When Cara’s favorite ice cream place opened for the season, we made note of it on the blog. So I thought it was only fitting to make an announcement at the close of Dick & June’s 2008 ice cream season. It isn’t really exaggerating to say that Cara goes to Dick & June’s almost every day. In September, because she knows the shop is closing for the season, she sometimes visits twice a day. 

Yesterday was Dick & June’s last day, and I took Cara on her fairwell visit. Dick was manning the scoop. Lucky for her, Cara’s ice cream was “on the house” because she was “such a loyal customer.”

Here’s a picture of Cara with Dick:

A few days every week, Cara brings Kyley to work with her. It took Kyley just a short time to get used to being at work, but now she sleeps happily on the corner of Cara’s desk as Cara works.

The first day that Kyley came to work, she got specially dressed up for the occasion.

I just wanted to post a correction to the last picture – according to Cara and her Aunt Debbie, the photo of Cara in the snowstorm was actually in San Antonio, Texas, in her grandparent’s backyard. Thanks for the tip, Debbie!

This is the picture that I mentioned in the blog post about the hailstorm in Kenya. This is little Cara out in a snowstorm in Houston, Texas. Please note her “mittens,” which are really socks!

Cara grew up in Texas (Houston, not Austin). And since it’s never cold there (and often hotter than hell, I’m told) she never really got to experience snow when she was a kid. Except for the one time that there was a big hail storm that dropped enough ice to make it look like it snowed. There is a picture of Cara as a little kid with socks on her hands as mittens (she didn’t own any, she didn’t need them!), looking really happy and playing in the Texas version of snow.

Last week, Cara sent me a link to this story of a Freak Hailstorm in Keyna, which made her think of that experience. The pictures are awesome. To this day, Cara says that she loves living in the northeast because of the snow – to someone who grows up only in the oppressive heat, it’s magical.

Last Friday was Cara’s last day at Ziff Davis, where she has worked for about the past 8 years (minus the 6 months that she was in Burundi).

When I asked Cara what part of leaving her job made her the most excited, without a doubt she was most eager to get rid of her brown pants. Cara wore brown pants to work just about every single day (except casual Fridays). At all times she has at least two pairs, so she can alternate between them. But she always sticks with the brown pants. She would have to confirm this, but I’m pretty sure that the reason that she started wearing the brown pants was because it was easier to wear the brown pants than try to come up with something “business-casual” every day.

The brown pants were so essential to her wardrobe that if something happened to one of the pairs of brown pants, she had to spend the next day in the mall shopping for a new pair. Once at a college graduation ceremony that we were at, it poured rain. Cara’s bag that she had leaked blank ink all over the brown pants. Ruined. Another time she called me to tell me that she ripped a hole in the pants climbing in the window of her apartment (she got locked out).

At any rate, the brown pants are history. Cara wanted to burn them – I convinced her not to. But one of her favorite things about her new job is that she no longer has to wear the brown pants.