Hobbies

Happy Sunday to you all! It's been another week of great weather here in Nashville and we have been as busy as ever doing fun things around town, as well is in the apartment. We haven't gone on any blog-worthy trips in the last week, but I thought this would be a good time to tell you guys about each of our hobbies. Let's start with Heather.

Heather's hat-knitting endavour isn't something new, but she's been making some really cute hats lately that I must share with you all! She is still getting orders for hats on a regular basis from the ladies at work, and even some of their friends! Here are three of her latest creations:

If any of you are curious, hats are $15 and can be any color and style you like! :) She has even made one with a hole in the back for a ponytail!

My latest hobby has been a few years in the making. I've been enjoying craft beers for several years, but have only thought about making my own for the last 6-8 months or so. I've done a lot of research on how to make beer, and on several of the available home brew kits out there. Turns out, this is a pretty popular hobby! There are tons of different kits out there for all levels of experience. Essentially the spectrum runs from (malt extract in a can + sugar + yeast + water = beer) to whole grain brewing where you steep the grains, multiple types of hops, and malt in a brewer's kettle, mix with different sugars, add yeast, ferment, and bottle. While I like the flexibility of the latter, I thought it wise to start with a simpler set up while I get some experience. So as an early birthday present, Heather bought be a home brew kit! The kit comes with a 6-gallon fermentor (big bucket with a valve at the bottom), 30 750ml bottles, and an American Lager kit.

Here's a picture of my first batch a couple days into the fermentation process.

Yeah... Heather yielded a good portion of the bathroom counter for the beer kit. What a woman!

It's pretty fun to watch the yeast do its thing over the first 2-3 days. Within 6 hours or so of getting everything mixed in the fermentor, the yeast begins to get pretty active. This process is essentially the same as the whiskey process I described in the post about our trip to the Jack Daniel's distillery. The yeast is so active that you can see the liquid churning, bubbling, and foaming. Gravity readings (aka density) are taken every day to monitor the progress of the fermentation. When the yeast is no longer converting sugar to alcohol and CO2, it's time to bottle! The primary fermentation in the bucket lasts about 6 days. You add some priming sugar to each bottle which helps to carbonate the beer in the bottle. The beer is supposed to "bottle condition" for a minimum of 2 weeks. I've read and heard that the flavor continues to develop for up to 3 months! I bottled 3 days ago and I'm already anxious to give it a try! Fortunately, 30 bottles will take quite a while to go through. I'm sure we will be able to have a taste test at several intervals between 2 and 12 weeks from now.

Here's my bottling set up (more or less).

The bottles are now tucked away in a box, and Heather has reclaimed the bathroom counter.

Even though I got one of the simpler kits about there, I can exercise as much creativity as I want when I mix the wort (pre-fermented liquid). My next batch may be a pumpkin ale, oatmeal stout, or perhaps just a dark ale with some brown sugar added. I'm really excited to have a new hobby that takes time, creativity, a little bit of science, and that results in beer! I'm looking forward to sharing some of my results with friends and family.

That's all we have to report for now! Things are going well in Nashville right now, and we are both enjoying the transition to fall. And of course, we are SO excited for the upcoming holidays and all the joy they entail.

Until next time and with love,

Tim & Heather

Going the Natchez Trace Way

Are we on a roll or what?! Three posts in a week? I blame it on the weather. With the official transition from summer to fall, Nashville has seen a delightful cooling in temperature while maintaining mostly sunny skies and minimal precipitation. We're talking about highs in the 70's and lows in the 40's and 50's. Is that not the perfect weather to be spending as much time as possible outdoors? If this isn't, then I don't know what is. In addition to the wonderful weather, Heather and I have been missing all of our wonderful family and friends back home lately. Contributing to this blog on a more regular basis seems like a nice way to "connect" with whomever may come across it on any given week. We hope this finds you all well! We also hope you all are enjoying reading it as much as we are enjoying thinking about you as we write it.

So in the words of the great John Wayne in McClintock, "Lets get to the rat killin'."

For the past few months, Heather has had her eye on the Natchez Trace Parkway. It is a 444-mile long scenic road that extends North-South from Nashville into southern Mississippi. There are many historical sites along this road, and it is meticulously maintained by the National Park Service.

This beautiful bridge was pretty impressive and was our first stop on our drive. The bridge is a concrete double arch design with a span of 1,572 feet and a road height of 145 feet above the green valley below. We drove as slowly as possible across the bridge so we could soak in the great view!

I should say that this drive, like most in Tennessee, was full of wonderful scenes of densely wooded deciduous trees. While Tennessee is fairly plain looking in the winter months due to its lack of evergreens, I think it can hang with the best of them when it comes to autumn foliage. When the entire state is covered in oak, hickory, ash, and maple trees, the turning of leaves essentially changes the entire landscape. If any of you are wanting to visit Tennessee at its most beautiful, you may want to consider coming in early November. The leaves have just barely started to turn, but we could tell during our drive this weekend that things are about to get really scenic around here!


In the interest of keeping this post to a one-sitting length, I'll just briefly mention a few of the stops we made along the 50 or so miles of the Trace that we covered on this trip. Now I know that my parents have hiked up around the continental divide (which separates the water flow of the continental United States - rivers to the west flow to the Pacific, rivers to the east flow to the Gulf and Atlantic). Well, I'm pleased to announce that Heather and I have been to the great Tennessee Valley Divide! Rivers to its east flow into the Tennessee River, and rivers to the west flow into the Cumberland. Ok, ok. Maybe its no where near as impressive as the continental divide, but it definitely made us think of you! Another stop was the site of an old tobacco farm. Neither Heather or I have seen how tobacco is grown, but I know that it involves some amount of aging in tall barns before being shipped out for processing. The tobacco leaves can be quite long (3-6 feet or so), so we were hoping that this stop would actually be at a working farm, or at least a display of the different stages of cultivation and aging. Nope! Just a small barn with one row of hanging fresh tobacco leaves, and a gravel road that took you no where. Oh well!

Here's a shot of Heather inside the barn, admiring the tobacco leaves

Not a bad view from the tobacco "farm"!

As always, feel free to click on the pictures to get a larger view!

Here's a shot from another nice outlook.

The highlight of our trip, aside from the great scenery along the way, was a place called Jackson Falls. Here's a short video of me explaining a bit about it!

What I didn't mention in this video is why the water is no longer flowing here. Apparently a large storm led to some flooding which eroded the river banks and redirected the water flow.

And that's about all I have to say about that! I'll leave you with a few more pictures from the Trace.

Stay tuned this coming week for a post on my newest hobby!

Until next time,
Tim & Heather

Big News Day!

So I promised that I would have some information for you all regarding my 4th-year externship placement today. As many of you know, this process was pretty difficult and our decision to apply for a spot in Nashville was not an easy one. I was actually notified one week ago about Vanderbilt and the Nashville VA's decision but had to keep it to myself until they could complete the official application process. I didn't feel much risk in telling a few family members ahead of time, but since I can now tell the world, I was officially offered the only spot at the Nashville VA for a Vanderbilt Au.D. student!! WOOOOT!!!!

This is definitely the ideal situation for Heather and I! I knew that if we were to stay in Nashville, I would really prefer to do my externship at the VA rather than at Vanderbilt. Not only will the VA be an opportunity to get some exposure to a different clinical environment, they also pay VERY well. As it turns out, the VA is possibly the highest paying for 4th-year externs in the country, and they pay quite well for Au.D. clinicians too! Heather and I are definitely looking forward to having a bit more financial cushion beginning next summer. Our primary goal is to pay down the student loan debt that we have accumulated over the past few years, but we also hope to make an extra trip home for some much needed bonding with our niece and nephew!!!

We love you all and are so happy to be able to share this great news with you today!

Until next time,

Tim & Heather

Crazy Little Thing Called Camping

I think if you surveyed 100 people about what they thought about camping, you'd get everything from "I love to get out into nature, carry everything in with me, catch my dinner, and sleep under the stars" all the way to "I love to enjoy nature from the inside of my 40' RV". Fortunately, Heather and I both grew up camping sans RV, but with some of the more traditional creature comforts like T.P., an air mattress, and a proper campsite. Camping is something that we both have fond memories of, and that we love to do together! We've found the weather in Nashville to be somewhat prohibitive. Surprising? The problem is that the majority of the summer is sooo hot and humid that it would be uncomfortable to be outside all day and night. The best weather (spring and fall) are often so short that they can slip right by you without noticing! Also, this year was the year for the 17-year brood of cicadas to come out in the South. If you aren't familiar, it's a time when billions and billions of cicadas come out of the ground and the trees to eat, mate, and die over the course of one month or so. If you haven't heard what 10,000 cicadas sound like before, let me explain to you. They are loud!!! One of my professors measured the sound level near a tree full of cicadas, and found the level to be about 85dBSPL. This is definitely loud enough for one to need to raise their voice to be understood. Not exactly an ideal setting for being outside and sleeping in a tent. Not to mention thousands of cicadas covering every tree and all over the ground! Yuk! So anyways, this last weekend we saw an opportunity and we took it! We packed up all our gear (and Draco!) and drove south to Henry Horton State Park in Chapel Hill, TN.

After a little over an hour drive through the country, we made it to a very nice little camp ground! Now as far as I know, there is nothing in the state of Tennessee to hold a candle to the natural beauty of a place like Wallowa Lake. But we do the best that we can with what we have. We were able to claim a good camp site on the end of the row, with only one neighbor. It was first come, first served so we got there pretty early and were able to set up camp well before lunch time. We took a little while to relax and enjoy the scenery while eating lunch that we brought from home. The weather was perfect. We were comfortable. We were happy! Well, I shouldn't include Draco in that. Draco must have been the one that grew up camping from an RV. While he was able to find a somewhat comfortable spot to hang out under the table, he wasn't really himself. He really just liked to sit in the tent. Every now and then when we'd let him off his leash, Draco would make a mad dash for the car and look for an open door so he could jump in and leave! After the 2nd or 3rd time, we got the message. Draco prefers to camp indoors on carpet. *Sigh*. Who knows, maybe he'll get used to it, or maybe we'll just leave him at home next time!

In the interest of brevity, we built a fire in the afternoon, roasted hotdogs and had baked beans and salad for dinner, s'mores for dessert, and played cards next to a lantern until bedtime.


Here's Draco in his natural habitat... shelter. :)

Heather and Draco are helping to get everything set up!

I'm honing my fire-building skills. Yeah, there's some room for improvement.

The best picture of all! Heather is reading at the table with Draco at her feet, and the fire is going strong.

This trip definitely re-wet our appetites for camping! The weather has been fantastic lately, and the immediate forecast looks bright! We're hoping to make another trip to a new camp ground in the next 2 or 3 weeks. So stay tuned for that!


Also, I'll be able to announce some big news regarding my 4-th year clinical externship (a.k.a. where we will be living next year!) on Wednesday. We'll definitely post again then!

Until next time,
-Tim & Heather

Jack Daniel's For a Day

Hello All!

Surprisingly, it hasn't been all that long since we last posted some of the goings on around here! And we're back today with two posts about some of our recent adventures. About 3 weeks ago, Heather and I woke up on a Saturday morning and decided that we should get out of town for the day. Let's see, we've been to the west, we've been north, we've been to Atlanta... where else can we go? Why, to the great Jack Daniel's distillery of course! So after a quick breakfast at home, it was off to the tiny town of Lynchburg, TN to see how that famous sour mash Tennessee Whiskey is put together.

Lynchburg is just about a 90 minute drive Southeast from Nashville. We've seen a fair bit of Tennessee back country before, but this was another great opportunity to cruise the rolling hills of good ol' rocky top (Commence song now)! We got to town around 11:30 and thought we would get a bite to eat at a diner in town. Lynchburg has a very quaint little downtown that is just a little square, with the town city hall/jail in the middle of it. Interestingly, Lynchburg is a mega hub for Harley-Davidson enthusiasts. The motorcycle-to-car ratio in the town square was around 3:1. The square was mostly full of diners and nick-nack shops, and we found a fun little place to get some southern chow. After filling our bellies and having a look around the square, we drove down the road to the distillery.

Here is a picture of one of the main buildings you see from the parking lot. The distillery, as you can imagine, is absolutely huge but it is fairly spread out and well hidden among the dense woods and up a pretty big hill. There was a nice welcome center where you can sign up for tours and read a bit about the history of the place while you wait.

Here are a few of the more interesting things we saw!

Lynchburg is in Moore County, TN. Since prohibition, Moore County has been a dry county. Yeah, I know. try to put some logic into that hopper! Of course, Jack Daniel's stands to make a lot of money by selling commemorative bottles in their gift shop. So, they have arranged to be the only place in the county where people can purchase alcohol. It isn't served, just sold. On our tour, the guide noted that this statue of Jack Daniel on a rock is your "only chance to get a shot of Jack Daniel on the rocks".

Heather in front of an opening to a limestone cave! It's amazing to feel how cool the air is coming out of the cave (around 56 degrees) all year long!

Self explanatory...

I guess now is as good a time as any to give a "brief" description of how whiskey is made.





One of the most critical components of any good whiskey or bourbon is the water. The main reason all bourbon comes from Kentucky and Jack Daniel's comes from Tennessee is because of the abundance of limestone-filtered spring water. This is also the reason that so many distilleries are located in the middle of absolutely nowhere. They are all positioned right up against a series of caves or creeks that provide the very pure water. By the way, I found out that Jack Daniel's produces around 75,000 gallons of whiskey each and every day! They must have a serious water source somewhere! Anyways, a variety of grains (corn, barley, and rye) are ground up into a mash and boiled. This process releases the natural sugars from the grains. Yeast is added which converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. This mixture is then filtered and distilled, which is the process of boiling the liquid and capturing the evaporate which is now a high-alcohol grain spirit. At this point, the liquid can become a variety of spirits...it's what happens next that determines what we'll call it.

If we were in Kentucky making bourbon about 100 years ago, we would put the distilled spirit in a mason jar and call it moonshine. The more modern and commercial approach is to dilute the spirit to lower the alcohol level from around 120 proof (60%) to between 80-90 proof (40-45%). Then, the liquid would be placed in virgin oak barrels and aged for a long, long time. The regular line of bourbons and whiskeys are typically aged for around 8-10 years. A higher shelf spirit may be aged for 10-15 years. A super premium spirit may be aged for 30+ years!!! The whiskey is stored in massive buildings (some are 7-8 stories tall) that hold tens of thousands of barrels each. The picture above gives you an idea of the effect of different locations in a building can have on the color imparted by the barrel on the whiskey. During the aging process, the whiskey works its way into and out of the oak barrel which gives the nice amber color and imparts a smoother, mellow, smokey sweetness that is much easier to drink than straight moonshine. Interestingly, if you put 53 gallons of distilled spirit into a barrel, you won't get 53 gallons out. Around 2% is lost to what distillers call the "angel's share". Now, they do things a bit differently in Tennessee than they do in Kentucky. Jack Daniel's filters all of their distilled spirits through 10 feet of charcoal before aging it in barrels. It takes nearly a week for the whiskey to make its way through the charcoal, but they say it is totally worth the wait.

I'd recommend clicking on this picture to see it a bit bigger. Here's a neat picture of an industrial-looking building in the foreground with a series of pipes bringing fresh water down from a storage tank at the top of the hill. The big white building on top of the hill is where they keep the barrels. There are probably about 50 of these buildings in the area. Yeah, we're talking about 28 million gallons per year folks!!


So that's the gestalt of our trip! A beautiful drive in the back country of Tennessee brought us to the most notable Tennessee whiskey distillery, and possibly the most notable American whiskey distillery. It was really fun to see the entire process and get another taste of another uniquely Tennessee experience.

Stay tuned for a post on our recent trip to Henry Horton State Park for some camping!

Crafty Couple

We must have a bug problem in our new apartment, because Tim and I have both been bitten by the creative bug lately! Ok, so corny jokes aside, I've been knitting up a storm, made a necklace, and we both have completed a wood project. Here's the run down!

A few of the ladies at my work are aware of my amateur knitting skills. Several months ago, I made a dog sweater for one of my coworkers. Little did I know at the time, I was laying the groundwork for a fairly awesome hobby! Just a couple months ago, one of my coworkers asked if I could knit her a hat. I know... a knitted hat in July? It's over 100 degrees outside people!!! I can't walk through the parking lot without breaking a sweat and these ladies are thinking about winter hats!! But hey, she was willing to pay, so I started knitting. When I delivered that hat, she asked for another! Then another lady from work saw them and also wanted one! And on and on. I've made quite a few now and it's not even cold weather outside yet! I bet I will have more orders to come this fall. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to share with you, because I keep forgetting to take a picture of the final product. But trust me, they are very colorful and cute!

About a year ago I made a few pairs baby booties for some of the pregnant ladies at work. Big surprise, another gal from work is about to have a baby! These are the booties I made for her! They are so tiny!



Besides knitting, I have always enjoyed dabbling in jewelry-making. I usually use beads, but this time I wanted to try to make something with buttons. I have a button collection, started for me by my Grammy when I was in junior high. So for a long time, I have had all these wonderful buttons. Here is my first attempt at a button necklace, not too bad!



As we all know, Tim has a lot of speakers! He got a new center channel speaker a little while back and it is much taller then the one we had before. The new center channel actually blocked some of the TV screen and the entire remote sensor. We were getting by with 2 reams of legal-sized paper and 8 issues of Real Simple magazine staked under the TV to raise it up a bit, but we still had trouble with the remote sensor. We would have to sit up nice and straight and raise the remote all the way over our heads to change the volume! Tim had the brilliant idea of building a box the the right height to put the TV on. Check out the handy work! It takes the TV up to the perfect height and looks really good!





When we were at the hardware store getting stuff for the TV stand, we also got some wood for a project I'd been planning. We scored some free scrap plywood and found some silver pulls. With a little paint and stenciling, we now have a personalized hook rack for our bathroom!



We have both been having lots of fun getting creative with the skills we have and are enjoying learning new things as we go along.

Coming soon to our blog....our trip to the Jack Daniels distillery in Lynchburg, TN and camping at Henry Horton State Park!

Videos below

So we tried to upload the videos but we couldn't get it to work. Might try again tomorrow!

Feel free to click on the pictures to get the full screen experience!

Atlanta Day 2

Well let's not all act like we are surprised this post didn't make it's way onto the interwebs in time. Better late than never right? I'm pretty sure that applies to this blog as much as anything! :)

Our plans for day 2 consisted of the Georgia Aquarium and the World of Coca-Cola. The aquarium didn't open until 10AM so we took our leisurely time again that morning taking our breakfast back to the room and enjoying a relaxing morning with some TV and good eats. When the time came, we strapped on our walking shoes and headed out! The aquarium was about 5 blocks away from the hotel so we made it with just a few minutes to spare before they opened their doors.

Here is a picture of the waiting area. In the picture the fish look small and completely flat (2D) but they are NOT! I don't remember what species these were, but they reminded me of small albacore or something. It was an interesting display because all the fish had to swim right past the window, with seemingly little room to swim away from the window. Also, they were all swimming in the same direction. Perhaps the tank is a big circle with no room for fish to turn around. I saw on TV recently that tuna don't have the ability to force water through their gills to breathe so they must always be in motion. A pretty good idea to put these active fish in this tank! The best part was that every now and then the fish in one of the tanks would kick it into overdrive and they would all swim at about 5x the speed of the fish in the other tank. Those things could really get a move on!



Fortunately for us, this simple yet interesting display was only a TINY fraction of some very impressive things to come!

This aquarium is laid out in 6 different areas, all around a large common area. We got plenty of pictures and we will share our favorites here.

Seahorses



Little eel thing that lives in one hole its whole life



Jelly fish





Before I talk about our absolute favorite part of the building, we must explain the penguin exhibit! So they had a decent sized area for the penguins (maybe 20' x 60'), which included a tunnel that children and willing adults could crawl through. The tunnel lead to a couple bubbles that people can stand up in and be face to face with the penguins!





I would be remiss if I didn't share of the beluga whale exhibit! Naturally I sang the "baby beluga" song immediately! Haha!



They had 2 female and 2 male belugas that all loved to swim in circles and run their backs on the large curved glass closest to us. On a side note: there would be an employee that would hop on a microphone and explain things about the exhibits from time to time. The lady talking while we were there was particularly delicate when explaining how to tell the difference between the male and female whales... good work ma'am!



Ok, now for our favorite part!
Here is some interesting information about the aquarium (partly courtesy of Wikipedia)
The Georgia Aquarium was built in large part on a $250 MILLION donation from Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus!

It consists of about 8.5 million gallons of fresh and marine water exhibits of more than 120,000 animals and 500 different species.

This aquarium is the only outside of Asia to house whale sharks, and this one has 4. In fact, this aquarium is built around their tank.
The whale sharks are housed in a 6.3 Million gallon tank! It is about 300' x 120' x 35'. Of course, what good would a tank that size be without a viewing window??? No worries, this aquarium has the second largest viewing window in the world!
It is made of acrylic, which is 17 times stronger than glass, and is 2 feet thick! The tank has skylights above it which, on a sunny day, allow spectacular light into the tank! A few highlights from this tank were the whale sharks, the 12' and 14' wide manta rays, hammerhead sharks, and 400lb groupers!

Here is a video and some of our best pictures of the huge viewing room









Once we had our fill of walking around the aquarium, we walked across the yard to the World of Coca-Cola. I won't spent too much time talking about or showing pictures of this place because I think we were both a little disappointed in it. I guess I was expecting more of a bottling plant operation, or more about how it is made. Instead we got essentially an hour-long commercial, with few details offered about the good stuff.

Definitely the highlight for us was the last room which is where visitors get to sample 60 different Coke products from all around the world! They were divided up into 5 different regions (Asia, Latin America, Africa, North America, & Europe) Some were yummy, many were awful. I guess there's a reason that Coke can be found in some 150+ countries... it's the good stuff!











By the time we had finished there, we had probably walked about a thousand miles in the last two days. Our feet were beat! So despite our half-hearted plans to do something else fun with our afternoon, our feet simply weren't up to the task. We had a recommendation from a friend of ours to try an authentic Napoli-style pizzeria. We thought that would be a good use of our time so out the door we went to a fun little place called Antico.

It doesn't look like much from the outside. Come to think of it, it doesn't look like much from the entrance either! You walk into a small room that has one large table and the counter with a cash register. We ordered a pizza and didn't really know what to do with ourselves! Turns out, you have to walk past the main table in the front and into the kitchen area! Well, the kitchen area actually had 6 more large tables, which partly face the 3 beautiful wood fired ovens and the prep area. On the sides of the room were the cold storage and massive stacks of large cans of San Marzano tomatoes. For those unfamiliar, San Marzano tomatoes are native to the area of Naples Italy. They are a fairly sweet plum tomato and make some of the most delicious sauce! The basic pizza is the margherita which is tomato sauce, mozzarella, and basil. And when I say basil, I mean one of the cooks plucks some leaves off a fresh plant in their kitchen and puts it straight on the pizza. How's THAT for fresh ingredients!?





A quick few minutes in a very hot oven later, we had one of the most delicious pizzas of our lives! It was so much fun to eat great food and be able to watch the kitchen at the same time!! We filled up the car with gas in preparation for our trip home the next day, and back to the hotel we went!

Our plans for our last half-day in Atlanta included a thorough walk-through of IKEA!
I think it is a given that going to IKEA constitutes a good time. Partially for that reason, we didn't go through once...we didn't go through twice. THRICE we went through IKEA! I know I know, it sounds insane, but we were really motivated and had a reason for doing so. Online the night before, we found out that this store only had 1 computer chair in stock that we were wanting. So we stood at the door when it opened, and bee-lined it directly to the warehouse to see if the chair was still there. Victory for us! We got the only one in the warehouse!

With that purchase taken care of, and the chair locked away in the car, we returned for our slower, thorough walk through of the store. They have soooo much stuff there! Great ideas for kitchen setups, trendy living room furniture, and affordable cooking supplies. A few cutting boards, 3 little candles, and a $20 bathrobe later we hit the cafeteria for some Swedish meatballs to fill our stomachs before we hit the road. They were delicious as always and with a full car and appetites satisfied, we hit the road back to Nashville.

It was an excellent trip to Atlanta overall. We rode some great roller coasters, saw some amazing fish, and ate some yummy food for those 3 short days. It's always nice to get away from it all for a few days, something we haven't done very much since we've been here. We have now ventured away from Nashville in several directions, and we hope to do a bit more of this while we are still living down in the South.

That's all for now!
Until next time,

Love Tim & Heather

Atlanta Day 1

So yesterday was a very full, very fun day that we must tell you all about! We started the day at 4:30AM at our home in Nashville. By 5:00 we were on the road and headed for Atlanta! The drive was pretty and uneventful. We made it to our primary destination, Six Flags Over Georgia, by 10:15. On the walk from the parking lot to the front gate, your field of vision is completely filled with their largest coaster, Goliath. It's the tallest coaster in the park, over 200ft., as well as the fastest, over 70mph. It was pretty amazing to approach the park while looking at the twists, flips, bends, and sharp curves of this coaster, while hearing the roar of the car and the screams of the riders! Heather had admitted that she was a little bit nervous about a few of the coasters, but once she saw this monster coaster, she decided that she wanted to do that one first!

One of the best things about going to Six Flags on a Sunday morning is that the lines were nonexistent! We practically walked straight up to the coaster and got right on. Somehow, I convinced Heather to sit near the back of the coaster with me. For any of you who are not familiar with the differences between sitting in the front vs the back...
Sitting in the front gives you the best visual stimulation, but the speed on the steep stops suffers, since most of the mass of the car is behind you (You get a ways down the slope before the car picks up speed)
Sitting in the back gives you the least visual stimulation since you are somewhat just looking at the passengers in front of you. But, and this is a huge but(t), since the majority of the mass of the car is in front of you, you are picking up speed before you get to the edge of the drop off. So when you sit in the back, you are essentially whipped off the edge of of the drop offs, and at 200ft and 70mph, it's a pretty intense ride!! Heather's regret increased with every click and clank of the chain as it pulled us to the highest point in the park. As it turns out, Heather's preferred method of coping with being on roller coasters is to close her eyes and hold her breath. While closing one's eyes might not be too big of a deal, holding one's breath can become an issue! So I did my best to speak in a very calm voice, "ok, breathe now breathe now". Suffice is to say that by end of the very long, 3.5 minute ride, we were both smiling ear-to-ear and were so excited for things to come!!

Unfortunately this excitement didn't last much longer...
Our next ride was a water ride (the kind with the big circular raft where everyone faces the center of the circle, and goes through a variety of rapids). Again, no line! We got right on a boat with a family of about 6 or so. We made it all the way to the last corner of the ride while staying reasonably dry. But then we found ourselves backing into two very large rapids. I did my best to cover my cell phone in my pocket, but we still got a bit damp. Would have been alright if that was the end, but we immediately found ourselves under a waterfall... that was dumping, DUMPING water on us. There was no escape! It came from above, and within a matter of seconds, we were completely soaked. Oh, and we were NOT wearing swimsuits. Cellphone, wallet, keys, everything was completely soaked. Heather and I both had about 6 sq. inches of dry fabric on our shorts. Oh, and she was wearing denim shorts! After ringing out our shirts and doing everything I could to get the moisture away from my phone, we were so full of frustration that we didn't know what to do next! I could no longer put my wallet or my phone in my pockets, and Heather was dealing with soaked denim for the rest of the day. This definitely put a kink in our plans for the day, but we didn't let it completely stop us!

Heather held my stuff while I rode one coaster she wasn't interested in, and we also dried off a bit while eating lunch. On our way to our next coaster, we found the perfect solution... the swinging chair ride! You know the one where all the chairs are hanging by chains connected to a tall, spinning, central tower? Yeah, it's essentially a spin dry for humans. Perfect! After a couple cycles on that thing, we were ready to take on a few more coasters, including the thriller Batman. It was super fast and included the tightest flips, barrel rolls, and turns of any coaster either of us have ever been on! What a rush!

One of the last things we did in the park was ride a wooden coaster. My experience on coasters of the wooden variety led to the conclusion that while they aren't as smooth as a steel coaster, they should be tolerable. This coaster was clearly the exception to that rule... OUCH!!! When this coaster debuted in the 1970s, it was the tallest and fastest wood coaster in the world. While it wasn't super tall, but was very very fast! But the speed, in and of itself, wasn't an issue. It was the fact that the speed led to the most bone jarring, spine-compressing, head-bashing ride we've ever been on. How anyone could go on this ride and be happy at the end is way beyond either of us. Heather had an instant headache and I had a very sore back.

We decided to relax and end our stint at Six Flags with a peaceful train ride around the park. This was a delightful little break from the stomach-churning coasters we'd been on all day. At the end of the train ride, we were almost completely dry, and our stomachs had settled a bit.

At this point in the day, we had been up for only 12 hours, but had gotten only 4 hours of sleep the night before, had driven 250 miles in the morning, and had our senses brutally flogged by coaster after coaster. Needless to say, we were exhausted!!! So with a large ice-cold lemonade, and a bag of cotton candy in hand, we headed for the car.

A quick drive into downtown led us to our beautiful hotel room at the Hyatt Place. It's a real treat to stay in such a nicely appointed room for a few days! We went to dinner at a local brewpub where Heather had a catfish salad, and I had shrimp and grits. So yummy! We did a little walking around the downtown area after dinner but it was early to bed for both of us after such a long and thoroughly eventful day.

This morning we ate breakfast in our room, and are now waiting for the Georgia Aquarium to open. We can see the aquarium out our hotel window so it will be a nice little walk down the road to start our day today. Our itinerary only includes the aquarium and the World of Coca-Cola which is just next door. Don't worry, many many pictures will be taken today and we will blog again tonight or tomorrow so we can share the best pictures with you all.

That's all for now from Atlanta, GA!
Till next time,

-Tim & Heather

Summer 2011

Hello everyone! It's true, it has been nearly an eternity since we last brought you up to date with our happenings via this blog. We've never claimed to be good at this thing, but we really do want to share our lives with you all in this way! So without much ado, let the update BEGIN!

We have been up to all kinds of fun these past few weeks! Seth and Emily came for a visit, we moved, we bought a washer and dryer and have been enjoying some fun activities!

The week we moved, Seth and Emily came for a quick visit. They were driving some foundry art work from Walla Walla to Mississippi, stopped to see us and then went on to New York. A cross county trek for sure! As always, we had a wonderful time with them. We ate all kinds of good food; pancakes from the Pancake Pantry, ribs from Rippy's, and an all you can eat southern feast at Monell's.

After Seth and Emily left Navhille it was time for us to move! We loaded up a moving tuck and moved to our new place. It was so much work, but we spread it out over a few days. Everything went smoothly and we are settling in our new place nicely. We still are trying to find places for everything, but we are really liking it so far!

We needed a few things to complete our new home! Check out the new household goods!

LG Washer and Dryer:


Tim can finally have his desk back, because we got an actual dining room table:



Here is the tour -



















Some other things we have been up to this summer (much more fun than moving):

We had heard about Rollerderby and finally got a chance to see what it is all about! It turned out so be such a fun, exticing time. The Nashville Team is really good! All of the players have fun, edgy names like Four Leaf Roller, Nix & Bruses, Hilda Beast and Killah B. Killed. We came up with our own Rollerderby names.

L to R: Keller Instinct (Kelsey), Cruelia Child (Heather), Melicious Intent (Melanie), ElizaBitch (Elizabeth), and The InTIMidator (Tim).



For the 4th of July, we went downtown and went to a free concert and enjoyed some amazing fireworks! We heard this really great group, The Cleaverlys, check them out here:

http://thecleverlys.com/videos/






We went to the Harpeth river and canooed. Oh my goodness, it was so much fun! Tim and I definitely make a good canoneing team! Watch out!





Overall this summer has been amazing! We have spent at lot of time with great friends, eating tons of great food and finding so much happiness every step of the way!