Earlier this month Nathan and i journeyed to California to visit my family. It turned out to be quite the Adamo reunion, although we didn’t get everybody in the same house at the same time for various reasons. First of all, my grandparents and my two great aunts live in Corona. My cousin-once-removed, Jo, also lives in southern California. She has a friend who sold her All-Star game tickets to my dad, who was down there for a few days with his buddy Andy. My brother, currently something of a nomad, stopped by for the last couple days of our trip as well. And finally, four of my distant relatives from Belgium began a month-long road trip around the Western U.S. in California, on the same night that we arrived there.
It was great to see everyone, but unfortunately all of the portraits that were taken are on other people’s cameras, so i can’t share them here.
Here are some photos that i took:
We stayed at my grandparents’ house, which is awesome because they make some really tasty European dishes and they insist on feeding their guests as much as possible. Every morning Grandpa makes fresh-squeezed orange juice from the tree in his own back yard. He explained to me that they have two different orange trees; one that produces fruit in the warmer months and one that prefers the cooler months, and this way he gets oranges all year long. If you’ve never squeezed an orange to make your own juice, you really must try it.
Weird flower-looking cactus things
We walked around the neighborhood and i photographed a bunch of the plants in people’s yards because they were just so weird. I told this to Jo and she didn’t understand what kind of world i was used to. I told her “leafy trees,” but i probably should have just said “corn.”
We drove out to the coast on day 2, and we of course experienced a lot of traffic despite having departed in the late morning. When we got there it was cloudy and breezy and cool, and thus i was cranky. When is it EVER not beautiful in California?! We got some In-N-Out burger and then decided to lay on the beach anyway until we could check into our hotel. Gradually it got sunnier, and when we retreated to the hotel we discovered that we had gotten burned something fierce. Tip for living: if you’re a pasty Iowan, don’t just sprawl out on the beach in the middle of the day for two hours and expect not to get roasted, no matter how cloudy you think it is.
This was the view from our hotel balcony. Did i say hotel? I meant resort. That was a surprise that came with several unexpected and incontestable fees. But what’s worse is that we were too sore to even take advantage of the amenities. We made it to Karl Strauss in Costa Mesa and the beer numbed our pain slightly, but we still turned in early and headed back inland right away the following morning.
Side note: it’s been two weeks now since we got burned and i’m still a little bit peely and itchy. I don’t even want to express what a humiliating, guilt-inducing and uncomfortable situation that was. But! We still had a really nice time in California. We wrapped up our trip by exploring the Huntington Library in Pasadena, which was huge and fascinating and could have occupied us for an extra day, easily.
Nathan getting a shot of Pinky. The original.
The bonsai trees were one of the most lovely & interesting things. How do they do that?
Happy Monday, everybody! This weekend was marked by some fun new experiences. At the end of the day on Friday my workplace bid adieu to one of our designers by having a happy hour drink with him on the company’s dime. Gotta love that – especially because it means my job security just increased a fair amount. That’s a feeling i’ve been waiting for for years.*
Saturday we celebrated my friend Calee‘s move back to Ames from Des Moines by hitting the town with her. We got barbecue at Uncle Wendel’s and then went to see the Des Moines Derby Dames‘ roller-derby bout. We lost to the Old Capital City Roller Girls, but it was a fun experience despite the fact that i had to sit on a concrete floor in my short skirt. Hopefully next time they’ll do it in a venue with more seating.
After that we headed to The Lift where i had a grand total of 3.25 drinks and ended up drunk enough to say quite a few silly things, but unfortunately not so wasted that i couldn’t remember them. That Bradie was trying to kill me. I don’t really want to talk about it except to say that i’m sorry if i offended anyone but i had a good time. 
Yesterday evening we went over to my grandpa’s house where my mother had been seeing barred owls in the trees for the past few nights. At first we didn’t see them, but Mom was sure they were around because of the commotion from the smaller birds. Sure enough, we spotted one just as we were about to leave. There are four of them hanging around; two adults and two nearly-full-sized babies. We watched all four fly from branch to branch, saw them get pecked by the smaller birds, made noises at the juveniles who made noises back at us and bobbed their heads, and saw one adult feed her babies a small animal.
As it was getting dark, one of the younger owls perched on a post right in the backyard. I got about five paces away from it to try to take photos. It didn’t really work out because of the darkness, but it was amazing to just watch her calmly examine the ground for mice and occasionally swivel her head around to look at us.
This is how i wish my photos had turned out.
It’s been hot and humid here the past couple of days, and that will probably continue for the rest of the week. I’ve been working out several times a week in preparation for dress shopping, but i’m not sure how i’m going to run outside now. I don’t do hot & muggy.
*EDIT: Oh man, i forgot to write about our awesome waitress on Friday night! We went to a place called Paradise Pizza in WDM that we’d never been to, and we had a waitress who was probably just starting out. And had probably never been to a restaurant before. She brought us our beers with straws in them, and brought the check out to us before asking how the meal was or if we wanted any dessert. She wandered around looking bored when she wasn’t helping us. It was an all-around hilarious thing to see. 
We are officially unpacked! The house is all put together and minus a few missing mirrors and a couple of photo frames i’d like to buy, the interior is just the way i want it.
Moving was a pain, as moving always is. We got a key to the new place one week before we had to be out of the old place, and we spent that week packing, taking some boxes over to the new place and painting the bedroom from pink to light gray. Let me tell you, we are not expert painters. I think the last time i painted was about ten years ago and somehow i figured that experience was all i needed under my belt to painlessly paint a bedroom. I was wrong.
We used 2/3 of the gallon of white paint that the landlord gave us on the first coat and the room still looked patchy. So, i decided to buy another gallon, and i figured that changing the color slightly from white to light gray wouldn’t matter much. Wrong again! After the first coat of the gray paint, it still looked patchy. So we went at it again. And after the second coat, we had to go back and fill in what patches still remained. And then we took the tape off the edges, and the trim was messy. I am hiring a professional next time.
Moving the big stuff was easy because we had a team of four helpers and a u-haul. Thank God. Unpacking has taken a lot longer than i thought it would, but it feels awesome now and less than a month has passed. Yay! On with the show:
The house, with our two cars in the two-car garage!
Our kitchen which, sadly, lacks a dishwasher.
The bedroom. Notice the paint job! I want to add a colorful quilt to break up all the gray.
I think we’re calling this room the den, maybe?
We have a weird semi-circular concrete patio thing in the back
And we’ve got a few little plants popping up in the back yard. Happy Spring!
There are more photos in my flickr photo set if that wasn’t enough for you. More details to come.
Hi, i’m alive. I’ve been busy with packing and cleaning and moving and un-packing lately, but we’re almost completely un-packed and settled in now, so it won’t be long before i can take some pictures and blog about the whole experience. We’ve already had trouble with two appliances, but we really like the new place and it’s already feeling a lot like home (and saving us money, to boot!).
I’ve been running a little lately (on a treadmill – which i love because there are no hills, no chilly winds or sweltering sunshine and i don’t run long enough to get bored anyway). My normal clothes are starting to fit nicely again. I haven’t connected to Nike+ in a long time, so maybe i’ll do that and post a run soon. We’ve also been taking ballroom dancing classes, which are a lot of fun. Nathan is a natural.
We’ve been watching some classic Sci-Fi moves that i somehow missed, like The Terminator and Planet of the Apes. I love it. I’ve been reading about love & marriage, ’cause what could be happier? I’ve been listening to all sorts of music for free on lala.com, which i highly recommend. The snows have all but melted and we are all very grateful that spring is making its long-awaited arrival. Today is the first work day on Daylight Saving Time, though, which is always a little challenging. 
Stay tuned – and in the meantime, check out my wedding inspiration blog if you haven’t already.
A lot of people are enthusiastically shouting “good riddance!” to 2009 today, and that’s totally understandable. Our economy went to crap, everyone is up in arms over health care reform and some would-be martyr just tried to blow up another goddamn airplane. I, however, will be a little bit sorry to see it go. Two-thousand-nine was probably one of the best years of my life.
In early ’09 there was snow. And more snow. And then Nathan and i went to Chicago for Valentine’s day and stayed in a delightful little B&B for a couple of nights. I don’t know what it is about Chicago, but it’s just really fun to go there and stare up at the giant buildings and wander around lost and then stop by IKEA on the way home. Feeling romantic, we also stopped into a few stores in the Windy City’s Diamond District and ogled some sparklies while we were there. It was an indicator of things to come.
In March we moved into our lovely downtown loft. It was really awesome at first until we discovered more recently that 1200 square feet is a LOT to keep clean all the time and that being able to hear everything your neighbors yell at each other isn’t really all that fun. It’s been a nice setting for a few parties, but we don’t do that kind of thing terribly often, and even when we do it’s only a handful of people. We’re hoping to rent a house this spring, and hopefully not being able to hear our neighbors will be worth the effort required to keep the lawn mowed and the driveway shoveled.
In the spring Nathan and i started running together. It was a slow start for me again, but i eventually got back up to the three-mile marker again before deciding to take an extended break. It’s still extending, in fact. I got to a point where i could think about nothing but breathing and the pain i was in and that i needed to STOP every time i ran, and for the entire time that i was running. If i run again this year, i’m cranking my music UP and i’m not going to bother trying to breathe correctly. But, more likely, i’m going to get back into dancing instead. And Nathan will be joining me! We start in January, and hopefully it will help me to fit back into the jeans that have recently become too tight to wear. 
In the summer a cute bird couple laid their eggs in our sad little garden box, and we watched their babies quickly grow up & fly away. We took a trip to Oregon on what was probably the hottest week there, ever, and enjoyed visiting Portland and my family despite the shroud of fog out on the coast.
Shortly after we returned my job petered out, and so i signed up for a couple of programming classes at DMACC and started the job hunt, bidding working from home a tearful goodbye. Javascript proved to be very intriguing, and programming logic came pretty easily to me. I only applied for about three jobs in all. One was located right across the street from where we live and dragged out their hiring process so long that by the time they finally rejected me, i had started my new job at Spindustry through Robert Half Technology. I learned recently that I ended up getting A’s in both of my DMACC classes (for whatever good that will do me) and that i get to keep my job at Spindustry! Beginning January 18th, i will no longer be a contractor through RHT, i will be a full-time Spindustry employee, and i couldn’t be happier.
This fall we got engaged, and i’m learning what it’s like to have a heart that is both peaceful and elated at the same time. I bought a 2004 Honda CR-V, and it is getting us safely through the mass amounts of snow that are falling upon Iowa this winter. I’m looking forward to starting to plan our wedding in the coming year (well, i’ve kinda started) and meeting the challenge of becoming even healthier. I have everything to be thankful for and everything to look forward to, and i’m sure 2010 is going to be a great adventure.