Christmas 2007

Despite us being far away from our family and friends we had a great Christmas and don't want our holiday (aka rest and relaxation) to end. We are so greatful for our family members for sending us fantastic gifts. We opened presents this morning, made breakfast, Dan took a christmas nap (of course), we fiddled with our presents, called family, fiddled with our gifts some more, enjoyed our free time together and made a yummy ham dinner, followed by Harry Potter. It was great! We only wish we were closer to our families...especially so we could have played with our new niece and nephew!!!

Here are some pictures of the day:

Clearly we are enthralled with our gifts...and sleepy

Talking with our families - we miss you!!!

Carlie cooking fudge and Dan baking his bread

***We must insert here that we were able to take all these pictures of the two of us and not just one of us at a time because we received the coolest gift ever. See below:

We spent most of the afternoon playing with this little guy. It is a super flexible camera stand that can pretty much attach to ANYTHING....it's amazing! So we placed it in all sorts of crazy places and had lots of fun.

Here is our post-christmas, destroyed apartment. The camera was attached to our celing light.

Dan enjoying his Christmas chocolate - he's a chocoholic

Dan's amazing rolls. Aren't they good looking? He baked them on his new pizza stone

We like making a fancy dinner, even if it's just the two of us.

Dan has his goatee back!!! He had a few days off from the CG...

The rolls turned out fantastic!

There is still 1 minute of Christmas left here, so MERRY CHRISTMAS and We hope everyone has a great end to the year and a fantastic New Years!

Read More

Our Bests and Worsts

Dan's Top 3 Best Things That Happened in 2007

1. Gaining a nephew (technically 2006) and a niece.
2. Graduating from Coast Guard Boot Camp.
3. Learning new creative skillz (painting, bread baking, upholstering, sewing, general cooking, baking, make-up, refurbishing furniture, pottery, and home decor)



Dan's Top 3 Worst Things That Happened in 2007

1. Being away from Carlie from January to May.
2. Being away from Family ALL YEAR LONG.
3. Having to give input on this blog - jk...kinda!!!





Carlie's Top 3 Best Things That Happened in 2007

1. Graduating from Willamette University - yay!!!!
2. Driving across the country with Natalie this summer
3. Being a leader for TaB (Take A Break) - doing service in Texas.



Carlie's Top 3 Worst Things That Happened in 2007

1. Being away from family and friends while in Florida.
2. Being sick all winter/spring without Dan to bring me chicken noodle soup.
3. Leaving the college life and running track for the real world and laziness.

Read More

The usual

Well, it's been a couple of days since we last posted. Nothing too exciting has happened since then :) Carlie has been busy at work and Dan has been busy being creative...the usual. Currently we are trying to get all our christmas gifts and cards out, it's unfortunate that we have to mail our gifts this year rather than see our family in person. But we've got to do what we've got to do. It has been more interesting here in Florida. The weather is absolutely wonderful, 70-80's and beautiful sunshine. I'm even thinking of maybe going to the beach later this week.

We've also made some friends from church, which is exciting because we've been friend-less in Florida for quite some time. We've been hanging out for game nights and also went to an international dinner night (I made paella and it turned out pretty good!). I've also been meeting a friend to go running every Tuesday and Thursday. It's good motivation to get back in the habit of running again. This Saturday I'll also be running in another 5K, the Say No To Drugs Holiday Classic - this time I'll be in slightly better shape! There is also a free all you can eat pancake breakast afterwards and lots of prizes....all I've got to do is run over a steep bridge for 3.1 miles and cross the finish line at the beach! Sounds good.

We hope you all are enjoying the crazy few weeks before Christmas. We Miss You! Remember: When shopping at Target please put all unwanted items back in their proper locations and do not ask team members ridiculous questions. Thank You!

Read More

O (teeny tiny) Christmas Tree!

This weekend Dan and I bought our teeny tiny Christmas Tree! It's 3ft tall! We've never had a fake tree before, so this Christmas is a little weird. In Oregon, we go out into the woods, pick out our Christmas tree, chop it down, bring it home and decorate it. EVERYONE in Florida has fake trees, people at work even laughed at the idea of having a real one. "But it'll die...." Apparently, they don't know about water. But in any case, it was fun decorating our tree and adding some lights to our apartment. We still have some more decorating to do. Dan is also making his own stocking, because he didn't like any at the store and he wants to make one that is more "him" We'll see if this happens....and what it will look like???


This weekend was also great because we have a new family member! Our niece Leila, was born and we are soooooo excited and can't wait to see her cuteness in person. Hopefully it'll be soon....

Read More

A surprisingly busy and creative week

The week of Thanksgiving proved to be quite busy for us. Dan had most of the week off, but he of course found lots of creative things to do with his free time. I on the other hand was very busy with work at Target. As the day after Thanksgiving is one of the biggest shopping days of the year, I ended up working overtime and don't ever want to work retail again. It wasn't nearly as busy as I thought it would be, but the combination of long work hours (9-12 hrs days) and lack of sleep (about 4 hrs a few nights) I am now sick.

Thanksgiving Day turned out to be pretty peaceful. We made a ham and other typical thanksgiving food, had a quiet day and took naps. I also ran in the 5K Turkey Trot with some new friends from Church. There was thousands of people running and I definitely definitely am out of shape!!

Dan made that delicious Apple Pie!

Dan and I also bought ourselves an early Christmas present. We've decided to buy just a couple things for both of us for christmas, rather than individual gifts. With the good sales at Target and my discount we got a really nice sewing maching that we've been wanting for awhile. We are such big dorks. We found ourselves shopping at JoAnn's for fabric on Black Friday, rather than hitting up the much more 'cooler' stores at the mall. Now we are both working on making Jackets....we'll have to take pictures of the final product. Let's just say now that Dan's jacket looks like a dragon slayer jacket....


We've also been creative in other areas. We turned an old rolling shelve that we found by the dumpster (sounds sketchy, but it's where everyone in our apt complex leaves their old furniture) into neat looking, cream colored non-rolling shelves.




We also did some upholstering and turned 2 cheap bookcases into upholstered benches with shelving. Dan did an amazing job and even made some hanging drapes for above our bed. I wish we could post pictures. Unfortunately, our fantastic air bed (that we always brag about) also popped this week (contributing to my lack of sleep) and so our bedroom is a disaster. Once we get a new one and fix everything up we'll post the pictures of our new master pieces.

Read More

Trying to be optimistic

Well, see below where I inserted that maybe just maybe we'll be able to go home for christmas - that's a lie. It's almost definite that we are stuck in Florida....forever!! Well at least for the holidays. But since we are such downers about being stuck in Florida today we are going to post some pictures of the fun times we've had while being here.

My friend from WU, Ashley and I at the most unique/craziest/biggest McDonald's in the World. Yes, that is a giant box of fries.

My favorite part about fl - the beach!

During Ashley's visit we went to a water park called Wet n Wild. Our friends the Linam's (from dan's old boat) came with us too. Afterwards we had dinner at Medievel times...it was pretty cool.

This is us in downtown Miami. For our birthdays we spent our birthday money on a little trip south. Miami is about 4hrs away, so it was a quick weekend trip. We had a great time checking out the 'interesting' locals at South Beach, walking around the city, going to two art galleries and visiting a old/new(er) mansion. We drove back by route of Alligator Alley and Carlie STILL has not seen an alligator. She feels it's hopeless now...

One of the best times we've had in Florida is when Dan's parents came to visit us in September. They definitely spoiled us and took us out to do all sorts of things. The picture above was taken right before we went on a boat ride around the bay. We saw dolphins and looked for shells on a tiny tiny island and enjoyed the good weather.

While Dan's parents were here we couldn't miss hitting up the theme park capitol of the world...ORLANDO. So we went to Universal Studios and it's sister park Islands of Adventure. We love theme parks and roller coasters so it was really fabulous! There was a Spiderman ride, which was pretty fun for Dan and pretty much the whole day we were soaking wet from the surprisingly soaking-wet water rides . Carlie really liked the Jurassic Park and Dr. Seuss areas too.

Dan's parents also surprised us and got us a really neat bbq grill for our birthdays. It now makes are patio area look not so sketch and of course it makes fabulous food for us too! Yum sishkabobs!

Okay - we have more pictures... But we'll continue to post them to let ya'll know what we've been doing.

Read More

The beginning...

So here we are! Well, by 'we' I mean Dan and I, but really I'm sure I'll be the only one keeping everyone updated. Most likely Dan will be sleeping - since that is his favorite hobby.

So we (again, I really mean I) thought it would be nice to start a little blog to let our friends and family know what we've been up to and how things are going WAY over here in sunny Florida. It really is sunny ALL THE TIME! Actually, the weather is really great now because it's no longer 100 degrees and incredibly humid. Sometimes it's actually a little chilly at night and it reminds me of Oregon. We miss Oregon A LOT - but most of you already know that...

Tonight we went to our church's thanksgiving dinner. We are on the activities committee, so we actually had to do alot of work planning everything. It turned out pretty swell and we even have a giant tub of leftover food! I'm sure it'll last until the real Turkey Day...but by then we might not want to have a big holiday dinner anymore!! We're sad that we won't be able to meet with family and friends for the holidays (well, maybe for Christmas?????) but we'll be thinking of everyone!

We'll be sure to update some more later!

Read More