Nashvegas!!

Adam and I were supposed to head up to Nashville together (and meet Rock Brian and Denise) at the end of June for our friend Becky and Justin's wedding, but due to Adam's bum ankle he wasn't able to make it. So I went solo. My awesome friends Laura and Erik allowed us to stay at their hizzee while they were (sadly) out of town which was awesome cause their house is cozy and they gifted us this:

The artist is Ken Taylor who also does Avett Brothers posters from time to time and they are always pretty amazing. So when we heard Erik was going and this was going to be there we asked for one and he delivered. Pretty awesome friend!

We had one goal for our weekend in Nashville: to find some good soul food or BBQ. This BBQ place in downtown Nash is pretty famous so we went to check it out : Jack's. Quite possibly the blandest BBQ and sides I have ever had but perhaps I have been spoiled by Alabama and Texas bbq. I was so disappointed.




Rehearsal dinner was at Blackstone Brewery where Becky and Justin met. It was nice and of course with all of the Georgia girls there there were lots of laughs and good times.

Ok. Side note. There are Elvis statues (and impersonators) all over Nashville. 

After rehearsal dinner we went to Layla's Bluegrass Inn which is a dive bar/music joint so of course I loved it. Becky and Justin had taken us there when we visited for the Avett Brothers last Halloween so it was fun to get to go back. We ended up going Saturday night too after the wedding and were completely entertained, not by the band, but by the crazy man who was not an Elvis impersonator, but I think just was convinced that in another life he was Elvis. Half of the bar sat and laughed and just watched him gyrate all over the dance floor. It was like a car wreck, you wanted to look away and watch at the same time. Of course after a few drinks some of us made it onto the dance floor to just dance close to him. We were convinced that he was so fertile and hopped up on testosterone that he could impregnate women in the bar just by shaking his hips at them. Classy.

The wedding was west of Nashville at a place called Front Porch Farms and was absolutely perfect. By far, one of the most beautiful wedding venues I have ever seen.

Becky and Justin getting married under a huge oak tree.

Denise and Brian

Me and Denise

The ceremony was short and sweet because it was hot!! I will just post a link to some pics of the wedding. The two ladies taking the pictures were incredible as you can see here:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.243271895684040.71561.125179487493282&type=1

Rock and Brian at the reception

Here is my date since Adam was absent... he's no Adam Foster but still pretty cute, although not a very good dancer...

The sunset and dancing were the best part.. 

oh.. well except for the Boones Farm "wine" at every table.. took me back to high school.

To finish off the weekend I got to see Kristy and Cade for a little while on Sunday before I headed out and was having so much fun with them at the airport that I missed my flight and had to stay one more night.. :(

Goooooooaaaaaallllllll!!!!!!!

Adam scored two sweet tickets to the US vs. Panama game of the CONCACAF Gold Cup last month in Tampa! And so we went. And of course when we have time we never take the fast route but prefer to take the long scenic route winding through little Florida towns so we can take it all in.












On the way up we stopped at a little authentic Mexican market/carniceria near lake okeechobee to grab some food. The dirtier the better so we found the biggest hole in the wall we could find. I don't even remember the name. Assuming it even had a name. The food was awesome (we ordered seconds) but by far the best part was the drama we walked in on when we entered the store.

First off this place I am pretty sure was owned and run by pakistanis. When we walked in there was some yelling in Spanish at the check out counter and we got to witness a very drunk and very unruly Mexican guy screaming at the guy behind the counter. I don't speak Spanish but obviously they did enough as the wife came out from the kitchen with her wooden spoon yelling and threatening the poor little guy. I think he just wanted another beer. The cops came (and let him go!!) and we were able to finally enjoy our food at last. South Florida entertainment at it's best. Ole!!

We made it to the only hostel in Tampa which was a lucky find. The owner had a healthy obsession with gram parsons and thus it is called gram's place. If you are ever in tampa and looking for a cool place to stay off the beaten path I recommend it: http://www.grams-inn-tampa.com
All of the rooms have musical themes and there are various neat lofts and spots in this small fenced in lot to just sit or look around. I heart old hippies that invite people into their homes.

















We made it to the games and had awesome seats like 3rd row centerfield.





Unfortunately the U.S. lost to Panama (what?!?!?!?-- thanks to some shitty refereeing) but we had a great time none the less. We were surrounded by panamanians who were pumped. Can't really blame them. The US still advanced but ended up losing to Mexico in the final. Wonder what our Mexican friend was getting into THAT night.

Sunday morning we had brunch with Joe and the fam (my friend and colleague from the usgs office in Tampa). We had Gouda cheese grits. Great end to the trip!

Rocky mountain high.

The day after rock and brian's wedding I flew straight to Denver to attend and present at the modflow and more conference in golden co. I lucked out and got a room at the last minute at the table mountain inn in downtown which is walking distance to everything. The weather was perfect. I have missed the mountains since I lived in Montana and it is always nice to get some fresh mountain air.



My talk was first thing on Monday morning. It went well although I went over (as always) and I got lots of great feedback. http://igwmc.mines.edu/conference/MODFLOWandMore2011_Program.pdf

The conference was great. The talks were informative. The discussions were interesting and I made some new friends. I also got to hang out with these crazy, fun, smart guys: chris (my previous mentor who brought me on to the survey who moved last year up to headquarters in Reston. Joe would say to this "he is all fancy now"), Joe (who I currently work with at the usgs and is one of the funniest people I have ever met) and frans schaars (a member of what we call the Dutch mafia-- a bunch of crazy funny smart dutch guys in our field). The week was full of crude jokes and lots of laughs. Maybe it was the high altitude. Here we are at the coors factory.


The last night of the conference a couple of people from the survey hosted a house party at the bed and breakfast they were staying at, pansy's parlor. John Doherty was there (another genius who has an incredible sense of humor. His stories and lectures are normally peppered with various colorful phrases and "bad words" as Maia would say). I also got to spend a lot of time with Eve who is our technical advisor for the southeast region). She likes to drink beer and shoot guns and is always entertaining, as well as extremely nice and helpful.


Here she is (along with Keith halford of the Nevada office) telling a funny story.

All in all a great week! But I was glad to get home.

Trip to Tejas

Last month we traveled to Texas for a few days for Rachel and Brian's wedding. For those who don't know Rachel ( or Rock ) is adam's sister and Brian is her new hubby although they have been together for years so it's not really new. Rachel just finished dental school and recently took a job back in Austin.

Maia Adam and I all flew out together. The trip was fun as Maia was well behaved.






Adam's best friend Christian and his fiancé Allison picked us up and we got a quick tour of the fire station where C works. Maia got to sit on the fire truck here with Allison and would have jumped down the pole if Christian had not been there to stop her.


Maia was quite the trooper all weekend for all the festivities and danced the night away at the rehearsal dinner with aunt Cheryl.






She was the hit of the party pretty much every night.

The hotel had an awesome pool where everyone hung out during the day. It was a blast getting to know all of brian's friends who I had not met before and were all really nice. And of course the lovely Georgia girls were there. I also got to meet some of Rachel and adams friends from Austin.






The bar trip to Bar 96 on Thursday night included Adam and I being forced to endure the taunts from the mavs fans there as the heat lost. Needless to say there aren't many heat fans in Austin.



Here are some pics from the wedding which was beautiful although it was hot as hell outside.



Here is me with my fake eyelashes and my hair did. PURTY as Laura would say.





All in all it was a fabulous weekend and we were a bit sad to leave but ready to get home.

I left the day after for a conference in Denver and Adam flew back with Maia to laudy. More on my conference later.

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Life lately...

I cannot believe I did not manage to find any time to post last month but I'm back. One thing we have been loving... Excuse me...were loving is going to marlins games. I think these pics were taken on mothers day. I say were because it has been raining lately and the marlins have been really sucky lately so we have been into other things. The all-star game is this week though so we may try to go!! Maia loves baseball, all sports actually but is known to get a bit confused at times and scream go heat while watching a marlins game or vice versa.








Speaking of the heat. I don't want to talk about it.

Another thing we love to do is hit up the local swap shop. It is like a huge farmers market + flea market + carnival and they also have south american restaurants which are yummy.

The above video is of Maia riding this ride there. The video speaks for itself.

She was also mesmerized my this Latin lady singing at one of the restaurants.



We also love love to cook (I will post more about our mango harvest later) and I have been letting Maia help more and more lately.






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Sick baby and hurt babe

You know what makes me sad? Maia being sick and Adam being injured. :(



Maia woke up sick with a dry cough and fever this morning so stayed home. She sounds like a croaky little frog when she talks.



Adam got hurt playing ultimate about a month ago and found out he tore his ATF ligament sprained some other ligaments and bruised his talus bone. So he is on crutches (or crunches as Maia calls them) for a couple more weeks and then starts physical therapy. He had to delay his trip to Mexico and missed a few days of work but otherwise is doing great except for a little pain and swelling every so often. But it really hasn't stopped him much. We have still been doing major house projects as I will post about later.

I can't wait until they are both better.


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Jazzfest and old friends..

This post is way over due but alas duty calls and I have been swamped at work lately. So now it's time for catch up!

At the end of April we went to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival to see the Avett Brothers and Mumford & Sons. It was our umpteenth time seeing TAB but we had never seen M&S before and had been looking forward to it for weeks. And of course, you can't beat a quick trip to New Orleans in spring. The weather was perfect. Not the usual hot mess of mugginess that I have experienced on my previous trips to New Orleans, but cool and breezy and every day.

Adam's mom Denise and our friend Meagan were supposed to originally meet us there but it ended being just Adam and myself for the weekend. We arrived Thursday morning super early and met the people whose attic apartment we were renting for the weekend (thanks to Denise!) Ray and Karen Baker, a very friendly and enthusiastic couple. Ray had worked in Paris for 20 something years and while they were there they had acquired practically a museum of French antiques and artwork decorating their second floor apartment.

After dumping our luggage we headed for breakfast at Croissant D'Or and a walk around the quarter.






Because it was Jazzfest weekend there were tons more street performers than normal in town and one of the best ones we saw was this guy and gal playing awesome covers of popular rock songs classical/jazz style. Perhaps I was most intrigued by their Auburn bucket.. I finally asked them the third time we passed them what the significance was.. if they went to school there etc. and they said they just found it and that depending on the person it tended to help or hurt their tips. :)

One highlight of our trip (besides the shows) was meeting up with two of my favorite people, the Grahams. Laura and I worked together at Shannon, Strobel & Weaver back in the day and were neighbors at Westshore Landing in Auburn. So we have been friends for years. It was so awesome to see both of them! They were delayed for a few hours because of that horrible storm that passed through Birmingham the day before, but thankfully they made it safely. We met them for dinner for tons of oysters. Good times! This was their first trip away from their Fennway, but it didn't take long for them to get adjusted to being sans child.

Jazz Fest was fabulous although we only went for one day. We were way far away from the stage but they had big screens so we didn't miss too much.. Mumford & Sons were great.. sounded just like their recorded music and they had lots of energy like TAB as well. There was mucho dancing on my and Adam's part.. probably the most we have ever danced at a TAB show cause there was LOTS of room even though there was tons of people there. 

 TAB ended the day so afterwards we walked around back to where the tour buses were and met the fabulous Joe Kwon. Adam also met the drummer who no one really recognized. Mumford & Sons were also around drinking straight out of bottles of whiskey.. such a contrast to the avetts who don't drink while on the road. Good southern boys. Jake Gyllenhaal was also there which was very cool and all the girls (including me) were going crazy trying to catch a peek at him.

Some guy tried to pick me up at the bar.. 

 Laura and Erik unfortunately had to leave early Saturday morning so Adam and I had two days to ourselves to walk around.

Saturday night we decided to take a vampire tour which was a total waste of money. There were two stops at bars during the tour of which we got stuck at the first stop and enjoyed some low country boil of crawfish... yum!

We headed out Sunday afternoon just as the weather started getting muggier. All in all a great trip although we were both ready to get home to miss Maia. :)