categorize me!

so i've had this blog for quite a few years now - coming up on five!  lately i've been at danger of repeating myself, or trying to find something i know i posted some time ago, so in an effort to add a little organization, i've added categories!  to the right, you can now click on posts i've categorized and see anything i've ever posted on the topic.  i'll continue to go through old posts and label them so more should be appearing :)

geocaching and other arizona fun

so we've been up at the cabin almost all week. we landed on saturday morning and spent some time visiting with my grandma & grandaddy and my dad & family. then we hightailed it up north where the temperature is not north of 100 degrees! it's been a gorgeous relaxing week. we've been atv'ing around and hiking in search of geocaches, nate's latest hobby. my mom and i turned out to be pretty good 'spotters' of the caches.

if you have no idea what i'm talking about, geocaching is a ... game? sport? hobby? john.. help me out here! (john and ross actually introduced us to geocaching) but whatever it's category, all you need is a gps and willingness to explore. people hide caches, and post the latitude/longitude on the internet so other people can go find it, exchange token treasures (like a plastic dinosaur or state quarter) and write in the log book. it's a lot of fun and there are TONS up here to find. nate planned a trek for us yesterday and we traveled by ATV, stopping at the camp store, the lake for a picnic lunch, and following all kinds of scenic trails in search of geocaches :) it was fun :)

we'll be heading back to the valley either tonight or tomorrow morning so we can spend time with everyone else. it's hot, but that also gives us the chance to eat at every mexican place we can before we head back to florida! :)

tea stain?

who would name a paint color 'tea stain'?

despite nomenclature, that's what we ended up with yesterday after much deliberation (and 4 paint samples later). it's actually lighter than we originally thought and we keep wandering back in and confirming 'yeah!...i like it. i think we picked the right color.' i think once we get all the furniture back in we'll love it, but we'll see :) i'll post a pic when it's all said and done!

good morning!

it's painting day! we're still working on getting our office in order (nate's last day with disney was on friday and now he'll be working from home). yesterday we bought a few samples of color to splash on the wall, and neither works. although previously referred to as "cliveden gray morning" and "hopsack" we now know them as "greenish-gray cave" and "silly-putty." round two this morning, we've picked out another couple of hopefuls.

lastnight we had our celebration dinner for nate's new role and went to our favorite restaurant in town, k restaurant and wine bar. it was delicious. their menu changes everyday so it's always a treat to see what they have to offer. nate went for the 'porcini dusted filet' that came with truffled mashed potatoes and i had flank steak with roasted potatoes (there were more tasty details, but i can't remember them all!) we both had creme brulee for dessert - one lavender, one chocolate. mmm i'm making myself hungry just typing about it ;)

also last week we had the canoe races of the world. it's a cast competition to race a 10-person concrete canoe around tom sawyer's island. i'm still sore from friday's practice but we qualified for the finals! we compete for an 'oar' on wednesday- more to come :)

the big picture

so my latest favorite blog is The Big Picture (now linked on the right).  they post some incredible pictures from all over the world.  i definitely recommend checking it out!

thoughts on geography

if i had one wish (and an entirely selfish one) i would want to be able to visit anywhere i've ever lived just by passing through a door in my house. one day, i'd stop off in burlington, vermont and eat some of those really tasty dumplings i used to eat on church street. or i would head to purdue to see how the campus is looking these days. even better, i could pop in for breakfast with my in phoenix, or take a quick river cruise on the yough when the florida sun got to be a little too hot.

for that matter, i'd probably extend it to a door to anywhere so i could visit places that i haven't lived, but want to go to as well :)

wouldn't that be incredible?

our thrift/antique store find

so here's our new desk:



cute, eh? i like even more than i did when we bought it :) as nate keeps saying, "it's so sturdy!" and that's real formica on top kids, we're not messing around.



this is nate pretending to be a pottery barn model (still need to paint- anyone having any inspiring color ideas?):





i expect cleo to be laying there each and every day while nate works away at his desk :)



oh! i finally updated some pictures on our smugmug site -- added photos from my dad's visit and a few from molly's farewell. i'm getting caught up!

lazy sunday

nate and i are having a nice lazy sunday :) i've been editing pictures, nate's been doing his usual sunday routine (reading the west orange times, the pittsburgh news online, and listening to wyep).

yesterday we bought a desk for the office since nate will need something larger than what we had - more work surface, more drawers, less particle board, etc. we've been looking at some furniture stores but have also been meaning to check out the antique-ish store right around the corner. we finally got over there yesterday and she showed us a desk that will completely satisfy all of our functional needs for about 1/15 the price of what we've been looking at. after 15 minutes of careful deliberation (do we want a circa 1965 walnut desk?) and then decided we'd take it! today we're giving it a little murphy's oil love and nate fixed one of it's broken legs. i'll post some pictures once we get it all settled into the office, we're still working on getting the old desk out ;)

next? a super ergo chair and some paint!

happy birthday gram!

happy independence day!

well we made it without incident to pennsylvania (and if you're at all familiar with our travel debacles, that's quite an accomplishment!)

it's a rainy day unfortunately, but we're busy preparing for a day of indoor fun :) happy 4th of july :)