in honor of rylan's first day of winter break, we went to the beach... kind of. we drove to hilton head and found the disney resort! (yes, we know, we're obsessed and slightly neurotic about it). may i just add that it was FREEZING! and by freezing i mean maybe 60 degrees. but we are children of the desert and that was just way too cold for us. and apparently everyone else, cause no one was there.

anyways, we had a good time walking around, freezing our little tooshies off.

we were feeling a bit homesick, so we found a really good mexican food place for lunch. and lucky rylan, it was right next to the j.crew outlet mall!! i just couldn't keep him out of there. but this is why i love outlet malls (especially j.crew). i found a dress that i wanted last year, originally $189.00. on sale for $40. merry christmas to me!!

tomorrow we have to go buy a turkey. rylan's parents are coming to monday so we're starting to clean. okay not really, but im off monday and they don't get here until 8pm. plenty of time!

long time, no blog.

i'm sure everyone has been waiting with baited (bated?) breathe for this next post! cause our lives in savannah have everyone on the edge of their seats!

i've been working at the paula deen store for about a month now. love it very much! it's very fast paced- reminds me of disney. and i love the lack of stress, it's much easier than being a manager at AMC (not that it didn't have it's perks, but man was that hard!) the people i work with are great... but no, i have not met the wonderful mrs. paula deen. i have met her sons (so cute!), her husband, her aunt, and her nephew (he's my boss, i see him every day, he doesnt count-ha!).

rylan is constantly busy with school. boy does he work way harder than i ever did when i was in college! seriously, he's done more homework in this first quarter than i think i ever did in my 4.5 years at the u of a.

we're settling into "slow-vannah" life pretty well. it's very comforting having the hansens so close, i dont think words will ever express how thankful we are for letting us adopt them as parents (and that goes for B and G as well!).

the dog has discovered squirrels, as well as the neighborhood cats and the dog who lives across the back alley. she's tried eating a few acorns, which never goes well for her, but she avoids all bugs at any cost.

we went to disneyworld last weekend to visit my parents, and boy did she do a number on the house while we were gone. she shredded the carpet under our bedroom door, she peed all over the guest bed and the rug in the hallway, and she scratched up the front and back door something fierce. but in all fairness, it was our fault. B and G offered to come and check on her several times each day, and in my heart of hearts, i knew that wouldn't be enough. it embarrasses me to think of all the shit (literally) they had to clean up. anywho...

we bought a lawnmower today! we raked up 13 trash bags of leaves and grass. our yard looks beautiful again! i'm quite proud of us. we done good!

-chels

Does anyone even read this?

I guess I still have catching up to do...That's probably how it will always be, right off the cold presses from yesterday...and in this case a while ago. I think I will summarize a bit more to perhaps speed up my drawing on about my adventures. This is actually code for, 'I don't quite remember a lot of stuff anymore.' Most of my remembering is coming from pictures anyway; a sort of rediscovering what you already knew...or something along those lines. Anyways I see my rambling has continued, am I finished? Is anyone even there? Is this thing on? Are you ready? Here we go...

September 3rd - We all decided to go to the beach. It was actually a date that was postponed from my birthday. The high tide was in and came in even further before we left. My clothes along with some other stuff got wet and I was forced to wear my swimsuit all day. On that note, I will say that I went actually in the ocean and swam alongside Chelsea and her mom. That's big news there because I am not a water kind of guy, but when in Rome....For lunch we went to Uncle Bubba's Oyster House and I got chicken. Uncle Bubba is Paula Deen's brother. the food was good, the service was very slow and the atmosphere was I guess I would say weird. We were supposed to go to a pizza place called Basil's but it was closed due to Labor Day. For dinner, Chelsea and I made dinner for our families and had our first home cooked meal in our house. Trying to think of anything else...I got nothing.

September 4th - All the pictures say is we went to the Pirate House. Chelsea has informed me that we went to J Christopher's for breakfast with Nicky. Delicious. The Pirate House is the oldest building in Savannah and is a cheesy restaurant that has a talking robotic pirate in the front. I am not lying about the robot pirate. For some reason that reminds me of whaler's on the moon that carry harpoons...moving on. They also have a Jack Sparrow guy walking around and bothering innocent tables. The actor was fun at first then just annoying toward the end of the meal. It was interesting and well interesting.

September 5th - My parents left this day and I was quite sad. I will miss them. As for us, we went to the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum. Chelsea will claim it was quite boring, I will say it was interesting. And some of the stuff they had there was just plain cool. Engines from planes, huge World War 2 banners, and bears oh my! (no bears, sorry) Chelsea will still say it was the most boring thing in the world. Oh they had the tail wing of a B-52 just sitting there - all I have to say is massive. Yeah, cool stuff like that, I think Chelsea's dad enjoyed it also. For dinner we drove over to Basil's for dinner and had some pizza. They also had an awesome bruschetta that I can't remember exactly everything (or anything) about it so I'll leave it at that. We finished the night off with a nice walk on the beach with the sunset behind us.

September 6th - Ok for lunch, we went to Mrs. Wilkes boarding house. This place does it right...they serve you boarding house style with different parties sitting at the same dinging room table. You have a full feast (about 50 different dishes, no joke) sitting in front of you to choose from and you can have all of them and in good portion. Damn it was awesome. Let's just say we left with our stomachs quite full (more full then a trip to Red Lobster, Dan). Nicky met us there for lunch and then bailed afterwards to go home and do some stuff. This left us on the streets of Savannah to have a tour of the Mercer House. This is the house in the movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The house is beautiful and is basically a museum of old European and English art. The movie explains why and I have no pictures because they wouldn't let us. For dinner, Nickey and Jim invited us over for dinner for chicken salad. We left there house late and after many stories and conversations.

September 7th - We were woken up to get ready for a breakfast on Tybee. This would be our third time at the beach since we arrived in Savannah. We went to the beach with Nicky and Chelsea's parents first and collected seashells and enjoyed our time. Walking around a bit gave us a hunger we just couldn't ignore and we settled on The Breakfast Club for lunch. In true Rylan fashion, I had a bacon cheeseburger. I think I have a picture of this one and will add it when I get a chance (if it's already there, feast your eyes on that bad boy). The food was very good and put on our 'come back again' list (more of a mental list then anything really). For dinner, it was Jim's birthday and we went to Pearl's (spelling not quite sure). Blaine and Ginger joined us and it was great to see them. This is the place that has the donut tasting hush puppies. It was a good day in my book. Oh, Happy Birthday Jim!

September 8th - A boring day of orientation and waiting for another meeting to begin. It was getting close to school and I was also getting excited to start. On another note, while I was in a meeting, Chelsea was going to go back home and pick me up later. Well, we didn't realize that I had the car keys and she was stuck by herself for two and a half hours. She was not too happy. I don't think there was any other highlights of this day that I can remember.

September 9th - This is the day Chelsea's parents left and I would say a conclusion to what would be the prelude to our adventure. The family was gone and we were in Savannah alone with the dog. We did a bit of yard work (we are so grown up). And that's all I got. It had been exciting doing everything up until this point. The next day would be my first day of school...I guess it's time to go back to school to prove to my parents that I'm not a fool. It's time to step back, hold my breath, close my eyes and jump. I hope I don't fall.

P.S. From the looks of my posts it seems like I live my life through food. I am just writing these things because they are food to write home about. It is like discovering an entirely new treasure of opportunities. Later on I won't be mentioning about how we cooked chicken and rice or mac n' cheese because well, if you want that experience, go pick up a blue box at the grocery store. While you can't taste the food I ordered, that's too bad. I enjoyed it. Good Eats.

A Short History of Time Passed, Part 2

September 1st, 2007 Continued...
I left off back at us at home and finished with our day of exploring. That night my parents had made reservations at a restaurant on River Street called Boar's Head. It was a delightful meal and we got to view the river from our table. I order a green drink to enjoy my birthday party and had a steak with mashed potatoes because its delicious. My parents picked me up a card that has a dog on it. For my birthday Chelsea bought me a messenger bag from Fossil. I love it and it has been really handy around school. Not to mention I look damn hip. Oh yeah, thanks Deedee for the birthday call and Taylor and Andrea!

September 2nd, 2007
It rained...We unpacked some more...and then at night it cleared and we went on a ghost tour. Our tour guide was this crazy lady that had a hellish cackle of a laugh. The ride itself was kind of fun, they take you around downtown and tell a few stories of Savannah's 'other' residents. My suggestion is to read, yes, read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and you get most if not all of these stories (at least I'm told from a pretty good source, i.e. Chelsea) Not to mention I hear its a mighty fine book. One thing the ghost tour offered, besides the comical guide(with insanely bad jokes, which only she and me seemed to laugh at), is they took us inside a real haunted house. The Sorrell-Weed house has been on many TV shows for its haunted nature and also has a very...interesting tour guide as well. This lady, the one that toured us around the house, must have been a has-been, never made it to the big screen but always dreamed, actress. Her speech about the house was as we say, a little too dramatic. She was quite a laugh and fun to listen to. The ghost tour was a present to me from Chelsea's parents and was a very fun night. This passage does have a very unforunte ending however....but more about that later...
....
..
MURDER! (inside joke here and relates to the tour lady)

A Short History of Time Passed

Alright, everyone will have to bear with me on this one. There are a lot of days to cover and I will most likely forget a lot of it. It's been a while since we've had internet and I have been able to sit down and actually write something. I will try and put something down...

August 30th, 2007
This day could best be described as 'cleaning day'. The house it seemed had not been lived in for a while and there was dust and dirt everywhere. Chelsea's parents picked up some cleaning supplies and we were able to start the cleaning process. But before any of that could take place, on Chelsea and I's part, we had to go downtown to get our water turned on. The water department was on Broughton, a street that I would called the most modern on the downtown area. This is the place that the department stores of an earlier time would be. Now it is chic clothing shops, the SCAD theater, and the SCAD library. The water building seemed to be a recycled building also. It must have been a savings and loan at one time or something. There was this huge vault with holes above it that looked like they housed a sign of some sort. Anyways, after the water department, we thought we would head down and say hello to Ginger. We had not seen her or Blaine so a nice hello would have been nice. After a not so brief but not so long walk, we reached Poetter Hall, a SCAD building that houses admissions and also the graphic design department. It used to be an old armory building and then later SCAD's first main campus, and now it was what was mentioned. Well this is where Ginger works. After her assistant tracked her down, we got to say our hellos and she directed to Blaine's building to say hello to him. So we trekked on to Blaine's building, which was on our way back to the car. We said hello to him and then headed back to the car. But not before a stop at Parker's a gas station and little market downtown for drinks and supplies for the crew back home (Chelsea's parents). We returned home for cleaning duty...
At night we met up with Jim and Nicky for a nice dinner on River Street at a place called Tubby's. I would best describe it as a seafood bar and grill. They were still able to get me a hamburger which was actually quite good. Damn I love hamburgers. Tubby's is located on River street and is basically the tourist area of town. It parallels the river and is filled with shops and knick knacks for anyone and everyone. It is also a great place to find street performers and artists. We weren't living in the house yet due to the fact that our stuff was to be delivered tomorrow. Instead, we have a clean and empty new house. On a side note I have to say how enthralled I am with the downtown area. It has to be the perfect mix of old buildings and even older oak trees. As you drive through the city the roads are covered by the branches of these gigantic monsters of nature.
It is almost as if someone carved a hole through a forest just so you could drive through. It is a very vast contrast from the flat lands of Tucson. So green and immersed in everyday life, the trees and plant life almost seem like buildings themselves. Sky scrappers reaching up and blocking out the sun. The next day would be move in day and were we ever excited to get our stuff and stop staying in hotels.

August 31st, 2007
The clouds hung over our house waiting to bring an onslaught of rain down upon us. And yet for the time it took us to unload everything, the rain ceased. It was quite amazing actually. We were able to get everything in and out of the front yard before it became soaked. My parents were to arrive this night and we were already getting everything together and making our house a home. Busy bees creating our furniture and putting things away, although I think there is a couple boxes around still to this day. It was definitely a work day. There is nothing more to describe this day. Moving in was the main concern and putting everything in its place. My parents arrived and we ordered pizza from down the street. It was a place Chelsea had found on her way to get supplies and whatnots (official term for anythings and everythings). It was tasty pizza and was labeled New Jersey style - whatever that means. The guy didn't sound like he was from New Jersey but I suppose I won't hold that against him. I ate it with pleasure anyways. Oh by the way, this day marked the first time we were able to actually sleep in our new house. Yay, for my own bed! I think Lola was relieved to have our big bed also. She has been a little nervious coming into a new home. We have had to leave her a couple times and she actually scratched up the door. My parents were able to fix it and has since been pretty good about being home alone.

September 1st, 2007
Since it was my birthday, the plan was to hit up the beach...that is until a hurricane of a storm hit Savannah and canceled our fun. We then changed our plans to walking around downtown. We started at the Information center and then walked around. It was neat to see all the different buildings; very different from the suburbs back home. We ate at B&D Burgers (downtown location this time) for lunch and I had a burger known as the 'City Market'. I have become a big fan of this place since they make a tasty burger and have curly fries. This burger had five different cheeses on it: cheddar, american, swiss, provolone, and mozzarella. This is definitely my kind of place. Deedee you need to try this place, oh and Dan too. After lunch Chelsea's mom stopped over at Leopold's Ice Cream for a cone. The rest of us were all still pretty full and passed. After lunch we headed back to the car and then home for some more unpacking. The desks, entertainment center, and kitchen table were all pretty much in place by this time and the little stuff was making its way out of boxes. For my birthday, Chelsea's dad picked me up an electric drill and I used that thing for quite a bit of assembly. That is definitly a useful tool (and makes you feel really manly too). I think around this point we realized we needed more Dezinno photography pictures hanging up and I called the boss to see if I could get a hook up. I am hoping I still can. I have to say we are big fans of his work. His 'Tucson Inn' picture is the first thing we see next to our front door when we enter or leave. It is a constant reminder of our homes. As well as the beautiful coasters that Deedee designed. It is great to have wonderful friends that design and make such wonderful pieces of art. I have to say how crazy the condensation on cups is here. At one point I watched Chelsea's cup start wiggling around because it was floating on the condensation. It was actually quite funny. well more updates later...till then

A Short Journey to Savannah - Day Four

The fourth day of our journey could best be described as a race to the finish. We were sick of driving and wanted very much to be in what would soon be called 'our town.' We left Montgomery with the truck rumblin' and ramblin'. I didn't quite feel well so Chelsea took the wheel and we were located about an hour outside of Georgia. It didn't take long before we crossed that state line and Georgia was on our mind. Along our way we stopped at a peach orchard where Chelsea's mom picked up some peach ice cream and I of course tried a bacon cheeseburger. Just past the orchard was a big accident in which a logging truck lost his logs. They had tumbled all over the road and we were stuck in the middle of nowhere for about thirty minutes. I was fearing of the truck dying but it did ok. On the road, I contacted the landlords and we arranged for us to get the keys to our new house! We were both excited to finally get to see it.

Around four, we reached our town. We headed to the house and got to see it. It is quite nice and I am excited to be able to start moving in. Right now it is an empty palette to start throwing stuff in. We meet our landlords and they seemed quite nice. I think we both got very lucky on our rental property. We did have our first visitor also today. On the right side of the house and outside we saw a huge spider. It had a two foot long web extending from the side of our house to a huge oak tree on the side of our yard. It is disgusting. As for the house, Chelsea is absolutely in love with it. I am happy she is happy, but right now the house is not quite like a home. I know it will get there when we get settled.
After a bit of checking out the house and meeting the neighbor, we left the house for dinner. The neighbor is a man best described as a hater of t-shirts but should invest in one. He sits on his porch and watches the day go by. Nice enough and good to have around to keep an eye on the neighborhood.

For dinner we met up with Nicki and Jim for a burger at B & D Burger. It was great because they were able to let us bring the dog. It was also great to meet up with the Hansens before they left for Greenbay on Friday. And I can never past down a good burger joint. I would have to say that this is a recommendation on my part. They have about 15 different types of burgers to soothe any one's choice of toppings. Even Chelsea's dad got a rendition of what we called a 'pizza burger' that he used to create when he was younger. While I am not as adventurous and there was no cheesy bacon cheeseburger they were able to get me a bacon cheeseburger, my favorite. Chelsea also pointed out to me that they have a kid's meal area that doubles as the starving student section for cheaper meals for the hungry students everywhere. We went to bed on quite a full stomach. Good night and well eats.

A Short Journey to Savannah - Day Three

After loading all our stuff back in the truck, we left Shrieveport and were off to different lands. The dialect had definitely changed around here. As DeeDee might say its a little bit like hillbilly. I knew we were in the right direction. The Ice Tea had changed also. Fearful of this new drink I have stayed far away from it. The liquid sugar concoction they try to pass off as ice tea is a ploy of some sort...I'm sure of it. We were to drive until the people of the land spoke something different. This drive was alot better then the drab and boring Texas. We would refer to the rest of the trip as, 'at least we aren't in Texas' part. No offense to those Texans out there, I'm just saying. We were trying to make it to Columbus, GA. The drive had different ideas.

We stopped just over the Mississippi for a rest and I got to see the grand river first hand. I think I have seen it before, but I can't remember. The welcome center was by far the best one I've ever seen and even offered us free soda. I passed on the offer but it was still cool. Around this point my truck decided it was beginning to have enough of this trip. I would consider its demeanor as a low rumble and uncomfortable shake, unnatural for any american made automobile - or any car for that matter. It was not wanting anymore of this long drive and I wanted it to cross three more states. This rumble however was only to be had at low speeds and on the highway it performed like a throughbred, that is if it were a horse. It would be a concern for the rest of the trip if we possibly would not make it. Our only choice would be to press on and just hope. Mississippi also greeted us with a strong rainstorm that slowed us down a bit. It was a little frightening for moments when visibility became zero on the highway. After our little set back we ended our day in Montgomery, AL. We were about an hour off our mark but we were tired and I was worried. Chelsea and I were able to pick up some Carraba's for dinner which was very tasty and calmed my nerves a bit. This is probably the night I was unnerved the most and I didn't get much sleep. Until the next day, good night.