Friday, August 28, 2009

Jeff made it!

He's here! It's 3am in Atlanta but only midnight here - and we
ordered a pizza to get us thru till morning.

--
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Poll boycott

Ok, seriously? I am done posting polls. Lame-os. Nobody ever votes so what's the point? And not even one comment about the hunkilicious Alexander?

BUT NOT ANNA - shout out for my 2nd follower of the blog!!!!! WOOP!!!! Nothing makes you pee less than a baby pressing on the privates while giggling at my funniness - right?

On another note, I am leaving in about 10 minutes from my lovely hotel room in downtown Vancouver to go pick Jeff up at the airport. He did not make it on his first flight from Atlanta to Salt Lake City - which would have connected and gotten him to Vancouver by 5pm local time - and alas is not not arriving until 10:45pm local time. My guess is he will be tired and grumpy.

BUT NOT SO FAST!!! This weekend's agenda? Whistler and Whale Watching. How can you grump at that? Eat it, all you stay at home chumps (especially my mom and dad who have access to the same flight privileges. Come on. Seriously, explore a little).

Also - I am feeling feisty after 3 glasses of wine in the past couple hours. Gotta love work social time!!! No food, only seafood appetizers and drinking. That's work for ya! All glamour and no toil. Trust me.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

O Canada

Made it to Vancouver! It is beautiful - mid 70s and no humidity...I
hate to admit I was chilly today!

AND - So You Think You Can Dance CANADA!!!! Snap!!!!!!! Glued to the
tv for one hour (although Leah is no Cat Deely).

--
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Monday, August 24, 2009

Quotes from today

Heard in the breakroom at work: "Hizzah! We have new automated paper towel holders!!"

and

Jeff's lone phone call contact with me today: "Yeah, Red, what do you need? We're busy - Jason's on the roof." Then a click.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

My new fire pit







Cheesey dogs, brats, s'mores, Code Red Mountain Dew, Bud Light...and a fire pit!!! So what if it was 80 and humid???

Friday, August 21, 2009

Visitors 1 and 2

Jason arrived to sunny and humid Atlanta on Wednesday morning and he and Jeff have been having a ball. So far, the big plane has been flown, the little plane has crashed and is no longer viable, we have eaten at our local pizza shop and Waffle House, the backyard has been picked up of every large and small stick and burned in the fire pit using Jason's expertise, Season One of True Blood has been started, and our WOLREY band has begun its trek to infamy by featuring 3 Hartmans at one time, on all the instruments (guitar, bass, drums, or vocals).

I am really really hoping the weather holds today because Jason and Jeff are planning on sprucing up the fire pit - from a dug in the ground hole to a concrete and sand-lined, paver circled fire ring. The goal is cheesey dogs and S'mores by 7pm tonight!

I will keep you posted on the progress, and will share photos when they finish...

Oh and by the way, Visitor 2 is.......................Lois!!! We heard she is making her way south with the camper so hopefully we will be host to another guest by Saturday!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Vampire Poll

A little FAN-aticism today, if you will bear with me.

HOLY CRAP I LOVE MONDAY NIGHTS.

Monday night is True Blood night for me (Sundays when it airs are impossible). Who knew vampires could be so cool and metaphorical for society?

We left off last week with a suicide bomber entering a vampire "lair" (read: super cool house), strapped down with a bomb made of silver chains and wood splinters. He was a soldier from the Light of Day church, who is campaigning to protect the sanctity of human rights (as opposed to vampire rights). I won't spoil it for any of you, but wowza it was a good episode.

Faithful watchers - who is your favorite vamp: Bill, Eric, or Godric??? (Hint - mine is of the extremely tall and buff blonde variety.)


Monday, August 17, 2009

News of the week

Well, after one night at home recovering, it was time to pack again for a trip to Charlotte last week (which you all saw). It has been a whirlwind last week.

But now I am back for this week and ready to go!!! We may be having a visitor of the Jason variety arriving on Wednesday. If he comes, his help will be enlisted to install gutter guards on our gutters, as he is much more wily and nimble than either Jeff or me (it is very possible Jeff or I might lose our balance and break our necks thanks to gravity if we attempted to crawl about the roof. It's a center of gravity / balance thing.).

The last bit of news today is that the hurricane weather is messing with us. Yes, you heard me right! HURRICANE WEATHER. It is extremely windy and misting-raining, which makes Jeff unable to fly his RC airplane and which makes my hair look like crap. Again. The land of the humidity and sweet tea has not been kind to my locks. I think I need to grow it out so it will tame down in the summer.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Paris Photos Take 2

After 3 hours sleep on Saturday morning, we were ready to take on Paris! This is in the Novotel Tour Eiffel lobby before we left for the day.




On our walk to the Eiffel Tower, we stopped for lunch at this local bistro. This guy looking at me is very obviously Parisian.




The Eiffel Tower was seriously bigger than I thought it was. (And every time I thought that, it was followed by, "That's what she said!". Thank you Steve Carrell.)




We walked around the tower and came to rest in a nearby park for about an hour, just people watching and hanging out. Being a little romantic - because everyone else was doing it too!



We walked back to the hotel - in the rain - and crashed for a couple hours. Then we went to an authentic French restaurant, complete with duck, creme brulee, and red wine...then more red wine at the hotel...and walking the streets of Paris. Somehow we didn't really get photos of that.

To save money the next morning we walked to McD's for lunch, and then headed out to Notre Dame Cathedral.



The inside is truly magnificent and it is amazing to think it was constructed with pulleys and ropes.





After the cathedral, we walked. And walked. And walked. (Later we learned we were in the very oldest part of Paris. It was awesome.)
We came across St Michael's fountain, which had artists on the street, shops, brasseries, and lots to look at.



Stopping for a photo while walking along the River Siene.



We saw tons of shops, beautiful designer gowns and wedding dresses, and lots of people - but nothing was open on Sunday.
We headed back to the Tour Eiffel to get on our river boat cruise, and had to snap a photo in the sunlight.


Here we are on our boat cruise!



We saw plenty of canoodling, kissing, coffee drinking, even some West Coast swing dancing on the cruise!


One of the amazing buildings...


After the cruise I was pooped. I could go no further without dessert and something to drink!



We walked back to hotel, had dinner at a different local restaurant and sat outside eating, drinking wine and espresso until the wee hours.
The next morning we headed out bright and early at 5 am to catch our flight back to Atlanta. What a crazy 3 days!!!!
If you want to check out more photos from the trip, click here

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Paris pictures? Not yet

Paris note for the day: Oui, oui is not the same as wee wee. Hahahahaha!!!!

I can explain my humor only as I am super tired from 2 days of
inspections in the great Nascar capitol of Charlotte, NC. Since noon
yestetday we have toured 10 hotels. Whew!

So my crew wants to go "out" tonight in about 5 minutes but I truly
need to log on and work...but also need to build
relationships...what"s a girl to do? Probably beg off.

--
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Monday, August 10, 2009

Paris Stereotypes

Hey gang. Guest blogger Jeff here. Made some interesting notes about
Paris over the past couple of days. 1. The men and women are all
beautiful. Beautiful and skinny...and they all smoke. 2. Don't
wear shorts, you'll look like a tourist. I didn't and I'm glad. 3.
No matter how nicely you dress, you'll look like a slob compared to
the Parisians. 4. Parisians really do just sit around and make out.
I saw more PDA this weekend then I could have ever imagined. 5.
Even if you don't speak french, you will have no problem ordering at
McDonalds. 6. Everything is about image in Paris...even building
construction is covered up by large colorful billboards. Well, I
tired of typing on Jess's phone...so...see you in America.

--
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On the road (sky) again

After waking up with 3 hours sleep, we made it to Charles De Gaulle by
0542 and are now waiting for our airplane to arrive. We figured out
that we should have slept about three nights but really only were
asleep for probably 2 and are actully looking forward to the 8 hours
on board! We'll also have to finish the Star Trek movie we started 2
days ago! Au revoir, Paris!!

--
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Saturday, August 8, 2009

We arrived!

At our hotel and napping for a bit. Our room is on the 30th floor with
a view of the top of zee Tour Eiffel! Bonjour!!!

--
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Friday, August 7, 2009

Paris???

We are at the gate in Atlanta and have been assigned seats 1A and 1B.
To be continued...

--
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Wednesday, August 5, 2009

In Greensboro

Hi everyone, I am in Greensboro for 2 days while Jeff holds down the fort at home. It's been a whirlwind first day, with 5 hotels looked at from noon until 6pm (including lunch!). I think that might be a record, even for me - but this trip was easy without an entourage of 7 or 8 people. It was just me plus one other and we had fun! Also Pam, our trusty GPS, reacted like a young pup and got us everywhere we needed to go, stress-free. I think that's the worst part - navigating a new city every time you go on a trip.

Dinner tonight was at Carrabbas, and might be some of the most tasty Italian food I have ever had. I had some kind of grilled chicken stuffed with goat cheese, roasted tomatoes, and prosciutto. Oh and don't forget the battered zucchini appetizer and shot glass dessert (desserts in tiny shot glasses, like a mini-tiramisu). DELISH!

Ta-ta for now, I will see you on the flip side back in A-town tomorrow (not the A-town known as Aberdeen though).

Monday, August 3, 2009

Squirrels

First, we thought a cat had been locked in a closet. Or a bathroom. Or somewhere. Similar to Maddie being stuck on a mousetrap in a closed closet (see previous posting).

After successfully locating both felines, we went about determining what might be making a scratch-scratch-scratch-BANG noise somewhere in the house. Which sounds like it's in the walls.

It must be either a squirrel, or a very large rat. I am assuming squirrel, mostly because I HATE rodents of the mice and rat type and refuse to believe something like that is inside.

Anywho, it is continuing the noise into this evening and I am crossing my fingers it will find its way out. Although Jeff says they don't usually, at which point I will dread 90 degrees and 70% humidity even more than I have been already.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

She'll be coming round the mountain

when she comes...yee haw! I don't know why, but that song is stuck in my head. Perhaps it's because of the All-American Saturday we had.

Jeff flew his plane, the kitties went outside for an hour (both of them), we grilled hotdogs, worked on a puzzle when it got too hot, I played my saxphone after hearing of a sax band at church, and now I am gazing out my front window, with the view of the road framed by our big hardwood on one side and the American flag on the other.

What a great weekend!