After photos

So, yeah, it has been almost a year now that we've been in the house and I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't posted the "After" photos of Miss Magnolia!? In all honesty, there are so many projects that we still have to do that taking "after" photos just doesn't seem right, but it's starting to feel ridiculous that we have nothing up, so I'm just going to do it anyway. Oh, and I haven't even started on the outside shots yet... yikes.  But here's a sneak peak - the new stained-glass window panel that I made for one of our kitchen windows:

The day after I got back from Atlanta, Megan and Jimmy brought the boys over for a visit. Wade being the wonderful husband he is, cleaned the house while I was gone in preparation for their visit. So, it seemed like a waste to not take advantage of our clean and tidy house. The winter sun is slowly returning which means that lighting for pictures is much better now, particularly in the parts of the house we remodeled. So I took an afternoon to capture as much as I could as best as possible with my small point and shoot camera.


You can see the pictures, here on our Picasa site. Hope you enjoy looking through them as much as I enjoyed taking them!  And in case you don't remember, we went down to the studs in the kitchen, some of the guest bathroom, the entire master bathroom, half the master bedroom, and all of the master closet, which now contains a laundry nook.  We also had to sand and refinish the wood floors in the whole house and put down new travertine floors in the kitchen, guest and master baths, and in the master closet/laundry nook. In the finished attic, we ripped out old carpet, laid new cottage-style painted plywood floors, and painted the walls.  Have fun looking at the before and after pictures to see if you can recognize the house! :)

Fall is in the air

The last weekend of September brought the first hint that fall was around the corner and that the season of lovely weather, festivals, and fun were rapidly approaching.  On Saturday morning Wade and I went on the annual Native Plant Garden Tour which gave us a lot of inspiration last year for our yard, and continued to give us good idea this year.  It was also nice to see how many people are promoting the use of beautiful but environmentally-friendly landscaping that conserves water and feeds and protects wildlife.  It's a bit like a treasure hunt following the tour map, so each year we learn more about new parts of St. Pete we haven't seen before. 


That evening we joined Dustin, Katie, John, and Melissa for Beerfest at the Old Northeast Tavern in our neighborhood to celebrate Dustin's birthday.  They served all you can drink beer, and german food for 4 hours... dangerous.  We had so much fun and passed the evening playing Uno, counting down the beer list, and burning our mouths on steaming hot pizza.

Katie and the birthday boy, Dustin.

I brought my camp mug to drink out of so I wouldn't waste a plastic cup - it was perfect!

Dustin's Beer Boot Mug and the infamous drinking Uno deck. 

We completed The List!  But paid for it the next morning...

AZA Conference

After DC, I headed to Atlanta for a work conference.  I went to meet with a number of public aquariums we're trying to partner with for my work so I thought it would be a good idea to meet them on their turf, so to speak, at the Annual Association of Zoos and Aquariums Conference.  I attended a number of panels to learn more about the role of science and conservation in public aquariums, had many productive conversations, then the day I was due to leave I looked forward to the part of the trip I could have some fun at: zoo day field trip.  


In particular, I was almost as giddy as a school girl at the prospect of seeing two baby tigers.  They were born at Zoo Atlanta on July 5th and recently were available for public viewing.  And my lord they didn't disappoint.  There was a nearly insane amount of cuteness on display as they played hide and seek, pounced, stalked, and rolled around the grass with their mother.  And to the zoo's credit, it was one of the better tiger enclosures I've seen with lots of real vegetation, natural features and water, and plenty of room to romp.  If I've ever thought of committing a crime, it would have been to get behind the scenes to pet one of the cubs because they were a whole new level of adorable.  

I stood and watched them for a half hour, before finally moving on for behind the scenes tours of the lions, birds and lemurs, and elephants.  On the lion tour I was treated to face time with a lioness and her mate (who was not thrilled to see the tour like she was).  The lioness was hand raised and genuinely enjoyed being scratched and loved on by her keeper and it was pretty incredible.  The male however liked to "guard" her and was known for spraying unwanted guests!  So we all took a giant step back as soon as we heard that.  We did however get some great shots, but it was difficult to see them sitting behind the chain-link fence looking bored while they weren't out for the public (the old male was out at that moment and he couldn't be mixed with the younger couple).  Check out more photos here on our Picasa site.


After the tours and group dinner, I headed right to the airport with my luggage to find my late flight was made even later.  Despite the delay it was good to finally be home for a long stretch after so much work travel and vacation.

North Carolina

The end of August brought a much anticipate event for us: VACATION. We were finally going to do it - head out on a real family vacation for longer than a 3 day weekend. I was so excited I started packing a whole week early. And well frankly, I had to. I was in DC up until the night before our vacation, then again the day after our vacation so I had to pack for DC twice and for North Carolina to ensure I didn't forget anything for any of the 3 trips. To add to the mix, we were driving to NC so we could take the "kids" with us - yep, all 4 of them came along which made for an adventure, but also made it more fun since we didn't have to worry about leaving them behind. We also wanted to drive so we could go camping for the first time in NC so we also had to round up our camping gear as well. Given that the 'ole Civic is really starting to show her years, we decided to give her a vacation too and rent a slightly larger car to fit us, our stuff, and the kids and their stuff for the long haul. Despite the extra room, we still had to be judicious about what we packed to ensure it would fit in a "regular SUV" given that we had no idea what to expect from the car rental company.

Friday morning of our trip dawned and Wade headed to work for a half day while I packed, met a colleague for lunch, and prepped the house for our departure. We headed to the airport to grad the rental car before dinner and nearly stroked out when they tried to give us a cracker jack box sized "SUV".

Me: "Well, sir, we have A LOT of stuff to take with us, so we're definitely going to need something bigger than that thing because that is definitely not a "regular SUV"

Rental car dude: "Hmm, ok, go check this one out then..." (Sound of Wade running out to check the car, then running back in, sweating and not looking pleased...)

Me: Yeeeeaahhh, that's not going to cut it either sir. We paid for the bigger car for a reason so I'd like the larger car I was promised (and I don't want to explain that we're cramming 4 animals in your rental car)

Rental car dude: Well, I can borrow a mini-van from the other rental place and give it to you for the same price if you think that'll do it? (Sound of Wade's eyes lighting up)

Me: Well, if you think it can still handle mountains and terrain and stuff...?

Wade: Yes, that'll be great, where do we sign?!

I still had reservations about a mini-van's ability to handle gravelly mountain roads (and my ability to drive a mini-van without vomiting at the image), but when Wade saw that the seats in the van folded into the floor to create more storage that could fit a queen-sized bed he never looked back. Our chariot awaits:

We had a quick dinner, packed up the car, tossed the kids in and hit the road with high spirits. We only had a 5 hours drive to Georgia before spending the night so we were feeling pretty high on life... until Hilo began to have a nervous breakdown and spew out of every end. To his credit, he did most of his business in his litter box (yes, we had so much space we traveled with a litter box for the cats), but once he was empty, he proceeded to foam at the mouth for most of the drive. So I dove into the back of the van for damage control and ended up staying for the rest of the trip with the cats sleeping on me. Oh, right, that all happened at the 30 minute mark. Suuuuuper. We crashed at our usual stopover point in Tifton, GA (thank you Hampton Inn for taking pets!) and spent the evening watching hurricane Irene to see if it was going to screw up our driving plans.

The next day we rounded everyone up back into the car - all of us in a varying state of grouchiness and crustiness - and made the last push for North Carolina. This leg took a little longer so Wade enjoyed the scenery while I slept in the back with the cats covered in drool. We were all relieved when we pulled into Waynesville, NC where my Mom and Larry live so we could let the kids adjust and we could take in the fresh mountain air. It had been a few years since we had been up to visit them and everything was perfectly in bloom so it was great to see them and their mountain retreat.

For the next 10 days we enjoyed their gardens, went camping and hiking, swimming, celebrated Mom's birthday in style, celebrated Samuel's 2nd birthday with Janis and Miles, and went 'tooning with Kellyn and Conrad. We also spent many nights just catching up and cooking at their house (I packed a bunch of cook books that we had fun experimenting with). It was a great vacation and wonderful to see so many friends and family, and so much nature. Check out our pictures on Picasa for more details. :) Happily, some of the time was a bit of a blur from sleeping in and peaceful reading on the deck listening to the hummingbirds and other birds chase each other around the feeders. Just like a vacation should be in my book!

On the way home we had to contend with tropical storm Lee which caused quite a bit of stress with the rain and wind. We were fortunate enough to make it through Atlanta just before a few tornadoes blew through town, but still ended up in some pretty nasty traffic jams that didn't sit well with the pets. However, Wade was our dependable chauffeur for the trip and got us all home safely (and I was only covered in a little cat drool on the way back). The next morning, it was off to DC again which almost made it feel like the vacation was a figment of my imagination...

Oh, and the mini-van? She performed admirably and Wade was actually a little sad to have to turn her back in. ;)  I, however, am still dreaming of a new car someday, one that can tote us and our stuff everywhere, perhaps a Subaru??