Universal Pictures

Well, it appears that I'm not ever going to get around to figuring out how to get all the pictures I need changed in here changed. I had some other people upload photos and I think they need to be changed (reoriented) before they are uploaded to be right. Anyway, if you want to browse through our pictures from Universal Studios Orlando you can click on this link. Enjoy!

We are off to Atlanta so that I can expand the minds of young nurses tomorrow! I have a new group of students starting tomorrow and this group actually WANTS to do pediatrics! So, it should be fun. I'm sure I'll have some entertaining stories for you all!

Hot Chocolate and Hooters!

Doesn't that sound exciting? Well, our friend, Monteen, will be coming to Blue Ridge next weekend just to show off her hooters! Monteen is a licensed raptor rehabber and she will be coming to our local coffee shop with 3 of her best friends. Sam will be having a little birthday party since he will be turning 21!!

She will also be there with Scully and Nigel.


Aren't they beautiful??

If you need something fun to do next weekend to get out of Atlanta - take a ride up here to Blue Ridge and visit the owls and do a little shopping. We have some great restaurants around town and you can even get a beer or a glass of wine in them now - woo hoo!!!

Monteen will be at the L&L Beanery Coffee Shop (right across the street from the train depot) on Saturday January 29th from 12-3. We'll be there and we would love to see some of you! Donations are happily accepted.

If you can't make it - Monteen always appreciates a little "mouse money" to help keep her wonderful operation going. Knit Witch donated money to her last year and we'll be making another donation next Saturday. Please send her a few bucks if you can spare it. It is very expensive to take care of all of her critters and we want her to be able to stay around and help these beautiful birds! There aren't very many raptor rehabbers in the state of Georgia - we need her! All donations are tax deductible. Go to Hawk Talk for more information.

Family Dinner

I had to tell you the story yesterday so that I could show you this picture today. We had dinner with Tiana's parents the other night. Amazingly enough, that is the first time we have met them! We have tried several times in the past for all of us to get together but things just kept not working out for various reasons. So, we finally were able to get it together! They are delightful people and we really enjoyed meeting them!

Of course, we had dinner at Provino's - which makes everything seem better!!! :) YUM!!!

New Stuff

I don't think I have told you all about this yet:



Or this:



Yep, my son is engaged! He and Tiana got engaged while we were down in Florida and Nathan popped the question in Harry Potter land at Universal because they are both HUGE Harry Potter fans. They have been together for about 4 years now. I think (and hope!) they will wait until after graduation next May (2012) to actually get married though. I believe that is the plan for now. We don't have an official date yet but we'll see what happens.

Everyone standing around there got a big kick out of the whole thing!

Speaking of Florida vacation, here is my favorite picture of Wayne and I from the trip. Look how warm we look!!

How was everyone's weekend? We had a nice, lazy, low-key weekend around here - which was really nice for a change! My new PhD classes don't start for another week or so but I have been able to start reading and working ahead this time, which is great! I dyed a bunch of yarn (which I'm hoping to put up on the site in a week or two - I'll let you know) and I got a bunch of knitting done! I finished the back of Wayne's sweater and started on the front.



I have been really bad about taking pictures lately! There isn't much inspiration around here with everything being frozen! Our pond has been frozen solid since before Christmas! Yesterday, it actually got up to about 60 degrees though! We were so excited!!!! We went out and worked on the chicken coop a bit. We put a tarp over the top so that the straw would stay reasonably dry. Wayne is going to put a real roof on it when it gets warmer, but this is great for a temporary fix. I don't think it looks too tacky in the meantime, do you?


I also got all of the yarn finished and labeled for Club Dragon Witch for the February shipment AND I got all of the goodies ready to go!! I'm looking forward to getting our first 2011 shipment out!

Even though we had a low-key weekend - it was pretty productive!

Knitting Progress

Being stuck in the house means plenty of time for knitting, right? Well SOME time for knitting anyway! I still have plenty of school stuff to keep me busy during the day. I talked to my adviser yesterday and it turns out that this is the last semester that I will be able to take a full load of classes (which in my situation is 2 classes). That kind of sucks because it means that it will take longer than I thought but, it also means that after I finish these next 2 classes, which end at the end of April, that I will be at the half-way mark - woo hoo!!! After that - it's all dissertation work. I guess I really need to figure out what I'm going to do my dissertation on, eh? It will be something around the use of technology in bachelor's nursing programs - maybe the use of patient simulators? I'm just not sure yet but I really need to get on that!

Anyway, back to knitting. I think I told you that I'm making another Rugby sweater (I think this pattern was in Knit Simple - I can't even remember now) because Wayne was really hoping that Nathan's sweater wouldn't fit so that he could have it! Too bad for Wayne, Nathan's sweater fit him pretty good (with the exception of the sleeves being just a little too long). So guess what I'm doing? Right - making another sweater!!! So far, I've just about gotten the back done.



Also, I found a cute sweater that I want to knit in the latest issue of Creative Knitting. It's called the Soiree something or another. I dyed some yarn for that the other day so I think I'll get that started and take that to the apartment and that can be my apartment project instead of hauling my projects back and forth. But, that means I need to get all of the appropriate equipment together to leave there (needles, markers, scissors, etc, etc).

Up and Running!

The pottery shop is back in operation! I know many of you will be glad to hear that! Wayne definitely has more bowls in progress. Making them isn't the problem this time of year though - glazing them is! For one thing, there are SO MANY glazes that they are out in the shed - where they are currently frozen. It's a little difficult to glaze with frozen glazes you understand. Also, Wayne sprays the glaze so he has to do it outside. Again, this is a little difficult when the temperatures are below freezing. Plus, when it is cold or wet, the glaze takes forever to dry.

But, we'll get things glazed as soon as we can. In the mean time, Wayne will just keep getting the bowls made!!

Here's Miss Nessie lounging in a box at the apartment. I took this a week ago or so. She's hiding - so - you can't see her, right?

Snowpocalypse!

Well, we've been stuck here for a few days. Luckily, I'm not bored - I always have plenty to do! And, I can think of MUCH worse places to be stuck - like the Atlanta airport for example! We got about 7 inches of snow but since it hasn't been above freezing in several days, the roads are really a mess and very icy. Atlanta has it worse than we do up here because down there the temps have been warm enough to melt things a little during the day and then they just refreeze at night making the roads a nightmare. Plus, there's a bunch of crazy pants drivers down there to make it all even worse, right?

We are supposed to head to Atlanta today but I'm not sure that's going to happen. I guess we'll see if it's any better on the roads this afternoon. If anyone down there has been up and down 75 and/or 575 - lemme know what it's like down there. It looks pretty bad on the news! I'm supposed to go to a meeting at Emory tomorrow but Emory has been closed for the past 3 days and I'm not sure if they will re-open again tomorrow.

Surprise!

It seems there are always lots of surprises at the farm. We went to visit my dad the other day and he showed us the latest surprise out there.



Yay! A new baby alpaca! I'm not sure what his name is yet, I just know he's a boy. Isn't he cute?

Wow.

Where does the time go? It seems like forever since I have last blogged! We do have Florida pictures but I am still going through them and doing some editing. There are like 250 photos in the album so I think I can probably go through and scale them back a bit! I'll let you all know when they are available for viewing!

Otherwise, what's going on with everyone? It seems like with this traveling back and forth each week that our weeks have become like 3 days long! The weeks are just flying by. I haven't had time to dye much yarn lately. Hopefully, next week I can start dyeing yarn for the February Club Dragon Witch installment. Right before I start dyeing, I'll close the sign-ups.

I started working on another sweater! Wayne liked the sweater that I made Nathan for Christmas so much that he has requested one of his own! The sweater (The Rugby Sweater - Knit Simple) was a really easy pattern to work and it just so happens that I WAY overdyed yarn for Nathan's sweater so I think I have enough to make another sweater. I have about half of the front done thus far. I'll take some pictures for you soon. In the meantime, please enjoy this picture of our two cute little girls!


And a new picture of Miss Nessie enjoying Wayne's new banjo case!

She has a new trick. Every time I brush my hair she runs into the bathroom and leaps from the counter to my shoulder. It's pretty funny. I'll have to have Wayne film it for sharing!