Kat comes for a visit

My very close friend Kat came out to visit me in Cherry Point and we had a ball. We have been friends since high school and have remained close even though we don't live in the same state. She just had her second baby seven months ago so we are both in the same boat on being older Mom's. We took a day trip up to Washington D.C mostly because I had to be seen at Walter Reed for IVF #4. It was great to have seven hours of girl chit chat and reminiscing on the drive up and the same on the drive back. Dave and I also took her to his squadron to check out the Harrier jets. Here are some pics:

North Carolina has these wacky little family cemeteries on family land. This one was from the 1800's - the Majette family:

Kat says she always wanted to be a jet fighter pilot... I told her she was crazy...

First Haircut

Brenden's hair was getting very long and very curly. Very cute for a baby but we still thought it time to take him to get his first haircut. He did very well and I have to say he looked like a little adult sitting in the barber chair. Where did our baby go? I forgot my camera so I was reduced to taking pictures with my Blackberry hence the poor quality images.....

Cuyamaca Communication Arts Building gets award from CCFC.

The Communication Arts Building at Cuyamaca Community College that Tom Christian and I did (Tom was a former Partner at NTD Architects where I also worked for 8 years) was given an Award of Honor by the Community College Facilities Coalition (CCFC) in November 2008.

Tom and I started work on the design of the building in 1999 before the project was shelved due to lack of funding. Once the bonds passed and the project resumed, it took four years to complete. It is one awesome design that I could talk about for hours. Since I won't do that here, I will put a few pictures of the project up and the text of the publication that came out in November 2008. I think this is definitely one of my favorite designs that I have had the privilege to work on. The construction document phase of the job was something else. A thirty foot tall retaining wall that no one will ever see because the buildings are set into the grade. My Structural Engineer Josh wanted to kill me over this project!

NTD Takes the Cake in Community College Design Awards
November, 2008
(Sacramento, California) November 11, 2008 – NTD Architecture, a 275-person award-winning design firm with seven offices across the West, has received two Awards of Honor from the Community College Facilities Coalition (CCFC) for their design of the Communication Arts Building at Cuyamaca College and the Lincoln Joint-Use Public Library at Twelve Bridges Learning Center. The firm was officially handed the award certificates at the 15th Annual CCFC Conference, which took place on November 6 in Sacramento.

“Being given a CCFC award is a monumental achievement for community college designers and community colleges alike,” says Jon Alan Baker, AIA, Partner at NTD Architecture. “Not only does it assure us that we are giving our clients the top rate designs that they expect of us, it also shows that we are giving the students the best type of facility in which to learn.”

The Communication Arts Building earned its award in the Growth category, which encompasses new community college facilities. Completed in the fall of 2007, the 84,000 square foot facility features a 400-seat theater with support spaces, an acoustically optimized music department, a 100-seat digital theater capable of wide screen cinema projection, art labs, and a lobby that serves as the main gallery space for the fine arts program. Optimal use of day lighting reduces the building’s energy footprint.

What is this big white furry thing you are wanting me to touch?

Yesterday Dave and I took Brenden to the Grant's Landing Community center where they were doing an Easter egg decorating and meet the Easter Bunny event. He is much too young of course to know what's going on but we wanted to get him out to see other kids. He even got to 'find' two Easter eggs which he loved to shake the entire rest of the afternoon. Verdict is still out on what he was thinking when he met Mr. Bunny.

He even got gifts from both Grandma Barton and Nana Slay:

I love this warm (not HOT) weather!

Time to shed the clothes and put the sunscreen on. I am so sick of being indoors and my skin and mood are showing it. Today, besides cleaning the house which I hate more than just about anything, we got out the splash pool for Brenden. It's also an excuse for Dave and I to sit outside, relax and have a beer -ahhh now that is more like it! What more could one ask for on a Sunday? Of course Brenden didn't know what the hell we were putting him into but he eventually assumed it wasn't going to bite him:

The intro to the spash pool:


The splash pool ~part two:

Newport Pig Cookin' Contest.. it's a big deal around these parts.

Yes.. it's true we went to the Newport Pig Cookin' Contest today and it was...interesting. Apparently about 100 contestants stay up all night cookin' pig to be judged the next day. These guys take this stuff seriously. They have trailers with their pit BBQ's that they haul from all over the state. North Carolina BBQ is pretty good I would have to say. I couldn't eat all my pig but Brenden did help us out a bit:

Of course we had to do something civilized afterward so we went to the Aquarium. It's the old stand by for something to do here on the weekend. I finally got a picture of Brenden smiling with his teeth showing. He is getting two more. Oh boy..