Recently framed and adorning the walls

Birds These Days

Her Majesty's Booty

By Justin Hillgrove (Seattle artist)

Giving Thanks 2007 Spectacular

We always have lots of lovely people over for dinner, but we often forget to take pictures of the entire crowd. This is probably a good thing because who really posts blog entries about what they do all the time ... except for everyone who lives in Seattle and us, I guess.

Anyway, even though we have no photographic evidence of it, the weekend before Thanksgiving we had a lovely dinner with some of my Whelihan cousins -- David, Michael and Alexis -- and also Brian, Bridgette and TBD. Mike and Alexis were able to visit with us for the weekend. What a great couple, easy guests and a fun time!

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This year’s day-of-eating-too-much was wonderful. Brian, Bridgette, TBD (the non-born baby), Charlie (the teen-angst dog), Joshua and I spent the long weekend with my parents in Carlisle among the fall colors.

We were able to enjoy a wonderful (and traditional!) meal together with one of the student from Dickinson College, John Paul.




Celebrate Mom’s 35th birthday!




Watch Flicker (TBD) push on Bridgette’s belly.

Eat mass quantities of the povitisa Joshua made last weekend.

And play with the dog in the backyard.

All in all a great weekend!

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EDIT: I cannot believe that I forgot some of the other exciting activities!
* BOWLING
* Hershey Bear's Hockey
* and 9-ball in the basement ... although when Joshua beat Dad and I two games in a row, while still calling the balls by the color instead of the number, I'm not sure what that should be called.

Camden Action -- Community Policing

Last night, Camden Churches Organized for People (CCOP) held its first big-league action since Joshua started working for the non-profit. Well over 900 individuals from Camden showed up to share information with Anne Milgram, New Jersey's Attorney General . While she didn't agree to the demands the community made regarding the appointment of some key police positions and the implementation of community policing, the meeting ruffled a lot of feathers ... which, remember, is a good thing in community organizing work (tension = putting pressure on elected officials to do their job).

"Milgram says Camden won't hire new police leaders", New Jersey's Courier-Post

The 35 empty chairs in front of the panel of speakers represent the 35 homicides Camden has endured this year. Each chair was labeled with the names and ages of the victims.

In a presentation by CCOP community leaders, it was reported that last year Philadelphia had over 400 murders. It was noted that if the crime rate per capita in Philadelphia was as bad as Camden, the city would have lost over 700 individuals last year due to homicides. This is an astounding figure -- more than two a day! The fact that such a relatively small city like Camden has such a high crime rate is disheartening.

Most of the meeting had great energy and, of course, included some group songs about marching. All great revolutions include songs about marching!

Even though many people left the meeting feeling frustrated that, once again, Camden's needs are being ignored, this is when Joshua's job gets interesting. Taking that frustration and turning it into more action is not an easy job, but an exciting one!

Appalachian Trail in November

We didn't take pictures during our backpacking trip this past weekend. But these are photos I found online of the area where we hiked -- near Allentown. Photos can never seem to capture the bright, beautiful colors of a Pennsylvania fall, but you get the idea. If we took the pictures, we probably would have focused on the little bit of SNOW we saw and how going to bed around 8:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights is the thing of CHAMPIONS!

Halloween continued (ZOMBIES!!)

Halloween Decorations

Shanti is on first watch of the pumpkins tonight. She will be done at four bells.

Our house decided to help with Halloween decorations by masquerading as a leaky roof. It was an excellent costume. So real, in fact, we are stuck with it until it is fixed. Awesome.
But since we don't really bother ourselves with such trivial matters, let's see more of those pumpkins! (l-r: Emily, Joshua, Laura)

WAR Memorabilia

Patrick gave us some awesome gifts from Afghanistan!

Look at the emblem on the tee-shirt we received. No one in South Philly is going to mess with us now. We may not even need to wear our brass knuckles all the time now. Gosh only knows it makes typing difficult.

Thanks, Patrick! You are the greatest. 55 days and counting .... and some crossed fingers that 55 days is a true estimate, which is difficult to do with the brass knuckles and the typing and all, let us tell you!