More Pictures from Florida

Here are some final pictures from Florida.  On our last day, we visited the Edison and Ford Winter Estates.  This is a pretty cool place.  I wasn't aware of this, but Thomas Edison and Henry Ford lived next to each other in Fort Myers in the winters.  Their houses and work areas (including Edison's lab) remain intact and are now open for tours.  You get to see many of Edison's inventions, along with some amazing rubber trees that were brought over from India and were used to produce a source of rubber.

Angie and I spent about three hours there, and we easily could have stayed longer.  It was a fascinating look at the genius and inegenuity of those two men.  Of course, we couldn't resist the urge to get pictures with the two men for which it's named:

In these pictures, Angie is telling Thomas how much she values her inventions and how she can't believe that it's in the 50s and cloudy in Florida, and I'm telling Henry that I can't believe I'm still driving his Escort.  (Yeah, they told us that the statues are drawn above scale.)  Notice the size of the tree in the background of Angie's picture.  It appears to be a group of trees, but it's actually a single tree.

One other place we visited on our trip was the Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium.  We went on a walk through the nature area, and saw some unique animals.  The cool weather caused many of the animals to be put inside, but it was still a nice tour.

Once again, we'd like to thank Bill and Linda for hosting us.  We had a fun time, and will definitely be back someday.

It's Christmas Eve, everybody!

Here's our Christmas tree. We went with a lot of red bows this year. Angie did a great job envisioning what it should look like this year. This is a relatively new tree; we got it around the first week of January in a post-Christmas sale.



We wish you all safe travels tonight, and don't forget to leave out the cookies!

Christmas in Chicago

Right before Christmas, 2005, we took an overnight trip to Chicago. This was our first trip as a couple. We did a whole lot in just a couple of days, including seeing the Christkindlmarket at Daley Plaza, taking a carriage ride, going to the top of the John Hancock Building, seeing Navy Pier, and just checking out the sights and sounds of Christmas in the Windy City. I'll always remember this trip. Here we are in front of the Christmas tree by the John Hancock Building.




We were watching the Bears game Monday night when they had an overhead view of the Chicago skyline, and it made us want to go there again some Christmas. Merry Christmas.

Christmas in the Caribbean

We spent Christmas 2006 on a Caribbean cruise for our honeymoon. I thought I'd put up these pictures, since most of you who are reading this are in the midst of an incredibly long stretch of lousy weather:

Here's the Christmas tree on our ship, the Explorer of the Seas. Our ship departed on Christmas Eve.

Before departure was the mandatory evacuation drill. Of course, we're not above being ridiculous during times like this.

Here we are just before our departure.

And finally, we took this picture on Christmas morning. It ended up being our Christmas card photo the following year.

We took a lot more pictures than this, of course. It was an incredible experience, and we can't wait to do it again.

Christmas in Nashville

You know how last week, I said I'd have pictures throughout the week? Well, I got a little sidetracked with final exams. So, last week I showed a few pictures of our trip to Knoxville last December. Later on, we drove over to Nashville. We saw a lot of things and took a lot of pictures, but I'll focus this on the Christmas pictures.

We have the pictures of a nativity scene and the Christmas tree from the Opryland Hotel. It is a beautiful hotel, although very pricey. Plus, there was a bowl game that week, so just about every hotel room in the area was sold out. Hopefully, we can stay there someday. Just like Knoxville, we had an awesome time in Nashville, and it was a little hard to go home. Thanks for reading.

Christmas in Knoxville

I plan on spending this week posting pictures of our past Christmases. Today, here are some photos from our trip to Knoxville, Tennessee last year. We went there the weekend after Christmas for a family wedding. Here were some pictures from our walk through downtown Knoxville.

Here is the nice downtown tree. The weather was really nice this weekend; sunny, highs in the 50s. It was a pleasant walk around town.

Here, Angie is standing next to the giant Christmas present. I love her so much that I gave her a gift that is almost as big as she is. No, I'm just kidding. We all know that I can't afford to give her such a gift.

And finally, here is Angie talking to Santa. Also, some idiot is taking pictures of her in the background. Santa was using his down time the weekend after the holiday to take tickets at the historic Tennessee Theatre. Angie is asking Santa some intriguing questions. Fun fact: Santa spends all year there, except for Christmas Eve.

We had a great time down there, and we later went on to Nashville. More pictures will follow. Bye for now.

P.S.: This isn't the first post involving Knoxville. Click here for an earlier post from Knoxville with an interesting picture.

The First Christmas Photo of 2008

Merry Christmas, everybody. Here's the first photo of the blog for this year. It was taken in front of the tree at our old church last Christmas.