Blue Moon

I'm sure you've heard the phrase, "Once in a blue moon." Well, that comes from the fact that a blue moon only occurs once every 19 years. What is a blue moon? A blue moon is the 2nd full moon within a calendar month. Tonight is a blue moon.

Of all days to have a blue moon occur, I must say, New Year's Eve is about the craziest. The only thing that would be crazier would be Halloween. I'm a big believer that the moon effects everything... the tides, animal behavior, which includes human behavior, and even the sequence of how events occur.

Now, looking at the week I've had leading up to tonight, this really puts some of the week's events into perspective. It almost all make sense now, somehow. Including all the extremely active animals at the zoo last Tuesday!

So as we close out this year with a blue moon above us, I wish all of my friends and family a happy, healthy, and plentiful New Year! But be careful out there tonight... people get crazy under the glow of a full moon, and a little more so with the glow of a blue moon!

The Annual Jacksonville Zoo Trip

My mom and I had our annual trip to the Jacksonville Zoo with my niece and nephew today. I think we've been doing this for 5 or 6 years now... I'd have to dig through my photo archive to verify that... but it's been a tradition for awhile.

As usual, we couldn't get out the door quite as early as we would've liked to, but we still managed to get through the gate around noon. It was a bit chilly this year, with the temps only in the 50's. For me this was nice, but for my Florida blood relatives, they were bundled up. There were even signs up noting that some animals my be hiding out in their heated buildings, but we ventured on, of course... it was at least nice and sunny - that should bring some of the animals out.

And it did! This, by far, was one of the best zoo trips we've ever had. All the animals were so active and some (the monkeys, mainly) we loud, to boot!

We started in the zoo's new Asia exhibit, which was mainly a serenity garden of sorts with a Koi pond and waterfalls. It was peaceful and probably a good place for kids to calm down and watch the fish. I know Kris and Darian was very serene at this point.

From there, we went to Australia where one of our favorite exhibits is located - the Lorikeets! You get the feed them and it's all about timing... you get there too early, they're not ready to eat. You get there too late, they're full. Well, we got there at the peek time apparent;y because they were hungry. If you had the nectar cup to feed them, you about got attacked! So we were in there for a good half hour before things started winding down and we coerced the kids to leave. This was much tougher than usual since the birds were so interactive today...

We then made out way to the Jaguar exhibit, which, of course, Jacksonville has the premier exhibit in North America. It is pretty awesome - I think their up to 6 or 7 of them now, including a black jaguar, which is a really intense looking animal. With the right light, you can still see his spots! He wasn't out today, unfortunately, but the three jags that were out were very active, even a few roars thrown in. The two females were roaming back and forth and I think they were waiting to be fed... but we didn't stick around to see if that was the case.

After the jaguars, we went on the Great Ape Loop, which actually includes an array of moneys, apes, and gorillas. The Great Ape, himself, was in quite a playful mood. He was lazily wanders near the window when he suddenly looked to be charging the window and then pulled back and skimmed it... just enough to cause everyone to jump and get a few shrieks out of the crowd. He knew what he was doing - I swear he had a sly grin on his face afterwards. It was about this time that we started hearing loud shrieking and monkey noises further along the loop, so we followed the noise to the Siamang exhibit, where the two apes were having a good ol' time. You could hear them through most of the zoo, I think! I think this was the highlight of the zoo for the kids this year!


After that, we checked out the giraffes, which were being fed, and took a journey on the Africa Loop. The sun was starting the set and the temperature was definitely dropping. So we figured we'd better head out before the kids started getting cold.

Ahh, but our journey was not over yet. In fact, we ended the day with a BANG! Literally. Just a couple of miles from the house, with the kids sleeping in the back, my mom got rear-ended while she was at a complete stop at a stop light. That woke the kids up. It turned out not to be as bad as it felt - the bumper did it's job and took the brunt of the hit. Still sucks, though. But at least it's a cut and dry case for determining fault - the lady who rear-ended us was definitely at fault. Not that it makes is easier to take. But we survived - just came away a little shaken with slightly stiff necks.

Christmas in Jacksonville

We finally got to celebrate the big Christmas in Jacksonville today! The day after has become the norm for the Jacksonville Christmas - it just seems to work best with everyone's schedule.

Kristin and her family arrived about noon... and it was on! Well, actually, we subdued the kids for about a half hour before hitting the first tree to open gifts. As we tried to keep up with the kids tearing through their gifts, time flew by... next thing we knew, it was 3pm. We managed to open all the gifts under the 'big tree' and the 'little tree', but still had the 'middle tree' waiting. but we needed a break. So we cleaned up and went through some of the piles of 'unseen gifts' opened by the kids... and some of the adults. But we could only contain the kids for so long... the middle tree had to be done!

The highlight of the middle tree was the Wii Fit for the Pitts. It was pretty similar to the reaction when getting the Wii last year! But we still had other gifts to open, too... including the stockings! But decided to hold off on the stockings until after we had dinner.

We had a nice ham dinner (#2 for those counting), complete with Mom's apple pie for dessert. After letting everything settle and some good chats, we finally gave in to opening everything in the stockings. That went fast, obviously. And just like that, Christmas was done. All that time that went into decorating a wrapping gifts, and we're left with a box of torn up wrapping paper. But it was all worth it. Time to start shopping for next year! ha ha ha

Now we are all relaxing and watching one of the movies the kids got for Christmas, Up. So far, it's pretty cute. They're going into the storm now, so I'm going to watch that now.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve turned out to be an exhausting day for me!!

After working a half day, I went home to pack for my trip to FL. I only had a limited time and had no clue what to pack for some reason. Probably because I was exhausted from the night before, when I stayed up till midnight baking an apple pie and my traditional 'Christmas' cookies. But I managed to get mostly packed before heading back downtown.

I celebrated 'Christmas #1' on Christmas Eve with Eric's family at his house. We had a big ham dinner, complete with all the trimmings. We read them Olive the Other Reindeer.... well, tried to... The kids (AJ, Nolan, and Liam) just ran around having fun, entertaining themselves... and then came presents! What kid doesn't like to open presents? Liam and Nolan were still a little unsure of the process, but AJ was all over it and they were all nothing but smiles for the rest of the night. We capped the night off with a round of my desserts. Eric headed to bed early since he's getting over something flu-like - you could tell he was just exhausted! So I saw everyone off at the end of the night and then had to drag Eric back to Fishers with me to finish packing and drop off my car for the week. That took longer than expected, unfortunately...

By the time I finished packing and Eric and I exchanged gifts, it was nearly 11pm! Eric laid on the couch the entire time in a state of semi-consciousness. We got back to his house only to realize that he left his wallet sitting on the side table at my house. By the time the both of us got settled into bed it was 12:30 am. For the 2nd night in a row for me. 4:30am was going to come way too early!

And it did! That alarm went off this morning and woke me up from a sound sleep. I did not want to get up! But of course I did - had a plane to catch! Eric and I timed the airport perfectly, walked right on the plane, and now we wait. Yes... I'm currently en route to FL... gotta love in-flight wi-fi!

So "Merry Christmas" to those who may read this today! I'm sure I'll have lots more to post after 'Christmas #2' in Jacksonville. And all the other annual traditions we have.

December Catch-Up!

Okay... so I finally have a moment to sit and type. But just a moment...

It's been a crazy couple of weeks!! The good news is, everything that needs to be done at this point is done! All the packages are out, which means all the gifts are wrapped. The cards all went into the mail over the weekend (I'm still hoping I had a few addresses right, though). And tonight is my 'chill' night... tomorrow the baking will commence! I have to do stuff for work, stuff for the Strickland Family Christmas, AND stuff to take home to Jacksonville. Granted, a lot of those overlap... but there's still plenty to do! And that doesn't even take into account the packing I need to do!

Speaking of Jacksonville... I'm really anxious to get to some warmth! Granted, in talking with my Mom this morning, it was somehow the same temperature there, this morning, as it was here. Not good. But I'm sure it's just a temporary thing... it is Florida, after all! I can't wait to see the kiddos, too! And this being the first Christmas with Eric and I being engaged, it's sure to be even more memorable!

It's going to be a great Christmas!

Still Here!

I know I've been MIA for the past 10 days or so, but I've been busy!!

It's been crazy trying to finish shopping, wrap all my gifts, pack and ship them all, and work on Christmas Cards... I've hardly had time to sit and enjoy Christmas!

I hope to be able to sit and write more soon... until then... "Ho Ho Ho!"

Christmas Decor is Up, Snow has Fallen...

Well, it took me well into last night, but even with all the excitement of the weekend, I managed to get my Christmas decorations up. I cheated a little bit - I didn't put EVERYTHING up this year... I may come back and do more later if I seriously miss something in particular. But I felt like that with last weekend's events, it's going to make for a season of other priorities and I probably won't get to enjoy my own decorations too much! But we'll see. I know I have a busy week ahead of me, at least...

Besides, I had to get up what I could before the snow came! Which was this morning! It was just enough to cover the road and some of the grass (depending on how low/high it was)... which also meant it was enough to make the roads nasty! Which is really did, apparently! Luckily, I didn't go in at my normal time this morning - my furnace has a schedule tune-up this morning. So I've been able to avoid the chaos thus far. Hopefully it'll be better when I get on the roads in a few hours.

Another fun event worthwhile talking about from the weekend is the Butler basketball I went to at historic Hinkle Fieldhouse! That was really cool to see no just a highly ranked basketball team in action, but the fieldhouse, itself! It's nice to see some place preserve their history instead of bulldozing it down for bigger an better things.

A Big Day!

So I woke up this morning, assuming it'd be a normal, cold Saturday. Granted, I had to finish decorating my tree and house for Christmas... but other than that... Eric and I went out for some breakfast and then wanted to go over the the Indianapolis Museum of Art to buy his Christmas cards for the year (he always gets them there).

Or so I thought.

First, he wanted to go look at the Robert Indiana "Love" Sculpture out in front of the museum because he hadn't really checked it out since they moved it to the front of the museum (YEARS ago!). It was just going to be 'real quick' and then we'd go inside since it was only about 30-degrees out.

Or so I thought.

Instead, as we were standing in front of the sculpture, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him!

Of course I said, "Yes!" I was shocked... so much that I was shaking. Not because of the cold... but because of the shock and excitement! I got a huge smile on my face, obviously, which still hasn't gone away.

So I'm engaged!! And to me, that is a big day!!