happy october, it's finally cooling down!

not a super exciting post, but i had to share my excitement. it never really lasts around here, but know that i have been thoroughly enjoying this sudden cool-down.

ha, just kidding.

check this out!

our local library has a book sale every year and until this year i'd never been. boy was i missing out! check out these sweet deals i got:

i got 7 hardcover books, including an enormous unabridged dictionary, and a leather-bound, hand-inked copy of Emerson's essays... all for a measly $14!

the books were all pretty thick (the dictionary alone is about 2,230 pages) so i walked out with a very heavy pile about 1.5-2 feet high stretched in my arms. a funny picture i'm sure, but who cares! what a great deal!

the best part about all of this is that the books were in really great condition- they all look brand new!

there's definitely a moral to this story. if you like books and see a library book sale- go!

i thought this was a pretty cool pic of some flowers hugh gave me not long ago...

my attempt at autumn

though much of the country is experiencing lovely changes in temperature, bright new colored leaves and a crispness in the air, the sunshine state still sits in the upper 80s. what a bummer!

to make matters worse, it’s unlikely that things will change anytime soon. this area is not really known for its diverse seasons.

so, i've decided to take a stand :) at least in our house. at some point i'll find a whole slew of nice seasonal decorations, but until then i'll at least stick with

scattering these amazing smelling candles around the house...

and occasionally indulging in yummy snacks like these pumpkin dark chocolate chip cookies

5

happy 5th anniversary to allison and scott!

yes, friends, this is a 5 year pancake, but no it's not for the hetzels - sorry guys! :)

what's the reasoning then for this shout-out you ask? why, this was a very important wedding for us! this is the delicious wedding where hugh and i met.

many stories and happy memories are associated with this weekend, but i'll leave you with this amusing photograph. thanks to scott's dad for this picture... this was taken right after the photographer told us to get together for a 'couple photo' that she was taking so that when we got married we would have a picture of when we met. this is definitely one of my favorite stories ever.

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now, back to 2008 and this morning. i just need to brag on my husband for a minute. hugh woke up early and made a sweet breakfast of piping hot tea and a whole stack of "5" chocolate chip pancakes and treats for us. what a great husband!

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so, happy anniversary scott and allison. we love you guys!

cali

some pics from a wonderful week in california with my good friend joy...

our beaches in florida do not look like this. i really wish they did. the mountains make everything so pretty! it reminds me a lot of cape town too.

i thought for a while about how i could make a mountain just behind the sand dunes where we live… but unfortunately decided that it wouldn’t really work, especially since i don’t actually own any land on or connected to the beach.

great tastes of suntree

food (35 different restaurants)

friends

zoo

yum

while hugh was resting on this banister, a zoo employee came by and urged hugh to please be careful and not fall in to the pen behind him. while i’m sure they have lots of people lose their balance and fall into the pens, this happened to be an exhibit of bonsai trees. very dangerous i know

unbelievable

thanks to brett and julie for this one. and, as they put it, if you're into groovy music, bad theology, and icky christianity... well, enjoy.

quality time

so this afternoon we were talking to an old man at the gym (who, at 75, still boxes and works out every day and who had proudly just gotten two new tattoos) ... he told hugh and i that we should take a vacation to 'paris island'. paris island, i come to find out a few seconds later, is where the marine core boot camp is held.

i'm pretty sure he was serious!

quality together time?? hmmm...

court

a bit late in coming, but with t.s. fay on her heels we were a bit preoccupied!

my good friend courtney came out from texas and spent a week with us in august. it was wonderful! such a nice time of rest and fun and catching up. many thanks to tim for giving me a week with his lovely wife.

CNN

we were on cnn!!

or, rather, my photos were on cnn.

how fun is that?! i sent in the photo of the sailboat on the golf course and this afternoon someone called me wanting all sorts of information - about me, our area, etc. - even what kind of camera i used (which i, of course, could not remember. some photographer i am!).

he asked me to send him some more photos, which i blew off until he called again reminding me that i could upload "up to 10 at a time".

i then sent in the one of hugh on his bike... and it was put on tv too!

now that hugh is famous, i'll do my best to keep him humble. :)

Day Three

it’s day three of our little adventure - by adventure i mean that we’ve been stuck in our house for three days without really being able to leave. first because the wind and rain made it too dangerous, then because there was so much flooding that many of the roads were closed.

tropical storm fay came and sat on top of us for a good day and a half, dropping lots (btw 20 and 30 inches) of rain and wind, before deciding to make her way up the coast.

we did make our way out today, though, venturing out on our bikes to survey the flooding outside our immediate neighborhood.

a bit rough at times:

the 8^th tee at the golf course across the street (obviously there is not supposed to be any water here) - this guy's got the right idea! :

blowing off some steam when it finally stopped raining for a few minutes (again, that is still golf course behind, not a lake) :

our little fortress (great for keeping out the wind and rain, but not so much helping with the cabin fever!) :

despite the flooding in the area surrounding our neighborhood… our house is fine, with only our landscaping looking a little worse for the wear. we are so thankful!

p.s. we did have a little laugh in all of this. you know you're in a regularly weather-beaten state when amidst the 65 mph winds and driving rain, you hear a train go by.

Becoming American

When I woke this morning Lauren looked like this:


But, by afternoon she looked like this (after Americanization) :




It's official - Lauren is now an American - though technically African American.

-

more punishment

as if hugh didn't get enough last week ...



... i found him climbing trees to get at the more hard-to-reach plants. i guess the consequences from tearing down the pepper trees (part of the poison ivy family, we've since found out) didn't slow him down any!


(p.s. many many thanks to jenni, who helped us attack our little forest and get it pruned and trimmed!)

our stay-cation

hugh and i went on a mini vacation not long ago. he's been calling it a stay-cation because we didn't go too far from home.

i definitely recommend this! because the area is familiar, you don't feel like you have to spend all your time running around seeing everything there is to see in the area. you can actually relax!

and we did actually relax!

pets

faith apparently wants a pet. we found this the other day ...

the “fish” in their home … the makeshift fishbowl. she tends to forget them, though. luckily there are two sinks in her bathroom- we had a really surprised dinner guest the other night.

mug shots of the "fish"

new moves

the other night we got a bit sidetracked on iTunes looking for some new music to download onto our iPods. faith amused herself by dancing to each song snippet. every now and again she enlisted the ‘help’ of hugh in acting some of the songs out (ie: getting his foot tied up during 'peter and the wolf') and then later as a dancing partner…

hurricane hugh

no, folks, we weren’t hit by a hurricane. bertha came and went and gave us barely more than an afternoon of rain. waves were the best so far this year, but still not a whole lot to write home about. this is the result of a more spontaneous endeavor.

it started something like this:

hugh: “k, honey, i’m just going to go out and finish cutting the grass in the backyard. i don’t have a whole lot so i’ll be back in a little bit.”

i was working on something on the computer and chatting with my sister and, though i did notice the lack of loud noise coming from the backyard, didn’t think too much of it.

just over an hour later, i’m off the phone and hungry so i walk into the kitchen for a snack and see this (definitely enlarge this pic):

wow!! i literally just stood there staring for probably close to a minute!

turns out that hugh did start cutting the grass, but was overcome with irritation at the infestation of brazilian pepper trees that we have (a major nuisance around here! the county will actually cut them down for free because they take over everything so quickly) that he decided to launch the initial attack. this is definitely only the beginning- these guys are not easy to kill; it takes drilling, poisoning…

until then, we have a ridiculous amount of "yard waste" that will hopefully be picked up tomorrow!

a simple kitchen equation

=

yes folks, those are bubbles coming out of the pasta. each and every time I try and boil water… bubbles. makes for very interesting dinner preparation.

explanation... one of faith’s chores is to wash the dishes (pots, pans, etc that have been used each weekend). it began as something she “loved!” and so asked for it to be added to her chore list- “it’s really so wonderful and fun. you should just think of it like you’re taking a bubble bath”. classic. this perspective didn’t last long, but unfortunately (for her) the chore is here for keeps.

one of the side effects, we have come to notice, is that she, without close supervision, uses a ridiculously large amount of soap. the result is clean dishes… but with a price.

eric

this is a post asking for some prayer. almost 6 weeks ago a friend of the family, eric, was badly burned when he lost consciousness while showering. he suffered second and third-degree burns over much of his body as well as damage to his lungs, throat and kidneys. he’s in bad shape, but is fighting hard and winning small battles every day!

you can read his story and find updates on his condition at his caringbridge website:

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/ericjastram

it really is an amazing story of God working and caring about the details of each of our lives.

eric’s mom and family, in the midst of their own trials, have shown great willingness to share God’s love with those around them. The stories that they have told about the people they’ve met are truly remarkable and it’s clear that God is using them in a powerful way! what an encouragement they are!

i was going to post a couple of the stories here, but decided against it… read them, though, in the journal, especially june 20, 29, 30. it’s completely worth it! God is amazing and loves his children so much!

what a great birthday!

this is a little late in coming, but oh well. my birthday last week was a beautiful day, full of friends. i am so thankful for each of them! my lovely husband started the day out so nicely, with breakfast and presents in bed and then even went to work late (and came home early) so that he could spend some extra time with me. the rest of the day was full of special hang-out time and phone calls and cards and i enjoyed it thoroughly. thanks everyone!

i’m also really lucky and get to share my birthday with my dad- what a wonderful gift! it makes everything so much more special and i love it. happy birthday dad!

here are some pics of the day…

kate and fin spent the afternoon with me

my candle-blowing helpers, ollie and madalyn

satellite beach class of 1998

in honor of hugh's 10 year high school reunion this weekend...

uh, sting ‘em scorps

(side note: hugh has made fun of baylor’s “sic ‘em bears” for years… but seriously, how is that any more strange than “sting ‘em scorps”… especially when you add the strange hand movement – that’s supposed to look like a scorpion stinging, I guess - that always goes along with it?!)

the hunt

the father's day "skabinger hunt map" as laid out by faith...

oh, to be 8 again

from a conversation yesterday…

Did you know that every time a girl has a crush on a boy, she loses an IQ point?

and do you know that we actually had a disagreement about the validity of the statement! – she didn’t believe me for a solid few minutes that it wasn’t really true! (yes, i'm sure that this could be debated...)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HUGH!!

some photos from a recent visit to kansas…

how nice it was to be able to see these dear friends while we were there!

color

this time of year is one of my favorites when it comes to our garden. there is so much color!

we've been enjoying the flowers for a few weeks now and i decided to share them with you. whole trees and bushes full of the sweet things!

i love it.

confession: i don't actually know what they all are, many but not all - i just try to keep them alive!