This is a holy card signed by Father Peyton at Jim's baptism. Uncle Francis had baptised each of us, but passed away before Jim was born. Father Peyton flew from Spain to our home in Canton, New York, near the St. Lawrence River to baptize Jim. Father Peyton founded the Family Rosary and Uncle Francis assisted him for many years even after he became pastor at St. Madeleine Sophie's, where Mark and Mary Helen were married. Father Peyton has been proposed for canonization, "Sainthood", and thus bears the title "Servant of God".

Hi Everybody! Does anyone have any new music to listen to? Any ideas? Anything on YouTube? Thanks!

Almost noon and we are back inside. It has been a beautiful morning even if the temperature was only 30 at dawn and is now 43 degrees F. The sunshine is brilliant and the breeze light. We walked a trail through the dune forest and found two new year-birds. The first was a golden-crowned kinglet. This sprightly elf darts about in the foliage and characteristically flicks its wings. Racy wing bars and an eye stripes are field marks. It loves to stay hidden in foliage, especially during the breeding season. Here it is wonderfully more exposed even in the leafy live oaks.

We have made another move to another beach park in the Carolina “Low Country.” We enjoyed some five days at Huntington Beach. The weather varied from almost warm to quite chilly. The campground is relatively open, a wide clearing in a low pine back flat forest, and we chose an open campsite to collect as much sun as possible. Other campers backed their motor homes and tents under the gracious live oaks. Here the forest is a simple woods with a live oak, laurel oak, and loblolly pine canopy over an understory of yaupon holly, wax myrtle, and juniper.

We crossed into South Carolina today after five nights in Carolina Beach, NC. Our stay there was somewhat subdued after the exciting boat rides and weather at Hatteras. We departed there against squalls from a cold front and passed tornado-demolished houses as we worked our way south across the Coastal Plain. The cold front reached past Carolina Beach and we endured a cold wind the whole time we were there.

Our boat trip went out as scheduled yesterday, and as expected it was a bouncy ride. We thank the Lord for scopolamine patches. These pelagic birding voyages are humbling experiences. The some 22 passengers were all advanced or expert birders. Several had found more than 700 species in North America. Most had one species as a primary objective, the great skua. This is a Mack Truck of a bird, not really so large, but very thick and aggressive. These skua nest in the arctic of Greenland and Iceland and are on holiday in the winter.

Hatteras Island is one of those places dramatic without the influence of man. This afternoon we parked our car near the historic and lovely spiral-striped lighthouse and walked a few miles up the beach to a narrow finger of land protruding into a violet ocean. Made only of sand, the point is there only at the will of the sea. Here the Gulf Stream pushes hard by the point and the returning Newfoundland Current (or eddy) meet. Waves break on both sides of the peninsula and along a line extending another quarter mile out to sea.

The morning after our lovely but somewhat strenuous journey to Amsterdam we tried to relax but had a somewhat difficult morning doing the laundry. Chuck’s sister had only just moved into the hotel apartment and had been told that there was a laundromat not far away on its street. It should have been a breeze, but we made a few mistakes. We forgot our phrasebook and map. We didn’t look up the word for laundromat. We did ask in the lobby, but the clerk did not know of one. She asked someone else and told us to go to the next street.

Some five years ago the Amsterdam Van Gogh Museum was being renovated and expanded, and about a third of its collection went on tour. We drove to Washington very early on a Saturday morning and arrived at the ticket line in front of the National Gallery at 6:00 a.m. There in the cold and dark, we joined a party, chatted, drank coffee, and read the Washington Post until the door opened and we could enter and get a pair of the limited tickets. We enjoyed the exhibit immensely and have talked since then of some day following the paintings to Amsterdam and seeing the entire collection.

We have returned from our Parisian experience and can report that the City is lovely even in January. The weather moderated upon our arrival and, while not balmy, was at least not frigid. Most days were cloudy and some rain dampened our visit, but a little adjustment of our plans allowed us to mostly avoid the rain drops. The rain scarcely dampens a day in the Louvre.