Tallahassee Snow

It snowed in Tallahassee! It was the first measurable snowfall in Tallahassee in about thirty years, so it was notable, even though we got less than an inch of snow on the ground. It snowed for a bit in the morning, just enough to cancel school, and push work back for a couple of hours. 

There wasn't enough to play in, but we took Tuck out just to let him see snow (he didn't appreciate it).

And this was a few days later, but I loved this sign.

Miami vs FSU

The Coluccis came into town at the beginning of October for the FSU/Miami game. They came in on Friday evening about five minutes after I got home from work, and we introduced them to Tuck before deciding to order dinner from a local Asian place. I went with Pad Thai, Carson had green curry, and Morgan and Caleb went with Chinese. Grayson enjoyed some nice mac and cheese that we made at home.

Grayson liked the chopsticks, so Caleb skewered grapes for him to enjoy.

On our walk that evening, we ran into a little toad. Tuck was interested in sniffing it, but that's all, and Grayson was not into touching it at all.

After Grayson was put to bed, we played Ticket to Ride.

In the morning, we went to Canopy Road Cafe, right down the street. There was a bit of a wait, so we hung out outside. The food was actually pretty good, and I think it live up to the hype.

The guys left to head to the game, so Morgan and Grayson and I walked around at Cascades Park for a little while.

We walked around the mall next. Sniffed a few candles, and got a snack, but didn't buy anything else.

Well, Miami won, ending seven years of losses against FSU! There was one happy Miami fan in the student section.

These little fuzz balls kept Grayson entertained for a little while.

And we'd forgotten to get a group shot in the daytime when everyone was looking their best and the lighting was okay, so here's one in the wonderful lighting of our living room.

Bear Paw

It's always fun having new adventures!
One of my hopes for this next year in Florida is that we would be able to build our relationships with people in Tallahassee. We struggled to find a church when we first moved here (it took us 15 months), and then when we did find one and found community, we really still didn't have a ton of friends. Of course that's fine. We don't need a huge friend group, but it's nice to feel like you belong somewhere and that you're part of something. So we really hope that this next year in Tally will be one where we can build our existing relationships and grow new ones as well. 

So it was fitting that Josh hit the three decade mark and Christina organized an outing on the river. We knew the Kings, of course (they're also the friends we met up with in Rome!) and they'd invited two other couples from church whom we'd yet to meet. 

We met up at their apartment in Tallahassee (it's so close that we walked there!!!) and then drove about an hour and a half to Bear Paw in Marianna, Florida. When we got there, we signed waivers, rented tubes, and piled in an odd smelling van that took us to the put-in place. 

The weather this time of year can be iffy, and it had originally said there was a 20% chance of thunderstorm, which later jumped to 50%. Thankfully, we risked it and there was not even one little drop of rain! At a couple points on the river, we heard the rumble of thunder, but it never materialized.

It took us almost exactly three hours to get down the river. The current wasn't very strong, although it might have been to our benefit to tie our tubes together, since we sort of ended up being very far apart most of the time. It was a great, relaxing afternoon, getting to know each other better, and planning small group for the fall, and making plans for future adventures!

We'd passed this restaurant on our way to the put-in place, and the name made us laugh, so we decided to wrap up our day in Marianna by having dinner at PoFolks.


The menu and signage were hilarious.

Please please zoom in on these menu pictures and read the descriptions. It was definitely exactly what we expected!

Unfortunately, I cut off this picture and didn't get the description of their "salad" - it had fried shrimp, fried chicken, AND chicken fried steak on lettuce. Probably the exact kind of salad someone would order at a down-home style place such as this.

We just sort of went for it. Carson picked out my sides - green beans and mac and cheese. He had fried okra and mashed potatoes. And of course sweet tea, which probably had about six cups of sugar in it. It was puckeringly sweet.

I really enjoyed our time out with these old(ish) and new friends! It really is a blessing to know that we will be near people we can hang out with for the next year! I'm looking forward to growing with them in small group (we think we may be the only young couples in the church who don't have kids yet!) and I'm excited for the adventures we'll have in the coming months. This was a great start, and now I have my eyes out for more new experiences like this!

Moving Back

We've moved a lot, but we've never moved homes within the same city. Even though our year in Germany broke up our time in Tallahassee, it was sort of nice coming back to a familiar city. We are now living in a different part of town that we need to figure out, but we don't have to find a church, and we know how to get to work. It's nice!

We got to Tallahassee on July 31, and stayed with our dear friends the Kings that night. The next morning, we tackled a variety of moving related errands before signing papers and getting the keys to our new place. We like it! It's got a lot more light than the last place we lived (in the States, I mean). The inside of the kitchen cabinets is painted black which is so strange to me and I don't like that, but pretty much everything else about our new place is great. 

Here it is when we first walked through. Right now it's in a very transitional stage since we haven't been around, but here it was when it was pristine. They replaced all the flooring the day before we moved in which was so great!

A before picture, as we headed to get the moving truck. 

Nobody else ended up being available to load the truck, so it was just Carson and I. It took us six very long hours to get things from the third floor of the unit to the truck. 

Oh man. So bad.

I helped as best I could, mainly lifting only small things. A cart ran over my foot and put me out of commission for a little bit, and I took a "break" to walk up a hill (I forgot how steep Tallahassee hills can be!) and buy some Gatorade from a Walgreens, but for the most part, I was there too, not doing the heavy lifting and generally getting in the way.

At 6, some friends stopped by to help unload the truck, and that's right when Carson pulled up at the apartment with our stuff! It was so nice to have two guys there to help him with the heavy lifting. They were done in a little over an hour, even though they had to go up and down two flights of stairs into the apartment to do it. 

I went on another big Gatorade run while they finished up, and Carson ordered pizza that was scarfed down quickly before they all went to cool off in the pool (the pool is so close to our apartment!!!).

After they left, we tried to organize the boxes a little, and set up our bed. We were missing one piece of the bed frame, so we went back to the storage unit hoping it was among the few things left in there. We found it right behind the door, tucked away and almost hidden, but we found it! We stopped by Krispy Kreme on the way there because the hot light was on. 

The end of the day picture. Sweat not pictured.

This is how the living room looked at the end of the day. I set up the TV because finding that box wasn't too hard.

The dining room looks the worst (now) because all the boxes of Carson's books are in the corner there. He went to get those the next day.

Our friendly bed, ready for weary movers!

It was a busy week, so we made a list of things we needed to do.

The next day, we went on a hunt for a washer and dryer. We found a used set and it fit in the Pilot!

We had to get the set into our apartment ourselves, and that proved to be a struggle. As we were pulling and pushing the first one up the stairs and getting nowhere, a man from an apartment across the way, holding a small child, ran out of his apartment and helped Carson push while I pulled. He was holding his child the whole time! With his help, we got it up the stairs, and he had run back down to his apartment almost before we could thank him. We still had the problem of getting the dryer upstairs, but at that moment, someone from the Classics department walked by, and Carson said hello. They caught up (yes, he does live in this complex too) and Carson asked if he wouldn't mind please giving us a hand in getting it up the stairs. That definitely felt like a blessing from God, having those two just "happen" to walk by right when we needed help!

That day, we got all the things from the storage unit into our apartment and returned the keys to it. We had dinner out that evening (at 10pm because we were unpacking and lost track of time) and then got blizzards on the way home.

We settled down to watch a movie in our junky living room. Sometimes you just gotta take a break!

We unpacked and organized on Thursday, and then that evening, I had dinner with some old coworkers. My former boss is due with a baby boy any second now!

We did a lot of looking at storage solutions and things for the new apartment. Didn't buy anything, but we have our eyes out.

And we went by the Tax Collector's office to register and title our car and get new licenses. I didn't actually know we were getting new pictures taken, I thought we could just change the addresses, but apparently that's not a thing and we had to go through the whole thing again. I don't love my new picture but I've always HATED my old one. 

I made Carson smile in this new one and he looks a lot less murdery. His passport picture still looks a little too serial killer for my taste, but at least here he looks like someone who's safe to have on the streets.

Found my wedding dress while unpacking.

We went for a walk at our old favorite park, Cascades Park. They've added this walkway over Monroe Street in the time we've been gone.

It was a busy week! You're lucky that I didn't take pictures of all the times we were unpacking, because this post would have been way longer!