here are some pics from a couple of tuscaloosa trips we took in the last few weeks. we went over once just to ski and once to ski AND attend my cousin’s wedding. it’s worth mentioning that although he had never heard the term to “outpunt one’s coverage” he most certainly has. it’s rumored that i did as well.
here are a few of lillis ripping through the water on the slalom ski. not pictured is her traditional pose of putting her foot through the handle and then flexing her muscles (although she did do that, probably trying to impress her boyfriend – jason’s eldest, michael).
here is lillis’ aforementioned boyfriend, michael
each year i work on something new with the wakeboard. this year i’m working on actually pushing off the wake to get more height. it seems somewhat counterintuitive that i can get higher by shoving my board into the water, but there’s some sort of physical principal at work that makes that the way to go. just a note, it doesn’t work if you’re just standing still, so there’s that. next trip, i’m gonna work on going goofy footed so i can prepare for some 180’s (and b/c i want to be able to do the same come snowboard season).
lil agreed to be photographed with me. i haven’t gotten to wear my linen suit in a while. i enjoy wearing it, especially since i got the zipper repaired.
here’s the chuch that my cousin michael and his wife lauren got married in.
my dad doesn’t frequently like to pose for the camera, but lillis makes everyone smile
i’ve since returned one more time to check out the penn state game (and got in a few more runs on the board). super nice (and convenient) to have an open invitation to a fabulous lake house less than 3 hours away courtesy of jason and holly.
just wanted to share a couple of pics/video of how beautiful it is down on the hooch. lil and i set out for the day and spent about 4 hours on the river. it was a bright (and hot) sunny day, but the cool water has a nice way of balancing it out. a little crowded this time down (what is it about rivers and rafts that attracts so many fat, loud, tattooed people??) but still great and with plenty of peaceful stretches. we were trying out our new boat (bought to replace the one that got partially devoured by a rat in our storage unit) that lillis is sporting below.
it’s a little sleeker and a little faster than the one i had and has more room for packing up stuff for that 3 day cruise down a river that we’d like to try sometime.
below are a pic and then a video of my boat. drew actually showed me last fall the technique of “locking it up” on a little rapid, where you can get your nose up into the rapid and the water will more or less hold you in place. kind of a cool trick.
we headed up to blue ridge to enjoy memorial day weekend with drew and blake and blake’s friend christy. we drove in and went straight out for a little 3 mile hike around to the creek/waterfall where we had gotten engaged almost two years before. it was a beautiful hike. speaking of beautiful, here lillis is (i think) demonstrating a bear attack.
lillis made friends with a butterfly as we sat and rested at the top of the falls
lillis wanted me to get a pic of us up there
i took a video of lil sitting atop the falls.
that afternoon, drew and christy and i headed down to the river to do some fly fishing. the river looked good, but we didn’t get much in the way of fish. drew caught one, and i lost one with too much slack in my line. it was, however, a good time……peaceful out on the river and warm enough for a wet wade.
the next day, lil and i were gonna go kayaking but it was raining. so, we decided to drive across to the outlets (after breakfast at a cute diner up in blue ridge). the sky was amazing along our drive……big angry clouds and deep green fields and trees.
at the outlets, we got lillis a coffee press at williams sonoma, and we decided to splurge a bit and buy some patio furniture at the pottery barn outlet….a nice sectional made from eucalyptus with big cushy red waterproof cusion. we spent a good bit of time sunday reading books outside under the magnolia trees in our new fancy outdoor couch.
sooooo, i was able to convince john and stephen that it would be a good idea for us to spend a weekend out in the woods with no food and no hair dryers (more a concern for stephen than for me - and less so every day). we found our way up to the greater […]
we went to huntsvegas for our end of the season volleyball tourney with the tsunami club i've been working with. below are a few picks of my team (13 black). we had a tough opening day, but did manage to upset the #1 seed in the tournament on day 2 before bowing out.below, allie poses […]
i took a second trip to nicaragua in april. this time brent nix (the mystery 4th in our group) and john headed down as well. it was john's 3rd trip and we were taking a look at a couple of places that he had visited before as well as some new places that peter wanted […]
sorry, no pics for this one. soooo, Atlanta was hosting the inagural ING marathon on March 25th. several of my friends had been training for months, but i had been nursing a sore leg and had not jogged for about 2 months. for some reason my friends (most notably jason, drew and blake) thought it […]
well, i'm sure everyone was jonesin for an update on the fantasy baseball draft update. i know it's like a monkey on my back. well, we were very excited that our draft angel was still there this year and had not indeed been killed by the fans of the Dominican team last year. as you […]
soooo, i decided to wing on up to DC to check out the WHO at Verizon Center with my friends Jeff and Todd and my brother Jeremy. We had a pretty fun weekend there, highlighted by either the girl who claimed she had political asylum, or the one whose belt was "Hermes" (as i was […]
all apologies for my lateness in getting this post out. the lesson here? i'm a slackass. a special note, going forward, all blog pictures will be clickable. clicking them won't make you smarter, but it will increase the size of the photo. this service i supply to you free of charge.sooooo, stephen, jason and myself […]
soooo, as you may know (if YOU are indeed reading this, and it's entirely possible you're not) i am now coaching volleyball. i'm coaching a girls 13's team that plays out of Woodward. often times those practices are the highlight of my week. there's something really amazing about having 12 people scream your name every […]
i usually try not to really mention what i'm thinking here, as it is my general supposition that no one really cares, but today will be an exception. i'm not even going to pretend that any more than 3 people in america might find me insiteful, but i figured i'd just put it out here. […]
nothing really to tell here. drew and i went fishing. i caught my first bass (more of a fly fisherman, i am)you may remember my phat hat as being the same one i won for catching a barracuda on drew's bachelor party. it still looks every bit as good as it did the day i […]
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Hope you enjoy the site. Below are links to different content on the site, and to the left are the latest posts from my blog at charlesbreland.blogspot.com. My pictures are on picasa, and I've just completed building my professional photography site at charles+camera.com.