Closed for the Winter?

On Saturday we decided we wanted to go swimming in the Lake. We got Stella all dressed up in her new little bathing suit and headed out for a day of fun. Just as we were pulling into the parking lot, we saw that the gate was closed and there was a sign hanging on it. To our surprise, it said Park closed for winter. Will reopen in April. What the heck? It's still 85-90 degrees on a regular basis. Who ever said anything about winter? So determined to get in the lake water, we drove around for about an hour looking for beach access. None to be found! Every beach is privately owned. So we settled for looking at model homes and swimming in the pool.


Does this look like winter to you? We're not bitter or anything!

I swear I feed this girl

Lately Stella has been putting anything that comes near her mouth, as far into it as she can. She is under the impression that she can put both her fists in her mouth at the same time. Hmmm.... makes for some pretty slobbery hands. It is rare that I can get her to keep everything out of her mouth long enough for a picture, as you can see...

An Intruder

Last night at my unusual 1:30 am feeding of miss Stella, I was joined by an unwelcome guest. You see, people have been warning me about the flying cockroaches of the south, but I never really believed they existed. I always figured people would not live where there were 2 inch cockroaches that flew...it just wouldn't happen. Well when we got out here - I was told that they really do exist. This freaked me out for a couple of days, but then when I didn't see any, I figured - who cares if there are flying cockroaches if you never see them. Then I saw one. A dead one in the cultural hall at church while I was standing in the back bouncing Stella to keep her quiet. About 2 inches long, and lying on its back, it looked absolutely disgusting. Two days later while visiting a couple in our complex, I noticed a second disgusting cockroach, or palmetto bug as they are called around here. Luckily, it also lie lifeless on its back. So with all these spottings only taking place with dead bugs, I again thought it couldn't be that bad.
While sitting Indian style, (luckily), on my couch last night, attempting to quiet and feed my little angel, out from underneath the couch crawls a palmetto bug - thank heavens for the crawling part. Had it decided to fly out I may have had a heart-attack. I ran towards the bedroom door where Andy was sleeping soundly. Knowing he had a tough day of school ahead, I couldn't wake him. I watched the little monster like a hawk as it crawled across my floor and then under a comforter we had drying on our chair. As long as it stayed under that blanket, I thought I would be ok. Minutes later, I heard laughing and honking outside, so I walked to the peep hole to spy. While standing there with Stella, peering into the stairwell, suddenly I felt something on my head. I screamed and ran towards the bedroom, only to find Andy jumping from bed in a panic and running towards me.
"It's not a big deal, It's not a big deal", I reassured him as tears began streaming down my face. Stella stared up at me with wide awake eyes, that unfortunately had been softly shut just seconds before. Andy looked so confused.
"There is a palmetto bug, and it crawled under the blanket, and something just hit my head!" Andy brought me in close to calm me down, and then walked towards the blanket with a cup in hand. After searching for a couple of minutes, finally the palmetto bug thought it appropriate to make a run for it, and came out into clear view, where Andy, with ninja like reflexes trapped the little bugger.
"Should I throw him outside or flush him?", Andy asked.
"FLUSH HIM!"

Well we had a pretty good day yesterday. We went to the Greek Festival in Columbia. Stella was soooo good because there were so many exciting things for her to look at. Andy was excited for the grub, and I was very pleasantly surprised with how yummy the food was. We ate gyro's, had baklava, and then some of the chocolate cream stuff pictured below. We also bought a University of South Carolina license plate to put on the front of our car. Stella also had her first driving lesson. She seemed to enjoy that.












I had to include these pictures also because I think her hat is so cute.

Andy's home away from home...away from home

These are a few pictures we took around campus. There is no picture of the law school because, to be honest the building is kind of boring and plain, so we didn't even take one. They are building a new law school down the road from where it currently is, and if anyone is interested, for 30 million you can have it named after you. Most parts of campus are really beautiful, and being that it is right in the middle of the city, there are a lot of beautiful places near by.


GO GAMECOCKS!!

Study Time

Stella took a break out of her busy day to help her Dad with a little studying. Andy had a ton of work to get done today, but wanted to spend some time with Stella. I walked into the room and saw them studying together and had to get a picture because I thought it was too cute. What a good Dad!

This is great...

Today Jeramia and I did his picture and Stella's picture. I had to put Stella's on here because it turns out she looks like one of my favorite people! Too much.

Marco...

Yesterday was Stella's first time in a pool. We are lucky and have one in our complex. The water was fairly chilly yesterday, but Stella still enjoyed herself. Her chunkiness helped her out, Andy just had to hold her head out of the water, otherwise she could float. She wasn't even upset when we took her out. She just chilled afterwards like everything was all good. Looks like we'll be spending some more time down by the pool.

Celebrity look-alikes

Well remember how I was saying my sister looked like Ashlee Simpson, and I didn't really look much like Mandy Moore - etc. etc. I guess I was wrong. Ha ha, this is a fun little thing to do - go see who you look like!

Our Little Buddy

I have Jeramia for a couple of hours after school everyday so I thought I should put up a post for him. He is the 8 yr. old son of Chad and Karen Rozmus (a family my brother met while on his mission who have now become our great family friends as well) and he is a crack up. Yesterday he told me he considers himself an adult. He loves little Stella and finds a great sense of accomplishment after getting her to stop crying or helping her fall asleep. He enjoys playing with Andy, as well as dancing around the house after watching You Got Served. We love Jeramia and are glad we get to have him share some of his day with us.