Blog slacking!

It seems as though we have abandoned our poor little blog for nearly 2 months. We're terrible. But things have been bustling and we can finally catch up! Granted at this point we don't have any pictures to add but that will come soon once things get organized :) We ordered seeds from Johnny's Seeds and High Mowing Seeds and everyone is sprouting and looking beautiful! It was a rough start for them since this is our first year actually researching how to be good little gardeners. Before, we sort of just threw things in the garden and said 'yep, that'll do!'. Things grew, but we were just getting started! We set them up in a spare room in the house with a heat lamp but there wasn't enough light getting into the room so when weather improved, into the greenhouse they went. Since then they've shot up real quick! We had our soil tested and it's better than we expected. We decided to buy certified organic seeds and ordered them from two great sources recommended to us by an organic farmer and Binghamton University professor with more knowledge than we knew what to do with. I'm making an attempt at succession planting so that we might be able to have our own produce all season long and well into winter (we'll see....!) With our periodic 5k's and Josh's 10 mile obstacle course run coming up, we've been trying to spend a decent amount of time at the gym and outside running so we don't collapse when race time comes :) which I nearly did at the Bronx this past weekend since I was slacking off with the gym time but I managed to finish without walking once, hooray! Thanks to help from my grandma and sister I earned some fundraising prizes including a t shirt, water bottle, and an adorable little stuffed lion toy that I'm sure the cats will get their claws into at some point. Josh earned himself a t shirt, and at some point soon I'll have pictures of all of this! (promise!) Josh has been busy busy hard at work on his web design business, everything's official! :) He's really excited about it all and I'm super proud of my business man! Somehow he has managed to finish a bunch of other house projects at the same time. He built us a 3 stage compost bin, cleaned top to bottom the entire garage and organized it all, and the backyard/patio work is coming up soon! I'm really hoping sometime soon there is actual spring weather to go with this spring month. I didn't appreciate that summer temperature tease that was followed by SNOW! Unacceptable. I want my warm temperatures and hikes in the woods and bike rides and roller blading and mountain biking and trail riding with my horsey, and I want it now!! :( Soon.... or else I'll throw a fit.........

Warrior Dash 2011

Time to play catch up again. Last year my sister managed to talk Josh and I into doing our first mud/endurance/obstacle race. Josh was all about it! I started having second thoughts as we stood at the starting line :) But it turned out to be a lot of fun and we ended up going to another two on our own, the Spartan Sprint (which was supposed to be a 5k but turned out to be over 4 miles) and the Run for your Lives Zombie 5k for halloween. I wish we had pictures of those :( but we have the medals from them! We are already planning on doing the Super Spartan run this year, which is one step up from the Spartan Sprint at a hefty 8+ miles of mud and obstacles. Here are some Warrior Dash photos...

Woo!

Aimee having second thoughts...

Go Josh go! 

Up and over walls then crawling under fences. Slowly getting a bit tougher...

Ahhhhh! Cold water!! I tried to tip toe my way in and Josh just dove head first! Show off... ;)

Yep, it's still cold. I think Josh is pretending he's Rambo. Towards the middle of this water obstacle it got deep enough I had to swim through it.

There were logs floating all the way across the mud pit that you either had to go over or under. Here's Josh diving over it, head first right into the water of course!

Lot's of cargo nets to climb up and over. Josh is comin' to get ya! Look at that determination :)

Last but not least 3 rows of fire to jump over. We also had an obstacle like this at Spartan Sprint but it was twice as wide and flames twice as tall. I had trouble mustering the courage to get over that one. This Warrior Dash fire obstacle wasn't too bad, but you still felt the heat!

In the end we got a medal for completing, icy cold showers to rinse off the mud and grime, and a free beer. I felt like a Warrior ;)

Maid of Honor!

Yep, Maid of Honor at my sister's wedding in September. Looking forward to: wearing that snazzy dress we found, cake, and seeing her in her pretty dress. Not looking foward to: the speech. The mere thought of it and i break into a cold sweat, and the room starts doing the zooming in-zooming out thing. Okay okay it's not that bad :) but public speaking is not my forte. At all. There will be wine however, and the groom-to-be is a good guy, so it should be easy enough. And Josh will be there since he is one of the grooms men (he has to wear cowboy boots! :) can't wait heehe). I'll probably just assume my usual public speaking stance with eyes glued to a note card in my hands while talking really fast and ignoring any need to take a breath. Hooray! ...or something. But the snazzy dress! Mine is going to be a dark purple. The strapless part scares me a little. They better make sure they cinch me up tight in there because I do not come with enough of my own equipment to hold that dress up! Eek!

Veggie Garden Planning

We are still beginners with this vegetable garden stuff, but I have a feeling we are off to a late start with getting seeds going inside. My sister has a mini green house set up in her laundry room with with about a dozen little seedlings sprouting up! We better get moving. Last night we started picking out what we want to plant this year. Josh had two stipulations: no squash and no pumpkins. We had a bit of a yucky grub problem with those two veggies last year. These nasty little things burrowed straight into the center of the stems and the beautiful (and huge!) zucchini and squash and pumpkins we had going died off rather quickly. Sad growing season. But I managed to take some nice pictures of them in their healthier days that I should hunt up and add on here. So to avoid any more bug problems until we are a bit more experienced, we're staying away from those guys. Planned so far are the following: watermelon, cherry tomato, bell peppers, broccoli, basil, carrots, rainbow chard, beets, and sunflowers. We'll have to figure out where we are putting them in the garden and see how much room is left over, then maybe a couple more things, but we don't want to over load ourselves.  Looking forward to starting these seeds :)

Problem solved

Mentioned previously was my problem of deciding what to do with my new found dish washing freedom... well, problem solved....
 NAP TIME!

Dishwasher!!

Oh it IS that big of a deal that it needs a post all to itself! We got a new dishwasher recently :) It was an exciting day. We had one but I'm pretty sure it was from the 70's, and it decided it wasn't in the mood to make things clean and sparkly anymore. I did not find the left over soap and random food bits quite as humorous as the old dishwasher did. The phrase oldie but a goodie need not apply. However, on a happier note, the new lil' dishwasher is sleek and sassy! ;) Oh yes, she is sassy and she cleans those dishes with pizzazz! (I humanize every inanimate object... I'm not sure why....) I've never seen my dishes so shiny. I didn't know it was possible! And until we put a cabinet drawer underneath it, the cats are loving the new hidey-hole, at least until it starts humming and whirring once it starts up, then it's a deadly metal monster out to end their days. But to me, I don't care what kind of noise comes out of it, it is my new favorite thing. Hooray for dish washers! How will I ever decide what to do with all this extra free time??

A blog in a sad state of affairs...

We are so terrible at this blog thing. Give us time, we'll catch on ;)

Post-Apocalyptic Skillset

There she is, Queen of the Manor... with the eye of the huntress, the focus of a 170 year old zen master, and the penchant for murder... I mean the ability to hit the bullseye! We have been taking on archery as a hobby. We took some beginner classes at the local archery range, and aside from sore shoulder muscles, we are hooked! We each got new bows and we go every week to fire off some arrows. These aren't the kind of bows you might imagine when someone says bow and arrow. These things have pulleys and all sorts of gadgets on them. A compound bow, firing off arrows so fast and so hard it almost scares you every time.

I fancy myself a marksmen. One day we will try to take down a deer or something. That is, if we ever get good enough to make sure we are not just torturing the wildlife. And furthermore, it's pretty cold outside. We have some great 4 season camping gear which I'm going to test out tonight in the backyard. Finally got the sleeping bags and cold weather gear to test the elements. Not like its been too cold lately though. Here's hoping I can convince Aimee to join me in the lamest camping party this side of the Mississippi.

GIANTS WIN

The dust is still settling around here from the Giants trudge to the finish line. We flew my brother up from Mississippi to watch the game with us, and the bet paid off! What better way to see a long absent sibling than to freak out and scream at the TV together. Yes we painted our faces, no we are not ashamed of it. ;) (Post edit from Aimee: "I am... a little.")

2011 was a great year. 2012 is shaping up to be even better.

We got new and interesting projects coming, new trips are being planned, a possible new addition to the family, and the Giants will kick off another promising season right after summer. First thing will be to migrate all the old home improvement posts to this blog, and then lean on the gas pedal with the new projects.

GIANTS ARE WORLD CHAMPIONS!
ELI IS ELITE!
BIG BLUE WRECKING CREW!

Massage Monday!

We didn't get to celebrate our anniversary on the actual day because we played hosts to a Giants game at the house, which they won so that was nice :) So today I treated Josh to a couples massage at Traditions at the Glen complete with champagne and chocolate covered strawberries! His first massage and he loooved it. I had to hold back my giggles when I heard his occasional "aahhhh....." Too bad I didn't take a picture of the pretty strawberries before we chowed down. I think we'll be going back for my birthday in a week ;)

Blackguard animals!!

 I'm obsessed with cute animal pictures.... I can't help myself!

Pepper was looking for a high five... he was left hanging... 

These two are soo in love.  

Peekaboo!

She wore herself out playing in the toy box. She just passed out in the box :)

Antero posing. He knows he's beautiful!

 Sleepy time.

These two again!!

 Annie likes the Giants too :)

 They're men. They try not to show their feelings... but some things you just can't hide...

<3 <3 <3

My sister and I at Appaloosa Nationals in Oklahoma. That was my first year competing at Nationals. I went again the next year.

"Carrots?" 

Checking out the goats outside (and looking awesome!) 

He's a spit fire! 

His opinion of pictures.

Old Hiking Photos

These were taken with my dearly departed canon powershot. He ran off :( haven't seen him for months.  I think he decided I was an unfit camera mother after having been dropped in the road, left for days to be chewed on by some wild animals in the night before being found and returned home. He's been replaced by a nikon D5100!! (pictures with this camera to follow)

 There was a lot of hair... but the lighting was too good to pass up.

Sunset photos at BU nature preserve

 Jones Park with the pow wow circle in the woods ;)

Powershot did auto focus and I tried a billion time to make that fern look crisper :( good enough!

He is throwing a big rock onto a big branch in order to make a walking stick. silly guy.

More of the pow wow circle! :)

More forest buildings found

The golden child of this tree family. I thought it was funny!

We reached the summit! (note his fancy walking stick he made)

 More BU nature preserve.

I thought I had more hiking pictures.... I'll find them. Can't wait for spring!!

Christmas fun time

Since the blog hadn't even been born yet, I thought I would include some christmas pretty things that you missed. We made these for the holidays!

It was our first time baking and decorating cookies. I think we did alright.

And our first time making a gingerbread house! I think we did awesome!!

And this... well I'm just going to leave this here...

~Aimee