Greetings!!

Hi everyone, 

Long time no bloggy.  The past couple of weeks have been slammed with activity, well, work really, but activity nonetheless.  Last week Jon, Mick, Vija and I went on a Coweeta bender - a day in Athens Georgia for the Coweeta Meeting, then two days at the Field station itself looking for insects for stoichiometry - similar to what Dan does in the field for his buggies.  Vija and I skipped out on the meeting since there wasn't much reason for us to sit in.  It was great to spend the day in Athens exploring and taking her easy - drank a lot of coffee, walked around the town bit, and just enjoyed the beautiful Fall day. It's a super hip town and we hit up the Manhattan for drinks, The Grit for an appetizer, A Tovola for a couple of pizzas, Big City Bread for Bfast, and Cali n Tito's for an amazing steak cuban sammy. All of those establishments were the ones we visited the first time we went to Athens, except A Tovola, BUT THEY'RE SO GREAT!!!  Next time we'll have to be more adventurous, but it's great to know there are some standbys that we love.

The last few weeks have also been busy getting things ready for the big trip to Iceland.  This is the trip that all the heat exchanger supplies went out with the crew and they'll do their darnedest to put it together and get her going.  I dropped the gang (Dan, Vija, Jon, Alex, and Phillip the engineer) off at the airport yesterday morning and, with no rest for the weary, they should have arrived today at 2am central time (7am Iceland time) and went right into the field!!!  I told you no rest! Hopefully they got some shut eye on the plane, but either way it's gonna be a rough few days!   Haven't heard from them yet, but they really haven't had time to breathe thus far!

On my end, playing airport shuttle meant I got to spend a day in B-Ham.  I ate a delightful lunch by my lonesome at Urban Standard (braised short rib, autumn puree and roasted brussel sprouts) and had a great hazelnut soy latte - the little things in life!  I then stopped by Alabrew and picked up a couple of beer kits! A New England IPA and another Rapier Wit which was the last beer batch I made.  I just really enjoyed the orange peel and coriander that it seemed like the right thing to do.  My hope is to get both going before Dan comes back (Oct 30th!) and go from there.  Wee!!!

This week Alabama is playing the Tennessee Volunteers..and this is what Bama fans think of Tennessee...Also, the Arboretum plant sale is on Sunday! I am excited to get a few dark green vegetable starts in the ground!!

Pics of the latest Coweeta trip soon...

xo

The weekly post

Pictures! Finally!

Last week was Eve's Bday..check out how we celebrated here.

Also, more random pictures of the week...

xo!

Happy Fall!!

xoxoxo

More pics!

I'm on a roll!!!!!!

xo

Finally, pictures...

Here are pictures of the hike VIja, Hannah and I did a few weeks ago...Finally!  Of course there are more pictures of the past month, but I will get to those slowly...

xo!

Pics! Finally!

Hey-O! A little garden work finally this weekend and I took pictures!!!

xo

Hi!

A quick post, just to say all is well in Alabamie...Tropical Storm Lee gave us about 68 inches of much needed rain on Monday! Not great weather for a Labor Day BBQ, but we appreciated it nonetheless since we only got an inch of rain in all of August! The garden is looking quite sated and lush. It's just herbs, peppers, and eggplants right now. Hopefully this weekend it will be nice weather to actually get some work done. It's crazy that just last week we had 100 degree weather and now it is a cool 75 degrees with no humidity. Fall is upon us!! Let's hope anyhow!! I'm ready for jeans, cooking up soups, and wearing down booties around the house. The whole town seems to be in happier spirits in general due to the weather! I guess living with 4 months of unbearable weather makes you relish a single day of mild temperature with childish giddiness...

Milder temperatures means it's time to start brewing beer again! Vija is in the market for a bike and we'll try to visit a bike mechanic in Birmingham this weekend and hit up some other big city spots - Alabrew, the organic market, a coffee shop that knows its way around a soy latte, etc...can't wait!

Anyhow, just wanted to let you know that although quiet on the blog, things are going quite well in general, just very busy - football has started up again (spicy and sweet wings and mac n cheese at the Alcove last week (which has newly expanded to the shop next door), we can only hope the same this week for the away game at Penn State!), I have been working a lot on the lab migration to our upstairs lab of awesomeness (we have windows! I should take pics!), having Vija here in the south has been great fun, and having Dan back in the house ain't all that bad either!! Hannah is still strutting her cuteness in exchange for gobs of peanut butter. Hopefully we'll do some picture worthy things this week and I'll upload those...

xo

Yikes, where have we been?!?!?

A long time comin'!

Tomorrow is GAME DAY!!!!  Football season is finally here!  Dan and I are incredibly excited...who knew we would take to Alabama football like a fish to water?  Tomorrow we plan on biking down to the quad with Vija, who arrived just last week, to show her the spectacle of Game Day, then biking to The Alcove, which will be open at 10:30 am for the 11:21am kickoff game!  They will have free food as they did last year and we are uber excited about this!

Anyhow, I am lagging in the picture department I know, here are a few - it's so dang hot outside to work on the garden all that much, and tomorrow Tropical Storm Lee will be giving us a few inches of rain if all goes well!! We need it desperately!!

xo

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