Beep beep!

I got my scooter today!!!!

I can't (legally) drive it on the streets yet, I still have to get license plates/registration/insurance taken care of...but the title is all mine anyway! Yay!

CEO Day 4

CEO Day 3

And now for something a little different.

Eh, I don't feel like doing a CEO post today. Instead I'll tell you about what I've been doing for the past week or so.

Teddy's mom came to visit last week. She brought TONS of artwork for us: some African and Polynesian masks from her collection, oil paintings, and even a few originals that were done by Teddy's great-grandfather. I haven't hung any of them yet (except for one Polynesian mask) due to a general lack of time and/or the fact that we are apparently still moving to the apartment next door in the very near future (we kind of thought that we weren't since the neighbor still hasn't moved out, but the other day she told Teddy she'll be out soon and the landlords are already expecting us to move, so....looks like we are). Anyway. Julie (Teddy's mom) is in Rockville visiting Teddy's sister now, but she'll be back sometime early next week. Oh! And she also brought us 3 rescued cockatiels. We had been keeping our eyes out for a male for Wendy, and....well, now we have 4 birds. Haha! But our cage is plenty big, and the 3 that Julie brought needed a good home, so we were happy to take them. All 4 of them are getting along quite well, and are becoming quite the little flock. There is one male, and he is a chatterbox! (The desk that the cage is on Julie got at a local thrift store for $5. Nice.)

Wendy, Dodo, Wendy Jr., and the as-yet-unnamed male ("pretty bird")

OK, besides that.... I've been staying pretty busy with my Geog. class in the morning Mon-Thurs, and usually work in the afternoons/evenings. Yesterday was my day off from work, so I spent my afternoon grocery shopping and Target-shopping. I went to Target primarily because I needed some new khakis for work. I found a cute pair of bermuda shorts (yay), and of course I had to peruse the rest of the store. On a whim, I stopped in the Electronics department to see how much the new iPod shuffles are. Teddy had a first-generation Nano that was stolen from his room at the MSC (while we were in FL), and he's really been missing it, so.... I got him a Shuffle. There's not much to it, but he had said that he didn't need something like a Nano with the screen or anything...just something to take his music with him in the car or whatever. And for only $80, I think it was a deal. He's worth it. ;)

Grocery shopping was by-far the best part of my afternoon. I LOVE grocery shopping, especially when the cupboards are EMPTY (they were, and so was the refrigerator). I want to get back into cooking-mode, so I stocked up on fresh veggies and fruits; I went kind of nuts in the vegan aisle - filled my cart with Tofu Pups, Sunshine Burgers, veg. sausages, tofu, soy yogurt, and vegan ICE CREAM! Yay! I found this awesome Seeds of Change Simmer Sauce (here). It just looked so good. I made a 'make-it-up-as-you-go' curry dinner... Tofu, mushrooms, squash, and zucchini simmered in the curry sauce, served over rice, with a side of fried eggplant. It was DELICIOUS. Teddy said I should write my own cookbook. He's so cute.

Um...what else? I made a new little seating area in the living room.

Teddy and I watched Visioneers last night...it was weird, but kind of cool. I just hated that there wasn't any music in the movie. It would have made a big difference, I think. And then we watched The Water Horse, which I've been wanting to see since it first came out. We both enjoyed it. For some reason, that movie reminds me a lot of a family-friendly Pan's Labyrinth. Something about the colors, and of course the war scenes. And I just love Alex Etel , he's so adorable. I want my children to look just like him haha.

CEO Day 2

On Tuesday, we headed over to Wishart's Point. The boys did a little seining off the boat ramp (which was really icky and slimy), and then we put in the kayaks and headed over to the salt marshes.

Teddy and I found a Sea Nettle washed up on the mudbank. All its insides were gone, so it was basically just a head with no body. But it was alive. What a strange creature.

We took it back to the lab with us.

Coastal Environmental Oceanography (CEO) Day 1

OK, so the class we took was called Coastal Environmental Oceanography. A better name probably would have been "A Bio/Geo/Chemical Look at Chincoteague and the FL Keys", but...whatever. The class was taught by Dr. Cornell, the same professor as the Curacao class back in January. I've gotten to know him pretty well over the past year, and he has actually become a pretty good friend (Teddy was already friends with him). He's a great professor, so we knew the class would be amazing.

On our first official day of class, we put in the kayaks at Memorial Park in Chincoteague, VA and paddled across the Bay to Horse Marsh Beach. Look at Teddy paddling like his life depended on it. So cute. :D

A little past Horse Marsh was a little spit of land that was deemed "Eagle Point", for obvious reasons. There were tons of very large, dead horseshoe crabs all over the beach (probably due to a recent storm).
Do you see the eagle??

This is Teddy and a cool guy named Dave seining offshore.

It started raining while we were finishing up at Eagle Point, so we packed everything up and headed back across the channel to Memorial Park, and then back to the Marine Science Consortium. Each evening, we did lab work for a few hours.

Since I was the only one with a waterproof camera, I was kind-of the (un)Official Photographer for the class. I think I have probably close to 1,200 pictures; however, most of them look similar to this:

Since this was a scientific class, most of the pictures I took were for some purpose: measuring and documenting fish species, plant distribution, or the geology of the beaches. For that reason, I have a LOT of fairly uninteresting pictures (at least to the casual viewer. I rather enjoy them, though). And, since I was the (un)Official Photographer, I haven't seen a single picture of myself from that trip, besides the first one that I posted in this entry of me and Teddy in the kayaks (which I took, of course). I know Dr. C has a few of Teddy and I together, so hopefully I can get my hands on those soon.

OK, enough about that for now. In other news, my mom is having surgery on her foot right now to fix the damage that was done when she had Guillain-Barre Syndrome a few years ago. I know she was really nervous this morning, and I didn't get to talk to her (she had to be at the hospital verrry early), but I know she'll do just fine. I was planning on going over to see her Friday evening after work, but now I'm probably babysitting for Dr. Cornell (its he and his wifes' 10th anniversary and he wants to take her out for a surprise dinner, awww), so I probably won't be able to get over there until my day off on Sunday. At least my aunt and my dad are both there to wait on her hand-and-foot. ;D

In other, OTHER news, Teddy and I are making our first 'grownup' purchase coming up here very shortly..... we're getting SCOOTERS!! Here's the one I'm getting (in white), and the one Teddy's getting (in black). We are very, very excited. We have both always wanted scooters, and we're at a place in life where it makes sense to have them. So, hopefully in the next couple of weeks we'll have them... yay!!

And so it begins.

Ah, here we go. This is the official first blog entry from the school computer lab for the year. *sigh* Its back to the daily grind, people.

Teddy and I had Sunday off from work. We unpacked a little...I still haven't unpacked my clothes yet...living out of a suitcase makes it feel like you're still on vacation, right?.........Riiiight?? Anybody???

Sunday was also our 6-month anniversary (technically a semi-annual, haha), so we went to the movies and saw Transformers 2 (loved it, but was surprised at how 'bad' it was...not so much for kids anymore, eh?) went out for lunch, did some grocery shopping (yet we still have nothing to eat... last night we had cereal for dinner!!), and then went to my parents' house to see everyone and give out presents/souveniers that we got on our journeys. It was an all-around good time. Teddy picked some blackberries from the yard; I rolled around on the ground for about an hour with the doggies. We haven't brought Daisy back to our apartment yet, because we wanted to get our school/work schedules first so we could make sure somebody will be home throughout the day while she readjusts. Poor thing is probably so confused. Nah, actually she seemed really well-adjusted and happy. So cute. And Boo Boo.....boy I missed him!!

Anyway, yesterday we both started another class. Teddy's taking Calc II; I'm in World Geography. My class is soooooo easy, even the professor (whom I've had before and know pretty well) was like, "Why are you in this class??" I just needed another class for my summer grants to be valid, so that was pretty much my only option. No big, I'm guaranteed an A. And, its good to be back in school. I'm realizing how much I really love Shippensburg. Its not Ivy League, but it sure is growing on me. :D

Teddy should be getting out of class soon...we're going to eat some lunch (PB & J!) and head over to our dept. building to work on the Rock Lab some more. Fun, fun. I'm going to try to get on later and post some pictures from the trip.....

Honey, I'm home!

Well, we're finally back home. I can't believe its been 3 weeks! The class was amazing, and I'll talk all about it soon, but for now I'm going to keep it brief. I think we're going to try to catch the Sunday matinee of Transformers in a little bit, so....for now, I'll just say hello. I have about 1,000 pictures to share soon, so keep an eye out for that in the near future.