Friday, December 31, 2010

Faceless for a Year


My one and only new year's resolution is to quit facebook. I have discovered that I waste an enormous amount of time dilly-dallying around on FB and find it necessary to see if I can live without it. My friend Megan is the only one who knows the new password to my account. She holds the key to facebook and says she must be heavily bribed before she gives me my password.

The idea occurred to me when I saw that another friend of mine was signing off for the year. I thought I'd give it a shot and see if in fact I am more productive. We'll see how it goes and I'll def. update the blog as to how I am fairing without facebook.

Ta ta for now!

Thursday, December 30, 2010

17 Weeks...

Still not much of a baby bump has filled up my clothes but nonetheless, Ryan and I are still preparing and having a good time before the little one gets here. Over Christmas break, my mom and dad (Gramms and Gramps) ordered the nursery furniture we liked for the baby's room and it made it here quickly. We thought, what the heck, might as well assemble it now! Here is what the green room looks like for now. We are hoping to add some beach-like touches to fit in with the overall ambience of our home and help little Jonah fit into our laid back life style. :)

Aside from baby talk, Ryan is desperate to try out his new kite board bindings I got him for Christmas. It seems the days he is on shift are the days the wind is good around here. The wind'o'meter is predicting strong winds this Saturday. I hope for his sake he can make it out!


Happy New Year to you all!

Thursday, December 23, 2010

~Jona Lily~

Finally Thursday, December 23rd has made it here and we made it to our doctor appointment. As most of you know, little Jonah is a girl!! Here are a few snapshots of her during our gender determination sonogram.

This is the shot at the dr.'s office we got when the tech asked if we were ready to know! I was thinking, 'Are you kidding me?! Yes!!"

Here is a picture of her facing towards you with her arm next to her head.

This is the baby trying to sit on her head. She is already a comedian. Last sonogram she was sticking her tongue out at us the whole time and this sonogram she was performing acrobatics. The most interesting thing she did was a little somersault-like maneuver at the beginning of the sonogram. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do the 3D/4D sonogram later on but I'm thinking I'll want to see what this silly fetus is up to!

Next up, we have a anatomy sonogram scheduled for two weeks to make sure all her parts are the right size. As for this appointment, the doctor was very happy with her heart beat! That's the latest and greatest for now. Love to you all!

Missy, Ryan and baby :)

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Happy Holidays Everyone!

This past Friday night Ryan and I hosted an ugly sweater party at our house to celebrate the holidays with friends. It was also the last day of school for winter break, so you know I was ready to party! Our house is getting pulled together more and more and I'll post soon with all the projects we do over the break. I love having our friends over and hearing their reactions when they come over at how different our house looks! Here a few snapshots from the night...

Preggo ladies! A week apart!

My best friends Megan and Vicki!

Well, hope you all are having a good time over your holiday breaks... lots of love to you all!

Missy and Ryan :)


Saturday, December 11, 2010

The Smith Family Explosion

As most of you know, Ryan and I are expecting our first little one this June! Not only are we exciting for our little baby to get here but we are also that our little one will have so many cousins. Taylor will be here very soon and will be 6 months older than our nugget. Dave and Dani's baby will be here just a few short weeks after our due date! I'm so happy that our kids will have the opportunity to grow up with lots of cousins and family around. I was not fortunate enough to have all our family around when I was growing up and I'm so happy our kids will have the chance to grow up with their big, crazy family around.

Here is our latest picture of the baby. This was at 11weeks, 5 days. If you look really closely, you can see the little booger sticking out its tongue!

So, today I am 14 weeks along. On December 23rd, we have our gender determination sonogram!!! This has been the topic of conversation between the two of us for quite some time. So as most of you know, our sonogram technician believes from our sonogram at 11 weeks that this baby is a girl. Now, after talking with medically seasoned family members, this seems a little early to make such a declaration. So, we hope to finalize this crazy ladies and her determination in two weeks. Ryan and I also have a bet about the babies gender and if this woman is right I am on baby duty the first month while my husband sleeps. ( I don't think this is gonna hold up when the baby gets here, but we will see!) Also, although I am 14 weeks along I literally have no baby bump! Ryan and I are visiting Dave and Dani this weekend and it's funny to compare our bellies because Dani has one!! But I guess mine will be here soon enough :)

Take care everyone and love you all!

PS..

Miss you mom and dad!!! Love you :)



Thursday, November 11, 2010

As of late...





Hello everyone! I want to share what we have been up to the past couple of months. This fall has been a fun, challenging and relatively low key as Ryan finishes up his Micro Biology course and I try to keep up with the usual demands of teaching. The months of August and September were kind of a blur but as we reached the cooler months of October and November, we slowed down a bit and finally took a few pictures of what we have been up to. So now we have something to share :)

In October, I was asked to attend the Florida Association of Science Teacher's yearly conference in St. Augustine to represent the school and district I work for! I was so excited that my principal asked me to join the conference but also for the hotel room and food at such a nice resort. It was a little like a mini-vacation. I spent 3 days learning and interacting with every seminar and activity that I could. Upon our
arrival to the conference, there happened to be a few cancellations for a half-day kayak trip, so we jumped on it! Ryan and I have a set of kayaks and occasionally get out on the water to explore but having a tour guide on our paddle was a great way to learn even more about the St. Augustine area. Above is a picture of a Red Mangrove tree which is very common in the Tampa Bay/ Sarasota area. However, it is not common at all for it to make it as far north as St. Augustine. Usually, the temperatures are too cool for it survive through winters and it is thought that this colony of mangroves made their way so far north because of hurricane from 2004. Our kayak guide quoted some science guru by saying that this winter is thought to be one of the coldest in 1000 years and they locals expect the mangrove populations to die out. I guess we will find out soon enough.

In the evenings, FAST organized socials for the teachers to meet and chat about our favorite topic, science! (Of course). And they did so much having activities such as star gazing, IMax movies and guest speakers. One evening in particular, the conference committee had set up six high powered telescopes to view the full moon and Jupiter. Growing up, my dad and I spent time with our telescope viewing the Moon as it waxed and waned through its phases but viewing Jupiter was entirely new for me! I wasn't able to take a photo through the telescope but found a photo that looks identical to what I saw that evening.. check it out above. The conference was a wonderful experience and two other of my colleagues and I will be hosting a district training in January to share all the new info and gizmos we acquired at FAST.

On the home front, we are repainting our bedroom soon, finishing up our pavers after Ryan's online class and whatever odds and ends that need to get done. Ryan has continued his tradition of running with his dad every 3rd day on Bayshore. And I think Ryan may be running off a little of his beer pudge from earlier in the year :) I married a cutie!

We are looking forward to visiting with our family this Thanksgiving as I believe it has turned into sort of a family reunion! We hope everyone has a safe trip down to Tampa and can't wait to visit with everyone. Love you all!

Sunday, August 8, 2010

We are here to stay.

Ryan and I have moved every year for four years and on July 31st, 2009 we made a new promise for ourselves... we aren't moving.. for a long time! So as our house anniversary date rolled around this year we decided to celebrate by adding a few components to our home that made it even more of an 'island time' pad.

Lowe's delivered our two Fox Tail Palms to our home along with 1200 pavers. We felt like little kids on Christmas :)


Then Lowe's moved all of our purchase..

Then, the rest was up to us!
After sweating in out in the heat, two palms were planted and 1200 pavers were relocated to our back yard. Way to go, boys! Here are the Smith men after they finished planting and moving.

Thanks so much for coming over to help us guys! We love our home and love sharing it with our family and friends. Next time, we won't put you to work ;)



Monday, July 19, 2010

A few more pictures

More of my summer creations in the kitchen... this is a delicious portebella mushroom burger with a side of curry carrots. The burger was great however I don't recommend the carrots... ewh.
Ryan and I at Crabby Bill's for the final game of the World Cup. Bad lighting here but a good moment to remember! So much fun.
Here's a night out with a few friends. This girl in the middle is a huge science geek like me.. she could seriously be my new best friend.
Ry and JP.
Datz.. so tasty.

Gator Hunting.. well, Gator Looking really.


Earlier this week, Ryan's old friend from St. Leo made a stop in Tampa on non-stop six month journey with his girlfriend Arna. Both Bjarki and Arna live in Iceland and spent a day and night with us here is Sunny Florida before they headed off to Vancouver. The two are spending the next five months (they've already been on the road for one month now) seeing as much of the world as they can! What a great idea! To entertain and excite our guests we took them to the Smith lake house for a day of skiing and gator hunting!!

Our gator hunting trip was very successful not only because we saw so many gators but because we could get very close to them with the boat before they swam off.

This little guy was the smallest gator we came across. He might have been a whole foot and a half long.
This is me venturing into the water to get a close up shot. I was trying to muster the courage to actually catch the little booger but I just didn't have it in me.. you can see his little reflective eye shinning back at you here in this picture.

Florida Summer

Summer time is fun time!
Cori Belle chowing down on some yummy avocado!
Old friends.
New tricks.
Arna and I thought it looks like the guys are wearing
a shirt.. maybe it was better in person :)
We discovered hard wood floors under the carpet
in our Florida room.. turns out they were in pretty
good shape after we sanded the old paint off of them.
Before (above) and ....
After sanding.. huge improvement :) Now all we have
to do is pull up the carpet in all the rooms and sand those
as well.. can't wait.



Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Kiteboarding and such..





During beach week, Ryan had one solid night of wind and spent two hours tiring himself out kiteboarding. While he was tearing it up, Jamie asked me if I had any pictures of Ryan kiting and it occurred to me I need to share the good stuff!

Kiteboarding and I go way back. First of all when I first met Ryan he had just begun to take up the sport and he was completely clueless. Of course, I couldn't tell he was but now the stories he tells me and what I know of the safety improvements in kites.. I'm amazed he's alive. I'm not kidding. So anyhow, kiteboarding and I have a history together. I've kinda of always felt that this is the one sport Ryan loves to do more than any others. (I totally understand.. I feel this way about horses). And as our relationship has grown, my understanding and support of his sport has evolved as well.

At first, I was merely a spectator who was a little grossed out with his crotch harness that spent hours sitting on a beach watching and reading. As time progressed, I was roped into doing little house-keeping activities that would get him on the water as soon as possible. Soon after, I volunteered to start taking photos and videos of his tricks and time on the water. And today, well.. after a trip to the emergency room, four new kites, a new amazing board :) and harness, he is very well practiced and I am well groomed as his kiteboarding assistant.. and I love it!

Here are some of my favorite pics of Ryan kiteboarding...

The face of a happy man!

Happy that the camera still takes pictures after this one....


Mad air. Not even sure how high up he was but I used the zoom for this photo!

Shortly after taking this photo a woman approached me and asked what magazine I was shooting for.

Enjoy and thanks for looking :)

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Recipes for Week # 2

After returning from a wonderful weekend in Nashville, it's time to get back to my kitchen to cook. This week, I picked a handful of recipes (mostly Rachel Ray.... just can't get enough of this girl) and headed out to the grocery. Here are the yummy recipes in store for us this week not in any particular order.

#2. Portabella Burgers with Watercress Pesto & side of Curry Carrot
#3. Melissa's Burger Recipe from Rachel Ray
#4. Aunt Christy's shrimp appetizer from Nashville this past weekend.

At the end of the week, I'll have pictures and results from our kitchen adventures! Until then, have a great week!

Missy

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Time to get cookin'


The summer has begun and is well on its way! Therefore, I am not working. To 'earn my keep' this summer I am conquering a number of home projects but also taking on an innovative approach to dinner in the Ryan and Missy Smith home. My goal for the remainder of the summer is to cook a new recipe every night Ryan is home! Since our return from our annual beach week vacation with the family we have tried three new recipes. I am attaching the links to the recipes I used and a few pictures of our endeavors. So for the remainder of the summer, feel free to follow along, try a few recipes and share if you had any great recipes as well!



Our first night of home cooked goodness, we had a few guests to share the experience. After searching Rachel Ray's website I decided on this burrito recipe (http://www.rachaelray.com/recipe.php?recipe_id=2152),
yucca (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/simply-delicioso-with-ingrid-hoffmann/yucca-with-cuban-mojo-recipe/index.html) and uncle John's margaritas for a hodge-podge of Mexican/ Cuban delights. This was my first time cooking yucca and thought our dinner guest was trying to make a good impression by telling me how great dinner was. I was pretty pleased when she asked if she could have the rest of the yucca! Score!

Tonight I made Rachel Ray's Dollar Stretcher Dinner: Tuna, Tomato and White Bean Bow Ties.
It's quick, it's malleable and it's cheap! (http://www.rachaelray.com/recipe.php?recipe_id=3380).

Well, until next time! Happy cooking and whatever else you kids do these days.

Missy and Ryan

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Work Hard, Play Harder!

Hello everyone! It's been a bit too long since I have added a post and I just have a few minutes to add a little something. Married life has been good to us and as the title suggests, we are having a great time! Here are just a few little photos of what we have been up to. Hope all is well and love you all!!
Just a random shot. Ryan is the lobster man in this picture. I believe he was out kiteboarding all day and that was the day he shredded his kite! Oh my!
This is us at our very good friends, Megan and Saul's wedding reception. It's so fun to be a guest at someone's wedding after your own! We had such a great time :)