Pictures

Ok, so obviously I can't post all the pictures, we took between 300-400 pictures. Here is a sample of some of my favorites, or just of the area:


The Cathedral in Lima, Peru


Traditional Peru meal: (large kernel) corn with cheese


Cliffs/Beach in Lima (like the soccer court on the beach)


View of Cusco, Peru from our hostel


Eric with the llama and girl who told him "No, Uno Sole" after he gave her only 50 cents.


More traditional food: Guinea Pig (doesn't it look good)


Main square in Cusco


The Andes on our way to Ollyambtambo


Arriving in Aqua Calientes (base of mountain where Machu Picchu is)


Obviously, you know where we are now...we are going to hike up the mountain in the backgroud


This is the view once we hiked up the mountain

Here are a few pics around Machu Picchu:










Here is Eric riding a horse for the first time on our trip around more ruins outside the city of Cusco (and then some of the ruins:




Here I am drinking the most popular soda in Peru-Inca Cola-after a long train ride and bus ride back to Cusco after Machu Picchu (it tastes like bubblegum):


Alright, I think I am done posting pictures :)

Back from Peru

Well...a little update about our trip. We were suppose to head out on our 4 day hike Monday morning, but Sunday night about 2am, I came down with a serious stomach bug. It was not altitude sickness, it was a stomach bug that took its course in a matter of only a couple hours to empty out my entire insides. Needless to say there was no way I could hike, so we ended up not being able to go.

We were extremely disappointed since this is what we planned our entire trip around but oh well, what can you do. I spend all of Monday in bed while Eric ran around the town getting everything situated to get to Machu Picchu.

Tuesday we just walked around the city a little and took a short tour on a trolley. I still wasn't feeling great. Wednesday we went out for an American breakfast and had pancakes with bananas and carmel sauce before taking our taxi out to Ollyamtambo where we would catch our train to Machu Picchu. We took a more expensive train that had windows on the ceiling to we could see as much as possible and it was an awesome train ride. Only 6 people were on the train and so we were able to move around to both sides taking pictures.

We got to Aquas Calientes (20 min bus ride to Machu Picchu) and walked around the town. It is really small, bascially geared just for tourists, so just shops and restaurants. There are some hot springs there, but they didn't look very appealing-lots of dirty people trying to get clean in what they turned into little pools. We ate an awesome dinner at a little french/peruvian restaurant before heading to bed.

We woke up at 4:30am to a wake up call we didn't order but thought that maybe the treking place had made it. We ate a little breakfast and took the first bus up to Machu Picchu at 5:30. We were suppose to meet our treking group at the entrence (they had our tickets) but they didn't arrive until almost 8:00am. So we just sat around for 2 hours. But once we headed in, our whole trip turned around. Machu Picchu really was amazing. Much larger than I imagined. It was pretty amazing. We took a two hour tour of the ruins and then went over to hike up Wanyu Picchu, the mountain that is commonly seen in the backdrop of the ruins.

They only allow 400 people to hike up it, we of course didn't know how it all worked. Turns out they let 200 people in at 8:00 and 200 more in at 10:00. We got over there around 10:30 and there was a little line, turns out that we were 390 and 391 into the mountain. It was about an hour or so up the mountain that included some steep parts and really narrow stairs, but it was way worth it. The ruins were neat up there as well, hiked in part of a cave and it is just amazing how they built these ruins on the side of a mountain.

We came back and ate a little lunch before going back out on part of the Inca trail hike up to whats called the sun gate, where if we had done the hike we would have seen the ruins for the first time. It wasn't up like the other mountain, but it was a nice hike. Then came back and walked around the ruins some more before heading back down the mountain at 5pm.

The next day, I had wanted to climb another mountain that is across from the ruins, so we headed out around 9am. This hike was about an hour up, maybe 1000 feet of climbing, and parts of the hike are just ladders made of logs and nailed into the rocks. There were 250 ladder steps on the hike, and going up wasn't that bad, but come down was scary for me, just going down and seeing all the way down the mountain. It was a nice hike, hardly anyone on the train, and we spend about 45 min at the top by ourselves just enjoying the scenery. I enjoyed this part the most, just more secluded and peaceful than the chaos at Machu Picchu.

We took a train and bus back to Cusco and go back around 10pm Friday night. We had wanted to go white water rafting, but the river was low and so it wasn't recommended. Instead, Saturday we got horses and toured some ruins just outside the city with a small group of nice people and a great guide. And Sunday we took a day long tour of what is known as the Sacred Valley. We got back around 7pm and had reservations at the "best restaurant" in Cusco (which only costs like $15-20 a plate) and packed up.

It was a fun trip besides getting sick and it is disappointing not to have hiked the trail. We talked about whether we would want to go back and do the hike, but part of it was going to be seeing Machu Picchu for the first time from the trail and so we kind of ruined the ending. So we ultimately said we need to go somewhere else. We met some great people and had a great time, especially the last 4-5 days where packed and amazing. No pictures today, Eric took the camera to work, but I will post some of them tomorrow.

Here is the few of the places we are thinking about going next year: Costa Rica, Italy, Greece, Galapagos Islands

Taxis and Altitude

Ok, so we found an internet cafe that seemed nice enough to use and really cheap. We leave tomorrow for our hike and won´t be back in a town until Friday, but here is a little update.

The flights here were fine. The overnight flight was ok, didn´t sleep all that well but alright. We got in and got through customs fine. And made our first of several scary taxi rides to our hotel which was like 30 minutes. Lima is extremely large city and not really all that nice. I was glad we didn´t stay there but 1 1/2 days. Seriously, some roads don´t have lines, some do, but if they do and say there are 3 lanes, that really means they make 4 or 5 on the road and it is just complete nonsense. That was my biggest fear any time we got in a cab was getting in an accident. There is basically no rules on the road.

Our hotel was nice and we were a close enough walk to the beach, but the beach isn´t really nice, lots of rocks. The city sits up on the cliffs and then you can look over the ocean. That was probably the nicest part. We tried a few local foods...the classic corn with cheese and a pisca sour (cocktail drink that is pure liquor). We tried going to the museum that was recommended but when we got there (after a lovely taxi ride) it was closed until June. :)

Yesterday afternoon we flew up to Cusco, now at something like 13000-14000ft. Our taxi driver was better but we hit a car trying to squeeze two lanes into one. I wouldn´t say hi, but basically rubbed sides. Quite nice. Our hotel here sits way up above the city and the first thing we were offered is the local Coca Tea which is made from coca leaves (leaves that make cocain). Basically the tea is a bunch of the leaves with hot water and is suppose to help with altitude sickness. We got settled in and walked down to the main square and walked around and made our way to dinner.

Eric after a sip of his drink felt sick and said he was going to go outside. I didn´t know that when he went out there he fainted and hit the ground. I stayed inside the restaurant for a while never knowing this till he came back in. The altitude really hit him hard and he still isn´t feeling great. I feel fine though, so I guess that is good. We were able to try a few more local things'some Andean soup and Alpaca (which we thought was llama but are unsure right now). The Alpaca was actually really good.

We took another taxi to a town 20 miles away called Pisca today where they have a lcoal market on Sundays. I bought the standard beanie hat with llamas on it and a cool handwoven belt. And we got some salt and pepper shakers. It was really neat to see the locals and see some of the women weaving their stuff. We are going to take it easy for the rest of the day since we leave at 5:30am tomorrow morning to head out for the hike.

So far we are getting by ok with the limited spanish we know. Most people speak a little english too so that helps, but at the market today most people spoke spanish or quachan (which is the native indian language, and it has no resemblence of spanish).

Hope all is well in the US.

The Trip is coming!

Well now, it is only a short day away before we are off in a foreign land where hopefully all of Eric's listening to the spanish station here has helped. I just stopped trying to learn, and will just rely on him. :)

I am done with school and now just using the few days of doing nothing to get some odds and ends errands accomplished. Still have more things to tie up and get done before we go. We have been on a crazy shopping spree lately...finished doing the front/side landscaping and got rockers for the porch, finished painting our bathroom and got towels to go with the room and just bought a new mattress that we will have delivered after our trip. Next up is the bedroom furniture and our couch will maybe be in sometime when we get back.

I will leave you with a couple pictures of our new bathroom color and towels and the front yard. Although, you can't really tell the color of the bathroom, and I tried to take a pic of the toilet area since we painted it a deeper purple.









Last but not least, here is one of Killer in one of his new sleeping spots (our closet).

The dreaded Flat tire

So yesterday I head out for a ride, and was planning on just 25 miles with a 3x 1 mile workout in the middle after a 10 mile warmup. I was at mile 8 and I hear this pssssssssssss.... I of course don't know what it is at first because I have my ipod on and I think for a second I have a leaf or bag or something stuck in my wheel so I look around and don't see anything.

A few seconds later I realize my back tire is flat. Yikes. So up until now, I have been riding for 3-4 years and haven't had to actually change my tire out on the road. The first flat I got was just a leak and I made it home, the second one was also a leak racking at White Lake Half last year and I didn't even know it until after the race. I got another flat a week after than but I was only a couple miles from home and called Eric who came and picked me up.

So I call him because I am freaking out, it is my rear tire and I am clueless as to how the whole gears and stuff work back there with the wheel. He talks me through getting the wheel off and I manage to change the tire after like 5 calls to Eric to make sure I was doing it right.

Too bad the CO2 cartridge hardly had any stuff in it. I rode home because my tire was still really soft and when I got home, I checked it and the cartridge only gave 30 psi's. Yikes! My wheels require 130 psi's.

Eric said he had only given me 50-50 odds on whether I could do it while his co-worker gave me 75-25. Thanks Mike!

Juno

What an excellent movie...

My favorite line:

"That ain't no etch-a-sketch. This is one doodle that can't be undid, homeskillet."

House Stuff...

We spent the weekend doing what seemed like a million different things. We managed to dig up some sod and plants a few plants as part of our front yard makeover. Maybe we will finish that this weekend...I am really sore though from diging and planting though.

Then I decided I wanted to finish painting our bathroom. I had picked a different color for the small room where the actually toilet is, a deep purple to complement the gray lightish purple bathroom part. So it is a really small space and so I decided we didn't need a gallon , so I bought a quart. Well, we are painting away and Eric asks me if I think the walls seems strange and I do....turns out, the builders never actually painted the room, just sprayed on the paint (1 coat-flat) over the drywall so it is just dry. Well, that meant it just soaked up the quart. Couldn't even finish one coat with it. So I had to go out and buy another. Stupid little cans...the two cans are costing me more then it would have cost to buy the gallon to begin with. :)

I am also testing a different color for the main part of the house, a more green then gold color. But that project will come at a much later time.

If we finish the yard this weekend, I will post pictures...and maybe we will get some chairs for the porch too!!! We only bought ones for the deck so far.

The Games

A few weeks ago, Eric and I were extremely fortunate to get some tickets (Thanks Tyler) to the first round NCAA tourny. Of course, we were excited since Arkansas was playing and so was UNC. The first games of UNC vs Mount St. Mary's was a blowout and not very exciting but the Indiana vs Arkansas game was great and we ended up winning! Unfortunately, that meant playing UNC in the next round. Yeah. The first game that day was the Davidson vs Georgetown game and wow, that was amazing. The entire arena in powder blue was rooting for Davidson (since they are in Carolina), and the student section was great. And then I watched Arkansas get blown out by UNC which was embarrasing. Just terrible.

Anyway, here are a few pics!










And here is us at the game after it was over...

Allergies...

I was driving in to work yesterday morning and heard a report on the radio for the worst cities this year for allergies and here is the list:

1. Lexington, Ky.
2. Greensboro, N.C.
3. Johnson City, Tenn.
4. Augusta, Ga.
5. Jackson, Miss.


Hmmm.... for those of you that don't know we basically living in Greensboro, and this is basically where I work too. Yeah for allergy season!!!

Pictures

So, we got the camera cord back and here are a few pictures of the rooms we have "done". The guest room and the guest bathroom:







We painted our bathroom this past weekend a nice lavender shade. I had picked out a more lavender/gray but it definitely looks more lavender on the wall. After we get some towels to match (I am thinking dark plum) I will post a couple more pics.

Our goal has been to do some landscaping but the weather has not quite cooperated. Maybe this weekend, we'll see. We have also tested out a few rocking chairs for the porch but haven't found ones we like. So our porch is still bare. We might end up with comfy wicker chairs instead, who knows.

Our couch is suppose to come in sometime in April, and we think we have picked a color for the downstairs-a really light yellow/green/tan color. Maybe I will get to that this summer when I have some more time. :)

The Camera Cord...

Has been found!!! Granted it has been found in Michigan, but it has been located. :)

I am in Charleston for another math conference for the next two days and I just talked to Eric who said he came home today to see a package from Ethan. Couldn't figure out what it was since it was much heavier than just the cord. Turned out to be an extra present of a knife sharpener! Thanks guys!!! (We did buy another wine opener a couple weeks ago too).

Now that the cord has returned to its home, I can post pictures when I get back!! Yeah!

Its Been a While...

Well...I know it has been awhile and we still haven't found the cord that connects our camera to our computer, so we might have to go buy another one. :(

Things have just been moving along. School is keeping me quite busy. I am working a lot on making my classes better and hopefully more interesting for the students, but in turn have gotten a little behind in the syllabus in hopes for better understanding.

As for the house, we haven't painted any more rooms, but have paint chips up in the master bath (in the purple shade) and in our family/living room (in the green/yellow shade). We bought a couch that is suppose to come in in mid April and our entertainment center finally came in last week. So now our nice big tv has a nice home. :)

My sister and Ethan and little Amelia came to visit for a little bit a couple weeks ago and we had a lot of fun. We didn't take any pictures but one when she left:



The only reason I have a picture is because she took it and I got it off her blog. :)

We have a busy 3 day weekend starting today with NCAA games. I got lucky that one of my friends was able to get Eric and I tickets for this weekends games. Normally, I wouldn't care so much about 1st and 2nd rounds, but Arkansas got selected and is playing here in Raleigh so we had to attempt to get tickets. So tonights games feature UNC vs Mount St. Mary's and Ark vs Indiana. And if all goes well, Sunday we will be watching UNC vs Arkansas!!!

We also have been working on beautifying our front porch/yard. We bought planters and planted flowers and hung the wind chimes and now just need to get the rocking chairs and make the end table. We have an appointment tomorrow with a landscaper who is going to help design the front of our house and yard and then as we can, we buy the plants and implement the plan. So maybe next year, our yard will look really nice!

I hope everyone has a relaxed Easter weekend!

Pictures

Well...I actually had a little time tonight to do some stuff I have been putting off. I took some pictures of the two rooms we painted and was going to upload them (along with the xmas decorations that I hadn't gotten around to). So after I took the pictures, I spent the next 20 minutes looking for the cord that connect the camera to the computer and haven't found it yet. :)

One of these days, I might get around to posting some pictures of the house...I almost took one of the big tv, but it looks a little out of place on top of the small tv stand (the new one we ordered hasn't arrived yet).

The plans were to go out to a big furniture mall (yes, seriously, a mall of furniture stores...only in the furniture capital of the country can you find it) on Saturday, but Eric might have to work, and Sunday it is only open for 4 hours...I mean come on, can we make it through the whole place in 4 hours. :)

I think we are getting close though, our plan was that if we didn't find anything here, we were going back to another store and order the sofa and loveseat...yeah!!!

Slowly but surely...

We took the 46 inch tv back and got the 40 and it looks so much better in the room. We spent all of Saturday furniture shopping and ordered an entertainment center for the tv. We also managed to find a table we think we really like and a sofa and love seat too. But didn't order them. I think we managed to hit 6 furniture stores on Saturday. I think we are on the right track though, finally finding things we both like and think would look good.

Eric managed to hang some more blinds up and we only have a few left to hang! He also got the two mountain bikes up off the garage floor, hanging from the ceiling now to open up some more space and bought a miter saw and a bunch of lumber to build some shelves in the garage.

It was so nice yesterday, I convinced Eric to go out on a 20mile ride outside. I think I got spoiled living in Apex, as most loops I did leaving my house were downhill/rolling the first 8+ miles, and now leaving our neighborhood we hit a monstrous hill 2.5 miles out, which I am not warmed up and ready to get out of the saddle to hurt. Not fun. Maybe it will make me better on the hills though! :)

The big TV

We spent the weekend doing tons of stuff. We finished "decorating" the guest room by hanging a big picture and curtains (which totally make the room look not as bright), and have it all set up for the Wed night arrival of the in-laws. We made a few trips to Bed Bath and Beyond and Target to find the perfect matching towels for the bathroom and think we have them...don't know though and hung one picture in the bathroom...I post some pics soon...

Then we decided to buy the big tv...and I mean big. Maybe too big...We bought a 46inch LCD flat panel tv to hang on the wall downstairs yesterday and then watched a movie last night on it...which holy cow I thought I was at the movie theater. But it just seems so big in the room. We are thinking about taking it back to go with the 40inch. The problem is we want this specific Sony tv and sony doesn't make a 42inch one. We'll spend a few more days with it and see if it really is too big. And it probably doesn't help that we don't have a big console for it and don't have it on the wall yet! :) Oh well...at least we have a great tv for the Superbowl next weekend!

I know...

Yes, yes, it has been awhile, so here is a little update:

We spent a little over a week visiting family for xmas and it was a lot of fun but extremely exhausting. We even came back a day early because we were just so tired from being gone so long and for driving way too much. I am super excited that we are not traveling for xmas this coming year!

We got back and I was home for a couple days before I flew to San Diego for 6 days for a math conference and also a couple days vacation to see some friends. I had a great time visiting my friends I haven't seen in forever, it has been 3-5 years since I have seen them and it was great to catch up. Then I spent 4 days downtown at the conference interviewing people for the new position at HPU. It was quite different being on this side of the interviewing table, but a good experience. I got really sick the last day and spent the next week once I got back recovering.

We managed to paint two rooms over the weekend! So now we have two rooms not builder beige!! Eric and I both agreed on this yellow color for the guest bedroom, well I went and ordered it and got it in a semi-gloss....I think it was the wrong decision. I think the flat paint would have been better, right now in the bedroom if the sun is shining in there is this massive glare off the walls, and it is really yellow. :) I think maybe putting a headboard in their and hanging some paintings and some dark curtains will help, but I blame myself for getting the semi-gloss.

THe bathroom however looks like I picked a great color. I will really know tomorrow after we put the bathroom back together, hanging the shower curtain, and putting the lighting back in and the mirror and so on, but I think the color is great.

The other really exciting news is Eric and I have decided to take a vacation this year and are going to go to Peru! There is no backing out now since we booked our reservation with a guide to hike part of the Inca Trail (to Machu Picchu) for 4 days as part of our trip. Now we are trying to plan out the days around the hike and get the best deals on flights!

That is all the news for now...no new furniture or anything like that, and we have plenty of visitors coming starting next week with the in-laws, followed by Eric's brother and all 3 kids, followed by my sister and Ethan and little Amelia...should be a busy month and a half...

Videos and such

OK...I have spent the past few hours (as I work at my desk) trying to upload the videos to my last blog...still somehow every time I do it and it says it has loaded (which takes forever), I load the blog again and the video isn't there....

I will keep working at it!

On another note: we went out Friday and got our Christmas tree!!! Spent Saturday morning decorating, then went out furniture shopping...and we bought a chair! Yes, one chair (and an ottoman). We have decided to design our whole living room around this chair...no we are not crazy! :) We (or maybe I) just really liked this chair so we just bit the bullet and will worry about the couch and love seat next!

I don't have my camera cord with me right now, but will post pictures in a day or so!

My rant for the day is the BCS....first of all I am super excited that both WV and Missouri lost but what in the world is happening with Kanas gets a BCS bid over Missouri who lost 2x BOTH to Oklahoma...who has Kansas played???? I really hope (and expect) that VT will blow them out! The flip side of this is that Missouri now is going to the Cotton Bowl and playing of all teams, Arkansas. Right now at Arkansas Houston Nutt is leaving and taking almost all of his coaches to Ole Miss and apparently is going to be there for a week...Is Arkansas even going to be ready to play Missouri, and if so won't they be highly distracted by the fact that they whole coaching staff is leaving! I don't know, I think Missouri got screwed, and then Arkansas got screwed as well. There is always hope for the upset though! And Mark May really makes me mad and his whole Tim Tebow talk...DMac is the best player in the country. People talk about it all over the place and he has a couple bad games, one in which he was playing injured...

OK...don't ranting, I will just keep going if I don't stop now. :)

We also decorated the front of our house with Christmas lights, and I must say it is pretty freaking awesome! :) At least I think so, it took us forever to wrap our columns in ribbon and lights, but it was well worth it....picture to come in a day...I will hold you all in suspense until then! And maybe by then I can figure out this video thing!

Mini Vacation...

Well things are winding down here for the semester thank goodness. I am worn out. I think I just feel like I haven't had any time to do anything. With moving and then family here, and teaching an extra class right now, preparing for a talk, I have just been overwelhmed. We haven't been able to do much at the house and we can't seem to agree on furniture. We headed down to Mrytle Beach last week for Thanksgiving with my parents. It was a nice time, good shopping while Eric and my dad golfed....had some nice meals and walks on the beach and some excellent football action! Go Hogs! And according to Tyler: "Looks like Christmas came early" with the ousting of Coach Nutt. Thanks to him I have been graced with watching the funniest you tube video possible: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM-yCyIdOYU And sorry Monica, but I really think Georgia should be in the championship game. But since Tenn is going, I will route for them against LSU! :) We introduced my parents to the wonderful world of the wii and wii sports. I laughed so hard watching my parents box eachother, we had to take a little video of it: Then we had them try out Dance Dance Revolution on the PS2, again, quite humourous. I talked to my dad yesterday who said his arm was sore from boxing and my moms foot still hurt from dancing! (Note: Eric and my dad were on different levels so they aren't doing the same moves) In the meantime, our goal this weekend is to once again go furniture shopping and buy a Christmas tree. I am super excited about it since it will be my first tree since going to college and I have been saving all my ornaments just waiting to be used! After we decorate and put up stuff outside I will take some pictures and post. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Congrats to my friends Becka and Tim for the birth of their baby boy, Frank!

The House

Well, I know it has been a couple weeks, but we finally got around to taking a picture of the house...with us in front. Eric's parents were here last weekend for a quick visit and Eric and I are slowly moving in.

Right now I am overwhelmed with a lot of stuff. I have a lot to do in the next week and I am starting to really stress out but I know everything will all work itself out and by next Thursday I will be hopefully mostly prepared for a talk I am giving. I did manage to make it home last night and take a bath in the new garden tub. It was nice and hot...too hot for maybe 10 minutes of trying to get in, but that is ok, it was nice to relax a little.

Well, here you go, our house (complete with our "fall" decorations)



And then we realized we looked so small...so we took another:



We didn't take any of the inside...we don't have much funiture in so it just looks so empty...As we get furniture though I will take more pictures!

Mother Nature

Well, first let me say that my thoughts and prayers are with all the people in CA dealing with the fires. 11 houses on the street where I lived burned down along with roughly 40 houses in the neighborhood. My friends that are still there are ok and so is my gradparents house. Mother Nature has come to life out in CA and it is not pretty. On the flip side, over here, we are in serious draught conditions. Many cities in the state have less than 2 months of water left...but all that changed Tuesday night.

We have had rain on and off for the past 3 days and it is suppose to continue through tomorrow morning. When all is said and done, I think we will have received roughly 3-4 inches of rain which is much needed to fill our lakes back up. Needless to say, we have not been able to get outside to take a picture of us and the house, but this weekend is suppose to be nice and sunny, so just hold on a few more days!

Eric's parents have had their bags packed waiting until we moved so they can come visit and we got the word last night that they will be arriving next weekend! I doubt our house will be in order but maybe I can convince Nancy to help me pick plants/flowers/shrubs to plant so that in the spring there will be a nice garden!

Exhausted!

We are finally moved in to our new house!!!!! After a quick trip to Hilton Head with the parents we came back, closed on the house and then Friday night pack up the U-Haul and moved out! We got to the house close to 11pm and we just unloaded a few things (i.e. the bed), showered and went to bed. Woke up early the next morning and unloaded the truck with some help and started getting settled in. Although I made a drive back to Raleigh for a baby shower that afternoon while Eric went back to the apartment to clean (I definitely got the better deal!). We passed out early Friday night and spent Sunday unpacking boxes and putting furniture in the right places.

This house is huge! Eric and I get tired just walking from one part to the other! The cats meanwhile are getting lost, crying out at times and waiting for you to answer so they can come find you. The house makes our apartment look crazy small as half of our rooms are completely empty since we don't have furniture to put in them. All that is in our bonus room is the computer which is sitting on the floor! Our dining room has been our place to collect all the empty boxes. :) Oh well, give me some time and I will buy some furniture!

Sorry, no pictures today of the house, will get some taken this week and post them soon, we have just been way too tired from moving!!

Winding Down

Well, things have been going right along...sorry no new pictures, but for sure there will be some next week! I have 2 1/2 more days this week and then a whole week off!! Yeah, I love that they have a week break...makes working on Labor day that much sweeter. :) We leave Friday for our mini vacation to Hilton Head with my parents. We'll be back Tuesday evening so that we can close next Wednesday!!! In exactly one week we will finally have our house!!!! We (really Eric) has been packing up stuff while I have been gone and getting everything set up/hooked up ect. Ordering our fridge and microwave and whatnot. We probably won't move until next Saturday though so we can pack up after we get back and pack the moving van Friday afternoon to move on Saturday morning. THen I will post more pictures of move in day!

Closing Date

Well, we have been out to the house a few more times and things are moving right along. They were still saying Oct 11 on Friday and we pushed it to Oct 17. I know, you might think we are crazy but we had already planned a mini vaction from the 12-16 with my parents so it made no sense to try and close the day before we left. They actually probably needed the extra almost week to finish up all the details that we want them to fix. :) We just want everything to be perfect right!

So cabinets went in over a week ago: Here is one of the desk area in the kitchen and one of the kitchen (next to the desk area with the space for the fridge)





They had said the countertops were backordered and they came in last week and put them in:


We even got lucky and they happen to put in a bar eating area in the kitchen. (I don't have a pic). We had already talked about doing this at some point, right were the sink is, since there already is a countertop (just too narrow to be a eating area), but they put in a bigger piece of countertop that hangs over to create a nice eating area, so that was really nice!

They also put our garage doors in, our mailbox is in, and put up the rail on our porch-just not painted yet, but I imagine when I go by this Friday it might be as well as our front door finally getting painted:



We have scheduled our walk through on October 9th and then they say they will fix everything we want by the 17th, so hopefully that is true...we'll see. :)

In other news, I can't begin to express my dissatisfaction with Houston Nutt. I believe he has done all he is capable of at Arkansas and should be let go. Why on earth wasn't he before and maybe then we could have gotten Nick Saban...that would have been sweet. Or maybe if we had someone else, we would have been able to recruit Mallet, true freshman quarterback at Michigan from Arkansas. The past two games have been great games, but of course big let downs because we can't (nor have we ever) seem to finish a game without stupid errors/penalties, or just plain decent playing for 4 quarters. I only wish Frank Broyles would see that it is time for a change and hire someone else who might be able to truely put together a great team. I would also like to say that even though we have lost, I still think Darren McFadden is the best collegiate football player in the country, and definitely the best to ever play at Arkansas.

Spring Schedule

Yesterday the department chair came by my office to talk about the spring semester and what he had me down to teach. I will have a very similar schedule which I reall like. I will teach 1 section of Calc 2 (I am teaching 1 Sect of Calc 1 right now-so continue the sequence), 2 sections of a class called A Survey of Mathematics-it is the second half of a sequence for elementary education majors which I am teaching 2 sections of the first half of the sequence right now. And then I will get to teach Linear Algebra.

The time of my classes is just about the same as this semester, I have a MWF 9:00, MWF 11:00, MW 2-3:15 and a TTh 9:30-10:45. It will be nice not having an 8 next semester too! I also think it won't take me as much time to lesson plan as this semester since I have already taught Linear Algebra and Calc 2 at State and they use the same book here. Of course I will reprep those, but I only have one new prep which will be nice. This semester, the geometry class is a killer!

Pictures Pictures Pictures

Dude, I am a posting machine!!! :) Krista you and Ethan need to keep up!!! Eric and I met up at the house during lunch today to check it out. They have fixed the outside shake color problem and had installed all the lights/ceiling fans/light switches/electrical socket plates in. They have the cabinets in their respective rooms but have not installed them, but will probably have them in by Friday when I go by again. :)
Here are the latest photos:


Here is the master bath again with the cabinet/lights (even though the cabinet isn't installed yet-these are the cabinets that are in all our bathrooms and the kitchen)



Here is the foyer/dining room/looking into the family room. I took this picture because up above there is the gate that Eric thinks looks like prison bars (that is the bonus room up there). Which is does. Our other option would have been to get a curved iron gate that looks much nicer but the cost was something like $1000 for it...ummm...I think we can live with the prison bars and maybe find something else to put up there! :)

More Pictures

Another week...the house is coming along. I was there on Wednesday and they were just finishing up the hardwood floors, the paint color we picked is really nice too, not as dark as it looked last week when it was going up.
Here are a few new pics...

These are the kitchen and the eating area:




Here are the stairs (since I like them so much):


Here is the dining room:



And here is the master bath: I can't really tell in this pic that the floors are different from the floors in the kitchen, but they are different colors.

THE ICE CREAM TRUCK!!

I went out to the kiosk before my 2:00 class today for a bottle of water and low and behold the ice cream truck was out!!! I got me a nice yummy ice cream sandwich (the ones with chocolate chip cookies as the top and bottom!!) I love HPU!

A Weekend Full of Sports

Yeah for college football!!! But what in the world can be more devestating then seeing Michigan lose to App State. I mean how terrible is that. The only other upseting loss to me was the Tenn/Cal game. Yes, I do root for Tenn, even though I went to Arkansas. I root for all SEC schools unless they are playing the Hogs. Since the more the SEC wins, the better our conference, and then the better the wins are against other SEC schools. The only other team I root for over a SEC school is Michigan...

There was also lots of running on this weekend as well as Tennis and Nascar. Although I did fall asleep last night and didn't see the last of the race. I did have to get up at 5am to get to HP this morning to teach....what...yes...teach, today, Labor Day. :) It seems that private schools are allowed to honor their own holidays! :) But I can't complain because since we work today, we are able to get an entire week off in October for a fall break. So that is nice.

An update on the house: I stopped by Friday afternoon and there were tons of people working away. They were painting the inside, putting in the air conditioning and all the duct work, they finished the driveway/sidewalks, started on the porch and put the metal trim up on the house. Here are the latest pictures:

Here is the house with the porch columns (there will be a rail across the front) and you can see the dark trim above the garage and in the triangles on the shake. I am not sure we did good picking this color (forest green), which is the color our door will be too. You might also notice that the shakes are two different colors. The siding is a tan and then the shakes are a cream (above garage) and another tan/clay (above porch) color. They are suppose to be the same. :) And they are suppose to be the tan/clay color. This will eventually get fixed. :)



Here are a couple from the inside: One is upstairs and of the railing they put in on the stairs. They call it shadowboxes, and I am not sure if you can tell in the pic, but it is pretty thick railing and then the posts coming down alternate forward and back to add depth. (I really like it which is why it is up here).



The other is of our bedroom and the tray ceiling that is in as well as the paint around the tops of the walls. (When I was there they were painting by hand all the corners and the places where the walls meet the ceiling and the floor and windows/doors, etc).




They are still projecting October 11 as closing date. :)