Weekend Update

Ella spent the night over at Grandma and Pop's this past Friday night, so Jon and I took decided to do something we haven't done in about 3 years...we went to the movies.  First off, HOLY COW.  I know people bitch and moan about how expensive the movies are, especially the concessions, but it's seriously ridiculous.  We went to a matinee, shared a popcorn and had two medium drinks (which were about a 1/2 gallon each), and it was over thirty dollars.  Are you kidding me?  Guess it's a good thing we don't go any more often than we do.

Luckily for us, though, we picked a really good movie -- Inception.  I'm glad we saw it in the theater, because I think it would have been a different experience altogether watching it on TV.  If you haven't seen it, I'd highly recommend it.  It's thought-provoking, and very well done.

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The tree in the backyard has now moved from leaning over the shed to actually being in full contact with the shed, and laying on the power line.  It's been like this for a number of days now.  Since it's been on the power line, we've had four different people affiliated with Duke Power come out.  Nothing has been done.  The most recent time we talked to them, they said they were going to contact our property management company, since they can't be responsible for the shed or the fence if they should be damaged while they're trying to remove the tree.  If they're not able to remove it themselves, they will have to cut power to the house, a private company will have to come out and remove the tree, and then they will restore power.

So we remain in "wait and see" mode.  Hopefully, the tree is not putting so much stress on the line that it will cause the power pole to break, because that would lead to even more problems.

This has been going on the better part of a month now, I believe.  So take that for what you will.

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Erika was in town last week, and she was sweet enough to take time out of visiting her family to shoot Ella's 2-year portraits out at the Bicentennial Gardens and Bog Garden!  Let me tell you, I think we picked the absolute hottest day of the year to do it on, but Ella was a trooper!  She did tons of walking -- we were out there for about two hours, I think -- and didn't whine at all until we were almost done.

Our time in the heat was well worth it, though.  Erika did a great job with the photos, and I'm beyond happy with them.  If you want to see a few, you can check out her photography blog.