Football and Photos

From A:

We got a taste of the upcoming Gator football team at a charity challenge held at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium today. The event divided the football team into 6 groups that were each competing for a different charity. There were 3 different events, including the tire flip, the obstacle course, and the sled push.

In an unfair twist of fate (or through clever planning), Tebow, Spikes, and the Pouncey twins were all on the same team. Also, Tebow wore a sleeveless, sideless shirt to the event. In case you were wondering, his body is composed entirely of muscles.

Needless to say, we are even more ready than ever for the 2009 Gator football season to begin!

On a completely unrelated topic, we have more wedding photo favorites to post. First, the handsome groom and groomsmen:

Next, me with my beautiful bridesmaids:

And finally, the entire bridal party:

Wedding Pictures

From A:

J and I were thrilled to receive our professional wedding pictures today. We have had a great time looking through them and deciding on our favorites. I plan to post some of our top picks on the blog, so I'll start with our overall favorite:

There are plenty more to come in future posts, so stay tuned!

Horticulturalist Eye Candy

From A:

After reflecting on the image of our front porch foliage in a recent post, I decided that a little more color and interest was needed.

So, two more plants have been added to the collection:

The pink flowers are especially interesting since they close and night and open again during the day.

Hopefully my purchase and subsequent planting of these flowers was not a death sentence (due to my track record with plants). We'll see!

Our Place

From A:

Now that we're more settled in our condo, we decided to do some decorating today. We had a large, blank wall that was in desperate need of some visual interest. After some shopping, a real-life geometry problem, and J's handy hanging work, this is what we ended up with:


The arrangement seems to fill the wall space well, and it turned out to be a great way to display our Talavera pottery collection.

After our decorating project, J made us a special dinner, saucy beef with rice:


Unfortunately, the picture makes the dish look like some sort of soupy mish-mosh. However, it smelled and tasted absolutely delicious!

J also included a mandolin solo as entertainment while dinner was simmering:

I especially enjoy the prominence of his wedding band in this photo. Has it been 6 weeks already?!

Gainesville Landscaping

From J:

View from our front door (for the very short):


1) A hardy plant that never seems to die and never seems to thrive. Has been in this state for the past 6 months. I don't know what this is called.
2) See (1).
3) The newest addition. The golden child of our plant collection. This plant is the envy of all other plants. It will receive regular water, fertilizer, and generally be doted on until it dies, which is inevitable due to its ascension to most-favored status. Desperate attempts at resuscitation through overwatering and sweet pleadings not to die will ultimately fail, and another plant will be purchased and placed in this same pot. Repeat as necessary.
4) The cacti that my then-girlfriend (now wife) bought me for our 2-year anniversary. These things are invincible, and I love them.

Based on the above collection of plants, I deem us to have slightly more living plants in front of our residence than the average house renter behind University Avenue, mostly because people can't park cars on them on football weekends (see below for my interpretation of the average Gainesville yard).

(note: actual Gainesville yards contain more Spanish moss and cars)

Cowboys and Keys

From A:

Saturday marked the final day that J was still renting his pre-wedding "bachelor pad" apartment. He has now moved everything into our condo, including the frightening autographed photo of Ronnie Coleman. Special thanks to D and C for giving him that fine piece of art.

Although his apartment had some interesting features, such as the cowboy-shaped ceiling stain, it won't be missed.

And, considering how unhelpful and unresponsive the property managers were, J was relieved to finally turn his key in and be done with them.

A simple comparison

From J:

A time-honored tradition in blogs seems to be adding in photos of recent meals. So why can't we get in on this action? I'm going to combine two of my recent meals with a factoid I learned on Food Network the other night: if you give food elaborate names people will like it more.

Starting off, I give you...dinner.


Is this dinner better referred to as a saute of freshly caught wild scallops in a garlic-butter sauce with sesame-soy brocolli and herbed couscous or as scallops cooked in butter and garlic powder with frozen brocolli and boxed couscous? Clearly, the former is better. Whatever, it was tasty.

Next, I give you...happy breakfast.


Is this a kid-friendly presentation of a toasted whole grain bagel with whipped cream cheese and an egg white frittata with a spicy blend of 4 gourmet Mexican cheeses, or a bagel and an egg substitute omelet that happened to look like a smiley face on my plate?

I think I've made my point. For your next dinner party, spend extra time looking up snooty names on the internet rather than cooking and your guests will be better off.

Seven-Eleven

From A:

We have now attended our first wedding as a married couple! My graduate school roommate, Jenn, was married on 7/11.

Jenn had a beautiful wedding, complete with a unity candle that actually lit (unlike ours!). We were so happy that we could be a part of her big day.

Congratulations to Mr. and Dr. P!

Welcome...

To our new blog. Why start a blog? There are usually two reasons, I'm guessing, that people start blogs:

1) They think that they have genuinely interesting things to say.
2) They want to become famous. This person's idol is probably Perez Hilton, the most famous blogger ever. This says something about blogs.

Personally, I don't think that either of these things will be true with this blog. I (J) will probably write posts about science, politics, and working out. My wife (A) will probably write posts that are better than mine about our day-to-day happenings and travels.

A little bit about us: we are both graduates of the University of Florida with BS degrees in engineering. A has an MS degree from UF in a different field; I have an MS degree in engineering and am working on my PhD in the same field. We were recently married, on June 13, 2009. This being the internet, I won't be any more specific than that. The photos on the sidebar are from our honeymoon to Napa, CA. Enjoy the site and stay tuned!