Our Weekend

After arriving back in the 'Ham Friday night following our vacation in S.C., we basically crashed. We spent Saturday unpacking and whacking away at the brush and weeds in our yard. You can tell the yard has been cared for in the past, just not recently, so we had to clean out some flower beds and get rid of this crazy vine growing over our fence in the backyard that was about to take over the nice ivy we have growing there too.

Robert trimmed up some shrubbery in the front and back and managed to dig up an incredibly long root system from a sweet gum tree that was cut down but whose roots have still set up residence in our lawn. I think he was able to uproot them with special vigor since once of them was the culprit for tearing up one of his lawn mower blades.

We've discovered the mosquitoes around our house are especially vicious. I was working in jeans and a long sleeve shirt to avoid bites. We're hoping to rid ourselves of them once we get rid of all the old stuff in our flower beds. (If any of you were bitten an abnormally high number of times at our 4th of July cookout, please forgive us!)

After our yard work on Saturday we went to Kyle and Megan Manley's for dinner. We had a blast hanging out with them and especially getting to know Megan better. I'm so glad they're in Bham and look forward to having some fun couple times with them.

We kept the nursery at church today and had to jointly manage NINE 2-year-olds!!! Talk about crazy. I think that's about the best form of birth control we can get. The children were good, but still, that's a lot of kids and craziness all at once. We were both so tired afterwards. I think we've been sleepy all day. After a week with Tallon and then this nursery experience I have a much greater respect for parents and their strength, patience, and stamina.

UAB Bound

We found out this week that Robert was accepted into UAB's MBA program. He'll start classes August 22, and can no longer joke with me about being a Blazer because he'll be one too now. He'll likely just take two classes two nights each week.

We're both really excited about this opportunity. Everyone we've talked too and everything we've read tout the engineering/MBA combo as really the way to go.

I'm also planning on grad school and will likely start a master's degree in public administration in January once I've been a UAB employee for 6 months and they'll foot the bill for my education. Hopefully we'll end up with classes on the same nights.

We're both excited about this phase and especially the opportunity to continue our educations, but it's really tough to think about going back to school. It's crazy how quickly you get out of the swing of things. But it will be neat to meet new people in classes and learn new things. It also helps that our new house is all of 10 minutes from UAB.

Vacation

Robert and I just returned from a great, week-long vacation at his family's lake house in South Carolina. We really enjoyed relaxing by the lake and spending time with his parents, his Nana and Papa, his older sister Rebecca and her husband Reeves and their little boy Tallon, and his younger sister Liz and her husband Mike. Tallon was especially fun and already LOVES the water, boat, jet skies, and everything wet. He's not even 2 yet but has definitely graduated to the big boy toys.

My sister-in-law took some great pics that are posted on her blog, along with some cute videos. Be sure and check them out.

Some highlights of the trip:

• Actually getting up on one ski, albeit not for very long.
• Realizing I'm finally getting the hang of the Adams family's famous Shanghai card game.
  
• Nice, long boat rides cruising Lake Marion.
• Fun with our little nephew.
• Mimi's and Nana's wonderful cooking and Papa's fried fish.
  
• Listening to Seabiscuit on tape and having the 6.5-hour drive up and down fly by.
  

Now, if only we can get up for work tomorrow.