2011: The First Half

Since Facebook came about, I've been really, really remiss in updating my blog.  So in an effort to remedy that in one swell poop, here's 2011 so far, and hopefully, there will be more frequent posts as the year goes on.

January.

Pretty much nothing happened.  Nothing I have any decent pictures of, anyway.  It was dark, cold, and the weather was probably foul.

February

I (Dave) went back to England for the third time in a year, spending an entire month of the last 12 outside the country.  Sure it's for work, but it's always fun too.

Parliament, AKA "Big Ben"

Terry and I among a huge crowd of people in London's Chinatown during the Chinese New Year celebration

Icebar, with Margaret, Jane, and Terry

Parliament and the River Thames, in fake tilt-shift, as seen from the London Eye

 March.

Jennifer and the kids went out to Albuquerque for Spring Break to see Uncle Jared, Aunt Julia, and Cousin Zane.

April
Zoe ran in the Dogwood 5K, yet again.

May

While Tristan was on tour with the North Carolina Boys Choir, the rest of us went to the beach at Emerald Isle and Salter Path.

We got to catch Tristan's NCBC concert at First Baptist Church in New Bern.

Zoe's award-wining Gator Show Choir performed their Spring Concert

And, of course, no May would be complete without our annual Pig Pickin'!

June . . . so far.

Tristan and the North Carolina Boys Choir, Concert Choir, Chamber Choir, Training Choir and the brand new Girls Choir perform their annual spring concert at Duke Chapel

Zoe graduates from Fifth Grade, and heads to Middle School

And so the summer begins.  We're all headed to Georgia for a few days, Tristan heads out on his second national tour with NCBC, singing in Virginia, Washington DC, NYC and New Jersey while Jennifer and Zoe are in Pennsylvania.  We're all going to Andy and Shelley's for Independence Day and then in July we're headed to California.  We'll wrap up the summer with a trip to Huron, Ohio and Cedar Point with the Southside Swingers Club, plus there will probably be a few beach weekends between now and October.

Stay tuned, more travel, pictures, and words to follow.

The Traveling Roths' Pig Pickin' 4: 我不明白你疯了白人。

(FYI, The Evite invitation is experiencing technical difficulties at the moment. So if you can't reply, you're not alone.)

In the wake 2006's "Traveling Roths' First Annual Pig Pickin'"
2007's Pig Pickin' 2: A Public Evening of Enjoyment , and last year's Pig Pickin' 3: Triple Figures, we've decided to do it yet again. You and your family (children are always welcome) are invited to join us. . . for

Pig Pickin' 4: 我不明白你疯了白人。

We'll supply the barbecue (eastern NC-style), plates cups & silverware, and some all-ages and adult beverages. Feel free to bring a side dish or a dessert to share (put what you're bringing in the comments), a place to sit, anything else you'd like to drink, and a portable table if you have one, and your cameras. We will have a traditional charcoal grill (pork-free) and a deep-fryer available, if someone volunteers to manage them. We'll probably have our hands full with the pig.

Please RSVP via the eVite invite process either way by Sunday, May 17th so we can get an accurate count, and get our pig order into Satriale's Pork Store by Monday the 18th.

Hope to see you here!

Dave, Jennifer, Tristan, and Zoe

Some Summary, Part 2 of 3, Pig Pickin' 3: Triple Figures

The very next weekend after returning from our whirlwind trip to Pennsylvania, was The Traveling Roths' 3rd Annual Pig Pickin'. (artwork courtesy of Jordan Saia)


As an added bonus this year, five additional "TravelingRoths" were attending their first Pig Pickin', plus four TravelingRoths "regulars" from Maryland, as well as four "TravelingPrizers" if there were such a thing, . . . all in addition to our other wonderful guests, some of whom were now three-year participants.

The weather was perfect, the pig turned out nicely, and the side dishes were awesome, as usual.






Mark it down on your calendars now: Pig Pickin' 4: Snappy Title TBD, Sunday May 24th, 2009.

View the Zooomr set here.
View the Flickr set here.
View everyone's PigPickin3 pictures (including one from someone I don't know) here.

Special thanks go to Andy and Shelley for yet another year of critical help, and to Opa, Tom, and Jenni for braving the horrible DC traffic to attend.

And thanks to Alex, Kayely, Tristan, Ella, Krista, and Zoe for modeling the event t-shirts, and posing for the publicity shots.

Pig Pickin' Prep: Part 1

Reserving the Pig Cooker

Cooking a whole pig requires some serious hardware. Hardware I don't personally own. Fortunately, the place I buy my whole pigs from also rents pig cookers. I reserved early because having a pile of people over to your back yard, and not having a good way to cook 70 pounds of pig would be problematic, to say the least.

A pig cooker, traditionally, is a 250 gallon fuel oil drum that's been modified with a few cuts, hinges, springs, smokestacks, doors on each end, and a 5' x 3' cooking grate. . . all mounted on a trailer frame for convenient towing. Inscoe's has four of them, and they're first come, first served. They rent for $30 for the three-day weekend, with a refundable $40 deposit when you bring it back clean. A bargain.

Now that that's out of the way, the next big step is ordering the pig, which will take place on Monday, May 21st.