The Suit

Kip has had a sport jacket before, but never a whole suit. He was invited to a girl's sweet 16 party at the country club, and the invitation said, "dress to impress!" The birthday girl asked Kip to wear a bow tie, and being the comedian he is, he wanted to find a big joke bow tie. I asked if he wouldn't rather knock them dead with how hot he could look, rather than always feeling like he had to be funny? So... After countless trips to dressing rooms in different stores, He found a suit that made me smile when he came out of the dressing room! The red shirt makes so much more of a statement than a plain white one would have, and although the red & black necktie that came with the shirt looks very nice, the white bow tie was the perfect touch. He did change his mind about the hat, though, and left it in the car at the last minute...

PS: Kip says the party was great, and girls danced with him all night. He didn't even have time to take any pictures!

Feeding the Birds

I got some cool new garden stuff for Christmas, which made me want to hang all my bird feeders out Here's a few of the visitors I had. The squirrels will eat up all the seeds if I don't open the door occasionally and let Blizzard out to chase them! I keep hanging the purple feeder farther out on the branch, but they apparently don't weigh that much more than birds, or don't care if they're hanging precariously as long as they're scoring food!

The welcome guests include chickadees, which came in full force and for some reason, remind me of childhood winters in Maine. We also have several female cardinals and a few woodpeckers. The woodpeckers are colorful against all the brown of the other birds. Looks like I'll have to buy a book to help identify the ones I'm not familiar with. Meanwhile, it's fun watching through the big breakfast nook window and trying to capture a really good photo. Birds move so quickly...

(Click on a picture for a large view)