Love In the Deep South...

Twelve hours after my return from Colorado, Jeff and I left for a 3-day lovers get-away in Savannah, Georgia. It's a place we've heard great things about but, have never been and we loved it! The sites, the food, the hotel, the company...it was a great trip!

We did a lot of exploring down by the river...

These stairs were really steep! The picture does not do them justice. I was grateful I had my flat shoes on!

There are beautiful parks scattered all throughout the city. We saw many of them and enjoyed them all!

We also enjoyed looking at the architecture. The old buildings were really neat.

My favorite park was the Forsyth Park. It's the largest one and is very charming.

Of course, we were sure to stay well-fed. Lots of seafood and ice cream after every meal (my dad would be proud!)

And of course we had to try the oysters! They didn't smell great but, they sure tasted pretty good. You know what they say about oysters...

Long Time No Blog...

I promise we're still here! Well, "here" is relative--I've been traveling a lot! In the last 2 weeks I've been to Tampa, Colorado and Savannah. I'm home this weekend but am off to Ft. Meyers and Orlando the next 2 weekends. It's all good stuff but, I can't tell you how good it feels to be home, doing my laundry, making cinnamon rolls and watching college football.

Before things got crazy, we were able to enjoy a shrimp boil tailgate with some of our friends before the UF/LSU game. What made this extra special was that our good friends, Cassie and Craig, were visiting from Texas! They moved away from us about 5 months ago. We really miss them and it was so fun to have them back--it just felt right! I was running around with Ashley getting the food ready so, I didn't get a great chance to visit but, just being in their vicinity was refreshing.

I went to Keystone, Colorado for a week-long conference and, while the conference itself was not-so-hot, the location couldn't have been more beautiful. Being there made me want to buy a hyperbaric chamber and move to the mountains. (Hellooo, how do you breathe up there!?!)

The view out my window...

My last day there I woke up to this...

... and it was definitely time to head home.

What We've Been Up To...

Watching Football...

Eating, and watching more football

And Jeff's been playing softball with guys from his dental school class. I've been functioning as a cheerleader. (Takes me back to my high school days...)

In other news (literally), one of our newly published studies has been receiving a lot of press coverage. Check out this article on CNN! Alex has been doing most of the press but, I had my first experience with a local TV interview! It was crazy! I didn't see it air (I was functioning as a cheerleader as described above) but, hopefully I didn't look/sound like a complete idiot...

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/09/24/health.booze.tax/

Anyway, I wrote a good chunk of the grant for this study and am the second author on the paper. Pretty exciting stuff! (This is me, waving my nerd flag...)

Eating Babies & Holding Fish

This weekend we went to Palm Bay to meet our new niece, Lucia, and spend some time with Jan, Chad and Janet.

She sure is a little thing!

Violet seems to be adjusting well to her new role as a big sister. Although, there were moments where we weren't sure if she was trying to eat the baby...

...or kiss the baby. (Thankfully, it was the latter)

We got Jeff to hold her for a few minutes. Although, he insisted that he must be sitting down to do so.

The highlight of our activities was spending the day fishing, listening to the Gator game, and cruising the intercoastal on a little boat. It's hard to believe that life could get much better than that!

(Cue the music..."I only have eyes for youuuuu...")

After a near-sinking (Really! We had a couple of big wake-waves enter our vessel and had to bail quickly!) and subsequent death of my digital camera (thanks, Jan, for photo-documenting in my stead), we found some great fishing spots!

Jeff took one for the team and jumped in to bury our anchor...

And then we fished!

I caught a couple of catfish (including the biggest fish of the day but, who's keeping track ;0) ).

Jeff caught catfish...

...and a puffer fish!

(Couldn't get him to puff up though...)

Chad's first mate did pretty well on the boat. She liked pointing out all of the wildlife. But, after 4-5 hours, she was ready to ditch the salt water (and clothes)...

...for a (naked) swim in her froggy pool!

The big kids went for a sunset cruise and more fishing...

...enjoying a lovely end to a beautiful day.

Thankfully this gem was not lost with the flooding of my camera... Jan was really excited to wear these sunglasses! (And is probably equally excited that this picture survived :0) ).

Football, Fishing and Food

So, I don't think any Gator imagined the abysmal start to our season that we observed on Saturday. While a win is a win, it sure was ugly! And hot! And sticky! And hot! And sticky! Oh yeah, did I mention it was hot!?! and sticky!?! There's a reason they call it the Swamp. And there's a reason I don't have any pictures to post--they were about as ugly as the game! Just picture me, Ashley and Jeff hot and sticky...

On Labor Day, I decided to accompany Jeff on a fishing expedition to Cedar Key. It was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun! I was mostly there as an accessory and photographer but, I did catch a fish!

This was our view for the afternoon (not too shabby). When I wasn't looking at this...

...I was looking at this. Isn't my fisherman cute!?!

Here I am, filling my role as an accessory. Shady spot, check. Diet Coke, check. Book, check. Freshly pedicured toes, check.

Jeff caught a really weird looking fish!

Weird, huh? It looks like a frog that got stuck in the tadpole stage.

My fish was much prettier. And thanks to the magic of Photoshop, you can no longer see the Diet Coke I spilled on my shirt!

Does anyone know what kind of fish this is?

After we cleaned up from our fishing trip, we finished a fabulous day with seafood, wings and college football at the Ale House. We enjoyed each other, some good food and some (surprisingly) good football! I might have to recant some of my earlier statements about Boise State...