Holiday Season 2009

Cruisin'
We started 2009 with a holiday cruise through the Caribbean with Ahn's family - a very nice way to begin the new year! Lots of relaxing and some fun adventures in the ports. The beaches were beautiful throughout the Caribbean and this one looked like it came right out of a magazine:

Our big success was scuba diving THE WALL - an 8000 foot drop off about 1/4 mile off-shore in Grand Turk. The diving was AMAZING and we saw and swam with our first sea turtle (and survived that expansive abyss below us!).

No travel expedition is complete without a visit to the local Harley Davidson, of course:

It was just a fun week!


Washington, D.C.
At the end of May, Ahn presented a paper at the annual meeting of the Society for Prevention Research. While there, she stole away to visit the Hirschorn Art Museum (favorite!) and the National Botanical Gardens. Very fun trip!






New House
The new house kept us really busy throughout the summer. We did a few upgrades and did our best to get settled. The best thing about this house is how quiet it is - a couple of nights our biggest irritation has been a cricket or two outside our window. If you've stayed with us at our old house, you know this is a major upgrade! You can see pictures of the new house (if you missed them earlier this year) ---> here.

In July, Ahn's parents visited for a week to help us get settled and take care of many "handy man" jobs (Dale was the handyman, Nick the lovely assistant). It was great to have the help!

One of the big tasks was to rebuild the shelves (bigger and better!) in our kitchen pantry:


Daniel!
In late July, Nick's brother Daniel made the long drive down from Charleston for a weekend with us. The fellas took the bikes into the Everglades one day and had a great time. The three of us spent a fun afternoon and evening on South Beach as well. Somewhere we have pictures of these guys braving the small surf at South Beach so D could try out snorkeling ...

Ohio
Though we don't have any pictures from the trip, we had a fun visit in Ohio in August. We got to celebrate some birthdays, play a friendly little game of poker, and hang out with Nick's family.

Ohio Visitors
Longtime friends Nette and Mike made a quick visit to Miami in October and we were so lucky to get to spend a whole day with them. We enjoyed walking around Fairchild Tropical Gardens and hanging out for a quiet evening at our house. We haven't seen these two for a long time, so it was a real treat to have them in town.


Milwaukee Visitors
Our good friends Chris and Jennifer flew down from Milwaukee for a few days of fun in the sun this October. They are such fun company - always lots of laughter and adventures when these two are in town. We visited some sites in and around Miami and then took a whole day to hang out at the beautiful beach at Ba'hai Honda State Park in the keys. Well worth the 2.5 hours of driving (one way! we MIGHT have underestimated exactly how far south this little destination actually was ...).


Soon-To-Be Baby Makes Three
If you missed our other big announcement this summer, you may be surprised to hear we have a baby on the way. The official due date is February 3, so we're getting close. For more posts about the pregnancy, you can stop by our temporary baby blog -----> here.


Work, Study, Work, Study ...
2009 was another year of many long work and study hours (seems we write this every year). Nick began his fifth year as an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at the University of Miami and Ahn started her dissertation - finally!

Visitors Welcome
We actually have some room for you now! With some added breathing room in the new house, and a lovely rotting deck on the back, there's lots of space for our visitors to stretch out a bit. Although the guest room will eventually be a nursery, we'll still have plenty of room for guests. We'd love to see you!

Mouse House!

We bought our first house! Never dreamed it would be in Miami ... but here we are. We lovingly call it mouse house because of the strange paths around the back of the house, utility room, garage. We moved in a few weeks ago and are still getting settled. Below are some photos from the process of small renovations and big clean-ups.

Nick hired 'a guy' (we are establishing our own set of 'guys' here in Miami) to trim those disasterous bushes today. This is him standing in front of the pile when it was all done. Thankfully the city will do a free pick-up twice per year. We were quoted $250 for haul-off by the lawn maintenance guys, so this is a HUGE savings! And now you can actually see our little house.


The painting inside the house is nearly complete. These photos are of what will soon be our shared office. The first photo is the old room, the second and third are the new room. The picture with Nick shows the closet that was built for the master bedroom that now comes into this room a bit. You can also get a sense of the insulation that we had put in between the beams on the ceilings. We were at the house Friday during a heavy downpour and could really tell a difference in the noise between the rooms with insulation and the rooms without.






This is a preview of the new closet in the master bedroom. We are very excited about this little addition!


Old bathroom with cute, but mismatched and falling apart 1950's tile, nasty shower doors, not to mention that horrible horrible horrible vanity:



New-ish bathroom with tile (Nick did a great job!), smaller toilet and smaller sink. Too bad we couldn't afford to move the plumbing around a bit - maybe next year:



Old kitchen with faux brick paneling and an electrical box buried in the wall (can you say illegal?):



New kitchen with smooth backsplash and much safer electrical box (tucked behind the ugly cabinets - maybe next decade!):



Old view of our beamed ceiling and entry to the den:



New view of our refinished beamed ceilings and entry to the (apricot) den (good job again, Nick!):

Holiday Season 2008

New York

We did a fair amount of traveling this year and started out with a great trip to New York City in March. Nick presented at the American Educational Research Association conference, so we took the opportunity to see the city. Our good friend Jennifer flew out from Milwaukee to join us for a few days.

We were able to get tickets to two outstanding Broadway shows, Curtains (starring the talented David Hyde Pierce from Frasier) and Spamalot (starring American Idol strange guy, Clay Aiken - nope, we aren't kidding!). Both shows were really fun.

Since New York is significantly more pedestrian friendly than Miami, we really enjoyed walking everywhere. Central Park was a definite highlight. The best quote from the trip came as we dragged poor Jennifer through the Metropolitan Museum of Art : "You've seen one Monet, you've seen them all!" Thanks for the memories, Jennifer!

Omaha

In May, we visited the Brincks clan in Omaha for a few days to celebrate Jen's graduation from college. Again. She topped off her bachelor's degree with an associate's degree in veterinary tech and now works with the Humane Society in Omaha. Way to go, Jen!

While there, we spent some time at the Omaha Zoo and learned that silver-backed gorillas don't like to be ignored. Some teenage kids taught us that if you turn your backs to the gorillas and act like you are ignoring them, they will seek your attention. It was true! When we tried it with one of the bigger gorillas, he would bump the glass and pound his chest to show his frustration with our lack of attention.

Milwaukee

On our way home from Omaha, we extended our layover in Milwaukee to spend 4-5 days with our good friends Chris and Jennifer. The four of us took an overnight trip up to lovely Door County and enjoyed the awesome weather. While there, we stumbled upon an outdoor miniature golf course that we just couldn't pass up. The entertainment complex also had go karts and, best of all, SKEEBALL. We stayed for hours and had an awesome time.

Milwaukee is always a fun stop for us. We're looking forward to hosting Chris and Jennifer in Miami sometime this winter!

Ohio

In late June we headed north again to spend a few days in Ohio and celebrate Kathy's birthday. Nick's sister Jen was kind enough to host us and we had a great time with her, Dave, Amanda and Madison.The family game this year was definitely bocce ball! It was fun to hang out with all of our nieces and our little nephew, too.

Scuba

Many of you know that we did our scuba certification in April and May this year. We trained with, and continued to dive all summer with, our fun-loving friends Rui and Ling. Despite a rather, uh, bumpy certification process (who knew Nick would be seasick???), we did get in a number of terrific dives over the summer months.


Since we live about an hour from Key Largo, we figured out how to hand-select the days we dive in order to maximize calm weather conditions. And, we've learned that morning dives and wearing a dive shirt instead of a wetsuit help keep Nick's stomach happy.


We've now seen goliath grouper (they're HUGE), nurse sharks, lobster (both free and caged), sting ray, a host of beautiful fish and amazing coral formations.

Scuba definitely makes living in Miami more fun!

Chicago

The last of our travels came with a great conference on multilevel modeling in Chicago in September. Clinching our title as the nerdy-est couple on the planet, we both really enjoyed the opportunity to spend 3 days learning from the two top researchers in this area (on the off chance any of you are remotely interested, the presenters were Steve Raudenbush and Tony Bryk).

Though we had certainly been to Chicago before, we took the opportunity to enjoy our first ride on the ferris wheel at Navy Pier. We also visited some old haunts like Giordano's Pizza, and enjoyed walking about the Magnificent Mile.

Work, Study, Work, Study ...

2008 was another year of many long work and study hours, with as much fun packed in as we could. Nick began his fourth year as an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at the University of Miami after successfully passing his 3rd year review - a milestone on the path to tenured professorship.

Ahn is in her third year as a PhD student, and transferred from Florida International University to the University of Miami in August. Much of her time is now spent working on data that was recently collected by the Center for Family Studies on HIV+ women and their family members. The study she works with is designed to improve health outcomes for these women.

Visitors Welcome!

Need a break from the cold winter? Come see us! If you're lucky, our pineapple plants will have fresh fruit for you. If you're unlucky, the papaya will be producing (our papaya fruit is the worst we've ever tasted!). Here's hoping for pineapple!

Happy Holidays 2007

We wanted an efficient way to share all the happenings from 2007 with you and decided to go with an internet greeting this year. Hope you enjoy the pictures and stories!

Happy Holidays!
Ahn & Nick


Sanibel Island
We started the year with a week-long trip to Sanibel Island (on the west coast of Florida) with Ahn's parents and sister, Jennifer. Everyone flew into Miami and we drove across the state. Although Florida is very narrow down here at the southern end, it still took us about 9 hours to make it across the 200 miles thanks to many, many stops along the way.

Jen continued her star-sightings (she made a visit to Miami Ink while in Miami) when we ran into Manny Puig, famous for his work with alligators and sharks. We found Manny snorkeling (yes, snorkeling) in the Everglades while filming a new movie. We never imagined we would find someone willingly submerged in the alligator-infested waters of the glades, but we did!.

While in Sanibel, we spent many days hunting seashells on the beach and riding bikes. We enjoyed a guided canoe trip through the Ding Darling Preserve as well. After a week of searching the horizon, Ahn finally saw dolphins while on a leisurely bike ride with Nick and her dad.









Cozumel
Most of you now know that we eloped to Key West via a Royal Caribbean cruise in May. The port that followed Key West on our cruise was Cozumel, Mexico and we made sure we got to do some snorkeling while there. The underwater camera we purchased doesn't quite do it justice, but the views at Paradise Reef were lovely.



Nevertheless, our favorite snorkeling spot remains closer to home at Pennekamp State Park in Key Largo. Just an hour away and very reasonably priced, it is now one of our favorite places to take guests.







Rice Lake, Ontario
We spent a fun and relaxing week at Rice Lake, Ontario with the Myers men on their annual fishing trip. Our big cabin housed Nick's brothers Daniel and Chad, as well as his dad and his Uncle Dave. There was a lot of fishing and an almost equal amount of Texas Hold 'Em. We were so glad we got to spend some time with everyone, and we are looking forward to our next fishing trip with them.













Charleston
In August, we made our first trip to Charleston, South Carolina to visit Nick's brother and sister-in-law, Daniel and Maria. Their two kids, Valencia (2) and Kaori (8 months) kept us quite entertained.

Friday night, friends of Daniel and Maria were kind enough to share their pool with us for an evening swim. Saturday, we had fun making sand sculptures with Valencia at Estero Beach.

Despite calls for a wicked hurricane season, we lucked out with no major storms this year. Nevertheless, we found ways to entertain our native neighbors by putting up shutters "just in case" for the storm approaching before we left for Charleston.




Omaha
Also in August, we went to Omaha to attend the Brincks family reunion. Dan and Kathy, Nick's parents, shocked us by flying in to spend the weekend with us in Omaha and attend the reunion as well. It was fun to have everyone together.



On Sunday, Ahn's family took Nick to see the Omaha zoo. The big guerrillas were our favorite. (Although, that mouse that mom about stepped on in the bat caves was pretty entertaining!).





Key West
Ahn and her dad rented a Harley for a ride through the Florida Keys in October. It was the rainiest two weeks of the season, but somehow stayed dry for almost the whole trip.

Key West is relatively quiet in early October, but the street entertainers still performed for sunset at Mallory Square. Ahn's favorite restaurant (Ricky's Blue Heaven) was closed, but we did find some good chow.

Our hotel had an awesome pool and we spent one whole afternoon there relaxing and enjoying the live music. The trip home was a 150-mile search for key lime pie. Good stuff.





Work, Study, Work, Study …
Though we squeezed in a lot (A LOT!) of travel this year, it's been another busy year of work and study. Nick began his third year as an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at the University of Miami. He spent a week in Kansas this summer honing his technical skills. He was also in Chicago for a week in April to present a paper at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.

Ahn is in her second year as a PhD student at the School of Public Health at Florida International University. She spent a few days learning new (well, new to her, anyway!) statistical approaches at Penn State this summer. In early November she was in D.C. to present a paper at the American Public Health Association's annual meeting.