Photos

It's been a while. We've been to Emily and Miguel's wedding, to Chattanooga for the weekend, and have laid low otherwise, except for a trip to the park to feed the ducks last week. Here are some photos.

p.s. Doesn't Emily look beautiful?!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello, everyone. We've had a short absence, partly because we had an accident involving our camera and a bottle of Gatorade. With some persistence and a flathead screwdriver, we can now get our camera to turn on, but it takes a while.

In the past week or so, Gabriel's gotten into his karate class, Patty's been sworn in as a court-appointed special advocate (CASA), and we've finished our dining room. We also had a death in the family but would like to keep that private. If you'd like to learn about Alzheimer's Disease or to help find a cure, please visit this web site. Now to focus on positive things, because after all, it's Thanksgiving!

Tomorrow, we will cook and eat and nap, and then Friday we leave for the great white north for Emily and Miguel's wedding. Woot! M just put the turkey into the brine solution, and it will marinate for the next 10 hours until it goes into the oven. Here are some assorted photos from the past week. Please to enjoy.

Here's the miracle ice cube that I found in my water last week. It had a long part sticking up out of the water, with a perfectly round tiny ball balanced on top. The ball fell off just before I took this picture:

Here's our CASA class after we were sworn in by Judge Miller. Skye is next to me in the tall section (aka the back row), oh, and I'm the one with the hot scarf and the black Ralph Lauren pumps with patent ribbon trim (hee hee):

Here's the dining room. It's a combination of antiques from both sides of the family and the store: Here's G's Native American headdress that the three of us made together one night last week (nice expression, right?): We went to Banana Republic today, and they remembered him as "Our Indian Boy." They're very nice there.

Now on to figure out what prayer I'm going to say for grace at the reception dinner. I'm thinking of making it a revival and inviting people up to be healed. After all, I do speak Southern now, y'all.

Now the list:

Five Things For Which I Am Thankful

by Patricia Angle

• Matt and the family we've created
• that my parents and Jack/Jen live here
• that we are financially secure so I can stay home with G
• that we are healthy so that we can enjoy every day
• that we have some really, really wonderful friends here
• that the world is big enough for variety but small enough to explore

Did you really think I'd stop at five?

Ahhhh-complishment!

Guess what? The Easter basket is out of the dining room!!! The glasses are off the dining room table! We have finally finished the buffet and brought that and the china cabinet upstairs. Here are photos of the finished product. And just for Nancy, my CASA folder:

New Member Of The Family

We'd like to announce the addition of Charkie (pronounced "Sharky") to our family. He's a chocolate lab, just like Choco, and they already get along great. Here's his adoption certificate:

G is taking great care of him (through the Webkinz web site). He gave him a cool rocket bed, a yard to play in, toys, and lots of yummy food.

Seriously, this Webkinz thing is pretty neat. There are learning opportunities in which he can earn "money" to care for his pet, and it's a fun activity to do with Mommy and Daddy. He's learning about what living things need, and he's learning about earning and spending.

Tomorrow, G will start a karate class, and we know that several of his friends already take the class. That means that we will feel right at home with the other families - something that's happening more and more these days!

Happy Halloween!

Well, it was for us, anyway! Here are a few photos from Halloween, as well as one from G's birthday in July and a couple from our trip up north.

Unnecessary Force

Here's what REALLY went down Tuesday night!

Star in Your Own JibJab!

G and Aunt Wowo have lots of fun together - like in this choreographed dance they recently performed.

Star in Your Own JibJab!

We didn't just have a bridal shower last weekend!

Star in Your Own JibJab!

The boys headed down to Waikiki and sent home this video.

Star in Your Own JibJab!

We Love Our Shins!

Laura parks wherever she darn well pleases - if you can get your eyes off her phat ride, notice the location of the yellow line.

Here's a cute picture from our trip back to Georgia on Monday. This was taken in Berea, Kentucky.

Yesterday was Heather's birthday celebration. I was one of the lucky few to score an invitation to the big event. We had lots of fun at dinner, and I hope that she felt as special as she is.

Is there anyone who doesn't know that we went to the Shins concert tonight? P may possibly be a little obsessed with them. It was even better than we'd hoped. Check out www.theshins.com ...and this video:

Well, Well, Mr. Smartypants!

G showed us a toy on Monday and asked if it was a chrysalis. Just to make sure we understood what he said, we asked him to clarify. Yep, he said "chrysalis." He said a caterpillar makes it, and when it comes out it's a butterfly. Today, he picked up M's R2D2 figure and said, "This is a beautiful toy for Daddy." A little while later, we taught him how to use the computer mouse and he successfully played his first game on the computer - Diego Safari.

He is also getting into arts and crafts. We spent the ENTIRE DAY doing painting, model building, and button gluing (it's our own personal art form). He was actually really good at following directions, which means that he REALLY enjoyed building the model bulldozer.

I finally located a web page memorial to my tattoo artist, Suzanne Fauser. You can find it here. If we get tattoos in the future, we will go to Brandon Bond. Our friends (Hi Vee!) told us about his studio last weekend, and then we noticed that he's really pretty famous, including appearances on several shows including L.A. Ink. We think he meets our standards. Feel free to let us know what you'd like to see inked on us, unless it's "nothing." We already kind of know what we want, but we're still good listeners.

Do I Look Fishy To You?

Went to the aquarium, was accused by "Captain Security" of stealing a banana after paying about $100 to get in for all four of us, ate at Flying Biscuit, and finally took some pics of my hair. Here are pictures:

p.s. I really did ask the guy if he thought I looked fishy.

A Dream Come True

It's been a busy week. M had work of course, and I had work, class, and tonight a meth seminar. Tony's here tonight and tomorrow, and then Jack will be here the rest of the weekend. We're going to the city tomorrow to do some fun stuff, and then there's a birthday party on Saturday and a few other things we'd like to do.

But the highlight of all highlights is the concert next Wednesday. Lots of people know how obsessed I am with The Shins and especially with James Mercer's voice and their lyrics... well, with figuring out what the heck they mean. Pure genius, and I get to see them live!!! And I'm getting a t-shirt!

Go Blue!

Someone didn't want his picture taken, but this is what we look like every Saturday. Good times!

Things This Guy and His Girlfriend Argue About

This is really funny.

Four Years!!!

Today's our four year wedding anniversary. We didn't really do anything out of the ordinary since we're both under the weather, but M did bring home lots of beautiful gladiolas. We just got the huge gift of the darkroom stuff last month, so we were happy just to relax a little. Happy Anniversary to us!

On a completely unrelated note, I heard the funniest thing today. A couple of parents we know, who shall remain nameless (okay, it was Lisa and Mark) told their son that they had to send his pacifiers to the astronauts so they could fix the space station with them. Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!! What will NASA think of next?

Our First Print

Our first b/w print, originally uploaded by mpgangle.

As some of you know, we have recently acquired all of the necessary equipment to start our own darkroom. This evening, we shipped the little one off to Bun and Papa's house so we could set it up (sorry, G, you lost your bathroom for now), figure out the f-stop and exposure time using test strips, experiment with chemistry a little, and got down to business.

Here is our second print, which is the same as our first one. The first one resides at Bun and Papa's as a thank-you. It's an 8x10, and it's black and white, although it was all white that day anyway...

We think that it could be improved by using a filter to increase the contrast a little bit. We also need to be careful with our negatives in the future, because you can see two small scratches on the photo.

If you have something you'd like printed or enlarged/reduced (at this time up to 8x10, because we don't have bigger paper yet, just send us the negative. It would be a nice surprise for someone you love for a birthday or holiday. We will start charging soon, so take advantage of our kindness now while you still have the chance! {If you're reading this blog, chances are we'll never charge you anyway...}

Enjoy!

What's Been Going On

It's been a long time, because birthday season is upon us: in only two weeks, we've had Mom and Dad K, Jen, Jack, Matthew and Laura, Christopher ("Typifer"), G's friend Allison, and two more parties this weekend. Lots of things have happened since the last time we blogged, so let's get down to it: Our MOMS Club got to tour our post office. We even saw our mail carrier, Mr. Clay, there, and he showed us our little cubby (which we share with one other house).

Granddad paid us a visit, and the boys all had quality bonding time.

We got Pa-Pa a slot machine (well, technically a pachislo machine) for his birthday.

Todd and Jane (and little Alex) got stranded in Atlanta for the night during a layover, so they rented a car and come to visit us. We hadn't seen them since our wedding, and we had a blast.

We celebrated Christopher's birthday twice! Here's the second party, at his house. G is not next to a mirror; that's Joshie.

Mattypie turned a year older, and we had a fun day. G wanted to help open the presents.

We don't have digital photos of Laura's and Mom's celebrations, but I did get a good snap of a different sort this afternoon. As I was working on birthday stuff at the kitchen table, I asked G what he was doing. He replied, "Just cleaning up." He was silent for a while, so I asked again. He said, "Just nothing. Just cleaning up." So I walked in on this: He had found the sunscreen and thought it would clean the floor very well. Incidentally, he also helped apply the second coat, which was Endust. The floor looks beautiful. We may have to use his method again next time.

We will be beginning to develop our own film and print our own photos, so look for those results in the near future.

Wowo

Been Jammin' More

We made a small change in our kitchen that made an enormous difference. Here are the before and after photos. The blue stripe in the first one is painter's tape, but really, do you even see it with that border in the picture? And don't even ask about the valances that were there. Let's just say they went with the border. So after the amount of effort it took to remove the bathroom wallpaper, we decided that the best course of action would be to paint the border into one big stripe. The good folks at Benjamin Moore Lost Mountain Paint helped us invent this color. They were very helpful, keeping the store open late when they knew we were on our way, remixing the color when it didn't work the first time (gratis), and when we left the paint there the owner tried to find our address or phone number to bring it home to us. That's why we love that store.

Group Photos

We took our time finishing our margaritas and made it to the back parking lot just in time to squeeze into the photos...

Drive For The Cure

Click on the album for photos from our big MINI Drive For The Cure yesterday. We started between Marietta and Atlanta (pretty much the border), stopped at the Premium Outlet Malls on Ga400, and ended up in Helen. Helen is Georgia's version of Frankenmuth but much smaller... good luck finding a pretzel there... but with much better tubing and rafting.

Photobucket Album