relaxation

so i am thoroughly enjoying not having to do anything in the evenings so much that i neglected to post for a couple of days. i know i know, it only takes a couple of minutes... expect a post drought over the holiday weekend as well because we are flying out tmrw evening to nashville and won't be back until monday evening. my uncle is having his new year's bash on saturday (was moving during new year's and had to postpone). everyone in tn is really excited to see jake (as they should be - he's growing up!!) and we're excited to get out of the city for a few days.
on monday nite, we went to the mall for no reason and had an enjoyable evening just walking around together and picking up a few clothes items for growing jake. tuesday and wednesday nites were simply watching american idol and hanging out together. tonite we have to finish getting all packed up for the trip!!
what is everyone else doing for memorial day weekend??

busy day, part deux

so sunday was busy too (what do you know?). after church, we visited our friend jason's newly purchased and moved into condo which is looking really nice after putting his touch on the place with a fresh coat of paint. we then took a wrong turn and ended up at the mexican place we love near our first apartment for a nice little diet break. afterwards, we went home and hung a shelf and a bunch of pictures we framed from our saturday purchases. i started hp&ootp, but mainly tried to relax the rest of the day in prep for the week to come.

busy day

so yesterday we left the house at 9:30a to have jake's 3 month pictures done. we get to springfield mall and the pictures are cute, but this place is really cool because you just have to wait an hour and your pictures (all sizes, poses) are ready! so in the mean time, we walked over to ruby tuesday's to have lunch. lo and behold they have 30 "low carb" items on their menu! they've really gotten on the bandwagon with this craze. all the items list calories, fat grams, net carbs, etc. so it's easy to see that "low carb" can encompass more than you may want. i settled on a cajun chicken salad that had pretty good numbers. anyways... the pictures were great and we spent too much. we took care of some shopping (frames, etc.) at target (connected to the mall and has an escalator for your shopping cart!!!) before we went to the main event of the day - Shrek 2! yes, we ventured into unchartered territory for us and took jake to the movie! it was funny because we'd ask him if he was ready to go see shrek and he'd grin really big. however, once the lights went out in the theater, jake's lights went out. i guess we've just got him trained to fall asleep when it's dark haha. we had planned to go to outback and blockbuster to celebrate the end of the semester as a family, but earlier in the day, some friends from church called and invited us over for some dinner with others. played some horseshoes and tied my buddy chris at 12 and the food was really good. we got home a bit later than expected (~10pm, more than 12 hours out haha), put some of the stuff we got at target away, put jake to bed, and put ourselves to bed. what a day!

d-o-n-e

well, it's finally over and i'll probably realize it in the morning. right now i'm relieved to have finished everything respectably well. i've got to make sure i use my two week break wisely because there's not much more than a long weekend of a break between summer and fall semesters (then the wonderful 7-8 week break over christmas and january between fall and spring semesters). i'll be sleepin' good tonite!!

speaking of coffee...

maybe i should start having some before i ride the train in the morning. for the first time (not sure about metro rides), i missed my train stop. now the funnier part is that i didn't oversleep as you would expect. i actually woke up when we arrived at my stop, put my book in my bag, and my ticket in my pocket. however there were a lot of people already in the line to get off so i just waited my turn... and fell back asleep. yargh! so i metroed back to my work area and went to the starbucks on the way to the office (as opposed to my normal one just past my office) and they were slow and the line was long. but i finally got to my office!
tonite is the last nite of the semester - just gotta finish the open book final (notes and page numbers for all the questions already done along with 4 of the 12 questions) and the last 2-3 page essay (yeah need to start that...). but it's all good because tmrw morning it will all be over....

coffee & an exercise in conversation

let's try some forced conversation. what's your favorite starbucks (or other if you think starbucks is becoming a ubiquitous corporate atrocity in the name of expensive coffee (not my opinion hehe!!)) drink?
i'll start:

• on a cold or regular day: grande caramel macchiato or grande vanilla latte (depending on what I had yesterday)
  
• on a regular or hot day: venti caramel frappuccino
  
• on a cheap day: tall verona + 5 splenda + half & half
  

kg... no the other one

kg played great last nite in the 7th game of what's been a great t'wolves-kings series. great ending coming down to the wire like that with the entire series at stake.

what do you get when you add two starting yankees pitchers to a team already fighting for a division crown? the houston astros. they're doing great this year! not that i'm rooting for them (go cubs), i just thought their offseason moves were a stroke of genius (make that luck).

so the gas station at the end of the street is running a great promotion that i'm looking forward to cashing in on at least a couple of times this summer. you fill up your tank 4 times (10 gallons min.) and get 2 orioles tickets (from a select list of games). with as much gas as we use in a week, we've already gotten 3 fill-ups in only a couple of weeks. maybe we can even cash in 3 times!

i've got the pistons picked for tonite's game 7 against the nets and the lakers for game 1 against the t'wolves tomorrow nite. so go those teams!

hard at work

like i said... it's a busy finals week and i've got to juggle priorities :-)

perfect game and playoffs

i never realized how rare perfect games were until they threw in the stat that randy johnson's perfect game (over our beloved (so i root for the nearby orioles now too) braves) was only the 17th and he was only the 15th person to throw one. when i was a kid, i looked at nolan ryan with 7 (yes, 7) no-hitters, but no perfect game and i was disappointed in him. haha i know my opinion didn't matter and i was a kid, but i couldn't get over how he could have 7 (yes, 7) and not a perfect game. well, as now understood, it is a much rarer feat than i knew then.

as for the nba playoffs (does anyone watch nhl before the playoffs - or before the cup finals even?? i mean i keep up with the standings, but...), they're going excitingly well albeit forever long. i mean come on - how can there not have been a game monday nite?? it looks like the lakers finally realized the playoffs were going on so they could set their dials to "actually try hard". if they keep playing at the level they have for the last 4 games, they'll win the whole thing easy. although i like them, it annoys me that they waste their talent and the fans' money by not always playing their hardest. what i'd really like to see is: lakers win, malone retires with his ring, gp stays mad and goes to some other team (or back to seattle?), and kobe go to the clippers (or somewhere that has the money for him and needs the help. shaq and the bench warmers would make the playoffs next year, hey even the second round probably (shaq is that dominating). i've hears kobe for AI, but as bad as philly booed kobe in that all-star game there's no way he should want to go there and there's no way the lakers front office seriously wants the cancer of AI. he's good, puts fans in the seats (shaq would do it anyways), but he peaked in 2001.

until next time....

less sickly boy

jake is doing a lot better after the breathing treatments at home in response to yesterday's dr. visit and today's checkup. poor little guy just has to tough it out - especially since it is most likely a virus (i.e. cold). good news!

sickly boy

as noted a couple of days ago, jake was getting worse not better and it got bad enough (i.e. fever) that L took him to the dr. yesterday and they gave him this breathing treatment thing and now we're getting ready to go back to see the results. we can tell he's doing a lot better and his fever has gone down. don't tell me they can't give him anything! (dr.s were hesitant until he had a fever) i hope this puts him the road to recovery, but that cough... youch!

i'll see your freshman 15 and raise you a marriage 20

i don't remember the last time i saw the lighter side of 200 lbs., but it was probably around freshman year in high school (93-94). i gained my freshman 15 (like most people) as a result of too many cokes and not knowing how to eat right. by the end of college i was averaging about 225 lbs. when i graduated and moved to arlington my apt. complex had a nice fitness center so me and some friends worked out very regularly and 6 months later at our wedding i was as svelte as ever at about 215. so then comes marriage and a wife who can cook really good. and then comes the pregnancy and couvade syndrome - trust me and the weight scale, it's real. so in light of all this, we're doing one of these crazy low-carb diet "lifestyle change" and exercising on our new elliptical machine (which is actually enjoyable when you watch sportscenter at the same time). wish me luck!!

busy weekend

whew! after the yardwork on saturday, we went to fredericksburg (f'burg) to run some errands (not super wal-mart this time) and grab some lunch. lo and behold what do we see - an o'charley's being built!!!!! yes, one of our favorite restaurants and reasons to miss tennessee is opening in f'burg (bristol, va was the farthest north before). our excitement could not be contained to merely "woohoo!!!s" as we sounded like screaming kids at a concert haha. we got home later than expected and then fixed up and cleaned up some things around the house and then i worked on some hw later in the evening. after church on sunday, we had dinner at home and somehow it was already 2pm (30 minutes visiting with friends and then 30 minutes driving home will do that...). i had to go to work to get some more work done so i didn't get there until 3pm and stayed until 8pm. came home, had dinner, watched tv, and did more hw. also, jake is still sick and seems to be getting a bit worse. his cough sounds pitiful and he hardly wants to eat. :-(

good cheap fun

last nite we went to one of L's coworker's daughter's elementry talent show and then to one of those buffet restaurants like ryan's. it all made for a really fun evening that didn't cost much at all. most of the kids in the talent show did song and dance numbers and then didn't sing but only wiggled around a bit. it was a lot of fun though.

lawn care

we bought the townhome and the townhome association does a good job of removing snow from the parking lot and the trash gets taken away very well, so i assumed that they also cut our little patch of grass as well. how dare i assume! haha anyways, as you know it's the month of may and the grass has been growing for a while now. anyways, i went down to home depot and bought a nice weedeater and took care of the lawn like a good homeowner.

before:


after:

so i bought a frownfelter

i meant to post this recently, but a good friend of ours is an artist and is moving. for the first time, she had an art show and i was able to get something to remember her by. the more i looked at it through the nite, the more i liked it. check it out...

a bit more on iraq...

check out this newly released (by NBC) image showing 8 soldiers watching along as an iraqi prisoner is abused. even bigger is that #1 identified #4, 5, 7, and 8 were military intelligence officers.

r & r

last nite was a great nite of rest and relaxation after multiple late nites of paper writing and before the final week long push to finish the semester. we came home a bit early because L didn't feel well and so she picked me up so we could take home a fan i've had but not used (or even plugged up) in my office for the past year. jake is back to not feeling well with the stuffy nose and now a bit of a cough going on so we took care of him while we just rested on the couch while we watched tv for a couple hours. during this time she called the ped. and they reitterated that they can't give jake any med.s until he's 6 months, but they suggested sitting with him in a steamy bathroom. so i did that with him for about 15 minutes while lindsay started dinner. then i did the dishes and received a great call from our pastor while L finished dinner. after jake had his dinner, we all pretty much went to bed (jake to his own of course) and watched the finales of frasier and er. i started to doze off during the end of er, so if anyone could "comment" back on this message and give me a quick summary of happenings that'd be great!!

The cicadas are coming!

Beware!
I lived through the (13 year) brood XIX in smyrna, tn while in kindergarten and during a summer internship after my first year of college. Now the (17 year) brood X is sprouting here in the DC area. Wonderful summer approaching... ;-)

i love this game!

so i've thoroughly enjoyed nba basketball this season. one thing that helps is that i've been playing nba virtual gm on espn.com's fantasy games. daily player moves really helps you get a feel for who is actually good and who exceeds expectations, etc. sadly enough however is that i've yet to see the wizards play. yes, i had 41 opportunites to see jordan play and i never went. i was a bulls fan from 6th grade thru the 98 breakup and somehow i really missed out there. i even had a group of friends go and invite me and i declined to work on hw (never again...). granted, it was near the wedding and i actually had to get it done. anywho... this post is supposed to be about the incredibly competitive 2nd round of the playoffs!! ever series is tied up at 2-2. what's been interesting is how the pacers, spurs, lakers, pistons, and nets have dominated at home and been beaten on the road this round. the t'wolves and kings are playing incredibly exciting games in their own crazy way. i give my best to the teams and i'm looking forward to at least 2 or 3 game 7's!!

summer getaways

temporarily scheduled getaways. may not all happen.

• sat 5/29 - mon 5/31 VA Beach - may be cancelled for a cookout at our place.
  
• fri 6/11 - sun 6/13 Boston - gotta burn a free southwest plane ticket before 7/25 and the red sox will be in town
  
• fri 7/2 - mon 7/5 Knoxville (set in stone)
  
• fri 7/16 - sun 7/18 Atlantic City
  
• fri 8/13 - sun 8/15 DE Beaches (questionable, but want to get to the beach once or twice this summer)
  
• thurs 9/2 - mon 9/6 NYC
  

el finito

wow! finally done with the research paper on anglicanism for church history. that was a bear! i've been up way past bedtime for three nites in a row. however, with this past weekend/week's writings done, there is only about a week left in the semester and i can definitely see the light at the end. only readings, a timeline quiz, a discussion, one last essay, and the matching final left for OT and just readings and short/paragraph answer final for CH. one more week... one more week... one more week...

rogue soldiers

so what in the world is going on in iraq?? a (hopefully) select few of our soldiers and what seems to be the majority of their chain of command are giving all the rest of our 1+ million soldiers a bad name with their disgusting, despicable acts against iraqi prisoners. a large portion already hates we the good ol' us of a for being there and now this?? i also read that this was a complete morale ruiner for those good, hard working soldiers who are over there. you think?? and that's the last thing they need after some have been held over an extra four months past their standard one year tour. i hope and pray that some clarity comes to this entire situation. if not for me, for my family - my rev. dr. LTC uncle sam wood is slated to leave for 4 months of training on june 7 and then he will be heading to iraq as a chaplain.

been waiting all day

so in a stunning change of events, i've been excited to post for some reason. maybe i'm thinking about actually posting consistently or something. or maybe i'm a little extra stressed here at the end of the semester and this acts as a wonderful stress reliever. whatever it may be, here i am.
so something i realized that hindered my posting enthusiasm is that my days are pretty routine. thus, if i tried to tell you about my day every evening, you'd be hearing the same thing and it never makes you feel good to come to the realization that you have a boring life :-)
so i've got to comment on some other things to spice it up for me and you.

drowning in hw

ugh and a month goes by... well, school is almost done. i've been working on homework in almost every bit of my free time (at home) for the past week. jake's doing great as usual - smiling, laughing, eating well, and doing good at daycare. he got a stuffy nose for a few days when me and L got the same from pollen and temperature changes. glad to be over all that mess!! back to writing a paper...

congrats!!!

a big congrats goes out to kevin and stacey and their engagement this past weekend!!! can't wait for the wedding on nov. 6th down in 'bama.