Frogs

Here are a couple more frog pictures from our walk tonight. These are the little tiny ones we found that are smaller than your fingernail. Ben is obsessed with critters like these (mostly lizards and frogs) and always has been since he was little. I think they're cute too though am less inclined to pick them up!

Back to Regular Life

I think we're finally recovering from the marathon thesis month--and from the whole school year, for that matter. It's hard to believe it's actually been a whole year since we moved here; it will be one whole year this week, in fact. The time has flown! It is SUCH a relief for the thesis to be almost done. We have received word that the professors will likely approve and sign off on it this week, so we continue to hope and pray that that goes smoothly. Next weekend my (Jenny's) grandmother is coming to visit--her first visit to see our digs up here in the 'Burg. We're excited about that and just hope it isn't TOO terribly hot so that we can do things outside without dying!

Well, the area is coming to life with various types of summertime critters--the usual deer everywhere, as well as herons and osprey, and of course LOTS of frogs. We love to go nearby to a small pond and watch and listen to all the frogs croaking at dusk. They are so loud! Tonight we saw the tiniest little frogs you've ever seen hopping all over; they weren't larger than a blueberry! I think maybe we are more fascinated with the wildlife than most people up here, and that's because we were so used to being in the city before we moved here, and there just wasn't as much wildlife roaming freely there.

Along with the critters, we have strawberries!! We had to bring them inside because something was eating them, but amazingly, we have quite a few medium-sized berries off this plant that has been in a pot of ours for a couple years now. The berries taste rather tart but are otherwise good.

Well, that's about all for now--we're just vegging this weekend and not doing much worth blogging about!

(above: on a walk along the James River)

It is Finished

The thesis was just completed. Hallelujah! With 2 1/2 hours of sleep last night (staying up until 4 a.m.) and now going to bed at midnight tonight, we're rather exhausted, as you might guess. At least sleep-filled, fun, and non-studying days are ahead!!!

Counting Down to Thesis Completion

This weekend is Thesis Weekend in our household. Yes, it has arrived at last. Tomorrow is the big day when Ben's final thesis must be done and turned into his thesis committee members for their final review and (hopefully) final approval. If all goes well with that during the next week, it then has to be turned in by July 1 to his department with the appropriate signatures. At that point it gets a bunch more reviews, then gets copied three times (since it's estimated that that's about the number of people who will ever read the thesis in its life!) and bound. If there are more revisions then graduation will be delayed from August to December. While that would not be the end of the world, we obviously are ready to see this puppy leave our lives and be done for good! So, pray that it gets done, please. He has 24 hours and counting....We'll post an update when (if?) it gets done!!

Family Time!

I promised pictures from my (Jenny) family's visit a couple weeks ago and I just haven't gotten around to posting them since Ben is in the throes of thesis-writing at the moment and we only have one computer. So, finally, they are in a slide show that you can click on below. Enjoy! We had a lot of fun, with the highlights being: my dad's 50th birthday celebration (no pictures of that in the slide show, though), fishing, Yorktown, fishing, and more fishing. We also went to York River State Park and not only fished but also caught a variety of other creatures, including a giant alligator snapping turtle and an eel (I caught that one!). We also went kayaking and THAT was VERY interesting, so I’ll tell that story in detail in case you’re interested. (Scroll down below the slide show to read it.)

The idea to go kayaking was mine, and I kept telling everyone what great fun it was—Ben and I did it once last summer and had a grand time. My dad, perhaps the smartest of us, opted out of this excursion. So anyway, fast forward to the middle of the journey down the creek: My little brother (er, big brother who is younger), Daniel, was doing quite well gliding along in his solo kayak, while my mom and I were together in a tandem kayak, and Ben and Matthew in a third kayak. So far, the only issue was that we were all pretty bad at steering and were basically “serpentining” down the creek rather than gliding along straight. But, no big deal—we were still enjoying ourselves.

All of a sudden we hear this huge "SPLASH!" No one saw it happen, but my mom and I turn around and there is Daniel NOT in his kayak, trying to grab onto the side of the kayak and pull himself up from the muddy creek (which was, by the way, full of water snakes and other fun critters that you don't want your bare skin exposed to!). Finally we realized he simply could not get into his kayak again because it was, by then, filled to the brim with water and too heavy for any of us to dump it out without also capsizing. So, with much care, he somehow got himself into my mom's and my kayak without dumping the two of us out, while we meanwhile hung onto his kayak so it didn't float downstream. At that point, as we were juggling multiple oars and an extra kayak, plus a wet Daniel hanging over the edge, we realized it was too precarious to both tug Daniel’s kayak and have him in our boat while rowing back to shore. So, Matthew and Ben got the fun task of getting the extra kayak back to shore. Meanwhile, my mom and I rowed at full speed back to the dock so we could deposit Daniel and then go back and check on Matthew and Ben (we weren’t sure if they were going to make it). Upon getting to shore, we discovered his wallet and cell phone were both in his pockets, and while the contents of the wallet eventually dried, the cell phone was ruined and wouldn’t ever turn on again. Meanwhile, his brand-new shoes that he was wearing for the first time were soiled and also ruined!! Anyway, at that point, my mom and I were solely focused on getting back to Matthew and Ben to make sure they were okay (apparently it’s easy to capsize oneself if one’s balance gets thrown off…). Fortunately, they were fine, and we all ended up back on shore a full 10 minutes ahead of when our kayaks were due back to the state park people. Needless to say, I’m not sure how eager Daniel will be to go kayaking again. Unfortunately we didn't get pictures of this fun experience either (but then, if we had, the camera would probably be somewhere back in the York River right about now…). So, that was probably one of the biggest excitements during their trip.

Our 4th Anniversary

Well, there's lots to catch up on from the past couple of weeks. First of all, we took a trip to Hendersonville, NC, for our fourth anniversary, which was on May 22. We spent the weekend at our favorite place, the Killarney House, where we spent the first two nights of our honeymoon (and where we have spent 3 of our 4 anniversaries now). It was a wonderful and relaxing weekend!

So, without further ado, here goes with my first attempt at a slide show to show a small sampling of pictures from that trip: View Here

More pictures to come from my family's visit last week...

P.S. Okay, so the slide show thing is not what I expected. Rachel, how did you get it embedded in your blog? I can't make it do that--it gives me an error. Sorry folks, but hopefully you can sort of enjoy the pictures anyway!