Eggsellent!

The many sides of Brian Tague include a bit of a folk artist. Give him tee shirts, rubber bands and pails of dye. He will produce a tie dye of vibrant color. Give him a bag of pipe cleaners at Christmas. He will build a snowman complete with miniature pipe. Give him some pipettes, vinegar and color pellets. He will paint a beautiful Easter egg.



While we are not religious, we religiously practice many traditions of the holidays.
Every Easter we color eggs as a family.












We have a kit to produce tie dye eggs which we have used for many years now. I purchase the cheapest color kit and we break out all the old tools. This year we even tried a little relief work with scotch tape. They were lovely.

Year after year Mitch has recruited friends from the neighborhood to join him in an egg hunt. Some hunts have been in the front yard. We have moved the hunt to our playroom when it rained.

This year things have really changed. Mitchell hid the eggs. Brian and I had to find them. It's hard to tell who had the most fun.


It is rewarding when your child embraces your traditions. The fact that he will still color eggs with us and that he is excited to hide these eggs from us makes his aging easier to take.

Now the only challenge left is what to do with twelve hard boiled eggs. Brian and Mitch like to color them. They do not like to eat them.




I, on the other hand, could not wait to finish the hunt so I could have one for my breakfast. I guess I will be making potato salad, mac salad, egg salad or maybe deviled eggs this week.

Wishing you all a most eggsellent Easter!

Susan's Spin on the Shower

It was worth the drive to NJ from NC for Danielle's shower. However, when you attend a shower for a teacher organized by another teacher, plan on being tested. When I asked how I could help, I was handed a bag of pencils and sent to the sharpener.




Owen's sister, Branice, was the mastermind. She designed centerpieces and favors that were worthy of a boutique. There was talk that she should consider this for a business.




This is not to diminish all the work done by her aunt, her cousin and her mother. It was impressive watching them bring it all together.

Testing included a pile of games: matching candy bar names with pregnancy terms; a trivia quiz; guessing how many candies in a baby bottle (Danielle won that one); and the highly entertaining "Break Your Water".

For "Break Your Water" we put plastic babies in plastic cups of water and froze them. Contestants had to break the frozen water to get the babies.

Can anyone tell me what happens to a plastic cup when you use it to freeze water? Anyone? Anyone? ...The bottoms of the cups crack. We made it work just the same and one of the Harvard graduates won by warming up her "water" with the bulb in a wall sconce.


Let's not forget Baby Shower Bingo! Party goers were getting pushy if Danielle was not opening her gifts fast enough. There was more than one debate about what qualified as a onsie or a baby book.

Its safe to say I lost the due date prediction. I picked March 19th. We have yet to find out who will win that last prize.

I may not be able to pick a date, but I do know one thing. Danielle is blessed to be in this family. There was a room full of women there wanting to share in this happy event and show their support.

Branice is excited to be an aunt and was determined to make this shower the best. Her friendship with Danielle is evident. Joseph is a very lucky little boy. Can't wait until he arrives.

View all of the Shower Pictures

Flying Solo

For those concerned for my safety driving nine hours to New Jersey, thank you. I had a successful trip and am home with my guys, safe and sound. The talented Jim Dale kept me company all the way as he read to me the seventh book of Harry Potter.

I also used this trip as an excuse to buy myself one of those cd holders for the visor so I had the discs at my finger tips.

I left right after Brian and Mitch. It was dark but only for a short while.

The first three hours breezed by quickly. My first stop was multipurpose, any excuse to have a Sausage McMuffin with Egg.


The drive up 81 was clear and pleasant. I have grown fond of the stretch up the Shenandoah Valley. We drive it every summer.

It was my first long trip with the Highlander. Long gone are the days of the yellow Dodge Colt. I have decided to name my new-to-me car, "Chariot."

After a smooth nine hours, I arrived safely at Fletcher's Inn, home of Rosita and Ed Fletcher, Danielle's In-Laws.








I will write more about my trip later. I am home and being served ravioli's by my wonderful son with the help of his Dee. Then the Dee will read to us.

There really is no place like home.

Adventures in Parenting

Jared Frey is Mitchell's best friend. He lives around the corner from us. Brian and I consider ourselves fortunate because Jared is a great kid and comes from a good family. Jared is also a Mormon. That means that many of his activities are centered around his church. Mitchell belongs to the Boy Scouts through Jared's church.

The Scouts meet every other Tuesday. The balance of Tuesdays are for "Young Men's, Young Women's" nights. On these nights adolescents have some organized social activity together. For example they might go bowling. They go caroling at Christmas time. It is really a nice way for the sexes to mingle in a chaperoned environment. Again, Brian and I consider ourselves very fortunate. The Frey's take Mitch with them every Tuesday.

Saturdays over the winter, the kids play in a basketball league. Mitchell has not been available to play in this league. (See my previous blog, "Busy Boy".) However, attending the Mormon church 3 times over the last three months, qualified him to play in the tournament. It was a six man team without him so I understand the coach wanting him. Mitchell loves basketball and if they would have him, we did need to consider letting him play.

The tournament was scheduled for Saturday, March 8th. This also happened to be the day of the last Demon Deacon basketball game. Wake basketball is one of our most valued family activities. We have season tickets. When Mitch asked me if he could go to the Mormon tournament instead, my knee-jerk response was to say no. I told him we could talk it over with his dad, but I was pretty sure Brian would feel the same way. He did.

Mitchell, ever persistent, said the tournament was early in the morning. He and Jared thought they would be back by 11 AM which would give us time to get to the noontime tip off. Mitch and I would pick up Jared at 7:55 AM so they could catch a ride with the coach at 8 from the local Hollywood Video lot.

7:25 AM the phone rang off the hook. Jared's mom, Nancy, was calling. Pickup time was at 7:30 AM. Mitch had slept through his alarm. I told Nancy I would be there for Jared as soon as Mitch was dressed. She wanted to take them because she needed to get money from the ATM for her kids to buy lunch. Excuse me? Lunch? The boys told us that they would be back by 11. Nancy asked Jared who I heard in the background demure that he did not know when they would be done.

I rushed Mitchell to dress while informing him that I would be coming to get him by 11 AM so we could get to the Wake game. I told him to ask Nancy to call with the location of the tournament. She said it was at Surry Community College. I plugged that into Yahoo to discover that Surry Community College has three campuses. Mitch called from the main campus in Dobson. I plugged this into Yahoo maps. It was 50 minutes away. I informed Dr. Tague that we had to leave for Surry by 10 AM.

"I'm going?" "Yes. How else will we get back in time for the game?"

Dobson is in the mountains and actually a very nice ride. We gabbed and joked around while sipping coffee and nibbling breakfast bars. It turned out to be a very pleasant morning if not the lazy one we originally envisioned. We arrived just around 11.

We found Mitch to learn that they had won their first game and would be playing their next game shortly. Realizing as his parents it might be a good idea to support our boy, we agreed to hang around to watch. We could still make it for the second half of the Wake game.

We did take both Mitch and Jared to task for giving us a line about getting back to Winston by 11. "It was a prediction!" They were informed that we would not be accepting "predictions" in the future. Just the facts, Jack!

Mitch was seventh on a seven man team. Neither he nor Jared are in top physical condition. Their friend, Joseph, is no Olympian either. How good could they be? Mitch said it would be fine if he left before the third and final game which would just be a consolation game.

We had not seen the other boys on Mitchell's team. They were all older and athletes. They played hard and won. Mitch had a basket and a couple of good plays that forced turnovers. It was exciting. As we began to realize they were going to win again, we discussed what was the right thing to do. We were conflicted. It was the last Wake game of the season and against NC State. However, Mitch was on a winning team. He was getting a morning full of exercise. He was making memories with his best friend.




I suggested that we wait until this game was over and see what Mitchell wanted to do. To our surprise he wanted to leave for Wake. It was alright with his team and his coach. They were sure they would lose to the next team who apparently dominates this tourney every year. We thanked the coach. Okay... away we went.

Fifty minutes later we pulled into the parking lot and raced for the Coliseum. We ran through the NY Pizza vendor grabbing slices for lunch. We managed to make it to our seats for the last 8:40 minutes of the game.

Wake was ahead and stayed there until the end. It was exciting and well worth the drive to have Mitchell with us. We stood together at the end singing the Wake Forest University song as a family. That is our tradition.


It was a day well spent. We just wanted to be together and that is how it turned out. We did tell Mitch that we realize more and more often he will want to go off with his friends instead of being with us. We told him we would do our best to understand.

We will try our best as we go through the painful process of encouraging him to spread his wings and become independent. Conflicted as we feel, that is our job... to teach him to stand on his own, to go out into the world. He will be 13 in two months time. Don't anybody blink.

Busy Boy

Yesterday Mitchell competed in the county finals of the National Academic League (NAL). This is one of many activities to which he belongs. In the last three weeks, he has been busy with chess club, Science Olympiad, a week at Space Camp, boy scouts and NAL. Did I mention basketball? Mitch is team manager for his 7th grade team and intends to play on a team at his best friend's Mormon Church.

I am relaying these episodes backwards. Mitchell goes to Paisley International Baccalaureate Magnet School. (Yes, it is a public school.) Our NAL competitor was Hanes Magnet School for the Highly Academically Gifted. They are the defending national champions. We were trounced 82 to 49.

Second in the county is just fine and our boy loves it. Competition is divided into quarters. Scoring is too complicated to explain here. It is like those college bowl shows where students are quizzed on facts and math skills. Mitch cannot wait to start all over again next year.


Last week he was in Huntsville, AL at Space Camp. This is the second year he has gone there. He loves it, too. This is a field trip with his school. They get a mission to perform as a team and then have a graduation ceremony on the last morning before the nine hour ride home.

Poor bud came down with a fever and wound up in sick bay for a couple of days but he did manage to complete his mission and graduate with his group. The kids he worked with were from California. They asked for a volunteer to work with a group not from their own school and Mitch stepped forward. He has never been afraid to meet new people. They left for this trip at 4:30 in the morning the day after regionals for Science Olympiad.

Here they compete with science experiments and know-how. Mitchell is in two events. In "Egg O Nauts" he pressure launches a rocket he made out of one liter soda bottles complete with landing capsule and parachute. The object is to get the rocket up as far and as long as it will go and then have a raw egg land unharmed.

"Road Scholars" is a test of map reading skills. He and his partner, Scott, took second in "Road Scholars" and third in "Egg O Nauts". If their egg didn't crack they would have taken the gold.




The Paisley team placed third overall so next we will be off to the State competition in Raleigh April 4th&5th.




The other events where we spend time are chess tournaments, one of which was held the Saturday before Science Olympiad. This is a day long slog for parents. We go to a local middle school. Clear Wire donates free wireless at these events. (Thank you!)


We bring thermoses of coffee, snacks and our laptops, and camp out all day with a group of friends who also have kids playing chess. The kids play Yugioh in the halls when they are not in the cafeteria playing chess.

Most of our friends take shifts because they have more than one kid. They trade off half way through the day. Not so, those crazy Tagues. We were there from 8 a.m. until we cut out early at 3 p.m. to get to a Demon Deacon basketball game. Mitch played in all four games winning two and losing two. He came away with a medal. I think he has about seven of these.

Even though it is only March, these activities are winding down now. There is the State Science Olympiad weekend and there will probably be a couple more local chess tournaments. I will let you know how it goes at State. He needs to work on his bottle rocket. I never did all these things when I was in school. It makes me happy to be so involved in my son's life. Lord knows it won't be long before he is off on his own. Don't anybody blink!

Proud to Call Him Friend

Among the items of interest hanging on our fridge we have a new addition. It is a Mayoral Proclamation from the city of Boston which names Tuesday, February 5th as
Bob Pulster Day!
How exciting!

Our Robert given his own day in the city he loves for services he has rendered therein.

Mitchell was beside himself when he saw it. "My Uncle Robert?!? The man most responsible for my parents meeting? This is AWESOME!!"

We quite agree. Congratulations Robert. We love you very much and are proud to call you "friend".