Bonjour mes amis!

We are home from our journey! It was an absolutely wonderful trip. It started off just a bit rocky because the airport didn't like that my passport didn't match my ticket name. We originally planned to have my old name on the ticket, but were told differently. You would think the passport office could tell you the correct information, but apparently they can't. I was told that as long as I took a certified copy of our marriage certificate along with my passport, license, and ticket--that everything would be fine. They didn't like it too much. Lesson learned--in the future always match your ticket to your passport when going overseas. PS, the price for changing your name: 30 mins and $150 lighter. 

We saw some pretty incredible things while in Paris. The Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysees was probably one of my favorite things while we were there. We made it to the top of the Arc right at sunset and it was so beautiful. Of course the Eiffel was pretty awesome too. Daniel was stuck to the wall at the very top but it was really neat being that high up. The wind was blowing extremely hard so it made it difficult to get some good pictures. We also saw Notre Dame, Sacre-Coeur, Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, Tuilieres Garden, Pantheon, the Concorde (not the plane), the Moulin Rouge, we took a Seine boat cruise, Versailles, and I'm sure there is more but I just can't think. We saw the Mona Lisa and one of Monet's water lilly paintings and many others. We have pictures to show so hopefully we'll get those up soon. We still have to go through them and get rid of the bad pictures. London was lovely too. It was pretty rainy so we ended up taking a tour bus around. We saw Buckingham Palace, The Mall, Big Ben, Westminister Abbey, Hyde Park, Picadilly Circus, the Tower, London, and Millenium Bridges, St. Paul's Cathedral, and much more. We stopped at Harrod's and went in--what a massive place. We didn't explore the whole place but it did have a grocery store in it which seemed weird for a department store type place. Of all things, it also had a Krispy Kreme so we took advantage of an American delicacy. We saw Margaret Thatcher coming out of a church service so that was pretty neat too.  

Can you believe it?

It's March! I cannot believe how fast this year is going by already. Saturday, I got up early to go to Old Navy because I had seen an ad for $12 adult jeans and $7 kids jeans, but when I got there, there was no sign of it. They did have $19 jeans, so we each got a new pair. That's still a pretty good deal as compared to their normal $30. I also got Daniel two new shirts for his birthday. I gave them to him early so he could have them for Paris.

On Sunday we got about an inch (maybe a bit more) of snow in the morning. When Daniel and I went to Sam's, we had to clean off our car and ended up getting in a REAL snowball fight. It was a lot of fun and we had snow everywhere. We also went by Old Navy to return some things and they had polos marked down even further so we each got one. Daniel (of course) got a green one (it is a pretty green) and I got a navy blue one with an purple argyle print on it. By late afternoon, most of it had melted. It's unbelievable how the second we leave Alabama, they get snow twice--and real snow at that. Not the normal ice and sleet situation. What's up with that? Well, I think it was made up for Sunday night/Monday morning. It was incredibly beautiful. We had white outs Monday morning along with some really strong wind gusts. I think we got a good 6 -7 inches. I went to work about 30 mins late. It was coming down so hard that I wasn't about to attempt it. Our complex and the road in front of us (Town Center) wasn't in Good condition. The normal two lane road became a one lane road because you couldn't see any of the markings. No one dared drive next to each other except when someone had to turn at the lights. When I turned onto Sunset Hills, the crews had worked there and as a result the roads where mostly slush with some compacted ice spots. I thought I was about to get rear ended because some guy wasn't taking normal precautions like everyone else. Most people were leaving about a car's worth of space between them and the next person and this idiot was right on my bumper. I could only see about half of his hood and he was in on of those Ford Aerostar vans. Luckily, he didn't and stopped but, that was a little too close for comfort. Other than that, the trip was fine. By the afternoon the roads looked like a rainy day except for Town Center and our complex. They were solid sheets of bumpy compacted ice but at least people were driving in two lanes. Daniel was able to work from home. I was a bit jealous, cause I really wanted to play in the snow and just enjoy looking at it. When I got home, we went outside and took some pictures, I made a snow angel, and we frolicked through the deeper drifts. I'm gonna try to post some pictures before we leave for our trip. That night, I also made snow cream. (And yes, I watched out for the yellow spots--we took it from our porch--we figured it was safest.) It was actually good as opposed to the sleet cream we had attempted when we were kids. Just like ice cream. I made more last night and had a coke float with it. Pretty tasty, I must say.

Sooooooooo, we leave for Paris tomorrow and I am excitttted!! We both are! I think Daniel might be more excited about the airports and the airplane than anything. I know we are going to see some incredible things. We have made our itineraries out and are keeping a watch on the weather. We've tried to plan for some days of rain where we do more of the museum thing. It was looking like the trip was a going to be a bit rainy but that's already changed since Monday and looking more sunny now. That's good, I hope it stays nice. It will be a bit cold, but I think with all the walking we will be doing, we'll stay warm enough. We are making lists of all the things we need to pack and trying to be prepared.

About a week after we get back, Ben, Celi, Amanda, and Kevin will be here. Kevin and Amanda are on spring break so they wanted to visit and see some sights. I think we are planning on taking them to the International Spy Museum--we've heard it's really good. Then a couple-three weeks later, Brian and Janie should be here (hopefully with Sam), my mom, Aunt Therese, and I think Aunt Cindy will be coming, and also Daniel's mom and dad will be visiting. We haven't nailed down firm dates with everyone, but most are coming within the first couple of weeks of April. Some for Easter, some for cherry blossoms, and some for both. It's gonna be a good month coming up. We are looking forward to all of our visitors.

Well I think that's about it for now! I hope everyone is doing well!

Parlez vous francais...

By now, most of you have heard that Daniel and I will be going to Paris! We leave on the 5th of March and actually arrive in Paris on the 6th. We return on the 12th. On the 10th we've decided to take the "chunnel" to London. We are still nailing down our itinerary for each day, but we are accumulating a list of places we want to go. I am super excited about our opportunity and can't wait to go! It's somewhere I have always wanted to go in a few weeks I will be able to say that I have accomplished one of my dreams. I am trying to refresh my french skills and we are both trying to decide on clothing and things that we need to take--packing lightly and all.

What else has happened lately you ask? Not a lot in our world. It snowed a few more times here, but nothing really stuck. The last two weeks it snowed enough to stick for a little while and had to clean the cars off but the roads were completely clear. This morning it started snowing before we went to church around 9am and it was still going strong when got out around 10:45. It stopped closer to 11, but again it didn't stick. It was pretty watching it fall and it kinda made Mass this morning extra special.

I'm still working the same temp job and it looks like it will be continuing into March for a little while. This job might also turn into a possible permanent job too--just have to wait and see. Daniel's job is still going good. This past week was a little difficult because there were some bad Metro delays and one night it took him almost 3 hours to get home.

Today, I ventured into a new world. I decided to make a King Cake! It was kind of interesting. I looked up some recipes and finally settled on one from Emeril and one from a chick from Mobile. They were fairly similar so I combined the two to form what I thought would be the ultimate recipe. So far, they look really great. I had a little trouble put the twist into them, but overall the look pretty good. I'm going to put icing on them tomorrow. I've made one for Daniel and I and one for the ladies at Beeline. We went to lunch a week and half ago and they really weren't sure what a King cake was. I mean they knew what I was talking about, but they had never had one.

For Valentine's day, we had an extravagant dinner of Pizza Hut at Target. Then we headed to church for the "Dancing through the Decades" Valentine's dance. They had some professionals there to teach us swing dance. I think there were more people there than they anticipated, so it was a little crowded and to top it off they were having some sound issues. Overall, we did have fun and enjoy ourselves, but I think we would have had more fun if there weren't the issues and if we knew more people within the church. It was a good Valentine's. (Our real Valentine's is coming in about a week and a half.)

We are glad that MawMaw is home and feeling better. She even got to get her hair done the other day and I know she was excited about that. We hope Mr. Gene continues to feel better too. Mr. Gene had a small bout of Amnesia brought on by stress but from what we know, he is doing much better now too. We hope both continue to feel better and stronger everyday. My mom has had some sinus cold problems that's been going around and put her out of commission for a few days and just when she thought she was better and going back to work, she relapsed. I think the worst is over now. Feel better Mom!

Okay, well I guess that's it. I hope everyone is doing well! We miss everyone dearly!

It's been a picture of a day...

Hello All-

We've uploaded a couple of new slideshows to our blog so be sure to check those out. They are Christmas 2008 & Our Apartment 2 - The Outside Edition. Besides that, I've been working on my computer trying to convert it to purely a computer for music and pictures. I've been going through files, deleting them or copying them to cd, switching files and pictures to different drives, removing programs not needed and just general maintenance. I must say, it gets a little frustrating at times but overall it's not been too bad. We also cleaned the apartment again today and it feels better around here. Our condo owners came by to check on our water heater. We've been having trouble getting through even one shower with continuous hot water. We don't think anything is wrong with the water heater, just that because it's in an outside closet and the weather has been colder than normal around here, we think that's the problem. Anyways, the owners bought a water heater blanket and came by to put it on. Daniel wanted to watch 60 minutes and the Grammy's so he's been taking that in. Yesterday, we were pretty lazy. We did go to church and then afterwards, we took a walk around the town center. We returned the movies we had rented and stopped by for ice cream. It was good. We are looking forward to the weather--it's gonna be in the 50's this week and it feels sooooo good.

I'm still working the same temp job that I was four weeks ago. Tomorrow, will be the start of the 5th week. Still going strong. Our thoughts are with MawMaw right now. She's been put in the hospital, but it hasn't been easy. Her and Mr. Gene went on their cruise around Mexico and somehow, she came down with pneumonia and got hospitalized in Mexico on Thursday the 29th. They thought she was doing better but then she got put on a ventilator and they weren't even sure if they were going to be able to Med-flight her out of there. They finally got the okay and she arrived in Birmingham Saturday morning. She's still in the hospital now, but she is out of the ICU and in a regular room. We are hopeful that she will get out tomorrow. Last weekend, we tried a restaurant called Benihana (Japanese). Daniel was itching to try it because it's where they had eaten once in The Office. We also played a rousing game of scrabble. I lost but it was only because he took my spot at the end of the game. I came from behind and then it stayed close till the end. Oh yes, it was Brian Atchison's and Papa Joe's birthdays--so Happy Birthday to you both! We love you very much! Okay, well that's a positive note to end on, so that's where I'm ending. Hope you have/are having a good week!

It's early

Doust my ears deceive me? Do I hear Daniel waking up at 8:30?---We'll see. It's early. I woke up at 7:30 and couldn't go back to sleep. I had an interesting dream. I was hosting an art gallery showing in the bottom of St. Joe's gym. It was successful and everything was closed up. During the night, our friend Max broke into the gym and was starting to take the art pieces. For some reason I went there to check on them and caught him in the act. I asked him what he was doing and he said his grandmother was getting married and she didn't have enough money for a reception so he was trying to make her reception special. I told him not to take the art, that we would have the reception here. There were plenty of leftovers and we could make it work. So, we all got busy decorating and I must say as of when I woke up, it was really looking good. I won't into those details because it's too long but it was lovely. (My ears deceived me!)

I'm not sure if I mentioned this yet, but my temp job got extended for at least two weeks, maybe three. So this week was one of those weeks--I will be there at least through next week. The job that I thought they were putting my resume in for, didn't pan out. It turned out they hired someone the day they asked me about it. But, I was told a few days ago that they were putting my name in for another job in Fairfax. Maybe that one will work out. We'll see.

Other than that, nothing much exciting has happened here. It was a little warmer this week but it's gonna be cold again next week. We did go to the inauguration concert on Sunday and we were slightly disappointed. The speakers and screens weren't timed together so it echoed a bunch and turned out to be rather muffled. We didn't stay for the whole thing but we did hear Bruce, Denzel Washington, Jamie Fox, Martin Luther King III, and someone else, but I can't remember who. On Monday, we watched a movie or two and just hung around the apartment. It was too cold to go out--it snowed on Monday. Nothing really stuck though. The pond outside our complex froze over and stayed white with snow. Okay, well I guess that's it. We are supposed to meet some friends for dinner tonight. We are both looking forward to that! Ttyl. Love you!

It's been awhile...

To all those reading, we are super sorry that we haven't been keeping up. With everything that has been going on, time has just flown by. At any rate, I will try to get you caught up with what has been happening with us the last several months.

In November, we loved seeing a large number of Daniel's family. They were here to see Uncle Bill and Janet get married. It was a lovely wedding and the reception was fantastic. We had a 5 course meal which was to die for. It was one of the best meals I've ever had. I tried something new--a quail's egg and I tried to try lobster, but it just didn't work. I had a physical/emotional response to it and Daniel had to get it off my plate. Hat's off to him for that. We celebrated Susan and mine's birthday while everyone was here and Daniel made me a red velvet cake while I made Susan a german chocolate cake. If I must say, they were de-lish. Since everyone was in town days before Thanksgiving, we went ahead and celebrated early. We had 12 people enjoying Thanksgiving dinner. We had deviled eggs, turkey, ham, squash casserole, green beans, cranberry salad, rolls, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, dressing, and I feel like there was more but I can't remember. I have a picture that I intend on posting. On Thanksgiving day, Ben and Celi drove down to have spend the weekend with us. Again, we celebrated Thanksgiving with a lovely dinner--green bean casserole, pineapple casserole, dressing, turkey, ham, rolls, cranberry salad, pumpkin and pecan pies and leftover cake. Ben and Celi also joined us at Old Dominion which is the Alabama alumni spot to watch the Iron Bowl. That was a good day and a happy victory! That about does it for November.

In December, we ventured to Alabama for the first time in a while for MawMaw and Mr. Gene's wedding. The ladies that helped put on the reception did an excellant job and it seems that all the planning paid off. We enjoyed getting to see everyone and I even got to meet some of Daniel's family that I had never met before. On the 12th, I had my work party --which I got to help plan and then on the 17th we got to go Daniel's work party. Right in between those two parties, I lost my job. Because I was still "on contract" with staffing agency, I found out about my job on my lunch break and was told I couldn't go back or make contact. That was the worst part of it all. I didn't get to say bad and I know my boss at Beeline, felt the same way. I know it was difficult for her too. I have been able to stay in contact with several of them their, so that's been good. We plan to have lunch next week. Anyways, that was that and I realize that their was a reason for it--just figuring out what that is, is the key. It was kind of a blessing in disguise because just in a few days we were leaving to drive home. So, it gave me extra time to wrap presents, finish those last minute items, do some baking, clean-up around the apartment, and pack--plus we could take an extra day or two to be at home. We left Friday night and drove through the night to B'ham. We made really good time and it worked pretty well. We were Daniel's family Saturday through Wednesday morning (Christmas Eve) and with mine from Christmas Eve til Monday morning. We celebrated Christmas with the Atchison's on Tuesday evening and ordered food from Jim N' Nicks. Elizabeth got to open her presents first, then we ate, then we watched "The Gift", and finally opened the rest of our presents. I think we all fared out pretty well. On my side, we opened gifts on Christmas Eve at G & G Eckl's, had Christmas lunch at Peepa's and played dirty santa, Christmas dinner at the Eckl's again, and on Friday morning we opened gifts at home. We let Samanatha and Chloe open their gifts on Christmas morning. Watching all three nieces open gifts was really cute and fun. Their faces were the best part. I got the stomach bug on saturday night and so instead of driving part of the way on Sunday like we planned, we ended up driving it all on Monday. I felt better Monday but I still felt nauseated several times throughout the week even though I could eat pretty normally. Daniel had to go back to work on Tuesday and Wednesday and was off for New Year's and then had to go back to work on Friday.

Now we are in January and I resumed the process of job hunting. I've had two temp jobs so far and I'm still on one right now. They have found a possible job and were submitting my resume for it, so we'll see what turns up. We had our first snow this past Tuesday. It didn't do a lot but just kind of cover the ground. Didn't hurt the roads or anything. The big talk up here is the Inauguration. All the planning, the events, traffic, can the metro handle it, etc. I'm really ready for some other headlines. There's a big concert lineup today and we were thinking about going but it's so cold and it's gonna be packed out with people! We took down our Christmas tree yesterday--it was kind of sad, but suddenly we have so much more room in our apartment. You wouldn't think that a Christmas tree makes that much of difference but in a small apartment, it really does. We also had a major overhaul--cleanup here. It really needed it, I feel like spring cleaning has come early. We invited Uncle Bill and Aunt Janet over for dinner. I made a loaded baked potato soup with broccoli, cheese, sour cream, and taco meat for toppings. Daniel made cake squares for dessert. We also went to church last night. So, I guess that kind of catches everyone up. Oh yes! Daniel is still on assignment with the Dept of Ed, but he got to move to another job there and I think he likes it better than where he was before. I'm looking into taking the possibly taking the GRE or MAT with a friend who wants to take it too. I think that's where we are at now. Again, sorry for the long delay but hopefully we'll do better. Love you all!

We're back!

After a long hiatus, we have returned with a new post. We are leaving tomorrow morning, bright and early (6:00 am), to fly to Birminghm via beautiful Detroit. We're looking forward to seeing our family and the wedding. We're also looking forward to Jim n' Nicks tomorrow afternoon! When we get back, we'll post some pictures and post about our trip back home.