Merry Christmas!!!

HI folks! A quick post before I board my flight to LAX!  Here are a scant few photos from the past few weeks.  I can't believe it's xmas time already!

I'm gonna be home for 10 days whilst Dan and Hannah hold down the fort.  Woo!!  Dan will probably be identifying 1000s of midges (no lie) and entering that many lines of data (probably much more).

Merry Christmas!!

chau

Thanksgiving recap!

Hi there all!

Hope you had fantastic Thanksgivings this year!

Dan and I left Thanksgiving morning to go camping up at DeSoto State Park.  It's about 2.5 hours NE from us at the foothills of the Appalachian mountain range:

The geography there is much different than where we live - it's heavily forested with smatterings of pines, mountainous (well, for the east), exposed rocks, and all in all super pretty.  It doesn't look much like what I think of when I think Alabama, but I should!

We had a nice leisurely drive up to the area and I think we avoided most of the holiday traffic.  After taking in a few sights, we hiked into our Backcountry site with Hannah in tow (carrying her own food, blanket, food dish, and a few other things we couldn't find room for on our own packs!).  We got in around 2pm or so, with just a few hours of daylight to setup camp and collect from the plentiful downed wood available for an epic-long campfire.  It had rained a couple days earlier which made the wood fairly smoky to burn, but a slight breeze kept it out of our eyes for most of the night.  The campsite we were at was the only one in the area, so it was nice to not have any noise aside from the babbling brook and the occasional train in the distance (no matter where we go there are always trains!!!).  It got fairly chilly at night, but I still don't think it was as bad as our White Sands trip from 2011ish.

A panorama of our campsite:

We opted to leave our campsite a day early, as adorable as it was, neither of us slept all that well with our sleeping pads on the wood floor of the structure.  It probably kept us a bit warmer, but it certainly made for a stiff night's sleep!  We spared torturing Hannah another chilly night and packed out of camp to enjoy the park for the rest of the day.

Flapping through the water...

There is surprisingly a lot of to do in DeSoto State Park, as small as it is.  We went fishing at Little River, did the scenic drive along the Little River Canyon outside the park, and took many, many pictures.  We then drove into Gadsden for a quick bite to eat at the Blackstone Brew Pub before heading home.  It was so very nice to settle into our warm comfy bed for the night by Friday night and still have the weekend for relaxing at home!

Ugh, and then, Saturday happened...the Iron Bowl happened....and Auburn beat Alabama by a mind blowing last second touchdown....that is all we will say about that...RIP Alabama football 2013, you were fun.

Sunday we lazed about some, but then hit the Cahaba National Wildlife Preserve to try to get in some fishing.  Dan's jazzed about fly fishing so he's spearheading these trips to practice his newest hobby. Water all around us has been high and fast lately with the fall storms from last week, but we still got to get some casting in.  Most of the work in the beginning of fly fishing is just learning how to cast!  It can be super frustrating, especially when flies get snagged in trees, stream rocks, on your own line, etc.  Dan is also learning at quite possibly the WORST time of the year for fishing.  Winter means the water is cold and food is scarce so most of the fish available are hunkered down and not super active feeding-wise.  Plus in general the sunfish in Alabama get spooked super easy.  So give credit to Dan for not giving up despite the lack of even the slightest hint of fish in these waters right now!!!  He's getting the timing down, but golly it takes time!  We are determined to just find a small pond stocked with bass that is geared for kids just so we can finally get a bite!!!

Anywho, happy December (yikes!!)

A tour of our campsite (and Hannah being silly):

Here are some pics (apologies for 95% of them involving Hannah)
xo

p.s. the video I tried to embed for thanksgiving didn't work, so check out the link in the previous post for the most awesome video of your day (ha!).

Happy Thanksgiving folks! (And Happy Birthday to my Mom!!)

Gobble gobble!
Enjoy!!

the embedded video posted here before didn't work right...click on the link above to get the video to work!

hiyooooo

Hi dudes!!!

Another week closer to the end of the year..crazy!!!!! Well it's Dan's birthday week, he'll turn the big 3-4 on Wednesday! We've made plans to camp for two days at Desoto state park during Thanksgiving- let's hope the weather cooperates!! Yeah!! We'll hike into our campsite about a mile away from the trailhead.  Our campsite has a shelter that was recently built so it'll be a fun little homebase for a couple days!

Dan's already gotten some early birthday presents.. I got him a fly rod and we plan on making use of her during the trip!

We took out our rods for a test drive this past weekend.  We checked out Lake Payne state park on a quiet, overcast Saturday afternoon. We went for a short nature walk that tuckered Hannah out, then we spent a couple of hours casting off of the beach.  Dan's a natural, and though we didn't get any nibbles it was good casting practice along an empty shoreline.  After an hour or so Hannah finally laid down next to us after accepting the fly rods weren't out to get her. Prior to that acceptance she just ran to the car and sat....sigh

Other than that, we've had a low key week. I've been tutoring some undergrads in biology which has been fun (DNA refreshers yikes!!), and Dan's been working super hard on his samples in the lab and is on track to get a bulk of his samples done by February me thinks! 

Anyhow, enjoy some pics of our outing!

It's November!!!

Well Hot Dog!! It's Thanksgiving month already!!  Most of October flew by in a haze...

1) Dan's sister Caroline visited a couple of weeks ago.  We had a blast visiting Birmingham breweries (Good People, Cahaba, and Avondale), feasting on Alabama vittles (Cypress Inn, Rojo, Saw's Soul Kitchen, Jim n' Nick's, and The Alcove), and got to show off what an Alabama game day looks like vs the Tennessee Volunteers (which always begs for this video).  Super fantastic!

2) Dan and I (and Hannah) went to Tannehill State Park last week and went for a nice hike amongst some great Fall colors...It's a pretty neat state park, with Civil War history and some neat streams.  We had a blast hiking since it's been a while, and it whetted our appetite for more outdoor activities.  We're currently planning a camping trip to DeSoto State Park in NE Alabama during Thanksgiving!!  Yeah!

3) Guy Fawkes Day was last night, we went over the Benstead's to celebrate with a customary bonfire, and a not-so customary batch of pozole.  Mmmm...it was delicious.  It's a great kickoff to the weekend which is the big Alabama - LSU game tonight!!! ESPN's game day taped by the stadium this morning so everyone's been a buzz all week about that.  The game is at 7pm tonight and we'll be watching at a friends house.  In fact, today is Practice Thanksgiving, so we get to have turkey with all the fixin's while watching some football - yeeeeee-haaaawww ya'll!!!!

Here are pics from the last few weeks!

more soon (hopefully!!)
xo

Beeeeer Fest weekend!!!!

Howdy!
Last couple of weeks have been busy but fun!  Last week we went to a Sigur Ros show in Birmingham.  We spent most of the Friday in the big city - a trip to Bailey Borthers Music Company where we got Dan a sweet guitar strap, a drink at World of Beer across the street, then some food and drink at Todd English's Public Urban Bar.

The last screen shot from the show:

Takk is thank you in Icelandic.  So cute.  It was quite an enjoyable show.  One of their more popular songs is from Wes Anderson's Life Aquatic movie (during this tiger shark scene!).  I love that song and I love that scene, one of my all time favorite movie scenes.  I also really enjoy this song.  Sigur Ros is mostly dreamy uplifting space music, but the recent album is a bit darker.  Our big boss man went as well with the wifey, one of their favorite bands so they got up close and personal in the 4th row.  Despite the big arena venue it felt nice and homey with the stage setup and and lighting.  I can't really remember the last show we went to, so it was nice to see some live music!!

Speaking of live music, a few days later Dan and I (and Hannah) walked down to the amphitheater to check out the r kelly show.  My sole purpose was to hear the Ignition remix which is AMAZING. ("doo doo, beep beep").  We didn't stick around too long in the rain, but it was pretty great to check it out for free.

This weekend was the first Alabama Brewfest in Tuscaloosa!  For $30 you get a souvenir glass and 4 hours of unlimited tastings from over 50 different breweries (20 of which are from Alabama!).  OR you could do what Dan, Jamie and I did and volunteer pouring beer for one session and get in for free the next day!  Friday night we poured beer for happy patrons and then got to come Saturday to try some great brews.  It was super fun to hang out, listen to a live cover band, and sip in the sun.  The event was well attended and I'm just so proud of Tuscaloosa for entering the craft brewing realm with this event!  Exposure to better beer is always a good thing and Alabama has come a long way.  Although I should have been concentrating on beer of the South, I really think at the top of my list for the day was Delirium Nocturnum.  I usually don't dig some Belgian ales, but maybe "Belgian Strong Dark Ales"will have to be added to my watch list. mmmm

After the event we walked down to a new(ish) downtown restaurant that we've been meaning to try - the Local Catch.  They tout fresh gulf seafood and certainly deliver!  We had some great fish tacos and got to watch some of the Alabama game (against Kentucky, so not much of a contest: 48 to 7 final score).

All in all a great weekend.  Now we get to spend Sunday getting some work done!  Dan and I both have our Coursera online classes.  I'm about to enter my fourth and last week of an R programming statistics class and Dan is starting his second week in pre calculus.  I'm super happy with the R course so far.  It's pretty challenging and I'm learning a lot.  I've taken a few R courses in the past and they've been shallow introductions into how to use R.  This one digs deeper with programming assignments and quizzes using real data sets and numerous weekly video lectures.  I love the idea of free online courses and hope I'll have enough enthusiasm to take some more classes in the near future!

Caroline comes in less than two weeks!  We are slowly accumulating a long list of places to show off while she's here...  They are mostly food places!!  Starting our fast now!  Roll Tide!!!

Here are some pics!

Our first Fall BIke Ride! and other miscellany

I woke up with this song in my head.  Now you get it too. (You're welcome.)
The hawaiian shirts, shots of Hollywood, fake rain on the phone booth.  Guy in shorts at 1:50..oh yeah. This video has it all.

Moving on..

Dan and I just biked part of the Chief Ladiga Bike Trail in Alabama!.  It's about 2.5 hours away from us, but was a total blast.  Can't wait to go back and check our more of the trail, and other rails to trails around the country!!

We biked from point A to B, then back to A.  You can see how far we had to drive, Tuscaloosa's int eh Lower left hand corner.  The bike trail starts in Weaver, AL just south of Jacksonville, then once it hits the GA border it turns into the Silver Comet Trail, which goes all the way into North Atlanta! 

Yeah!

Aside from biking news, we have some new pets in the household...Marvin, Leo, and Mortimer are the newest additions..  They are Eastern Black Swallowtail Caterpillars that we found on our parsley and we've brought them in, fed them more parsley, and awaiting for them to turn into beautiful flutterbyes...We can't wait!

We also Tito visiting.  He is a Mediterranean House Gecko.  He is cute but not native to AL.  I've killed so many of these guys by accident.  They really like door jambs it seems... Hopefully Tito lasts a bit longer.  He's been lurking around in the kitchen and living room mostly.

Lastly, we have a green anole we have named Son of Rambo (if you remember our previous experiences with our buddy Rambo, RIP).  We hope he overwinters with us...

We loved you Rambo...RIP
(Imagine Bette Midler's "The Wind Beneath my Wings" playing as you gaze upon this picture)

It's Homecoming week at the UA, so the town is abuzz in tissue paper floats and school spirit.  Also, we're now in Week 5 of Fantasy Football.  I'm determined to win at least one of the leagues we're in...Mark my words - W...I....N...

More pics!