April Pictures

I'm at I fell while closing the shade at work and hit the key in my drawer and ended up with this stunning accessory. It took a few days before the swelling went down and I was left with a huge bruise. 

There was a parade for the Springtime Tallahassee festival in front of our work one Saturday! The bank was dead all day so we walked outside to see the floats lining up.

I made a little birthday outfit for Emily's sweet daughter, Tirzah. 

Note the cat in the window. The upstairs neighbors both have cats and they love to sit and look down on the street, silently judging. 

"I woke up like this"

Aaaaaand a few minutes later, ready for church.

We joined our church! 

Sunday afternoons in the sunshine: finally it feels warm enough to be outside.

Carson is perfecting burger making and the results have been delicious. I prefer ground beef burgers to parties... Juicier and tastier. 

We have a running disagreement about the appropriate way to take off a button-down. This is Carsons way and it stretches out the buttons and drives me nuts! He's agreed to stop this nonsense. 

Smoothies! 

I... Stole this from the drive-thru somehow and discovered it when it fell out of the back of my cardigan into the seat of the car. I'm impressed by my ability to do that, honestly (I did return it). 

Honesty is the best policy, but I did put a couple hours of laundry in there in the end.

Another Sunday, another day in the friend. 

Someone spent too much time in the sun. My favorite part is the red on his face where he covered his face with a shirt and then burned in the spot it didn't cover. 

I hate socks, Carson loves them. This is one of the weirdest things to me.

Waiting in the doctors office for forever, we got bored and took pictures.  

Found a friend at the grocery store.

Made some cupcakes for my coworkers last day! I bake almost never but these lemon ones came out great (that's lemon zest on the top because I thought it would be nice. 

Studying for comps before bed. Always studying. 

More studying, in a field next to a McDonald's. 

I visited the professor at lunch and tested out his Eno hammock. It was a birthday gift from his parents and he's been saving it to use to study for comps.

Something has been moving around in our chimmney so Carson checked it out and lots of things fell into the fireplace. He saw what looked like a nest and thought he'd killed a baby bird, but it turned out to be a very alive beetle. 

We made this awhile ago and then made it again the other night. Try this recipe: http://ohsheglows.com/2011/01/31/15-minute-creamy-avocado-pasta. It was creamy and tasty and fast. This is Carsons with tomatoes; mine didn't have any because I'm allergic, but it's prettier with tomatoes. We will try it with zucchini noodles in the spiralizer next time. 

I took Carson's final exam even though I never took the class and I got a not-high grade but still did better than some people who took the class. 

Past Easters

I thought a little snapshot of Easters past would be fun! It is a well known fact by now that I love "blasts from the past". Judging from these pictures, I also really like blue and green. 

2010 - Olympia. We were engaged and I remember going to a Good Friday service at Mars Hill church in Olympia, where I was attending with Carson's Aunt Shannon. Carson was in Spokane, I believe, but I don't remember! We don't have a picture for me to remember clearly. His parents got me an Easter basket. 

2011 - Spokane. We had Easter dinner at the Hoch's after church. 

2012 - Spokane. We hosted a potluck lunch with my old college roommates and their husbands... Now-husbands. Erica and Zack were engaged. 

2013 - Cleveland. We had lunch at the Weihrauch's and then came home and dyed eggs. 

2014 - Cleveland. Emily and Jillian were in town and we'd had a great weekend. They left soon after church and then Carson and I grilled at our house.

2015 - Beaufort. We didn't really have a church yet in Tallahassee so we drove up to Beaufort for Easter to see family. This was the first Easter I'd been with family since 2008. 

2016 - Tallahassee. We found a church! We spent the day with good friends - our community group leaders, the Kings. 

Art Festival Weekend

Ethnographic Research

So, we've been doing a little research as we prepare to move overseas. I majored in Intercultural Studies in college, so once I hopped on the Internet and did a little fancy googling, I proclaimed that I would be an awesome ethnographer; Carson confirmed.

Obviously all it takes is the right search engine, right?

Most of my research efforts have been fruitful, and I feel like we are a few steps closer to fitting in a little more and not making cultural gaffes. I'm excited to be there and experience actually living overseas for an extended period of time and I'm really curious about what we will take away from this whole experience. 

Here are some things we learned that we found interesting. These aren't necessarily the most important things, but it's fun to read up and learn about a culture we will get to experience in a few short months! 

Germans don't celebrate birthdays until the day - never early. Also the birthday individual brings the cake. 

Münster in particular is very very bike friendly and there are more bikes than people.

There tends to be a lot of sock-with-sandal, and it's sort of strange to wear so less sandals (helpful as we pack because I'm not going to do it. I can't!).

The German work week is about 31 hours and most people leave work in the early afternoon on Fridays. 

Small talk is less common - chatting about the weather at the checkout line is considered a little strange. In that vein, smiling at people on the street isn't normal either. My southern-ness is a little sad about this, but my introverted side is not sad at all. 

As we've looked for a place to live, we have been so surprised to find that some places listed as "unfurnished" don't even come with toilets, sinks or appliances. I guess people tend to live in places for a longer time period and so they are okay purchasing all those things and then taking them along when they move? 

The crime rate is really low! 

There were lots of other things we gleaned from lists and websites and I intend to do a lot more research. It's fun to look up these things knowing its for real and not for my ethnography class! 

DIY Ring Holder

Well here's a little project I started working on in October for Christmas presents. It's a little different, but it was fun and easy and not so expensive. I know it's April, but we gave out the last of our gifts in March, so here you go!

I started with plastic dinosaurs (I bought a pack of 12 on Amazon.com), liquid gold leaf (had left over from a project, but I found it in the paint section at a craft store - spray paint or acrylic paint would be great or even better), 4" clay saucers (found in a pack of 6 for $2.99 at Hobby Lobby), acrylic craft paint, and super glue.

Here we have our dinosaur.

And here we have the dinosaur with the gold leaf.

And HERE, we are painting the dinosaur (I did two coats, and you can use gold leaf or acrylic paint. I just used the gold because I had it.).

Isn't he pretty?

Here they are, drying on my paint palate, a paper plate.

And here we have another dinosaur modeling where he's going to live for the rest of his little plastic life.

I used craft paint to cover the clay saucers. I did some white, and some in other colors. They dried very fast, I think because of the clay. 

Then I glued the little feet of my dinosaur to the saucer and tested him out. It's quirky, right? And kind of fun! You could use any animal that has a part to hold a ring. I used a deer for my "deer cousin" Morgan and thought other animals would be fun as well. 

FSU High Flying Circus

On our first day in Tallahassee, we stopped by Florida State's campus to see what we were getting ourselves into. Right next to the stadium, we noticed what looked like a circus tent. Upon closer inspection, it WAS a circus tent. We were confused and curious, and not until later did we discover that Florida State is one of only two schools in the country with circus programs. They aren't degree programs but are extracurricular, like football or lacrosse. 

Here we are in 2014:

The circus here isn't one with elephants and crazy clowns, but IS full of talented performers who not only spend hours training and learning tricks, but also do the choreography, stage work, music, acting and costume design themselves (I don't know how these people do this so well and also do school!). I worked at Starbucks with someone who is a part of the circus and learned more about it and when I saw on her Facebook that there was a performance for students, we decided to go. 

The small tent housed concessions, so we partook, since Carson's ticket was free and mine was cheap.

The show began with someone pretended to be a director from the 1920s, introducing us to the movie set. Each "scene" had a different theme and premise and told a story. It was clearly well thought out and planned, and it seemed incredibly professional. It amazes me to know that there are people this talented doing such amazing stunts. From trapense to tightrope to human jump ropes, there was quite a display of athleticism, talent, fearlessness, and we were so impressed by everything we saw. The music was well chosen for each piece, ranging from 1920s jazzy for the tightrope to 80s outfits and music for another. There were decade-themed pieces and then more direct themes, like a "space" one and a pirate theme for the trapeze finale.

And everything looked so dangerous. My palms were sweating.

In between acts and sometimes while an act was going on but the lights were dimmed in a particular section of the tent, a huge stage crew would come out and tear down equipment from the last act, then set up for the next one. They worked like machinery, everyone in the right spot, working with silent communication to accomplish the task. We were impressed to later find out that under their stage crew jumpsuits, many of them were wearing their outfits for their next scenes; setting up to come out seconds later for their performances. 

These girls were SO STRONG. They did so many impressive things but I only caught one non-blurry picture.

If you have the chance to attend a performance for the FSU High Flying Circus, do it! It was amazing, and would be well worth whatever ticket prices they usually charge. You'd be supporting local talent and enjoying a fantastic evening of entertainment. I'm so glad we did this!