Team USA

IBM sponsored last night's Team USA vs. Team Canada (colllege) baseball game last night at the Durham Bull's stadium. We were lucky enough to get free tickets, t-shirts, and food vouchers ($5 each). Thank you!

We had a great time!!!

We ate philly cheesesteak sandwiches and chicken nuggets kids' meals before going to out seats. We sat in section 213, row v seats 9-12. We were in the shade, and with a gametime temp of 90, that worked out just fine!

To occupy the boys, I took lots of pics, and we ate cotton candy and snowcones while we watched. Yum!

Joey really liked Wool E. Bull, but in the end, it was Johnny who went with me to make friends (and nearly get carried off!).

1 homerun tonight near the end. Team USA won 8-1. We got to the see bull blow smoke out his nose. Cool! We saw AWESOME fireworks. I am so glad we stayed. I think I enjoyed them more than any other show we've seen in the last 5-10 years. First, they were pretty long. Second, they were right in front of us. The kids loved it...even the big bangs.

Joey talked me into a baseball at the gift shop on our way out. Johnny wanted a fancy chip clip?

I hope we'll go again. If nothing else, I need to walk along the canal in the shopping area and snap some more pics!

There are some more great pics and firework video here.

Lovely Orchids

Yesterday, I took a bunch of pics of my orchids. I have 4 in bloom right now, and each summer when they bloom, I carry them out to my back deck for pics. I put them up on the deck rail with the dark woods in the background and shoot away. This flower always seems to be in the best shot. The background bokeh in this one was my favorite of the bunch too. Shady was almost too dark yesterday, and sunny was too bright. Johnny enjoyed helping as he played nearby.

Now, I have orchids that actually bloom because I have a Floralight Plant rack. Mine is 3 tiers high. And, if you really want healthy indoor plants, you need good light. The only problem with it is having a spot big enough in the house for it and that it gets DUSTY. At any point, with good light all year long and regular watering all I have to do is wash off the leaves a few times a year, and I'm all set.

The Writing Spider

If you're not a fan of spiders, sorry! This spider/web was by my favorite swamp area this morning. I stopped to see what was up at the swamp on the long way to take Joey to school:-) I took several all web shots and several macro shots of just the spider. He's pretty cool and harmless. In this case, his web was low to the ground and relatively small. He was also smaller than I've seen. Often these guys build 3'-4' webs and are 2" long themselves.

In North America, Argiope aurantia is commonly known as the "black and yellow garden spider", or "writing spider," after the mistaken idea web stabilimenta were correspondence. Webs with the 'writing' tend to catch less bugs, but their higher visibility to birds keeps them from getting flown through and destroyed.

Joey and Johnny had one of these spiders outside their bedroom window the entire summer last year, but the screen was behind the web, and pictures of it were not noteworthy. The boys did enjoy watching the spider move around through the safety of their window, though.