Just a General Entry...

So what has been happening over the last couple of weeks with us? Well, life goes on as always and we have been making plans for travel, sewing quilts, sorting through 20,000+ picture files, entertaining, BBQ'ing, BSF'ing and gyming.

To illustrate how exciting things have been, UF has constructed a brand new walkway for students and staff to enjoy, just a stones throw away from our building. Woopee I hear you say, but when you consider that we walked through dirt and sometimes mud everyday for years just to get a decent cup of coffee, this is a nice change for us. It's actually very nice and we like to walk on it cause it makes us feel like we are on a rainforest walk. I recently took a small walk around the building and snapped a few photos.


Can you see anything unusual in the above photo? Click on it and look closely. You will see a baby 'gator hidden in the weed.

On the weekends we have been getting up nice and early to go to a staff meeting for BSF and getting home after a detour to the gym. Its really nice to get home at lunch time and feel like you have done so much and have most of the day left! Saturdays have been dubbed BBQ Saturdays and as such I have been buying nice cuts of meat to BBQ for our dinner. I am getting better everytime and hopefully I wont burn the expensive kabob's I bought this week. I wasn't really paying attention to how much they were and when the butcher handed me the package I had a nice supprise.

We have also been entertaining friends and we recently had Rob and Sarah and my friend from work, Greg, over for dinner. All I can say is I am the burrito meat master, and actually cooked the meat really well! Even I was supprised as I have not had much success cooking jucy tender meat.

Sable passed out on her playland.

Its really fun to have Rob and Sarah and Meredith over. Meredith is such a cutie and she has us all entertained. As you can see she is actually pretty laid back and loves to explore new places and pat the kitties. Well, luch break is over so I hop you enjoy!

One Thing For Sure, We Are Not Fish People

Jenee and I are on a quest to eat better and be healthier. If you have been reading over the last few weeks, you probably already know this. Apart of our diet is supposed to include at least 2 servings of fish per week. Now, neither of us are particularly partial to eating fish. Be it the fishy taste, smell or both I couldn't say, however, one thing for sure is that we are not gifted at cooking it.

For example exhibit A, below. Now, before you read any further, know that I received Jenee's permission to post this, and it is in no way a reflection on her as a cook.

What you are looking at is several pieces of seasoned fish that we bought from the Fresh Market. Together we seasoned it, and then started to cook it. Now, we did have a small misshap where the pan was hotter than we anticipated and started to smoke the kitchen out, but apart from that, things were pretty straight forward. After the fish was cooked, I was asked to try it. Breaking off a piece I tentatively placed it in my mouth and started to chew. At first it was nice but then the taste grew... worse. By the end of what would be a normal amount of chewing to digest food, I had worked the fish into a ball that tasted a lot like, well, rubber and what we could only idenitfy as Mercedes (her parents dog).

This was simply the last straw that broke the fish eating camels back. We both had a good laugh about it, and decided to leave fish and fish cooking to the pro's...

What is Wrong With the (Photography) World?

And to add to that, whats up with Qantas putting and excessively enforcing the 15 lbs / 7.5 kg carry-on baggage limit? As I have blabbed on before, Jenee and I were annoyed when we were leaving Melbourne International when we were stopped and forced to go back and in the end we had to check in my carry-on. Very annoying. Well, we have been thinking about our next trip to the motherland (Aus) and I have been doing some guesstimates about what I can carry (theoretically) in my carry on. Now I know I should bring a change of clothes, travel documents, a book, iPod and maybe a game, but I would also like to bring my D-SLR, with 2-3 lenses, flash and some other accesories which quickly adds up to my quota.
Well, surfing the internet I stumbled on the image you see above. Its a Leica M8.2 with a 50mm f/0.95 lens attached. I thought, wow, a small compact digital camera that would really be awesome (sample pictures show great quality) and that would potentially solve my weight dilema. So I investigated a little more, great range of glass available (lenses for the lay-folk :-p), great specifications and so on. So what about the price? Well have a guess how much the above camera is? How much would you pay? Keep that number in your head. Now highlight after the semicolon: Camera and this particular lens are gonna run you $14,000. Ahuh, 14000 big ones.

I'll take 3. One for each hand and one for Jenee's spare hand.... rediculous...

We Are Gym People Now

Yup, we have joined a gym here in Gainesville with the intention of getting a shape of some description associated with our fitness. Our first visit we decided that we would try a Body Flow class. Now apparently, Body Flow is a combination of tai chi, palates, yoga and stretching. We were total newbies. We had no idea what was going on, the instructor would go left and we'd go right, because we were new we used the gym mats which are slippery as an eel so when we got into the "warrior" pose, we had to work 3 times harder because our feet were slipping apat and then there was something extra special for me.

The instructor asked us to turn our mats and I found myself face to face with a 40 something lady. Nothing out of the normal until our exercise required us to raise our arms above our heads. Well hello armpits. Her armpits were hairier than mine! Bushier, thicker and longer to boot. ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew!

So now we have discovered that Armpits is a regular at our gym. She's being added to our collection of local people whom we only know by their given names. Let's see, there is Buff-Guy who walks around our complex without his shirt on most of the year. There is Grumpy-Guy who also lives in our complex and never smiles, then there is Honda, he drives a white Porsche Boxter (Jenee thinks it looks like a Honda) and there is Scary Carpark Guy and Girl, they pose as homeless people and beg for money. Sadly for them I came across them listening to their IPODS and enjoying their loot from good willed people so they wont be getting anything from us, ever. Sadly people like them ruin giving to people who are in desperate need.

Anyway, enough soap boxing, there is another post to be written.

Update
Parka Guy - He wears a snow parka all year round, even in August!

(Thanks Krista, I forgot about him)

It's All in the Socks... and Other Things

I bought new shoes over the summer because my much loved Merrells finally died. To replace them I got some nice leather Merrell's and a pair of walking shoes for the weekends. What I didn't really think through was that I live in Florida and leather shoes don't always breath in the heat and humidity, or so I thought. You see I have been wearing my normal sports socks with them and my feet have been absolutely sweltering. I feel like a lobster in a pot of boiling water. Until yesterday when I thought about wearing my dress socks with the shoes. Wow, I am an idiot because all this time I have been going through such pain and anguish when I could have had cool, comfortable feet.

In other news, the years BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) schedule has started up again this year and I have to say that I am really happy to be back. If you are looking for a Bible study that is Bible focued and doesnt get tangled up in political doctrin issues, BSF is definately worth looking at. You can find a local class here: http://www.bsfinternational.org/

Well, I am off to have a quick bite for lunch!

5000 ~.~

Wow, I sign on today and bingo, I have had 5000 visits to our blog. Thanks for coming to read all about us. On a scale of 1 to 10, we probably aren't as interesting as some other things like large hadron colliders (7.5), geothermal energy (9) or courting rituals of sea-turtles (8.4), but hey, I know you have been reading and that's all that counts.

As Buzz Lightyear would say, "To infinity (10,000) and beyond!"

Future Plans for Australia

Huh? What! Are you serious? Yep, you might have heard a rumor that we are already thinking about when we can come back to Aus. You might have also heard that we are pondering about coming next year sometime in April or May? Well it's true. We are. Don't hold your breath just yet, but we are already thinking about finances, timing and possibly bringing Jenee's parents along for the ride as well.

I will keep you updated.

The Adventures of the Stevens'

Well, I did promise a post on some of our adventures and here it is. We had adventures in Australia. They were fun. We liked it.

Well ok, I suppose I can write a bit more that that. One of the places that I insisted on getting to was Victor Harbor. This is where I have spent plenty of summers and learned to handle surf. Well we made the pilgrimage with Mum and Dad, Heather, Alicia, Jacqui and Roy and Jenee and I. Really we couldn't have asked for better weather. I had been warning all the non locals about how cold it probably would be and that we should rug up and sure enough, God turned it on and the sky was blue, the sun was warm(er) and the wind was very mild. It was just a great day. We ended up going to Chiton Rocks, Granite Island, downtown and then off to Waitpinga for some serious beach fishing. Just a great time.



Another crazy thing was Christmas in November. I don't remember who's idea it was, but everyone was onboard. We had a Christmas tree that was creatively decorated with cut-outs of our hands, and Petey was our Christmas angel. Also, we had a secret Santa where we spent $10 on the person whose name we drew. Fun! I think there should be atleast 3 Christmas' a year.

We did lots of other things like visit the national motor museum, visit the Barossa, Adelaide Hills, Central Markets and the list goes on. There is so much more I would like to show Jenee but that will have to wait for another day.

Family Photo's for the Post Below

We were watching the news and...

This is what we saw last night. There are three potential hurricanes heading for the US and we have just had Hurricane Gustav land.


Seriously, 3 more? Jenee and I have had several talks about our evacuation plan, if we ever have to put it into effect. If and when the authorities issue an evacuation order we'll get the cats, some food and water and head to Tennessee for Aunt Paula's house. We are keeping the gas tank full and also a small spare tank. If there were a Category 5 heading to destroy Florida, we would probably have to go all the way to Tennessee to find somewhere to sleep anyway as 20 million other Floridians would be heading to Georgia and the Carolinas.

In other news Jenee gave me my birthday present early because we wanted to be able to enjoy it while the weather was nice and warm. Kind of an oxymoron as Florida is almost always warm, but, she gave me a gas BBQ. I am so excited. We are going to test it out tonight and then again on Friday. A BBQ will also be handy should we lose power, a common side effect of larger storms here.

Well, I am still working on the last few posts for the Australia trip and will be putting some more happy snaps up too.

N