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Last New Year’s was spent cooking, making music and beach combing Emerald Isle with friends and family. It is a dream we wish we could do every year! But Randy turns 50 but once. He also started his master’s degree. |
In February we joined a Cat Club where the only requirement is to be nuts about cats. What a hoot! We fit right in! At the time, I was working for Wipro Technologies and attended an Indian Cultural acclamation program. Our cultures are very different but I respected my colleagues’ good nature and intellect even if they were taking American jobs. Needless to say, I was conflicted working for them.
I attended The Climate Project reunion in Nashville and on the return trip Randy discovered his retina was detached and had emergency surgery. He still deals with his new disability daily. | I was spring tennis captain for my Moonball team; we had fun but lost miserably. Randy struggled hard after his eye surgery to maintain his reading load for his graduate classes at NCA&T and teaching at Surry Community College but thanks to friends and family driving him around, he made it.
In April, we volunteered again for the hugely successful Earth Day Fair and River Run Festival. Our favorite movie was the silent movie version of Phantom of the Opera with the live techno orchestra playing eerie music.
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Our goddaughter Brooke Newsome graduated from Appalachian in May. Since we don’t have children, we mark time by the Newsome kids’ significant life thresholds. Eight year old Amie Newsome whooped us at Texas-Hold-‘em that weekend in the mountains at Valle Cruces. It was very humbling.
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We had our 25th wedding anniversary in May. I always wanted to go to France, but we did the second best thing and had a long stay at the Biltmore Inn in Asheville. We did the movie-set-behind-the-scene-tour and stayed outside walking in the gardens the entire glorious spring stay. This pic is taken at the sight where Peter Sellers walked on water in the movie Being There, one of our favorite movies. |
In May, I started a new job at TIAA-CREF in Charlotte but telecommute mostly and carpool. What a blur June and July were with my new job and all the work there. Page Newsome graduated from high school – again helping us mark time.
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In August we rode the train to Savannah and fell in love with Paula Deen’s cooking. As if I needed another reason to love food.
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We were fascinated by the huge cargo ships that were taller than our tenth floor hotel room. Where IS all that stuff going? BTW, fog horns at 4 AM rattle your teeth and shake you from bed. Yowza! |
September and October were taken up by the grape and pumpkin harvest, hot dog roasts, hayrides and a chicken stew. Carolina Farm Stewardship and their Sustainable Agriculture Conference at Clemson inspired us to start several new adventures at the farm next spring. |
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November took me to the 10,000 geek CA World conference in Vegas to learn the latest tips and tricks and a long weekend with Randy seeing Beatle's Love, Blue Man Group and relaxing.
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Christmas in Pensacola will be spent with my brother Joe Groves. I haven’t seen him since we went Easter 2006 to spread his half of mom’s ashes in the Gulf of Mexico. |
It’s been a year of challenging growth in this drought, eh?
Cheers anyway!
Randy and Vivian
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