Back to the Real World...

As usual a lot has gone on since I last managed to update this thing...
We had an awesome time in KY, I think it was mentioned before so here are the missing pictures :o)

The following are just some pictures from the new apartment...

1805 White Pine Drive
Durham, NC 27705

just in case anyone feels like visiting :o)

and the new table... Ev brought it in while I was at work, a BIG heavy box :o)

Here are our holiday shots (Thanksgiving and Xmas) in the new place...
First, making and eating our little thanksgiving :o)

A little bit of Xmas... We made cookies this year (YUM)

Around Dec. 18th we had the chance to visit Nicoles family down in Georgia, it was an early Xmas/Grammas Bday celebration with that whole side of the family (minus Souza, John and Steph/Sista Love)...Kurhanewicz Party! So, a lot of cards with the cousins and, as usual, WAY too much food :o) A good time was had by all...

Finally on to real xmas in Seattle. Yvonne hosted a wonderful time at her house with a lot of the Codd clan there...

We also took a day to take a nice walk around Discovery Park up in Seattle

We had an awesome New Years celebration down in Oregon...more pictures coming soon. Got to see the Ertel-Norelius crew (awesome as usual) Spent most of the weekend kicking it with Ryan (Ev went hashing with him up in Portland, now hes hooked) and dropped through Corvallis a few times. I can't remember most of it so it was probably really fun :o)

In more recent news I had my 25th birthday (!) It was a Wednesday, which made it sort of hard to celebrate, but I did get to go out to dinner with the lab group, woohoo. Also this past weekend was spent out in Boone NC, for a sweet little snowboard sesh with Will, Tina, Steph, Anand, and Tommy (hooray for cousins) did a little snowball fighting, a little riding around, and generally got a feel for NC snow... its no Mt. Bachelor, but it'll do :o)

Somewhere in the middle of all of that I started my new job at Duke and began a new life in Durham. Its been pretty alright so far, we need to stay home (or at least in the state) for a few weekends to start to get a feel for the place (maybe even make some friends :o) All and all things are going well...

Until Next Time...
Everett and Nicole

I don't know where to begin, so much has happened since Halloween...

First off we celebrated Everetts 25th birthday by taking a trip up to the place in Vermont. Spent a leisurely weekend hiking around, meeting some very nice people (Vermont people are great, I like to think of it as the Oregon of the east coast :o), and generally stuffing ourselves full of beer and chocolate cake. On the way back we took a quick detour through NY to stay with one of Evs high school friends (Marvi, an awesome woman, glad we got to say hello). First time ever in the city, only there for 8 hours, and the car was broken into.... clothes and food (including our newly bought maple syrup, bummer) gone and with it unfortunately was my camera, so no pictures from this particular adventure

But the bad has to be taken with the good I suppose, so here goes...

WE ARE BOTH NOW EMPLOYED!!! and in our respective fields non-the-less. Ev will be working with NC states marine lab (CMAST) helping with oyster population studies and a wetlands food web study. I will be working at Duke in a biology lab looking at c.elegans, a rockin nematode. All in all, very good news.

Since we both found out about our new employment during Evs birthday trip we had about three days by the time we got back to find a place in Durham, check it out and get moved in before starting work this week... busiest three days of my life :o)

In between getting back from VT and Thanksgiving we managed to squeeze in a trip to Kentucky to participate in the Steuer (pronounced Stoy-er) family thanksgiving and Evs grandads birthday. Had a great time, got to meet all of the people I have been hearing about for the past 5 or so years. Oh and we got to drive a big old Bobcat tractor around, knock down some trees, dig up some rocks, and generally goof off. (for the record I only knocked down one tree, and did so-so at that :o) Ev however spent about 6 hrs in all on it, with a grin from ear to ear the entire time) It was a great time, good food, good conversation, and in the end good bourbon, we will be back.

So now we are just about moved in, with no furniture thats its a pretty easy task, and looking forward to our last weekend as unemployed layabouts :o) For a little while we will be toggling between Durham and Beaufort (as Evs job is out there) but we have plenty to be thankful for, with this awesome year behind us and opportunities abound ahead.

Pictures of the move-in/new apartment and thanksgiving will be posted soon...

Much love and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
-Nicole and Ev

We began the night handing out candy to trick-or-treaters... not too many passing by front street so there's plenty of fun size snickers left over (YES!) Headed out to the Backstreet pub around 9 to hear the Holy Ghost Tent Revival... fun fun fun. Met some new friends, all and all a good night. Learned my lesson at the seafood festival and didn't bring my camera out with me last night. Here are some pics from early in the night...

Pumpkins

Pumpkins on the Porch

Jack Skelington

OrangeBeard

Halloween 09

The King

Curse your monkey toes

Gypsy

We had a sunny clear day so we decided to take the skiff across to the Carrot Island, it was a nice walk with views of the river/estuary on the far side and waterfront views of downtown Beaufort on the side we docked on. It was an interesting mix of grassy fields, butterflies, sandy beach, and of course it's not a hike with Ev unless you end up knee deep in water somewhere :o) Oh and there were some great birds out there including some Ibis. Here are a few pictures...enjoy

More soon...
Nicole and Ev

As of Thursday, October the 8th we have officially been living out here for one month. It's pretty nuts that it passed so quickly, but a lot has been going on. This post is just a little compilation of photos that have been left out, a snapshot of our first month here.
To begin with, its been a busy few weeks... We had the North Carolina Seafood Festival out in Morehead city, which consequently turned into a raucous night at the pub, a trip up to Chesapeake Bay Virginia, and a lot of hanging out at the house (totally exhausting, believe me)

Here are a few shots that were left out of the Outer Banks Post
SEA OATS
These are Sea Oats, they look yummy but didn't quite live up to their name (trust me :o)
FROGUS REFRESHUS
These little dudes were constant showering companions at the Frisco Campsite, I don't usually like to share my personal space with amphibians but these guys were content just to chill up in the corners and groove on the spray so you really couldn't get too worked up about it. Plus it was HOT out so you really couldn't blame them... a girls gotta shower :o)
UFO
We were riding out to a cafe for a little internet action when we came across this... NO CLUE why they built it, there was no little shop associated with it, it was just there chilling next to a boat engine repair shop. My best guess is that it landed there one day and nobody wanted to put the effort into having it hauled away

The following weekend was the Morehead City Seafood festival...an AWESOME time that I highly recommend if you like a.) seafood, b.) fried food, or c.) classic cars and motorcyles. I nice little weekend of pure Americana, with visitors from all over the east coast.
SEAFOOD POSTER

On the walk over (yes we walked over from Beaufort, only about 4 mi one-way, but we needed some way to walk off all of that delicious food) we came across the beginning of the week long fishing competition at the mouth of the Newport River, normally there are a few people out here but it was packed all week

Speaking of packed, there were TONS of people out at the festival



it took up about 5 or 6 blocks on the water front, carnival and all, good times

Speaking of good times we ended up spending most of the hot afternoon cooling ourselves in a pub on the water... needless to say, with so many awesome people around to make friends with, we ended up there until about midnight (fun walk back) The not-so-fun part came the next morning when I realized that my wonderful, fabulous camera had been lost. After a full on freak-out, replete with the obligatory trip out to the festival to try my luck at the Lost and Found booth, and the 20 minutes of crying about it, a sweet local kid showed up on my porch camera in hand... He is officially my Awesome Person of the Year.
CAMERON
Its a bit of a goofy picture, but he was really excited that we were so floored to have the camera back, and he got an awesome story out of it. He actually flipped through the pictures all morning until he found the picture of our house on there and the car with the oregon plates... he recognized the house and walked over to verify it with the car. For the millionth time this month...THANK YOU CAMERON

The following are just a couple of the house...
HOUSE SURFBOARD
HOUSE W DOCK
INSIDE

Oh and the best part about living out here... GAS PRICES!

A week or so ago we took a quick trip up to the Chesapeake Bay and camped out at the Kiptopeke campsite (which is HUGE, they even have cabins and such for rent) a few pictures...

DISMAL SWAMP
We only took a quick trip through the swamp on the way up, it is in NC just far north, we will be back! With a name like that how could we stay away :o)

I think this next one was really cool... when we finally got up into VA there were signs directing us out to the island via the bridge/tunnel... now I was thinking something like "hmmm, bridge/tunnel huh? they must have covered the bridge for some reason, or maybe it goes through some islands, hence the tunnel part" But alas I was wrong...

if you follow the road with your eyes you will see that the bridge actually dips down under the water (deep enough so that large boats that use the channel can get over) and come back up on the other side. It does this THREE times. Blew my mind

and finally, the obligatory sunset photos, cant help myself :o)
CHESAPEAKE SUNSET
EV SUNSET
SUNSET KIPTOPEKE