holy halloween, batman

its been a busy week. lots of freelance keeping me busy, and even more house painting. we picked another color, and i'm loving it. its alot darker than we had originally thought we wanted, but it really looks great. see for yourself:




we still need to cut in around the upper edge, and touch up the white paint. next steps will be painting the porch [going with a gloss dark grey], and removing that icky lattice work and finding a new solution for that.

after a long week [and weekend] of work, we managed to get out saturday night to go to 2 halloween parties. had a good time, and got many compliments on our crazy costumes.




not much else has been going on. i'm loving the fall weather. i've started work on a few sweaters and scarves, and made this fancy little arm warmer.




yesterday i was feeling all domestic and made some tasty banana bread with chocolate chips, and chicken noodle soup from scratch for dinner. mmm... i love having a new kitchen :)

i was in hilton head and you weren't

after sorting thru 132 emails, its time for me to post our vacation recap. after rushing around thursday night, with packing, dropping sydney off with my sister, and some last-minute errands, we got very little sleep before leaving bright and early. with a full gas tank and warm drinks from starbucks, we were on our way. 13 hours later, after battling 2 rush hours, construction and downpours of rain, we arrived in hilton head and checked into the hotel.

saturday afternoon we went to a lovely wedding on the water, and had a great time at the reception ... drinking, dancing, and some very good seafood. sunday morning we wasted some time shopping and dining while waiting for the house to open up. came across this cute little gecko:



that afternoon we checked in the house that the murphys were renting for the week... and wow... theres no way to accurately describe it other than that. it was 10x better than we had expected. less than a minute walk to the beach, pool, view of the ocean, and fireplaces and tv's in many of the rooms... it was destined to be a relaxing vacation.



[note my cute scion out front]


the rest of the week was mostly spent on the beach on the good days,



... and driving around the island sightseeing and shopping on a few of the cloudier days:




we managed to find some time for fishing which was alot of fun, and flying kites on the beach on a clear night. one of our last days there we managed to make it down to the ocean to watch the sun rise...



it was really beautiful, but very cold. the last 2 days were the best weather-wise, in the mid 80s. obviously, we were on the beach both days :) here is the obligatory 'vacation beach pose photo':



also spent alot of time goofing around taking self-portraits. very few turned out:




hopefully i'll post a few more pics once the family sends the rest of them. we had a great time, but its good to be back. i missed sydney [picked her up tonight, thank you penny!], and im slowly getting back into the swing of things again.

thats it for now :)

where does the time go?

ok... before we left for vacation, i wrote a painstakingly-long email with an update of the past week... but forgot to post it. after my relaxing getaway, i have no idea what i did, let alone remember what i wrote :) so here's a brief recap:

ended up painting the front of the house not once, not twice, but yes 3 times. damn home depot and their paint mixing skills, and damn the sunlight for changing our nice grey green to mint green. here's a pic of the final color [and yes, we still need to cut in the edges and paint the windows, etc.]:



once thats done, i'm going to plant all my spring bulbs, mulch, and get ready for winter. yikes!

as gary was going to be cat-sitting over the getaway, we invited him and ann over for a yummy dinner with good food and lots of beer.



good times were had by all, and it was fun to finally be able to entertain in the new kitchen.

thats pretty much all i can remember. time for the real post now.