Where to begin...

So we were invited out for a special dinner by one of my graduating student's families - Daniel Andrews. Daniel was born in Tokyo, Japan and loves all things Japanese so it was only natural for his parents to invite us to eat at Restaurant I - one of Charlotte's hidden gems.
Our food was prepared by this guy:

Chef Masa Kokubu is the talent in the kitchen. He works at the speed of light wielding a set of stainless steel chopsticks as if they were extensions of his nimble fingers. His eye for color, structure and creative presentation on the plate is outdone only by his talent for subtle and superb blending of flavors. Trained in both French and Japanese cuisine, Kokubu comes to Charlotte after 13 years at the Westin Hotel in Toronto. He is our very own IronChef - France.

Thanks to the Andrews Family we feasted on Beef Fondue au Shabu-Shabu - a thinly sliced beef that we cooked ourselves in a broth. It was amazing to say the least. I am really appreciative of this experience - but more appreciative of being able to be a part of Daniel's life.

A big thank you also goes out to Susan Williams who took great care of Piper and Sophia while we were out. We are so thankful to have someone like the William's family in our lives - they truly love our girls as was evidenced by Susan's bearing with a rather eventful evening.

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So I have a video of Piper "talking" to share - but google video is taking some time to process it and I would like to head to bed ASAP...so I will share this stuff instead:

Had we been keeping up with a blog in the past couple of weeks, this occurance would have been posted in "real time", but unfortunately we didn't - so it is going to have to happen all in one big bang: So - Mid-April - a bird built a nest in the wreath on our front door:

Pretty cute...huh? It was really an interesting experience: wondering when the eggs would be laid - and there were eggs laid - 4 of them, blue ones = still cute. And then, they hatched

Can you make out what is going on there? Neither could we. There were 3 baby birds that hatched that day and it was an incredible day to experience nature. The beauty of new birth and the process of life. And then, the mess came:

This is the part that you don't read about in the books - the poopy mess, a poopy poopy mess. So now, not only could we not make out what was going on in there bird wise (I mean seriously we couldn't tell which end was which for the first 2 weeks) we also could not open the door without feeling bad about jostling these new creatures or spilling poo onto the floor. So today was graduation day:

This was the birds before they flew the coop. I'd like to say we were totally endeared to them and will miss seeing their progress of growth - but we were not and are not sad. Been there, done that, cleaned the poo.