Countdown to Birthday Week

As Nora approaches her first birthday, she's been showing some big signs of maturity. Not only is she playing piano and opening doors (see last post), but she's taken up reading to her friends and my personal favorite... she's giving high-5s! I don't have any pictures of the latter yet, but I do have a couple pictures of her reading:

She also accompanied Naomi & me on an afternoon of canvassing in our neighborhood two weeks back. We were among 50+ volunteers in Ward 17 who walked the streets and knocked on doors, registering new voters, handing out mail-in ballot applications, and generally informing people about the voting process. If they wanted to know why we're voting for Barack Obama, we were more than happy to share this information with them as well! (More on this to come in a subsequent post)

Last weekend, we drove down to Yellow Springs for the fall Street Fair. They estimate over 10,000 people come into town for the festival these days. I'd say they cover that easily. The place was packed!

Nora took a little break with nature as we scarfed some Indian food


That night, Uncle Kevin played in his regular season soccer finale. It was Senior Night and he represented well with three goals and plenty of exciting plays. The Bulldogs shut out the visiting Eagles 9-0 (or was it 10-0? we lost count, and so did the scorekeeper!).The Seniors were asked to bring their families out on the field before the game. Here's our crew, with Rex, Naomi, Kevin, Nora, Linda, and Steve:

Nora liked the view from the second deck the best:

The next day, Steve took us out for lunch in Columbus's Short North district. Rumor had it that North Star featured one of the best veggie burgers in existence... the rumors were true!

Uncle Steve fed Nora some "off-the-menu" delectables: