Giant Dirt Pile

After the delivery we set out to dig out the flower beds. I would be lying if I said it was easy to dig up so much of the grass we had put down last year and had been nourishing for so long. By the end of day one, we had the beds edged out, most of one bed dug, and a few things planted.

Half-way done

Day 2 of the first weekend of gardening continued much like day 1, digging up sod and planting more plants. Of course, we didn’t own all of the plants so we left little flags up reminding us where we had space saved for a plant.

Done Planting

By the end of the weekend we had nearly transformed our little tiny beds of flowers into nice large flower beds with a lot more variety and color. Besides a few plants here and there, the only missing was the mulch.

Fast forward a few weeks later to our next free weekend. We called and asked for 5 cubic yards of mulch to be delivered. Relative to our 4 cubic yards of soil, I’d say we got a bit more mulch than we had asked for…by 2-3 yards.

We had enough mulch to cover the front bed that swooped around the side near the A/C units, the side bed next to the garage, around both of the tress not in beds, the mum bed near the irrigation backflow, under our deck, and half-way down the hill in the resource protection are in the back! It was a lot of back-breaking wheelbarrow-full trips up and down the yard but in all, I think it was worth it.

Looking around now after fertilizing, feeding, and getting all of these plants established it looks wonderful. Only one problem that I didn’t expect, what do I do with them now… they’re getting huge! I keep wondering if I’m going to hear, “feed me Seymour” from one of them.

All Done

Adding plants around the house was not the only way we were adding some color. This past weekend we stained and sealed both our front porch and back deck. Luckily it was 92-94 the day we applied it and that it was oil-based, because that evening it poured down raining (it was only supposed to be a 15-20% chance of showers).

On Saturday, the entire family (Mom & Dad O, the two exchanges students, Katie, and I) headed out to Washington D.C to see all the Cherry Blossoms. We all were in agreement that taking the Metro would be a much better idea then trying to find a place to park in D.C. It was quite busy at the Springfield-Franconia Metro station, but we expected that. We had an uneventful trip to the Smithsonian stop on the Blue Line of about 35 to 40 minutes (Keep in mind, the Blue Line is the only line for the Springfield-Franconia Station). We stayed for a few hours and took a lot of pictures of the Cherry Blossoms (link provided at the end) then we decided to return home. This is where the fun begins.

As we are standing around waiting for Dad O. to put more money on our fair cards so we can get home, we see a little message about increased police activity at the Pentagon City station and that the station was closed.  We didn’t think anything about it even though that station is on the Blue Line.  I mean the station is closed, but the trains are still running through right?  WRONG!  This is where all our troubles began.  After we boarded the train along with hundreds of other people and we start heading down the tracks, the driver notifies everyone that the train will be stopping at the Arlington Cemetery station and we will all have to get off and shuttle buses will be provided to get to the other stations.  We wait about 5 minutes and the driver comes back on the speaker telling us that the train will now be stopping at the Pentagon (one stop down) and shuttles will be provided from there.

So, a while later we end up at the Pentagon along with hundreds of other people (and hundreds if not a thousand people outside)  and we all head outside towards the bus area.  During the escalator ride up, I discover the reason for the Pentagon City station being closed.  A bomb threat and suspicious package.  So we all hit topside and what do we find?  Not a shuttle bus in sight.  Nope, not a single one.  Just normal buses running their regular routes.  On top of that, there is only one transit work and she had no idea what is going on.  The amount of disorganization by the WMATA was beyond belief.  Hundreds to Thousands of people stranded because of their ineptitude.

We stood around for a good 10 minutes while Dad O tried to see if the lady knew anything, once it was established that she did not, we all made out way towards the taxi area as we felt taking a taxi to a different metro stop past the Pentagon City was our best shot of getting home now.  Once we get down the the taxi stand, Dad O attempts to call the taxi company, but no one was answering after another 10 minutes or so.  At this point we start walking up the street as other people seem to be having luck catching taxis coming off the highway.  As luck would have it, we managed to catch two empty taxis (we had 6 people and needed two), one right behind the other.  At this point we decided to catch the metro at National Airport.  After a very scary taxi ride (I think he tried to kill us at least 2 times), we made it to the airport we an approximate cost of $10 per taxi.

From there, the metro ride was uneventful, but still quite packed.  We eventually made it back to Springfield and with an additional 15 min drive back to the house.  Total travel time:  3 hours.  That is around 4 to 5 times longer than it took us to get out there.  I can’t believe how horribly managed this situation was by the WMATA.  I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be like if there was an actual emergency and not just a scare.

Anyway, here are the Cherry Blossom and Easter Pictures as promised.

Cherry Blossoms and Easter 2010

Also, There have been some new pictures of Gimzo and Teddy uploaded.  They are the pictures at the end of the album.

New Pictures of Gizmo

New Pictures of Teddy

And finally, Katie’s flowers have started growing in the back of the house and I have managed to (mostly) complete our paver walkway that goes from the driveway to the door on the side of the garage.  As before, pictures are at the end of the album.

New Pictures of the House

If you want to see a specific recipe uploaded just let me know!

Katie finally forced me to get a reusable bag to take my lunch to work in (she got one too).  I would normally take plastic bags that came from grocery shopping, but since Katie has become “environmentally conscious” and is using the reusable bags from Kroger my supply has stopped.  I think it’s all a rouse to get me pulled into her “save the environment” game.*  The lunch bag is awesome though, perfect for the geek in me.  If you don’t understand the phrase, go browse some LOLCats.

In other fun news, we are now adding our own touches to the house.  We have installed under-cabinet lighting in the kitchen so Katie can see better when she is cooking and we replaced the faucet on the kitchen sick to match the other fixtures.  I am looking into home automation using a Z-Wave system.  It looks to be a fun project.  There are also plans to do some landscaping this year as well as wire the entire house for Ethernet (this may be cancelled if Wireless N routers keep dropping in price).

There is one more project that Katie and I are working on that can’t be revealed at this time.  It is super secret.

Katie has been cooking some amazing meals recently and I do believe I should poke her to share some of our favorites on the site.  Especially the baked chimichanga’s.  I think I have fallen in love with those.  Speaking of food, I think it’s time to go eat dinner. . .a new recipe from Katie this evening.

*Katie really isn’t an environmental freak.  In fact, she is the complete opposite.

Teddy in the Snow

One issue I have noticed with some people here is that most of them don’t know about driving in the snow. I lost count of the number of people we saw out today attempting to drive but instead causing unsafe conditions for both themselves and other drivers. One car was fishtailing so badly we were afraid to pass it while it was in the far right lane — we were in the far left lane with an empty lane between us and them. It was a good thing Chase knows how to drive in the snow… they lost control, started to spin, and we stopped about 2-3 feet from their car. Then, of course you have the people who don’t clean the snow off of their cars, the people who go too fast, the people who go too slow, and the people in 4-wheel drive vehicles thinking that they are also 4-wheel stop. And to top the list, the inexperienced drivers who just don’t know what they’re doing regardless of weather.

But enough about idiot drivers and the weather. I started a new job about two weeks after Christmas, so I no longer work for one of the local universities. I now work for a local biotech company that does contract research. I’ve had a bit of a learning curve since I’ve barely been exposed to the techniques that the primary focus of my new job requires. However, I am having fun and learning a lot in the process. I suppose overall it just feels a bit odd working for a larger company (still relatively small in the grand scheme of things), although the group I’m part of is rather small (just me and my boss). As a lot of my friends and family know, I collect giant microbes. Unfortunately, since my research now focuses on whichever contract I’m working on I won’t be getting a new work-related microbe. Although I have recently acquired HIV, swine flu, T4 bacteriophage, and the plague (giant, fluffy microbes that is).

As I mentioned last year, we spent last Christmas in Breckenridge, CO with Katie’s side of the family. It was a wonderful trip and we enjoyed a very white Christmas. Katie didn’t break any bones this time around. But we did have fun skiing, tubing, snowboarding, making snow angels, and just enjoying the company. You can see the pictures by clicking the image below.

Colorado - December 2008

After the festivities had ended Katie returned to her research which did not end quite as early as planned. Chase returned to work and life returned to normal in Richmond until March. In March, we experienced one of those rare winter storms that actually drops snow and it accumulated.  This rare storm gave Richmond between 8″ and 10″.  Richmond will typically start shutting down at about 1″ of snow (yeah, yeah, laugh away all your northerners) Katie luckily got a day off since VCU is primarily a commuter school; unfortunately Chase still had to work. Check out the few pictures we took.

Snow - March 2009

At the end of April, Katie finally presented her research to the Medicinal Chemistry department. And May 1st successfully defended her Master’s Thesis (For your sanity, don’t read unless you really like Chemistry :-p – -Chase). May 16th, Katie graduated from VCU with her Master’s in Pharmaceutical Sciences. Of course, pictures of the joyous day are posted.

Katie's Graduation

In the days after her defense and before graduation Katie interviewed for a position as a Lab Specialist in a microbiology lab at VCU; and in June started her first job. She’s still working there and enjoying the opportunities available to learn new things.

Also in June we celebrated our first wedding anniversary. Some people claim the first year is the hardest. We honestly didn’t notice much of a change other than some added jewelry. We hope the years to come are as equally blissful.

July we bought our first house. It’s a nice 4-bedroom, 2.5-bath, brand new house in the same area of town we’ve been living in. There are plenty of pictures up of it, inside and out, furnished and unfurnished. The dogs seem to have finally gotten used to the house and to going out on their tie-out leashes.

House

We spent our birthdays in Key West with Chase’s parents. We toured most of the tiny island and learned a lot of its history. We even saw some interesting places including the Pelican Poop Shop, Garden of Eden, and the Love Muscle House. If you want to read more of our adventures just scroll back through the posts or browse the pictures.

Florida/Key West - August 2009

We stayed home this year for Halloween. We handed out about 7 large bags of candy to the neighborhood kids. Chantel and Alex even brought over Jay to go trick-or-treating. He was Bumblebee from Transformers. It was really neat to see all of the costumes. Our next door neighbors’ 2-year-old granddaughters were a pumpkin and a lady bug. The one got a kick out of being the same as our dog Gizmo. The jury’s still out on how Gizmo felt. Of course, we decorated the house.

Halloween 2009

Chase, Katie, and friend Mary-Jane, and her boyfriend, Adam, drove down to Florida for Thanksgiving. It was a nice to get away from work for a while and just be able to sit back and relax. We spent the date after Thanksgiving at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure with Mom.

Florida - Thanksgiving 2009

This year we are hosting our first Christmas. Katie’s side of the family is coming down to visit for a few days. Mom O already made us a gorgeous wreath for our front door. The Christmas lights were up before Thanksgiving. Presents have been bought and wrapped. Now all we have to do is wait for Christmas to get here.

Christmas 2009

Once again, we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The photo gallery and blog is continuously updated, so be sure to look at it throughout the remained of 2009 and all of 2010 for updates.

Update (12/19/2009): Since this post was originally made we’ve had one of those rare snow-dumping storms hit Richmond. We got about 8-9″ of wet snow in the last 24 hours.

Snow December 2009

]]> http://www.alixblog.net/2009/12/06/another-year-of-memories/feed/ 0 http://www.alixblog.net/2009/11/28/having-fun-in-sunny-but-cold-florida/ http://www.alixblog.net/2009/11/28/having-fun-in-sunny-but-cold-florida/#comments Sat, 28 Nov 2009 14:10:05 +0000 Chase http://www.alixblog.net/?p=265 Well, we all have been having tons of fun in Florida.  Thanksgiving day was a great time with the family and friends, and of course the delicious meal most of us helped cook.  Yesterday, everyone except Dad went to the Universal theme parks.  We went on as many rides as we could.  We were never able to get on the new roller coaster, Rock It, because it always had an 1.5 hour+ wait time.  That’s too long.  Today we are heading out to look at any manatees that may be in the river and maybe do a bit of shopping.  Unfortunately, our trip comes to an end tomorrow when we have to head back to VA.

I have uploaded the pictures take so far.  Here’s a link:

Florida - Thanksgiving 2009

On a side note with the blog, we have everything finished.  The pictures are now being hosted on Picasa and are linked through using a couple of plugins.  It makes things very nice, fast, and extremely easy to use (Katie needs that).

Since then, we’ve started our drive down to Florida. Mary Jane and her boyfriend, Adam, are tagging along so Chase doesn’t have just me to keep him company and awake during the drive. We’re currently relaxing at the hotel in Richmond Hill for the night. Tomorrow we’ll finish the rest of the drive.