my life

it's been almost a year since this photo was made. it's amazing how fast life passes by each day. so much has changed, and yet so much is still just as it was. i know it's crazy, but everyday i have moments of wishing i could re-live the past, wishing the future would get here already, and wondering where today has slipped away to so quickly. i guess that's life.

these are for mom

summer

i have had an incredibly memorable summer. it didn't turn out at all as i expected it would. some of my favorites from the summer would be:
- we took finley on her first visit to disney world
- we met the real black stallion and i almost died
- finley got to meet her favorite princesses and disney characters. she even got to dance to her favorite song with sleeping beauty.
- we spent a week at honeymoon island beach in florida
- i saw a manatee swim by 5 feet from me
- i went kayaking in the gulf of mexico
- we spent hours and hours and hours at the pool.
- i drove over 4,000 miles between tenessee, kentucky, indiana, missouri, illinois, and arkansas
- we got to see Wicked again. on the front row. it literally took my breath away
- i got to visit my favorite valley in the world at sunrise and take pictures. and i got to see the steel bridge before they tore it down.
- we got a new professional camera and i actually got some jobs taking people's pictures... www.andyrobephotography.blogspot.com
- i got to have a big pal with cheese and a sweet tea
- we spent a week in the mountains we miss so much
- we spent a week at the largest man-made lake in the midwest
- i got to go tubing with finley. she absolutely loved it
- i'm sure there's more... i have to think

my joy

more shots from florida

two views from our room

we made it to honeymoon island outside of tampa fl. this was the first view we had of the gulf as we arrived just after sunset.

hooray for vacation

we made it to florida

we made it! and today we head to disney!

just saw our new baby on ultrasound for the first time. there is no greater joy.

i read The Road (Cormac McCarthy) in two days. It is a profoundly moving story. I could not stop reading. McCarthy's style of writing is so full of emotion that it deserves to be savored, but I was racing through it to find resolution. you need to read this book.











as hard as it is to be alone in the big city, memphis does possess a strangely enticing allure

incredible

Adele |MTV Music

i'm still here

happy earth day.

crystal and i did our first 5k this last weekend. it was so much fun. i'm so glad we did it.

last night while we were putting Finley to bed we asked her to pray for Jasper since he had surgery yesterday (castration). so her prayer, all by herself, with no prompting, was...

"dear God,
God is great, God is good,
Jasper's doodle,
thank you Jesus,
Amen!"

love that girl!

the recession on our street

the neighbors next door are really gone. no more vans stuck in the side yard. there's a padlock on the front door.
last week before we left to drive to indiana for easter, we saw the man that lives across the street loading pillows and junk into his car. he had all the car doors open and was cramming in as much as he could fit. we haven't seen him since that morning. today there were three women cleaning out the house. they had propped open his garage (which i have never before seen open). when one of the neighborhood boys went to ask if his friend could come out to play he was told, "they're not here, they probably won't be back for a long time. we've really got to get this place cleaned up." today was the first time i have ever seen the window blinds open.
odd.

happy tax day.

hope everyone enjoyed a blessed Easter.
shot this Sunday morning at 7 am right before Finley came out to hunt Easter Eggs.

so the house next door has been abandoned for about a month now. one day crystal and i saw the family loading up an unmarked moving truck with a refrigerator, the washer and dryer, and couches. and then they were gone, leaving piles of trash on the street corner. there was no "for sale" sign, no potential renters coming by, no eviction notice on the door. they were just gone. for a month the house just sat there with the gate on the fence falling in, broken glass on the back porch, and the weeds slowly taking over. today when i left to go pick up finley from daycare, they were back. but something wasn't right. their van was stuck in mud in our side yard. there was a seven year old boy in the driver's seat gripping the steering wheel. the wheels were spinning, mud was flying, and the van was not moving. the doors were open and kids were throwing stuff from the backyard into the vehicle. i tried not to make eye contact and hurried out of the driveway. ten minutes later i arrived back home to meet crystal. the seven year old was up in a tall little tree in the yard. he was literally swinging from the branches at the top of this tree. there were six little kids under the age of five running barefoot up and down the street. the mother was nowhere to be seen. we left to go run some errands and get dinner. we seriously considered calling the cops, or at least child services. when we got back home there was a set of deep mired tire tracks through my side yard. they had piled dead leaves in the tracks hoping to cover the mess. there were bags of trash and leaves sprawled all around. the gate to their backyard was completely knocked down. they had clearly gone through our trash. i had a box from my new lawnmower sitting beside the trashcan in front of our house. i had filled it with trash and set it out with the trash can. it had been opened and rummaged through. thankfully no important information (mail, checks, etc) was in the box. it was just full of rotten food and pee filled pull-ups. this is the family though, whose kids would order pizza from dominos and leave the boxes (with their name and address still on the label) in our trash can at night. i'm still really weirded out about the whole situation. we've got a lock on our shed and a security system and i'm really not worried about any of that. it's just that i've never really experienced neighbors this odd. i really hope their gone for good now. i also really wish i knew the story behind all this mess. weird.

in other news. i made chocolate flavored generic carmex lip balm in a twist up tube in lab today. i can't wait to try it!

goodnight

spring break is over and it's back to school. i was too sick to get out of bed though and had to go to the dr. today. hopefully i'll be over this cough soon. spring break was great. good times with friends and family. with a lot of help i was able to accomplish some fantastic tasks. the garage is now cleaned and organized, the yard is mown (mowed?), the backyard is raked, picked up, seeded, and has a swingset with enclosed mulching surrounding it. our house is clean and was sprayed for bugs today. i lost a few pounds and finally got my blood pressure down. i remember my dreams every night now. we took finley to the mall to have her pictures taken with the baby ducklings. she had a blast. and it was a lot of fun. now i'm headed to bed with the love of my life. my favorite part of spring break was getting to spend more time with crystal. can't get enough of that.

happy st. patrick's day. happy spring.

it's spring break. thank goodness.

Cap'n Hook