Visit from Grandma

My grandma Taylor came to visit on Saturday with her friend Ruth. They flew in from South Carolina into the Punta Gorda airport to make the trip a direct flight and a lot easier.

On Sunday Scott and I went over for lunch and I asked my grandma multiple questions about the family tree, which I've been slowly working on. I just discovered the My 7th great grandfather, Thomas Lindley, owned a mill on Cane Creek in Orange County, NC. Yeah, that's really close to Chapel Hill! The Lindley family mill is still there and in operation since 1755. I never knew this the whole time, and our Hwy 54 house in the Hill is probably 20 miles away. They were Quakers that moved from Penn., which is pretty cool. Scott says they were quite liberal for their time, so that, I like. Here's someone singing the praises of the mill's organic flour on their blog. UPDATE: Here's an article about Lindley Mills in Our State Magazine. And here is a website I found with the Lindley Family History.

Grandma told me so much about old family members that I can't remember hardly any of it. But it's been great hanging out with Mom and Grandma this week. On Tuesday, we had some fun at the Edison Home and then lunch at my house. Grandma was very proud of my garden because she's a gardener too, and she loved my home improvements.

Stay tuned...We're going to the Smokies in NC Easter week!

Amanda and Evan are coming!

This will be the shortest blog ever, but I can't wait for Amanda and Evan to visit this weekend! Amanda and I are walking/running in the Race for the Cure while Scott babysits Evan. God bless him.

Carrots

We are cooking carrots from the garden tonight!

We pulled up about 6 fully grown carrots from the garden this morning. Yesterday I enjoyed another salad from the garden, too.

Old photos and a new room

We finally got around to painting and redecorating Jack's old bedroom. I posted a photo a few weeks ago. Well, it's pretty much done. I'm excited that we put up lots of our photos on the wall.

We also had to clean out the closet in the room, and while organizing photos, I ran across a stack of negatives from college. As you know, I just turned 31 (ugh) and it will be 10 years since I graduated from UNC. It was hard for my eyes to adjust to looking at negatives again, but I discovered some gems. I took them to the photo store to have them scanned, because who has a negative scanner anymore?

Check them out!


Vince Carter




Haaaaaywood!





Now they're on my wall after hiding away for ten years. Next week I'll take lots of undeveloped film to see what other goodies I can uncover. I just hope there are no embarrassing college party photos on there!

Super bowl!

A few weeks ago, my boss casually mentioned in passing that I would be the one going to the Super Bowl "if we decide to send someone."

"What?" I said. "Did you just say Super Bowl?"

It was for real, and I didn't even have to beg to go! I found out last Thursday that I would be going to the big game! I knew it would be a long day, but it's probably the last Super Bowl I'll be able to go to for quite a while considering that newspapers are cutting back more and more.

Anyway....I drove over to Fort Lauderdale Sunday morning to the convention center to catch the media bus to the stadium. When I got there I still had no idea where my credential would allow me to go. I knew I wouldn't be on the field and would have and upper photo pass. When I met the reporter I was very pleased to discover I had at seat on the front row in the endzone!

On the way to the game, the media busses had a police escort all the way to the stadium. No stopping for stoplights, and the cops blocked the exits on the highways so we could pass with no traffic. I felt like a VIP.

To make a long story short. It was a long day but a great experience. I was wedged in with a row of other photographers, but it was a great place to shoot the game. I'm short, so it was nice to be able to see over people's heads and not be knocked around by photographers who are much larger than me. I spent half the game shooting and the other half sending photos to the paper.

I did go up to the top of the stadium at the 50-yard line to get an overall shot, too.

By the way, it looks like I'm wearing a sack because I had to wear the color-coded photographer's vest they gave us.

Here are my galleries from the game:

Super Bowl fans and faces. (I saw Rob Lowe!)

First half action

Halftime and second half

After the game I stayed with my old friend Pete Stella and met his amazing girlfriend Rossana. He found a good one! It was really good to catch up with Pete and see his dog, Minky, too.

Lunch on Captiva

Today was a good day.

I had to go to Captiva for an assignment today to photograph one of the houses on the beach behind one of the many gates that line Captiva Drive. It was a cool house with an amazing view.

It was my last assignment of the day, so I decided to eat my lunch on the beach. It was a beautiful blue-sky day, 70 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. It felt so good to sit there and listen to the tiny waves crash on the sand.

This was a very welcome change because I usually eat lunch in the car or at my desk at work. And I never go to the beach. Maybe I should start going more.......

Room Makeover

We decided it was finally time to paint the workout room this weekend and boy what a difference a coat of paint and some new bookshelves can make. Unfortunately I forgot to get some before pictures, so we'll just settle for the afters. Amanda and Jack will probably be the only ones to appreciate the difference, but we love it.

I picked up the new lamps with fabulous shades at HomeGoods today and I got the bookshelves at Ikea last weekend on the way home from Amanda's house. The walls look a little green from the yellow cast from the lamps, but it's a beautiful shade of blue-green called 'rolling hills.' The new blinds and photos will go up soon!