Happy Birthday, Ash!

I wanted to take a quick minute to wish my oldest brother a happy birthday! Growing up, Ash was my hero and I was his tag-along. Ash caught the same raw deal that every oldest sibling gets when they inherit a couple little shadows trying to follow their every step through childhood, but he was always gracious to both Adam and me.

Thanks for being a great brother and friend, Ash. I love you, buddy.

PS - congrats to Ash & Sarah as well. Today also marks their 8th anniversary.

Slowly Coming Along

The framework is up and they have started the electrical, HVAC and plumbing. It shouldn't be long before we start seeing some drywall and brick thrown up.

Here are a few pictures of the process...

Week 2 Update - Let the Framing Begin!

Don't stop me, I'm on a roll! After 4 months of blogging hiatus, I guess you could say that my "inner blogger" has finally come out! 3 or 4 blog updates in just a few days. Don't try to understand, that's just how I am about things.

Big news concerning our house: We officially have started the structural faze of the construction process - which Amanda and I are extremely excited about. While seeing the foundation was fun, their is only so much dreaming you can do while looking at a slab of rock - whereas now we have dimensions to walk through!

This process shouldn't take long. We have seen (via - other examples of homes being built in our neighborhood) that the framing should be completed in about a weeks time. I must admit, waiting for the construction to get started in between mid-February and now did test our patience. I would like to say that we took the wait in stride, but truth be told there was a time or two I considered taking the bull horn I have at work out to our home construction site and get things moving. But I didn't turn my idea into action when I realized how annoyed everybody in the neighborhood would be when they discovered lil' Ty Pennington (from ABC's Extreme Home Makeover) was moving into the neighborhood - bull horn and all. So I resisted the urge and waited.

Here are a few pics that I took yesterday and today...

Battle at Big Rock

This past week, me and Pops (my dad) were lucky enough to run down to the coast to do some early-Summer mahi-mahi fishing. For the last few weeks we have been hearing about how the fishing is heating up offshore but my work schedule has been extremely busy and Monday, June 1st was going to be our first crack (since April) at packing a cooler or two with good meat.

The last time Pops and me got down to the coast, April 25th, we were hit with some strong NW winds and the seas were white-capping once we left the dock. After trying to get out in 5+ ft. waves, we decided to stay inside the inlet and try our luck chumming for shark. While we did land a few sharks, we didn't have a chance to get out far enough to bring home some tuna or mahi.

However, after watching the fishing reports, we saw that Monday was going to be our best shot at getting a good ways offshore. So Sunday night, my dad and I headed down to Atlantic Beach to stay at a family friend's condo.

The morning of, what will now be known forever in Brown family storytelling as the Battle at Big Rock, we dropped the boat in Morehead City around 6:ooam and headed out to seas.

We traveled for about an hour in before we stopped to fish a seaweed line on a 70 degree temperature break about 20 miles offshore (known as "Buoy 14"). We found a whole herd of other boats trying their luck at landing mahi, but after trolling for a few miles between Buoy 14 and AR-302 ("Artificial Reef #302) we came to realize that we were in the right place at the wrong time.

So there we were, about 15-20 miles offshore, with no signs of any sort of keeper fish. We heard all over the radio that nobody in the area was doing much of anything.

After talking over a few options and looking at the charts, Pops and I decided to go big or go home. And going home with empty coolers wasn't an option today. We were half way to Big Rock (as in the "Big Rock Blue Marlin tournament - the biggest Blue Marlin tournament outside Australian waters) and we knew that if we could make it out that far, we might find warmer water and have a better shot at finding dolphin (aka- "mahi-mahi").

It took about another hour before we came up on Big Rock. We were around 45 miles offshore, the water jumped up to 72 degree and we were floating in about 400 ft. of the deepest blue water. Big Rock sits right at the edge of the continental shelf and the Gulf Stream, so we knew that there were some good fish in the area.

For the majority of the day, we fished a seaweed line that we found on the north side of Big Rock. We were somewhat pleased to hear on the radio, all throughout the day, that the majority of the stubborn boats trolling back at Buoy 14 & AR-302 weren't catching much of anything. I don't say that because I want to hog all the fish - Lord knows there is enough fish to go around; I just say that because it felt good to know that we made a good play heading out to deeper waters.

There has been days that I have caught more fish and there has been days where I have caught bigger fish. But I have never caught such beautiful fish in such a beautiful setting. 45 miles out and the deep blue was nearly flat. The sun was shining at a pleasant 80 degrees and the water was crystal clear blue.

a pretty, little Bluefin - big enough for a few fillets

We didn't have much downtime throughout the day. We must have had at least 20 big fish bites. I can't even count how many times one of us would be fighting one of the fish and the other was clearing lines and getting the gaff ready when we'd suddenly hear another line on the opposite side of the boat start stripping *zinnnnnnnggggg*. We easily could have tripled our fish count if we had another deck hand.

Rightfully so, Pops ended up catching the "catch of the day" with this big gaffer, pictured below:

At the end of the day, we made our way back to shore (after stopping just long enough for me to drop a line in a school of blue fin tuna and pull a small one to the boat) and we shared the highlights of our day with each other, just as if the other person wasn't there. To other cars on the highway, we must have looked like two men on the run that just pulled off a Fort Knox-size heist; smiling from ear-to-ear, reenacting our Battle at Big Rock.

It was the best father/son day I've ever had with Pops.

Week 2 - House Update

I just wanted to take a second to show everybody where we are in the building process.

The have finished up laying the foundation and they should start the frame work within the next few days. The frame work should be completed in about a week from now and then they will move on to plumbing, electical, drywall, esc. It's excited to know that in a week or so, we should really start seeing our first house come together.

We have a blog?!? Oh yeah.

It's been quite some time since our last post and I would normally apologize for our lack of blog-commitment and number all of our excuses for getting slack on the updates, but I have to be honest, the excuses that run through my head aren't that legitimate.

I could say "it hasn't really been that long - has it?" But it has. Winter and spring have passed and my mental calendar is often runnning a few minutes behind, but not 4 months behind. No excuse there.

I could say "nobody actually follows our little life together, so nobody will notice if we don't update our page for a while." But, while we don't have the religious (and creepy) following of Jon & Kate Gosselin, to say nobody cares about what is going on with us would be discounting the love and interest of many family members - especially ones far & rarely seen.

Perhaps I could say "...but nothing really major has happened. At least nothing blog-worthy." But that would be far-stretched as well.

So as you can imagine, I could go on & on about all of our excuses for not posting more often, but truth is, we just aren't good bloggers. With that said, here's a few updates...

Amanda officially graduated college!

Graduation ceremonies have never been my thing. When I finished up my college education, I didn't attend my ceremony, and truth be told, if my mother allowed me I would have probably missed my high school ceremony. It's not that I don't value an education, I sincerely do. I've just always been a "give me my degree & keep your hot, sweaty handshake, Mr./Mrs. Dean of the School"-type of guy.

But I can truly say that I have never enjoyed a ceremony so much and I have never been so proud of someone's accomplishments as much as my wife's. For those of you who don't know Amanda very well (which means you would probably be on my side of the family tree), rest assured that my children have hope. I haven't quite figured out how I will explain to our children one day why college took Mom half the time it took Dad to finish, but oh well. Amanda finished college as a 4.0 GPA scholar-athlete in 3.5 years AND she managed to squeeze in an intership and me. And while it was a joy to watch Amanda receive Peace College's highest academic award among graduates, the thing that made me most proud was never applauded and barely recognized by others. Amanda never made excuses or bragged about her heavy schedule. While she juggled many things at once, she never became a circus clown motivated by an applause. Amanda quietly & humbly closed the book on her college education and basketball career with a 4.0 GPA and as a captain of the team because it was the right way to do things. Her perspective throughout the last few years that we have been together has been nothing short of inspiring.

We became a new baby girl's Aunt & Uncle!

My brother and sister-in-law, Adam and Connie, gave birth to sweet Isabella Kate Brown in March! While we couldn't make it down the week of Sweet Baby Bella's arrival, we managed to visit Adam, Connie & new big brother Josiah the following week.

No offense mothers of the world, I love babies to death, but I'm not a good baby holder - so I was a little nervous about holding such a sweet, tiny baby girl. Baby boys, I'm fine with. As strange as it might seem in the Brown family, dropping baby boys happens all the time. We can shrug such an act off with a shoulder shrug and a "it'll make him tougher!" But that's not the case with baby girls. There is no rebounding back from dropping such a sweet little baby. So the whole time I held Bella, I was imagining to myself how much of a disgraceful uncle I would become if I dropped beautiful Bella (perhaps the photo captures some of my nervousness). Then I realized she was about the size of a football and I recalled all the times I had yelled at the TV in the past at a New Orleans Saints football player for not holding onto the football. So there I was, holding onto the most beautiful football I had ever seen, repeating in my head, "we have a 4th quarter lead, Andrew. Just don't fumble."

I will say though, Connie was a great sport and she assured me I'd be fine. And in all seriousness, I absolutely loved holding my newest niece.

When we weren't holding little Bella, we were most likely playing with Josiah. Every time we see him, Josiah amazes us by his personality and just plain coolness. There is no better synonym. He is a stud. The Robert Redford of the nursery, if you will.

Josiah, Amanda and I enjoyed jumping on beds, wrestling and pillow fighting. We enjoyed being a 3-man (and woman) wrecking crew and we have a few pictures of our demo-derby of a weekend.

We took our first vacation as a married couple!

Well, at least post-Honeymoon that is. In February, Amanda's company took a 4 day company retreat down to Orlando. The company had a little bit of business to take care of while we were down there, but for the most part, we just enjoyed Florida.

The resort that we stayed at was fabulous and it was a great time to escape North Carolina's version of Winter. Amanda and I shared a beautiful bedroom suite overlooking winding pools and a green golf course. Funny thing was, while Amanda was in one of her business meetings in the day time, I remember watching the news about all the AIG executives on their company retreat and thought to myself - "oh the audacity of those guys! While the rest of the country slaves away working just trying to make ends meat--" only to be interrupted by the realization that I was propped up in a hotel lounge chair, looking out of our suite balcony door at a God's great creation. My attitude of judgment quickly altered into a state of sympathy and understanding. I felt a bit foolish to be so eager to jump on the jury, but at the same time, it felt good being a fool. All I could do was laugh at myself and fix another frozen concoction.

Anyways, Orlando was great. We visited the parks, ate at some wonderful restaurants and I got to know some of Amanda's co-workers better. We really did have a blast!

On a side note, (Amanda will kill me for this) I also enjoyed spending the day in the parks counting misbehaved children on leashes. I'm not judging anyone's parenting methods, Lord knows that I deserved to be chained up a time or two when I was a child. I'm just sharing with you guys Amanda and my Disney experience. We are two people-watchers who got married, so you must expect us to play people watching games while in crowds. It was like playing "Punch Buggy" on a family road trip - except this "Punch Buggy" game was as action packed as a "Punch Buggy" game en route Woodstock circa 1969. Here are a few pictures of the wild rugrats. (My favorite ones are the innocent leashes that are disguised as monkey tail bookbags.)

Editor's Note: I understand that the only thing more sad than the faces of these leashed children was the fact that I was sneaking around, like a real creeper, taking pictures of them. But don't let Amanda tell you otherwise - she was cheering me on.

We bought a house!

Well, technically we made a down payment on the idea of a house. You see, the house is a new build and construction has just started.

Amanda and I have been living in an apartment since our wedding last July, and while we have enjoyed our little nest up on the 3rd floor of our apartment, we are ready to be homeowners. So after looking around for quite a while, we signed on the dotted (begin construction) line on Valentine's Day. Since then, we have been getting building permits and planning out the house at KB Homes' design studio.

The actual construction did not begin until about a week ago and we are expecting a late August closing date. But we will make sure to give updates and pictures of the process going forward.

Our first home will be a townhouse located on Affirmed Way. We looked all over the area and ended up on settling on a neighborhood in Cary, named Washington Square at Amberly. Our sub-neighborhood (Washington Square) is a small townhome community inside a larger neighborhood (Amberly). Hence, "Washington Square at Amberly". Amberly is made up of 4 or 5 neighborhoods - each varying in home sizes. (For more information and good pictures of the neighborhood, check out www.amberly.com) We absolutely loved the location and the neighborhood amenties and we look forward to sharing our home with many of you as soon as I unpack my new grill.

Week 1 - 5/30/09