So how was everyone’s Easter long weekend? Well ours has been long and fun. On Wednesday and Thursday I had to attend our bi-annual Industrial Advisory Board Meeting where research from our department is scrutinized. It went very well, I had my undergrad presenting and also one of the grad students that I work closely with present. Overall, it was very successful. Jenee left on Wednesday for Texas, so after IAB I rented a car and drove to Jacksonville to catch a plane to Texas. Now we are very lucky to be flying on air miles, so don’t take this the wrong way, but I really don’t like American Airlines. For some reason this airline is unorganized to new heights. I don’t necessarily think it’s the staff, I think it is the underlying companies protocol that makes their service so bad. You don’t get a free snack on the plane, they want $3 for a bag of potato chips, they bumped our return flight with out telling us and they changed our seats so that we had to ask other passengers if they minded switching so we would be together. The only redeeming feature of the trip was one of the air hostesses cared enough to ask how I was and how my day was.
Easter 2007
Friday, Jenee mowed the lawns of her parent’s house and I picked up sticks and chew toys from the yard that the dogs have left. After our morning garden work, I dropped Jenee off at her Aunt Karen’s house to spend time with her cousin Majedah and her cute little boy, Zade. I hung around for a while and talked and even risked playing with Scarlet, Aunt Karen’s cat. Scarlet is sweet, but is known to be bipolar. I snapped a picture of her in midair pouncing on one of her toys. After an hour or so I split and headed off to Arlington Camera to put my name on the 4 month wait list for the Nikon 18-200 VR. (Warning: "Boring" camera discussion, feel free to skip) This will be a great lens and replaces two lenses (18-70, 70-300 VR) with one. I also got to play with the Nikon 80-400 and the Tokina 12-24 lenses. I loved the Tokina, and for 50% of the purchase price of the Nikon equivalent, I think I have found the right lens for my landscape photography. As for the tele-Nikon, it was nice but I would rather a different approach for my telephoto wants.
After the camera store I went to Fry’s (a boys paradise electronics warehouse) to buy some more memory for Jenee’s laptop. It now has 1.25 GB of RAM and runs much better. I also went over to Uncle Tony’s to pay a visit. Jon and Ash are now working for UT. They have sorted out the office with new furniture and new computers. It looks great and there is a picture of their office in the slideshow I posted. Jon and I joked around with SuperSonic (UT’s new nickname) and got up to our usual tom-foolery. Before I left to pick up Jenee, Ash said something really bizarre… The weather bureau was forecasting snow flurries for Saturday. SNOW FLURRIES IN APRIL.
Well Saturday morning we woke up to snow flurries, just like weather bureau said. Now if you don’t believe me check out the slideshow. And what’s more, the snow flakes were big. It snowed for a good 5-6 hours at one point and on and off for the rest of the day, but because the ground was warm the snow didn’t stick around long. While I was taking the pictures out the back of the Masri farm, something else caught my attention. Sure enough, the hummingbirds were out feeding from Momma’s feeder. I snapped a few pictures of them, they are such amazing little birds. I snapped the pictures from 1/250th to 1/500th of a second and the wings were still moving too fast for me to capture them. All that means is those little wings flap really, really fast.
Later that day Jenee and I went to the most elaborate Easter party that I have ever seen. Organized by Lisa and Carl Cravens, we arrived to be greeted by a lawn mower train driven by Carl’s grandfather. He wouldn’t take no for an answer so we rode in the train and made a grand entrance in front of all the parents. Upon arrival, Lisa gave me camera duty, Jenee was given “supervise the girls” duty and Courtney was given “Easter Bunny” duty. Yup, Courtney was the Easter Bunny. Lisa had a huge egg hunt organized, two blow-up castles, a petting farm and enough sugar and juice to give the average kid diabetes. Well at least Mary Nelle who was so desperate for sugar, we caught her eating the freckles off the cake plates and sucking the icing off of the mini cup cakes. (Sound familiar Heather and Helen? What are you eating Nate? Noffink…)
We went to Babes for dinner and ate our selves stupid. Babes has only 5 options on the menu: Catfish, Baked Chicken, Chicken Friend Steak, Chicken Fingers and Pot Roast. Pick one and you get a good serving of bean sprouts, corn and mashed potatoes to boot. It’s a hearty meal but its so, so good.
Sunday we had church, which was fantastic as always, We just love Mansfield Bible Church. Greg has a wonderful gift for sharing the Word. I was amazed at how many people came up to me and asked me how I was and how my back was, not just out of courtesy, but out of genuine interest. I was really touched by the love displayed toward me. After church we came home and started to get ready for a big family Easter doo. Well, we had enough eggs for 5 kids, but only one came, Landon, Matt and Melissa’s boy. Poor Landon had to have some help carrying all the eggs. And mean Aunt Jenee put eggs next to the fence where the big bad dogs were excitedly waiting so he was a little scared. Luckily Matt and I were there to save him from the puppies and the eggs were safely collected. Linda put on an amazing dinner for all of us, and we settled in and sat around talking, playing card games and the boys watched Future Weapons. Future Weapons is well worth watching. Overall it was a really nice evening and we all had a great time.
Monday Jen and I ran more errands and stuff. If you asked Jen what the best thing about Monday was she would probably say: getting new thongs/flip flops and a shirt from the Nordstrom Rack outlet store. They have all sorts of great bargains there. I think I am going to save some money up and get some nice work clothes and maybe a watch. All of there stuff is “last season” which doesn’t really matter much because lets face it, men’s formal fashion doesn’t really change all that much. Highlight number two would have been that she got to drive a convertible 1988 Mercedes 560SL. Jenee was in heaven. She even coaxed me into the car and we drove home in 12°C at 105 km/h. Yeah, cold. Monday night we just chilled at home with Linda and Joe and watched “Dancing with the Stars” and “24”. I have to admit, I am becoming a bit of a fan of “Dancing” and 24 even got me interested for a little while.
Tuesday was a rush, we got up early to go to the bank, then Jenee and Linda got their nails done while I went back to the house and finished off the washing (and watched more Future Weapons). Nothing much exciting here, except as I wrote this on the plane, I connected to a wireless network approximately 30,000 ft up. Go figure? It wouldn’t actually let me load Google though.
Well, that’s about it, we are flying home as I write this, and looking forward to getting back to the apartment and seeing the kittens and restoring some kind of routine. I hope everyone had a great weekend and I’d love to hear from you. Email me!
Nate and Jenee
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