Merry Christmas

To all who found our little spot on the web from the Christmas card, welcome.

This year has been quite a year. We celebrated our 5 year anniversary in January. We went to Hermann, MO, and stayed in a B&B for the weekend. It was really relaxing, however there was an ice storm a few days earlier, and when we were leaving, the weather was questionable. Thankfully we made it home ok. In April we visited the beautiful country of Ireland. If you scroll down, you will see pictures and be able to read stories. To sum, it was great, and I would recommend it to anyone.

In June, we learned that we were expecting a new little person (still a surprise baby). February 7th is coming faster than I thought it would. Brian and I have been working on the house, trying to get all of the little home improvement projects done. It's getting close, we may just make it. Right now the baby's room looks like a disaster area, with boxes and stuff sitting around. I have time off until the end of the year so, I suppose I will try to get stuff straightened out.

Work for me has been crazy. As I am pregnant, I'm not working in the lab, so I've been writing reports....for the last 6 months. We had a huge project that got finished up the end of September, and then its been smaller projects with tight deadlines. Brian is working on finishing up his Ph.D. (hopefully in May). He finished up all of the course work, but is now working on his dissertation, and teaching a few undergraduate classes.

Brian and I hope that you have a great holiday season, Merry Christmas.

Pepper vs. The Wrapping Paper Tube

So, last year, we noticed that Pepper really enjoyed playing with the wrapping paper tubes, along with pretty much anything you gave her, egg carton, random collapsed boxes, paper towel tubes....

Ireland, Day 7

Well, it all had to end sometime, and I think we were both ready to come home and sleep in our own bed. We got up early, and before the Innkeeper's kids were on the bus, we were eating breakfast. As we drove to the Shannon Airport there was this lingering thought "do we have enough gas?" Most of our vacation, we had only put a few euros in at a time, as we got to drop the car off empty, so we didn't want to put any more in than we had to. About 2/3 of the way to the Airport, we stopped and put 2 L in (gas was about 1.22 euro/L, 4L = 1 gallon). When we pulled into the car drop-off, our little meter said we had 15 km left in the gas tank, so I think we did pretty well. As we were driving, we were on the highway, we passed this beautiful castle, and of course there wasn't any time to stop/pull over. So I did what anyone would do - rolled down the window. We made it to the airport, and had time to check in, do a little bit of shopping in the Duty-free store, and change any euros we had left back to dollars. The flight home was pretty un-interesting, which I'm ok with.

Ireland, Day 6

We didn't drive near as much this day as the others, as we were staying Doolin another night. So we drove up the coastline a little bit, and visited the Burren, which is a piece of Ireland that is so rocky, I was amazed that anyone could raise anything, but sure enough when we were out hiking, we saw a man and his dog moving some cattle. Most of this day we stopped at another castle (imagine that) and went to more little church/cemetary combinations. So most of this trip, we have been using this map, that often has a little star and some sight to see, but no real direction as to how to get there. I managed to get B to turn down this little "road" that frankly, I'm surpised didn't rip the oil pan off of our little car. We turned in a little early this day, mostly as we had to pack and clean out the car a little bit. Our flight left pretty early, so we had to leave for the airport first thing in the morning.

Ireland, Day 5

We continued up the coast of western Ireland. To save time, we hopped on a ferry that took us across a small bay, where the Shannon goes to the sea. We then hugged the coast for a while. The view was fantastic, however, there was one slight problem. There are remarkably few public restrooms. And I'll just leave it at that. The big sight for the day was visiting the Cliffs of Moher. Which is I think the one place that every tour bus stops, but it was...wow.

We stayed that night in Doolin, which is a little town that is known for having lots of Irish music. Since it was pretty early in the season, only one of the pubs was open, and when you walked in the door, heat from the fireplace could almost push you over. The music was great. There were 3 guys, with a total of probably 6 instruments, ranging from the accordian, pipes/flutes/clarinets, and the bodhráns (traditional irish drum). And could they play. It was interesting to watch them play, they would just be talking/drinking, and then one would start up a new song, and the other two would just hop right on in.