Welcome to Miami... (of Ohio)

Holly moved succesfully into her apartment on 7/30, with the help of her wonderful husband and his even more wonderful family! (Thanks Mom, Dad, and Jenn for helping us move!!!)

Holly and company arrived at around 1:30 on Sunday to Miami of Ohio and found that Holly's roommate Sara had the apartment mostly settled, with the exception of Holly's room (of course) and Holly's half of the office.

The apartment isn't too bad... although it's a bit of a stretch from the comforts of our home.

The good:

• A great roommate with most of the apartment already furnished.
• The carpet is in good condition.
• Holly has enough space (barely). Of course, Sunny has prime real estate in Holly's room!
• Location--about 3 minutes to her work, and close access to food, groceries, and Wal-Mart.

The "ok":

• It could stand to be a little further than 50 feet from the railroad tracks.
• Whoever wired the cable tv outlets (by stringing cable around the floor of the apartment, in one wall and out another) clearly should have watched a little more Bob Vila while growing up.

The worst:

• 2 hours away from "home"!!!

After we got everything moved in and thanked the family with lunch at Qdoba and desert at Coldstone Creamery, we got to work unpacking (and multiple trips to Walmart and Kroger for supplies and groceries). By Monday morning, we got almost everything unpacked. We went to lunch with some people from Holly's internship, saw Holly's office (pictures will be coming soon), and then went to dinner with Holly's roommate Sara.

After that, Jason took off to come home and dutifully update the blog, so that everyone can see Holly's new "Vacation Home" in beautiful Oxford, Ohio!

So, without further ado... the pictures:

A look at Holly's room from her door.

Holly in her room in "Chair Giant"... she'll be using it to study, relax, or...

With a quick change of cage configuration, Holly can let Sunny come over for a visit. Sunny's a big fan of this feature!!!

Holly's bed is all made... had to take a picture, because odds are it won't stay made!!! (We're both bad at that... but Holly particularly so!!!)

And Holly in her office with her big XM Radio playing tunes.

For *ALL* the pictures, (including pictures from other rooms in the apartment) click HERE for the full gallery.

Holly starts work at her internship bright and early at 7:30AM tomorrow. Wish Holly well with her new endeavor!!!

I love you, dear, and miss you (and Sunny) very much!!!

The Super Chalktendo has a home on the web...

I finally finished the last step of the Super Chalktendo project... a home for it on the web. Most people who create these projects put together a website documenting their progress. This allows people "in the community" to learn what works and what doesn't as they attempt their own projects.

I think it is a pretty interesting read, as it goes throw the process of turning one of my dreams into a reality :-). I also wrote it... and built the Super Chalktendo... so I am incredibly partial.

Without further ado, the project webpage:
http://superchalktendo.googlepages.com/

And finally, an interesting aside. I made this website with Googlepages... basically if you have a Gmail address, you can log into Googlepages.com and create a website with pictures and links for *FREE*. It hosts up to 100 Megabytes of pictures and was EXCEPTIONALLY easy to use.

See http://www.googlepages.com for more information. My only word of advice is that if you use post the page somewhere (like I did), create a separate GMail account for the webpage. This is because your GMail account becomes a part of the page name. I created SuperChalktendo@gmail.com so that I could have "superchalktendo.googlepages.com".

If you want a GMail account, just let me know and I'll send you an invite with instructions to get started. It's without a doubt the best EMail interface on the web... better than hotmail, yahoo, or anything else! It's free, but it's by invitation only, so I can give you an invite.

Deck Stained!

While artfully dodging raindrops (it drizzled for about 3 or 4 minutes with no warning today!!!) We completed staining the deck today. Below are several pictures of the completed project as it dries in the hot afternoon sun. We'll touch up a few boards tomorrow, and then move everything back onto the deck probably on Thursday.

We decided that if sweat equity adds value to a house, that by staining the deck on the 2 hottest days of the year so far meant that we added a lot of sweat... and value... to the house!

Holly did a tremendous job helping out, and we managed to keep the stain from going anywhere but on the deck :-). All-in-all, a successful project. Click the various pictures below for a closer view of the deck.

Viva Mexico!

Just got back from Mexico! We had a wonderful time at Aventura Spa Palace... located just South of Cancun in the Mayan Riviera. Like any vacation that we go on, we tried to keep busy! A list of things of note that we did:

1. Chichen Itza--Wow... imagine Rome in North America and this is what you have. I wish I could have spent more time here! It was amazing!
2. Swam with Dolphins at XCaret--A great experience... the Dolphins were very well trained and very tolerant of us dumb humans (So long and thanks for all the fish!)
3. Snorkeling in the Caribbean--never gets old!
   
4. 4-Wheeling through the Mexican "jungle" (more like huge brush fields). Much of Mexico is very remote and desolate, and it was neat to see so much of it up close.
5. Speed-boating in the Caribbean. A 2 person fiberglass hull and a speedboat motor made for a LOT of fun!!!
6. Enjoying time with family... priceless! (Or Price-ful... depending on how you look at it).

So that was our vacation in a nutshell. What!? You want more pictures? Look here for more pictures...