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 :)

yes, i'm way behind on pictures

still to come are:

• Dad & Co. visit
• Cassie's visit
• Work team building
• Amy & Greer's wedding and our weekend in Nashville
• Crash-o-Rama

better get caught up before the 4th eh? in the meantime...

breakfast with the characters

tomorrow, nate and i are headed to ohana to have breakfast with lilo, stitch, mickey & pluto! stay tuned for pictures :)

tostadas!

so our meal of choice lately has been tostadas. they're extremely tasty and don't require much cooking (which is key during the summer in florida!)



first, it's important to have lots of fixins' as show here (tomatoes, onion, jalapeno, cilantro, avocado) also helpful but not pictured: shredded cheese, sour cream, cholula. although lately i've been leaving off the sour cream and cheese and haven't even missed it! the cilantro is a must though!





then just spread some refried beans on a tostada shell (i warm mine first in the oven), add spiced ground beef if you want, and then voila! tasty easy summer meal :)

not to brag...

but is he the cutest, or what? :) (i know cassie... "gag!") but seriously :)

redecorating, and slacking on the blog!

happy weekend! we're doing some groundwork for redecorating our 'office' this weekend. it's one of the only rooms in the house that's never been painted and could certainly use a little sprucing up. we might go with plain ol' tan, but now i'm thinking maybe a color? i'm always drawn to blues and greens, but i probably shouldn't have the entire house in those 2 colors ;)

last weekend was good times. we went to the crash-o-rama (pictures to come!), had a nice lazy saturday at the farmers' market and even took naps! saturday night we saw a couple of cool bands at an orlando bar called backbooth - it had all kinds of neat alcoves and places to see the stage. i liked it :) we saw a band called 'look mexico' that we both really liked and also 'the sugar oaks' (who were headlining). we had a few more activities with molly for her last weekend in town (brunch at dexter's and a few $2 mimosas) and then we FINALLY cleaned the house!

we have some upcoming trips to PA and AZ so we're pretty excited- our vacation use this year has been pretty slim up to now so we're happy to be flying the friendly skies again ;)

Ponce de Leon

by George Lober

Now that I am fifty
I look at you differently,

I let the scent of your skin
wash over me at night,

I bathe my face in the red
spray of your hair,

and cling to your back
in the dark like a man

both afraid of the jungle
and certain as Ponce de Leon

that my last and only hope
of remaining young

is to discover you
again and again and again.

breeze through the car window

tonight reminded of me of when it's nice and cool outside and we leave the windows open and curl up under the covers! of course, i love the long days of summer and wearing a tank top and shorts to a late night outing and not worrying about being cold. here in florida, some mornings when i leave our air conditioned house in the morning, my glasses fog up! just rambling about the seasons and what i associate with them i guess. random i know.
in other news, i downloaded a bunch of new music including: the weepies, crooked still, catie curtis... and did you know that lisa loeb wrote a song about groundhogs??? so of course, i had to download that as lisa loeb is a long time favorite of mine (the first CD i ever purchased in fact).
nate and i have leisurely plans for the weekend, our good friend molly is moving (!) to cali so we have been participating in a string of farewell activities. this weekend we're headed to see school buses race on a figure eight track- crazy, eh? nate's pretty excited so i'll be sure to share some pictures :)
other plans? check out the winter garden farmers' market, the new whole foods (yipee!), go see some live music downtown, enjoy the weekend!

picture sneak peek

a few pics from our visit with dad, anita, ryan, austin, and cassie (and ari!) -- i think the picture of the 2 dogs is hilarious - it's obvious that cleo wants nothing to do with ari even though i made them sit next to each other.

drinking coke at club cool!

gorilla sized dad!

the boys as bugs. this was cassie's favorite ride!

dad and anita at city walk

posted some april pics!

greetings from our future!

cassie, nate & i headed to epcot tonight (cassie's favorite!) we had a great time and nate even got cassie to ride spaceship earth (the ride that goes through the epcot ball). here's the postcards we got from the ride:



dad, anita, ryan & austin headed home wednesday -- we had a great time with them and hope they enjoyed florida!

tomorrow, we're beach bound- hopefully the weather will cooperate!

like i could resist...

taking photos of miss ari ;)

hurricane season

well with june 1st came hurricane season and true to this time of year, we've had thunderstorms rolling in each evening since. i love that :)

happy birthday mom!