Chad Things

It’s official, Shayna and I are engaged!  Yee-haw.  Aww Yeah.  Hurray.  We decided over thanksgiving in Athens, Georgia, to get married.  At that time I was not ready to be publicly engaged, but now I am.  Last week we told parents and friends, and now I’m here to share some more info on this major life decision.

We’ve been dating since the fall of 2004 in San Francisco.  We met each other a few times at parties, but the first time I spent some time with shayna was when Tim Lang and I helped her move some art. She was in school at the time,  was looking for help to move some big pieces, so I offered my help and Tim’s van.  After that day I knew I liked her and soon we went on our first dinner date at Axum Cafe, an ethiopian restaurant.    When she graduated from school the following June, our relationship changed from dating to sorta-dating for the next year or so, since she moved away from SF and I stayed in SF.   I did visit her in New York, where she worked in a woman’s art program, as well as in New Orleans, where she was helping after Katrina.  I convinced her to return to SF for Burningman in August 2006 and we were officially dating again.  In Feb 2007, I started a 6 month trip around the world, 3 months of which was with shayna.  When I returned we moved in together.  During my trip around the world, shayna was accepted into grad school in Chicago, but delayed enrollment for a year primarily for me.  So in the spring of 2008 the time came for me to decide if i wanted to give up my home of 10+ years in SF to move to Chicago with Shayna.  I did.  Chicago was a very big transition.  Luckily we found some good friends fairly quickly which made some of the very rough patches in fall 2008 easier to swallow.  The summer and fall of 2009 were really good to us as a couple.  But it wasn’t till she left for Athens a couple weeks before Thanksgiving did i realize she’s the most important thing in my life and that I wanted to be with her forever and ever.

There was no tradtional proposal.  Neither one of us are too fond of traditions purely for the sake of traditions.  We believe in this day and age its more important to enter marriage with eyes wide open with both people knowing exactly what they are getting into. However, I did get down on one knee in our photo shoot in Athens, which I’ve called Engagementland.  A few of these pics were emailed to friends last week.  We also met with an artist from athens who is making us custom wedding rings - you can see pictures  similar to what we’ll have  in the Engagementland set as well.

As soon as we tell people we’re engaged, one of the next questions out of their mouth is “when’s the wedding?”  Well, it looks like this summer - July or August 2010.  Stay tuned for more on this.

What an awesome summer.  My first one in Chicago, and it went by so fast and kept me so busy I didn’t have time to write any blog posts.  ’twas full of chicago biking, sunshine, friends, and music - my favorite things.  I also worked on some good projects, and met many cool people.  Besides Chicago, I took a few roadtrips around the midwest, ventured to NYC by train, Atlanta by plane, and spent almost a month in California and Nevada.

One of the biggest things I did this year was help start a community garden.  Shayna wanted to grow plants for making fiber, and she found a couple other locals, Noah and Margaret, who were looking to start a garden.  With some grant money from Shayna’s school and a lot of hard work, we cleared land, built some beds, and planted many edibles, a few ornamentals (flowers and such), and fibers for making paper.  We busted our ass on the weekends in the beginning, but was definitely worth it.  I enjoyed being outside, working with my hands, meeting neighbors, and of course eating tomatoes, basil, and other herbs and vegetables.  We also made a smaller garden in our backyard, too, with our upstairs neighbor, Andy.  You can read more on the website Shayna and I put together - chadnorwood.comC/a>.

Summer had a cold start this year.  In fact, I think we only turned on the AC once this whole summer.   But that didn’t stop us from having lots of fun.  I already blogged about Indiana Dunes camping, but we also started out in may doing the Chicago critical mass bike ride.  I spent way more time on my bike than in a car, bus, or train .. the way life should be.  Chicago makes it easy - it’s flat and its never too cold at night. We rode to brunch, to the beach, downtown, to bars .. I even rode over 10 miles home at 4am from the south side of Chicago. I also rode crazy bikes at the Tour De Fat festival sponsored by Fat Tire beer.

Speaking of festivals .. Chicago wins.  Every weekend, all summer long, there are several street festivals in various neighborhoods throughout Chicago.  Blues festivals, House music festivals, Irish/Scottish/German/Polish Festivals, Beer Festivals, Ribs Fest, Wings, Taste of Chicago (biggest one ever), and the list goes on.  Chicago city law requires them all to be free, but they usually ask for $5 or $10 donation.  They always have street vendors - food, shirts, art, etc.  They usually have 2-5 stages where bands, djs, or somebody performs.  And the people go nuts if the weather is beautiful - unlike California, rainy days will keep you inside, but that makes the sunny days even more precious.

We also enjoyed many visitors - especially our SF friends !! Juan, Jason, Damian, Ramon, and Monica came out for a weekend making me feel at home.  We showed them the beautiful Millenium Park, the view from the top of the Hancock tower (2nd tallest bldg in chicago), the beach, summer street festivals, and chicago deep dish pizza.  A month or so later Checkoway visited and we had a similar experience - drinks, tall buildings, beach, and enjoying friends.

Shayna and I also loved the scenic and surprisingly comfortable 20 hour train to NYC for a wedding of an old friend, Sarah Bates, to Leo De Alvia .  I’m very happy for them and enjoyed seeing all our friends in NY.  In addition to NY,  I also made it to Atlanta for Fathers Day.  Got to give it up for good ol’ Dad !! And it was nice seeing my sisters families and nieces and nephew.  They grow up so fast. heh.

We had lots of fun with our new Chicago friends - monthly dinner parties, rooftop BBQ on 4th of July, lots of biking around to bars, cubs game, and other summer activities.  Best event with Chicago friends was the camping trip to Oregon IL.  Oh man was that fun. We camped and made s’mores over the fire, told stories and went on hikes.  But the main event was on sunday - the Demolition Derby.  Oregon is the home town of Miss Amanda, and she showed us how they have fun in the midwest - crashing cars.  Booya !!

One of my favorite trips this summer was Lakes of Fire - a regional Burningman in Michigan, about 3 hours from Chicago.  It was about 500 people (instead of the 40,000 at burningman in nevada), and it felt more like home than i could have imagined. I met amazing people, saw some cool art, and had tons of fun.  I especially enjoyed meeting the freakeasy and illmeasures peeps - they throw good parties in chicago for the bman crowd.

Last but not least was our trip to Burningman.  We joined Brasstax (our SF crew) in the Boombox camp.  It was my 10th year at bman, and altho i love it, i love my friends more, so i spent most of my time in the camp.   We flew to SFO on thursday, drove up early (friday before it started) and left 8 days later (sat night as they burned the man).  We assembled the boombox in 4 days and tore it down in 1.  We “burned” it … altho most of it was good wood so it got recycled.  I could go on and on about bman but pics are worth a thousand words.  Anyway, it was great to spend some quality time with my crazy friends.   After that I spent some time in California hanging out, Eumi’s and Lori’s bdays, a day hike at mt. tam, and did another trip to Tahoe for Fritz’s Bachelor Party.  I love tahoe - could be my favorite natural place on the earth.

The summer ended with one final trip to St. Louis for Shayna’s 30th birthday.  The main event was the city museum, which is my favorite man-made place on earth.  If you haven’t been, and you are still part kid, you MUST go.  It was also nice to do a road trip and see friends in another city.

Fall is supposed to be nice in chicago but pretty short .. in less than 2 months it will be cold for a while.  Then spring and summer again !!!  If you want to visit, plan now, cuz it’ll give you something awesome to look fwd to.

Cheers,
Chad

Another wonderful Christmas with my family.  Once again, I was lucky enough to spend a week with my entire immediate family, this year in Atlanta.  My older sister and her family of four, The Robertsons, drove up from Tybee Island to spend a week with us, and my younger sister and her family of four, The Aikens, live in Atlanta and are not traveling since they just got a new family member 6 weeks ago, Miss Baby Jane.

We had lots of good food, both at home and out, my favorite being Christmas dinner - Thanks mom for cooking! We also had two big adventures, one to the Georgia Aquarium, the biggest aquarium in the world, and the other to Stone Mountain, where we saw the Santa Parade, saw short musical, had a all-you-can-eat dinner, rode the train around the mountain, made our own cookies and saw fireworks. Mostly I enjoyed spending time with my family, especially playing with my nieces and nephew.  It’s also nice to be able to go back to the home I grew up in, see how things change and some stay the same.  Look at my pictures to feel my adventures.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!

Just got back from another trip back to the east coast, this time for Christmas. Similar to Thanksgiving, I flew in and out of Atlanta, spending a few days at my parents house in Atlanta and then a few days on Tybee Island, about 5 hours away on the coast of Georgia. My younger sister Leslie and her family did not make it to Tybee, so we had a nice Christmas dinner at her house Saturday. My older sister Lara and her family drove up from Tybee for this (and other reasons), so we had the whole family together Saturday (Yay). After dinner on Saturday we exchanged a few presents, including my gift to my family - a 8×10 149 -picture Flickr/Qoop photo book (a great success).

Sunday we drove down to Tybee Island to spend Christmas day on the beach. We got to see Amazing Addy (my niece) and Super Sam (my nephew) take part in Christmas eve services at the local church. Then we went home, had our usual homemade pizza, set out milk, brownies, and carrots for Santa and the reindeer. Christmas morning was not as hectic as in the past. The kids opened presents around 8am, I got to play with them while we snacked on sausage biscuits, egg and ham casserole, and apple cinnamon bread. Then my parents and I hit the road back to ATL to catch my flight back to California.

Yesterday was the big day. For me, this year’s thanksgiving was especially big, for several reasons. First, i ran my first real race - a half marathon. Second, I got to enjoy the big meal with my family on Tybee Island, a mini-vacation for the 10 of us. And third, after thinking about it, I have much to give thanks for.

First lemme tell you about the half marathon. It was the Atlanta Track Club’s Half Maration, starting at 7am on Thanksgiving day (route). I had to get up at 5:15am for that - that’s 2:15am California time - so thats like crazy early for my body. But i did it, and my younger sister Leslie and her husband were there with me. Luckily it wasn’t too cold, but it did rain on us, which sucked. I ended up doing quite well, beating my secret goal of doing it under 2 hours - 1:56 to be exact. Hurray. After the race they gave you a medal, powerade, water, bananas, snickers protein bars, among other things. But the best part is that you burn tons of calories .. so later that day i was super hungry and got to eat enormous amounts of turkey and sides - guilt-free.

After the race in Atlanta we drove 4-5 hours down to Tybee Island, which is near Savannah on the coast of Georgia. My sister Lara and her family sold their house in Ohio this summer and moved down here for a year. Just because they want to. My kind of family. The house is gorgeous - 3 bedroom with a deck (and hot tub) with a gorgeous view of the coastal marsh and setting sun. We had alot of traditional items for us Norwoods - Turkey, dressing, stuffing, cranberries, Ham, corn, mac’n'cheese, broccoli cheese casserole, sweet potatoes, rolls, and mixed vegies. Mmmmmmmm….

Most importantly, I give thanks. I am so thankful to have such a good, solid, family. We don’t always get along, but for the most part we are very compatible, and I really enjoy spending time with them. I also have to give thanks for my friends, which are just as important to me as my family. These are the people with whom i spend most of my time - i have fun with them, i learn from them, and i get help from them when needed. I also give thanks for my life so far - the opportunities I’ve had with education, jobs, traveling, and the ability to choose where i live and how i can spend my time. For that i must give thanks to being an American. I truly feel blessed. Amen.

I grew up in the south, but last week i learned to apreciate the carolinas a bit more. I spent 10 days with my older sister, her husband, and their 2 kids, Addy and Sam. The 5 of us drove around north and south carolina in their big red truck (chevy suburban) towing their Outback trailer. Thats right, an RV. But the best part was spending quality time with family, doing nothing but enjoying ourselves - hiking, swimming, eating, and drinking.

I met up with them in Boonville, NC, on Tuesday, July 11, after they’ve been on the road for over a week. They were staying in a private campground, with a pool, putt-putt, general store, and an amazing hiking trail down to a river. Of course we did that river hike, and had fun with the whole family (including rigby, their boston terrier) playing in the water. We also spent some time at the Rag Apple Winery, which had decent wines. The man pouring was very knowledgable about NC wine - many tobacco farmers are switching to grapes. Lara and bryan hope to switch to grapes from their jobs, too.

On Wednesday we drove to Boone, NC, a bit more in the mountains. We stayed at the Boone KOA tent/RV campground, the nicest spot we’d stay. It had a pool, putt-putt, playground, pond, goats, chickens, cows, green grass and blue skies. We got some serious chill on there. The weather was great - we were almost at 4,000 feet, much cooler than the rest of the hot humid south this time of year. On thursday we drove to blowing rock, a not-so-great tourist attraction, but a nice trip. On the way back we stopped in town for a tastee dinner near ASU. Friday we stayed at camp, enjoyed the pool and nature.

Saturday we packed up and headed to Asheville, NC. This was my favorite city - small mtn town that attracts people from all over the country, including artists and hippie types (gotta like a splash of san francisco in the south). On the way we stopped at another tourist spot, Grandfather mountain. This was much better than blowing rock, they actually had a zoo with cougars, bears, eagles, and more. And of course, they are famous for their swinging mile-high bridge. Later that night my parents met up with us in asheville, driving about 4 hours up from atlanta. The first night they actually slept with us in the trailer - and lara and bryan took the tent. But the next night they opted for a bit nicer bed at the Grove Park Inn.

On Monday we drove to Greenville, SC, and stayed at Paris Mountain State Park, the first non-private spot we stayed. This was right outside of greenville, and my grandfather used to take my mom there to swim when she was a kid. It was beautiful - the lake and the nature trails around it. We were also lucky enough to have my mom’s mom, edith, join us for lunch on monday and tuesday. Tuesday was especially nice, we got to celebrate Sam’s 3rd birthday (his actual birthday was wed, july 19). Larry and Evelyn treated us to lunch from whole foods, Sam got presents and a cake, and mama was very happy to spend time with her great-grandchildren. It was good to see her out and laughing.

Tuesday afternoon we headed to the beach, arriving at Hunting Island just after dark. The next morning i got up early and walked along the beach. It was perfect. Tide was almost all the way out, revealing the coolest patterns in the sand i’ve ever seen. And the lighting was amazing - the sun still coming up over the ocean - the waves were carefully crashing around me, birds flying above, a few people strolling about, not too hot yet, quiet, calm, peaceful. Later we came back out with full family, swam in the ocean, built sand castles, and walked an hour down to the lighthouse. An amazing view up there.

Thursday, July 20, was my last day. We stopped at the hunting island nature center on the way out, then headed for the airport. I got the pleasure of eating waffle house for my last meal - can’t beat their waffles! All in all an amazing and relaxing trip. Thank you lara and bryan for letting me into your mobile home!

I’ve been an uncle for almost 5 years. My older sister, Lara, and her husband Bryan, have 2 kids, Addy and Sam, and they are both awesome. But last week my other sister, Leslie, gave birth to her first, Katherine Alice Aiken. Yeah!! And for added bonus, she was born right before midnight on my dads birthday. Even though i’m far away and have yet to see her in person, i know she’s beautiful and feel lucky to have another one in the family. The picture here is from the hospital less than one day old - she had to stay in intensive care for a couple days but now she’s at home with her mommy and daddy, Leslie and Michael Aiken.