The Georgia Aquarium

So if you ever make it out to Atlanta you have to visit the Georgia Aquarium. Erin and I went out there yesterday with the Kuypers who were out for a book expo. I have heard great things about the aquaruim and Erin and I finally got a good reason to go visit. It was awesome! I am kind of a fish nerd so maybe my view is bias but you will have to come see it for yourself. I put a couple pictures on my flickr account if you want to check it out. This picture below is from the 5 million gallon ocean tank. The viewing window is 25' by 60' so it like being in the ocean.
-Paul

Trip to Africa!

Well, I have decided to pick and go to Africa. My good friend, Caitlin Clarkson has been serving in the Peace Core in Zambia, Africa. And I figured now was the time, more then ever to get a little taste of Africa. When else will I be able to live in a little village in Africa? And one of my oldest and bestest of friends is coming with, Miss Brittany Gray. We are going to have an awesome time. (Especially on the 30 hour flight. We will be able to catch up for lost time) It will be an experience for sure. The plan is to be over there for 2 weeks in February helping Caitlin with AIDS education as well as work at clinics and play and love on all the kids around her village. We will also do a little Safari trip and maybe bungee jumping ( I am still thinking about this) I have already started getting ready. I am now waiting on a copy of my marriage certificate to reapply for my passport. So, please start to keep both Brittany and I in your prayers as we prepare for this trip, as far as visas, passports, shots, saving for plane tickets and all of that fun stuff! I will keep in touch for sure! Only 6 months and counting!

Erin

KaBOOM Build

When you think of KaBOOM you probably think about the cheesy commercial with the infomercial guy that says “KaBoooM and you will never scrub again”. At Home Depot KaBOOM is a nonprofit that we build playground with. Over the last couple of months I have been working with KaBOOM to build a playground a couple miles from our house. It was a lot of fun and hard work. Everything went smoothly and we got the playground up in record time thanks to the 250 people that showed up! We also got a little motivation from Webster.
-Paul

Blood Mountain Trip

It seems like a 4th of July tradition for Erin and I to hike Blood Mountain. Blood Mountain is about 90 miles north of Atlanta. Last year we did it and really got a good taste of what balmy heat in GA is all about. We barely made it because we didn’t have enough water or snacks. This year we came prepared with a lot of water and snacks but it ended up being a really cool overcast day. It was a good chance for me to do some training for the Imogene run. We're both little sore today but it was a lot of fun. Erin and I finished the day off with some tubing down the Chestatee River and firework in downtown Decatur with some friends. Hope everyone had a good 4th.

-Paul

Another Road Trip

So I think Paul and I need to start a business offering to drive peoples cars all over the United States. We have come across some pretty sweet deals so far, especially this past weekend. A client of mine from my Pilates Studio heard about our little trip up to Boston a few months ago to pick a friends car and then asked if we would be interested in doing it again. So, we drove her Honda Element up to her beach house in Duxbury, Massachusetts and it return was able to hang out at this awesome beach house for 3 days! It was a cute little cottage overlooking the ocean with a hot tub and a sweet outdoor shower. Paul's brother Chris and Amy were also able to make it up with Micah. We had a blast sleeping in, hanging out on the beach and eating lots of lobster. It was a great weekend and we are crossing our fingers she will need us to come up there and pick up the car at the end of the summer. Here are a few of my favorite pictures.
Erin

I am glad I have Paul around to take cool pictures for me!

Ahhh, aren't we so romantic?
Not so much.
It was freezing cold and 4:45am!
But, a cool picture none the less.

The Stroup Fam hanging out on the beach!

Lobster is Yummy!

Imogene Pass Run

I am running in a 17 miles race in Durango this Fall. So I am writing a blog to track my training. Please come check it out and support my journey. Road to Imogene Pass

-Paul

It’s a small world after all

This past week Paul and I went out with one of his co-workers and his wife. At first, I thought it would be like the usual “co-worker dinner”, the boring dinner with the non-social industrial engineer type and the wife I have nothing in common with! However, this time it was different. Paul found a co-worker whom had also graduated from Ft. Lewis along with his wife. (Linked in is a cool little thing for all you business types that may not know about it) And they had just gotten back from their honeymoon from Thailand. I was really excited; I would actually be able to carry a conversation! So we decided to meet at this little Indian restaurant and just reminisce about college and Thailand and all that fun stuff. What was crazy though was as I was talking to Lucinda, I found out that she too did her internship at the Southwest Safehouse for college and then worked their part time as a relief counselor, the year before I had started. We talked about the house, the clients, the staff and the crazy things that happened in that house. (ie the lesbian group showers, doing meth on the kitchen table, you know all of those stories many of you heard!) This was awesome considering there are only a handful of people who have ever worked at the house let alone even know where the house is! It was crazy. Here we were sitting in a little Indian restaurant in Atlanta talking about the safehouse we both happened to work at in Durango. It is defiantly a small world and I am amazed of the connections I always find wherever I go.

It's been a year!

Well, we have now been in Atlanta for a year. This is very hard to believe. It is amazing how settled we feel and how much Atlanta is now home. A year ago I would have never told you this. It was a rough start at first. I still remember pulling into our first little apartment and opening the door to start to unload the trailer to find that the landlord turned off our electricity. It was 90 degrees and super humid and we were exhausted from the drive. All we wanted to do was lay on floor of an air conditioned apartment. Instead, we put on our headlamps while we unloaded the trailer and it was miserable. (we didn't get out electricity on for 3 days!) And this was just the start of bad luck as many of you know. The job I had lined up fell through the day I was to start, I got in a bad car accident and then to top it off, our landlord, 2 months into our lease, decided to claim bankruptcy and we were forced to move again with a few days.

Since those first few rocky months, God has been so good and has blessed us tremendously. We found a great little house in an awesome neighborhood, I have started my own business, we have gotten involved in a amazing church, have met some great friends and life is good! It is funny to see sometimes the path God takes you on to get somewhere. I wouldn't change our experience so far for anything.

We hope you are all well and we would love some visitors to our great city! We even have an air mattress for visitors :) Talk about luxury! Anyways, we love and miss you all and can't believe we have been gone for a year!

Erin

A little fact about Decatur and a funny story!

Being in a big city has been very interesting to both Paul and I. I think when we moved here we pictured very much conservative, white, southern city. We were clearly wrong in this prediction. We are the minority here. Atlanta is such a diverse city with so many different cultures and backgrounds. Last Friday night made us remember how different of a world we live from Durango. We wanted to go out for a drink. Everything was packed except for one little bar. So, we went and immediately realized we had walked in to a lesbian bar. There was a Melissa Etheridge sing-a-like on stage with all sorts of same sex couples. There was not a single man there. Talk about awkward. But, we had already had walked in and we clearly couldn't just walk out so, we held our heads high and sat a table with nothing but "Girls Coming Out" and "Pride" magazines everywhere. We ordered our drink and had a good time and had a huge laugh after leaving the bar. Decatur, the suburb of Atlanta we live in has one fact many of you may not know. Decatur has one of the highest percentage of gays in the entire US! We have neighbors in every directions whom are same sex couples. A nick name for the area is "Dick-Hater". Crazy huh? Here is a link to Wikipedia's explanation of Decatur. Just wanted to share a little bit of our new little world we live in down here in ATL!

Paul and Erin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decatur,_Georgia

My webpage needs some love!

So I am getting a little nervous. I haven't really had anyone call me in a few weeks about planning their wedding. My hits have gone way down. So each of you should go there a couple times at random to help me move up from like 1,000,000 to like maybe 999,999 on google. I have recently put up some new testimonies if you would like to look at them. I am still really hoping and praying that this business will take of for me. Please lift it up to the Big Guy if you get a chance. I really feel as though it is a great and rewarding thing. Hope you are all well!
Love,
Erin
www.itsallinthedetailseventandweddingplanning.com

Going Green for Earth Day

So this year Home Depot has jumped on the Green Bandwagon along side everyone else. All of last week we had special meeting and free giveaways for green products. Some of the products were pretty cool. So Erin and I decided to celebrate Earth Day this year by buying some Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) and a recycling bin.

It’s great to be an Aunt and Uncle!

So, we here are holding our new little nephew Micah. (This picture is kind of odd to me because it looks like he could totally be our little baby, but wouldn’t the 3 of us make a cute little family?)Paul and I had a lot of fun being able to hang out with the little guy. We got to see him at only 5 days old! We held him and squeezed him and loved him. And he smelt like new (I love that baby smell) It is crazy to Paul and I that our friends and family are having kids! We still feel like we are these high school kids just hanging out. Paul and I were also able to see a lot of the Yale campus (very cool) and drive all the way down the east coast during a noreaster! (not so fun) Anyways, it was a great little trip being able to spend time with family. It is hard to be so far away! And FYI….no we have not little bun in the oven nor do plan to in the near future. But, we will keep you posted ;) (I know you are all asking this question) -Erin

Our road trip to meet the latest Stroup!

First, let me say congratulations to Chris and Amy Stroup (Paul's brother and sister in law, for all of you who may not know them). Little Micah William Stroup was born on April 8th at 12:24am weighing 8lb 4 oz., 22 1/4 inches long. Paul and I are very excited to be first time aunt and uncle and are excited to see the little guy grow up. And isn't he too cute? A great opportunity came to us the past week to go and visit them in Connecticut. We are flying up to Boston in order to pick up a car for a friend and then driving it back to Atlanta. It should be quite the road trip all the way down the East Coast! We leave Thursday. We will be sure to tell you guys all about it when we get back.

Two down and hopefully a lot more to go!

My second wedding was this past weekend. Things went great. I had a little bit of an issue figuring out how to tap a keg (you would think I would have learned this going to Ft. Leisure) but, after like an hour of praying, I figured it out just in time for the first guests to arrive and enjoy a nice cold beer. The bride and groom had a great time hanging out with friends and family and dancing to the bluegrass band they hired. I am really enjoying wedding planning as a profession. I absolutely love being able to stand back and just watch a wedding unfold. It is great to see the bride and groom just so in love and watching friends and family gather around and celebrate. I really hope I can continue to do this for many more couples!

Pollen is a lot of fun

So the pollen level in Atlanta last week was at 5,937/m³. The American Academy of Allergies says a high level is 90/m³. The pollen is so bad that it is accumulating on windows. Some people in downtown Decatur have been drawing on shop windows. Here is an example of a drawing.
-Paul

Hilton Head South Carolina

So Paul and I went for a little spontaneous trip and it was so much fun. This weekend it was in the high 70s and we were itching to get out of the city. So, we drove to the beach! We drove all the way to South Carolina. There we rented cruisers and just rode along the beach until we found a quiet spot to sit back and relax. I didn't think I would become a big beach person being from the mountains, but I love it. It is so incredibly relaxing to just sit back, catch some sun, read a magazine and drink some margaritas! I wish we were even closer. We want to take whoever comes out to visit to the beach, so you should all plan on visiting us! We miss you all so so much and want to see you all. Hugs and Kisses -Erin

Name Twin 4...

Mark and Ashley Stroup:

Ashley Stroupe:
a NASA Robotics Operator
Mark Stroup:
A writer from PA

All the cool kids are doing it!

Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking when taking the office manager job at Studio Lotus. I went from working with a bunch of crazies to working with a bunch of crazies. Now the crazies I work with are obsessed with working out, taking supliments, eating only organic and constantly trying to reach their next fitness goal. Now this is cool and all, but not quite me. I like exercising but nothing like my co-workers. At least not until now. The new trendy workout is here! Russian Kettlebells! I absolutely love doing Kettlebells and if any of you have a chance at trying a class, do it! Here is a little article if you want to read more. This is what I will look like the next time you all see me! ha ha



http://www.stumptuous.com/cms/displayarticle.php?aid=132

Name Twin Part 3...

Ryan Waggoner and Alexis James:

Ryan Waggoner: Professional Poker Player who got 44th place in his last tournament. He is so good he doesnt have a photo. So hopefully the Ryan I know isn't a gambling addict and we just dont know it.

Alexis James: Model in the PA area.

Name Twin Part 2...

Chris and Amy Stroup:

Amy Stroup: Singer/songwriter from Nashville

Chris Stroup: A guy that girls from Great Falls High School really like. Check out the my space page if you dare! Link