Ramblings from Shane and Michelle

Before a whole year passes without a blog post, I thought a catch up was necessary. In order from past to present.

• A lovely Christmas and New Year’s in Chapel Hill, and a brief trip to Boone, NC. Very pretty!
• A January watching the Saints almost go to the Super Bowl and the beginning of home projects (ripping up carpet and installing wood floor in our dining room). (Pictures coming.) Let’s not forget Shane’s promotion to Director–VERY exciting ($$$$$)
• A February visit to Tell City, Indiana to visit Shane’s family and friends. Relaxing and Rejuvenating, really!
• March brought warm weather and lots of travel. First off, a quick trip to Chapel Hill for the aftermath of Little Will and his broken arm. Spent much of the week in bed with a cold. Of course, this occurred during my spring break. Then off to New York for my annual conference. And Shane’s concert with the Greenville Choral Society which was a black-tie affair and very fun!
• April–Dad’s 60th birthday, Easter and a fabulous whirl-wind trip to Disney World, (video-picture collage coming.) Our birthdays were spent with a fabulous trip to Charleston, SC for the Family Circle Cup with Will, Brent, and Wendy. It wasn’t nearly as hot as last year; we experienced hurricane force winds in a stadium. Shane published his first article in Pharma Tech–very cool, obviously. And the end of another school year–my 5th at ECU. Time can fly!

• May began with a very nice visit with Shane’s mom. She loves North Carolina and spent her days while we were at work with Callie and resting on our front porch. We took a day trip to New Bern, NC. Next visit, we go to the ocean. I was also rear ended by a fed ex truck on the night Shane’s mom arrived; (I was sitting innocently at a red light when the truck plowed into me because she “wasn’t paying attention.” I am fine, the car badly damaged but fixable, and I am left with an extremely bad taste in my mouth for big corporations and insurance companies. I am also left with a pain in the neck, figuratively and literally. Summer school courses have already started and we are making our lists for summer projects.
• We are hoping June begins the construction on our back deck and porch and other home improvements projects. Stay tuned!

More as the summer and our adventures, I mean, projects progress.

Here’s wishing our readers a happy Thanksgiving! We hope everyone had a lovely time with friends and family on such a great day. I really love Thanksgiving–watching the parade (although I missed Katie), cooking, and eating lots of food. Last year, Shane and I fried a Thanksgiving turkey and Connie, John, Betsy, and the kids came. Looking back, I guess it was my first Thanksgiving as host. But this year, we had the opportunity to stay in Greenville and spend Thanksgiving with friends. More importantly, we had reserved seats at Will and Brent’s table, and it was a Thanksgiving dinner fit for a queen or even a governor. Most importantly, everything looked too pretty to eat, but eat we did. We hope you ate as well as we did.

We left on Black Friday for our anniversary trip to Myrtle Beach where we played the Witch, the Wizard, and the Man ‘O War.

It was, let’s just say, lots of golf, but the weather was fabulous, and we had a great time. We also did a little shopping and eating and attended the Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre at the House of Blues. Several of the women at out table thought I was involved and possibly, the murderer, since I was so outgoing. Shane got a big kick out of that.

It was a nice, brief getaway before the busiest time of the semester and a regulatory inspection for Shane at work.

Have a great week.

Saturday was spectacular. Michelle and I attended Shelby’s birthday party and had a wonderful time. It was great seeing and partying with everyone. Love and happiness was there in abudance and Shelby deserved every minute. She is a wonderful person that Michelle and I are so lucky to have in our lives.

We also got to visit with Julia as well as Lori, Mendy, Will, Thomas….and met many more of Shelby’s friends and family. Myself, I enjoyed the two bottles of wine that Julia chose for me…NOTE: Despite, drinking water, taking advil before going to bed and sleeping with one-foot on the floor, I was unable to prevent a huge hangover the next day…It may be that there is no preventative for 2 bottles of wine :)

I headed back early Sunday afternoon. By 2PM I was in PJs on the couch in front of the TV. Later that evening, there was a knock at the door. A young woman and a little girl (her daughter) were standing at my door…clearly upset. She asked if I would call 911 because she thinks that my next door neighboor was having a heart attack.

BACKGROUND: Michelle and I live next to an elderly couple (late 70s/early 80s). They keep to themselves for most of the time. We would see them walking in the neighborhood. Recently, they had put their house up for sale to move near his daughter in Tenn.

I grabbed the phone, dialed 911 and ran with them next door.

A horrific site met me through the window. The man was lying on the floor on the other side of the door with his wife sitting at his head, smiling, touching his forehead. It turns out that she has Alzheimer’s and didn’t really realize what was going on. We tried to get her to let us in….no luck. We tried to force the door…dead bolted….even if we would have thought to brake the window, we wouldn’t have because we could have seriously injured her.

All I could do was watch Carl shudder and occasionally gasp for breath. I couldn’t see whether he was conscious. I found out later that he probably wasn’t. I just described what I was seeing to the EMT and keep trying the door.

The ambulance soon arrived. They forced the door and worked on him for nearly 25 minutes. He never came back. He died. I would find out later that he had very poor health and had actually called a neighbor from another neighborhood (mother and daughter) to see if they would drive him to the doctor. He didn’t want to call 911 because he was afraid that it might scare his wife.

I don’t know if the wife really understands or has been told yet. I don’t know what the future holds for her. I suppose none of us really knows what’s next. All we can do is focus on living life for today and taking care of those you love. It seems that this man was doing both.

Love to all of you.

Shane

If you want to know how to see most of the highlights of Washington, DC in 36 hours, then let us know. While I am not sure we could ever replicate it, we gave Emma & Allison quite the introduction to what DC has to offer including a spontaneous tour of the White House garden and a limousine ride to see all of the monuments. We arrived on Friday around noon, had lunch, and went to the Holocaust Musuem. I wasn’t thinking when I got the tickets that the exhibit might not be for kids because Emma and Allison are so smart, but Allison pointed out to me during the tour that there were no children. oops!!!! They asked really smart questions, and I think when they cover it in school, it will mean more having seen the exhibit. We were touched, and if you ever have a chance to see it, you should! We spent the evening at Union Station buying books and eating dinner. Then dessert and a game of yahtzee before bed…I think Shane and Allison beat Emma and I. (Clearly, Emma and I are much better Monopoly players…For those who don’t know, Emma and I are banned from playing Monopoly under John and Betsy’s roof because we get a little competitive and the games last for days after we have bankrupted everyone else.)

Saturday started with the US Capitol, Library of Congress, and Supreme Court before taking the trolley to the White House where we planned to look through the fence and take some pictures. Instead, as you will see from the pictures, we happened upon a one day only garden tour and went right into the grounds of the White House. Very cool! After that, we spent the rest of the afternoon at the National Musuem of American History and the National Archives before resting at the hotel, having dinner, and getting ready for our Monuments by Moonlight Tour of DC. This was priceless! We left the hotel and saw Iwo Jima, WWII Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, and the FDR Memorial. And then we collapsed in bed exhausted after doing DC in one day. We had planned to see Arlington Cemetery on the way out of town, but we woke up late, had breakfast, and hit the road as Emma and Allison had to be back to Chapel Hill for the swim team banquet and Shane had a test to study for.

Here’s a video montage (DC Trip) I whipped together. You may need Windows Media Player which you should have on your computer to view it. I have also placed a link in the bar at top to the online album of photos from the trip. Almost all, with the exception of the White House pictures, were taken by Emma.

Well, I have been meaning to post since the class I was teaching ended the end of June, but I have been catching up on everything I put off for the last five weeks. Shane started his summer course about two weeks ago, and I have been working on a chapter for an edited collection that is overdue. I hope to email it off today. Other than that, we have been taking advantage of our weekends by playing golf and tennis. I can drive (both from the tee and the golf cart) but that is about it. Shane says I need to work on my short game. I just like being outside, knocking the s— out of the ball.

We spent 4th of July weekend with John & Betsy and the world travelers. Emma and her grandmother Mosh went to Japan for 15 days. Meanwhile, Betsy and Allison flew off to Paris for a week and John and the boys flew to New Orleans to visit my parents. Needless to say, we looked forward to emails and photos from their summer excursions. We got to meet Emma at the airport on Sunday, July 2 and the other kids had signs. She looked all grown up, and I cried because it was so sweet. As Shane said, all was right with the world when Emma returned. Things were just a little off. J & B and Shane and I played a short round of golf on Monday morning while the kids had swim practice. That afternoon, we took them all to see Superman Returns while J & B celebrated their 13th anniversary at dinner and A Southern Season.

They need to start thinking of what they want to do for their 15th anniversary, and Shane and I will keep the kids for them. If they read the blog, they will know I am making this offer.

On Tuesday, we had a low-country boil (essentially, we had a crawfish boil with shrimp and crabs), and we did one heck of a job!!!! The kids enjoyed it as well.

Shane and I are taking Emma and Allison to Washington, DC this weekend. They have never been. I had always planned to take Emma when Shelby lived there, but I never did it. Anyway, we were thinking the girls (ages almost 12 and almost 9) are at a good age to do a bit of exploring.

Other than that, we look forward to the Minnesota Eble’s making their way down here at the end of the month for our annual Beach trip (well, we didn’t really do one last year since my parents were planning to finance a wedding). Anyway, it should be a blast. We are staying at the Winds (a resort in Ocean Isle Beach) which is one of the Brunswick Islands in the southern tip of North Carolina. Look for posts from that week!
Then Shane will head to Indianapolis for a quick visit with friends, and Shelby and I will drive down to Tallahassee to welcome Julia home from her stay in Italy.

School starts after that…a new year–my 5th here at ECU and my last year before going up for tenure.

Many of you knew that I had been playing golf for awhile now.
However, you might be interested to know that Michelle has now
taken up the game as well. As soon as my new clubs arrive,
we start taking lessons from our new Golf Guru Gordon.

Although the GMAT challenge is beyond me, I now face the red
tape of actually getting into ECU’s graduate program in time to
start a class for second summer session (June 22nd).

Michelle and I had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend in Chapel Hill.
Her folks flew in and we all spent the time together visiting which
Included: a nine hole round of golf on Saturday for John, Betsy,
Michelle and I; a champagne brunch on Sunday for 10, following
Mass of course, capped with a small fireworks display on Sunday
night which revealed to all of us Little Williams’ love of fire.

Speaking of Williams….Will B and I are partnering up again for the
Greenville version of the French Open Tennis Tournament this weekend.
That is, if I can get rid of this nasty cold Michelle and I seemed to have
picked up.

In other news, Michelle and I have been doing some serious window
shopping lately. Specifically, we have been looking at homes,
sectional sofas and new vehicles. Although the home search is just
future browsing, the sofa and the vehicle are definite future possibilities.
I know…I know. The thought of selling my near, luxury class, Chrysler 300
is tragic. However, despite having the largest trunk room in its class,
it simply doesn’t have the people and stuff hauling capacity of say a
mini-SUV…especially when you consider the size of the Eble family.
We have been doing a methodical search and evaluation and have narrowed
our choices down to 2…The 7-Passenger Subaru Tribecca B9 Limited or
the 8-Passenger Honda Pilot EX………Thoughts?

I wanted to update everyone on how my career life is going. I have been in my new role for almost 3 months now. The good news is that I have found my purpose in my new role and am becoming comfortable with the people that I now work with and who work for me. The bad news is that my new role seems to take less time, energy and metal expenditure than my old role. I am the negotiator. My new role involves convincing our customers that what we want is best for them. I am the ambassador, mediator….Enoyable, but has at times, left me a little bored compared to what I used to do….Not one to handle boredom well, I have decided to go back to school for another degree. I am going to get my M.B.A from ECU. For the last couple months I have been studying to take the Graduate Management Admissions Test. This is a required exam to be admitted to graduate school. I took the exam on Friday. I was a little nervous about taking a college exam, my first in over a decade, but am happy to report that I did well and will be applying to ECU’s Graduate School of Business this week in the hopes of starting classes during the second summer session.

Clearly, we are not avid bloggers, but I wanted to update the blog with news of our new nephew who is five weeks old today. Last I wrote, he had not arrived. Obviously, he did arrive in his own good time on March 24. This is a picture of Miles Ignatius with his brothers Ben Michael and Eli Easter weekend when my parents visited Morris, MN.

We are excited to meet him in July when they travel to North Carolina and we have our Beach Week!

We just got back late last night from the Family Circle Cup Tennis Tournament in Charleston, SC. We went with a couple of friends who also happen to be colleagues of Michelle (Wendy and Brent). We all had a wonderful time. Although we both love playing tennis, this was our first time watching a professional tennis tournament. We arrived on Friday afternoon for the quarter finals and stayed through the finals on Sunday. The weather was very hot! On the postive side, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky (no rain delays). On the negative side, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky (no breaks from the scorching sun)….We are already looking forward to next year….more pics soon.

One of the great things about being an academic is the week off in the Spring/Winter (depending on where you are, of course). Fortunately, my Spring Break did not correspond to my annual professional conference, 4Cs, which actually begins Wednesday in Chicago. For the past week, I have been in Morris, MN where Michael and Pilar live with their two boys. I was hoping to help welcome boy #3 but that is yet to happen.

I arrived last Wednesday evening in a snow storm. (Morris is 2 1/2-3 hour drive from Minneapolis), and with the exception of a 24 hour virus that had me in bed for a day, I have had an awesome time with Mike and Pilar, Pilar’s parents, and the boys in this snowy, small, midwestern town. We all hold out hope that the baby may show himself today. I will have some pic of the boys up later today.