April 18, 2010

Southern Exposure

a historic home in GA



eaten alive! AHHH!


Mammoth attacks!


bowling fun!


this is for you eric ;) i know you love the matt booty!



hey cam!



So while Matt was away for work, I went to GA to visit him. And happily we got to head down to Gainesville FL to visit my best friend Jacki and her hubs Steve. I also got to visit with a friend of mine from CSU who is going to grad school at UF also. It was a good (and short) few days with them but it did show we need to live near one another one day so we can always have wild adventures together!
Jacki and Steve work so while they were off makin' the bacon, Matt and I entertained ourselves! One afternoon we met up with Cameron (my CSU friend) and had lunch with her. It was great to catch up and hear how life back on the east coast was (she's originally from SC). As we were driving her back to class, we pulled up behind the Oscar Mayer weenie mobile! Yes, the weenie mobile! So we stalked it through a parking lot and got our picture with it-score! Not everyone can say they have done this!
Also while Jacki and Steve were working, we went to the university's natural history museum. It was fun! They had a butterfly pavilion (that was little much to get in to so we passed) and all sorts of natural history things-lots of interactive stuff for the kiddies-and me ;0) We had a great time visiting our beloved friends (whom I miss all the time!) and goofing off!

Puerto Rico







Our new friend Edith!


And her silly dog Lola!




So Matt had to go to PR and I went down to visit him. It was super fun! We went snorkling and hiking and got tan and just had a blast! You gotta love it when the weather is consistently in the 80s! We also met up with our friend Adrienne's (miss you!) friend, Edith, who is from PR. She cooked us a scrumptious meal, and all puerto rican! Her house was lovely and she had this goofy little dog named Lola, who we became good friends with during our short visit. We felt blessed to have a home cooked meal by our dear friend's friend, who in turn became our friend!
We went snorkeling and horseback riding on the beach and saw some amazing sunsets! Overall it was a really nice vacation (for me at least!).

It's been a while, I know...

So I realize it's been some time since my last post. We've been out of home, town, state, and even country in the last month. But now we are home and of course the first thing we took care of was dead plants and our jungle of a backyard! We're still in the process of overhauling the back-it's a process that will take some time. Sadly, we had some plants die :( In the front, all three hibiscus shrubs died and two out of the three trees died in the back. But very happily some things I thought that would die survived and are doing even better! Whoo hoo!! The asiatic lillies have sprouted and are about to bloom (can't wait!) and the hydrengas (who I thought were in mortal peril) had way more foliage and potential blooms when we got home. We bought some lovely little shrubs to replace the hibiscus, let us hope they don't disappoint like the hibiscus did. Also, the butterfly bush in the back has gotten HUGE!! It's a monster that I love dearly. And all those petunias I planted as "filler" (that were supposed to die since they're annuals) have thrived through the winter and have taken over. But they are pretty and smell nice, so we'll keep them for a little while longer.
And of course with the arrival of warm weather, it comes time to plant the veggie garden! I learned a lot from last years experiment so we did a few things differently. For starters, we made the garden area about twice as big. We're going to do a nice boarder to separate the veggies from the grass, making it look very official and tidy (just how Matt likes it). I also spaced things out a little better so some more timid plants will not be taken over by the heartier ones, like the squashes. I also opted to not do so many trailing plants like the cucumber (that was a joke!). This years crop includes watermelon (that will be tamed!), pumpkins from seeds (also, they will be more tame), yellow crook-neck squash and zucchini squash, red bell peppers, peas, strawberries, parsley and thyme and a hanging pot of celebrity tomatoes. I'm pretty excited to see how it all does this year since it was such a smashing success last year!
As for the inside, things were in pretty good order still. We are putting some pictures in our bathroom, to make it look finished, as well as knobs on all the cabinets! We got on the ball for that really fast and Matt did a wonderful job putting all the knobs on in no time. Now our kitchen looks a little more polished.
Sadly our external hard-drive has been malfunctioning so I'm having to upload pics onto our hard drive, which is taking some time. But no fear, I will be posting pics of all the goings on.
In horse-related news, I have joined a local riding group and am now meeting people! YAY! It's been fun so far and I have met some very nice people. I'll be posting pics from rides on here too.
That's all for now. Once these pics load I'll post them up! And as always, you can find us on flickr for pics to be posted too!