Happy Birthday to Us!

Greg and I singing Happy Birthday to Ella, my birthday twin, on Skype.

Too bad you can't hear it. We were pretty awesome.

Why I am a bad blogger...confessions

It's true, I've become a bad blogger. I had decided in January that I was going to quit blogging all together, and as you can see, I did for 3 months. But then the call of Blogspot came beckoning, even though it puts too many spaces in my posts, and I came back. Afterall, I am a record keeper, and I like keeping a record of my life.

So here are the confessions. Most of you know this, but many of you stalkers out there may not, that there is nothing more that I would like than to announce that we are finally pregnant. We have been trying for years. Literally years. Blogging doesn't seem to be the best forum for infertility, because, as you've probably noticed, most blogs are about people's children. And after a successful IVF followed by a tragic miscarriage in December, I didn't want to read about everybody's great bounty anymore.

Hopefully someday in the future I will be able to announce some good news, but for now I just do what I can to be happy.

And sometimes that means not blogging, and not reading blogs.

Until that blasted blogspot.com starts calling again....

Blast that blogspot!

Blogger.com

Why does blogger.com suck? Why are there so many spaces in my post? I fix it over and over and over again, even in the Html, and it still looks like this!!!!

Birthday Party in Nashville!

March is the big birthday month in the Dahl house (meaning the house that Greg and I live in), and my brother Ben also celebrates his birthday in early March. So Greg and I went and spent a weekend visiting Ben and Jenny right smack in the middle of all of our birthdays.

Lucky for us, Tom and Betty were in town serving in the Nashville Temple so we got to see them too. Bonus! If you're ever in Franklin, TN I highly recommend Chuy's. I could drink their salsa for breakfast.

I am the only one in my family who's never seen the Opryland Hotel. They all went in 1994 when my sister Lea competed in the Miss America National Teenager Pagaent as Miss Kansas. Yeah, I was kind of the bitter younger sister and wanted nothing to do with celebrating my glamorous older sister who could actually walk in high heels. Now that I'm over all that stuff I can say, "I'm proud of you, Lea!" She didn't win Miss America, but she did win the talent portion...of course!

I had NO idea the hotel was this big. It is the largest non-casino hotel in the United States, and certainly rivaled those Las Vegas casinos. It is all recently renovated after it flooded last year during the horrible Nashville floods. BONUS! A Twilight Convention? We looked for Edward and Jacob, but all we found were "Team Edward" and "Team Jacob" teeny-boppers.

This is mimicking my parents' picture they have in the same place during one of their previous visits. As a side note, our tour of the Opryland Hotel consisted of my brother Ben adding little comments like, "This is where I hung out with Miss Virginia, and this is where I went swimming with Miss Maryland..."

Here is my Mr. Universe!

Ben, Jenny and Tyler

Celebrating our birthdays!

Singing Saville style. I love Tyler's face...it looks like he's studying us. "How do they sing so loud and why???"

Jenny's new purchase - an ice cream maker ball. Turns out, we had to roll it more than we wanted to in order to make the ice cream.

This is Tyler's Pirate playground. Isn't it incredible?

We had a wonderful time playing with Tyler all weekend. Who knew he was such an incredible swordmaster. Pirates, beware!

This is Carnton Plantation, which during the Civil War Battle of Franklin became a Confederate hospital. I recently read the book "Widow of the South" which was about Carrie MacGavock who lived here with her husband and helped care for the soldiers. It was a terrible book, and I recommend skipping all of it and just reading the Epilogue at the end of the book.

This is the Carnton Confederate Cemetary. Carrie MacGavock was an incredible woman, and took it upon herself to not only have these soldiers buried on her plantation, but also to identify them and write home to their families.

The Carnton Plantation is only a few miles from their house, as is Spring Hill. This hill provided a look-out for the Confederate army during the Franklin Battle. Although the Confederates won this battle, the Southern casualities were so heavy that they were never able to recover fully from this battle.

Don't be fooled, this is actually Tyler's bike, and he did ride it around the trails the entire time. But his crazy mom "Miss Jenny", as he calls her when she is his preschool teacher Monday through Thursday, wanted to take a ride too!

How can you not have a blast when you're hanging out with these crazy people?!

Faculty Recital

It was a full house on February 21st for mine and Sarah Ambrose's oboe/flute faculty recital.

Yes, that is black silk pants, tailored in China, and a sparkly red shirt. Totally not like me - Greg picked it out. I think the shirt was a bigger hit than my oboe playing.

Lea's Trip to Atlanta - 3 Months Ago!

As a sequel to my mom's visit in October, Lea came and visited me in January! The reason why? Well, because I called both of them around 6am in the morning in early fall, told them there was an incredible airline deal from Salt Lake City to Atlanta, and helped them book their tickets while they were still asleep. Before they knew it, they were committed to coming to visit me!

What was extraordinary about Lea's visit is that it was just her. I don't think I've seen my sister without her kids for...well...for at least 8 years now. And while I love my nephews and brother-in-law, it was nice to have my "blister" all to myself.

Lea thought she was coming to enjoy our famous Georgia warm winters. Unfortunately, she came right after the worst ice storm we've had in years, and the entire city literally shut down for a week. This was supposed to be my first week at school, but even GSU closed for the first full week. And let me tell you, GSU NEVER closes.

So although Lea didn't get the warm weather she had hoped for, she also didn't have to watch me teach classes and we were able to hang out all week with my extra vacation time!

This is our driveway a week after the storm. Greg shoveled his side (on the left) the morning of the storm so he could get to work, but my side was left untouched, and I didn't even try driving for 2 days. My side of the driveway was solid ice. Luckily Lea is pretty much a workaholic, and she was determined to get this ice off. It took a lot of banging the ice with the shovel, and lots of steaming hot water, but we finally got that ice off!

Lea was in Georgia on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which was quite a treat. We went to a parade in Fayetteville, and she got a real kick out of this float!

And the picture below is of my oboe student, Mary, marching the euphonium. I pretend like she doesn't play a secondary instrument, and that works well most of the time. She's the tiny little one in the middle.

OBAMA RIDE

Of course no trip to Peachtree City is complete without a ride on Obama, no matter how bad the weather is!

Greg took this really cool picture of us in the rearview mirrors. What's even cooler is that we have rearview mirrors on our golfcart!

Here are the golfcart paths in the winter. Still beautiful.

TRIP TO WARM SPRINGS, GA AND THE LITTLE WHITE HOUSE

Lea and I went to Warm Springs, GA and took a tour of FDR's Little White House.

Hanging out with FDR on Dowdle's Knoll

The view from Dowdle's Knoll, FDR's favorite spot in the mountains.

And of course we had to visit the Warm Springs. FDR found these warm, mineral waters soothing for his polio, and made this into an important polio rehabilitation center.

For those affected with polio to the most severe degree, they would have to use these "iron lungs" to help them breathe. I am so grateful for the even further advancement of medical technology. This looks torturous.

PLANTATION TOUR IN ROSWELL, GA

I love the plantation homes in Roswell, and had been on tours in 2 of the 3, as had Lea. Poor Greg had never been in any of them, so we decided to splurge and pay for the pass that allowed us to visit all 3. Totally worth the money.

The picture above is Greg, me, and Lea in front of the Smith Plantation House, which was a block from where we used to live in Roswell. The Smiths were packrats and basically everything is preserved in there. It's definitely the best tour of the three if you have to choose one.

Okay, so we also really enjoy the Roswell Ghost Tour. This is a picture of the attic at Barrington Hall, which is reportedly the most haunted space in all of Roswell according to the Ghost Tour people. Our regular tour guide said she doesn't believe it's haunted at all, and here is proof that there is no ghost family living in the attic. Greg was seriously disappointed.

I took a picture of this bed because the Dahls have a spindle bed similar to this.

Historic kitchen in Barrington Hall. I prefer stainless steel.

The walk to the slave quarters at Barrington Hall. This area was closed because of all the snow (in fact, it was pretty much a miracle that they were open at all seeing as how it was Saturday and the ice storm had hit just on Monday!). We told them Lea was from UT and we would be fine.

Master Bathroom

Long Awaited for Post - More House Projects!

We have been on a break for a while from House Projects. And I'm ashamed to say that because life got so overwhelming for us, this first section of projects we hired out. Please don't judge us for this!

Remember these wagon wheels? I don't have a good picture of these since painting the house because I tried to always crop them out of every picture I took. They are exterior front porch wagon wheels, and we almost felt better when the neighbor down the street had them on their front porch. But then they redid their front porch and got rid of them. Point being: they're even too ugly for outdoors.

We hired a wonderful man named Homero, and look at the miracle he performed! Yes, it looks normal. I stare at it for hours a day, enjoying the lack of tackiness in the house. (PS, Greg is posing from the couch!)

And this had been ugly for too long.


So Homero fixed that as well, along with all sorts of ceiling and wall problems, and added crown molding.

Before.

After. And Greg requested this column. Looks so fancy!


MY PROJECTS

Before - this is the kitchen, living room, and half bath gold light fixtures.

And this is after. Thank you Wal-Mart's $5 globes. Do you see how ugly the globes used to be in the previous picture?

Before.

After. Please note my Christmas present from my mom - my new quilt! Love it!!!!

And a close-up.

Before.

After. Yes, I painted the mirror and the light fixture.

3 bottles of Rustoleum later and hundreds of dollars saved. I love my projects!