Miscellaneous Photos from '03

Click on any of the thumbnail images to view a larger image or for more pictures from that event.

NOTE: For faster loading, most events with more than 3 photos each are on separate pages.  Links to those pages are below.  Everything on this page, including the links to the other pages, is in chronological order as usual, so if you are here looking for the newest  links and photos, they'll be near the bottom of this page.

2003 started out with a surprise party for Steve's & Michael's birthdays.  (click pic for more)

My mom's 80th birthday was in March.  I flew home to surprise her.  She thought she was going to dinner with only my niece and my niece's husband, but my brother, sister-in-law and I showed up too.   Since I had just talked to her by phone (my cell phone) about 45 minutes before dinner, she had a look of 50% surprise and 50% confusion on her face when she saw me.  Unfortunately, I didn't have the camera ready.  (click on pictures for larger images)

The waitress brought my mom a piece if tiramisu with a couple of candles on it.	Back at home, we had a "real" cake that my niece made -- complete with a firefighter's nightmare amount of candles.  No, not 80, but about 20 arranged to spell "80"....but once lit, it was one huge flame.  I guess mom's getting too old for candles.	I'm not sure if my niece was about to knight the cake or cut it, but eventually we all got a piece of it.  Yum.

For the past several years, my church, Peachtree Road United Methodist Church, has had a mission trip to help children and orphans in the Republic of Georgia.  I really wanted to go, but I couldn't schedule it in with work this year.  I'm planning on going next year, however.  This year, I've just helped them out on this end with some miscellaneous things like packing donated items (pics below) and doing their web site, www.prumcmissions.org, including updating it with news and pictures as they send them to me.  Their trip is 5/29 - 6/14.

Meet Cheryl.  I met her on March 20th, and have been having a wonderful time doing things with her ever since.  She is smart, fun, funny, sweet...all around terriffic.

Cheryl at the Annual Dogwood Festival in Piedmont Park.	A "sellf-portrait" of her and I (I'm holding the camera and pointing it...thus the sort of odd camera angle.	At LaGrotta, an excellent & very nice, Italian resteraunt, one month after we met.

April showers brought...  A little hiking at Sweetwater Creek State Park  (click pic for more)

Fun, and a lot of great music at the annual "Music Midtown" Festival  (click pic for more)

Working on a Habitat for Humanity House  (click pic for more)

For Memorial Day weekend, Cheryl and I went to Hilton Head, SC.  I'd never been there before, but she had, and she knew some fun places to go.  The beach was beautiful, the hotel (Crowne Plaza) was excellent, the food was fantastic, the entertainment (musicians outdoors near various restaurants) was fun, and of course the company was wonderful.  Unfortunately, I didn't get many pictures -- I was enjoying myself so much I wasn't thinking much about snapping pictures.

The last day (Monday morning), I wish I had the camera with me on the beach.  We went for a walk, and there was an entire school of Dolphins swimming just off shore -- and I mean just -- as in maybe 100 feet at the most.  One even swam between a guy floating on an inner tube and the shore!  We more-or-less went for a "walk" with them, as they were swimming at roughly the same pace we were walking, for a good 1/2 mile or more.  Very cool

Cheryl, watching an entertainer (a guy on a guitar) as we waited to be seated for dinner one evening.	The view from our room.  No, you can't see the beach, just a slighly obstructed view of the pool.

May ended with a little more hiking, this time at Amicalola Falls State Park  (click pic for more)

A few weeks later, in June, even more   hiking, this time at Cloudland Canyon State Park   (click pic for more)

July is usually a busy month, and 2003 is no different...

I didn't take any pictures on the 3rd at Kennisaw's fireworks, but here are some taken on the 4th at Atlanta's fireworks at Lenox Mall. (click pic for more)

Five days after that was the 40th birthday of a friend, Bill, who had a party at "Andretti Speed Labs". (click pic for more)

The very next day was my Almost-Annual Summer / Miscellaneous July Birthdays party. (click pic for more)

One week later was my vacation with Cheryl at Sandals in Negril, Jamaica. (pictures coming soon)

Tonic & Hootie and the Blowfish free concert at Centennial Olympic Park (click pic for more)

Camping in the Smoky Mountains over Labor Day Weekend (click pic for more)

My friend Deb's wedding in Park City, Utah,  Saturday September 6, 2003.

What fantastic things October brought!
Yeah, okay, so the Cubs were in the playoffs and Da Arnold 
became governator of Gaulifornyuh, but more importantly...

	Cheryl had her birthday... (her, me, her mom, her sister and her brother-in-law went to dinner)
	...and the very next day was...
	E-Day.  That's Engagement Day! (click pic for the full story and more pics)

Okay, so this is has nothing to do with anything...I was driving out of my condo complex and noticed this pine cone sitting up on its end.  It almost seemed to defy gravity by not falling over.  I happened to have my camera in the car, so I took a picture of it.

Wrapping up 2003 are the holidays. (Thanksgiving through New Year's Eve)

(To Frank's home page)