Long Overdue

Yes, I have been a horrible blogger for the past month or so. I do not deny it. My apologies for my non-existent blogging. Here's my attempt at an excuse. Grad school has been crazy busy lately, and Rob and I have been running around between work and class trying to finish up our last assignments and finally wrap up this semester. The good news is that all (presentations, papers, final exams, etc., etc.,) will be said and done by about 9:30 p.m. on May 4th. Then summer can officially begin.

So here's the long overdue snap shot of the past several weeks. There's not too many highlights since, as I said, our boring lives revolve around work and school. But, to name a few.

1. Presley's Baby Shower.
I had the privilege of helping host a baby shower for my cousin Kristi earlier this month. It was a great time with family. We are all anxiously awaiting baby Presley's arrival. The due date is April 29th, but I'm honestly surprised we don't have a baby yet since Kristi is quite with child. We're expecting a call anyday. Here are some pics of the fam at the shower.






2. Twilight
I finally finished the Twilight series after much encouragement from many friends. It's actually the most non-school-related reading I've done in years. Robert had lots of fun telling folks I was reading vampire love story books, but they really were great. My friend Anne actually just finished a teen fiction novel similar in some ways to Twilight. Just last week we found out she got signed with a literary agent, so I'm hoping the next book I read is hers!


3. Art
This morning we ventured down to Linn Park for the Magic City Art Connection with our friends Drew and Caroline. It's Birmingham's annual art festival held downtown each spring. We had a great time moseying around, but boy was it hot. I think we've skipped spring and gone straight to summer!

And and I had my first Sips N Strokes experience with a good friend from school who convinced me I could actually paint something worth keeping. I'm not going to lie; I had my doubts (knowing all too well my severely lacking artistic skills), but the final product was actually something that resembled the original. And we had lots of fun. Jennifer is from Chicago, so she picked this really beautiful Chicago skyline painting for us to attempt. Here's us just getting started...


...and with the final results. Not sure how mine turned out so yellow. Must have gone a little crazy with the gold paint.

So again, here's the painting we signed up for.

And my final product (with some help from the instructor after several comments from myself of, "Can you fix this?"). I'm no Picasso, but I'd say it was definitely an evening worth the $35 I spent on it. Thanks for suggesting this Jennifer! It was a great girls night out!


4. A-Day
We didn't get to go, but we watched it on TV and got pretty excited about the coming football season. The guys looked pretty good, but the Anthony Grant commercials were really awesome. Check it out.


5. Yardwork
Rob and I havebeen itching to get out in the yard and make some much needed improvements ever since the weather warmed up. This afternoon was quite historic. It will forever go down in Adams history as the Day the Nandinas Died. If you don't know what a Nandina is, let me enlighten you. It's the plant from hell. If Satan had a shrub, it was be a Nandina. Note Exihibit A below.

We had five of these guys (only about four times larger) growing like crazy in the beds in front of our house. To be honest, we've hated them since we moved in nearly two years ago and have debated taking them out countless times. Today, we got the nerve to actually take them down. And boy was it a hassle. Somewhere down the line these shrubs must be kin to kudzu, because they reproduce faster than rabbits. If you cut one down, five spring up in it's place. And their root system in ginormous! See Exhibit B below.

So, after lots of hacking and digging and pulling and sweating we finally had them gone. The poor shrubs behind them were completely deformed, but we're hoping they'll bounce back a little now that there's room to breath. And, we now have some space to revamp our flower beds and hopefully install the window box I've been wanting.

I also managed to plant some lantana, sweet potato vine, and a few other colorful annuals in our planter on the back patio. We're getting ready to spend some time grilling out and enjoying the summer weather.

And here's my feeble attempt at gardening this summer. Two adolescent tomatoes - a Celebrity and Better Boy - which I'm hoping will produce enough to feed me for the next three months since Rob isn't a huge fan. Only time will tell how green my thumb actually is.