Anana is home!

Oops... I forgot to write a farewell post for Clyde. But I sent him home, and he made it there safely with all of his souvenirs intact. And now Anana is home as well! Look at all the awesome stuff Miss M sent back with him!

Postcards! A patch and a bottle with prehistoric shark teeth from the Florida Aquarium! Gummi sea creatures (and other gummi candy)! A mug from the Sunken Garden! A pineapple glass! A Disney lollipop! Magnets! The decoupaged ampersand (with a page from an old French book, I might add)! A sketchbook from the Pier! A bag (totally obscured by other stuff) and pin from Busch Gardens! A shell keychain and some seashells! And of course the photo album, which is beautiful!

And... perhaps my favorite... my very own tree pendant! She makes these in all sorts of styles and I love them all and now I have one of my very own!!! Obviously I will be wearing it to work tomorrow... and the day after that... and the day after that... and basically forever.

Preparing for NaNoWriMo

I do NaNoWriMo every year, and this year I have my story idea already picked out. I can't start writing until 12:01am on November 1, but I don't want to worry about forgetting any of my ideas, so I dedicated a notebook to keeping track of them:

Happy Birthday to Me!

My birthday was on Labor Day, so I'm a little late catching up with photos, but here we go!

It seems Clyde may have had a bit to drink...

Birthday cake! It's lemon with chocolate frosting, which everyone
said sounds weird, but they also said it was good.

Clyde hangs out in the middle of the table, among the peanuts.

Presents!

It was a very fun birthday! And I think Clyde had a lot of fun too. We don't have much time left together, so we'll have to have a lot of fun for the next couple of weeks!

New Library!

So, after the grand opening events and a week of being open, I finally got a bunch of photos of Clyde in the new library! To explain a little bit, we're now a joint-use library, meaning the community college collection (and reference desk and classrooms) is upstairs and the public collection (with the children's room) is downstairs.

This is in the children's room... this installation is SO MUCH FUN!

At my spot at the reference desk, ready to answer questions!

Self-check-out station (which might work better if you had some books, Clyde!)

This booth seating may look like a restaurant, but it's part of
our downstairs computer lab (you can see the computers in the back)

The upstairs computer lab (what I see from the desk)

Some of our comfy new seating

We've had lots of people literally walk in, their jaws drop, and they go "wowwww..." I love going to work!!!

Finishing Touches

Well, the new library is open, and I couldn't take photos at any of the big events, because I was working. But even though we're open, any new building has finishing touches to add for a while.

We discovered that people standing at the self-check-out stations were mistaking the slots for trash (like unwanted receipts, etc) for book returns. So I offered to add decals to make it clearer, and Clyde helped!

It looks a little crooked there, Clyde... might need to fix that...

Tonight, I'm teaching the FIRST library instruction class in the building! (I plan to make a big deal out of that when I retire someday.) Lots more fun things coming up soon...

Back to the Aquarium

We visited the Aquarium again! This time, we met with the wedding photographer, but then we actually visited the Aquarium, with my friend Thomas!

My favorite thing ever: the ray petting tank! You can see both of the main kinds
of rays in the tank: the littler, darker one is a cownose ray, and the larger, pale one
is an Atlantic ray... they like to come up the side of the wall and splash people!

Auuuugh, Clyde is being eaten! Eeeek!

This is part of an exhibit that is a scaled-up model of the marsh!
The grass goes up into the ceiling.

New Office!

The library has successfully made the move into the new building, which means... I have my own office! I've never had my own office before. It's very exciting.

I'm also particularly excited about the standing desk (adjustable) in the back

I chose the LotR desktop to inspire my greens-and-browns color scheme (forthcoming)

I also have my own book cart!!!

We are going to have SO MUCH FUN with my new office!

Jungle Golf

Because we have an oceanfront, we obviously have mini-golf. Lots of it. But the best one by far is Jungle Golf. (I've taken friends there for two of my last four birthdays.) And we just so happened to have three free passes. (Fiance is an EMT and they saved the owner's... mom? I think?... so he gave them free game cards as a token of thanks.) So Cassy and Karen and I polished off our day at the beach with mini-golf!

Clyde helpfully goes after my ball...

Holding on to Cassy's ball while she waits for her turn

Hanging out with a hippo

Riding the lion

Cassy won (she was only one over par, which is 36) and Karen came in second. I got a 42 though, so I was still pretty happy.

Beach Day!

My friends Cassy and Karen came to visit this weekend, and we went to the beach for several hours, until it started to look like the storms promised by the weatherman were actually coming in. (They didn't for several more hours, but that was okay.)

Cassy and Karen love Clyde! He made two new friends :)

Clyde and my flip-flops in the sand

Clyde and the ocean
(We had pretty big waves - for Virginia Beach - since there was a storm coming)

I got some pretty killer sunburn on my back. (I thought I had done my back, but I got distracted chatting and completely forgot about it... and I was sitting with my back to the sun most of the time we were there.) Ouch!

Iceland

And after France, we went to Iceland! We flew into Keflavik, drove to Reykjavik, and stayed for two days, mostly wandering around Reykjavik. It was a brisk 55* F (a welcome change from the 80s F of Paris, and definitely better than the 90-100 F friends were getting at home!)

I'm 95% sure that's the Arctic Ocean. (It's not like they labelled it for us.)

Coca-Cola has this thing in other countries right now where they
put "share a Coca-Cola with" and names. Also, Coke in other countries
is made with real sugar, not HFCS. YUM.

Delicious sandwich for lunch. It was Thai-style, with chicken,
peanut sauce, cilantro, and mango.

Clyde and some krona, the currency of Iceland. (They accept Euro and
dollars in most places though.)

Pretty lava sculpture near the water.

Bike-shaped gate to keep cars out of this street.

I got myself a new little friend: a puffin! He joined Clyde in my bag
on the way home.

So that was our trip! We had a great time, but it's always good to be home.

Paris (Part IV)

And just a little bit more...

We went up to the Sacre Coeur for Bastille Day fireworks. It's not the Eiffel Tower spectacle, but I'm so glad we made that decision. People IN THE AUDIENCE had the handheld versions of the big-time fireworks, and they burst just overhead. It was the first time I can remember being IMPRESSED by fireworks. (I usually think it's just a really expensive way to annoy dogs, scare children, and create large crowds at otherwise pleasant parks.)

Coming up next... Iceland!

Paris (Part III)

And more!

Fiance's mom, sister, and sister's boyfriend went to a macaron-making class!
They were SO DELICIOUS! This one has blueberry filling.

The Medici Fountain in the Luxembourg Gardens. Do you see Clyde?

At the Montmartre Cemetery

Also at the Montmartre Cemetery (do you see Clyde?)

At the Moulin Rouge, right around the corner from our apartment

The bells of Notre Daaaaaaaaame!

At the Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde

At Pere Lachaise (huge, famous cemetery)

At the columbarium of Pere Lachaise

Pont de l'Archeveche, with love locks!

Sainte-Chappelle and its LOVELY stained glass

We ordered sushi. It was amazing.

Paris (Part II)

More photos!

On the balcony to our apartment

Looking off the balcony toward the Cafe les Deux Moulins
(the cafe from Amelie)

On the balcony, seen from the kitchen

Trying on Fiance's beret... looking snazzy, Clyde!

It took a few tries to get it right...

This doesn't seem right either...

Maybe we should try again later, Clyde.

This is the market from Amelie, where M. Collignon works.
We stumbled across it on our way back from the Bastille Day fireworks!

In the women's yard at the Conciergerie (the prison where - among many others -
Marie Antoinette was held before her beheading)

CREPES. Literally the best food in the world. We ate several. This one
happens to be miel (honey).

Eiffel Tower from Trocadero

The most... ahem... family-friendly photo I took at the
Musee de l'Erotisme. Clyde was scandalized.
(Not by the wire corset sculpture. By... the rest.)

Mmmm, strawberries, raspberries, melon. The freshest, most delicious
fruits I've ever eaten. They don't put waxes and sprays and whatnot
on their produce to make it look nice for a week. You just have to eat it
within two or three days, and you would anyway, because YUM.

Louvre!

Closeup at the Louvre

 More to come!