Road Trippin'

We recently pulled off a fantastic road trip to visit family and friends in Ohio. As is usually the case, the trip was packed full of good times with our people, laughter, and numerous amazing dance moves during the time in the car (Although Jon will only let me dance while the car is moving. No dancing at a red light so as to not attract attention to one's ridiculousness). We hoofed a par 3 golf course with Mom and Dad and stopped play serveral times to wonder whether or not a stampede of ducks was going to take us out. We spent a whole afternoon and evening with close friends at a wine fest trying to charm vendors into giving us the largest samples possible and trading owl jokes that date back to our wedding. We relaxed at a lake side cottage with our inner circle and took numerous boat rides to soak in the sun and see who had to stay close to shore so Ava could swim ALL day.

On the way home we pit stopped in Gettysburg for a day to tour the battlefield. It is amazing to take in the sheer size of that 3 day battle and it is also hard to imagine such devastation occuring in such a beautiful place. There are endless insights and side stories to the battle. It makes me wonder, with so many soldiers having died there how many stories are there that we will never know?

This is Jon on the Union side of Pickett's Charge. I think it's the worst mile I could imagine having to slowly march across in the history of our country.

It's Official

After 2 years of work and thousands of dollars in tuition, it's official according to the state of Virginia..............I'm a teacher!!! What especially catches my eye on license it that it says (just in case you can't see it) Postgraduate Professional License. Sounds pretty hoity-toity even though it's not so glamorous where the rubber meets the road.


Funny how I just got this spectacular piece of paper in the mail and I'm already working on keeping up my licensure renewal points before it expires in 5 years.

Jon vs. The Garbage Disposal

One of the things I admire about Jon is that he likes to figure things out. If you give him a box of patio furniture that is in a million pieces he will lose himself in putting them all together. If your car battery dies he will take out all the ridiculous little parts under the hood, change out the battery, and put everything back together.

His latest challenge was our garbage disposal. After discovering a pile up of black sludge (so gross!) under our kitchen sink we figured out the disposal was the culprit. After 2 trips to see our friends (literally) at Home Depot we finally had all of the parts to fix it.

It took Jon 2 hours, some fancy tools he uses on his car, and an angle grinder that made sparks fly everywhere and our garbage disposal was like new. He never ceases to amaze me.

The score: Jon 1, garbage disposal 0.

Summer Favorites..so far

Jon and I have declared this The Summer of Fun. Graduate school is over for me and a huge engineering job Jon worked on for a year and a half is complete. We're ready to enjoy our extra time. So far some of our favorites are:

1.Veggies from our garden. I've thrown them in soup, salads, casseroles. They are delicious and I'm obsessed with watching them grow.

2. This diet sparking Oceanspray drink. Since I'm not a soda drinker but love a tasty carbonated beverage I'm always on the look out for a delicious treat. This hits the spot and is only 2 bucks for a pack of 4!

3. Grilled pizza! Jon and I make this almost every week. We tweak it and put together wild combinations of ingredients (some from the garden). We've even started making our own dough. We love it.

The Summer of Fun is off to a superb start!

Whirlwind Weekend

Jon and I headed to Ohio last weekend for a whirlwind weekend of family, home town friends, college friends and little sleep. We flew in Thursday night and stayed up late with my brother, his wife, and my brother's best friend laughing hysterically about a lot of nothing.

One of my college roomies got married last Friday (although, my BFF from college and I secretly said the reception was in honor of our birthdays that are 1 month apart--thanks for the party, Julie!). The wedding gave all 6 roomies and most husbands a chance to catch up and whoop it up. It was great to have some of my girls stay with us at Mom and Dad's...just like old times!

Saturday morning brought a parade of fun visitors to the house. Jon and other friends worked to fix the window we had to break to get into Mom and Dad's since we accidentally locked ourselves out (sorry Dave and Becky).

We also babysat Ava while Colin and Melissa went to his high school reunion Saturday night. A new parade of good friends came over to their house that night which ended with 5 squealing kids trying to save a baby bird from the jaws of the friendly neighborhood cat.

We had a blast even though it took us two whole days to catch up on sleep!

Save The Bay

After a long hiatus from blogging, Cookies n' Cream is back. It's amazing what the completion of a huge engineering project and a Master's degree graduation will do to free up some time. Now we're a little more free to do fun stuff like blog and......

Clean the Bay Day! Jon and I volunteered with some others from his company to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay and its' watersheds over the weekend. We were assigned to the "downtown" of Virginia Beach which we really didn't think would be that dirty but once we got a closer look it was gross!

Our team picked up close to 1,000 cigarette butts in a just 2 hours. We found a shopping cart in a water retention pond that Jon tried valiantly to pull out of the muck (it was waaay too stuck!). Oh, and plastic shopping bags can get really disgusting! Overall, Clean the Bay picked up 19,000 pounds of trash. It's sad that there's that much trash laying around.

Furniture

While perusing Pier One over the weekend we found this piece of furniture that was on super sale. We decided to buy it right then and there with the understanding that it was a final sale and not returnable. In our excitement over finding such a great item for our home we never thought about how we would actually get it home since there was now way it would fit in either one of our cars. Luckily a friend let us borrow his old truck that we couldn't turn off once we got it started (which ended up being hilarious) so we could pick it up. We brought our furniture home and have it perfectly situated in our guest suite. Doesn't it look great? We think so!

Tropical Storm

The last two days a slow moving tropical storm has been hovering over the area dumping and blowing rain all over the palce. Yesterday was Veteran's Day so I had it off from school. The rain and the wind were cozy companions as I worked on grad school work for a good portion of the day. At 5:15 this morning I got a phone call telling me school was cancelled due to the storm. It means we have to make up a day later this year but it was glorious to linger in bed with Jon this morning and to have extra time to follow my nose a bit. I even made homemade applesauce before 9 a.m.! The storm has definitely picked up gusto as the day has gone on and there is flooding in the area but for now we are safe and hunkered down (except for Jon who had to go into work. Bogus!)

Field Trip

The 6th grade went on a field trip to the Jefferson Lab in Newport News. The lab has a particle accelorator that splits atoms. We didn't get to see the high speed stuff but our class got to participate all sorts of science experiments. The kids loved it all and were totally enthralled by liquid nitrogen. We all also got special glasses so we could see the color spectrum when we looked at light. I couldn't help but take this shot of some of my kids with their glasses on. I love them all!

Handy man

Just a regular old Sunday on our block. Isn't he handsome even when he's fixing his car?

Happy Halloween

We enjoyed the evening of Halloween on our block. Our neigbors get together at one end of the cul-de-sac, set out candy for trick-or -treaters, and the adults get to have fun with eats and "friendship juice." Our friends Mike and Claire joined in on the festivities. It was wonderful to be a part of our little community for the evening and really felt like we were part of the 'hood.

Pumpkin Carving

Our first Halloween in our new home! We contemplated about the right time to buy our pumpkin and, well, us being us, it ended up being the day of Halloween. Here's a tip: if you wait until the actual holiday all of he big pumpkins are gone. Luckily Jon is crafty and thought of making a pumpkin man out of three smaller pumkins. We had fun working as a team: Jon cut, Lisa scooped out pumkin guts, and Jon added embellishments. We even managed to escape without injury from Jon's Hammer -in-the-Knife trick.

Tree Trimmin'

Fall is here and so are Ma and Pa Bell. While enjoying time together cleaning out flower beds in the back yard and talking about how the trees need to be trimmed we decided to make a go of it ourselves. Dad zipped up to Home Depot and got a saw. The rest was sheer strength and elbow grease. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed the hard work outside. Take a look at the before and after photos.

It Won't Be Long Now

After being woken up by Led Zeppelin's Kashmir(cell phone) I looked over to Lisa and laugh, only to realize she wasn't there. I have been in Texas all week and though I have enjoyed myself, it really hasn't ever felt right being away. My cell phone is way loud, and Lisa says "it sounds like Jimmy Paige is beside the bed." It is the little things like that that amplify the distance. However, I will be coming home soon and can't wait to be back at home with my lady. Till then, I'll get by with John, Paul, Ringo, and whoever the other guy in the Beetles is.

pictures and viedoes to come...

Love is Delerious

This photograph is a product of Lisa's joy in laughing at my dermal agony. Everyone thinks being mixed is this "best of both worlds" pecan pie, well, let me tell you, it ain't all it's cracked up to be. Everything you achieve is because of affirmative action, I still get pulled over by police(not light enough?), and I have skinny ankles prone to spraining. The ladies love the curls, but it ain't easy keeping 'em tight. Keeping the balance between the right length, amount of product, whether to go with oil or gel; it gets tough. Well, things got a little out of control so I picked out the hair to see what was what. Little did I know there was a red head with a camera lurking in the darkness. Oh, and I'm sure you're wondering what's going on with my face. Well, despite my fair complexion, my bio-paternal unit's facial hair is very course and abrasive, meaning it curls back in to the skin and raises hell with my grill. So every now and then I have to shave and coat my face in calamine lotion to get the swelling and irritation to settle down(On second thought, I wonder if this could help me in listening to Republicans debate health care and the economy?). When combined with my temporary afro I had the appearance of Jack Nicholson's Joker running smack into Tito Jackson circa 1973. As the calamine lotion worked its magic(a bit of stinging is involved) Lisa giggled with glee, pointed, and proceeded to snap pictures. That's love for you folks. All things being equal, I would probably laugh too. Like when people fall down at swimming pools when they try to jump in to the water. It's hilarious, as long as it isn't you. But it is me, so I'm not laughing. What really stings, besides the calamine lotion and in grown facial hair, is that the lady came home to this that day:

Sweet love and romance. Flowers reflecting the colors and scent of Autumn, filling our home with warmth and serenity. And here I find my picture posted to our blog, with orders to write about the trials and tribulations of multi-ethnic hygiene. Granted, I'm sure she loves it when I laugh when she hurts herself, zone into the Cowboys game when she is trying to tell me something important(or show me a coupon...), or when I leave the grill running for twenty minutes after taking the chicken off for lunch the next day(oops). So I guess that is love. Give and take. Push and pull. The yin, the yang. Alpha..and Omega. I'm out.

A Piece of History

We loaded our bikes onto the car and headed up to Fort Monroe on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. It is the oldest fort in the U.S. and we soaked in all it had to offer. While biking along the scenic sea wall we came along this little historical factoid and found it appropriate to take Jon's picture in front of it. We had all sorts of fun crossing the moat and exploring the fort until the bugs started feasting on Jon on the fort's overlook of the Chesapeake Bay. Just for kicks we started treating our bikes as horses and have now dubbed them "aluminum stallions." Secretly, however, I've given my bike the nickname of Caballo Loco. In Spanish it means Crazy Horse. Very fitting.

Symphonic Led Zeppelin

After a long work week, we kicked up our heels to the sounds of Led Zeppelin played by the Virginia Symphony Friday night. It was amazing to hear so many timeless classic rock songs being cranked out by a symphony. Although we were draggin' our wagons on the way to the show, as soon as it started we were renewed with energy. It was a fun night on the lawn of the NTelos Pavilion amphitheater in Portsmouth and even included a few hilarious steamrollers during intermission.

Oh, and yes, Jon did forget to put on his "Get the Led Out" face for this picture.

Painting

On Labor Day weekend we decided to start painting the house. We had an ambitious plan to paint three rooms downstairs. As it turns out, we have most of one done. After figuring out that the chair rail and floor boards really needed to be removed before we painted, we had to stop and start a few times. As you can see, Jon painted a lot of the hard parts (around doors and windows and cutting in) which gave me some time to provide entertainment. The end result looks great and it's a fantastic feeling to have ownership of at least one room in the house.

August 23, 2009

It's our first official Cookies n' Cream blog post. We have said we will take turns posting but here's what can be expected for the most part: Lisa will masterfully talk a whole lot about nothing in a sing-song tone of writing, and Jon will contribute witty and well thought out analysis of life and global issues. We're both pretty hilarious, if we do say so ourselves, and we laugh a lot. We hope you will too.

We are obligated to share a particular photo from the beach last week (I think we pinky swore with Mike and Claire that we would). Here it is. Jon, Claire, and Mike on the beach at Little Creek. Major entertainment.

Although our first blog post is fascinating, we'll keep this one short and sweet. In the near future we plan to blog about our discovery of Qwelf complete with pictures of Jon beat boxing and Lisa playing leap frog. If that doesn't entice anyone to come back for more, we don't know what will.