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Friday in Chicago

jenmartin — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 04:16:18 +0000

I’m in Chicago supervising the packing and moving of our remaining items. You see, when we moved back in late January, we left the condo sort of staged (all of our furniture, pictures on the wall, nice sampling of tsotchke, etc.). The packers came today, and though every cabinet, closet, and drawer was empty it still took four hours and 37 boxes to wrap all the random pictures and knick knacks. Other than trying to pack a garbage can that contained actual garbage, and asking some weird questions about some of our stuff, things went generally well. Tomorrow the truck gets loaded and I’m outta here !

(and on a positive note, it is amazing how much you can get accomplished using a neighbors unsecured Linksys router and with no television, no phone (and bad cell reception), no car, and not wanting to spend any money!)

Thursday Sunrise

jenmartin — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:35:41 +0000

If ya hadn’t guessed, we are CRAZY busy lately. Aside from the seemingly never-ending move, we both working a ton, and it seems like I’ve been gone the entire month of August. I didn’t look up from my laptop yesterday to notice a gorgeous sunrise over the treetops yesterday though (and then of course it was time to pack and head out again…).

ORD –> IAH

jenmartin — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 14:42:28 +0000

1) After seven months we FINALLY got an offer on our Chicago condo !!! Woo freaking hoo !!! We’re scheduled to close in about a month. Will miss the view for sure…

2) We made an offer on a new house ! It’s a three bedroom Victorian in the Heights, has a very open floorplan with hardwoods throughout, and most importantly, it has a pool !

So lots of chaos in the next six weeks or so, but then we’ll FINALLY have everything in one place and bet a little more settled

Whale Shark Encounter

jenmartin — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 17:09:32 +0000

For Andy’s birthday we headed to Holbox, Mexico – a very tiny island about two hours North of Cancun. No cars, few Americans, and an unusually high population of whale sharks this time of year (and Italian restaurants, but I’ll save that for the trip report). Whale sharks can grow to be up to 40 feet long and have very wide mouths that they use to filter mostly algae and plankton. We shot a lot of video, which will likely go into the editing queue with the video from South Africa, Botswana, and Japan, so in the mean time here’s this fun clip of me getting a little too up close and personal.

Wine Country – Day One

jenmartin — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 05:00:03 +0000

Greetings from Healdsburg. Our first day began with breakfast at the Omelette Express in Santa Rosa. After gorging on what must have been a six egg omelette (mine with bacon, tomato, avocado, and jack cheese, Andy’s with sausage and zucchini) we went for a bit of a drive through the countryside. We took the “Bohemian Highway” through Occidental and wound up in Bodega Bay (where Andy spotted a pod of grey whales not far off the coastline).

Around 11 we hit our first winery, Iron Horse Vineyards. I am not entirely sure, but I think we were led here by a episode of The Thirsty Traveler that featured their sparkling wines. Anyhow, it is located at the very end of a road with virtually no signage. The tasting room is an open air stand up bar made of reclaimed wood, with a fabulous view of the surrounding hillside. We really enjoyed this tasting.

After four flutes of sparklers, we were in need of food so we headed back to Santa Rosa. The plan was to go to Zazu Farms, but I forgot that it was only open during the day on weekends so instead we wound up at Henweigh (next to a place called Mom’s Apple Pie). I had a fabulous tomato pesto panini and the outdoor terrace was perfectly pleasant (GREAT weather here !).

After lunch we headed to Gary Farrell, which had a great view from the tasting room, and then drove up Westside Road which has some great vineyard views along the way back to Healdsburg.

We just returned from an excellent dinner at Bistro Ralph. The food coma is setting in so hopefully we will be able to sleep past 5am tomorrow !

Bees (and a bug)

jenmartin — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 11:25:02 +0000

While I was distracted with a patient dragonfly, Andy was getting entirely too close to some pretty pollinated bees. (click for larger versions)

Sunflowers

jenmartin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:44:39 +0000

As I mentioned in the previous post, on Saturday we headed an hour south to Angleton, TX and the Manna Farm Sunflower Festival. The drive was definitely worth it as they had a HUGE field with 12+ foot tall sunflowers. We went early in the day but it was still HOT so we only stayed an hour or so. First pics posted below, more to come. (click for larger version)

Dragonfly

jenmartin — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 01:32:55 +0000

Earlier in the week, the 365 Things to do in Houston Facebook page mentioned a sunflower festival about an hour south of here. Sunflowers always make great photo ops, and it was also a good excuse to have breakfast at Cracker Barrel, so off we went.

Anywho, sunflower pics to come, but in the mean time here are a few shots of a widow skipper dragonfly that distracted me for about ten minutes. (click to see larger version)

More Morgan Rituals

jenmartin — Fri, 21 May 2010 13:10:32 +0000

When Morgan was little, he was obsessed with drinking water from the faucet. (Doesn’t sound too bad, but he drinks fast and then pukes). When I would wash my face at night he was so obsessive about it that the only way to stop him was to temporarily lock him in the shower enclosure. When I was done, I would retrieve him (by this time he was in the tub) and reward him with some good pets. After a while, when I went in to wash my face, he just got in the tub and waited for the pets. Our current locale doesn’t even have a shower enclosure, but Morgan still goes in for his nightly ritual.

Morgan’s 10th Birthday

jenmartin — Thu, 20 May 2010 11:44:32 +0000

Morgan turned 10 yesterday. For us this meant cupcakes featuring his favorite things, Monkeys and Bailey

Of course we also bought him a new toy. He particularly enjoys small stuffed animals, mostly beanie babies. He has an unusual ritual of moving them around; he will select one, hold it deep in his mouth, and move it from room to room while howling LOUDLY (and the howl sounds muffled, because, well his mouth is full). Back in 2005 I actually tracked which ones he picked and where he moved them.

Once he sees you, he drops it immediately so I didn’t think I’d ever be able to get it on video but last night I caught him for a few seconds with “the longhorn”. (make sure your audio is on)

For this year’s birthday we bought him an armadillo. A few years ago we went to Alaska and brought him a little salmon. I actually ripped out the seam, stuffed it with catnip, and sewed it back up to see if it would get extra attention (and it did, duh). With less time this year (those cupcakes don’t decorate themselves you know) I resorted to kind of rolling the armadillo in the catnip. The jury is still out on whether Morgan likes the armadillo because Bailey went positively NUTTY slobbering all over it (Mo was more interested the camera).