More Snow!

You think we went crazy last week over a little snow? This week, we had SEVEN INCHES! I saw a snowplow for the first time in my life this morning. It has been exciting, I tell you!

On the steps

Georgie fits entirely inside our footprints! Standing up straight!

Helping me brush the snow off my car while it's still powdery and not frozen on

Buddies in the snow!

I like how the salt (leftover from last week) makes little craters in the shallow snow on our stairs.

We've had lots of fun with the snow (even though it's all been too powdery to make snowballs or snowmen or anything) but I'm hoping it's over now. There are other things we'd like to see... not covered in snow and ice!

Mailing Invitations

Georgie accompanied me to the post office to mail our wedding invitations!

And since he's been visiting Norfolk mermaids, I thought it would be fun to stop and see a Virginia Beach dolphin:

Same concept as the mermaids, but Virginia Beach uses dolphins. This one, as you can see, is faded. It's been up for several years. I tried to put Georgie up on top by the dorsal fin like he was riding it, but it was too windy and he kept falling over. We have a dolphin on the Virginia Beach campus, so I'll try to get to work early tomorrow and get a picture with that! (Clyde saw it last year!)

Another Norfolk Mermaid

As planned, we went across the street after work and got a photo with another Norfolk mermaid! This one is in the middle of the (geographically very small) campus:

It was so cold (weather advisory all day for super-low wind chill, and I believed it after I went outside) so we didn't go wandering in search of more interesting things this time. There's another mermaid right around the block at the Norva (small live music venue that I love) but it was just... so cold. I wanted to get into the mall and pick up my pizza so I could head home:

Pear and gorgonzola from California Pizza Kitchen, yum!

I have a whole weekend off, which - other than between semesters when we're closed for weekends - I haven't had in... I don't even know. Two years? The perks of being full-time... Anyway, it's still really cold out but we'll do some fun things anyway!

Norfolk Mermaid

The Norfolk campus has to borrow me to work there a few days, which means a little change of scenery! We missed out yesterday (in favor of a snow day) and today was delayed opening at noon, so I only had a little time before heading in to the library to find something interesting for Georgie to enjoy. We parked at the mall, so I found a Norfolk mermaid!

Do you see Georgie? He's in the seat cushion down front.

The city of Norfolk started posting these statues (decorated by local artists) all over the city several years ago. It's kind of a fun little game for locals and tourists alike to try to find as many as they can. This one is called "Go Diva"... get it?

My last Little Visitor, Clyde, got to see the one at Eastern Virginia Medical School last year. We should see another one tomorrow, because there's one right across the street from our library! I hope it warms up a little, because I can spend more time wandering during lunch, finding cool fun things for Georgie to see!

Snow Day!

We had a snow day today! Big winter storm overnight (which in these parts means "a couple inches of snow and icy roads"). We don't have things like tire chains or a fleet of snowplows (I've literally never seen a snowplow in real life), nor do we natives to the area know how to drive on ice (haven't a clue) so this means everything shut down, basically.

I'm really proud of the fact that there are NO footprints in this photo.
I nearly fell down stepping off the curb (onto ice) to take the photo, but it was worth it.

Frolicking in fractured ice (he's standing on his own! victory!)

Georgie found a naturally-formed snow fort just his size!

Speaking of "just Georgie's size," here's an icicle his size on my car.

Salted steps

Snowdrifts in the stairway

See how this photo looks all foggy? I exhaled before I pushed the button.

On the balcony in the morning. See that parking lot? I'm glad work was cancelled...

Snow day buddies!

"Helping" us clear the snow/ice from the car so we can go get a late lunch.

From inside the car, pre-windshield-scraping

In Virginia Beach, we don't salt the roads. We sand them. Seriously... that's sand.
I told you we don't really know what to do with snow. It's confusing to us.

Nice Weather... in January

Having survived the polar vortex (weather people are really getting the hang of making weather sound more interesting than it is) Georgie and I headed out to the balcony on Saturday to enjoy the 60-degree weather for a bit.

It was pretty breezy, so this was harder than it looks.

It should get to 60ish again today but we're at work today, so no lounging in the sun for us!

Wedding Cupcakes

Georgie helped me do wedding cupcake tasting today! The gentleman I'm ordering them from was kind enough to bring them to the library for me, so I didn't even have to leave work!

Beautiful! AND tasty!

Cooking

I don't cook nearly as often as I'd like... but we got a bunch of cooking stuff for Christmas (mostly from our wedding registry, which is awesome) and I reorganized the entire kitchen (when we moved in 13 months ago, we just kind of put things wherever they fit and never reevaluated their location... it's so much better now).

Anyway, Georgie and I broke in several of the new kitchen toys... garlic press (I have a garlic press, you guys!) and new Pyrex dish and spices and... well, just look:

If you want to read more about the recipe (and see the finished product) I started yet another blog to write about food this year and beyond: Sausage & Veggie Bake

Tattoo

Going through some photos, I discovered that I hadn't posted this one yet!

A couple weeks ago, Georgie and I took one of my friends to get a new tattoo!

Ta-da! I didn't take work-in-progress photos because I always think that's kind of distracting to the artist.

Happy New Year!

Every year, we do a big fondue dinner for our friends for New Year's Eve. We usually have anywhere from 12 to 20 people... this year we had 15, and Fiance's parents stuck around this year! (Usually they're out of town, but we have it at their house because they have a table big enough to hold all of us.)

Here's Georgie taking it all in during the cheese course:

(If you can't see him, he's behind my plate... he's a little dwarfed by the whole spread!)

Unfortunately, fiance (pictured above at the far end of the table giving deuces to the camera) got sick later in the night so I was too preoccupied with that to take photos of Georgie at midnight.

Here's another photo of Georgie with my friend Chris, though:

Happy New Year, Little Visitors!