Welcome 2011 and Welcome to Raleigh!

Hello! Happy New Year!! (even though we have been in the new year for a couple of weeks!)

Here is a little update on us:

1. Where did we spend December:

• In Raleigh (in a hotel for a week as we got a few things settled).
• Went to the mountains of Western North Carolina and stayed in a friend's cabin for a couple of days. It snowed!! Yeah! We almost lost our car (okay almost might be an exaggeration), but as I watched it slide down the hill with a sharp drop off to the left I kept yelling for Hubbie to bail. All I could picture was the car sliding off the road down the steep hill. Good news! We made it down!
• Went to see Hubbie's Dad in Charlotte.
• Went to see my family in Virginia. While we were there it snowed 13 inches. Hello, we never get snow in VA much less 13 inches. We actually stay with my sister who lives 30 minutes away and then come to my parents house each day. Well, we drove in the snow twice before staying at my parents house. Testing out the 4 wheel drive on the Ford I guess. I don't think VA owns a snow plow. We drove in some nasty weather. Again...as Hubbie drove, I would sit in the passenger seat, heart beating fast, wondering if we would ever see a plow and hoping someone wouldn't hit us! Puppy loved running in the field and even caught some kind of animal while we were walking.
• My sister and her family came from Colorado and stayed at my parents house, so we got in some great family time, especially with the snow. Not to mention, there were 6 dogs at my parents house (including puppy). It was crazy at times, but a good time.

2. We are finally in Raleigh in our apartment in the beginning of January! Love our apartment, don't love having to keep puppy on a leash every time we take him outside.

2. Watched Auburn win the National Championship with some other Auburn fans in the area!! War Eagle. "It's great to be an Auburn Tiger (even if I married in!). It is amazing that everywhere we go we find Auburn friends. It is a bitter sweet now that the season is over. Bitter because it was so fun to watch Auburn win, Sweet because now I will no longer have that feeling like I'm going to have a heart attack watching them play games. I swear years have been taken off my life being a fan.

3. I read 3 books in December. That is what happens when you don't have a job! I read, count sheep, read more, count more sheep.

• My life in France: an autobiography of Julia Childs. Love that woman! What spunk!!
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society: This book is a collection of letters between folks post World War II. They talk about life during the German invasion of the island and its effect on people. (Okay so that is not a great summary, but it was a great book.) I learned that in the English Channel there are islands. Didn't know that before. Guess I need to brush up on my geography.
• The Forgotten Garden: Since I'm so good at giving book reviews, the one is about a grandmother and granddaughter's search for where the grandmother was born. She was put on a ship in the 1913 and landed in Australia by herself. So the book tells of how the grandmother searched for her past and how her granddaughter helped. Fascinating book. Can't wait to read another book by this author.

4. Now we are looking for jobs and learning about the area we live in. This past weekend we drove through the Duke Campus. Bea-u-ti-ful!! Hello, can you say prestige!! Don't love looking for a job, but that comes with the territory of moving to a new area!

That's a brief update on us! I'll send pictures....maybe!

On the Road Again

We are on the road again! We sold our cute little house in Memphis and loaded the Penske and headed out to Raleigh, NC. What an adventure the last few months have been!! Our move was motivated to be closer to our family. So here we are in Raleigh, well kind of. We can't move into our apartment until January so we are a bit nomadic these days.

The trip to Raleigh was pretty uneventful. Andy drove the big Penske truck and pulled out car behind it. Amazing that they just let you drive those things without any questions or driving classes. I think when all said and done with the car trailer attached he was longer than an 18 wheeler. I drove the explorer and had puppy as my faithful companion. This drive was a bit similar to the drive we did when we drove from New York to Memphis, but this time we had cell phones. A bit different to be able to communicate. I have two funny stories from the trip:

1. We drove to Knoxville the first day and then spent the night to break up the driving and so we could watch the SEC Championship (War Eagle!). We woke up early the next day to get a jump on driving. After I showered and was getting ready, the electricity went out. It was 6:00 in the morning! What a weird feeling! All those thrilling movies come to your head and you think someone is going to bust into your room and kill you. Hubbie and I just sat there for a moment. What just happened! After we got over the shock and realized that no one was going to break in and attack us, we tried to gather our things and get ready to leave. I mean you want to get out of those places. Hubbie still needed to shower and so it was quite the challenge to gather our things, have Hubbie shower without light. So with our cell phones and the light of the computer screen we gathered our things. It really was quite comical! We come downstairs to find out that the electricity was out on the whole area. We sat down to have some breakfast and while eating the electricity came on. Yeah!! The front desk staff didn't know what happened, but I didn't care. I just glad to get out of that place!

2. When we came out of the hotel in Knoxville, it was flurry. Not a big deal at all. It was actually quite nice to see some flurries. As we drove toward the Smokies, it started to snow a little bit. As we traveled through the mountains of western Carolina, there was snow on the highway. I getting a little nervous. Not necessarily for me, as we have had practice driving in the snow in New York and I was in the explorer that had 4 wheel drive if I needed to use it. My main concern was for Hubbie in that big truck. We are slowly making our way through the curvy road and going through tunnels. It was really pretty. To see the mountains and the snow. Oh how we have missed them both! Then craziness starts to happen. Hubbie pulls into the totally covered snow lane and starts to pass some cars that were traveling a little too slow for him. I guess he was feeling confident and maybe driving such a big truck like that gives you the "I can conquer anything" complex. Meanwhile, I am freaked out and start yelling, "What are you doing?!?!? Get out of that lane! What are you thinking?!?." I was astonished! In my mind I see flashes of the Penske truck with all our belongings sliding off the road and crashing. As I'm hysterical in my car (I only know so because all the carrying on aroused puppy to sit up and move around), I follow him over. What am I doing?? Needless to say, we both passed the slow cars safely and moved back over. Don't worry, I made a phone call to the driver of the Penske to tell him I just had a heart attack and to stop killing me!!

After we arrived in Raleigh, we moved our stuff from the Penske to a storage unit in our apartment complex until we can move in. What are we doing now? Well, great question. We stayed in a hotel for a couple of days to take care of a couple of odds and ends here and then we went to Western Carolina back to the mountains to stay in a friend's cabin. What a treat! While there, we went on a hike. Another treat as we haven't hiked anything in 3 years. We passed by a couple of waterfalls, pictured below. Aren't they pretty!

I love the ice on the walkway below. We weren't able to venture down due to ice.

This was our first hiking experience with puppy. He was so cute! It was funny to see him navigate ice. The first couple of times, he just pranced right on and then would do the trying to catch my balance dance. Which was hilarious! While on top of the mountain, we kept puppy on the leash as I didn't trust him to not wander off the cliff. For the rest of it, we let him go. He was in his element and loved it! Sniffed everything! It was really refreshing to be out in nature again. This is a picture of me and the pup. He didn't want cooperate taking the picture. Too much to see and sniff!

I'll keep everyone updated on our travels this month. We are now back in Raleigh as Hubbie has an interview.

The Silence has ended

How do you begin blogging again after a 5 month silence? Does anyone even check this anymore?

Well, I think I have found the answer. I found this on a friend's blog (even though I don't blog I still do read others). Hubbie thought it was hilarious, genius and I think he loved it because it is a song/advertisement about a minivan. He doesn't talk about minivans as much as when we first were married. Now he is more interested in a truck - not that we are in the hunt for a new auto, this is just in his "if I could have any car I want" world.

Anyways, I loved it and think it's an appropriate way to join the blog world again. Enjoy!

Bring the beat back....

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year Everyone!  With the coming New Year, I have made a resolution to actually blog (this does come with some kind and loving encouragement (prodding) from family and friends).  So, you have my word.  You will hear more from me soon.  Until then, I will leave you with a cute picture of puppy.  Isn't he just the cutest...

Our First 5K

Believe it or not, Hubbie and I ran our first 5K together at the end July.  First a note on how over due this post is since I'm blogging about something that happened in July - I'm a little behind.  But nevertheless, a noteworthy occasion.  After six years of marriage, we decided it was a good idea.  Many factors come into play on why this was our first after so many years of marriage, but I don't think any interesting enough to note here.  Of course with everything I find myself doing with Hubbie, we have a story.

It was a cool July day.  I think the temperature was in the low 90's that morning...maybe high 80's.  Crazy to think that we paid money to run in this kind of heat, but we did.  We start in the middle of the pack at the starting line.  The first mile is pretty uneventful.  Soon after the first mile, Hubbie starts talking about passing people.  I don't know what brought on this competitive nature all of a sudden, maybe because we were naturally passing people who started sprinting in the beginning but soon learned that was not a pace they could keep up for the entire 3.1 miles.  Then, we start running up this incline.  I don't want to use the word hill, because I don't think we really have hills in Memphis.  This was a pretty steep incline if you ask me.  Hubbie says, "Let's pass some people on the hill."  It normally isn't my custom to sprint up hills while running, but Hubbie thought this was a good idea.  So, being a supportive runner, I agree and increase my pace a little.  He begins to get really excited about the number of people we are passing.  We finally reach the top (to which I was relieved - I don't know how long I could have kept that up).  My thought is we would coast down the decline and then pick back up on the flat part.  Little wrong was I.  He doesn't want to coast for a bit because people might start to pass us.  I'm not too worried and even if people pass us - that is okay.  For those of you that know me, I used to be super competitive and would have hated it if people passed me.  I think the Lord has really worked on this with me, and has taken some of that competitive nature away (not all of it as Hubbie attests to in my soccer games, but a large amount).  So I was truly okay if people started to pass me.  Then he notices this middle aged woman that was ahead of us a good ways (she was wearing green shorts - this is a detail that will come in handy for Hubbie's next comment).  He now says to me, "We cannot let the lady with the green shorts beat us!".  He was so serious.  I was like, "Who cares?  Let her win, I'm okay with the pace we are running now and if we start sprinting again I may not make it to the end of the race"...that would have been embarrassing.  Hubbie wouldn't let it rest.  He kept making comments about how we couldn't let that lady beat us and we needed to pick up the pace a little.  I held my ground.  I think she may have slowed a little because I notice that we are gaining on her and I'm pretty confident that we weren't running faster.  Hubbie is still making his comments as we are now in mile 2 and still wants to desperately pass this lady with the green shorts.  I continue to tell him I feel no need to pass her and I'm fine.  We continue to close the gap between us and continue to pass people.   I'm feeling good.  Nobody is passing us and we are passing people.  This is great!  Hubbie still comments on how we need to pass her - I continue to fight an increase in pace.  I think at some point we increase our pace a bit, because we pass her!  Hubbie is so excited.  I was like, "yes, now he will stop making comments about passing the lady in the green shorts."  Not more than 5 steps after passing the lady in green shorts, Hubbie says now we need to get the guy in the gray shorts.  WHAT!!!  I don't need to pass him either.  But we are pretty much on the final stretch.  I resist.  We continue to run and then we see the finish.  We pick it up to the finish line (not pushing it, just picked up the pace a bit), pass the guy in the gray shorts.  Another victory and we cross the finish line.  YEAH!!  No one else to pass.  

What an experience.  Who knew that Hubbie would be such a competitor during the race.  I was just looking forward to a fun little race together.  Not trying to break any times just run and enjoy.  Well, I do owe a huge thank you to Hubbie because I got 2nd place for my age group!!  Wow!  I think there were 3 factors that helped, 1. it wasn't a huge race and 2.  when you are in you're thirties, there aren't too many women out there running 5ks.    3.  Hubbie kept wanting to pass everyone so I had to keep up the pace.  Now don't be too impressed, it wasn't a great time, but sufficient for 2nd place.  I'm a little hesitant now to enter another 5k or longer race with Hubbie.   Who knows who we would have to pass...

Been a Long Time

To those of you out there that thought I might have given up on blogging, not quite.  I have just paused for a bit...a long bit.  I wish I was able to give some valid excuses for why I haven't written anything like, climbed Mount Everest and didn't have Internet access or hiked the Appalachian trail from beginning to end or my computer broke or had a baby so life was really crazy, but none of these have happened.  I don't have any excuses other than, I just haven't.   

I do have a few things in mind, but for now, thought I would leave you all with a photo of hubbie.  Football season is upon us.  So thought this was appropriate.  This is from a retreat night with the organization I work with.  The men were getting ready to play hours of competitive sports.  He looks ready!!  Look out!

  

America's Got Talent

I'm a bit late in posting this, but the other night, Hubbie and I were watching America's Got Talent.  When we catch it on TV, we like to watch it because of the Hoff  aka David Hasselhoff.  Not even sure if I'm spelling his name correctly.  He really is so funny, especially to ADB.  His comments are so random.  Anyway, just watching for pleasure making comments on the comments of the Hoff and then, this comes on....Go Memphis!!!  We've seen them on Beale Street and they really can flip.  Take a look and enjoy.  If anyone wants to visit, we will take you there to see them live...Any takers???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZheAy9PTHJo