Have a Very Rosie Christmas

If you are anything like me, you get tired of of the usual Christmas music the day after Thanksgiving if not sooner. Logan has been keeping the car radio station on the 24-7 Christmas station and it drives me bonkers.

For those that wish for the Christmas cheer without all the jangle, I offer Rosie Thomas' A Very Rosie Christmas.



You can preview two tracks from the album on her MySpace page:

http://www.myspace.com/rosiethomasmusic

You can also listen to a full concert from the feature NPR did on her:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98619380

Merry Christmas from the Bickels!

Mexico!

A basic slideshow of our week-long vacation back in October...

Casa Yvonneka:

This ridonkulous house is where we spent our vacation in Puerto Vallarta.
We shared awesome meals every morning and night.

Not to mention the delicious fresh home-made guacamole and cheese quesadillas every afternoon for snack!

The infinity pool with a beautiful view was perfect for maxing and relaxing.

Our excursions included a day trip to Las Caletas.

And a Los Veranos Canopy tour (aka zip line)!

(Of course Andrew took pictures of himself...)
A good time was had by all. I'll leave you with a picture of Cosita, the chef's dog who paid us daily visits. Isn't she cute?

Hasta la Vista Baby!

Sorry for the lack of blogging over the past month or so. Things have been busy with me coaching a U10 girls rec soccer team, playing tennis, Andrew traveling for work, running 5ks, etc. Saturday we leave for Mexico! Hopefully there will be fun stories and wonderful pictures to share when we return...

For now I'll leave you with this beautiful sunrise pic Andrew took at the Haleakala Crater in Maui:

Bike MS: Atlanta Ride - This Weekend!

This weekend we will both be riding in the Bike MS Atlanta at Callaway Gardens, a fundraiser for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. We are riding with the Lockheed Martin Team. This is a two day event with the option of different distances each day. My goal is to ride 62 miles on day one (yikes!) and 26 on day two. Andrew's goal is to ride 100 miles on day one and 61 miles on day two.

Every hour of every day, someone is diagnosed with MS. That's why we've registered for this event, and why we're asking you to support our fund raising efforts with a tax-deductible donation. Any amount, great or small, helps to make a difference in the lives of people with MS. We are trying to help our team reach their fundraising goal of $15,000. Many of you reading this blog have already donated. We appreciate your support and look forward to letting you know how we do.

If you would still like to donate you can follow the links below:

For Logan : http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR/Bike/GAABikeEvents?px=5328104&pg=personal&fr_id=8885

For Andrew : http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR/Bike/GAABikeEvents?px=5296183&pg=personal&fr_id=8885

We took a little trip...

In early August we took a trip up to the Northeast. On Wednesday we flew from Atlanta to Rochester, NY. We picked up our rental car at the airport and set out for Toronto. The drive is approximately 170 miles with a stop for the border crossing. I found it humorous that Andrew wanted to switch the GPS to metric once we were in Canada. (Note from Andrew: The metric system is cooler!) Mark, Janet and Parks were in Toronto when we got there so we met up with them for a late dinner. They had already spent the day in the city so they left after dinner to head back south towards the US. We would see them a few days later at the reunion.

During our first night, there was a 2:30 am hotel fire drill but we didn't let that dampen our spirits. We woke up Thursday morning and rode the subway down to the ferry to Centre Island. There we rented bicycles and did some geocaching.

Here is a view of the Toronto skyline from the ferry.

Afterward we wondered over to the CN Tower but didn't feel like paying $20 cad to go up.

Instead we toured the Steamwhistle Brewery and were happy with our decision.


That afternoon we went over to the Kensington Market area to visit a cute little yarn store called Lettuce Knit. Then it was back to the hotel for a rest. For dinner we decided to to to the Historical Distillery District. We had a nice dinner at the Mill St. Brewery with some tasty food and good local brews.


Friday morning we left Toronto and made a stop at Niagara Falls on our way to Geneseo, New York for the Bickel Family Reunion. We spent some time taking in the beauty of the falls and snapping some pics. We thought about riding the Maid of the Mist or doing the tour behind the falls but decided to save the money and head out for the reunion.

Geneseo is a cute little college town (SUNY-Geneseo) about an hour south of Rochester. The weather there was great! Sunny and warm with little humidity. We spent most of the reunion weekend outside under a tent visiting, eating, playing Euchre and horseshoes, and even playing Wii with the younger folk. This was our first experience with rock band and it was a hoot! Here's the whole group.


While in Geneseo, we rented the world's smallest cabin in Letchworth State Park. How cute!

This park is beautiful with an amazing gorge and nice scenery. We were only in the cabin a few hours at night for sleeping so the size didn't really bother us. We spent the rest of our time in the park hiking, geocaching, and of course taking pictures.


All in all it was a great trip and I enjoyed getting to meet the extended Bickel family. We're looking forward to the 2010 reunion in New Mexico!

Orchids!

Orchids...the largest family of flowering plants...over 20,000 species.

I've always had an interest in growing plants, starting with gardens growing up, a middle school hydroponics science fair experiment, and now orchids. Logan first bought me a generic white Phalaenopsis hybrid a few years ago, we named it Bob the Orchid.

These hybrids are the most common type of orchids you see at the grocery store, Home Depot, etc. Phalaenopsis adapt to the home environment pretty easily and their blooms can last up to four months or so, both of which makes them pretty popular. After Bob's blooms died and fell off, our mission was to get it to rebloom. This is where orchids can get their reputation of being hard to take care of. Most of the "pretty" orchids are naturally found in tropical environments. Lots of light, lots of humidity, and a sizable temperature swing between day and night.

To achieve these needs, our guest bedroom does double duty as the orchid room.
Light: the room faces south and gets all of the afternoon sun. Check!
Humidity: found a huge tray with a grate meant for muddy boots online. Set orchids on grate, fill with water, water evaporates, humidity. Check!
Temperature swing: open window, close AC vents, keep door closed. Check!

With the three main criteria met, Bob rebloomed right on schedule the following winter. Now we were in business. Our collection has grown since then to a little over 20 orchids. Most of them have come from Carter & Holmes, an orchid nursery in South Carolina. If you are ever driving on I-26 between Greenville/Spartanburg and Columbia, make a stop. They always have orchids in bloom and it will make a nice rest stop for your road trip.

One of the orchids we bought at C&H in April has just bloomed. It is called Brassoepilaelia Fiftieth Anniversary (when you create a new orchid hybrid, you get to give it a silly name, like race horses or purebred dogs). This one is a hybrid of orchids from three different genera: Brassavola, Epidendrum, and Laelia.


Some other pictures of our orchids are here.

Andrew

Guitar Hero for Kate

This is for you Kate! I first played Guitar Hero two years ago at the Kendall family beach week. All of my younger cousins could easily kick my butt, most of all Kate. I talked a big game, but in truth I was really lousy. Fast forward and now Logan's mom has a Wii with Guitar Hero. Tonight Logan and I are over here for dinner and decided to play some Wii. We took some funny pictures of us playing Guitar Hero to help cheer Kate up. Kate, I've been practicing, so when you are all better and out of the hospital I hope you're up for the challenge.

Andrew

July 4th Extravaganza

This morning my Dad, Andrew and I woke up at o'dark thirty to run the Peachtree Road Race. It's the largest 10k in the country with 55,000 participants.

We jumped on Marta and rode down to the start at Lenox Mall. We sent in previous race times so Andrew was in time group 1A and my Dad and I were in time group 2. It was much better than last year when we were in time group 9 and didn't start until after 8:30. We started off a few minutes after 7:30 am.


The race goes south on Peachtree street through Buckhead. Its pretty much downhill for the first 3 miles. Then you hit Cardiac Hill in front of Piedmont Hospital.

Once you get up that hill, you run right past the building I work in. My Mom decided to come watch this year and she set up camp there. It was nice to hear people cheering for you as you run by.


A little past that you get a nice view of the Hotlanta skyline. Before you know it, you are turning onto 10th Street. New this year, thanks to the drought, the finish line was moved from Piedmont Park to the Atlanta Civic Center. So you have to take the next right onto Juniper. Unfortunately, the race course immediately goes uphill again. Then shortly after that you see the finish line!


We all made it! The race is a lot of fun and it helps you not feel guilty while indulging in Independence Day treats!

Smoked beer can chicken - Yum Yum!

Square by Square Afghan

Hi! This is Logan. Knitting is a hobby of mine and I wanted to share one of my latest projects with you. In January, I joined a knit-a-long group at one of the local yarn stores. We are using the 365 Knitting Stitches a Year Perpetual Calendar to make squares that we will sew together to make an afghan out of Malabrigo Merino Worsted yarn. It's a fun project because each square boasts a different pattern that requires learning a new stitch. The squares knit up fast and are easy to carry around. So far I have made a total of 9 squares using three different colors of yarn. Check them out below!

Camping

A few weekends ago Logan and I went camping w/ some friends of ours, Andrew and Stacy. We picked out a place with a fitting name, Andrew's Cove. Logan and I have driven by the campground many times on the way to her brother's, but had never camped there. After driving up Saturday morning, we ate lunch at our campsite and headed out hiking. High Shoals Trail is a little over a mile long and descends from the parking lot to the 300 ft waterfall that is the trail's namesake. Along the way you pass a second water fall called Blue Hole Falls. Like the name implies, there is a large swimming hole that looked very tempting on a hot summer day. We continued down the trail to the big waterfall, checked it out for a little bit and headed back.

After hiking we headed into the town of Helen to stock up on some dinner supplies that I had forgotten. The dinner menu was bratwurst, hamburgers and baked beans. Dinner took a while to cook on the beat up grill, but it was still darn tasty. Smores by the campfire finished everything off.

After sacking up in the tent, Kaia was freaking out because of the other people in nearby campsites. She started whining and standing on her back legs to look out the tent windows. We finally settled her down and went to sleep. The night was uneventful until 6 am when distant thunder woke us up. Let me tell you, you've never seen two tents and all the car camping gear broken down and packed up so fast. We weren't about to get stuck in an early morning thunderstorm. We drove back a good portion of the way in the rain, so we were glad we decided to leave early. You can check out some pictures on Flickr:

Memorial Day Weekend at Seacrest Beach, FL

We packed up the cars and headed down to the Gulf coast for Memorial Day.

We gathered at the Wade's at noon on Friday to caravan down to Florida. We stopped somewhere in Alabama at a gas station that backed up to a wildlife reserve. You could walk around behind the station and look at the alligators and feed them marshmallows through the fence.

After dinner at the beach we stocked up at the grocery store and then hit the sack.

Early Saturday morning, Andrew and I got up and went out for a run. Everyone else was awake when we got back, and then we had breakfast together. After eggs & bacon we headed out to the beach where the water was cool but refreshing. We had noticed the previous night that the water was pretty rough. It didn't take long to realize that there were riptides. While out of the water, we played some games of Bocce Ball and enjoyed the sunshine.

Around lunch time Pauli's parents and sister stopped by to visit. We made sandwiches for lunch and laid around the condo for a while and took naps. Around the middle of the afternoon we heard sirens and went out on the porch. A guy from the group next to us had gotten caught in the riptide and become exhausted while trying to get back to shore. He was OK but was taken to the ambulance to get checked out. Eventually they put up the second red flag and wouldn't let anyone in the ocean. We even saw a police truck drive down the beach and threaten to give a ticket to someone who was wading knee deep. We heard the next day that were was 100 rescues in the Destin/Panama City area.

Saturday night we went out for a nice dinner at The Fish House. Afterward we drove to Seaside Beach to take pictures and walk around the Jazz Festival.

Sunday we decided to go deep sea fishing.

We made reservations on a boat that took about 50 people and left from the port in Destin. Stacy didn't go with us because she gets sea sick easily. She also had some friends that were staying nearby so she could meet up with them and hit the beach. We bottom fished at five different spots and caught mostly snapper (Vermilion, Lane, and Red). We had fun and I was the last one of our group to finally catch a fish. At least it was a Red Snapper of decent size.
We headed down to the beach again once we returned to the condo in mid afternoon for some swimming and bocce ball.

On Monday morning we packed up our stuff and drove to Grayton Beach State Park. What a beautiful place! There are no condos or buildings along the beach and it was so peaceful. The water was calmer and we wanted to get a little more beach time before we headed back to the ATL. There was a second sandbar where you could swim out a little ways and then be in shallow water again. Andrew set up his camera on the tripod so we could get a group picture in the water.

We were all sad to go, but eventually we had to pack it up and head back home.