fort. Last year, we went out and did Ground Penetrating Radar with Bodhi Rogers at Ithaca College. That allowed us to make an informed decision about where to excavate. We put in a small unit, and found not only the transition point of the rampart and ditch, but also three postholes from the wall that had been built at the top of the rampart. The first picture show a piece of the slope preserved in our excavation unit, and the second shows a profile of one of the post holes.

Admittedly, it doesn't really look like very much, but it really is an exciting thing to find. And an interesting point is that we found no artifacts with the earthworks, so there's nothing to draw looters to dig up the park to find "goodies."

Bye-bye RAV. This is what happened to the RAV after the accident. The insurance company added up what it would cost to fix the car, it was more than 80% of the value, and declared it totaled. They cut me a check right there, plus one for a new car seat (they took away the old one). I went and bought a new car seat, then later we went and bought a Forester at Ridge Road Imports. We'll pick it up Saturday.

We also went to the planning board meting last night and got conceptual approval from the planning board. We'll need to bring them a drawing of the actual flag lot and the distance between the property line and the neighbor's house next month, and we'll also have the public hearing right afterward.

It was a pretty crazy day filled with big changes in what our lives will be like.

A raft of pictures of Emma. The difference between now and just a couple of weeks ago is remarkable. She is smiling (a glimpse of which is in the first image), looking around, focussing on things, and being much more lively and active. In the last couple of days, she's been stringing sounds together in a way she hadn't before, in a form of proto-talking (yes, it will be a while before actual speech, but this is one of the early first steps toward speech). She's now eight weeks old, and will be two months old in the early part of next week.

On the accident and insurance front, we got called back and gave our statements to the insurance investigator so they can determine liability (which is pretty straight forward, but he needs all the statements before it can officially be determined). The local guy who will look at the car will be around tomorrow, since life never happens on weekends. We also won't get the rental car until tomorrow since it is reunion weekend and the rental agencies are out of cars.

A lot has happened since I last posted, but tonight was tough. We were heading home from Cornell and were hit by a fellow driving too fast down a hill, in the rain, on a curve. We're all ok, but the RAV is pretty much trashed. The police cited him for failure to exercise sufficient caution under special circumstances, or something like that. Emma seems to have fared through this better than Laurie and I, probably because she has no idea what happened. Thank god for car seats.

I'll post more later.