Thursday, December 13, 2007
Random Pictures
Not Very Good at this Blogging Thing
So I know I started this blog because I didn't think Rob blogged enough, and now I'm the bum who doesn't blog. It's been busy, but I've also been lazy! So here's the Egbert update. We had a fun Thanksgiving in Atlanta. Rob's sister, Maria, and her kids came up and we did all the usual Thanksgiving stuff (cooking, eating, shopping, watching TV and movies, eating again, etc.). Then we did something most families probably don't do. The day after Thanksgiving we had a Thorpe family "Fry Night." You see, last year for Christmas we got my sister and her husband a deep turkey fryer. Since it takes so much oil and is a pain to use and clean up, they have "fry nights" every so often where they deep fry everything at once. While you all were eating Thanksgiving leftovers the day after Thanksgiving, this was our menu:
Deep fried tempura battered shrimp
Deep fried coconut shrimp
Deep fried onion rings
Deep fried mozzerella sticks
Deep fried scones with honey butter
Deep fried halibut
Deep fried chicken
Deep fried tater tots
and a few salads to help it go down
Needless to say, it was delicious at first. But as the meal went on and our arteries were slowly clogging up, the novelty wore off. Now you see why "fry night" only happens once every few months. But this was our first and we enjoyed it thoroughly.
Since the Thanksgiving break, school was brutal. The kids were so excited for Christmas they could hardly control themselves. I come home and vent to Rob about the crazy kids and he always tells me I should blog about my stories. And now that I'm here, I can't think of any of the funny ones. I am completely surprised at how un-crafty my kids are this year though. It took them an hour to make a little paper ornament that took me 2 minutes to make at home! I get frustrated and want to yell "what don't you understand about color, cut, then glue?!?"
Rob's been busy with school, but he's got 2 weeks off before he has to crack down big time and start studying for the boards. He'll take them sometime in June. We are planning on taking a trip to Mexico next summer after he finishes the boards and before he starts his rotations. I can't wait. That will be our third summer in a row in Central America. We really like it there, and it is so cheap compared to any other international travel. But this year we're not going to rough it as much as we have the previous two years. This trip is about relaxing on the beach (Pacific side) and possibly a trip to Mexico City (depending on how long we stay). We're heading down there with our friends Will and Paige partly as a celebration for Rob and Will finishing the boards, and partly for our 5 year anniversary (which is actually in 2 weeks!). If anyone wants in on the trip, let me know (seriously...the beach houses we are looking at renting can sleep tons of people).
Deep fried tempura battered shrimp
Deep fried coconut shrimp
Deep fried onion rings
Deep fried mozzerella sticks
Deep fried scones with honey butter
Deep fried halibut
Deep fried chicken
Deep fried tater tots
and a few salads to help it go down
Needless to say, it was delicious at first. But as the meal went on and our arteries were slowly clogging up, the novelty wore off. Now you see why "fry night" only happens once every few months. But this was our first and we enjoyed it thoroughly.
Since the Thanksgiving break, school was brutal. The kids were so excited for Christmas they could hardly control themselves. I come home and vent to Rob about the crazy kids and he always tells me I should blog about my stories. And now that I'm here, I can't think of any of the funny ones. I am completely surprised at how un-crafty my kids are this year though. It took them an hour to make a little paper ornament that took me 2 minutes to make at home! I get frustrated and want to yell "what don't you understand about color, cut, then glue?!?"
Rob's been busy with school, but he's got 2 weeks off before he has to crack down big time and start studying for the boards. He'll take them sometime in June. We are planning on taking a trip to Mexico next summer after he finishes the boards and before he starts his rotations. I can't wait. That will be our third summer in a row in Central America. We really like it there, and it is so cheap compared to any other international travel. But this year we're not going to rough it as much as we have the previous two years. This trip is about relaxing on the beach (Pacific side) and possibly a trip to Mexico City (depending on how long we stay). We're heading down there with our friends Will and Paige partly as a celebration for Rob and Will finishing the boards, and partly for our 5 year anniversary (which is actually in 2 weeks!). If anyone wants in on the trip, let me know (seriously...the beach houses we are looking at renting can sleep tons of people).
My sister, Andee, and me at the park while all the kids played.
We're both looking forward to the Christmas break. We'll be in Florida for the first half for Christmas with Rob's family, and in Atlanta for New Year's with my family. And went down to Charleston this past weekend for a pre-anniversary celebration (since we will be sleeping on an air mattress at Maria's house with all the family in town on our actual anniversary)! Yes, that is a LOT of driving. Good thing we've got Vince Flynn books on tape to entertain us the whole way!
Saturday, November 17, 2007
I Love Technology
I love technology. I like to think that I am pretty computer savvy. I think this all started with our VCR player. My mom claims that I could work that thing at a very young age. (While that may not sound like much now, remember that back then, VCRs were pretty technologically advanced)! But it also goes back to the days when my dad brought home our first computer. I don't know exactly how old I was, but I'm pretty sure it was still the 80's. I rembember my dad showing me how to type in the dos commands to get it up and running. I remember trying to teach myself how to type on the crude notepad application. I remeber the orange and black glow from the screen. I played "Pong" (or some version of it) on that computer. However, the best thing about that computer was the "Print Shop" application. I made more banners growing up than anyone else I know. I loved to play with the different fonts and graphics. Then I'd print it out on the continuous paper with our dot matrix printer. Not a birthday went by in my house without one such banner draped across the fireplace mantle.
As I got older (middle school, I think), I discovered PowerPoint. Not many kids my age were playing around with the presentation making software, but that didn't stop me. I thought of it as a sort of movie that I could make. I used the animations to make my graphics move, played with the transitions and made slideshows about my friends. I don't think people really knew how geeky I was.
The next big thing in technology our family got was a scanner. This provided endless hours of fun scanning in photos, opening them in "Paint" and painting on different hair colors, warts (not on photos of myself, of course), and anything else that seemed funny at the time. I still do this sometimes, but I've graduated from "Paint" to "Photoshop" and if I do say so myself, I'm pretty good at it now.
In college I got the bright idea to make digital movies. This was about 5 or 6 years ago, so it really wasn't as big as it is now. I like to think I was one of the first. By this time there was actual movie making software readily available and I didn't have to make my old PowerPoint "movies." Well, this hobby has stuck and I like to call it "extreme scrapbooking." I make home videos from our photos and digital videos. So here's a sample of my work. I hope you enjoy watching.
As I got older (middle school, I think), I discovered PowerPoint. Not many kids my age were playing around with the presentation making software, but that didn't stop me. I thought of it as a sort of movie that I could make. I used the animations to make my graphics move, played with the transitions and made slideshows about my friends. I don't think people really knew how geeky I was.
The next big thing in technology our family got was a scanner. This provided endless hours of fun scanning in photos, opening them in "Paint" and painting on different hair colors, warts (not on photos of myself, of course), and anything else that seemed funny at the time. I still do this sometimes, but I've graduated from "Paint" to "Photoshop" and if I do say so myself, I'm pretty good at it now.
In college I got the bright idea to make digital movies. This was about 5 or 6 years ago, so it really wasn't as big as it is now. I like to think I was one of the first. By this time there was actual movie making software readily available and I didn't have to make my old PowerPoint "movies." Well, this hobby has stuck and I like to call it "extreme scrapbooking." I make home videos from our photos and digital videos. So here's a sample of my work. I hope you enjoy watching.
It's About Time
So I have been saying I would start up my own blog for a while now. But I never really do it. So here it is. Hopefully I will keep up with it. Rob's got a blog that he's pretty good about writing, but I find myself checking his blog to see if he wrote about the funny things that happen to us and then there's no post. Now I know I can just ask him if he wrote about it, and since I don't, it may sound like we have some pathetic marriage where we don't talk to each other, but that's not the case. I just have all these blogs saved in my favorites and sometimes I just go down the list and see who has written something new. And it's usually not my husband. So I decided I would take the initiative to write something myself. Here goes...
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