waltzing matilda

Wrestling

2011-10-19T10:48:00.000-04:00

I thought this was pretty cute. And amazingly, did not end in tears.

another shortie

2011-08-04T10:21:00.002-04:00

2011-07-24T14:27:00.001-04:00

2011-03-17T15:39:00.001-04:00

Lola Performing

2011-02-11T14:33:00.002-05:00

Adams Performing

2011-02-11T14:16:00.003-05:00

2011-02-03T10:09:00.003-05:00

bikes & stuff

2010-08-08T15:16:00.004-04:00

it's been a very hot summer. i've been remaining inside as much as possible when it's so hot. however, today it wasn't as humid, but still hot, so we went up to the horse stables in rock creek park. i love it up there. adams is old enough now to be interested in all the horses and goings-on so it's a little more fun. and since it's in the park, there are lots of trails so we went on a fairly short hike as well.
joe's bikes (2) got stolen off our front porch last month and he has just recently replaced both. the newest bike is a fancy california-style thing with an "extended cab" (i have no idea what it's really called but that's what i'm calling it). if, let's say, adams and i both wanted a ride, it's possible on this thing. i could sit on the plank and adams could sit in his bike seat (not seen in pic obvi). there are wooden foot rests down toward the chain for a more comfortable ride for the passenger. i'm not really into bikes as much as i'd (or joe would) like (me) to be, but this thing is pretty cool and just might inspire me to get more into riding (on the back!) after that next kid comes out.
i'm 5 1/2 months pregnant now. everything is going swimmingly. to date, it has been a super easy pregnancy. no real sickness or other pregnancy annoyances so far. we found out a couple weeks ago that we're having a girl so we'll have a matching set. i'm hoping since adams was such a grumpy baby that she'll be super happy and easy. that's how it works right?
adams has been on a bit of a roller coaster ride lately. i think he was going through a teething phase, though he doesn't actually have any new teeth to show for it. that seems to be over for now. he was having some other major grumpiness alongside that too but i'm pretty sure, once again, that it was hunger related. it's very difficult to feed the child as he's super picky sometimes and it's hard to know what he will eat from day-to-day. so when he doesn't eat, he gets kind of evil. but he's been eating a lot for the past few days, and we realize more than ever, that his 'tude is majorly affected by what's in his belly (as is mine) so it's worth it to figure out something that he will eat. makes the difference between a good and bad day even if it is frustrating.
in house news, our back yard looks great even though we never go out there b/c the mosquitoes are wicked bad right now. joe has become highly sensitive to mosquito bites (and also highly annoying when he gets bit) so for now, we haven't spent much time out there. we have also finally sent our radiators off to the strippers. there they will be stripped of their many layers of paint and clear coated. they said it would take to to three months to get back to us and this was in july so let us hope that there aren't any really cold spells in early october. we've been working on our stair case (painting and such) as well. it's going to look great once we get a runner on those stairs. soon, adams will make the transition to the guest bedroom and the baby will take over his old room. this means he'll be moving into a twin bed (so we don't have to buy another crib) soonish! seems pretty young to be doing this, but i've heard of other people who've done it at the same age, and for the same reasons, successfully. if only we could get him potty trained before the baby came. at one time i actually thought that might be a possibility but since inquiring with friends with kids i now realize that there is no way that will ever happen. in fact, he'll probably be in diapers for another year and a half after the baby is born. ugh.

adams' new toy

2010-07-08T12:53:00.003-04:00

we got a rocking chair that (i think) belonged to me when i was little while we were in michigan. naturally, adams prefers standing on it.

A Moment with Adams

2010-05-06T20:27:00.002-04:00

spring...is that you?

2010-03-10T20:00:00.004-05:00

it was lovely out last weekend. i couldn't be happier spring is here (or almost here i should say). i think one has even more appreciation for it after a long, hard winter which is rare in dc. joe, adams and i went for a hike in rock creek park on sunday to celebrate. adams rode in some hiking-baby-backpack that one of joe's co-workers gave him. he loved it. on our hike, we stopped in at the horse stables we visited last fall before adams was here. there's still snow out there too...a testament to how much we had last month.

the weekend also included finally starting work on the interior trim of our house. we got the hallway mostly painted and it looks so much better. the stairs were such a mess. they're still not done. we painted them (only b/c they were already painted; stripping them and refinishing was a bigger commitment than we are currently interested in) and are going to get a nice runner. also, we need 2 new newel caps (a big word yes; basically the caps that go on top of the banister at the top and bottom of the stairs). anyway, i can't believe we waited that long. one down...

we also went up to baltimore to check out some architectural salvage since a few of the rails on the banister were missing. we were hoping to get some of those newel caps there too but apparently they're a hot item and don't stick around long when they do have them. but either way, i was surprised they had the exact rails we needed. there are so many variations. we had lunch-dinner...linner at a southwestern/mexican place. at the end of the meal, i noticed both adams and joe looking peacefully out the window. one second later adams started crying. he managed to slice open his finger on this pin joe was wearing (not the pointy part as you would expect but where the metal meets the plastic). it bled quite a bit. joe rushed him off to the bathroom and took care of it but it was a little dramatic for a moment.

i think adams is finally teething. it's about time. he's been a real manic-depressive lately which i blame mostly on the teething. it really comes and goes, but when he's mad, he's really mad. his sleeping schedule is on and off as well. hopefully they all pop out at once so we can get this nipped in the bud.

adams @ 9 months

2010-02-26T09:49:00.006-05:00

(um, why am i wearing this?)

(climbing stairs)

(confused adams in basket)

adams will be 9 mo old on feb 27. he's getting to be quite the big fella'. i don't think he's really all that petite anymore. he seems to be pretty much normal size (and looks like a downright fatty in the basket pic above) for a baby his age (whereas when he was around 3 mo old, someone thought he was just a couple weeks old).
since xmas he's started crawling, now stands on his own quite a bit and eats like a hoss. he's eating 3 meals a day of solid food. he'll eat anything: yogurt, oats, butternut squash, chicken noodle soup, apples and i made him a fantastic sweet potato/beet/beet green concoction the other day that he just loves! he's very recently started eating finger foods (though he has no idea how to put the food in his mouth on his own).
he's also learned to climb up stairs! i was downstairs in the living room on my computer one morning and joe was upstairs getting ready for work. and i hear joe exclaim adams' name and looked up and saw him 3 stairs up. had i known he could do that, obviously, i would have been keeping my eye on him. oops!
we've also managed to get him off his ridiculous, unpredictable 4+ nap a day schedule. now he takes 2 a day at more or less the same time every day and sleeps for a couple hours each. he goes to bed at a much more reasonable time as well: between 7 and 7:30 (vs. 6 o'clock one month ago). this means we get to sleep in until anywhere between 5 and 6:30. what a treat (really not so much... i'm already over the novelty of it and am looking into a 7 am wake up time)!

the real blizzard of 2010

2010-02-10T18:02:00.005-05:00

while everyone calls last friday's storm a blizzard, i don't think it technically was; especially compared to what went down today. this was the real deal. it snowed overnight but just a couple inches. by 11 am the winds were howling and the snow was coming down. when adams went down for his nap this afternoon, we headed outdoors (he woke up the second we were walking out the door but we managed to keep him down for a little while at least). it was crazy. there were 3+ feet drifts all over the place. and the wind was whipping like mad. joe and jason built an igloo out back (i'll get a pic of that tomorrow when it's light out again).

a huge tree came down in our neighborhood. it doesn't appear as if anyone was injured. the schools are all closed until next week. i think we have about 3 ft of snow at this point. here are a couple of links to all the craziness:

snowpocalypsedc.com

blizzard of 2010

2010-02-08T20:25:00.004-05:00

unfortunately my camera is not working so i could only take iphone pics which kind of suck big time. basically, all of my bellyaching about getting screwed by not ever seeing any snow has ended. i don't ever recall seeing so much snow in my life (though it's quite possible that i don't remember). it started friday night and ended early on saturday evening. i think we got just over 2 feet. it was called a blizzard but i didn't see a lot of blowing. i imagine that was more evident on the highways though. 2 days later, the metro is closed in any above-ground location as is the federal govt and all the schools in the area. our mail didn't come saturday or today. our road hasn't been plowed yet but the two big roads near us are fine.
amazingly, we're expecting 10-20 inches more tomorrow. last year i don't even know if we got an inch of snow.

happy new year!

2010-01-07T19:09:00.004-05:00

he looks a little skeptical about wearing a crown, no?

in 2010, adams has already learned to sit confidently and is now crawling not so confidently. we are going to baby-proof the place this weekend. if it were up to joe the whole house would be covered in bubble wrap. today we heard a a cute (not scared) scream and looked over and saw adams staring at us from under the coffee table. after that, joe suggested we "wrap" it. he was serious.

december 31

2009-12-31T12:25:00.002-05:00

'twas a big year for us with the addition of young adams. he's turned into a big boy in these past two months. i think he's gained about 2 pounds in 2 weeks (holiday weight gain of course) and is officially no longer a waif. he's got cellulite and a double-chin. he is about to crawl and spins on his tummy like a break dancer. he loves doing laps around the house with joe right before bedtime. i'd like to think it wears him down and gets him to sleep easier and longer. he still doesn't have any teeth but i'm sure they'll show up one of these days.
we had a good vacation in michigan. it's not as easy or relaxing traveling now that we have a baby. adams' sleep habits become terrible anytime we spend more than one night away from home. we spent some time in sturgis with my family and then headed up to ionia to be with joe's fam. there were lots of social activities throughout the week which was fun but exhausting. we are definitely glad to be home and in our own beds. next year we will start our own holiday traditions in dc.
i forgot to take my battery charger to michigan with us and the battery died soon after we got there so i have no quality pics of adams' first xmas. great mom!

august update

2009-08-22T10:49:00.005-04:00

after more than a month of not posting, lots has changed in baby world. the most exciting thing is that adams is basically sleeping through the night at this point. he's been doing that for about a month i think. also exciting is that he has a new attitude. he spent the first 8 weeks of his life being a real crank. he had his moments of "charmingness", but basically he was tres unpleasant. at his 2 month appointment, we learned why. he had only gained a few ounces since his 1 month appointment which is obviously an issue. the doctor didn't see anything wrong with him otherwise but still was slightly concerned and had us schedule a 3 month appointment which is usually unnecessary. in the first couple days after the appointment, we realized that he was not getting enough to eat. uh, duh. within days of being fed more, he was a new man. and at his 3 month appointment yesterday he had gained 2 lbs! he's got meat on his bones now. so i shant be complaining about a happy, sleeping baby.
we got a new car last month. the car we had was just too small to fit a car seat. i had no idea a car seat would take up so much space. i basically had to sit with my knees up to the dashboard b/c the baby sat behind me. anyway, the new one has a good bit more space and is similar to the last one, just the model above it. oh, and it's a station wagon.
we've been on a couple trips in the last month or so. in july, we went to wilmington, delaware. joe had to drop something off there for work so we went up with him. it was a 3 hour trip and the baby cried the whole way. it was dreadful. but he was just as charming as could be when we got there. we spent the night and after joe had dropped his stuff off, we walked around wilmington. it's actually quite a nice place. it's pretty small but charming nonetheless. after that, we went driving around since the baby likes the car so much and found ourselves at one of the dupont family summer homes. it was incredible. the grounds were huge and the gardens really cool. most of them were informal but very nice. there were lots of rare trees and a giant sycamore. there was also a very fancy museum. the place was very well kept up and obviously very well funded. we didn't go in the house since it took so long to walk around the grounds but it was absolutely huge. highly recommended if anyone ever finds themselves in delaware. and the other trip we took was a couple of weekends ago. we decided to get out of town for a while since it was blazing hot so on saturday we drove over to west virginia. we spent the day in thomas, wva. it's a little, old mining town on a river (not sure which). there were cute stores and a neat restaurant/coffee shop that used to be a general store. there seemed to be a real hippy presence in the town i guess b/c it's on a river/near trails/in a skiing area. that evening we went to a brewery where the band cracker of 90s fame just happened to be playing. we didn't stick around for the show b/c we had the baby. afterward, we went back to our hotel and put the baby to sleep and played scrabble (i won). the next day we drove around a bit and went to black water state park and did some exploring. there was a great waterfall there. that trip was kind of practice for the big trip home next week. knowing that adams hates the car, we thought we'd do a practice run. this trip was much better. we ended up getting a new car seat and i spent some of the time sitting in the back with him once he got frantic. i'm really not a fan of back seat sitting with babies but it sure beats a hysterical child. anyway, it was much better than the trip to delaware and i've got my fingers crossed that the trip to michigan will be even better.

4th of july

2009-07-10T11:28:00.003-04:00

the fam was in town for the 4th of july. gwen, brad, adam, hannah, mark & laura all drove over last friday. they got here mid-day so we had a couple days to hang. brad, joe & adam went to the pool one day and joe---with some assistance---made pizza for everyone. we walked around down near the mall most of saturday and then went out to eat down there. on saturday night (4th of july) we went to the national cathedral and watched the fireworks that were being held on the mall. the view was rather limited but it was cool. i think the cathedral itself was probably more popular than the fireworks. when we got back home, our neighborhood was having its own celebration. every few blocks there was a full-blown display done by neighborhood kids/adults. they must have spent thousands of dollars on these fireworks. fortunately for us we had a show right at the end of our block. there were two groups of people doing it at one point and it must have lasted a couple hours. some of the fireworks were comparable to something you'd get in a small town. it really was crazy. when we got out of the car it sounded like what i would expect a war zone to sound like. anyway, either fireworks are legal in dc or the cops know with the amount of people doing them, there's nothing they can do about it b/c a number of cops went right through the street while fireworks were going off above them.

big feet

2009-06-05T12:57:00.002-04:00

adams has very large feet.

he is here!

2009-06-02T18:39:00.003-04:00

baby adams jack stratton has finally made his arrival into the world. the little fella' was born last wednesday, may 27, at 7:30 pm. he weighed 6 lbs 14 oz. unfortunately he had an extended stay in the hospital due to some blood that he spit up the day we were supposed to be released from the hospital. he ended up having to be transported via ambulance and crazy scary baby contraption to a bigger, more equipped hospital to find out what the blood was all about. when all was said and done, there was nothing wrong with the child and the blood was mostly like his mother's that he swallowed when he was born. throughout the whole process he had more tests than i imagine i have ever had in my life, got two x-rays, a mega-dose of antibiotics in case the problem was an infection of some kind, an extended dose of zantac for his upset stomach, a tube stuck down his tummy to see if there was any more blood and to remove the existing gunk down there, an iv for nourishment b/c he wasn't allowed to eat during this period, a heart monitor, a blood pressure cuff and probably some other things i'm forgetting.
he was finally released yesterday after spending the whole weekend in the nicu. our first night was a lot sleepless as i suppose was to be expected. our little man prefers to sleep during the day and scream at night. perfect! hopefully this will slowly work itself out. i'm hopeful that we'll get just a tad more sleep tonight.

home improvements

2009-05-03T09:24:00.003-04:00

we've been doing lots of work around the house these days. we've finally found someone to do our deck/balcony and we're just waiting to get the permits for that. hopefully they'll start next week. in addition to that, we had all the trim in the front of our house (there isn't really any in the back) painted. we stupidly let the man who has done some hauling of garbage away in the past do this project for us. it turned into a complete mess. first off, he took his time even getting started on the project. he then had issue after issue: didn't have a tall enough ladder, the day laborer he found to paint the trim way up high wouldn't do it, he hired too many people to help and i'm sure hardly pocketed any of the money. on friday afternoon, he assured joe he would be back the next day to finish up. 11 am rolls around on saturday and no larry. joe calls him and of course he's on his way. he never showed up. he finally came back on monday with some more workers and finished the job. by finished, i mean he covered every surface with paint (only after some instruction though). i don't mean he did what he was supposed to do or did any of it well. there was a constant back and forth of "you didn't do this like i asked you." in the end, he didn't get all his money anyway. needless to say, painting is way out of larry's league.
we took all of the "grass" out of our front yard yesterday and are replacing it with flowers and bushes. so far it looks great but will definitely need some sort of ground cover in the form of mulch or stone or small plants. we also got a super cool red trellis to hide our garbage bins out front. as i write, we're getting a new closet installed in our bedroom. there was a doorway from our bedroom to our guest bedroom that we had (stupidly) opened up b/c the arch was pretty mostly. turns out, we hated not having the privacy as we've had lots of guests lately and we can always use more closet space so we're having the door closed off and having a closet installed. the drawback is now i have to share "my" room with joe. he used to have his closet in the guest bedroom but now i guess we're roomies again. i'm not sure how i feel about this. i have enough trouble keeping my space clean. he's not going to be any help. they're also replacing the drywall in our bedroom ceiling b/c the first guy who did it did a rather crappy job.
urban tastes is officially closed for the summer. friday was my last day. it was a super busy week for me which was nice but exhausting. hopefully some of those customers will be eagerly awaiting my return in august or september.
joe's off to canada (st catherines) for a couple days so hopefully i won't go into labor during these couple days though our friends are on call if i do. all is well on the baby front.

baby shower

2009-04-16T15:57:00.007-04:00

we had our second baby shower two weekends ago. it was a boy/girl party. i'm not so into traditional girl baby showers. it was much more fun this way. it was a beautiful day. joe's parents were able to come from michigan. they and our friends chuck & jeanette hosted it for us. beforehand, my friend julia and i went to get pedicures and she made me a yummy brunch. we got lots of good presents and are still in the process of sending out thank you cards...in case you're wondering where yours is.
so with just over four weeks to go, if baby were to come tomorrow, we have everything we need due largely in part to the gifts we've received from friends and family. crib-check (it's even all put together and has all its parts...now). car seat-check. a few clothes-check (the child did not have any clothes other than white onesies and two sleeping sacks until recently). it still only has one pair of pants but it's a start. i might need to work on that a little bit more though i'm not going to go overboard since it will be warm when she (or he!) arrives and onesies will be perfect i hear. plus we don't know what it is and there's a limited supply of green and orange clothes available. we're planning on using cloth diapers and have got some, not enough, of those. i guess i should work on that too. and of course, we have lots of other stuff we might need.
i'm closing down shop in two weeks' time. while i think i would be fine to work past that, the risk of the kid coming early would greatly interfere with the orders. for some jobs, i could just play it by ear, but i think it's best to play it safe with this one.
in other news, we had friends visiting from grand rapids last weekend (joe's friend from his youth and my---and joe's---friend from dc. they met at our wedding)!). we had fun with them. we did lots of eating (hello 5 lbs in two weeks!) and a little bit of site seeing though, unfortunately, the cherry blossoms had peaked by the time they got here....not much to see on that front though it's still gorgeous in dc. on sunday, our friends adrian and sarah hosted an easter feast. they ordered a giant ham from zingermans and made lots of other great food. it was very nice.
lastly, we have a new roomie. joe's cousin got an internship working for congressman dingle of ann arbor for the summer and needed a place to shack up while he's here...at least part of the time. since the baby is coming soon, we're hoping he can find a more permanent place to stay before may 18.
so, it's been a busy month for us and i'm ready to not have any commitments/visitors (new roommate does not count) in the coming weeks.

april

2009-04-02T16:15:00.003-04:00

greetings! much time has gone by since the last time i posted. all is well here in dc. this is the best time of year to live in the nation's capital as the spring blossoms are wonderful! things appear to be peaking right now. it's definitely warming up but the down side is that the skies have been overcast since i returned from my trip. it's not the kind of weather that makes me want to get out and about.
as mentioned, i just got back from a trip to michigan on monday. i was there for about 5 days. i went for my friend's baby shower (she got pregnant about a month and a half after me). a couple of our other friends from college flew in from florida so it was a great reunion. we weren't up to our usual late nights of fun like we would normally be since 1/2 of us were boring pregnant ladies though there were plenty of good times. my sister threw me a lovely family-shower on saturday. that was lots of fun. they got me a cool, swedish ($$) high chair that i had wanted and wasn't expecting to get so that was exciting. i got lots of other goodies as well. my sister made all the adult males participate in a beer "chugging" contest. it wasn't really chugging since the beer was in baby bottles. apparently it's quite difficult to drink out of a bottle. maybe not difficult, but certainly time consuming. my dad even participated. and i was supposed to leave early sunday am but the flight got canceled for mysterious reasons and then canceled again later in the evening, so i didn't end up getting home until monday am which worked out just fine. it gave me one more day with the fam though it did require making my poor father & mother get up at 3:30 am to take me to the airport so i could leave at 6. that's just cruel, but i had no other options as i had work waiting for me at home.
everything is going smoothly with the pregnancy so far. only 6 more weeks to go---or maybe i should say 6 more weeks until the due date. seems like everyone i know goes at least a week beyond their actual due date. this weekend is my official shower and i am looking forward to that. joe's parents will be here for it. i will post another update after the fact. the presents have been pouring in all week. we don't know what we're having, but i think it's a girl...the ladies at the restaurant supply store agree with me. joe thinks it's a boy but he's just being contrary so that doesn't count.

february update

2009-02-05T10:13:00.004-05:00

so instead of one fuzzy picture of our future baby, i'm providing you with 6! lucky day. i don't know why they gave me that many. but i would like to point out the second one down on the left where the alien's---i mean baby's---hand is up doing the 'talk to the hand' move. i was also wondering what that first picture is. i'm pretty sure it's part of the heart but that's not what i was thinking when i first saw it. anyway, everything is coming along smoothly. i am 6+ months pregnant now so only 3+ more months to go.
we went to richmond a couple weeks ago. joe and i packed a lunch and went there for the day. it's only about an hour and a half south. it was kind of warm out which was nice. the city of richmond itself is wonderful. i was half expecting another struggling east(ish) coast city like baltimore (scariest place ever...not really but it's very sketchy) but to my surprise it was a southern paradise. the architecture was great. there were lots of cute places to shop and walk around. we saw the church where patrick henry gave his famous speech. this is the same patrick henry who is buried just down the street from our house so we're covering our grounds with patrick henry historical sites (there can't be many more i wouldn't think). there are lots of pictures of richmond here on my flickr account.
in other news, it's cold here. we got teased on sunday as it was in the 60s and sunny but by tuesday the party was over and it's especially cold here now. it's hardly snowed here at all this winter. i think we've probably got a grand total of .5 inch to date. i am not impressed but at the same time, i'm over it. ready for spring. when it starts warming up we plan to finally get to our back yard issues. turns out, the fence blew over during a wind storm a few weeks ago. we're looking like real trash bags back there right now (but of course we've got some competition with our hoarder next door neighbor). the plan is to get a new fence obviously, a new deck and balcony and then see what we can do about some landscaping though that will probably not be the priority this year as the two other projects that come before it will be a little pricey so we may not have much left over for scaping of the land. but hopefully we can do something to get started because we've got plans for a backyard paradise.

catching up...

2008-12-10T17:16:00.005-05:00

we had a great thanksgiving this year. we went to erie, home of my niece and her husband. my sister and her most of her peeps were there. fortunately, joe and i stayed in a hotel while the rest of them squeezed into the smallish house sarah & jason live in. sarah made lots of great thanksgiving food. brad made a delicious cheese sauce that tasted great on top of mashed potatoes...yum! it was meant to go on top of the broccoli but i try and stay away from green vegetables during the holidays---pass the fats and sugars please! my only disappointment was the lack of snow. there was just a tiny bit of snow on the ground though it did snow quite hard for an hour or so while we were out one day. i was planning on lots of outdoor winter activities but a walk was all that we could really do given the lack of snow. we also went out for pizza one night. it took about 2 hours to get to the restaurant. it was the perfect storm apparently: rush hour (yes, apparently erie does have a rush hour though it seems unlikely), a brief, but heavy snow that caused a lot of slipping and sliding and traffic from the black friday mall crowd. anyway, once we got there and most of us were eating, meredith's pasta had yet to come. eventually it arrived along with about a pound of oil. the ravioli was hard as well. this was mentioned to the dipstick that was our waitress and she explained that this particular dish is "one of our most greasiest items on the menu". well then! that caused quite a laugh. on our way back from erie, we made two stops: one in bemus point, ny, where my mother's cousins live, for a quick visit and the other in pittsburgh, where some friends live. they just had a baby and asked us to be godparents so we had to stop in and meet the little lady.
december is moving quickly. this weekend we're having a holiday brunch at our house which i'm looking forward to. and next friday we're off to michigan for xmas.
and of course, there's the other news about me being pregnant. most people who read this blog are probably already aware, but just in case here it is. i'm doing well. i am just over 4 months pregnant and generally feeling pretty good. i have a few complaints here and there but i am generally the most charmingest pregnant lady in town...we'll see how long this continues.

fall tours

2008-10-27T18:47:00.003-04:00

a few weekends ago we drove over to w. virginia. it was a nice day and the leaves seemed to be nearly at their peak over that way. we drove to the highest point in the state which was a bit of a letdown. it was pretty but not worth the long drive to the top. the highlight for me was seeing all the smokers up there. almost every single person on the mountaintop was puffing away. i don't see that very often these days especially in the out of doors where you're supposed to be appreciating the fresh air and whatnot.
this weekend we went with our friends adrian & sarah out to maryland to a fruit farm. we got pumpkins and picked apples and then stopped at a restaurant and had a rather large lunch. then joe took us on a tour of a subdivision, which turns out, is one of his favorite things to do. he's very intrigued by them. while i was aware of joe's passion for the subdivision, adrian and sarah were a little confused at why he would want to do such a thing but eventually got into it. i guess it just takes a good tour guide to get you into something so strange. oh, and when we got back i baked an apple pie with our fruit.

goings on

2008-09-23T18:28:00.005-04:00

joe has returned from his trip to holland. he had a great time (even though it was for work). he stayed in an idyllic little village somewhere. it sounded utterly charming and i was very jealous i didn't get to go. i did get some good presents though, including stroopwafels, which are tiny waffley treats with caramel inside (pic above). they are so good as in, best ever. if you put them on your tea/coffee cup the caramel warms up and gets even tastier. while he was there, he learned that he would be going to italy this coming week for a conference. we were going to go to italy this summer but alas, never made it and now he is going all by himself. i think he'll be there for about a week. i'm hoping he'll be done traveling after this round.
as soon as he got home from holland, i put him to work helping me with a party i was catering. i don't do very much catering so it's quite a chore for me when it does come up. a friend's brother was having an engagement party and their mother enlisted me to help with some of the dishes. i never want to look at potato salad or anything involving coconut again. ugh! anyway, the food was a hit and i am so glad that is over with now.
oh, on our way back from the party last saturday, we stopped and got some pizza at our local, delicious pizzeria and it seems that my dear father has been doing some modeling for pizza boxes (see above). what a hoot!

it's september

2008-09-04T19:53:00.004-04:00

the older i get, the quicker the seasons pass me by. i'm pretty much ok with it though b/c i think i've mentioned before that i don't much care for summers in dc. that said, it was a pretty mild summer. i've heard rumors we've got a rough winter ahead of us and that makes me so happy. it does not snow enough here. but i guess i'm getting a little ahead of myself.
joe's was in halifax last week...he loved it. next week he's off to amsterdam...i wish i could go.
michigan football started last weekend so joe is pretty excited though i guess he was a little let down when they lost their first game. better luck next time champ! we had a great weekend of mostly relaxing and going on some walks. i got to have a sunday free of work (i normally cook on sundays for one lady who orders special "diet" meals from me) and just had to work for a few hours on monday. monday night we went to our friend's house for a bbq.
the weekend before this we went up to baltimore which is only an hour's drive. baltimore is a wacky place. there are a few cool neighborhoods with good shops but mostly it's very poor neighborhoods. and the houses there mostly have this really ugly brick/stone facade. in addition to that, they are all really close to the street so they have no yard and no trees on the street. it's a little depressing quite frankly. we were trying to explore the city a little more than we normally do and found that every way we went we'd wind up in a bad part of town and by bad, some of these 'hoods were really bad: people all over the street, house after house boarded up, road blocades (that appeared to be set up by the general public??). we actually had a really good time there but it's a very weird place. we went to a cool architectural salvage place that had tons of really interesting stuff like old doors, stained glass, and crazy old showers with all sorts of pipes and nozzles that looks a lot more like a torture chamber than a shower.
and this weekend we didn't get up to much. joe came back from canada on saturday and it was raining all day thanks to tropical storm i...?? that was a total let down. it was supposed to be a lot worse than it was, but it did rain a lot. our basement didn't leak which was great.

summer time

2008-08-20T19:23:00.008-04:00

(click on image to see larger view)

greetings...it's been a while yet again. i've been both busy and lazy. i had so much more time on my hands in australia when i was so faithful to this blog posting once a week or so. i'll do my best to post more often starting now!
let's see, we went back to michigan in july. that was loads of fun. my whole family was there minus a few stray nieces and nephews here and there. it's not often that everyone is home at the same time. joe's parents had a fourth of july party as they often do. it was a good time and full of illegal fireworks, my favorite...not (i'm bringing "not" back). i don't much care for loud noises or danger so fireworks are a major turn off for me. actually, i'm much like a 90 year old grandmother. i prefer sitting by the hearth and sewing...not.
this month we went up to nyc for a couple days. joe went up on a thursday and hung out with his college friends and went to a concert in a giant (empty) swimming pool. i'm told that it was a 5000 person capacity pool. that sounds large. i took the bus up on saturday morning and spent the night. we went to a barbecue and to the bar that night and pretty much just waited for the bus on sunday. we stayed in some guy's apartment that he rents out. i have to say this was a fantastic situation. it's much cheaper than a hotel and much better. while it was still a pretty small place, it was bigger than a hotel room and included a full kitchen. the only trouble we ran into is that we had to leave the place earlier than we desired on sunday b/c some fatty canadian/australians showed up with two tons of food and sassy attitudes. the owner had told joe that there was no one coming on sunday and that we could stay as late as we needed to but apparently that changed. anyway, we still got to stay longer than we would have in a hotel.
this past weekend joe's parents came for a visit. they got in thursday evening and stayed until monday morning. we did lots of fun stuff like going out to dinner, checking out the monuments, going to great falls and watching the olympics. a good time was had by all.
our house is coming along. we painted our bedroom (finally) a couple weeks ago and just had a new retaining wall for our basement (exterior) stairs built along with a new sump pump. next up, we'll hopefully be getting a new deck and balcony as the one that we currently have is a tad unstable....but just a tad. hopefully we'll do that in the next couple of weeks. after that, it's curtains for the year on any backyard fix-ups though there's plenty left to do. the rest will have to wait until next spring. while the basement was being worked on, i was in the basement bathroom for perhaps the third time ever and for the first time ever, the toilet seat was down and there, glued to the seat was the photo below of the african mother and child. i guess i didn't know that toilet seat decoupage was ever in, but sometimes i'm ill informed. needless to say, i was ecstatic.
you'll also note our red-orange-yellow carrots. we grew those in our garden. they're fantastic looking. our garden wasn't that great this year to be honest, but i expect it will be much better next year.

happy june!

2008-06-07T11:23:00.005-04:00

once again, it's been a while since i've posted. i've been pretty busy. i got written up in the daily candy, a website that does a daily (duh) write up on various businesses or cool things happening around town. that week i got around 5000 hits on my website and fourteen orders. i was not prepared. prior to that, my weekly number of customers was two. so since then, things have been going pretty well. people seem to be enjoying my offerings...lots of repeat customers and things have gotten smoother as far as making and delivering the food go.
last night we went out to a yummy mexican place to celebrate my b-day. it was quite good. in other news, the weather here this week has been a tad crazy, especially on wednesday. there was a wild thunderstorm that blew in quickly. unfortunately, i got caught driving in it and i must say, was a bit freaked out for a second. there were lots of tornado warnings in the area. our basement flooded too. now it is extremely hot. the good thing is that we haven't had to turn on our air conditioners (no central air...sad at times like these), until now. that's pretty good for dc. we went to chicago for memorial day. we had a nice time. went to see joe's brother's play (he designed the set for it) at northwestern. we stayed downtown on michigan ave so we walked around that area quite a bit. other than that, we've just got our trip to michigan and that's about it for summer traveling this year.

been gone so long

2008-04-09T09:18:00.004-04:00

it's been a while since i posted. i've been a tad busy i suppose. to catch up, i opened my business officially this week! after many, many issues, some of which appeared to be fatal (for the business anyway), i am legit. check out my website when you have a chance: www.urbantastes.com
my parents came for a visit last week. they ended up staying for three nights as opposed to their usual overnight, in and out stay on their way home from spring break in florida. we had a great time. my dad wanted to see the cherry blossoms so we spent a few hours down that way. we stopped in at the jefferson memorial and the fdr memorial on the tour. afterward we headed down to this new convention center/resort on the potomac in pg county for lunch. the place is huge and basically the only development in the area. it's got a very large enclosed atrium with lots of plants and a 'river' or two. it kind of reminds me of the opryland hotel which makes sense as they are owned by the same company i found out. our visit there was only their second day being open. fortunately, we didn't go on the third day b/c apparently many of the guests & employees were stricken with norovirus...dodged that bullet. the following day we hit great falls national park which is on the mighty potomac. i think i've mentioned it before. my dad loved that...they even checked out the 8 minute slide show given by the park rangers. the grand finale of the trip were joe's fantastic tacos.
in other news, we went to a birthday party this weekend at the capitols' (hockey team) practice rink. that was a good time. it had been a couple years since i donned a pair of ice skates.
we're having a beautiful spring in dc, as always. i hope the cool days last a while b/c i am not looking forward to the oppressive heat of summer...ugh.

what a week!

2008-02-17T11:19:00.003-05:00

on tuesday, on my way home from voting some 'hood rat backed his giant suv into my normal-sized saab while i was at a stop sign not a block from our house. he was attempting to back into a parking space on the corner. not a scratch on his car. the best part is, he had his mommy call my insurance co and let them know that, in fact, i was the one who rear-ended him. later on, it was discovered that he no longer has insurance. hopefully that fact will sway whoever decides whether i was at fault or he was. as far as i know, my insurance co has yet to get in touch with him...that surely can't be good for his case either. that night, when i went to take the insurance info back to the car, we were in the midst of an ice storm and i wasn't really aware and bit it hard core. such a bad day.
and poor joe has been sick as a dog. he fell ill last saturday and spent the week recovering only to have a major relapse on friday. he was out for the count until late afternoon saturday. i believe that my tough love program will get him back on his feet in no time; that, and a doctor.
but the good news of the week is that m. mouse has met his maker. some new rules went into effect this week to help us get the little scamp and sure enough, thanks to doing the dishes every night ensuring that he would get desperate for food and look elsewhere (ie, the trap), pulling up the extension cord that hangs from the countertop to the floor (i believe this was his ladder) and putting out about 10 more traps, we captured the fella! turns out, he somehow was eating through the mouse sized glue traps; so we got rat-sized glue traps, but in the end, it was ye'ole spring loaded trap that got him.

neighbors

2008-01-31T18:00:00.000-05:00

turns out, one of our neighbors (directly next door) is a collector of garbage. well, it seems like garbage to me, but it just sits there less than five feet from the garbage can (which he takes out regularly) and doesn't move. i've seen him put things out there before. it looked like he had a big party (which i really doubt). there were all sorts of disposable aluminum pans and plastic containers. he carried it out like trash, but it didn't make it that far. once i even saw him looking over the stuff to see what could go out to the trash as he took his inside garbage to the bin. the answer: nothing. joe hopes that he's planning a big spring project for the house and he's getting stuff out before the project starts. he's a dreamer. anyway, a couple weeks ago we got a new pan, so put the one it replaced out front hoping someone could find some use for it; this seems to be a pretty common thing to do around here. anyway, joe went out to get the lid for it a couple days later thinking it was still there...he needed to borrow it to speed some cooking fish along. yes, we reclaim our garbage...savages. anyway, it was gone. yesterday, i found it. i saw a shiny object coming from the neighbors porch as i was unlocking the front door and sure enough, it was the lid and next to it, the pan. why? i just want to know why. did they take it inside for a test drive and find that it didn't meet their standards and decide to take it back out? do they use it for an umbrella which they store outside? fortunately, the other neighbor is very clean. his house is just like ours (they all are on this block) but has been completely renovated. it looks very nice and is an inspiration to us.

before & after

2008-01-22T17:37:00.000-05:00

we have one more room painted. after three to four coats, i finally finished painting my office. while it still has some more work to be done, such as removing the electrical outlet from the window frame (wtf?), painting the trim (both seen in the pic above), and getting the floors redone, it's got a good start. it's all about the baby steps in this house. the color is actually much nicer in "real life" than it is in this pic.

mouse on the loose

2008-01-22T17:04:00.000-05:00

joe discovered a mouse in the trash the other day. frankly, if that would have been me, i would have absolutely flipped. i don't mind knowing that there's mice in our house (as opposed to a few years ago when i came in close contact with one at our old apartment and i went kind of batty for a few hours imagining future run-ins with this mouse...tears, hysteria, etc), but the up close and personal when you're least expecting it is a bit much for my heart. we also have a guest (unwelcome as he may be) that enters somewhere unknown and plays in the ceiling between the first and second floor and then is on his merry way after a few minutes. i expect it's a squirrel judging by the amount of noise it makes. hopefully, the mouse issue will be taken care of in the coming weeks, but not so sure what to do about the squirrel. really it doesn't bother me all that much unless i'm trying to sleep. anyone who plans on visiting in the coming months can be rest assured that this little matter will be taken care of before your arrival.
we had some friends over for a super yummy meal on friday. i had the day off so made a day of cooking. i made acorn squash ravioli (from scratch...oh the horror!), two roasted chickens (trying to work on my meat cooking skills), roasted red pepper soup, and vanilla ice cream to go with a rustic apple tart. everything was a real hit, though i had some major trouble with my ravioli---90% of them stuck to the pan where they were resting. i shant go into details, but the result wasn't pretty. i ended up having to redo most of them...not fun when a girl's in a rush. anyway, the pretty tulips above are from that evening.
on the business front, i may have found a temporary commercial kitchen for myself (haven't actually seen it but am going to check it out later in the week). it's further away than i'd like, but i'm getting desperate and if it's only temporary, what's the harm? hope to be up and running by late feb/early march. i had an appointment yesterday to look at another kitchen. i was pretty skeptical about it from the beginning namely b/c of it's location, which is in a mall. then discovering that it's actually a food court "restaurant" (vs a real restaurant with seating, etc within the mall) didn't help either. anyway, i stopped in at this kabob shop for a look and never really saw a complete kitchen. there were hints of one such as a freezer and a large exhaust fan, but really, i didn't see much more than that. i was rather creeped out by the whole event and was half expecting to be shoved in the freezer to meet my maker. so hopefully this kitchen is a little better than that...i expect it is.

a new year...

2008-01-01T19:06:00.001-05:00

...a new look for the blog.

we've just returned to dc after spending just over a week in michigan with our family. we got home just in time to celebrate new year's eve with our friends adrian and sarah. it was very low key---we went to a brazilian restaurant for dinner, which i must say was fabulous. i'd never had brazilian food until last night. i had a fish stew, which was probably the best fish i've ever had. there were lots of good appetizers too. afterward, we went back to their pad and drank champagne and other fizzy drinks and then after we rang in the new year with a sad looking dick clark, went out to a party and a bar. lots of relaxing was done today, though we did manage to walk a couple miles to get the car from last night. back to work tomorrow...ugh. not quite ready.

happy holidays

2007-12-18T21:17:00.000-05:00

i had my first ever catering gig this weekend. the people who i used to nanny for asked me to cook for their holiday party. i made many treats, both sweet and savory, for the party on sunday. i got many compliments, which of course, is just what i wanted to hear. a number of people asked me for my business card, which i don't yet have. anyway, a collage of the evening's food above.

new abode

2007-12-01T21:09:00.000-05:00

after six months, we finally have a home. we moved in just over two weeks ago. we spent the first two weeks waiting for the drywallers to finish. now, much later than anticipated, they are finally done. there is actually still some drywalling work to be done in the future, but we wanted to get the major stuff out of the way, ie, ceilings that could collapse on you at any moment, before we moved in. there is still dust everywhere. can't walk around the house without shoes on and the drywall dust has an intense drying effect on our hands. the good news is that there are now lights in almost every room. the ugly ones were taken down when the drywallers came and we didn't bother putting them back up b/c they were so nasty. but, that meant waiting until all the work was done, so for a while we had just lamps in every room. a single lamp in a room is not the easiest way to live. joe installed a new sink in the bathroom this weekend as well. and i painted the living room this weekend. it's an amazing change and it's really the only place i like to be. i'll post picture once i have the other computer set up.

physical labor

2007-11-17T09:10:00.000-05:00

it's been a pretty big week for me. i started a new job on tuesday. i'm working part-time for a vegetarian catering company in maryland. so far, i've learned quite a bit. i've also been pretty exhausted by the end of the day. i don't believe i've ever had a job that involved so much physical activity and being on my feet. so, big changes for me. i think all of this was made worse by the fact that i worked super hard on the house last weekend. haven't been that sore in some time...not since i was first introduced to brad the personal trainer. oh, and i've also received a number of injuries involving hot substance. i've got blisters all over my hands.
things are coming along with the business as well. i've decided to call it urban tastes---thanks for taking the poll everyone!. the website is going to start being designed next week and my logo is almost done. i did have a pretty major setback this week though. it seems the commercial kitchen i was hoping to use, which belonged to a church near our new house, has turned me down in favor of some non-profit catering company. screwed by a non-profit! so, i'm back on the hunt for a kitchen. initially, i was thinking i'd open up shop mid-december, then mid-january, now it's looking more like february. i don't mind that much now that i have employment. i don't have to rush into things so much this way.
we're very excited to get into our new house. hopefully that will be the week after next. if not, i guess we'll be homeless for a few days (we have to be out of here by the end of the month), so hopefully all the drywalling gets done by then. they seem to be ahead of schedule so far, so i'm not worried.

new house

2007-11-12T17:29:00.000-05:00

we closed on our house last friday. everything went off without a hitch. joe's dad brought some stuff that we left behind in michigan (the same items that we had brought back to michigan after we sold the first house). he spent the weekend here helping get the house ready for us to move in. by the end of the weekend, we had torn out all the ceiling tiles, wall paneling and floor tiles. we also got rid of the metal awnings covering the front porch and all the windows in front. the man who used to own the place was somewhat of a handyman...a handyman on a serious budget. lots of his work was evident throughout the house. he was more into covering up (literally) existing issues than actually getting to the root of the problem. for example, underneath the ceiling tiles and wall paneling are some messed up walls. there are lots of cracks and more serious issues like the plaster completely falling off the ceiling. another example is outdoors. it seems that mr. smith decided to put concrete down throughout the whole back yard (which is only a 15 square foot space i'd say) at some point, probably in the seventies. fortunately he painted it green so it was almost as good as grass...right. anyway, joe's dad got to work on digging that awful stuff up and underneath it is a tree that had died but not been dug up. obviously the best solution to his frugal mind was to concrete over the whole yard. duh. hopefully we'll have contractors in there by the end of the week fixing the walls and ceilings. we'll move in at the end of the month after all the drywall is up.
generally speaking though, the house is in good condition. when we had it inspected, nothing serious came up. underneath all the linoleum and carpet are nice wooden floors. the wood work throughout the house has some nice detailing as well. i'm a big fan of the tall ceilings throughout. once the drywall is put up, it will be a great place to live. there's lots more pictures here: www.flickr.com/photos/megan77/

brr...

2007-10-25T18:56:00.000-04:00

it's finally gotten chilly here. maybe it was a little premature, but i turned the heat on a few minutes ago. nothing happened. just like when two days ago i tried to turn on the air conditioning. strangely, i wasn't surprised by the fact that we might not have heating. i guess that's what living in australia does for you. but then i remember that i live in the us of a and that there has to be heating. there just has to be...in these parts anyway. so maybe there's a switch somewhere in this building for the heating that has yet to be turned on. the good news is that i found a space heater in the closet. i've never used one of those before. anyway, enough about the heat.
we're still in the apartment on capitol hill. it's quite cramped. i'm used to it though. we'll move into our new house sometime in mid-november.
let's see...what else is new? i've been working diligently on the business. i met with some church folks who have a commercial kitchen i'd like to use as my home base when i get this thing started. they seemed positive about the whole thing, but i won't find out for sure if they're interested for a couple weeks. the good thing about them is that they're only a few blocks from our new house. can't do much without a kitchen, so i'm very hopeful they dig me. the paperwork for the llc (limited liability corporation) is being looked over by a lawyer as we speak. the idea of hiring a lawyer is a frightening one, financially. it took me a while to get the ball rolling on this due to my fears, but i eventually found someone who did not charge me an arm and a leg (but then, knowing that this will probably take him less than an hour, it really is at least an arm and definitely part of a leg). once the llc is established, there's lots of stuff i'll be able to do in order to get closer to actually operating this business. i'm also hoping to get my website started very soon.
the stradams family is doing well. joe's enjoying is new job quite a bit i think. we went to great falls, virginia last weekend. we hiked (not very far) into the park and had a picnic on the cliffs overlooking the great falls. it was a nice, cool day. we also helped our friends move into their first house. had a good trip to michigan (two weeks ago now) for the wedding of joe's cousin zakh and his new missus amanda. the wedding was in grand rapids. it was a very good time though we weren't even there for 48 hours. we had to drive which was a tad inconvenient.
i saw senator larry craig (of airport bathroom fame) the other day. i also saw the president or vice-president's motorcade. this all happened in front of the ronald reagan republican center. i'm very nosy and when i saw all the cop cars, motorcycles and black suv's parked in front, had to stop and check it out. after about 15 minutes a meeting let out from inside the building and senator craig (and other senators who i don't know) walked out and toward the capitol and eventually a bunch of limos pulled up out of the parking garage below carrying one of the above presidential figures. the funny part was that there was a deaf guy (or maybe he just couldn't speak) communicating in front of me with his colleagues and when the infamous senator came out, and he realized who it was, he did the dropping the pants and having a seat on the toilet action. funny.
i'll put some pictures up soon, but the interweb appears to be somewhat busted today so i don't think they'd ever get loaded if i tried.

Request for Assistance

2007-10-05T11:22:00.001-04:00

if you have any other ideas, leave a note in the comments. thanks for your help.

greetings from the nation's capital

2007-10-03T10:07:00.000-04:00

so we're back in dc...for good. joe didn't have any luck finding a job in chicago so we've come back to our old stomping grounds. we're both very happy to be back.
we got back two weekends ago and are currently residing in an apartment on capitol hill which is a great neighborhood. eastern market is just two blocks away. they sell all sorts of delicious food there. unfortunately, the original eastern market burned down a few months ago and they are currently in the process of rebuilding it. right now, it's housed in a temporary building. there are some gorgeous houses in this neighborhood too. it's a great place to explore. the apartment itself is not nearly as charming as the neighborhood it's in. it's technically a building for interns working at the capitol but they took us on as well. it is furnished so that's a plus, but the furnishings are less than desirable, especially in the bedroom where there are a set of bunk beds and a twin bed. perfect for a married couple!
fortunately, we're only here for the next month as we found ourselves a house and we close on it nov 9 assuming the inspection goes well. it's been owned by the same people for 45 years and they have kept it up very well; however, in the 70s sometime they decided to do some updates including paneling a few walls, putting linoleum down throughout the entire upstairs and putting acoustic tiles in every room in the house. they put the linoleum down b/c the woman of the house was tired of waxing the floors every week, so hopefully under the tiles are some beautiful wood floors. other than some tacky elements, the house has a lot of character: tall ceilings, a bigger than normal kitchen for a row house, transoms, and nice woodwork. the neighborhood it's in is going through a lot of gentrification and in the next five years will change considerably with a large condo/commercial building going in right down the street.
joe started work last week and seems to be enjoying it. i have been planning my new catering business. in the next few months i am going to open up shop and sell & deliver dinners to busy types and people with new babies. i've been working hard on my business plan for the past week. there's lots to do but i am very excited about it. my next step is to find a commercial kitchen to work in; hopefully a church in the neighborhood.

too precious for words

2007-09-10T20:36:00.001-04:00

can anyone even imagine any cowboys cuter than these two? this is my favorite picture of all time. it's too good to keep to myself. sorry joe and dan.

traveling & turkeys

2007-09-10T20:01:00.000-04:00

greetings.
the "stradams" family has been doing a bit of travelling over the past couple weeks. a week and a half ago we went to visit my lovely friend kelli in louisville. we drove down in our new car. we were planning on doing some site seeing on the way, but as it turned out we were driving through indiana and frankly there's not much to see there unless you happen to be interested in garfield (the cat) or james dean. if so, you're in luck as there's a dual purpose museum somewhere in southern indiana that tributes both stars. how odd. i would be so ticked if i were james dean's family...sharing a museum with a fake cat. anyway, we had a good time with her and her family. we spent a lot of time eating and drinking and being charmed by her son tysen (in the pic with joe). we even drove by churchill downs on the way out of town.
afterward we decided to head up to chicago to visit joe's brother dan and register our car (don't ask). spent a couple days in chicago and then finally came back to wonderful michigan.
oh, and there have been lots of turkeys around the yard lately. there's a family of nine that enjoy something that's growing in the yard. once we even saw the neighbors weird looking chickens in the yard with the turkeys. rural life can be very exciting.

travel

2007-08-22T13:26:00.000-04:00

last week was a long, but good one. it involved what felt like extensive travelling, though we never left michigan. it's all relative i suppose. on wednesday, joe, dan (joe's brother) and i headed north up to grayling. our friend jason's family has a cabin up there. a real log cabin. it was charming as all get out. once we got there, we spent the day crusing down the river in kayaks. it was the perfect day for kayak travel: not at all hot, but quite sunny. we spent most of the time travelling as quickly as the river would take us which is not very fast. the use of paddles was only undertaken near the end of the trip when we (mostly just me) were getting a little antsy to get back. afterward, there was some bbq-ing and campfire. the next day, after checking out what there is of grayling, we travelled south to st. joe (which is on lake michigan). this turned out to be an extremely long trip; much longer than expected. but i saw some pretty parts of michigan that i had never seen before. we were there for the wedding of jeremy and elissa, joe's college friends. it was a great weekend that involved lots of eating and drinking. joe was ecstatic to catch up with lots of his college friends. plenty of time was spent on the beach flying kites and having bonfires too. the weather was great on thursday and friday but turned ugly on saturday, the day of the wedding. the rain held off until the actual wedding events started taking place. fortunately, they were prepared with a large tent. i didn't notice anyone particularly bothered by the rain, so it worked out well.
i think very soon we will be deciding what our future holds. hopefully we'll know after labor day weekend. i am looking forward to having everything figured out and being settled in whichever city will take us. that said, it could easily be another month before joe starts a job and we get out of michigan (though i think we hope it's a little less).
ps, for some really annoying reason, since we've switched to mac computers i can't upload pictures that are meant to be vertical as they generally (but not always as seen above) wind up horizontal. i have no solution for this but to post the pics on flickr until this is resolved. i had lots more pictures to add to this post, but they all wound up sideways. anyway, here's the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/megan77/ (i also no longer know how to make this a link so you'll just have to cut and paste).

update:

2007-08-14T11:51:00.000-04:00

joe continues to look for a job, but has expanded his search beyond chicago at this point. there are not many jobs for a naval architect in chi-town. dc may be calling us back.
we bought a new car yesterday. we decided it was time. i've never been involved in a car purchase before which is rather amazing for a thirty year old i suppose. anyway, now we have our own set of wheels to travel about on. just in time for our week of travelling: tomorrow we venture up to grayling with joe's brother to visit our friend jason from dc. his family has a cabin up there. the day after that we head south to the lake (st. joseph?) for another friend's wedding. we'll be staying there for the whole weekend.
joe is excited to get me up north as i can't say that i've been up that way more than once unless you count my stint in mt. pleasant as "up north" but i don't think you do. i wouldn't know. i am constantly disgusting him with my lack of knowledge of the great state of michigan.

homeowners no more...

2007-07-30T18:37:00.001-04:00

we sold our house. our only ties to dc are no longer. we went this past thursday to gather our belongings that we had left in the basement. on friday, we closed on the house. the rest of the time was spent socializing with our old friends who will most certainly be missed.
i had forgotten how hot it is there. we arrived to near 90 degree weather and much worse, major humidity. i was in no mood for outdoor activities. any time we went somewhere, it was in a cab. we must have taken ten cabs in three days. i certainly could have used the exercise of walking someplace as i managed to eat pizza every day we were there---thursday to sunday.
one other thing i noticed is that there were people and cars everywhere. yes, people and cars in the city. i guess i'm accustomed to australia where there's not a lot of people or cars. i suppose i need to get back in the swing of things if i'm moving to chicago, a much bigger city than dc.
we're back in ionia now. it's hot here too. but not as humid. joe's brother is visiting for the week so it's a full house.

life in ionia

2007-07-22T10:54:00.000-04:00

joe flew into chicago last sunday after he had spent the past two weeks packing up and selling our stuff in adelaide. we spent the night at my parents' house in sturgis on sunday and then took off for ionia on monday. almost a week later, we've pretty much settled in. in the last week we've been to grand rapids a couple times, gone on numerous walks, went down to sturgis to install my dad's new computer, had a bonfire and tried to fly kites unsuccessfully. a few good meals have been eaten as well. monday starts the official beginning of joe's job search and my planning of the catering business i intend to open once we move to chicago.

so long australia

2007-06-29T15:25:00.001-04:00

somewhat unexpectedly our journey in australia has come to an end. while joe and i were home for my niece's wedding the decision was made on who won the contract to build the ship for the australian navy. unfortunately, joe's company lost it. i didn't end up returning but joe returned to adelaide this week and as of today got laid off (as did many other employees). hopefully, he'll be able to complete the myriad tasks that require repatriating in the next couple of weeks. currently, i'm living it up with my mom and dad and when joe gets back we'll be moving on to greener pastures: joe's parents' basement (until new employment is found, hopefully in chicago). it's been a wild couple of weeks but i think we're both looking forward to the future and are looking at this as a positive thing. i don't intend to stop posting, afterall i'm living in sturgis and it's probably much more exciting than anything that could happen to us in adelaide!

happy june

2007-06-04T05:04:00.000-04:00

i decided to plant some more veggies a couple weeks ago since things are actually growing this time around. i purchased some non-hybrid, organic seeds from an australian company i discovered. since it has been raining for weeks, i decided now is a good time to start growing some winter vegetables like broccoli, leeks, radishes, greens, and parsnips. currently, our carrots are doing fabulous and the peppers are doing pretty well too. hopefully those damn possums stay out of there once things really get going.

last week was an especially annoying week but hopefully this one will be better. had a pretty good weekend despite these annoyances. we finally made it to this waterfall that we hadn't previously been able to find (don't know why, it's really easy to get to). i've also been a little hesitant to go there in the past because my former personal trainer, brad, told me that he saw brown snakes there twice in a row. uh, no thanks. so now that it's cooled down, the likelihood of seeing one isn't so great. i made sure to wear my uggs too because i read somewhere that they have a very short fang with which to kill and it's hard to penetrate something thick such as an ugg. i guess you could say i'm pretty wilderness savvy.

had japanese food later on and went to a supper club afterward. we just happened to pass it on the way home and someone mentioned it and we decided to take a look. it took us a while to get the courage to go inside. i'm not familiar with the notion of these clubs but the theme in this one anyway was romance. it entailed private nooks, dim red lighting, a cozy fire and chocolates (and full meals if interested). even weirder, it was victorian themed. we, along with friends, got a bottle of sparkling shiraz and some dessert (chocolate mousse in a martini glass anyone?). the people running it were nice and they seemed to do good business, but i don't get it.

had some brunch at friends' house on sunday and worked on a pillow i've been knitting for two years. i guess you could say i'm not a very dedicated knitter when it comes to knitting things more complicated than scarves.

leaving for america in four days. not looking forward to the trip, not one bit, but we are looking forward to our return to the motherland.

the village sheep

2007-05-24T04:43:00.000-04:00

problem: the giant town mascot of goulburn, the big merino, isn't drawing in the masses like it used to because it's not near the highway to attract people (apparently when it was first erected it was on a major thoroughfare but traffic has since been diverted).
solution: move the damn thing
folks, it doesn't get more exciting than this, at least not in goulburn. if you'll recall, i mentioned the big merino back in the early days of our life here in australia. in fact, it was on our way to adelaide for the first time that we encountered the big fella'. as it turns out, our work pal peter is from goulburn and was able to give us the inside scoop.
thanks to young peter for letting me use his pictures.

just awful

2007-05-23T04:45:00.000-04:00

we went on the boat ride on saturday as i mentioned we were going to do. i was looking forward to it quite a bit as was joe. we took the tram to glenelg and when we got there, there were huge waves crashing down onto the beach. not exactly what i had in mind for our sunset cruise. this was rather surprising really, because any time i've been to glenelg, the waves were extremely mild. it is a bay afterall. anyway, we got on the boat, a 58-ft catamaran, and took off. the waves were shocking---joe said they were about 6 ft though i was thinking they were closer to 20...hmm. at first, i was a tad frightened---i had never been on a boat in anything even a tiny bit rough before. that fear was quickly replaced by nausea. we got the full 1 1/2 hour cruise despite the terrible weather. at one point it was pouring as well. by the time we got back to glenelg, many a person had vomited. one woman was so miserable, she just laid on the deck for the whole cruise in between puking episodes. not surprisingly, they said that was the roughest ride of the season. i'm quite certain that not a soul (except for maybe the crew) enjoyed the ride. those that didn't vomit were certainly close to it. thank you temptation sailing for a fantastic boat ride...not. ps, the pic of joe is one of three pics i took. i was way too sick to be using a camera.

may

2007-05-18T17:03:00.000-04:00

fortunately, may has been a wet month in adelaide. as i write, it's raining quite hard. the down side is that we're supposed to go on a sunset sailboat ride this evening. but since it's only 6:30 am (what am i doing up so early on a saturday) we've got plenty of time for it to clear.

we had our neighbor over for dinner this week. she's a very sweet polish woman. she seems to have had a very interesting life. of course she started off in poland but then during the war she got sent to a concentration camp in germany with her family. don't imagine that was very fun but have never heard any details of it though she must have been pretty young so she may not remember it. at one point, they lived in latvia (i think) and her mother had told her that storks bring babies. so one afternoon, she was outside playing and spotted a stork and decided she had better chase it if she had any chance at getting a new brother or sister to play with, so chase it she did. she ended up running at least part of the way through a swamp but eventually the baby toting stork got away from her and she returned home all wet. her mother asked her where she had been and she told her she'd been chasing the stork. her mother was just shocked because apparently this swamp was some distance from her home and she was only three or four at the time. we loved that story---i think they told her where babies come from after that!! later in life, after they had immigrated to australia, she worked at a christian dior boutique in sydney and met many interesting characters, many of whom are quite famous. one rather famous australian (but only famous in australia), used to come in with his beautiful, much younger mistress and she'd prance around the store in lingerie for him.

i've been meaning to mention a rather interesting find at aussie grocery stores: it seems they keep wet dog food in tubes (like pre-made cookie dough, but log-sized) in the refrigerated section, right next to the meat. it is meat afterall! so if you're ever in australia, make sure that meat your eating is meant to be consumed by humans.

all is well...

2007-05-09T18:53:00.000-04:00

...in adelaide. joe made it back safely from his trip at sea. he had a great time. it took him some adjusting to get back to being on land---he had his sea legs on for some time. had a busy weekend. we did the normal grocery routine on saturday morning and then went out into the hills for some brunch at an organic restaurant which was quite tasty. there are non-native trees out in the hills so the leaves actually change color in some spots out there. that was nice to see. we then went to a few wineries with some work friends. it was a great day for it. after all that fun, we went to a cinco de mayo / going away party for a co-worker and his wife. that was a good time as well. on sunday, we had yet another date with a co-worker and family. we went to a delicious greek restaurant on the beach.

wet

2007-04-27T05:17:00.000-04:00

there's a major drought going on in australia. i'm sure i've mentioned it before. according to some papers, fruit & vegetable prices are expected to triple and they may have to be imported. it's being called the worst drought in 1000 years by some. though you'll notice at the bottom of this particular article that john howard, the australian prime minister, puts the naysayers at bay, saying true napolean dynamite style that he doubted anyone could even know that. all that said, it's been raining, very hard at times, for the last two days. it will need to rain a lot more to get out of this one, but it helps.
in other news, joe's out of town so i'm taking advantage of that the only way i can...by eating "heaps" (aussie speak there) of onions. the man can't stand even the site of them (unless it's a green onion--somehow he manages those). bad things happen when an onion enters his mouth undetected. i used to be the same way myself, but i am now a lover of all things onion. don't know how it happened really. anyway, i'm getting ready to eat some caramelized onions i just cooked up to go with my salad. can't wait! it's going to be an onion festival over here until he gets back!

finally

2007-04-23T07:27:00.000-04:00

at last, i've got all the posts of new zealand up. i'll put more pics up on flickr tomorrow (http://www.flickr.com/photos/megan77/), but for now i'm sick of the internet.

day one (friday)

2007-04-23T05:20:00.001-04:00

on friday we didn’t get to leave until 1:00 in the afternoon and didn’t end up arriving in christchurch until midnight thanks to the time change and a layover in brisbane. to our surprise, the plane was loaded with american college students. i’d say 80% of the people on board were our compatriots---a weird feeling considering we weren’t in the u.s or anywhere near it. we were hoping to go to the pub for a few drinks when we got there but due to the good friday holiday, they were all closed. we were hoping we could avoid this lameness by leaving australia. apparently it’s illegal for certain non-essential businesses to remain open on the holiday. in the local papers, there was an article about how some nurseries had been fined for disobeying.

day two (saturday)

2007-04-23T05:14:00.000-04:00

in the am we picked up our new ride for the week: a 3 person volkswagen rv. it came equipped with a sink, stovetop, broiler, microwave, refrigerator and one tiny-ass bathroom. after having lunch in a cool, somewhat german restaurant and looking around christchurch, we headed off into the north on this chilly, misty day. i never thought too much about new zealand before we moved to australia. i always figured the two countries were pretty similar. well, at the beginning of our voyage i confirmed that they’re not…at all. though their accents are similar, the countries are completely different. australia is as dry a bone. new zealand is extremely lush and green. there is water everywhere. what i’ve seen of australia is relatively flat, though there are certainly foothills and smallish mountains around; new zealand is extremely mountainous. a good deal of our trip was spent driving through mountain ranges, doing hair pin turns and slowly, very slowly trucking up mountains.
we spent that night in the small, former whaling village of kaikoura. when we got there we headed out to the seal colony which would have been a lot more interesting if we were just a wee bit closer. unfortunately they were on a pile of rocks out in the ocean. it was a little bit of a letdown. we stayed in a holiday park in kaikoura. we had a great dinner at one of the local restaurants and then finally got to hit the bar which closed at twelve due to the following day being easter. not that we cared---we were fast asleep by then. uh huh.

**notice the microwave mailbox above. using non-traditional materials for mailboxes was apparently the thing to do as we saw lots of wacky looking ones.

day three (sunday)

2007-04-23T04:57:00.000-04:00

our first night in the rv was a good one. turns out they’re pretty comfy to sleep in. we got up, had some breakfast and hit the road. there are some great bridges in new zealand. the one in the picture above shook and bounced like it was hanging from a spring while we drove over it. fortunately, they’re building a new one next to it. many of the bridges are one way, some of them being very long. interestingly, lots of them are used by both cars and trains---not at the same time. it’s a different world. we saw our first really breathtaking site on the third day. the town of picton, on the marlborough sound, had just an amazing view of the surrounding islands dotted with mountains. afterwards we drove up through the mountains and then back down and stopped at a holiday park that was also a farm. there was a trail on their property that led into a waterfall that we hiked to---almost. we actually didn’t make it all the way to the waterfall because part of the trail turned out to be walking through the river and it was starting to get dark. it was a pretty walk though---lots of tropical plants and ferns.

day four (monday)

2007-04-23T04:56:00.000-04:00

we woke up to lots of fog this morning. after it started to burn off, we headed back out onto the roads. another beautiful day of site seeing. i got some lovely recycled wine bottle glasses with ferns embossed on them and we had a walk on a swing bridge. we stayed in a small town---there aren’t many large ones on the south island. this particular place was on a river and was quite charming other than the millions of feral cats all over the place. we met bill and liz, an older australian couple who reminded me of my mom and dad. they had lots of stories and trivia to share. we made pizzas in their fire pit and ate with them. joe went for a swim in the mighty cold river.

day five (tuesday)

2007-04-23T04:51:00.000-04:00

another beautiful day. we got to see another seal colony. this time with a much better view. we also saw some cool rocks---the pancake rocks. while we were checking these out, i spotted some porpoises showing off in the water. i attempted driving---got a good five minutes of solid driving in. made me feel much better about my lack of driving in the previous days and really put my mind at ease in the days to come as well. by around 4 o’clock we were ready to find a place to camp, but found ourselves in a rather unattractive town with seemingly only a best western holiday park to offer. it was right in the middle of town and we were hoping for something with a little more visual appeal. after a look at the map, joe discovered a nearby lake with a doc (department of conservation) campground on it so we trucked over there not knowing what to expect but assuming it was better than what we were seeing in town. once we got to this area, it was just beautiful. the large lake was completely empty of boats and there were very few people around the campground. it was yet another lake set against the mountains which were half blocked by fog/mist. it made for a kind of eerie sunset. we had our first campfire. for some reason, you’re not really allowed to have campfires that many places in nz. they say there is a drought going on (in certain areas anyway), though it’s not an australian-style drought that’s for sure. there was little evidence of this dry spell other than what the signs said. it’s all relative i suppose. joe made his delicious “oadies”, aka no-bake cookies for us.

**note the pic of the bird without wings. not quite sure what it is.

days five and six

2007-04-23T04:38:00.000-04:00

on wednesday, we made our way toward the glaciers. first, we hit franz joseph glacier and then went over to the town of fox glacier, though we never actually saw this particular glacier. the glaciers were really cool. joe gave me a quick geology lesson before we got to the glaciers. i had glaciers confused with icebergs. oops. that explains their distance from the ocean.

on thursday, we zoomed down to queenstown. i should add that before we got to queenstown we stopped off in a small town where joe purchased me a fantastic possum-merino scarf. a possum scarf! it’s beautiful---every girl's dream. before we arrived in queenstown we saw some more lakes. did i mention how much water there is in this country. we stopped at a roadside lookout on one of the lakes. the lakefront was protected by a row or two of trees so as we walked down to the lake, it got windier and windier until it was almost too much once we were fully exposed to the lake. it was really strange. it wasn't a huge lake or anything. anyway, queenstown is a popular resort area on the south island. it’s like the vail of nz, but probably a lot smaller. though pretty touristy, the area around it was quite spectacular. it’s on a large lake with jagged, snow-capped mountains surrounding it. it’s a popular place for doing adventure stuff like skiing, bungie jumping, speed boating and kite sailing. of course i didn’t participate in any such events. after a look around town, we decided to eat at a mexican restaurant. i had confidence that the kiwis knew a little more about mexican food than the aussies by the fact that nachos were commonly seen in restaurants and i had even tried some and they were pretty good---even if they were made with kidney beans. i’m sure real mexicans don’t even eat nachos. either way, there were a number of mexican restaurants to choose from in queenstown. to my great dismay, the one we chose was dreadful. first off, the burritos were $30. even the veggie ones. secondly, there were beets and kumara (some sort of potato-like root veg found mostly in nz) in them. it was so upsetting. i think we might have been better off at one of the other mexican restaurants, but who knows, they might have been making kiwifruit salsa over there. we had learned our lesson from the night before, and decided to stay at a doc campsite just out of town on the lake. this spot was actually the site of a lord of the rings scene (the atlas notated lots of the lord of the rings filming locations). it was a cold, wet and windy one that night. it seems that we weren’t really protected from the elements either. i was frequently woken throughout the night by the cold wind on my face and the occasional raindrop. the back door wasn’t completely shut and i was too lazy to do it and the vents on the roof of the van weren’t exactly water-proof.

day seven (friday)

2007-04-23T04:15:00.000-04:00

though there was no extreme sporting for us, we did go on a steamboat ride the next morning. joe was truly over the moon when he got on board the tss earnslaw. i didn’t seem him much after that point actually. the most exciting thing for him was the fact that he got to go in the engine room while we were moving about. it even snowed while we were out. that afternoon we started making our way back to christchurch. there were a lot more great sites, especially lakes. we stopped off at lake pukaki and saw a great view of mt. cook (the tallest peak in the country). there was another lake right next to it that we ended up staying on---lake tekapo. this too was a lovely lake with a backdrop of snow-capped mountains. both of the lakes are an amazing turquoise color that is apparently the result of glacial flour (when the glaciers rubbed up against rock and turned them into a flour-like substance).

day eight (saturday)

2007-04-23T04:14:00.000-04:00

fittingly, kind of a lackluster day . we made our way back to christchurch. as the day went on, the mountains leveled off and the views became less spectacular. we hung out in christchurch for the remainder of the afternoon. it was similar to adelaide and was apparently designed by the same person. it’s also adelaide’s sister city. a good way to ease back into routine life in adelaide i suppose.

day 9 (sunday)

2007-04-23T04:13:00.000-04:00

got up extremely early (4 o’clock) and made our way to the airport to make our flight at 6. greeting us at our gate were scores of seemingly still-drunk american college students waiting for the same flight. as far as i could tell, they were spending a semester abroad at one of the schools in sydney and nz was where they were spending spring break ’07--actually i guess that would be fall break in this part of the world. party on!

traveling

2007-04-04T06:17:00.000-04:00

beside eating a whole loaf of banana bread single-handedly in just over 24 hours, last weekend we (there was no "we" in the banana bread incident unfortunately) went to port adelaide which is just down the road a way. they have a flea market type thing there. you can find an assortment of goods but they specialize in things like unicorn pillows and socks. of course, there's also used books and records, which joe now collects (he's developing quite a collection---newest addition: the thriller album). i was looking for glass food jars. they're a lot cheaper when used and i can generally find the more attractive ones at this kind of place. no luck for me though. while perusing the old postcard collection at one stall, i discovered about five old postcards of painted grand rapids images (seen above). what are the odds? sadly, they weren't written on so i have no explanation of how they got here. did people from the 1800s possibly go "on holiday" to gr? can't imagine. doubtful really. hmm... also found a postcard of the dental school at northwestern university. after the fun at the flea market, we got ourselves a vacuum. now, that's real fun. we've been trying to work up the interest to go buy one for weeks, but we always fail. the only reason we got one this time is because we just happened to drive by a shop that deals solely in vacuums and vacuum accesories. this is not a fancy vacuum, just your run of the mill vacuum, but somehow it managed to cost $300! some things are pretty cheap here, but it seems like most things are very expensive. that's yet another example to put in the expensive category. who knows when we'll get the thing out of its box. hopefully by may.
but even more exciting than the vacuum acquistion is that we're departing for new zealand on friday. the easter season is a pretty major event here in australia. we've got both friday and monday off. anyway, i may have mentioned before that we're going for just over a week and will be touring the south island (which is apparently the more picturesque of the two) in a camper van. we're very excited about this. as most people probably know, new zealand is where they filmed the lord of the rings trilogy. while i have zero interest in the lord of the rings, i have to admit that the scenery in it (or what i saw of it while in and out of slumber at the theatre) was quite a site. just keep your fingers crossed that joe doesn't get sick before or during this trip--that would be the demise of us both i'm afraid. a couple people at work are sick and he's been quite concerned about his own well-being since the illnesses have surfaced. basically, he's got me feeling his forehead every ten minutes checking for fever. good grief!
bon voyage to us!

weekend adventures and possum stories

2007-03-25T04:00:00.000-04:00

the time changed today. fall is on its way.
this weekend was a fairly quiet one. on friday, we went out to dinner with our friends to a very popular and very delicious italian restaurant in the city. then we went out for a few beverages afterward. on saturday, we did the usual grocery shop and ate quite a bit. joe made his delicious tacos and no-bake cookies. we went for a walk too. today i got up early to cook because in the next month or so, i'm going to start doing some catering on the side, specifically making meals for families and delivering the meals to them. fortunately, as well as testing the meals out on joe (lots of them are meat!), i get to test the meals out on our friends who just had a baby and asked me to cook some dinners for them while they adjust. i spent most of the day cooking up quiche, fish, tofu, chicken and lots of side dishes to go with. while i cooked, joe made me a small tabletop backdrop that i could use for taking pictures(pictured above behind the quiches i made today). at this very moment, joe is teaching himself 'for he's a jolly good fellow' on his guitar.

a few weeks ago, joe and i both woke up to what sounded like someone trying to break in. it was pretty freaky. ever since the "attempted mugging" incident a couple years ago, we've kept a lead pipe hanging out for emergencies, so joe went outside armed with that. turns out he didn't need it because there wasn't anybody out there. the next night we went over to our neighbor's house for a couple drinks. joe had met her when he had to ask her if we could put our couch over her fence when we moved in(because it wouldn't go through our front door and the only way to get it through the back door was to go via her house). she's a very nice older polish woman. anyway, she started talking about the neighborhood and then brought up the possums and how at night they like to run across the fences which are metal. our intruders, we discovered, were possums. she told us how she once woke up to what sounded like someone breathing heavily outside her window. that too turned out to be a possum. i hadn't heard that pleasant sound until last night. i'm sure they're out there breathing heavily all the time (there's tons of possum crap out there so i know they are frequent visitors) but we almost always have a fan on. last night it was cold so no fan. joe had fallen asleep and was snoring and sure enough, another snoring sound started accompanying him. ick. i'm glad i knew what it was; otherwise i can assure you i would have had an attack. ah, the exciting world of possums.

camping

2007-03-13T06:39:00.000-04:00

on friday as we were preparing for our camping trip, poor joe clipped his toe on the railing of the stairs and busted it. i convinced him not to go to the hospital even though it was hanging kind of loosely off to the side. so on saturday morning we headed down south with the intentions of going to the goolwa wooden boat show stopping off at a great farmers’ market beforehand. we got there before the festival even started as we really didn't do any research on it's times and after seeing that they were charging $15 we decided not to stick around. fortunately, we did get to see the best country band ever (see pictures above) so it was worth it. the picture of the lady with the hat is at a flea market. the hat she's wearing is meant to keep the flies away. they're pretty common in this fly infested land.

2007-03-13T04:54:00.000-04:00

we then headed further down south to the coorong, a national park. it’s an interesting place…very diverse. you’ve got your southern ocean on the west side of the park, then a bunch of dunes and then mallee scrub followed by the mouth of the murray river which normally creates a wetland environment for lots of birds and other animals, though i don’t think there’s a lot of ‘wet’ right now because the river is drying up and there’s only water in a few parts of the river bed here where it empties into the ocean at the moment. there are also lots of salt pans. we decided to stay on the beach so got set up there and then decided to drive down the beach to go get a camping license. we ended up getting stuck in sand and had to dig out. finally joe got the car out and took off without me because he didn’t want to get stuck again if he stopped (or so he said anyway). i ended up just walking back to our campsite. it was a gorgeous day but rather hot. the ocean was as calm as a lake and there was hardly any wind. joe made his camping specialty for dinner: pita pizzas. we watched an amazing sunset. strangely though, at around 8:15 a wind blew up that didn’t quit the whole time we were there. it was so bizarre after seeing how calm it was earlier in the day. later on, we were able to have a fire on the beach---in the summer there are major fire restrictions, but since we were on the beach it was acceptable. the beach itself was beautiful. i saw tons of sea life that i’d never seen anything like before. i guess the oceans in this part of the world are still pretty pure because there’s not very many people around to screw it up.

2007-03-13T04:39:00.000-04:00

on saturday we woke up to serious winds and sprinkling rain. joe had gotten the car stuck in the sand the night before but didn’t bother digging it out since it was right at our site. so in the morning, he had the pleasure of digging it out again but this time in the rain, wind, cold and humidity. it took much longer this time as well. in fact, after a couple tries and a couple hours he was about to admit defeat… without having a real plan of action for what to do next. fortunately, a land rover drove up equipped with all the goods: walkie-talkies (for talking back and forth between cars), towing rope, and shovels. they got us out of there pretty quickly but only after getting stuck themselves. after all of this, we were pretty much ready to hit the road and go to a cabin or something a little more welcoming during the unpleasant weather but it eventually cleared up and we ended up spending the day further south and then eventually went home, no thanks to me.

2007-03-13T03:49:00.000-04:00

on monday, we decided to go fishing again as it was a holiday and we didn't have anything better to do. we headed over to port adelaide and fished off the rocks. it was another great day weather-wise and most of all, we both caught fish. i caught the first one (and joe caught the following three). we let them go because a. we didn’t have the proper devices for actually storing, gutting and whatever else you do to a fish before you eat it and b. it’s a pretty industrial area and i’m not so into eating polluted fish. we’re hoping to go again next week and hopefully we’ll be prepared to take something home and eat it as well. joe's holding my fish because i got a little freaked when i realized i caught it and i made him do the dirty work. next time though, i'll be responsible for my own fish thanks.

weekend adventures

2007-03-08T05:58:00.000-05:00

this last weekend was a rather active one for the adams-stratton family. friday evening was spent preparing many delights for saturday's wine tasting and picnic. we went to the barossa valley which is a bit over an hour north-east of here. we hadn't really been there before. we ended up going to three wineries, none of which were as charming as the ones in nearby mclaren vale. some of the wine was pretty good though. it was a nice day thankfully. we went with our co-worker-friends and their two kids and some family of theirs that was in town.

on saturday, the great fish adventure began. we are officially anglers now...if the definition of angling doesn't include actually having caught a fish. it was great fun. we went to a beach south of here and fished into the ocean...not sure if there's a name for this type. our friends ryan and mary showed us the ropes. i basically just learned to cast. no one else caught anything either. i did suffer a minor wrist injury (from holding a fishing pole at an awkward angle for the first time i suppose...yes, i am fragile) which is healing up quite nicely. the waves were very strong and i blame my lack of catch on that. i would have impressed many people i think by not being even a tiny bit squeemish about the squid we were cutting up and using for bait. it was quite a day!

this weekend we'll be heading south for our first australian camping excursion (sleeping in a footy pitch for one night doesn't really count i don't think). it's a long weekend as monday is adelaide cup day (horse race) which is a state holiday. we intend to go to the small wooden boat show (or something like that...not my area of expertise) on saturday am and then go camping after that. and yes, there will be fishing. a little piece of australian info: for some reason we decided not to bring our coolers over here which turned out to be a huge mistake. for whatever reason, those things are insanely expensive here. we bought a biggish one on sunday for $100. yes, that's right. nothing fancy, just a larger sized cooler like you would see in the u.s but with the price tag of a small hunk of gold!

in other news, we are going to new zealand, and this time it's for sure. i hope so anyway because i paid for it. we'll be taking that trip around easter next month. we're heading over there for about a week and will be traveling around by motor home. we're very excited about this especially since it's only our second real vacation together.

road trip

2007-02-24T16:52:00.000-05:00

2007-02-24T16:33:00.000-05:00

last sunday, we waited as long as we could to check out from our hotel to avoid the heat. unfortunately, that was only 11:30, so we decided to go for a drive. joe had our co-worker john's jeep, so off we went with the top down.

weather vane

2007-02-24T16:25:00.000-05:00

i'm proud to say that we even have a working weather vane.

more pics of new place

2007-02-24T16:00:00.000-05:00

our new house is in a different neighborhood. one fortunate thing about the move is that gone are the days of 'hoons' driving around the traffic circle on our corner like complete maniacs. in australia, or at least in adelaide, people either drive really slow and exactly at the speed limit (lots of cars have built in alerts when you go over the limit--a concept i don't think exists in the u.s) or drive like complete idiots. there's not a happy medium. our new place is set back from the street and there isn't as much traffic and no circle.

we moved

2007-02-23T05:02:00.000-05:00

we moved to a new house two weeks ago and the cable people couldn't come until today rendering us internet and cable free for a couple weeks--very difficult for a 21st century gal. joe did most of the moving himself using just a few boxes and a borrowed trailer---a new method he developed. it went pretty well. saturday, some movers came and took the big stuff over. the new house is a lot different than the old. while the old house was old, classy and charming, the new house is fairly new and rather tacky--think large gold light fixtures, spindly banisters and tinted windows! that said, it does have some redeeming qualities. there's a rumpus room upstairs that has a built in desk and plenty of space for extracurricular activities such as guitar playing, reading, general crafting and relaxing. back to the down side of the house: last weekend, at its hottest, it was 115 degrees fahrenheit. we discovered that we didn't exactly have proper air conditioning at the new place--instead of air conditioning there is an evaporative cooler or what i've heard called a swamp cooler in the u.s. turns out, these things are not equipped to handle extreme heat. as in, not even a little bit--same temperature indoors as outdoors. in fact, it was so bad that we had to check ourselves into a hotel on saturday night to avoid overheating. truly. thankfully, the heat has broken and it's even raining as we speak. i'm hoping since summer is winding down, that was the last of the 100 degree plus weather. i'm not sure we can really afford checking into a hotel every time it heats up. yipes! as for next summer, we'll figure that out when we come to it.

sunday, sunday, sunday

2007-02-06T03:50:00.000-05:00

2007-02-06T03:35:00.000-05:00

2007-02-06T03:06:00.000-05:00

on sunday, it was just blazing hot so we decided to walk into the city which is about 3 miles or so. doesn't make much sense, but we did it anyway. after a short walking tour of the city, we thought it would be fun to take the tram to the seaside village of glenelg. sounds charming doesn't it? glenelg itself is not really all that great, but we had never been there by way of trolley. we were fortunate enough to get on the refurbished trolley of yester year. though we lost out on ac by making this move, it was well worth it. the interior of the trolley is all wood so it squeeked and squawked the whole way. it really was cool. all we really did there was have some lunch that we packed and get back on the tram. on the way back we took the new tram equipped with air conditioning.

frisbee tribute

2007-02-03T19:51:00.000-05:00

playing frisbee at the beach

at the beach

2007-02-03T18:28:00.000-05:00

yesterday, we went to a beach a little bit south of here. it was quite a nice place and not too crowded. we saw a couple of interesting things: first off, one family brought their cat with them on their beach outing. that was a first for me. secondly, lots of people use tractors to pull their boats out of the water. that was a little bit surreal. also saw people catching squids which made joe and i decide we're going to take up fishing. now that i'm eating fish, why not? seems like fun.

it was a blazing hot day--close to 100 degrees i'd say, but definitely more bearable near the water. afterwards, we stopped at a winery and tasted a few different wines and bought some for dinner which was mighty good---homemade pasta with a creamy fig sauce and hot chilies. we've just recently discovered figs. never had one before except for in my newton. they are very tasty.

australia day 2007

2007-01-26T18:02:00.000-05:00

australia day occurs on 26 january. if you'll recall from last year's post (as if), it's the day when capt. phillip landed on new south wales (the state that sydney's in) with his crew and convicts. this was our second time around for the holiday but first in adelaide. we were invited to a co-worker's house for a party. the t.v was set up outside so guests could enjoy the cricket. it was an absoutely beautiful day though a little windy. lots of australian flag paraphenalia was seen about town---tattoos, big flags that hung behind the car or even better, around the neck like a cape, little flags, button down dress shirts, that sort of thing. these people are very patriotic any day of the year, but come their national holiday, they get "heaps" serious about australia. i'd also like to add that joe had a go at bread making and it was delicious---filled with olive paste. it was a hit at the party. unfotunately i have no pictures of the day as i accidentally left the memory card for my new camera at home. stupid.

summer in adelaide

2007-01-24T16:12:00.000-05:00

it's summer here in australia and the fruits and vegetables are starting to ripen. in our neighborhood in particular, there are many first generation italians. many of them have the most amazing gardens with tons of edible delights typical of the meditteranean. i'm trying to befriend one elderly gentleman so he'll bring me into his garden and then his kitchen and show me the ways of italy. it's not going very well, but i did stop and talk to him for about 5 seconds last week. baby steps. it's a great time to stand outside, smell the breeze and play your guitar really (that's if it's not a million degrees out, which it hasn't been since the rain came). picture note: nopales, the fruit of the cactus in the second picture are actually edible. i've never had one but look forward to trying one though it probably won't be here...i think it's more of a latin american thing. i guess i could just pull one off a cactus.

oh-my-god!

2007-01-23T03:24:00.000-05:00

i am not well. very recently, i was outside and was taking something to the garbage only to nearly step on a...honestly i have no idea what it was. i would say it was a combination of a very thick snake and a smallish dragon. yes, a dragon. it was dead and it nearly killed me as well. i'm usually all for taking a photo of such strange things to put on the blog, but this was just too much. even joe thought it was gross but he at least had the guts to scoop it up and throw it away. i am sad to be moving out of this house, but i am happy to go to a place where there isn't as much foliage to draw animals such as this to die (or thrive). the new home also appears to be well-sealed unlike this one. either way, i'm going to play it safe and stay inside for a while...aka, the next twelve or so months. it is not safe out there.

rain!

2007-01-20T06:21:00.000-05:00

it's raining and has been for over a day now. i'm pretty happy about and i'm sure the farmers and the rest of the country are too. there's hope yet for our dying plants. however, since the ground is so dry, there's some flooding going on: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21093662-2,00.html.

ick

2007-01-18T01:46:00.000-05:00

when we arrived home earlier in the week, our yard looked like what you might expect from the clampetts. first off, the big gate in our back yard had fallen down due to a wind storm (or so we think) so our kind houseguest put it back up temporarily. the temporary structure involves lots of extra boards being pushed up to or thrown across the existing gate. secondly, our disastrous garden boxes have been dug out so there's a huge mound of dirt next to the big empty plywood tubs which are also an eyesore. the browning grass was up to my knees (well maybe if i were a little person) and everything else was dying due to extreme, and i do mean extreme, drought paired with sprinkler issues (aka when the man came to clean up our car after the incident he forgot to plug the cord to the sprinkler back in after he unplugged his vaccuum---it was left like this for about a month). oh, and it appeared as though fall came early with the amount of dried up leaves back there. things are looking a bit better now after some work and water. we're fairly eager to get some moisture back into the greenery as we have to move out at the end of next month and i don't think the owners would be too happy if all of their flora had gone south. there's serious water restrictions right now as well, so this is a bit tricky. we can only water once a week with the sprinkler system. however, a hand held hose is fine during certain hours. it does get a little dull standing there with the hose for hours. this could possible be the most boring blog entry ever written. pardon me and my parantheses. oh, and lastly, it has just started raining, so perhaps all of our water troubles will be washed away!!

we have returned.

2007-01-16T14:49:00.000-05:00

we made it back monday afternoon (sunday around midnight, US time). all is well in adelaide. it's bloody hot though. i'm just guessing, but it felt like 110 degrees yesterday. i just about perished on the way home from work. now we start looking for a new place to live. we have to be out of here by feb 29. though i'd rather just stay here, i think it might be nice to move too. i have a bunch of pictures from xmas that i've put up on my flickr account (see the bar on the right that says something like 'more pictures on flickr').

xmas party

2006-12-16T18:05:00.000-05:00

yesterday, we had our work christmas party at a national park. it was a good day for it---not too hot. santa even dropped by with gifts for the kids. it seems his beard was malfunctioning a tad. hmm…

2006-12-16T18:01:00.000-05:00

joe took advantage of the face painting offered (for the children) by getting a topless mermaid painted on his chest. cute.

2006-12-16T17:48:00.000-05:00

and the ice cream truck even came by.

2006-12-16T17:41:00.000-05:00

the real highlight of the day though, was spotting two koalas up in the eucalyptus tree. this was the first time i’d seen one.

2006-12-16T17:37:00.000-05:00

he was only about 10 feet up so we got a good view of him.

2006-12-16T17:32:00.000-05:00

so cute

merry christmas!

2006-12-14T16:04:00.000-05:00

happy holidays to the jerks that talcumed/chalked (whatever it is) the inside of our new car! when joe got to the car this morning, he discovered that it was covered in a fine gray powder. it looked as if a volcano had gone off inside. it was really creepy looking. is this a common aussie-style prank? i wish i knew. this is not the first incident either. a few days ago, someone decided to "ice cream" the car. there was ice cream on the roof of the car and the windshield. that was really nothing though, compared to this. golly, hope it's not a heaping helping of anthrax. we're total goners if it is!

road trip

2006-12-03T05:15:00.000-05:00

today we decided to take the new wheels and go on a day trip south about an hour and a half. we've been that way before, and it's nice, so we went again. the sea was especially bright today. we intended to go to a beach that lets people drive along it but never found it.

2006-12-03T04:55:00.000-05:00

we ate lunch at this lovely establishment in goolwa.

2006-12-03T04:45:00.000-05:00

abandoned truck

2006-12-03T04:37:00.000-05:00

some people see a closed gate on a road and say, "i shouldn't go in there", but not joe. we opened it right up and drove on. there was no apparent reason why it was closed or even there for that matter as, directly on the other side of it, there were more public roads.