Christmas Time is Here

From A:

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

All around our condo

Ceramic tree made by A's Mom

Countdown on the fridge

Crochet by Chelsea - snowman and angels

 "Mantle" and stockings

Mini stockings

But the prettiest sight to see is the holly Santa that will be

On our own front door

Remix Revealed

From A:

As I mentioned in the last post, I had time to do some shopping during the Thanksgiving holiday week.  I found some really cute beach-themed home decor at one of the stores I visited with my parents.  This decor served as inspiration for a redecoration of our guest bathroom.

After finding a few finishing touches today, our bathroom remix is complete!  I give you...

...the vanity area:

...the storage shelves:

...the towel rack and wall behind the door:

...and J's favorite part, the flameless candle that illuminates the wooden slat box at night:

Now we have a little piece of the beach in our condo.

Thanksgiving Recap

From A:

J and I enjoyed an extended Thanksgiving break this year.  It all began with a wonderful Thanksgiving meal in my parents' backyard.  We had beautiful weather, with the high temperature being about 80 degrees (the thermometer in the yard reads a little on the warm side):

Instead of turkey, we continued our Thanksgiving steak tradition.  This year the grill master cooked a delicious flank steak.  But first we had to kill the cow:

Just kidding!  Our range practice was purely recreational.  However, the previous picture would make an interesting Vera Bradley advertisement, right?!

Anyway, here's what the steak looked like (yum!):

After Thanksgiving, J traveled to Boston to present at a conference.  He also did some sightseeing, including  having dinner at the German brewhouse called Jacob Wirth, which is the second-oldest restaurant in Boston:

I was able to spend the week with my parents.  We did a lot of shopping, including some much-needed Christmas gift shopping.  Additionally, we went on a historic tour of Pensacola on an 1880s replica streetcar.  We had a private tour that consisted of 66 different places of interest, including a stop for gelato at Joe Patti's World Famous Seafood Market:

It was a great week - but it went by way too fast!

Happy Birthday Times Two

We have double birthday wishes to send today.

Happy Birthday to J's Mom:

And Happy Birthday to A's Dad:

We love you and hope you have a wonderful day!

Adventures at the Tree Farm

From A:

This afternoon, J and I visited a local tree farm to pick out our first 'real' Christmas tree.  Actually, this is the first 'real' tree I've ever had since my family opted for the 'faux' variety each year.

Upon arriving at the farm, which consists of five fields full of trees behind a house, we were given a saw and turned loose on the property.  Each tree for sale had a tag with the tree variety, price, and height.  We spent quite a while exploring each of the five fields.

After considering several worthy candidates, we found our tree!  It's a five foot tall Virginia Pine.

Following a car ride home (the tree fit inside with the back seat down), it was time to decorate!

Orange lights + blue jingle bells = a Florida Gator Christmas tree!

 

New phones, part deux

From J:

As A alluded to about a month ago, we recently purchased new phones.  I've had a smartphone for a couple of years (an iPhone 3G), but this is A's first smartphone - she upgraded from a venerable Motorola Razr that had ~3 hours of battery life.  We both went with the LG Optimus S on Sprint since A gets such a sweet discount through her employer.  For $50, this is a heck of a phone.

The basics: the latest and greatest Android operating system (v2.2), a teensy form factor, and good speed.  I was hesitant about the less-than-cutting-edge processor (600MHz, when top of the line phones are running 1GHz), but the phone has never felt slow, web pages load smoothly, and apps open very snappily.  It also multitasks just fine thanks to plenty of RAM for such a cheap phone.

The best feature is Android itself, which is blowing the pants off of iOS.  Widgets are excellent; without opening up any apps I can check my google calendars, the weather, phone settings, to do lists, see text messages, etc.  Sweet, and something that makes the iPhone look like it's in the dark ages.  It's not as intuitive as the iPhone, however - it's more like having a real computer in your pocket, with access to the file system, lots of customization options, and some troubleshooting required for certain apps.  This is not a downside to me, but I can see where it could get messy for some people.  And, while the iPhone comes with lots of basic functions preinstalled and polished, Android requires you to download standalone apps from the market for simple things like a stopwatch.

In short, we're loving our new phones.  I can't imagine plunking down $200 for an iPhone or a top-of-the-line Android compared to this thing.  LG's hit a home run with this one.