Tuesday: my day

I woke up this morning after having some dreams about coring carrots by hand and writing a letter to my Spanish teacher (in Spanish) as to why I didn't finish the homework assignment. (Note: coring carrots doesn't work very well.) (Note2: my excuse was that I was traveling the globe.)

I got my flu shot! I received a Hello Kitty! bandaid for my troubles.

We bought some dice. It is a one pound bag with an assortment of dice...you never know exactly what you're going to get.

Bible Study had a potluck. There was an assortment of delicious foods and my applesauce went over well.

I spent the rest of the night dealing with wrinkles. I was having a hard time getting them to unwrinkle, so I may have spent more time watching the TV than normal.

Monday

Today went faster than expected. I ate too much. There was a potluck at work and there's always so much good food. And the food came out around 9am. Oh well.

Flurry's still an active cat. We're not really sure what's gotten into her these last few weeks, but she seems to have more energy than normal. And she's running all over the place to prove it.

I'm writing a new program at work and am using a lot of functions. I'm rather proud of myself. :)

Sunday: woe to me

I ran out of tea for making spice tea and the local grocery store stopped carrying it. It is only my favorite drink of all time. I had hot chocolate this morning. It was not as good.

My hands smell funny.

A friend is in the hospital after having an their appendix removed. Everything seems to be going ok besides that though.

I hit myself in the face while playing racquetball. It doesn't hurt anymore though.

Besides the above, the day was fine. I had a delicious shake after racquetball. :)

Saturday: this and that

Flurry's been super helpful the last few days. Unfortuantly, it means she's always sitting on something I need to move.

I may also start calling donuts "homeomorphic toroidal polyhedrons".

We also did some winterizing today. It was actually pretty nice out. However, that meant the gnats were out too and that was rather annoying.

Friday: yay Friday

Phew, I made it through Friday. It felt like a rather long week even though I had Monday off. I'm not really sure why...everything was pretty normal.

I had lunch with Jess and that was fun as always. And I didn't have to go back to work, so that was great. Ben and I got takeout Chinese for supper. They always give us a ton of food which is awesome. They also have really good Tupperware stuff that they put the food in. We're slowly making a collection. Reduce Reuse Recycle!!

1. Did you have a pen pal when you were little (or now)? Where were/are they from?

Sort of. I was pen pals with some friends that I didn't see very often. They probably weren't more than 20 minutes away.

2. If you could do a different job for one day, what would it be?

Astronaut. Of course. It would have to be a day in space though...none of this Earth stuff.

3. Do you remember your biggest fear from when you were little?

That my parents would die. I guess one survives.

4. What do you think is a waste of time? Why?

There is this program at work that has a bunch of "red tape". I hear that it is significantly faster than the old system. But there are all these things to fill in that need to be filled in all the time. The same things over and over. Boring.

5. What is the oldest item you have in your closet?

My bridal veil. It was my mom's.

Wednesday: patience

Today was annoying. Nothing especially bad happened...it was actually a pretty normal day. I'm just in a mood I guess. I want to know what is going to happen in the future and (obviously) don't.

In other news, I caught up on some Glee episodes tonight. While I'm not a fan of Brittany's character, she does have some hilarious one-liners.

In other other news, I also was given a shirt at work. It has a scary looking patch and is one-size too big. But the patch could be a funny talking topic, so I still might wear it.

dreams

Well, here is the first post in my semi-secret blog that won't be put up for a while. As long as I can remember to push "save" instead of "publish."

I started taking prenatal vitamins a few days ago. I know, in the whole progression to have a child it is a rather minor step without much commitment. But since I've started them I feel like I've been remembering my dreams so much better. I also was able to take a lot of naps the last few days, so I guess we'll see if it is just a coincidence.

My other dreams are bigger. There's still some unknowns with work and where we will be in a few months. Usually I try to forget about it, but the last few days it's been harder. My dreams include staying around here and having a kid, but I also have to remember that those might not be God's dreams for me. It is rather annoying sometimes.

Tuesday: sleep

Dad went home today. :( He took the early flight out, so I was at work by 5:30am. However, I got to leave early also, so I was able to take a wonderful nap.

Monday: park and bagels

This morning Dad and I fixed the shower drain. It went rather easily, which was awesome. All we had to do was add some caulk.

Then we went to Hickories Park and walked around a bit. It was cool, but nice. I hadn't realized how large that park actually is. Normally I stop near the front entrance.

We came home and made chain linked bagels. Dad's (on the left) turned out better than mine.

However, they are rather hard to toast like that. :) Mine ended up in a bunch of little pieces.

Sunday: Dad

Today was a pretty normal Sunday, besides the fact that Dad was around. Ben played drums and I helped in the nursery. Then we went to play racquetball. They let all of us in as one family, which I was pumped about. Dad beat me in racquetball, but I did have to make him work for it. :)

We went out to lunch, I look a nap, we played some games...etc.

The small leak that I had seen once in the basement was back, so Dad took a quick look at that too. :) It was good timing. The pipe is actually pretty short once he pulled the insulation out, so everyone is happy that it isn't from the upstairs shower.

Friday: things

Today we did some misc. things. We made a lot of apple stuff (apple crisp and applesauce). Dad really seemed to enjoy the apple corer peeler. :). We also fixed a light in a closet...the wire in the outlet before the light switch had pulled out and so wasn't providing electricity anymore. It took us longer than expected to find the problem. We also played some games and just hung out.

Friday: Dad's here!

Dad made the flight over safely. Yay!

Wednesday: questions

1. What do you listen to while driving?

Usually I listen to NPR. They often have interesting things on. While the station in Champaign had too many crop reports, this station has a lot of classic music. If that is on I'll often just turn the radio off.

2. What is your least favorite thing about Fall?

Well, I couldn't really think of anything...but one of the things that I don't like much is Halloween. I don't mind the trick-or-treating, but I find it annoying that I feel like I either need to pass out candy or hide.

3.

What is the one thing that you reach for the most in a day (excluding phones and computers)?

A pen. I make little notes to myself at work. Sometimes it is a "to-do" item, sometimes a number I need to remember.

4. Would you ever own a minivan?

I'd rather not. I understand that my feelings on this may change, but not yet.

5. Do you wash new clothes before wearing them?

Well, if it's convenient I do. I always wash Ben's clothes though.

Monday: Twilight

I borrowed the Twilight series from Ashley on Saturday. I'm glad she made me take all four books because I'm currently half way through the second. They are so hard to put down. They read rather quickly though too.

I can completely understand why teenage girls (and even women) have gone nuts over the series. Edward seems like such a great guy. I don't quite understand Bella's obsession with becoming a vampire though. I guess I understand that she doesn't ever what to leave him or grow old, but the thought of being pretty much immortal would be enough to make me choose to not become a vampire. The thought of having to wake up and get out of bed every day without ceasing is not a pleasant thought.

In other news, Ben and I both have sore backs from racquetball. I made applesauce tonight and my apple corer-peeler-cutter made the whole process go much, much faster.

Sunday: r-ball

Ben and I went to play racquetball today. It was one of our staples while we were dating during college, but we only played a few times in Illinois (mainly because the courts were under construction for two of the years) and we haven't played here yet. As part of our twice-a-week workout, we finally found some courts and went.

It was so much fun. It took us a while to figure out what we were doing again, but by the end we were getting some good off-the-wall hits. Ben sustained some minor injuries (from himself) and we both think we'll be sore in the morning. We are debating about spending the money to get a gym membership and trying to go on a weekly basis.

Saturday: roofs and ladders

Well, today was supposed to be a very busy day: roofing in the morning, apple picking in the afternoon, and games at night.

Unfortunately, we didn't end up roofing. The people that we were going to help decided that it was too high and too steep for their comfort. While I'm glad they put our safety first, I'm also sad that we weren't able to help them. I climbed up the ladder for a picture. It was pretty bouncy. I was ok climbing it when I had both hands, but if I had to carry something up there at the same time it would have been rather scary.

So we went apple picking in the morning instead. We picked a lot of apples because I want to make applesauce again. Last years batch lasted until about last month...almost perfect. We also got some donuts (yum) and our yearly squash.

We went a year ago when Hugh was a tiny baby and so he got a tiny apple. He is a year older now and much more active!

Friday: stars and coffee

I made peanut butter cookies today. I make the one below especially for Ben. Can you guess what it's supposed to be? (Hint...it is kind of like star gazing when you wonder how four stars can make a crab.)

And for all you guests out there that brave coming to our house even though we don't have a coffee maker, do we have a surprise for you!

To make the deal even sweeter, we even got coffee filters. To make the deal a bit more bitter though, I'll be getting some coffee on Sunday.

My problem and my not problem

My problem is that my computer keyboard stopped working today. Hmm. And somehow we don't have a spare that works. However, it's amazing how much you can do with just a mouse.

My not problem is that I'm done with work for the week. Yay! Today was rather slow, so that makes it even better. On top of all that, my Dad is coming next weekend so my next two weeks are also short! Woot-woot!

Flurry seems to be having a great time with all the fabric scattered on the floor. I think she's just getting it ready for her cousin

Wednesday: transporters

So Ben and I were talking the other day about how the Nobel prize winner in physics is the first person to receive both a Nobel prize and an ig-Nobel prize. That is rather amazing.

But what would be even more amazing would be to win both for the same work. I decided that teleportation is the thing that is going to do this. So wrote the outline of that paper (first draft):

Title: Bringing your food to you: a look at a way to eat without leaving the lab

I. Introduction

A. The problem with having to eat

i. Lack of productivity

ii. Long lines

iii. Schedule issues

B. How people currently solve this issue

i. bring food from home (cold)

ii. beg a friend to bring some

iii. order in (expensive)

C. A new way to eat

i. Teleportation from where the food is sent directly to the lab

II. Methods

A. Set-up

i. Teleporter in a kitchen (shows a grad student wearing a chef's hat)

ii. Teleporter in the lab (show a box with a sign "food allowed in this area")

B. Procedure

i. Chef would cook a taste and delicious meal that isn't so delicious after a few minutes

(eggs in the shape of a smiley face)

ii. Chef puts on Teleporter and hits "send"

iii. Grad student eats food while smiling and working.

iv. Grad student sends back food containers

C. The technical stuff

III. Results

A. Happy grad students!

i. Compare hungry grad student performance to non-hungry grad student performance

ii. Clean labs

B. Compare amount of work completed

IV. Discussion

Hmmm...figure out something to go here.

IV. Conclusions

A. Feed your grad students

B. Teleportation is cool

This person will win the Nobel for discovering how to teleport large items and the ig-Nobel for figuring out how to use massive amounts of energy to move smiley faces across the hall.

Tuesday: a semi-random video

I know that I usually don't post YouTube videos up here (besides those of Flurry), but a friend made this one and I think it's hilarious. So I thought I'd share it. :)

Monday: Work smarter, not harder!

Today Ben and I went to the gym at our work. We always talk about how we need to exercise more, so on Friday we finally made a plan...we're going to exercise in the gym (or at the tennis courts) twice a week. We're also going to try and get some racquetball in once in a while, but it is rather far away.

On our way home though we figured out how to easily get twice the exercise! Work smarter, not harder!! We will just set our coordinate system origin at the other person and bike in opposite directions:

Right? That'll make us more in shape! We'll be going faster and covering more distance.

Please?

Sunday: Flurry

It's been a while since I've had a picture of Flurry. We've taken a few videos this past week, so here we are. I know Flurry videos aren't always exciting, but I do love our cat.

Saturday: maize maze

Today I went to the corn maze with the women's group from church. It was so easy to get lost! But we made it all the way through.

Friday: bowling

After dinner today Ben and I went bowling. I started to think about how bowling is a rather interesting game...I usually play it with people, but rarely am I competitive about it. I find that I play more against myself and trying to break 100.

Also, there are two places that we tend to bowl at. One place has all the same bowling balls, and they are color coded and well marked with the weight. One place just has "left-over" balls...all different colors and different fingerhole sizes. I was trying to decide which I like better. The first is nice because I can quickly grab a ball of the right weight. The latter is fun because it is interesting to see how different fingers are...and it is possible to get a ball that fits you better, if you're willing to look. (I still haven't decided which I like better.)

Thursday: end of September and rain

It rained here all day. I was sadly inside without windows for most of it though. I love the rain. There's apparently a flood warning starting tonight through tomorrow. We're on the side of a mountain so if we get flooded we will have other significant worries, but I feel bad for the people in the valleys. There were some bad floods a few years ago, so hopefully changes have been put in place to nothing too bad happens.

I'm also really glad that tomorrow is October. I've been having a problem with the month number of September this year (9). At the beginning of September I kept putting 10. Today I kept putting 7.

Wednesday: relative smartness

Yesterday I finished the program I keep talking about. It is still in beta testing, but I really don't foresee any major issues. I love the program and I think the operators will too...I know my beta tester does! So apparently there was a meeting today and someone told me that people in the meeting said I'm really smart and they're glad to have me around. Aww.

But that got me to thinking. Do I feel smart? Sometimes, about some things. However, I know there are a lot of people smarter than me too. Case in point: I started this one class in grad school. I didn't understand a thing that was going on. I tried to understand the homework (although I wasn't sure it had anything to do with what we had learned in class). I went to a study group and still didn't understand the homework. I threw up the next morning because I was so stressed out and proceeded to drop the class. (And I enrolled in a class that was much more practical.) (And easier.) (And I got to try to make pop cans explode in a freezer for one of the projects.) (It doesn't happen as often as you think.)

On the other end of the spectum, I also received this message today:

However, I'm not really sure that a program called SAP has any right to call me a dummy.

Tuesday

Hi.

Bye.

Monday: Movies

Tonight there was a gathering of guys to watch football at a friends house, so a few girls came over to my house to watch movies. I watched Valentine's Day and Date Night.

Date Night was my favorite...it was pretty funny. Valentines Day was ok. A fellow engineer and I were watching it together though, so we kept picking apart the plot...it was pretty fun.

Sunday

Hello Sunday. It was a pretty nice one...went to church, took a nap, you know, the normal stuff.

We'll grab some questions from Five Question Friday so that this isn't a completely dull post.

1. Do you feel guilty spending money on yourself?

Hmm, the more I think about this the more complex I realize the question is. Overall, I guess the answer is no. Mainly because I don't spend money on myself that often (because I usually don't need anything special). Sometimes I'll think about what Good Works the money could do, but I also realize that the money can do both.

2. How well do you know your neighbors?

Not all that well. We know the people across from us a little bit and they will often cat sit if we are gone. The people below us we knew a little bit, but then they had to leave because he got laid off. I don't really know the others much at all.

3. What age are you looking forward to being?

This is a weird question. I like my age, but am ok with growing older too.

4. Do you get excited when the mail comes? Why?

Not anymore. There usually isn't anything good in it. I was excited as the kid to get the mail, but that was before email was as prevalent. I'm usually rather excited to check my email though.

5. Where did you and your significant other go on your first date?

Our first official date was Applebee's. The first unofficial date was a Shakespearian play.

Saturday: flurry

Ben and Flurry were playing this morning and we got some cute photos.

Friday: big city

Tonight we went out for dinner with some friends in the big city of Binghamton. It's food week there so we got a three course dinner for $20...and lots of leftovers.

Then we walked to Luke's new apartment. It is very nice. Hugh especially liked the knobs on the music player.

I also stained the deck this afternoon. I would like to my future self that staining something in the beginning of fall is probably not the best idea, even if the weather is really warm.

Thursday: salads

I don't really like salad.

There, I said it. I feel kind of ashamed of it because I feel as though I should like salad. We had a salad for dinner tonight and it wasn't bad. I will buy it periodically so that we have something different for dinner, but it usually takes us a few days to get ready to eat it. And I put a lot of good things on it, so it ends up ok.

I usually think about telling people at restaurants that I don't want a salad but often feel peer-pressured into getting it. I'm not sure who's peer-pressuring me though.

(This is a salad from Texas Roadhouse, image from here. Texas Roadhouse does have one of the better salads around. It might be the egg.)

Wednesday: hmm

Hmm. I guess the biggest news of today is that part 2a of my program revamp is working. I'm really excited about it because I think it will save a lot of time and that the operators will like it a lot better than the current program. I won't bore you with the details though, because they are kind of boring.

Flurry has stopped being as cuddly. :( She's still friendly though.

Tuesday: a Tuesday

Today is a Tuesday. Ha. I'm rather tired. I think it's because it is getting dark earlier. I feel like I go through this transition every year. This year it seems odd because it's already the end of September. Ben and I both feel like it should still be the beginning of September, but I guess that is what vacation will do.

Bible Study tonight was good. There was a video and it was a little weird because our pastor preached almost the same thing on Sunday...even some of the examples were the same. I'm not really sure how I feel about that. But it was nice to have discussion times throughout the video. The last question actually sparked a lot of discussion. One of the themes of the video was that there is a movement now-a-days that whatever someone believes is true for them and that is OK. I realized this means we can tell people that they're wrong but they have to tolerate our opinion without making us mad. The movement could backfire on them. (Hopefully that makes sense...it might be better if you had seen the video.)

Monday: back to work

Well, it was our first day back at work. Bummer. But I guess if we didn't work we wouldn't be able to enjoy our vacations as much. Maybe. At least, that's what I'll tell myself.

I think I get to be in a corporate "woo-hoo! engineering is great" video. We'll see how it turns out. Maybe I won't have to see it...that would probably be best.

Sunday: pop

While in St. Lucia I started drinking Coke. Usually I'm not really a fan of it, but after a few glasses we realized it was made with real sugar and not high-fructose corn syrup. The can I had on the airplane on the trip home was disgusting after the delicious stuff I had come to enjoy.

Needless to say, we went to Wegmans today to see what they had in the way of real sugar in pop. We found some throwback Pepsi and got some of that, along with some Jones soda. For some reason I thought that Coke was doing a throwback thing too, but I guess I was wrong. :( Well, I can hope that they do it in the future.

Saturday: shopping

Today I had to return some library books and get groceries. (After being gone for so long there isn't much in the house to eat.) First I stopped at the library. They were having a book sale!! I love the book sales that the library has because there are always a lot of books. This one was by donation only too, so they were inexpensive. I think I came away with as many books as I returned. Most of them are just fluffy easy reads, but I did manage to snag "A Prayer for Owen Meany".

Then I went to the grocery store. Usually when I go, especially when I go by myself and am not in a rush, the bill tends to be higher than normal. I think it is because I remember all the weird and expensive things that we need. Like medicine and cleaning supplies. Anyway, I had filled up the cart (how did those donuts get in there?!?) and it came out at a reasonable price. I was excited.

Vacation day 15: a few last things

So during the month of fun, we had several guides on the different things that we did. I was wondering which would really be the best guide to be. So I rated them in order of 1 to 5 (with 1 being the worst and 5 the best).

For the fun category, it is how much fun the guide would have doing the activity everyday. The best two were the ones where you might see different things each day. Sky diving was next because of the adrenaline rush. The last two seem like they would just be the same thing over and over.

The ease of dealing with people category is how bad things can get if you have a bad customer...scuba was the worst because if something goes wrong while you're down at the sea floor it seems like there could be some serious problems. (Sky-diving doesn't have that because the guide is completely in control. The passenger can do whatever and it won't really affect anything.)

....................Fun.Ease of dealing with people.Pay.Total

Helicopter pilot:....1...5...........................5...11

Tandem sky-diver:....3...3...........................4...10

Scuba diver:.........5...1...........................3...9

Horseback rider:.....2...2...........................1...5

Zip-liner (jungle):..4...4...........................2...10

And the results show...helicopter pilot is the best! However, I also rated it as least fun, so personally I might end up doing sky-diving or zip-lining.

Here are the things we ended up taking home with us. (Betsy, we saw a bottle of banana ketchup in the airport and grabbed it. We didn't have a chance to try any.) The hardened coral was washed up on the beach from our kayaking trip.

Flurry was still rather cuddly today. Tonight however she really wanted water from the sink. She was mewing up the wall...here she is wondering why I'm going back upstairs instead of to the bathroom.

Review: Calabash Cove, St. Lucia

Well, I'm on the plane returning from St. Lucia and thought I'd write a quick review...just in case anyone else out there was curious. The resort we stayed at was Calabash Cove. We were in one of the villas. (Follow this link for blog posts starting at the beginning of the trip.)

Overall, it was a great vacation. I'm going to post a few "negative" things, but they really are greatly out weighed by the positive things.

Downside:
1. There were a lot of steps. We only went up and down them once or twice a day, but if you're not in a villa and like the beach it could be more.
2. The one time we took a taxi somewhere "on our own" it seemed rather expensive. (Also check with your hotel about prices getting to/from the airport...if not included they might need to be included in your budget.)
3. A few of the light bulbs were burned out. (I know, now I'm stretching to find things.)
4. The door to the shower was hard to open because the wood had warped.
5. There were a few food inconsistencies...we would order these delicious chocolate pastries for breakfast and never knew how many we were going to get.
6. It was a little hard to find shade in the late afternoon. There were a few places, but sometimes we just ended up going inside for a bit.
7. There was no clock/alarm clock...we woke up an hour too early for one excursion because we had the wrong time zone.

Upsides:
1.The food was delicious.
2. Room service didn't cost extra.
3. House keeping came twice a day with fresh towels.
4. The view was gorgeous.
5. There is snorkel gear at the front desk (and fish to see by the pier).
6. The excursions are very well organized...you get a ticket with where to meet and when. The taxis were always on time. The same taxi picked you up at the end.
7. The excursions we went on were very fun.
8. The villas have their own little pool...we used ours a lot. The pools were kept clean.
9. There weren't many pesky bugs (at least compared to my backyard in upstate NY).
10. The tap water is safe to drink (which saves a lot on bottled water costs).
11. There were kayaks that we could use at the resort.
12. The private dinner was very romantic.
13. There was free wi-fi. I know it sounds dorky to want to be connected to the Internet, but it helped keep us occupied.
14. I could swim and read at the same time...what can be better?
15. The villa had an outside bed, outside table, outside hammock, inside sitting room, and air conditioned bedroom. There were plenty of places to sit depending on my mood.
16. The outside shower was a lot of fun. During the day I could look out on the ocean. During the night I could watch lizards.
17. There were lizards all over the place! They were fun to watch.
I'm sure there are more things, but I can't think of them right now. :)

Vacation day 14: home

Today we made it home. It was cold.

But Flurry was happy to see us! Laura also happened to be in town and so stopped by for a while, which was nice.

I was going to take a picture of Flurry but I'm rather tired now and the camera is downstairs. Maybe I'll get one tomorrow.

vacation day 13: washington dc

Since we were so close to Washington DC, we thought we would spend a day at the museums.

We started at the natural history museum.

We also watched a 3D movie. The movie itself was really good...especially these birds that bombed the water. The 3D part we have mixed feelings on...some was really good and looked cool, but some of it just was blurry and made us a tad sick. I especially had problems with birds flying through the air.

We had a few more hours before everything closed so we also stopped at the air and space museum. With a heavy emphasis on the space part. Below Ben is holding his phone, which now has more computing power than the big thing behind him. Ah, how times have changed.

oh, one more picture.

I haven't had any Flurry pictures lately and am missing her. This is the closest I found.

Vacation day 12: leaving

Today we left. :(. It was sad, but we were also ready to come home. We had a few hours before we had to leave for the airport, so we were still able to get in a few last swims.




The trip really went quite smoothly. Customs is a pain, but there isn't much I could do about that. None of the bottles in the suitcase broke. Actually, the most annoying part of the trip was listening to some guy complain to a credit card about a charge refusal for our entire dinner. I could give you all the details,but I'll spare you the pain. It did give us a bonding time with the neighboring table though.

vacation day 11: this and that

On our last day, we didn't really do anything too special. We relaxed around the pool in the morning and then tried out some different chairs on the grass in the shade for the early afternoon because they put up some new, big umbrellas.

This is the view from those chairs.




We actually had a sunset without too many clouds on the horizon!



For dinner we went to a restaurant outside the resort called the Coal Pot. We had a table right next to the water and so we could see all of these little fish swimming around. And then big fish came! There was also a swooping bird that we think was trying to catch the little fish. The food was very good, but the menus were written on chalkboards and then set near the tables. I've never been in a place that has done that.

Vacation day10: the pier

Today we ended up doing a lot around the little pier that is here.





First we went snorkeling. We looked all around the cove, only to find grass-fish. Then we went by the pier and found many real fish...brown ones, blue ones, small ones, bigs ones, stripped ones. It was a cool find.





For dinner we had a private dinner on the pier. It was delicious and romantic.

vacation day 9: frisbee

Today was another very relaxing day. We hung out at the beach a bit and played some frisbee.






We also read, ate, got slightly pink (but not so much as to hurt).



Oh, and we kept an eye on a giant moth that was in our "living room". Then suddenly after dinner it was gone. It didn't move at all during the day though.



I've also been enjoying a lot of banana foods while here. For dessert ewe had a delicious fried banana and I've been eating a lot of fried plantains. I wish fried plantains were a side option more often In the US

vacation day 8: scuba diving

Today we went scuba diving. It was a nice day for it because it was cloudy and periodically rainy, but that doesn't matter much when you're u deer water. Since we couldn't take pictures of the cool things that we saw, we made the hand motions afterwards.

We dove twice. The first dive I kind of was having a hard time...I couldn't sink and needed help staying down. but we got to play with a sea spider, saw some eels waiting for food with their big teeth, and lots of iridescent fish and coral. I also got to scare some sea anemones. The second dive went much better. I still didn't sink very well, but I also didn't float right to the top either. I figured out how to sink somewhat, so could control my position a lot more.

We saw a huge sea turtle. I have no idea what it was doing, but it looked it like was just trying to climb the coral.



We also saw another eel. this one was much larger than the others and was moving around.



We also saw a lobster.

vacation day 7: kayaking

Today we went to explore the island that you can see from our room. (It's the one between the two trees below.)




We made it!



It turns out there is an abandoned building on the island. we explored for a little bit and then returned home. Going back was much harder because if we stopped paddling for too long we started going the wrong way. I'll admit, my arms are a bit sore now.

Just as we got back to our room and stepped into the pool it started to rain.



It was rainy on and off for the rest of the day, but it didn't really interfere with our plans and reminded us how beautiful this place is...even in the rain.