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Andrew Bird Live at C'est Lenoir 04-19-2004

I thought I would share this show with you. If you have the time to listen to the whole thing, you will be greatly rewarded. If not, I suggest starting with "I" (Imitosis) and "Skin." Enjoy.

P.S. Don't forget to turn off the playlist on the bottom right.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GORGEOUS!

Today is Amber's 27th birthday. I love her birthdays because they give me an entire day to celebrate her (please no comments on how I should be celebrating her everyday :) ). Amber is simply the most amazing person I have ever met. Her smile or a look from her eyes instantly lifts your spirits and fills you with a positive energy. She is unceasingly optimistic and unfathomably charitable. I don't know of anyone else who can meet a mentally healthy grown woman for the first time and within a few minutes have the woman crying on her shoulder and sharing the deepest pains of her past. (Actually happened). There is kindness and love in that face.

This is all old news to most of you, but I understand it more each year. The past nine years of my life have been the most enjoyable adventure with Amber leading me by the hand from one adventure to another. I have been happier than I deserve, but I'm not going to complain about overcompensation. We have had a lot of fun together, and, thankfully, we have years of fun ahead of us.

But more than an amazing friend and wife, Amber is a wonderful mother to Maya. Through two years of dirty diapers, sleepless nights, meal-time disasters, temper tantrums, and altered or ruined plans she has never lost her patience with Maya (or with me). She is always striving to make sure that Maya is experiencing new things and growing to be a healthy, happy baby. She is a constant in our lives.

Thank you. Happy Birthday, Gorgeous. I adore you.

My new favorite place

is inside a tiny window well. Maya found this at our friends home. It was just the right size to climb on in and dig in the dirt in the bottom with a stick she found. She came out of the window well with a ring of dirt around her mouth. Really, why buy toys when she can play in a window well for an hour?

The Man

.......finished law school classes! Now all that's left is two finals, and studying for the bar ALL summer. But look at that happy face, he sure looks excited to be done! We are so proud of you babe, for your hard work, and dedication. What would it be like to be someone who would stay in school forever if he could? That's Evan, he loves school so much that if he could get paid to go back, or it was relatively cheap (to get an LLM-a Masters in Law is insanely expensive) he would stay in school. What a great experience law school has been for us. We've loved living in Lexington and law school was not bad. But remember I have a husband who LOVES school, so I had it pretty easy. :)

The camping adventure

Evan being a "real man" and finding some wood for our fire.

Maya singing and dancing in a circle, oblivious to anyone else.

Mack, Evan's best bearded friend from law school.

Maya all bleary-eyed at 11pm.

We attempted camping this weekend, and went with some law students. We were only 30 minutes from our house, and the area was scenic and beautiful. We had a creek in front of our campsite, and flowering trees to enjoy. Evan made some chili and we were prepared to have a great weekend. Maya found some sticks to pick up as well as about 20 lbs of dirt that she threw up above her head in excitement that all landed in her hair. Mom and Dad, HOW IN THE WORLD DID YOU EVER TAKE 6 KIDS CAMPING????????? Well........things were going fine until bedtime. Maya simply didn't want to be in the tent by herself, and smoke kept fuming through our tent, and some people I know just have really loud voices, i.e. Evan and Mack. So going to sleep was impossible. We finally get Maya to sleep at 11pm and she is up coughing all night because of a cold she has, and as a result Evan and I were awake too. And then I had to go to the bathroom a million times it seemed like, so in all I think Evan and I each got about two hours of sleep! And it had POURED rain in the night, so all of our tents were wet and nasty. Anywho, I don't think we'll be trying this again for a little while. :)

On a side note: Maya Moo can say: "Am-bur" and "Ev-ahhhhhh" it is so funny to hear her say these.

And she can do a somersault.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! Maya actually was able to attend an easter egg hunt! Last year she slept through the easter egg hunt. But she didn't get very enthused for the hunt. She was more interested on the birds in the field and shouting at them. Maya played on this little panda and loved going down the slide. She mastered the art of hanging on the little bar above the slide then dropping and sliding down.

ESPANA!

Well, we survived! And Spain was AMAZING. We loved every minute there, and Maya was the superstar toddler of America. We expected the worst, but she tricked us and even on the long 10 hour flights there and back she was wonderful.

We visited 5 cities: Madrid, Granada, Ronda, Cordoba, and Segovia. And each city had unique features and things we loved. The countryside in Spain is simply gorgeous. Big, rocky mountains and rolling green hills. We rented a car, and thought we would get so lucky to have a little european car, and they gave us a ford focus! I'll give you some highlights of each city.

MADRID: Since we are somewhat cheap people, and Madrid is a very expensive city, and the dollar has no value whatsoever, we decided to stay in a little hostel. We arrive at the hostel and find that we have to CLIMB 4 flights of stairs to reach the hostel. Already it's 8am in Madrid and we haven't slept the night before, we were on the airplane, and Maya is in her jogger. So Evan and I with bags on our backs haul Maya up the 4 flights of stairs only to be told that the people staying in our room will not be out for 4 more hours. The number 4 is the lucky number at that hostel, 4 flights of stairs, 4 hours til we can even get in the hostel. And the hostel was about 10 x 10 and LOUD. Evan kept reassuring me that this was the most "un-nice" place we were staying! But, in Madrid we discovered something so delicous- churros and chocolate. Melted semi-sweet chocolate, which tastes so much better outside the U.S., and you dip a churro in it. It's the most delicious treat. We saw the King of Spain's castle, the Plaza Mayor, and loved the architecture there.

GRANADA: Granada is 2 hours south of Madrid and is near the Sierra Nevadas, which still had snow on the top, reminding me of the west. So lovely. We toured the Alhambra, ate chocolate filled croissants each morning, and ate the best lebanese food, and most wonderful dinner we had in Spain. We had the unfortunate event of getting lost until a nice man named Miguel got in our car and directed us to our hotel. Bless this man. By saying man he seems old, he was only about 20 or so. He got out of the car, and I was still holding onto his jacket, saying how grateful I was in my limited Spanish and trying to pay him.

RONDA: Little white mountain village. The drive to Ronda was the most beautiful drive in Spain. We saw the Mediterranean, and the mountains were majestic and the the valleys were green and lush. Ronda still has many of the streets in cobblestone, and was built over a canyon. It had great shopping, wonderful tours and we even took a little carriage ride there.

CORDOBA: We didn't love this town, too many people and too touristy, but it holds the Mezquite, which was a muslim mosque that had been taken over by the catholics and was now a cathedral, very impressive. It's known for it's red and white arches inside.

SEGOVIA: Wonderful! A little village up in the mountains north of Madrid. There is a castle there, which the castle in Sleeping Beauty was rendered after. We were able to stay in a hotel right on the main plaza, and eat chocolate croissants and churros and chocolate as well. We ate delicious crepes, and toured the castle. We loved this city and were happy it was our last stay.

It was great to go, and we were a little sad to come back to the ghetto, but we were so happy we had the chance.

Cathedral in Segovia illuminated at night.

This is inside the 'Sleeping Beauty' castle. Maya loved looking at the nights in armor.

Evan and I on top of the castle. We climbed 152 tiny stairs to reach the top.

The 'Sleeping Beauty' castle.

Maya and I in a little moutain village we explored one day. She loved the steps and hiding in doorways.

We took a carriage ride in our favorite city Ronda. We are standing outside the bull fighting arena where bull fighting was changed from being on horses to being on foot.

The valley surrounding Ronda. Such gorgeous mountains and green rolling hills to go along.

As you can tell, Maya loves bread. She'd eat this for her dinner half the time.