Thursday!

Nothing special happened today. We hoping for another 5 days without rain, so Ben cleaned the deck again. I finished watching "So you think you can dance" (thanks to Dusty for the recording). I'm happy that Jeanine won. She ended up being one of my favorites.

Oh, my toes are doing much better. I've started taking the band-aids off whenever I don't have to wear shoes. Even when they're in shoes they don't leak too much, but if they did the sock would just soak it up and that's rather gross.

Weekend: Niagra!

This past weekend we went to Niagra with some friends. Here are the highlights...

We went on the Maid of the Mist and all got blue ponchos. It is a short boat tour that brings you around to both of the falls and gets you in the spray. It was kind of a rainy weekend, so the ponchos came in handy after the boat ride too.

The view from Canada...

A quick stop at the Hershey store

The next day we went to the American side to go to the cave of the winds. It was by far the best part of the trip. It (again) started raining while we were by the falls, which made them even wilder. Here is the bottom of the falls.

And here the falls are coming over the deck, so Ben and I stood in them a bit. After this we went to the "Hurricane Deck" where we got to stand under the falls and where water was pouring over the deck. The yellow ponchos did not hold up as well as the blue ones and almost everyone's got at least a little tear by the end. (I.e., we all got wet.)

Some people were smart enough to have kept the blue ponchos, so some of those were put on and some of us double bagged.

Friday: friends

Some out-of-town friends are here for a long weekend, so there's been lots of laughter since last night! Last night Laura made a delicious dinner and we all got caught up and played a bit of rock band. Ben and I took today off which was wonderful. Everyone was coming to our house, so the house got almost completely cleaned. It's nice to have people come over so that it does get cleaned well. After lunch we played ultimate/hit a ball around/played a quick round of frisbee golf. We wanted to go for a swim, but the pool was closed for constuction. Then a good dinner, poker, and some delicious pie.

I'm not in charge of taking pictures (so I don't have any), but I'll probably have some up in a few days.

Tuesday: Bible study / ultimate

Tonight we celebrated Aaron and Heather, as they will only be with us for about another week. Julie made a wonderful cake with lots of fun and meaningful things on it.

We also played more ultimate Frisbee. I think we're getting quite a bit better because the time between TDs is getting longer and longer. Although we've also been adding interesting challenges such as the dark.

Monday: slightly discouraged and 501st post

Ah ha! This is my 501st post! I'm a bit sad to have missed number 500, but here's hoping to another 501!

House stuff has gotten me a little discouraged today though. It is supposed to rain tomorrow night, which means no deck staining (although the deck does look really nice and clean). We got quotes on the driveway top-coat, only to learn that we need to deal with the little sidewalks first (which we have no quotes for.) And one of the gutters is being problematic, although I think that it is at least the gutter and not the piping that runs under ground.

But then I took a nap and as always, that improved my mood a lot.

Sunday: deck

Well, we may have just found 4-5 days without any rain, if you can believe it. Ben washed the deck tonight...the difference between the unwashed part and the washed part was amazing!! There was a ton of dirt on the deck, and you couldn't even tell. Anyway, hopefully it will be dry tomorrow so we can stain it. And hopefully the weather forecast doesn't change, because the deck really needs to be stained.

Saturday: colors and cloths

Ben: Woah, look at this! The gatorade turns ... ... ... clear when cold?

Ben: Really? What else could it be?

Amanda: keep thinking

Ben: oh! you put water in the bottles! Because of the orange nalgene behind two of them it looked like it turned clearer as it got colder

Amanda: That would be really cool.

I also finally figured out a good way to dust the bedroom furniture...a microfibre terry clothe. Still not perfect, but it picked up the dust better than anything else I've used so far.