Big Trees & No Keys

How we spent the last few days before student teaching starts (tomorrow!): we discovered a small patch of old growth trees right here in the Niagara region of New York. It was 10 acres of towering Red Oaks and other various giants. Then on the other side of the river (Canada), we hiked in a magical mossy forest to find tall Tulip trees, fat hemlocks and old Cedars. Beautiful. All was successful besides when I fell off a rock, bloodied up my knee and tore my pants. We had a lovely glass of local wine in the quaint Niagara on the Lake and saw some Oldsqaws swimming on the surface of Lake Ontario under a full moon. Our friend Chris Lisowski came up from Pittsburgh for the weekend, whom we relaxed with. He brought us a new piece of art he made. Then he went back to Pittsburgh with my car keys in his pocket. Above is a picture of a tall Red Oak and one of the culprit and our new print. Luckily, our friend Tara let us borrow her car as she and Storms went off to Italy. We'll still make it to our first day of teaching tomorrow.

Adios 2005

See ya. It was a good year, I'll spare the recap of all 365 days, but I'll look back on it with very fond memories. We spent our Christmas in Massachusetts and then headed up to New Hampshire for some much needed time in nature and to ring in the New Year with some excellent friends. We snowshoed in the Great Gulf Wilderness area (one of our favorite White Mountain spots) next to the Peabody River and found excellent views of Mount Washington and Mount Madison. We also explored the old Cedar forests around Christine Lake and the area around the hypnotic Crystal Falls. All day on New Years Eve day Damien was perfroming beautiful 360s on his snowboard off of a jump he had built in the backyard. Later, with a half hour left until the new year, he went out to celebrate 2006 on a sled, hit that very same jump on his belly and broke a rib (or 2, we're not sure). Sadly, he missed snowboarding the next day at Sunday River. Fortunatley, he is finally starting to heal up, but if you see him, resist the Python hugs.
Yesterday we went to the Body Worlds exhibit in Toronto, and you haven't heard of it, check this out: http://www.bodyworlds.com/ Wow. Also had a good Ethiopian lunch. Happy New Year!