Garden is Growing

We have vegetables (and flowers)!! We have been enjoying zucchini, yellow squash, snap peas and tomatoes from our garden. After biting into a tomato from our yard, we are forced to ask: Why do store bought versions taste so awful??

  

  

Little Girls

Sugar and spice

and everything nice

that's what little girls are made of

There is one little girl in my life, thanks to one of my dearest friends, and her name is Charlotte.


She was born in February 2009 and I haven’t seen her since she was a newborn until this past weekend. We traveled to Georgia and stayed with Charlotte’s grandparents (and mom and uncles and aunts) for the long weekend. She sure has changed a lot!

I stalked her like the paparazzi and also tried to capture moments with her mom so they could send to da-da/husband in Kuwait where he is deployed. I even think I heard her say “tiger” a few times while we were reading about them (the animal, not the Clemson team). Here is a short video of her entertaining us at dinner and blowing kisses.

Her mom is pregnant with another little girl so Charlotte will be a big sister in September.

Doesn’t she have the biggest brown eyes?? She is mostly sugar with a hint of spice, or at least that was the case on Sunday evening ;).

Does Bigger = Better?

Less than one week after purchasing our Nikon, we had the annual family reunion. This was the perfect excuse to walk around with my camera all day, taking candids of many generations enjoying each other’s company. The reunion was for my husband’s family (his dad’s side). My father-in-law, Paul, has eight brothers and sisters. Five of them see each other regularly, one lives in West Virginia and three have passed away. The spouses of two of the three siblings who have passed away are still involved with the family and they were at the reunion too.

Here are the siblings who attended this year’s reunion (youngest to oldest). Do you see the family resemblance?

If I’m counting right, there were four generations eating side-by-side and it was great. Now, our immediate family only had two generations at the table, but hey, one day there will be more.

I grew up in a small family. My mother has two siblings and my father has one sister. Although my dad’s family still lives in Connecticut (his parents have since passed away) we didn’t see each other much at all growing up. My mom’s family is scattered from Illinois to Miami and places in between.

When we moved to the DC metro area in 2007, I was amazed at how much of Brad’s family stayed within an hour of where they were born and raised. It makes for large family gatherings full of conversation, humor and lots of food. It took me a few family functions to get acclimated to “the crowd” but I am now used to it and can’t imagine a holiday with less than a table full of people.

Our New Toy

For more than a year now we have been research DSLR cameras. All the photos you have seen up until this point, and for those of us who have been friends for years, everything since 2005, has been taken with my Sony Cyber Shot.

This camera was top-of-the-line at the time when my mom purchased it as a birthday gift. It spent half of my college years with me and has captured many memories with college friends post-graduation. It took the first photos of Brad and I and documented all of our adventures to different states and countries including Germany, Malta, Belize and the Dominican Republic.

At the end of May during my trip to Rhode island I noticed a spot on the lens. Whenever photos had the sky in them, there was this dust spot, almost like an orb, that showed up in every single photo. I am able to edit it out, but it reminded me that we should get back onto the DSLR pre-purchasing wagon. So we did.

After comparing cameras in the store, testing out how hard/easy it was to hold them, cost of additional accessories such as lenses, flash, etc, and mainly the quality of the camera and photos it takes, I decided on the Nikon D3000.

I was summoned for jury duty last week so I purchased the camera at the end of the day since it was available at a store closer to our home. Well, after ten days, I am thrilled with our purchase! Of course the first night I started trying the different settings by taking photos of Jake, our little fur baby turned model. We will spend time learning our new camera and taking all sorts of shots, some of which I will share with you here. Happy snapping!!

My West Coast Experience

San Francisco, City by the Bay

Oh you've got me

San Francisco

Take me to the water

(Thanks to The Village People)

Sorry for the delay of this post, I have already taken another business trip since and am happy that my next trip will be with my husband to see friends for several days. It also doesn't involve an airport. Anyway, I was in northern California for three days the week before last. I took advantage of the three hour time difference and flew direct to SFO early in the morning and rented my first rental car. It is quite nice that you can also order a GPS too - saves alot of hassle before you leave home.

I headed north on Rt. 101 towards Pier 39 because I knew that the few "must see" spots on my list were all within walking distance of this area. Since I could hear them from the parking garage, I started off by gawking and laughing at the sea lions for awhile. Some of them were huge and being bullies to the smaller guys. did you know that male sea lions have "bumps" on their heads?

For lunch I walked about ten minutes to Fisherman's Wharf and chose the restaurant with the most people inside and outside. I figured it was a good gauge of the food quality (or taste at least). There are bars outside for people to stand and eat on-the-go, although I don't know how you can eat stuffed shrimp salad sandwiches sandwiched in crunchy sourdough bread on-the-go...

Next adventure was a ride on a cable car up the steep (didn't realize how steep they really were) streets towards Lombard Street. I hung off the side of the car like they used to do in Full House while trying to take pictures. Within two minutes I almost got smashed by a truck, but I recovered quickly and continued to hang out. The ride to Lombard on the Hyde-Powell line was shorter than I hoped so I went to the next stop and then walked back up the hills to Lombard Street. Did you know that all of the flowers in and out of the crookedest street (I think I counted seven curves) are hydrangeas? I think they may be the lacecap variety because they are small and dainty, not as large as the variety in my yard.

The best part of my day was the part I planned in advance: a catamaran cruise on the Bay. Yes, it was chilly as the pictures suggest, but did I have another option? Nope. For a very reasonable $25 I took a 90 minute cruise past Alcatraz and towards (even under) the Golden Gate Bridge. There were less than two dozen people on board and a nice Swedish family offered to take photos of me. I wish brad was there to enjoy the scenery and be part of the memory I created that day. The bridge wasn't as red as I thought, which may sound strange, but maybe the paint has aged or maybe it is enhanced on television? Both scenarios seem likely to me.

Garden Update

Short post - only photos, well besides this intro and two questions: What do you have growing? Do you prefer to grow fruits/vegetables or flowers??

Where does my time go?

Last year I started to realyl feel like time was passing quickly - almost too quickly. Now I don't necessarily mean every day at work, but a week is over before I know it, which is great considering relaxing weekends, but alas, those two days off go by just as fast. It was my first wedding anniversary before I thought about how long it takes to thaw the top layer of wedding cake and Christmas almost before I recovered from Thanksgiving. Here we are, a few days into June, and I still am wondering what happened to my first five months of 2010.

I know for the past few weeks, and the next few weeks, I will not be in the office more than four days per week. At this rate I am going four, three, four, two, two.five, and then a full week only to have a three day week for the Fourth of July and then four, and four. The partial work-week trend continues through the summer months since my employers graciously offer a Summer Hours program where we can work extra time during the week and be off every other Friday.

My project for this weekend, one of the few we don't have planned out, is to paint our master bathroom. This may seem easy, but all the "architectural elements" I liked while designing the house and enjoy daily, will not be as fun to paint. I just hope I'm better at picking the color the first time around than I was with our bedroom!