Still playing.

I'm still playing around. Enjoy some more decor pics :)


Center pieces for the tables

Thanks to Martha for the flamingos!

Post from the new Bloggie!

Just jumping on the blog to see how easy it will be to post pics from my fancy new Bloggie camera. Pretty cool! Here is some decor from our big wedding bash this weekend. Thanks to all that came out and celebrated with us, rain or shine.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!

I just spent an hour doing a major update on this blog and when I went to post it...GONE! Blogger lost my post!!! AAHHHH! I'm going to retry later tonight.

Happy 2011!

Happy New Year everyone! Long time, no blog! I've got the house to myself tonight. Ian went to Orlando for work and his flight got canceled for tonight. Sounds like the perfect time to update Hokieville. So, what's been going on here in Hokieville? Oh, not much. Most of you who read this saw Ian and I over winter break. We were home for about two weeks, which you would think would be plenty of time to see everyone but I still feel like we were stretched pretty thin. And the really bad news? I forgot to bring my camera home. Which means no pictures. But don't lose all hope. I have a few fine photographers in the family who volunteered to send me a few pics so this thing wouldn't be blank. Mom, thank you, and Mandi, I don't know if you knew I was going to steal pics from you and put them on the blog, but I did. Hope you aren't mad :)

Now that we are back in Hokieville, things are back in full swing. I am trying to finish up the Ph.D. thing by May, which will likely happen but I will be busier than ever trying to get it done. Ian is busy at work, and probably going to get busier because they have had a few personelle changes in the office and he is under a new supervisor now, and a member of his work group just took a new job elsewhere. I really don't mind the busy schedules during the day, it makes the hours go by faster, and the faster the days go, the faster we can come home and relax a little.

Well, not too much more to say. Like I said, I have been home alone for the past few days and apparently I am more boring than usual when Ian isn't around. Want to see the pictures I stole?

Even the dogs enjoy Christmas at home! Here is Neit anxious to open his present.

Santa's elves helping spread some cheer at Christmas.

Annual Christmas bowling, this year with our swanky new bowling shirts.


After-bowling game night time. Kalow won big time. Good thing we were only betting plastic chips.

And, hey, did you catch that good looking sweater vest Dad was wearing? Where did you get that, Dad?

And here we are embarrassing Judy for her birthday. Happy birthday Judy. Nice necklace by the way :)

Halloween wrap-up

Another Halloween here and gone. Ian and I met on Halloween, you know. That means another year has gone by, and we are still going strong. Which is good, since this relationship is legally binding these days. This Halloween was our first one in our cute little house. We had about twenty trick-or-treaters. Super cute. The day before Halloween we went mountain biking (my first time!) and then went to a party at Bim and Hannah's. Super fun. Overall a good weekend. Check out the pics!

Getting ready to carve up some pumpkins. Neit is ready.

Ian carving. Neit being a curious spectator.

Carved pumpkins in the daytime. Look at Ian's manly spider pumpkin.

Night time pumpkins, all lit up.

Pre-Halloween mountain biking. Kind of reminded me of my BMX days.

Halloween party time. What Ian was going for...
How Ian's costume turned out...

What I was going for...

How my costume turned out...

Here at the party, Hannah as a watermelon and party goer (Diego?) as a bag of chick feed. Eventually, they declared themselves winner and runner-up in the costume contest. It was a little shady, but they probably deserved it.

Hope you enjoyed! This weekend, John and Judy are coming to visit. Should have some good stuff to post soon. See ya then!

Intro to Fall

Fall is in the air. I couldn't be happier. We are getting outside as much as possible because we know cold weather is right around the corner. We had the pleasure of hosting Mom, Dad, and Mozie a couple of weeks ago. They came to help with post-birthday and post-prelim passing celebrations. We were blessed with a beautiful day on a Saturday, and a rainy day on a Sunday. That was fine with us, we we hiking on Saturday and came home for a late night camp fire. We spent our Sunday watching movies, staying out of the rain, and recovering from our Saturday hike and whatnot. Neit was so happy to have his only friend in the world, Mozie, come play with him. We had a lot of fun hosting. We sure do miss our families and love when they come visit.

Mom and Dad and Mozie by an old chimney along our hike

Trekking up the steep uphill. No problem

Mozie trying to make it over one of the two stiles along the hiking trail. No problem.

Mozie trying to clear the second stile on the trail. A little more of a problem this time.

Neit, taking a breather. Good hike!

This weekend we took advantage of some warmer-than-normal weather and hopped on the motorcycle. We took a self-guided motorcycle tour of the beginnings of the fall foilage in the area. It looks like this year we will get some pretty colors as opposed to last year, when the leaves turned from green straight to brown. Next, we took the motorcycle to a pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins this year. We had a pretty productive day today, putting up curtains, cleaning out the garage, and mowing. Good weekend! We are looking forward to another great Fall in Hokieville!

A little color showing from some trees here in Southwest VA, as observed from the back of the motorcycle (at a stop light, of course).

A little scenery from our motorcycle ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Ian at the pumpkin patch, trying to find that perfect mini-pumpkin.

Happy Fall! Here's the centerpiece I made from our pumpkin patch mini-pumpkins (and gourd) and some construction paper leaves.

Promises Promises

Good news everyone! I passed my prelims. That means I get to continue getting my PhD, as opposed to not passing my prelims and getting kicked out of grad school. Now that my prelims are over, I have a little bit more free time.

I promise, promise to get a new post up by the end of this weekend. We actually have had the opportunity to do a few fun things in the past couples weeks. One fun thing includes drive-thru animal feeding, and the other includes family visiting. I'll stay vague about it in this post, and elaborate soon. By the end of this weekend. I promise. It's good to be back :)