We found a Hall

We are officially booked for May 13th, 2011 (its a Friday). Here are a few shots of the hall:


Ok, the giant balloon heart will be gone and we'll do something nice with the backdrop and nice chair covers.

Perfect room for a pool table... or two!

Sunken bar area with additional seating.

Let's dance!

So many things!!

We're in the middle of so many things right now!!
School is going well; I think we'll stay here a while. So....

In addition to planning the wedding, we're also starting to look for a house. I had planned to wait until late summer or fall to look, but with this dang tax credit deadline looming, it makes sense to start now and see if there's something we want.

We found an amazing place (on-line, haven't seen it yet) that screams: Lindsey and Chris should live here!!

Pros:
1. Land
2. Exterior of house is lovely (like a fancy cabin in the woods)
3. Greenhouse
4. Above ground pool w/deck.
5. Nice Garage
6. Not any further from grocery store than we are now and closer to my work.
7. Secluded and beautiful (I think I'd get alot of work done)
8. Chris likes it too.

But, of course, there are a few drawbacks.

1. The neighborhood is a bit shady. Not urban shady.. more like... "Wow, how is that trailer still standing" shady. I don't mind living away from the glitz and glamor, but I'm worried we might have trouble re-selling.

2. The place comes with land (6.7 acres of wooded lot), but I'm pretty sure most of that land is a big-ol'-hill.

3. It's For Sale By Owner, and the owner was grumpy with my realtor. Maybe this is b/c he doesn't want to pay the fee... maybe he's just a grump.

4. The price is at the top of what we want to pay. Listing says "Reasonable Offers considered," but I'm not sure what that means.

5. House is a bit small. 3 bed 1 bath, but only 1260 sqft.

6. School district sucks

7. It's far from where we are now, so I'd need a new doctor, gym, gyno, dentist, etc. Also its too far for Chris to commute (for any number of years) to the pizza shop. He would, eventually, need a different job.

Comments??

Non-Academic Notes from MLA

Ok, so perhaps I was not in the conference mood. While it was great to see friends and to catch up with a few I haven't seen in years, overall I was not really engaged in the conference. Here are some "notes" I took at the few sessions I was able to attend:

Fascinating feigned friendliness
Let me ask about your paper, so I can tell you about mine. Blah
RI blather
Dude in a skull cap, jeans and a work coat; Lady in cowboy boots and miniskirt; Tweed
Grad students should form reading groups and share syllabi to lessen individual work loads... duh.
So much hugging and hand-shaking... H1N1 here we come!


I also hiked about 10 blocks (out of my way b/c I turned the wrong way out of the hotel) to see a paper the next morning. When I--finally-- got there, the paper was in German. Seriously! In German. So... I grabbed breakfast in the hotel (it was good, but expensive).

I was also able to hit a few of the historic sites before the conference started, but it was terribly rainy and cold, so I didn't stick around long. Here's a few shots of Independence Hall:

A few Christmas pics

Here's just a few pics from the holidays!
Joey and his powerwheels police car:

Newly Married Couple:

Rachael:

MADDY!

Baby Bump:

So adorable!

Jimmy!

Sparkly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Again, I want to emphasize that we're not ready to plan a wedding... This is more of a betrothal than engagement. Nevertheless:

Halloween in PA

Over Halloween, this little town comes alive as "Scaryopolis." It's corny, but seems nice for the families and kids. On halloween evening, the community has a costume contest for all of the area kids. They break into groups by age and parade around the circle in the center. The judges pull the best costumes out of the crowd and the winners get some sort of sugary prize. Chris and I could see the whole show from our porch!
I got terrible pictures, but you get the idea:

There were a couple of really cute outfits, including a beagle in a lobster costume and my favorite: a bunch of grapes (think green tights and a green hat with purple balloons from neck to knees!). There were also a few who's parents seemed to have too much time on their hands. Take for example, the Raggedy Anne in a Toybox and her brother, Wall-E:

 

 \

Both of these were winners, but neither could manage to carry their costumes more than one pass around the circle. Was the candy worth it? We'll probably never know!

Gettin' Fit

As I said in the previous post:

Chris and I joined (and signed our life away for a year) to a new gym. So far, we go about 3 times a week. Chris lifts heavy things while I work on what he calls the "girly" machines. Sometimes we do some cardio (or rather, sometimes I do some cardio and Chris tries for about 5 minutes before giving up. All that smoking!) It's expensive, but also really fancy. They have a lap pool, exercise pool and jacuzzi pool. They have tons of treadmills, ellipticals, steppers, bikes etc. The classes are free (although I haven't made it to any yet) and they have "towel service." What this primarily means is that they have a ton of towels everywhere to suck up the sweat... or the pool water... and you don't have to carry/wash your own. Pretty cool stuff. You can check out the pretty pictures here: http://www.mvhealthplex.com/facility/facility.htm

Ok, so I can't figure out how to link the damn thing.. gogo copy paste!