For The Journey Not just the destination…

Last Wednesday, we headed up to Indiana to visit our friends in Bloomington, and attend one of Thomas’ old coworker’s weddings. It was a great trip, although way too rushed. We left after work on Wednesday, so we stopped halfway at our friends’ Kelly Jo and Steve’s house in Nashville and spent the night. Kelly Jo was in the same fraternity as me.  The animals below are one of their cats and Frankie, their dog.

When we started to unpack the car, we came across our big oops for the trip. Oops, our suitcase was not in the car trunk…or in the backseat… Thomas thought I put it in the car, and I thought he did, but it was still sitting in our garage at home. Oops.

It all worked out though. We were able to run by a Walmart and pick up some necessities, and then when we got to Bloomington the next night, we ran by the mall and got some new clothes. Luckily, Thomas was renting a tux for the wedding, but I had to buy a new dress and shoes.

Thomas is working on the wedding photos, and I’m working on the rest from our adventure.  We stayed with three different friends and visited a few of our old favorite places, including a great birding park. Unfortunately, we drove through Ike on the way back, right as we were crossing the Louisville bridge – yikes!  I’ll post more later this week.

This is just a quick note to link to a swap I’m participating in, incase anyone else wants to join in. It’s open for signups through this week, I think. It’s a swap of 20 buttons, which is good, because I’m already back-logged in projects and can only handle swapping supplies at this time.

Here’s the link: Sew Spun’s Button Swap

It’s been a busy weekend.  Friday night started out with small parties to celebrate our friends, Anna and David, and their recent milestones. Congratulations, guys! The boys went to the Brickstore for drinks, and the girls chatted over tasty treats at Gina’s house.

Saturday morning, Thomas and I worked on cleaning up the house at full blast from 8AM until 2PM.  After that, we were exhausted, so we took a little nap in the backyard.  This is Thomas napping – taken with the macro lens.

That night, we vegged on the couch and watched Brokeback Mountain.  The scenery was beautiful, and reminded me of the horsepack trips my family took in the Rockies.  I hope we’ll be able to go on one of those again now that Thomas has joined our family.

We spent the majority of today cleaning out the garage.  We had quite a few sets of gear from activities that we no longer participate in – roller hockey, caving, rock climbing – to sell.  And I think we filled up quite a few bags of trash too. 

That’s about it – not a horribly exciting weekend, but pretty productive.  This is going to be a short week for us, as we’re heading to Indiana to visit some friends and go to a wedding.  Have a great week!

P.S. Thomas posted some photos from our walks this weekend and last. He said he wasn’t going to blog the links, so I am, since I was there too. :)

• Our walk along the Chattahoochee (40 photos)
• Our walk in downtown Roswell (41 photos)

I really don’t have much to post today, so I’ll just share with you what I bought for myself for my upcoming birthday.  I got a space in a photography class that goes behind the scenes at the Atlanta Zoo.  I’m so excited to photograph the animals close up.  Yes, as my SIL pointed out to me, my birthday isn’t for a few weeks, but last year, this class filled up before I was able to register.  Now, Thomas and I are registered for the November class.  Yay!!

I don’t know how I’m going to celebrate my 30th birthday yet. We’ve got a ton of things going on right around then, so part of me wants to keep it quick and small — maybe just dinner with friends. But then part of me says it’s my 30th birthday, and that’s a milestone, so I wish I could do more. Our friends have mentioned wanting to go camping before it gets cold, but I just don’t think we’ll have the time. :(

Until a couple of months ago, 30 sounded so old – much closer to 40, than to 20. But then I thought about how much I’ve done in the past 10 years – graduated undergrad and grad school, had a blast being social, traveled to 5 foreign countries, adopted a dog, moved away from everyone I knew, worked at 3 jobs, bought a house, got married, hosted my family for the holidays.  These aren’t that amazing, but they were big things to me.  I can’t wait to see what happens in my 30s!

And now for a little audience participation… What did you do to celebrate your 30th birthday?  Was it a big transition time for you?  Or if you’re not 30 yet, what do you still want to accomplish before you turn 30?  Are you excited about getting older or trying to fend it off as long as possible?

When we went to the river on Friday, I took the 50mm lens in hope to work on my people photography — Thomas got to be my subject.  Though I took a ton of photos, these were the shots I kept.  I noticed afterward that he wasn’t looking at me in any of them.  These were the shots I stole when he wasn’t posing.  They seemed to have more feeling in them and actually show what he’s like on a photo nature walk – mellow, in concentration, and content.