Three weeks of celebration

Chad's birthday is Aug. 29. Mine is Sept. 21. And, between those, our anniversary is Sept. 15. So, this time of year is always busy for us.

Chad's mother has faced some health complications over the last several months. We made an unplanned trip to Tennessee to be with her while she was in ICU at Vanderbilt Medical Center in late August. She continues to improve on many of her health issues and is at a rehabilitation center now where she continues physical therapy on her foot/leg and antibiotic treatment for her bone infection.

While we were in Tennessee, we celebrated Chad's 30th birthday with family in the hospital and went to eat at a nice restaurant somewhere between Nashville and Bethpage.

We celebrated our anniversary with dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant in Gainesville and by breaking out our toasting glasses from our wedding. It was fun to use them for the third time (once on our wedding day, once on our first anniversary, and again this year). We followed up our low key plans with dinner at iPanema in Ocala on Saturday night. It is one of Chad's favorites. My guess is that has something to do with the unlimited amounts of meat he receives there.

And, we celebrated my 29th birthday yesterday with dinner at Carrabba's. Chad even sent me flowers and made me a derby pie for my birthday (one of three sweet treats he has attempted). He really went the extra mile to make me feel special on my birthday. The monetary value of gifts has nothing to do with it. It's the little things like the pie and just being so thoughtful that I really appreciate.

Garden Update

Our garden looked really good for about a week after we planted it, then I was certain things were going to begin dying off. The squash in particular looked really bad for a few days. But, I'm happy to report that everything has survived so far. Well, not exactly everything. The herbs that I planted from seed never really materialized. Oh well.

Here are our tomatoes. They are flowering and growing visibly almost daily. We have 12 tomato plants.

And here are our squash plants. Although I'm not an expert, I think we will have squash to eat in the next couple of weeks. We will soon see. We have six squash plants.

I planted the okra from seed and we will have several okra plants, enough to get a side from several times. They're also growing visibly. I can see changes all the time. The pepper plants are doing okay. They're the only thing I planted that hasn't really been "thriving." But, they're not doing too bad. I'm optimistic that we will get at least one pepper from them.

When I go outside to garden, Gus stands guard at the back door and yowls. He tries to scratch on the door (I keep his front claws trimmed) and meows in hopes that I will come back for him. I think he's jealous that the garden gets more attention than he does sometimes. I would let him out with us, but I'm afraid he would disappear into the woods behind our house and become a tasty treat for a stray dog or a fox or some other critter.

And, since I've posted a picture of him acting up, here's a picture of him looking a little more refined.

Valentine's Day

Chad and I celebrated Valentine's Day on Feb. 13 and Feb. 14. We went to dinner at a local restaurant on Friday to avoid the Valentine's Day rush. While it was a fun and interesting experience for the most part, our service was terrible. Although we had reservations, it took more than 1 1/2 hours to get our food! I could have cooked it myself during that amount of time!

On Saturday, we made some chocolate covered strawberries. We tried to use Dove chocolate, but made a horrible mess of that. Luckily, I had some Ghiradelli chocolate chips in the refrigerator and they worked perfectly! The strawberries were so good that this may become our new Valentine's Day tradition.

Chad, being a Tennessee native, is a fan of Pat Summit. I bought him some books that she wrote for Valentine's Day. He got me some beautiful flowers (which continue to look better every day!) and a gift certificate to get my car cleaned. I was really excited about both items.

Gus had a nice Valentine's Day too. He napped, napped and napped some more. You can see his pudgy little belly in this photo. We've got to put our cat on a diet!

The Great Christmas Road Trip of 2008

One of our favorite perks of working at a University is that thing slow down a little around the holidays. Chad, Gus (the cat) and I took a two week road trip to visit our families in Oklahoma and Tennessee. It turns out that Gus is an excellent passenger (thank goodness!).

We decided to drive the whole way this year. Last year, we drove to Nashville and few from Nashville to Tulsa. I wasn't very impressed with the ticket prices, so we just decided to drive this year. One of the best parts about driving is that we had the opportunity to see a lot of extra people. We stopped on the way to Chad's parents in Tennessee to see friends Jason, Katie and Lowry. On the way to Oklahoma, we stopped in south Missouri to see David and Kristin. And, on the way back to Tennessee, we stopped to see Ian, Erika, Caedman and Ethan in Arkansas.

We spent Christmas day with my family again this year. It was so nice to spend some time with the relatives.

And, the weekend after Christmas, we got to help my aunt ring in her 60th birthday and my sister celebrate her 25th! Here is a picture of Chad, my parents and I at the party.

With two full weeks off, we had plenty of time to spend with both families. We spent the New Year's celebrating Christmas with Chad's family in Tennessee. And, we were able to spend some time with some of his high school friends and their families on New Year's Eve.

Although we know it won't always be this easy to accommodate every one's schedules and our travel requirements, we really enjoyed our trip this year.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween costumes are fun, but stressful for me. I blame this on the fact that I was one of a few things over and over as a child. Janet and I were usually either a witch, rabbit, Indian or punk rocker. I don't even know what a punk rocker is, but it is a costume that didn't require us to buy anything new to wear and we could put glitter in our hair and wear makeup. Here we are all dressed up and ready to go out and get some candy.

So, now as an adult, I have a horrible time coming up with Halloween costumes. I tried to delegate this to Chad, but he wasn't a whole lot of help. He kept trying to get me to dress up as Sarah Palin. But, I don't look remotely like Sarah Palin. I wanted to be Fred and Wilma Flinstone, but he wasn't too excited about that idea.

So, on the day of our Halloween party last Saturday, I drove in to Wal-Mart and bought some scrubs and came up with a cheap toy stethoscope at a costume shop. I was a doctor. Next year, I could wear essentially the same thing and be a nurse. Then, I could be a dentist. Just kidding ... well maybe. It is a comfy outfit and at least something that I might get a little use out of.

Chad opted to go as Joe the Plumber. I'm not sure how many people really got his outfit. It was a clever idea, but hard to pull off from a distance at a party. He didn't have to buy anything for his costume though.

In other seasonal news, we carved pumpkins last night. I had only carved a pumpkin once before, so it was pretty new for me. We had fun though. Here's Gus checking them out ...

We hope you have a happy and safe Halloween!

Corneal Ulcer

The last week or so, we've been battling a cat with a corneal ulcer. I didn't even know there was such a thing. On my birthday, I noticed that Gus' left eye appeared as if he had a cataract. Of course, he's not quite 10 months old, so that didn't seem right to me. We let it go another day and Chad called one of his friends who is a veterinarian for guidance. She suggested we go to the vet to let them test his eye.

Between that conversation and the vet visit, Chad decided that the cat had cancer. This assumption was based on a news story we saw a few weeks ago about a little girl whose eye appeared cloudy in a photo. Luckily, this was not the case with our cat.

I've taken Gus to the vet twice since then, and we're due to go again on Saturday. He is on four different medications and his eye appears clear. I'm hopeful that he will get a good report on Saturday!

One thing that is strange about Gus is that he loves going to the vet. I hear tales of other people struggling to get their animal into a carrier and off to the vet. Gus loads himself and proceeds to show off the entire time he is there. He is sweet and purrs and is as gentle as can be. This is not the case when I am trying to give him medications at home. I guess I have a social little cat.

Cat in the ... Shoe?

I take the majority of the pictures in our house. My photos of live objects are limited to Chad and Gus. So, when I get bored, Gus is a very well photographed critter.

Here he is one lazy evening in August, lounging in my shoe of all places.




Although he doesn't want his "captors" to know it, Gus is actually very smart. Here is an example. He knows that he is not supposed to jump on counters, tables, bookshelves, etc. So, what does he do? He stands on the trashcan and swats things off the table. Here he is with a piece of okra from our garden. It was too funny. I just had to take a picture.


Gus also enjoys catching bugs. With the wide variety of insects in Florida, he gets quite a bit of practice. One night, I walked in our bedroom and Gus was frantically jumping at this window above the bed. He couldn't reach it on his own, so I sat him up there. And, he killed this fly. He's a natural hunter.

This is Gus' newest form of entertainment. Since he is mostly an indoor cat, I try to stimulate his little mind and keep him out of trouble by providing some entertainment. Aside from empty cardboard boxes, this is the best entertainment I have found. If you place this toy in front of the fan just right, one ball spins clockwise and the other spins counterclockwise. It's entertaining even for humans.

Gus weighs about nine pounds now. We don't really know how that compares to other cats of his approximate age. I think he's going to be pretty big. He's a very social guy and loves company. This is what you have to look forward to if you visit us in Florida. Think of it as a bonus.

Rain, rain, go away ...

Okay, it hasn't been raining for the past few days, but there has been talk of more hurricanes/tropical storms. This makes me nervous. I'm hoping they head somewhere besides Florida.

Here are some pictures from our first tropical storm experience with Fay:

I took this photo during our drive home from work that Thursday, lots of rain and some wind.

This is the view out our front door sometime during the day on Friday. It doesn't look too bad out. But, look how much better our yard looks in general!

The University was closed for the tropical storm on Friday. It's like having a snow day without the snow! We were very fortunate in that we only lost electricity from about 2:30 a.m. until 9:00 a.m. and for about an hour that afternoon. I was hesitant to do laundry or anything that required lengthy periods of electricity as it did flicker on and off some. So, we spent a lot of the day just hanging out with Gus and watching the Olympics.

Because I wasn't sure what to expect, I took a couple of my potted plants in the house. Gus ate part of the marigolds, and they made him sick. He spent several days sleeping continuously.

Boca Grande and Our Cat on a Leash

This weekend, Chad and I traveled to Boca Grande, Florida, for the CALS Alumni and Friends Fishing Tournament (part of my job). Growing up as somewhat of an inlander, I dont' know much about these types of fishing tournaments. Luckily, I have some well-educated volunteers who happen to fish and the event went very well.

Here we're enjoying a ride on a volunteer's boat. This is actually the first time I have been on a boat that isn't a paddle boat.

This is a picture of Chad enjoying the air conditioning on the boat. Smile!

After the tournament, but before the banquet, we took a stroll on the beach. Chad found a coconut on our way there.

We had some chores to do when we returned home on Sunday. Several weeks ago, I bought a leash to try with Gus. (He goes CRAZY every time he gets outside and runs toward the road or the neighbor with big stray dogs, neither of which is good for us keeping him for awhile.) So, I decided to break it out and take Gus to the garden with us. He wasn't too sure what to think of the leash though.

Mostly, it acted as kind of a safety net for us to carry him around the yard without worrying that he would escape our clutches and take off for the road.

He must have had some fun though. He was exhausted when we took him back inside!

This probably isn't too far from what Chad and I looked and felt like after the end of a busy weekend.

O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A

In late June, Chad and I traveled to Oklahoma to celebrate my Grandma Dorothy's 90th birthday. We had a great time with all of my cousins (except Heath and his family), aunts and uncles. My Grandma's brother and sister-in-law even made the trip from Missouri to celebrate her birthday. Here she is with one of her cakes. This one had lemon filling and was delicious!


This is a photo of Janet and I with all of our cousins (again, except Heath) and most of their children. I think Hannah might be hiding behind my head in this photo. Two year olds are much more concerned with cake than taking a group photo!


These are the youngest of my cousins' children. Patrick is one and Hannah and Paiton are two. Exciting news! In October, Patrick will become a big brother! Aren't they adorable?


Chad left to return to Florida earlier than I did. So, I had a chance to catch up with friends. I got to visit Leigh Ann and her new house in Tulsa and Katie in Stillwater.


Stillwater is very upscale these days. Someone opened up a new wine bar downtown that Janet, Katie and I checked out. My trip to Stillwater was somewhat of a race. I went from one place to the next meeting up with people the entire time we were there. I did manage to take a break to go to the Beadery and get a new OSU T-shirt (my other plain OSU T-shirt is from 1999 and features the old OSU brand). There are several more people that I wanted to see, but I never have enough time when I'm in Oklahoma!


While I was at home, we discovered baby kittens! So adorable. They just barely had their little eyes open. After this evening of playing with them, the momma cat moved them to a new location. Hopefully someone will track them down so they can be tamed.


When I returned to Florida, my cat Gus was waiting at home for me. He was so excited to have some attention and followed me around the house rubbing on my ankles (which he never does). Here is a new picture of him. He's getting so big!

Gardening and Gus

These are the latest photos from our garden. Our tomatoes are growing and growing, but refuse to turn red. I'm hoping we have ripe tomatoes by the 4th of July, but am not sure what to expect since I'm not really a gardner.

Our okra is doing okay. Our watermelon has been growing a lot. And, the peper plant I recently transplanted to a pot is thriving in its new location. Something has been eating on my watermelon leaves. I don't know what it is. I put some Seven Dust on everything last night in the hopes that it will resolve my problem. We'll see.

Gus is learning some new tricks. He freaks out when a bug enters his territory (also known as the house) and does everything within his power to catch it, regardless of where he has to jump to or what might be in the way. This is a picture of him on the cabinets in the bathroom the other morning. This morning I heard a large thump and went into the kitchen to discover a Lenox photo frame on the floor after being knocked off the top of our kitchen cabinets. Not cool, Gus. Not cool. Chad had to track down the bug which was taunting him and kill it to prevent further damage. I hate to punish him for catching bugs, but I also don't want him on counters, cabinets, tables, etc. Poor Gus.

What happened to May?

I recently purchased a new camera and was playing around with it last night. This is a photo of Chad cooking me dinner (and our very messy counter). I've been getting out a few of the wedding gifts which have not been used frequently and trying them out. Of course, the reason they haven't been used could have been because they have essentially been in "storage" since our wedding. Last night we used the Food Saver. Very fun!

We've made several good "used" purchases lately on Craigslist and another Web site specifically for Gainesville. One of these was a treadmill. We've really enjoyed having it. Even Gus gets some exercise on it!

Gus is growing and growing. He has a little pocket of fat on his belly. When I try to cut back on the amount of feed he receives, he gets mischievous and tries to get into all kinds of people food and things he shouldn't. So, I eventually cave and give him more feed. I think we're going to have a fat cat.

One of my co-workers is retiring. Friday is her last day and today another co-worker surprised her with this beautiful cake and an impromptu party. It tasted every bit as good as it looked!

We don't know what happened to May! At the beginning of May, I had the exciting and interesting experience of reading names at the College's graduation. There are some crazy names out there! We were able to make a trip to Tennessee for Mothers' Day, I traveled to North Carolina for a conference, and Chad traveled to Destin, Florida, to visit friends.

June will be filled with travels as well. I will attend another conference, this one in Hawaii! I'm very excited about that! Chad will stay behind in Florida and go to a few conferences of his own, including hosting his major professional conference of the year at UF. We'll also be making a trip to Oklahoma this month for my Grandma's 90th birthday! It will be an exciting opportunity to celebrate that and catch up with family and friends.