June 11, 2009

Not much going on at Casa de Hyland. But I did take a few pictures during lunch at work today. They're uploaded to our Flickr album. Enjoy!

May 26, 2009

Here we are at Lowes' Motor Speedway in Concord, NC for the Nationwide Series Camping World 300 on Saturday, May 23, 2009. This was in-between rain showers where both times the heavens opened up and unleashed a massive flood. Needless to say, we didn't get to watch a full 300 mile race. More pictures from Saturday night are in our Flickr album.

We started off our Memorial Day weekend lounging around watching tv in bed. Luckily, the race wasn't until waaaay later in the afternoon so we didn't have to rush to get anywhere. We packed up our race gear and headed off to Concord after 3pm. We had plenty of time for a quick trip to Concord Mills before the race, where Jamie used some birthday/Christmas gift cards at Eddie Bauer. That was our first trip to Concord Mills and I think we'll probably go back again when it isn't so crowded with holiday weekenders and race fans. As we were leaving the mall, we noticed the very nasty clouds hanging off in the direction of the track. We quickly (for the race traffic) headed down the boulevard and got parked behind the dirt track (across the street from the speedway). I could hear that Happy Hour (practice for the Sprint Cup cars) had just started. We parked closer to turn 4 and our seats were just before turn 1, so we had quite a ways to walk before we got to our seats. About halfway through our walk we came to an almost dead stop. People were POURING out of the stands. We looked to our right to see that it was POURING rain outside. But we were comfortably dry under the stands, even if we were packed in like sardines and not moving fast. Finally we made it to our grandstand and stumbled up my folks. We all stood between the bathrooms and concession booths for probably about 45 minutes before we heard the big jet driers come out to dry the track. Our race started about an hour later than it was supposed to. Luckily, the drivers were able to race to just past halfway before the rains started again. The driers came back out on the track, but the rain was coming down way too fast for them to get much headway on the mile and a half track. Finally the race was called and Mike Bliss, who took a gamble to stay out during the caution, was declared the winner. That was really cool because Mom and I saw Mike Bliss win at her first NASCAR race back in 2005. In the pouring rain, we parted ways and headed back to our vehicles. Jamie and I were back home before 2am.

May 8, 2009

Happy Anniversary to Us!

On Monday, we celebrated our second wedding anniversary. We decided to take the day off and trekked to the zoo, one of our all time favorite places to go.

Here we are in the African Pavilion, which had been transformed into an oasis of orchids. The weather was perfect and the crowds were very minimal. We had an excellent day together wandering from exhibit to exhibit. We got to see ever animal we didn't get to see last time, and the ones that were sleeping last time were awake this time! The only lazy bones on Monday were the lions, but it was late afternoon by the time we got to that part of the zoo so I'm sure they were exhausted from a long day of being looked at by humans.

I've posted a few of my favorite zoo pictures (taken by both of us) to the Flickr album. More will be coming as soon as we weed through all 330 of them.

Mom and Aunt Gloria stayed over Sunday night after their weekend at Victory Junction Gang Camp. We had a good, but very short, time with them.

Friday afternoon (going through this past weekend in reverse order if you haven't noticed by now), we headed over to Reynolda Gardens to have a go around the nature trail since the afternoon was very pleasant and we both wanted to stretch our legs. I sneezed my head off the ENTIRE time, but still liked the walk very much. We took lots of pictures in the woods (it was very green) and took some pictures in the gardens too. This part of the season is sorta in-between for flowers. The spring flowers (tulips, daffodils, etc) are mostly gone, but the summer flowers (day lilies, roses, etc) haven't started blooming yet. All of the pictures from that little trip are in our Flickr album too.

In a few weeks, we'll be heading down to Charlotte for the Carquest Auto Parts 300 Nationwide Race. YAY! Fast cars! VROOOOM!!! Also another great place to take photos.

April 16, 2009

On Easter Sunday we headed over to Greensboro to visit the Natural Science Center. We saw lots of neat stuff, including TIGERS!! I took lots of pictures, and they're uploaded to our Flickr account.

Also check out the new pictures of my craft projects on the Jewelry page of Stylishly Crafty. I've been a busy bee. I even just finished with an attempt to marble some paper. It didn't work out too well. Out of about 10 attempts, only two pieces of paper came out looking like marbled paper. The rest looked like some kindergartner's messy fingerpainting page. OH well. I didn't have the right supplies so I was just winging it. My mom and I did a WONDERFUL job with a paper marbling kit when I was in middle school, but we had all the necessary supplies.

Today at lunch, since it was such a nice day, I snapped some pictures of the lovely garden on campus. Those pictures are on Flickr too. But here are a few of my favorites.

April 10, 2009

Happy Easter!

We haven't been up to much lately. The weather has been edging towards nice, though we have recently had some very chilly days. The past couple of days have been nice enough for me to get out to take some pictures of the pretty spring colors. I've uploaded a few flower pictures to the Flickr album. This set of pictures is the first that I've done some post-editing in photoshop. I didn't do any adjustments on the lighting, color, balance or anything fancy like that. I just framed the pictures a little better. It's amazing how a photo straight out of the camera can go from eh to wow with just a little crop work. Here are some examples:

Straight out of the camera:

Here is the photo cropped:

Straight out of the camera:

Cropped:

See the difference? The subject of the photo is a little more apparent. This bed of tulips is in front of one of the signs for our apartment complex. It happens to be at a busy intersection. I bet the people going by in their cars thought I was really weird there in a bed of flowers down on my knees with a camera. Enjoy the other photos in our Flickr album, and I hope we get to make some trips oot and aboot to take more pictures! I really hope we'll get to Grandfather Mountain sometime this spring. We're just waiting for a nice weekend to head off to the zoo. Plus we're going to the Nationwide race in Charlotte at the end of May.

I've been extremely crafty lately. Two co-workers gave me a TON of beads and stuff for my birthday. So far I've made four necklaces, a bracelet, and three purses. I need to get pictures of that stuff to add to my crafty page.

March 2, 2009

March blew in like a lion. A big snowy lion.

Needless to say, with 3 inches of snow on the ground, I didn't have to go to work today! YAY! Three-day weekend. I don't have to go to work until 10am tomorrow morning. The temperature stayed at or below freezing all day so most of the snow is still around or has turned to ice. For more pictures, see our flickr album!

February 27, 2009

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

Today is my mom's birthday. Her best birthday present was having her last radiation treatment today. YAY!

This past Sunday was my birthday. Monday I came home after lunch and stayed home for the next three days with what I guess was the flu. I went back to work today. Ugh. It was awful. At least I wasn't stuffy and could breathe just fine. But I felt horrible and kept a fever for three full days. Now I sound like I'm trying to hack up a lung. I'm moderately better now. For the first day and a half I just sprawled in the recliner staring at the tv. I have no idea what I watched. My dear sweet loving husband took very good care of me.

I had a sunny little welcome when I got home from work this afternoon. Daffodils!

Maybe sunshine and warm weather are on their way! (Well...maybe after Sunday, when it's supposed to be cold and wintry again...bah)