Vacation day 6: zipping

Today we went for a gondola and tip line tour through the rain forest. I'll admit, we were expecting longer zip lines than what they had, but it was still a lot of fun. Our guide also knew a ton about the rain forest and animals in it, so it was interesting to learn some of that information.

I'm not posting many pictures of the rain forest itself because the camera just didn't do it justice.












And of course, we spent time reading and relaxing.

Vacation day 5: rain

Today the weather forecast on Ben's phone called for rain all day.

The above picture is the closest we got to any rain. :)

Today I also had some delicious chocolate croissant things:

It was another relaxing day...a lot of swimming, eating, napping, and reading.

We also decided to play Catan the card game again. We played it all the time during our honeymoon, but had to shelve it about four years ago because we got too competitive about it. Well, today we took out one of the cards that seemed to determine who was going to win. I thought it worked well, but then I was also the winner. We'll have to try a few more games with the rules and see how it goes.

After dinner we went star gazing. It was actually a little sad because we only found one constellation that was familiar. I also found a lot of triangles. We did try and use a star chart app to help us find constellations, but it just wasn't quite working.

(It's the night sky. No, I don't think you can see anything in the picture.)

Vacation day 4: horses

Today we went on a horse back ride. It was nice because there was a place by the ocean that served as a stopping/eating point, and allowed us to get off the horses often.











Here's the beach. This is my artist shot of the day.



We also got to swim with the horses. I think this is a once in a life experience for both of us...riding bareback is so uncomfortable! It also seemed like something the horses should enjoy because they got
to cool down, but Ben's horse sounded like it was growling the whole time (which might have been a good thing, but it sounded really weird).






Although most of the time wasn't this bad, we both felt like we were going to fall off a time or two!

Vacation day 3: relaxing

Today was a relaxing day. It pretty much went like this: eat, swim, read, swim, read, swim, read, eat, red, nap, swim, read, swim, read, swim, read, eat, read.

I know, a rough life.

Housekeeping came twice today (which was rather unexpected).



This is the view from our deck.



Here is Ben reading. Behind him you can see the outdoor shower.



Our pool



The sunset



A crab! They're hard to spot, but they have holes in the sand all over the beach.



Our villa from the beach side.

Vacation day 2

After getting up way too early this morning, remade it to the airport and our flights without any serious issues. hurray!

Then I got my surprise...the airport was on the south of the island, and so we took a helicopter ride up to the north part of the island, where our hotel is. Oh, I've wanted to ride in a helicopter for several years now. The roads are really bad and we got to see how the island looks like from the skies, so it was really the perfect time to do such a thing! It was a lot of fun.













PS. I know this is a day late but the Internet is down in our room...hopefully to be fixed soon, but we didn't realize there was another place we could go until later.

Vacation day 1

Today started when I woke up before my alarm. It was rather sad, but at least I had some quiet chores to do before Ben woke up. Then Jess came over for breakfast! We've never done breakfast before, but then usually I need to work during breakfast time. It was nice.

Then Ben and I started our pre trip errands...hair cut, oil change,and package shipment. With labor day weekend, we were a little nervous that they were going to take forever...and they really didn't! We got right in at every place. and to top it off, I met Kaylee from Firefly. ok, maybe it wasn't her but it was who she would be if she lived now and not in a time of spaceships. she was one of the mechanics at the garage, looked a little bit like her, and even talked like Kaylee talked about starship engines. It was awesome.

The drive went ok. We had quite a bit of traffic around Harrisberg, but everything else wasn't too bad. We ate at a recommended restaurant. I had polenta. I thought it was going to be a pasta type dish based on the other ingredients in it, but it wasn't. It was still really good, but I had no idea what I was eating (besides cheese and tomatoes...I could identify those.). Anyway, it's a "peasant" food made from corn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polenta)

and now we're in the hotel! It'll be an early morning.

Thursday: Work

today was a great day. I finished the stuff I needed to get done around noon, got some stuff working on my macro, and then left a bit earlier than normal.

I'm getting excited!!

Wednesday: Flurry

Flurry has taken to sitting in the sink a lot more lately. I guess it doesn't
T surprise me much...if I we ere a cat it seems like it would be comfortable and cool.



Not much else today...we went out for dinner with some people from church and that was fun.

Craft time

The craft: a small, light weight camera case
Time: about 10 minutes, not including finding everything.

You start with a rectangle.


Then you sew it almost in half, spray it with water proofer, and add Velcro. Wah-la! (Although if I ever make one again I'd put the velcro on first.)

Test

I think I got it to work! Here is what I see most nights when I go to bed...A very sad Flurry. the water just got turned off.

Monday: hello world

Well, I was trying to upload some pictures onto the iPad but it is going to take a little more effort than what I want to do tonight. i got the pictures onto the iPad but now I need to get them onto the internet.

Not much else happened today. Work was work. I started taking out the French empire in Civ. Quilted.

Sunday: life details

This morning I wore my new duck socks. Aren't they cute? Quack quack.

Hmm...I thought I had a bunch of other little observations from the day but I don't remember them now. Oh, I'm working on world domination in a Civilization game - I'm taken over 3 empires and have 3 or 4 remaining.

Friday: speed meeting

Today I went to a women's event at the church called speed meeting. It's like speed dating, except that it's more of just a get-to-know people thing. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. We talked with people for three minutes, and the time flew by. I was always surprised when the buzzer went off. And it was a great way to see people...both the ones I knew and the ones I was meeting for the first time.

Thursday: more ups and downs

Well, most of the day was fine today...normal work stuff. And then I got to the end. First of all, my program isn't working (and when I'm doing the comparisons the data types do match). Then something else happened. Needless to say, I went home in a pretty bad mood. I also found out I'm not a semi-finalist. Not surprising, but still a little disappointing.

However, I did manage to sufficiently distract myself tonight, so I'm feeling better now. And I had some spice tea. That always makes life better.

Oh! I did have one interesting thing today. I was in a meeting with five people, including myself. Three of them were named John. It was weird. I also stuffed the vent in my office a few days ago, so now when the AC turns on I'm not freezing cold.

Wednesday: Sad, happy, not so sad.

So today started at 4:30 when I suddenly woke up and realized that I didn't know where the oil went in the car; when Ben asked me if I knew I said yes thinking about the oil dipstick. It was a big debate as to whether or not to wake him up and find out. I managed to fall asleep, but one of the first things I did when I woke up was to check the car. It turns out there is a big yellow thing that says "oil.". So I was ok after all.

Today was the day the were supposed to call semi-finalists for month at the museum. I didn't get a call. While I'm not really expecting one because I'm sure there are a lot of qualified applicants, I do think I am qualified too. And it would be so much fun!!

then I got my iPad today! I got sick of lugging the heavy laptop around, and it has gotten to old to play most of the games on. I'm posting from it right now. :). I also got a camera adaptor to go with it, but I think I will try that out tomorrow.

Then I found out that the Museum hasn't quite gotten through all the applications (1500 of them), so I won't know for sure until Friday now.

In other news, I got some really delicious blueberries and strawberries at the store.

Tuesday: Dollhouse

I just finished the last episode of Season 1 of Dollhouse. It was depressing. Very depressing.

Monday: jumping pigs

Last night I was having a hard time getting to sleep, so I thought I'd count pigs jumping over a fence. Because obviously pigs would do a better job than sheep.

Well, to begin with pig #1 didn't realize they were going in a circle and by the time pig #3 jumped it was a big mess. It took me a moment to get them all going in a circle at an even pace. And then pig #6 crashed through the fence instead of jumping over it.

I don't remember much after that though, so apparently the pigs did an OK job in the end.

Sunday: Ben's a turkey

Well, I thought today was going to be one of our normal, relaxing Sundays, but instead we ended up doing a lot of fun stuff. (Which really fits well into our month of fun!)

After church we went out for brunch with Ashley and Stanley. The food was good and the company was fun! Then in the evening we went bowling. I got to see a few people that I haven't seen for a few weeks. Ben bowled really well his second game and got a turkey. :) I think one of the things I like about bowling is that people are always moving around, so it's easy to see everyone.

Saturday: sky diving

Today we went sky diving! It was my birthday present. The day started out by trying to figure out what socks to wear for this momentus occasion...I ended up going with pigs so that I would have flying pigs. :)

We got to the place only to find out that our 1pm reservation didn't really mean anything. While it was cool to watch people pack up their shoots, 3 hours of it was a little excessive. (But in the end, the wait was still worth it.) Our names finally showed up on the rooster and it was time to get started!

We crammed like sardines into the plane and went up. I was doing pretty well until I had to put my legs over the plane...my brain pretty much shut down for a few seconds. Luckily I was strapped to someone who was going to push me over, so I didn't have to think for those few seconds.

Once I finally caught my breath and was free of the airplane (about four seconds later) things got fun again. It was kind of hard to breathe...like on a really windy day when you need to have your face at just the right angle. We went through some clouds. It wasn't like floating, but it also wasn't like dropping. It was a lot of fun.

Then my guy pulled the shoot and we started coasting to the ground. I saw Ben do a horizontal 360 below us and then we did it. I also got to pretend to steer. It was neat seeing everything slowly get bigger...kind of like from a plane but without the windows. And then we came to a nice, soft landing.

I would definitely do it again...especially a tandem jump. I'm not sure I would do it on my own.

Friday: look alikes

For month of fun day two, we went to the company family picnic. The picnic really is geared towards younger children, but since it also had free food Ben and I stopped by for a bit. I also drove the helicopter simulator and managed to get myself dizzy. :)

It is a night for trying to spot people that you know. I saw a few people that I knew. I also saw my brother Nathan. You know how in crowds you often see people that look like people you know? That happens all the time to me with Nathan. Most of the time it's pretty easy to tell that it isn't him after all. But there's this one guy who flies from Detroit to GR that looks exactly like him. I've flown with him twice. And each time I see him a do a double take because I think it's Nathan...after all, he's going to GR. But there's no good reason for Nathan to be in Detroit. So I walk by a few times, casually glancing at him and trying to decide that he doesn't really look like Nathan. Then I sit somewhere where he can see me, just in case it is Nathan and he wants to notice that his sister just happens to be nearby.

It hasn't worked yet. I still haven't had a surprise sighting of Nathan. Even though we live four states away, I will keep looking.

Thursday: month of fun

Today begins the month of fun. :) It starts with my birthday today. I guess nothing super special happened, but Ben and I went out for dinner and a lot of people said happy birthday and I felt special.

Ben and I went shopping after dinner for a few things. It turns out that even though it is still summer it is no longer swimsuit buying season. At Target I was excited because I found two racks of swimsuits on clearance! Score! And then I realized that there were only swimsuit bottoms. Where did all the tops go?

Wednesday: the special cases

So I'm back to Excel programming at work! I had an idea for a major update to my program a few months ago, but work has been too busy to get started on it. Well, I took some time a few days ago to start it. And then I worked on it all day today. I probably should have done some other work too, but it will be there tomorrow (and so will the work package to charge).

I finished the main body around 11am. But then I realized there were all these "special cases" I had to deal with. They took me the rest of the day. I had been getting a little bit proud of my code because it seemed a lot more condensed then it was when I did it the first time, but after I put the special cases in and looked at how many lines of code it takes to format a spreadsheet I got humbled again.

I still think the overall result will be much better.

Tuesday: donuts

I got some donuts today!! Yum. Since everyone is always wondering what my favorite donuts are, I thought I'd finally make a list.

#1 favorite: Headlight donuts

(image from Serres Donut Shop)

It is a three way tie for 2nd place: vanilla kreme, apple cider, and cake with chocolate frosting

(image from here)

#3: The rest of donuts with chocolate.

(image from here)

#4: All other donuts

(Image from here)

#Last - Jelly Donuts. I think these are some of the only donuts that I've passed up.

Monday: a blast from the past

August 16, 1999 (before my Senior year in high school):

Nathan and I went school clothes shopping this morning. almost $200 spent in less than an hour. I got some fun green pants - I can't wait to wear them, and a hooded sweatshirt, along with a few other things.

We started stripping wall paper today - that was fun.

Nathan wanted to watch Law & Order but it was a repeat from like a month ago. So I got bored and did other things and then Mom and Dad left too.

I remember that shopping trip. We spent money rather quickly, but we also finished all of our school shopping in that hour which was really cool. And I still own the pants. But they have a huge hole in the butt so I don't wear them. Well, maybe once a year at home. They are really comfortable.

Sunday: stick cows and locusts

Today Maria and I were teaching Sunday School and the teens are drawing through the Old Testament. (Basically they are given a topic/passage and need to draw a picture and write a statement about how God worked.) Maria and I were working on the last four plagues-boils, hail, locusts, and darkness. I drew boils and darkness. She ended up with hail and locusts, both which involve drawing animals. But she drew the cutest animals! The cows were just cute stick figures. The locusts looked like bugs but not bad bugs... definitely not bugs that would eat all your crops and leave you to starve.

It was weird thinking that she drew such a bad bug so cutely. But both of our drawing talents are rather limited, so there wasn't much choice.

Which brings us to the question, what good do ticks and fleas do? There are a lot of bugs that I don't like, but that I can at least understand the reason for. Maria brought these two up and neither of us knew what good they do.

Saturday: reusable bags

I learned today that you're supposed to wash your reusable grocery bags once in a while. Apparently they're full of bad bacteria. And while I'm not very opposed to a little bit of bad bacteria, I might try to remember to throw them in the wash next week.

Friday: the rest of the day

I laid out the quilt...at least as far as I have it completed, only to realize that I need to cut some more blocks.

Ben got me roses!

Friday: vlog

I thought I'd try my hand at a vlog. The sound is a little quiet, but pretty clear at least. If I assume that vlog stands for "video log", what does blog stand for?

Wednesday: Civilization

Well, I may have just played Civilization all night. I was going to watch So You Think You Can Dance, but the TV channel was coming in really poorly. So I played some more Civ. :)

Tuesday: sneezing and pie

Today as Ben and I were leaving work we sneezed at the same time. Really, it was amazing. If you were sitting in the back seat you wouldn't have been able to tell that there were two sneezes we were so in sync.

We also got to eat a passion fruit pie at our cookout tonight. It was just the right amount of sweet and tangy.

I'm rather tired though. I might go to bed soon.

Monday: numbers

Today is 8.9.10! How exciting! It's also Dusty's birthday. I'm a little jealous because I'll never have a birthday that counts up like that. He pointed out that I will probably have an 8.19.27 birthday which is also cool because 8+19=27.

I had to write the date often today. So I had these lyrics going through my head "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, (678) 9, 10." (The six, seven, and eight are sung pretty quickly.) When I got to the 8.9.10 I would think "Happy Birthday Dusty!" However, the closest song that I could find is 1-2-3 by Gloria Estefan (YouTube link). My guess is that I made up a song lightly based on the song. Or it's from Sesame Street. But in either case my song is way cooler.

Sunday: tree branches

We have a tree in our front yard. It was put in the beginning of last winter, and so this year is having a slightly hard time taking root. You can tell because there are only leaves on half the tree.

I had taken a week off of weeding and noticed that there were some huge weeds growing up around the base of the tree. Well, when I got there to weed them I found out they were actually tree branches. I sadly didn't get a picture before I took the branches off, but you can see a little nub half way up on the right side and some green at the very bottom.
I'll admit, I'm not really sure what our tree is thinking. Maybe that it's a bush?

Saturday: work

I had to work this morning. Although it really isn't too bad because it's only four hours, I was out of it all afternoon. Part of the problem was that I was up rather late last night...first hanging out with friends and then reading my dragon book. It was worth it.

Thursday: M&Ms

Recently I tried some of the new M&M flavors, so I thought I'd report to you what I thought of them.

First: Pretzel M&Ms. I thought they could have used a higher chocolate to pretzel ratio. While I might eat them again, they weren't my favorites.

Second: Coconut M&Ms. I really liked these. They were coconut flavored but not too strong. And they had some cool extra designs on the Ms.

Wednesday: back to work

Ah, after a lovely vacation I had to go back to work today. Really, it wasn't that much fun.

I thought several times that maybe I should have just taken the whole week off. :)

NYC: Day3

Today we went on a boat tour around the island. It was very nice to see all the landmarks without having to walk. I was doing ok, but my legs were getting a little sore.

NYC: Day2

We started the day by taking a stroll through Central Park.

Notice how well Ben and I match? He wore that shirt just for me.


Hanneke was able to join us! We usually manage to miss each other over Christmas, so it was really nice to be able to see her again.
We took a whirlwind tour through the American Museum of History. I'd love to come back with more time.

I'm kind of proud as how I managed to get us in this photo on the glass.

In the evening we saw Blue Man Group. It was great. It was much more of a comedy routine than I was expecting, but there was still a lot of percussion.

(Image courtesy BlueManGroup)