Monday, June 25, 2007

Update from Athens


I think we've been here for a month now... Things are going great. Last week we celebrated my birthday. It was kinda funky not being near family for the celebration but things went great anyway. These are some beautiful flowers that Brooks sent me. They are blooming more now and they look gorgeous! On my birthday we went out to dinner. We went to some restaurant called The Last Resort which is supposed to be really great southern food. We got in and sat down and looked at the menu and the food looked really weird to us. So we told our waiter that we were actually going to be leaving. We felt really silly but figured we'd never see him again. It was really funny. I think he was a tad offended but we just walked out of the restaurant and laughed down the street. We ended up eating a little cafe with sandwiches and fries. It was yummy. Brooks surprised me with an awesome bike for my birthday. I have been wanting a cruiser bike forever and he had me so fooled that he didn't know what to get me so he was just going to take me shopping. Instead he gave me this great bike! It's the most comfortable ride ever! I just need to get a basket for the front of it and it will be perfect! Now, if only Zibby were still a puppy I could ride around with my puppy in the basket of my bike. That would be fun. Something funny happened one of the first times I rode my bike. The tires were a little flat so I had my bike-pro neighbor pump up the tires a bit. He has some sweet bike pump that measures tire pressure and everything. So after the tires were pumped I hopped on and rode to the end of the driveway and across the street. I stopped to check something on the front tire and then all of the sudden I heard a sound like a gun shot! I had no clue what happened and could have sworn that someone was shooting a gun at me. Really what happened was my back tire exploded! My ear was ringing for a few hours after that but its all better now. It was actually quite funny because all the neighbors were watching and when they heard the noise they were confused too. The guy asked me if that was my bike that made the noise and by then I had figured out that it was and I told him yes. He felt so bad. It was kinda funny. So that night he went and bought a new tube and fixed my tire. What a funny thing! Thank goodness I was stopped when it blew...or else I probably would have crashed or something.
Brooks also got me this great Georgia jacket from the UGA bookstore. I've been wanting this jacket since the day we got here and I was so happy when he surprised me with it on my birthday. Notice the lovely apartment in the background....? Thats Tiger Woods golfing on TV and don't forget about the Dwight Shrute bobble head doll on the mantle :)

Here are a few other pictures that I've been meaning to get on here. This one is of Brooks on his first day of school - orientation. They had to dress up for orientation. He sure looks sharp!The second picture is Brooks and the famous UGA arch. The arch is the trademark of UGA. Go Dawgs!
First day of school! Like when we were kids and our parents would take a photo on the first day when we were wearing our best clothes and really excited.


Brooks and The Arch. This is a beautiful campus and you get a little glimpse of it in this picture.


This is Nigel (standing) and Ja' (short for Jarillius). They come over every day to take Zibby for a walk. Its great. They love Zibby and I swear Zibby waits by the window all day until they come. It actually works out great because I'm not the one that has to take him out in this heat. Zibby also gets tired real fast and ends up sleeping for about 2 hours after his walk. It's been fun getting to know Ja and Nigel (they are brothers)...they talk with the craziest southern gangster accents and half the time I have to ask them to repeat themselves! ha!

Monday, June 11, 2007

3 Weeks in Athens

Hey everybody! We're still alive. Things are going great here in Georgia. Brooks made it through 2 weeks of orientation and today was his first day of classes. He has 2 classes per day for a few weeks and then 2 new classes per day for another few weeks. I think he is liking his program a lot and he has made lots of great new friends.

I'm still in the market for a job. Athen's isn't an easy place to find work but I'm starting to get a better feel for things. I have a few good prospects right now so lets all hope that something pulls together for us!

Zibby is being a good boy here too. Our neighbors love to play with him and they always knock on our door to see if they can play with him. he is great with the kids. I don't know if he will ever get used to the weather. It's pretty warm for him....go figure. There is a great boy down the street named Jarillius (seirously) who loves to come and walk Zibby and Zibby loves to play with him. Sometimes Ja' comes twice a day and Zibby gets so excited to see him. It's also nice having a dog to help kill some bugs in the house. The other morning I ran into a massive roach in the kitchen and Zibby took care of it. Then he set the dead roach down on the floor and stared at it with such victory. It was great.

Speaking of bugs! This place is the bug hub. There are spiders everywhere and of all varieties....and centipedes, and giant flys, and overgrown wasps.... and other things that I have no idea what they are. Last night I found a long centipede looking bug in our living room...not so harmless considering it had two huge pincher claws on its head. I had Brooks take care of it for me. Later I found out from the neighbors that those things like to sink their pinchers into humans! ahhhh!

So all in all things are great. I planted some garden pots today with zucchini, tomatoes, and cucmbers. I hope they grow well!