This post is long overdue, I know. Thanks friends and family who noticed I wasn’t posting – it makes me feel loved to get the occasional “what’s up?” email.  =)

In the last few weeks, I have:

• bought a house
• bought plane tickets to Hawaii for Christmas
• moved
• bought a couch
• started doing laundry again (the laundry is no longer in the freaky, spider-infested, silence-of-the-lambs-style basement)
• hosted a bachelorette get-together
• been a matron of honor (married off a good friend)
• become a Cleveland Indians Super Fan (finally bought that hat!)
• started and finished an art project (husband and I desperately needed to feel like we’d accomplished something)
• started to digitize old home videos (finally, mom – and I’m getting teary and nostalgic, especially about Leah)

Life is starting to be a little less hectic.  I don’t know if I’d call it settled down, but at least I’m not worrying about moving and putting a wedding together at the same time anymore…  Now I’m just concerned with unpacking and working full time and holding down the equivalent of two part-time jobs in my “spare time” and being out every weekend and having plans with friends every week night…

But hey.  At least I’ll have things to talk about, right?

Here’s something funny.  I’m recording a vhs onto my hd as I type here (fast processors are SO nice), and this particular section, going on 15 minutes now, is my mother taping traffic through a tunnel.  =)  I know why she let the video record like that – we thought she was taping the road (and that she wasn’t very good at recording home videos), but she was really capturing the audio of us on a long drive.  She’s a smart woman – none of us would let her tape us if we saw the camera pointed at us.  I’m glad she did it this way.  =)

Oops… didn’t post again.

Our anniversary was wonderful. Of course. This entire year has been wonderful.

Dave gave me these. =) First flowers he’s ever bought for me, even though I’ve been teasing him about giving me flowers for 2 or 3 years. Know what he said? He told me he’d give me flowers once a year for the rest of our marriage – a red one for every year we’ve been married, and one white one for the year to come. How sweet is he?!

We’ve arrived! We’re here in South Carolina, enjoying the ocean breeze and the company of good friends and family. =) We stretched our legs, then headed to dinner at one of my mom’s favorite places, then came back to start the relaxing. I showered, Melissa napped, Dave read, Leah played with her computer, and Mom, Georgiana and Bill went for a walk.

I have been sitting on the balcony for the last hour doing some catch-up work, and wanted to post a picture of our view from Bill and Georgiana’s 8th-floor oceanfront condo:

Today, Saturday, we spent at my parents’ house in PA. We got to sleep in a little (which is always nice after driving a whole day) and to spend time with my family. Here’s Leah, just chillin’…

And Melissa doing her thing…

Mom and I sang some hymns – I’d been tooling around on the piano and she just plopped down beside me on the piano bench and flipped through the hymnal. I love that part of my family life – the spontaneous singing. =) I can always count on it at home, though usually I’m just a singer and not the accompanist, too. My dad plays the guitar better than anyone I’ve ever heard. =)

I spent some time looking through Leah’s home school curriculum for next year, too… Home schooling, while socially stunting, is a great way to challenge smart kids. With this “no child left behind” stuff, advanced students are really suffering in school systems. I’m going to give her a list of supplements to her history/bible class for next year – movies to watch and music to listen to that will give her a better picture of the period than just a chapter in the text book.

On the way to bed, we spent some time with my Grandpa – he taught us how to play the fiddle! Dave and I are going to keep an eye open for a used fiddle – both of us think we can learn some bluegrass skills… =) Here’s David trying his hand:

By the way – anyone out there know a solution for a sore on the side of the tongue? David bit his tongue really badly the other day and is still suffering…

We’re on a road trip! Well, we’re actually in PA, on our way to SC. We’re staying a week in Myrtle Beach. =) Here’s us getting ready to leave Indy…

Read this.

Back home again in Indiana…

I made the 13-hour trek home from Wednesday night (9:45pm Hawaii time) to Thursday night (5:30pm Indiana time). The flights were uneventful, the travelling exhausting. I’m still adjusting to a time zone 6 hours later than the last I was in, but not having slept Wednesday night made it easy to go to bed. Now I just have to get better at waking up in the mornings. =)

Boy, was I glad to see Dave again. That was the first time we spent more than a night apart since we’ve been married, and I missed him! It was good, though, to be with my family alone – I haven’t done that since we started dating. It was like stepping back in time, being just me with my family.

I’m at a coffee shop right now, as we won’t have high-speed internet access until we move to downtown Indy. David is at Taylor’s graduation. It’s his last for a while (hopefully), since he won’t be teaching there next year. He’s had a rough couple of days instead of the relaxing ones he anticipated (problems with one of his groups’ projects), so he’ll be glad to be officially done. Once he is, we’ll be packing madly… Moving day is next Saturday.

In the meantime, I have to post all my Hawaii pics (which means I have to organize them first) in my photo albums… I might actually take this chance to rearrange all of my photos, if I can find time while we pack and move. Regardless, I’ll post links when I’m finished.

Off to start the sorting now… I’ll be listening to my new copy of Abbey Road – thanks, Leah!

My seventh day in Hawaii (this time) started as a lazy day, too. Dad worked in the morning. When Dad got home, we packed up our beach stuff and headed out. It was a cloudy enough day that the water was cold, and late enough in the afternoon that there were NO waves… So we left the beach and headed east to hike up to the Makapu’u lighthouse. It was a fun trail – a beautiful walk.

On the way to Makapu’u, we stopped at a Macadamia Nut Farm.

Us at the beginning of the hike

The view from that rock

Mountains

We’re pretty high up, and only a quarter of the way

The lighthouse (which wasn’t actually the prettiest thing we saw)

This was our “lazy day” – we’ve spent and will spend most of our time doing things, going places, and seeing people, so today was the day to relax and do nothing. Nothing except shop, that is. Mom and Leah are getting ready to go back to Pennsylvania for a couple of months (Dad will stay here), so they’re picking up souveniers and such for the PA folk and relatives back on the mainland – and buying me clothes while they’re at it. I love “living” with my parents again! For dinner (lunch?) we went to an Italian restaurant my parents love.

Me and Leah at Bravo’s in Pearl Ridge

I had a phone interview this morning with Keith at Clarian Health about doing some technical writing for them when I get back from Hawaii – we’ll see how that turns out. I have another phone interview tomorrow morning about a web design job. That’s unlikely to produce results, but it’ll at least give me something to put on the unemployment voucher. =)

Leah with my favorite kids here, Kyle and Bianca

We spent a lot of time this week with Debbie and her two kids, Kyle and Bianca. Bianca is very social, and right away engaged me in conversation. That I was Leah’s sister is all she needed to know. Kyle, I thought, would be a little tougher to get to know – the first time we met, he spent most of the afternoon hiding behind his mother when I tried to talk to him. =) I’ll tell you what, though… Me and that kid are tight now! Yesterday, his mom found him putting on his daddy’s aftershave (his dad’s in southern CA training for a year in Iraq). When she asked him what he was doing, he told her he put it on so I could smell him! I love little boys!

My main man, Kyle. No, he’s not touching the ground.

Kyle, practicing his lounging.