Happy Halloween!

Spencer Ray has, of course, been the center of our world these last four plus months (five months on November 3!). He melts our hearts daily with his smiles, squeals, and coos. Every day seems to bring a new skill, sound, or movement. He's rolling over and swimming on his tummy (building core muscles for sitting up), bouncing around in his activity center, and helping me water the plants from his Ergobaby carrier. 

James is back to work and slowly getting back to running as he waits for his appendix surgery. We're so thankful his body protected him from his ruptured appendix and that he was able to fight the infection with antibiotics. Currently, his surgery is scheduled for the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

It seems I am in a crash course on priorities. Juggling chores around the house with a full time job, being mom and wife and conducting the Central Texas Philharmonic Youth Symphony creates a very long to do list with only enough time to get a few things done each day. So many of you already know what that is like and I have even more admiration and respect for you now :)! There are so many amazing parents in our family. You are all true inspirations.

Now for some Spencer pictures! Lots of love from Austin. Hope to see you all in December!

Hannah (James, and Spencer)

Happy Baby pose

Laughing with Daddy

Enjoying his new activity center!

In his Longhorn onesie

A picture from daycare

This is how we water the plants :).

Uncle Andy, Aunt Katie, cousins Theo and Natalie were here for Labor Day Weekend!

Our drool monster

Josh came to visit!

 

New Hobbies:

Hello from the Givan’s at 408 E 13^th.  I thought I would share some pictures of some new and expanded old hobbies.

First, Tim.  He is really getting into his woodworking.  He has been gradually setting up his workshop in the basement where the temps are much more regulated than in the garage.  Here he is hard at work!  Kate and I gave him a hard time because we never see the top of his head and didn’t realize what was going on up thereJ

 

I’m really enjoying my house plants.  The weirder the better actually.  I’m convinced that they grow much better with company but I’m also sure the boss won’t let me work from home just to keep my plants company.  Here are succulents in their ‘home”

And now for some favorites…

       

This one grows very fast.

My first hydroponic one.

 

A favorite but I have no idea what it is.

 

 

12 year old Bonsi plant that is actually Kate's

My largest aloe vera.

We are continuing our puppet hobby as well.  For about 18 months, we recorded weekly chapels for Sunday School.  When Sunday School went back to in person, we took a break.  Now we have started to do shows at the Early Education Center once a month.  It’s great fun and a good stress reliever.  Here are our three main characters.

Oral played by yours truly, Granny Feathers played by Charles and Elcee played by Aunt Pam.

Have a happy Fall and a good holiday season.

Bonus Update: the Jefferson Patterson house

As a learning experience the other day, we tried making a 360 tour of (most of) the Jefferson Patterson house. It's a little bit drear looking since it's been prepped for renovations and there aren't many lights—we'd actually have preferred to edit the images to make them look less gloomy but the convenience of Matterport's system outweighed using a different service. Eventually it'll be both a public-facing experience and part of resources about wealth, class, and race in Calvert County as requested by a local education supervisor.

In the meantime, we're using a free Matterport account to get started which means I can't share the house directly. If you want to see it though, we've setup a dummy account. Just login with the email jefpat@sharklasers.com and the password Pointfarm1932! at https://bit.ly/3i8Q7z8

The house is 10,000 square feet and designed by architect Gertrude Sawyer, one of the few women licensed in the US (or at least DC) at the time. It was originally built in 1933-1934 and had a few modifications done to it over the years, like reworking the bedrooms when Jefferson Patterson got married and adding an elevator after he'd had a stroke. We left out the basement, which is frightful and moldy, and a few of the roughest looking rooms.

Maryland Butterfly Pageant

Maryland has an enormous and surprising number of large butterflies. There's monarchs all summer long, then a whole series of swallowtail butterflies whose numbers ebb and grow at different times. Here's some of the ones I've met, plus a chance to vote on which you think is the best!

This is a zebra swallowtail I had rescued from the screened-in porch at the historic house:

Zebra swallowtails seemed more common early in the summer, but they still occasionally flutter up to me while I'm outside. They seem bad at boundaries.

We spied our first "Red-spotted purple" the other day. They're unique ones, with this really pretty indigo flash as they fly that makes you unsure if the what you just saw was black or blue. They lay their eggs on black cherry trees and like fruit juices instead of nectar. They're also known for their frenetic movements, so my clip of it is really poor quality because it didn't like to hold still to begin with, then if you got close it really started moving!

What's really fun about the red-spotted purples, though, is that they're the exact same species as the "white admirals." They do not look alike, but they are literally the same butterflies. Here's someone else's picture of a white admiral:

Right now, there's lots of tiger and eastern swallowtails. Tigers are big butterflies, and very stately. They prefer to hang out about 10-15 feet above the ground and avoid it all, then come down to the plants they like. We took pictures of a few (again from a slight distance) the other day, and you can even tell which are male and which are female based on whether or not they have blue spots near their tails.

A female tiger swallowtail

Two male tiger swallowtails

Eastern black swallowtails are a little smaller, almost all black, but have some of the tiger-striping along the backs of their wings. They're either not as common, not as obvious, or are confused with some of the others, because I haven't seen as many of those. Sweetbush swallowtails are more common. I haven't taken pictures of any Maryland ones but there were a few in the butterfly house at the museum in New York:

I've also seen mourning cloak butterflies, which are some of the first ones to appear because they can feed on sap from trees. They're lookers, too. Smaller painted ladies, question mark butterflies, etc, are all common as well!

Who's the best?

Zebra swallowtail Red-spotted purple

Tiger swallowtail Sweetbush swallowtail