Easter Egg Fun

Well much to Dave's dismay I convinced him into dying easter eggs. We got a new dye pack that was a dye and squirt kind. It was ok, but I like the old school way. The speckled eggs are the hardboiled ones and the others are regular eggs. We figured we didn't need a dozen hardboiled eggs, but I didn't want to waste the dye on only a few so we did the whole dozen. I love all the different colors. I would have colored on them more, but Dave put them into an ice bath so the white crayon wouldn't stick at all. Oh well, there is always next year. Plus next year we will have a little Murariu to help us out. Enjoy some fun I had with my depth of field that I like to call easter egg sound off.

Of hobbit feet, spring, and new beginnings

So this weekend we decided to do some springtime pruning of a great big oak tree that lives in the neighbors yard and comes over to visit into ours. It was blocking the sun for our dirt hill and restricting the growth of my dirt. So Jess and I decided to thin it out a little bit and here is the result. Our garbage guys want the stuff stacked and tied in bundles or they wont take it, so it means a little more work for us. Now maybe we can get some grass to overtake the dirt.

We also made a stop in at our local home center to grab a new sprinkler head and decided to pick up a plant for a big empty spot that lives in our front yard. (Used to be a bouganvilla but that had to die..anyone who has stepped on a bouganvilla branch will know why). I am not about to let any chance to have hobbitt feet slip by so here they are...The plant is a Japanese Magnolia; pretty and smells good too.





It looks like we also planted a kid. Chinese Zodiac Sex Voodoo calendar and fetal heart rate mumbo jumbo be damned!! I swear its a boy....but only time will tell. We are scheduled to have a Halloween baby. You cant see it but the word BABY is printed on the first picture. This is so that you will know that it is not a kumquat, pea, raspberry or other such small sized fruit that has taken up residence in your wife's uterus. We got to see the heart beat and that was REALLY COOL.

camping and diving trip

With the much need for a mini vacation, thurs after work we loaded up the tribute and headed over to Chad and Tara's house for a camping trip. Fri morning we packed up their min van full of camping and diving supplies, kissed Cooper and Melanie goodbye (they were staying with Tara's parents who came into town so we could get out of town with out baby and puppy) and headed down to key largo. We set up our tents, ate some yummy chili mac, rosted some somemores, had a few drinks, and snuggle down into bed since it got chilly in the middle of the night. Sat morning we got up at the crack of dawn (7:00am) to go diving. We signed up for two tank dives. They were pretty decent dives, 30 ft for about an hour each dive, which was a little long and a little shallow for my liking. We also thought we were going to have a dive guide, but we didn't so something to look better into next time. Not a big fan of being dropped off in the ocean and with a go this way and circle back around. They didn't even pick us up, we had to find them. Oh well scuba do is a scuba don't in key largo. We only had one other diver with us. Chad and I only made one tank dive. Chad had a leg cramp and I was cold and had seen everything I wanted to see (an hour underwater is alot of time especially when cold). Tara and Dave went down for the second dive and said we didn't miss much. It was very pretty, nice coral, lots of fish including baracuda (4 of them who luckily left me alone since I had my wedding rings on and they like shiny things). We go back to the dock around noon and ate subs for lunch. Then we took naps and chilled out at the camp site. Dave made steak and potatos for dinner and we made more somemores (apparently I say some mores not s'mores so I was made fun of all weekend). We slept a bit warmer in our tents. Sunday morning we ate breakfast of eggs, saussage, and bacon and then packed up camp. We got back around 2 to Chad and Tara's, picked up the puppy and then came home 2 hours later. All and all it was a good trip. I kinda felt like we were camping in a parking lot because it was also a rv/permant rv site so the tents were kinda set up along the sides which were on gravel. Key largo also, not much to see. No beaches, nothing interesting, good diving, but I woudl reccomend add the extra 2 hours and drive into key west unless you plan on doing nothing besides sitting in your tent. Anyway live and learn. At least we had a nice weekend away and got some diving in.

Hopefully my last thesis hour

I am really going to try and push it and finish my masters this year. To give you a little back story I graduated with my BS in the summer 2003 and started masters degree that fall. Well I finished all the class work pretty quickly and then I got talked into doing a thesis instead of a special project (I had no backbone then and I thought what my professors said was law). Well I have been working/not working on my thesis since 2005. My professor was never available over the summer so that made it hard especially since I was working full time teaching and trying to go to school. It was very hard for me to devote my time to my class and my thesis so needless to say it hasn't gotten done. Since then I have had a major move, my first car accident where my car was totaled and my nose broken, got married (hoped to get it done before I got married, but planning a wedding was too much), bought a house, got laid off my teaching job (so now I'm back to pre-k), and had a miscarriage (planned to get it done before the baby was due). So now this semester its do or die. Either I do it or Dave says its time to give up because we can't afford to throw money at it anymore. Hopefully I can get it done and push back all the anxiety that has built up overtime. Only time will tell.

Merry Christmas come and gone

Well Christmas has come and gone. It was a good Christmas and I can't complain too much. Something was just off this year. I guess because this was my first married Christmas maybe, maybe because last year we were just getting back from our honeymoon and I had more time off? I don't know, but that sparkle of Christmas didn't seem to happen this year. It was fun though. My mom and sisters came over Christmas eve and stayed until Friday because Joride had to work on sat. I worked on Mon and Tues and was supposed to work on Wed, but they told me not to come in. Now normally this would be a good thing but Jessica + day off of work = no money (didn't even get paid for Christmas). Anyway...Melanie had fun playing with Nanie as usual. It was nice to have the house full of people and smelling of baked good and yummy food. We went to Christmas Eve candlelight service out here in Clermont. We played the find people who look like people from our church in Dunedin game (since we don't really know anyone at this church yet besides Amy). We found Cindy, Jennifer, Cathy's Dad, and several other people that I can't remember at the moment. I got some good things for Christmas...a purse camera bag (technically not for Christmas, I got it for my anniversary but its totally awesome), a backup battery for my camera, Walle on dvd, the last season of gilmore girls to complete my collection, a lens cleaning cloth (that is currently missing), a bike (which I want to return for a lens or a speedlight because after one trip around the block I thought I was going to die) lots of candy, burberry weekend perfume, bath and bodyworks body wash and hand lotion, and hangers for my closet. Dave got some good stuff too...slippers, a start wars trivia book (from me ^_^), legend of Zelda for his ds (I love it cause it has kept him busy while I have been photo editing), a new jacket (so he won't look like a lumberjack if it ever gets cold again), a circular saw, a level, an electric carving knife, and lots of candy. So we made out pretty good. Now its back to work for 3 days and then some time off for new years. I'm looking forward to it. Keep your fingers crossed that I won't be allowed to drink during new years (we should know in a few days) which could be why Christmas wasn't sparkling this year. Anyway I hope everyone had an wonderful Christmas and that you were able to find some rest amidst the craziness of the holiday season.

Sea World

Dave and I went to Seaworld for a few hours today. It's nice to have the passes and not have to pay for parking. Plus you can go for a few hours when you are bored and having nothing else to do. The park was pretty empty today for some reason. Kinda nice though. We rode Kraken twice in a row with only the time it took us to walk around again. Then we rode journey to atlantis and got totally soaked by someone with those stupid squirters. Now if you know me you know I'm a fan of rollarcoaster, but not flume rides. So riding journey to atlantis was a big deal for me. I was proud of me and so was Dave. Then we went to see the dolphins. I didn't realise they only let people feed them at certain times. You have to pay to feed them and the dolphins only go to the side of the pool where they allow people to feed them so normal people (us cheapies) never get to pet them. No one was feeding them so instead it was play time apparently. They had basketballs and some round floaty things in the pool and the dolphins were grabbing them and throwing them around. It was sooo cute. Some would grab the ball in their mouth and them pop it up into the air towards us around the pool. If you could reach the balls you could throw it back to them. I don't know if we were playing fetch with them or if they were playing fetch with us. I did get to pet the tail and side of a dolphin as is swam by chasing after a ball. One dolphin was trying to play with a ball and a floatie and didn't want to share. Dave says next time when I bring my camera we can feed them ^_^ Overall it was lots of fun and a great way to kill a few hours for free.

New tree

This is the year of a new fake Christmas tree for us. We got a 7.5 ft, 750 pre-lit christmas tree. Dave wanted to take a few point and shoot pictures to show it off. So here you go.

Me under the tree strying to scoot it back before putting on the ornaments as the dogs run around (Nanie is my mom's dog who came to visit for Thanksgiving).

TaDa

We recorded the thanksgiving parade so my family could watch it too since they were driving over thurs monrning so it was background as we put up the tree.

Yeah..aren't we cute infront of our tree, sesame street and star wars t-shits and all.