Mini Vacation

Last weekend my sister in law graduated from college.  Dan and I used it as an opportunity to take a mini-vacation from....well....reality.  We had a good time, even though it was hot and the commencement speaker was kinda boring.  At least I thought he was.But anyway...

 We drove down Friday and spent the day with Dan's friend Jared.  He showed us around the
GIGANTIC church he works at.  We then spent the rest of the evening playing settlers of catan and eating delicious enchiladas.

 Graduation was HOT.  Not as hot as the year Dan graduated, but hot none the less.  I have funny looking sunburn marks on my legs because i was wearing leggings and ballet flats.  Despite that, and the above mentioned commencement speaker, it was a good time.

 Walking across the stage. she was really excited about it!  Thankfully, Liberty breaks up their actual graduations by schools because watching six thousand students walk across one stage would take approximately FOREVER.  This was much nice, and also indoors, which meant AIR CONDITIONING!  :)

Sarah and her grandparents.  It was a good weekend spent visiting with them.

I'm still here, i promise.

Hello, Blog world.  Long time, no talk!  Mostly on account of I work a lot, and by the time I get home, it's, like, after ten pm and all i want to do is pass out.

Not a whole lot super interesting going on around here.  I'm still working two jobs; Payless and old navy.  Dan is working part time as a cashier at Food Lion, and we are both excited about the extra income!

I'm still busy teaching myself various knitting techniques.  One of these days i'll get around to posting some of the stuff I've done.  Right now, i'm working out how lace works;  I love the idea of lighter weight stuff now that the weather's getting warmer and I won't be able to wear my awesome winter hats for much longer.  And attempting a sweater of some sort is still on my list as well....

Hmmmm....I haven't had much inclination to go out and shoot more pictures lately.  Hopefully, with the nice weather, that will change soon!  There are several places i still want to get photos of....

But I'll leave you with some photos....

 Shot outside at night, in the freezing cold.  A long exposure gives you the sense of movement in the clouds and silhouettes the tree against the moon.

 Early in the morning, also freezing cold.  Sunrise over the bay in Chesapeake beach, MD.

No blog post would be complete without a picture of my awesome husband, who willingly woke up and took me out EARLY in the morning so i could get pictures of the sunrise.

The cold is everywhere!

So, I got a wide angle lens attachment for my camera and i decided to take it out to play with today. which, honestly, wasn't the best idea ever as it was about 40 degrees outside and as windy as could be....I thought my fingers were going to fall off it was so cold. Ok, maybe not really but it was definately WAY too cold to be outside.

Anyway. I love the fisheye effect this lens gives my pictures!

Christmas Time

So it's been christmas lately.  I phrase it that way because with so much family close our christmas extended pretty much over the entire weekend.  Here are some highlights:

 Sarah got a backpack to carry all her camera equipment.  She was very excited about it!

 Dan's parents got him a patriots sweatshirt.  I'm fairly certain he hasn't taken it off since. except to sleep.

 Earlier this month i took a bunch of pictures of my brother, and chose the best one to make into this canvas for my mom.  She was showing him what it turned out like.

 One of my gifts was an adapter that allows me to fit an older pentax lens on my nikon.  With this lens, i can take pictures of the stars, such as this one of Orion.  I'm super excited about astrophotography!

 Our christmas tree.  Dan and I decorated it last week.  It's pretty and you can't have christmas without a tree, right?

Reindeer.  Need I say more?


How was your Christmas?

November

So last saturday Dan and i went to downtown annapolis with Beka, Joel, Corrie, and Meimei.  After eating, we opted to loiter around the naval academy.  Ok, not really.  I was taking pictures and they were humoring me.

Inside bancroft hall is a bathroom done entirely in marble.  For no apparent reason.  There was a HUGE mirror so i took the opportunity to get a picture of myself.


















We hid in bells. (this is not me).

Dan and I with a tree that looks kinda like a christmas tree.  I believe the plan is to put this one in our christmas letter.  So here's a sneak peak.


















And this is probably close to the only tree in Annapolis that still has leaves on it.  It was such a pretty golden color I couldn't resist taking a picture.





For the record, I CANNOT believe it's nearly Christmas already.  Today is December 1 (don't let the post title fool you.  I do know what month it is.)  I guess I need to get busy working on christmas gifts; I'm rapidly running out of time to get them finished and to finish my shopping.

Anniversary

Dan and I have been married for a year now; where has the time gone? Of course, that year has been really busy, what with moving twice halfway across the country and back again. We went out for dinner tonight at outback and ate yummy steak.

I got a job at Payless and i start there tomorrow! I'm excited except that I can't wear tennis shoes. So that could be interesting since at the moment tennis shoes are the only comfortable shoes i own. We shall see how i survive. But I am working over thirty hours there this week. I also have a second interview at old navy, to work with the shipping and receiving crew, so i'm optimistic about getting that job as well. I'm pretty sure i can work my schedule so that i can take both.

Dan has an in person interview some time in the next couple weeks with a church in South Carolina, and we are excited about that as well. He also has a Skype interview with a church in Kansas next week, which is also exciting.

Exploring Saint Joseph

So we have a lot of time on our hands these days; on account of packing up most of our stuff already and being unable to pack up everything else until the last minute (because you have to have dishes to cook)

So we went exploring saint joseph yesterday. Mostly because i wanted to take pictures before we moved.

This is a view of the River, looking toward downtown. This overlook would have been really nice if only the car next two us hadn't had a couple scary looking people in it...

This is right along the river. Dan's being goofy, and clinging to the support of a bridge. You know, like spiderman, or something.

Most of this path (riverwalk) was closed due to flooding. It's been over a month since the river receded from overflowing it's banks and there are still huge pools of standing water all over the place. and it smells BAD. stagnant water is kinda gross.

And the river itself. With a bunch of washed up trees. I'm guessing they were uprooted and washed downstream in the flood....

This lovely building is the nature center. I didn't even know saint joseph HAD a nature center. It was however, closed at the time, my guess is on account of flood damage or something. If you notice, the building is raised up off the ground, probably a good 8-10 feet. Definately taller than me, anyway. Not that it's hard to be taller than me. But anyway, it looked like the building might have flooded.

Look, I do clean!

Occasionally, anyway. This room seems so big and empty with the furniture moved around...and some of it gone...

On the other hand, it at least looks nice now!

moving is messy

This is the current state of my living room. Not exactly stellar as we've cleaned out three of the rooms in the house and closed them off so i don't have to clean them again. But hey, i'm moving. It's no big deal. I can live with a little mess.

Except the landlord called today and he wants to start showing the house on Thursday. Um...yeah. ok. Well, there are gonna be boxes all over the house. Nothing I can do about that.

But i guess i can try to keep the floor vacuumed and what not. In theory, anyway.

Moving...

Moving is no fun. Well, actually, i take that back. I think moving is lots of fun. You know, as long as it's once every 2-5 yrs or so. Moving twice in less than a year? Not so much.

But we are busy packing up for our move back to Maryland. And then wherever else God decides we need to live. If that turns out to be California or someplace like that...well...Our couch would, at that point, have something like almost 10,000 miles on it. Which, honestly, is pretty impressive for a couch. They don't usually travel that much. :)

Packing isnt so bad until you get to the kitchen, and you look at all your glass dishes and such, and go...um....yeah. ok. How am i gonna do this? Because, you know, for all that i've moved, like...in six major moves, I don' think i've ever done a kitchen. I always remember the movers coming in to pack up the dishes so that it would be their fault if they got broken. So i'm still working on figuring that one out. I bet i could find instructions on YouTube.

We sold our dining room table and got rid of our extra fridge. We've packed up books, and DVDs, and knick knacks, and most of our clothes. I foresee a lot more laundry in my future as we are both only keeping out about five days worth of clothing. We've thrown away MORE stuff (seriously. Where does it all come from?) We've filled a bunch of bags of STUFF to take to goodwill. It's pretty much insane.

As a final note; people look at you REALLY funny when you go an start pulling newspaper OUT of the paper recycling bins. But we don't get the newspaper and it makes great packing material.