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Today I had to go back to work.  The upside was that my boss was on vacation today.  The downside was that there was a pile of work to do anyway.  Work ethic is such a pain in the butt.  My best friend at work bought me a gift while I was on vacation because, he said, it instantly made him think of me when he saw it:

"Those who think they know everything annoy those of us who do."

I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why it made him think of me .  Thanks Rich, I love it!

Today, we did our grocery shopping for the week, and had lunch at Culver’s while we were out.  After dinner we went for a walk on campus.  Tonight, we decided to walk on west campus and visit the Pioneer Cemetery.

There is an obelisk near the center of the cemetery commemorating Thomas W. Barber, the only casualty of the Wakarusa War.

The stones on the ground are the poem “Burial of Barber“, by John Wittier.  There is also an obelisk to commemorate the unknown dead Union soldiers of the Civil War.

Your history lesson for the day.  Oh, and I lost 1.6 pounds since my last weigh in.

Today we took it easy.  We slept in, then had lunch at India Palace.  After a lazy afternoon of catching up on the blogging and news, we determined we would have to go out for dinner because chili was the only thing we had the ingredients to make, and it just didn’t sound good in 95 degree weather.  So, we went to Encore.  Afterwards, we had ice cream from Silas and Maddy’s, then went for a walk on campus.  Our picture of the day is another interesting feature on campus: the bronze sculpture titled “The Pioneer”, by Frederick C. Hibbard, ca 1904.  It was the first sculpture on campus.  You can read more about it here.

The Pioneer

Today was the last day of the Summer Institute workshop.  It was scheduled to run until 3:30.  Unfortunately, check-out time was noon.  I had to come up with a way to entertain Charlie until Kris was finished.  All week, Charlie has been taking two-and-a-half hour naps from about 11:30 AM until 2:00 PM.  Today, I got her to sleep in the baby sling by about 11:15, without a fight.  I thought I was set.  I checked us out of the room, and went to wait through her nap in a (hopefully) quiet place.  I got all settled in.  Around 11:40, I get a text from Kris asking if I’d packed a pair of her shoes that had been in the closet.  I hadn’t.  I trekked through the noisy lobby, back up to the room, convinced the cleaning lady to let me in, and found … no shoes (later we figured out that Kris had forgotten that she’d packed them).  My second pass through the lobby ended Charlie’s slumber.  Hoping to soothe her back into a nap, I went for a walk outside, but she wasn’t having it.  So, we went to lunch.  After lunch, she still wasn’t ready to sleep, so I just walked the halls of the convention center with her for an hour.  Finally, around 2:15, I got her back to sleep in the sling.  At 2:20, Kris rolled up because the conference had ended early ($#%!!).  After waiting a while, we hopped the subway to get back to the airport, which took about an hour.  We had dinner at Five Guys after getting through security, then had an uneventful time waiting for departure.  Well, I say that.  They did switch departure gates on us after we checked in.  We were originally scheduled to leave from gate 36.  We actually left from gate 42.  But, anyway.

The flight home was extended so we could fly around thunderstorms in Kansas City, and we landed around 10:00 PM.  We finally got home around 11:15.  It’s good to be home.

We sat in the hotel room all day, again.   And read the same two books another twenty times, each.  I’m not complaining, though.  I love reading to her.  She and I have really bonded this week.  It has been wonderful.

Charlie's Favorite Books

You can see from the picture below that she favors “On the Farm”.  She has sampled its flavor on several occasions, even.  From the looks of it, you wouldn’t know it was brand new just five days ago!

It's seen better days

Charlie officially walks, now.  I was pretty sure she had strolled around a couple of times yesterday, but wasn’t positive.  When I’d look up from what I was reading, she’d fall.  So, I wasn’t sure if or how far she’d walked to that point.  Well, today I witnessed it.  She just went strolling across the room like she’d always been walking.  I caught this video of her walking around:

Charlie and I sat in the room most of the day, again. We read her books a bunch, again.  I have them memorized, now.  The big development for today is she was “walking” between the end table and the bed.  By “walking” I mean she’d take two steps while falling forward and face-planting into the soft side of the bed.  Of course, I made a huge deal about it so she kept doing it.  Maybe she’ll really be walking by the end of the week.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get any video.  Here’s a shot from breakfast:

Yummy Strawberry Nutri-grain Bar

Today was the first day of the Summer Institute workshop for Kris.  Charlie’s and my job is to hang out in the hotel room until designated times when we can go visit Kris so Charlie can nurse.  We are strictly not allowed to leave the room and go do fun things unless Kris is with us, wife’s orders.  So, there’s not much to report.  We just hung out and read those new books Charlie got from Carol.  Charlie is showing signs of being ready to walk.  I caught her standing without assistance next to the end table by my chair.  For dinner we went to a Greek restaurant called Ambrosia.  It was alright.  Our Greek place in Lawrence is much better.

Ms. Charlie

Today, we went into D.C. to the National Mall and visited the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. We rode the subway. We’d originally planned to go to the Smithsonian, but were pressed for time.  We ended up rushing over to the Lincoln Memorial, taking some pictures, then rushing back to the subway station to get Kris back in time for her workshop registration.  Even while rushing, it still took us an hour and a half to do the round trip from the subway station to the Lincoln Memorial, and back.

Lincoln Memorial

President Lincoln