Walk to the Back Bay

Papa and Aidan and Cody (and me) take a walk down the street.

They are so cute! We live next door to a National Wildlife Refuge and frequently make the walk to the end of the road to check things out.

Parts of it are not open to the public, just to the critters. Apparently the critters won't make babies if too many people are poking their heads in. We are glad to cooperate and stay out of their way.

But if you walk down our road, there are beautiful things to see. It changes with the seasons.
These grasses are called phragmites and they are everywhere in the marshes by the end of the summer, weighted down by their heavy heads.

Pickerel Rush grows in the marshes, too, and blooms in the summer.

The butterflies love these flowers. 

This black swallowtail is  flitting from flower to flower. 

It's a beautiful creature. 

I love the purple flowers. 

This is the Back Bay. It's a large body of water edged by a narrow strip of land across from us that keeps out the Atlantic ocean. The land on the other shore is the northernmost portion of the famous strip of land known as the Outer Banks. It looks like a line in these pictures. 

If you were to drive South on that little strip of land you would be in North Carolina. They don't let you do that, though. It's a bird sanctuary. 

I guess a spider sanctuary too. 

See that line on the horizon. Yup, the northern Outer Banks. We call it Sandbridge.  

They close the Back Bay in winter, but we pedestrians who live on this street are able to slide in beside the poles and stay a while. 

And then walk home again. 

Back in the house, I sit in my chair and take a shot of my gorgeous roses. These are the dribs and drabs of my summer roses. So gorgeous on my cluttered table next to my favorite leather chair.  My spot. 

The Back Bay is beautiful and all, but nothing thrills me like fresh flowers. Nothing.  

Psalm 24:1
 The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him.

My Genius SIL

In the early Spring, my military son-in-law started a business. He will be out of the Navy in a year or so, and is preparing for life on the "outside". That means a new source of income. In his free time, he designed an I-pad app for public speaking, called Podium Pro. He entered a contest for new business start-ups in our area, called Hatch. Hatch gathered the energies of successful business people to coach the most promising new business ideas. My SIL placed second among 73 finalists. He was awarded office space to work in for the summer, along with several other finalists. He also got housing for his Coder--that's the person who actually writes the program in computer binary language.

Customer FeedbackVideo TutorialBlog – Give Better Talks- Sneak Peek of Podium Cue- Follow us on Twitter- FacebookPodiumPro LitePodiumPro Full VersionBehind The Scenes

breaking news: My SIL got written up today at Techcrunch.com...so proud of him:
click here to read

Below, you can see the work space and one of the teams furiously at work. I love all the writing on the the glass. Lots of brainstorming going on here.

 

T
These guys created a phone tracking program. They made a zombie tag game, but the program has a lot of real-life military, police, and social work potential.  

The door of this team's office.
Zombies, werewolfs, vampires...I just don't get it. Not quite the right demographic, I guess.

This is my SIL's coder, Paul, who is from Mumbai, India. He's one smart man. 

Here is my SIL's back, with his logo t-shirt sporting a microphone. The other guys across from him have developed an app for sharing music-making. It takes the place of a studio.

My SIL very seriously engrossed in preparing his presentation for that night. Podium Pro replaces powerpoint, evernote, and all other methods of note-keeping for public speaking. You can put your whole message on your Ipad, including your slides and videos, and it splits the screen to show what your audience sees, and keeps the speaker's notes coordinated. It also gives a preview of what is coming next in the talk, and timer to stay within the allotted time slot. It also allows you to record yourself speaking, and allows your audience to twitter you as you speak to respond directly to their questions. It's a ground-breaking tool. 

Later in the evening, they met with the area business leaders to give their presentation. 

The room filled up with an expectant audience of coaches and supporters, who had something to eat before the presentations began.

We were in the audience too. Notice my husband on the chair, and Sean behind him. 

The recording crew. 

Here they are: the Podium Pro guys. Nice logo. 

Here they are with the founder of Hatch, and the Hatch logo on the screen. 

Sean's fan club, daughter, wife and FIL. 

Okay, that's all the pictures I took. Once the presentations started, I put my camera away. I will say my SIL did a phenomenal job describing his new app. If you are interested in more information, click here: Podium Pro.
I am just intrigued by the opportunities that exist for the energetic and disciplined innovator. It's a whole new world, and I am proud of my SIL for finding his place in it. 

End of Summer at the Farm

The grass is still a beautiful emerald green, but the trees are starting to turn red and gold.

The rockers on the porch are waiting for visitors.

The garden is fading. I am only getting a few roses a day now, and even fewer tomatoes. 

The pond is quiet. The turtles are not sunbathing anymore. 

The potted plants are blooming less.

The dragonflies are disappearing. 

The barn is quiet. 

The coke planter is getting ready for bulbs so we can have blooms in spring. 

The screen porch is vacant. 

The front door is getting decorated for Fall. 

The summer flowers will be replaced with mums.  

The entry will be full of pumpkins, orange wreaths and autumn flowers.  

No one is swimming in the pond. 

No one is climbing on the fort. 

All the kids are back in school and the farm is quiet at the end of summer. We turn our energies toward preparing for the cool days that are coming.
Nothing is as beautiful and cozy as Fall.

Eccles 1:3
For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.

Our Best of Maui 2012

A hot tub full of good friends. 

Inner tube sombreros.

Mama's Fish House with our besties.

Rachel and her handsome brotherswere able to join us at Mama's.
They were on Maui for their grandfather's memorial service. 

An outdoor roller rink, right next to the ocean... in the dark. Friday night cool!

Ah yes! Keeping  their balance. 

Joe leading worship with his ukulele at Hope Chapel. 

Bailey and friends at Lava Java Horse ranch. 

Clare takes a turn around the ring, with a cloudy Haleakala mountain in the background. 

Then Bailey rides like a paniolo. 

 Candy gets Aidan up on the saddle for his first ever ride. It's getting dark.

And Isabel takes a ride in the dark, too. 

And the big surprise: Papa takes a gallop. 

The next morning, Aidan learns to stand up paddle with the sunrise.
The island of Lanai is in the distance. 

Aidan was a natural. 

Smooth landing on shore. He never fell once.  

Two days of water slides at the Grand Wailea Hotel. 

Papa's idea of island fun- a smoothie and a cell phone. 

"Shaka"

A final farewell to our most excellent "Grand"vacation. Eighteen days on Maui without the parents...and they were angels.
Can't wait for next year.
With our way too quickly growing grandchildren, we want to seize every moment we can.