Christmas Walk

Yes. I am a blog slacker. My goal is to finish up loose ends...like getting Honduras posted!...and all sorts of other stuff by the end of the year. So keep your fingers crossed. :) Tonight I took my boy and his oldest out to Dow Gardens for a Christmas Walk through the gardens. I took a few pictures but i think this is my favorite. There are all sorts of interesting things to do around here...ya just have to go! :)

Evan

Misty and Nate make a cuuuuute boy. Full, and I mean really full, head of hair, two dimples and man is he snuggly. I could have held on to him all day. Here is just a quick sample because I'm supposed to be editing Honduras...they will be posted I swear.

Danielle's Wedding!

I had to interrupt the Honduras posts to put up this wedding of two great people. I finally made it through most of the zillions of photos we took and just couldn't wait to make a soundslide of it. Danielle will go down as one of the best brides in history for this day. Thanks to a hurricane, her beautiful fall wedding turned into a rainy, muddy mess. She took it all in good stride and you'll see by the pictures that we all made lemonade out of a lemon of a day. She was caught early on in the day saying "what a beautiful day to get married!" with a laugh and with her and her new husband's good humor a good time was had by all. Everyone trooped through the mud and rain and still danced the night away. Danielle - this is only a sample to torture you, the CD is coming! As always, just hit the play button in the bottom left hand corner. :)

Utila - Day Uno!

I will try to post an entry each day on our vacation - but it could get lengthy. I apologize now. :)

We arrived in San Pedro Sula dragging our two heavy boxes and full set of dive gear to the customs check desk. Of course, their security wanted to dig through our boxes that we carried for the homeowner of the place we were staying. Thankfully he did not feel the urge to take everything out of the almost 50 lb boxes that were chuck full of candy, snorkel gear, household items and the list goes on. For the record, we did sort through them before just randomly carrying two boxes o’ stuff for someone we didn’t know out of the country. We needed a connecting flight to Utila but had only been able to have a Spanish speaking friend in Saginaw make reservations. Once we made it through customs we headed out to find the airline we needed. It was at this point we knew we needed to be Spanish speaking people. We ended up finding someone to help and while it was painful with our no Spanish and his no English we did get the “Airplane cancel – needed maintenance” message. No chicken flight for us! We were then ushered to the front doors of the airport and told to wait "uno momento” and he was gone. We both started to chuckle at the fact that we had nooo clue what was going on. Finally, our guy showed up with a taxi driver and sent us on our way with some strange guy that spoke no English. Three very quiet hours later we arrived at the La Ceiba docks and sat in our first taste of sweltering heat and humidity (they really mean it when they say it feels like 114 degrees) waiting for ferry to Utila.

Let’s establish the island time factor now. Eh, whenever.

Finally our boat set sail and the adventure had officially begun. On the boat ride over we sat next to a couple from Cincinnati, four British girls and nice guy named OK. He is a US citizen but has been living on Utila for two years on his catamaran. I have discovered Utila is truly an interesting place. It is not only a strange conglomeration of Central Americans and the rest of the world but a unique mix of a zillion different cultures. Money can be spent in Honduran Limperas or US dollars, frequently signs advertise prices in dollars. Most Utilians speak English as well but to me it has a very strong Jamaican lilt and sometimes you have to listen closely to catch on. Anyway, once on the island we drummed up a taxi (this can be anything from a four-wheeler to a beat up old pickup) and eventually made it to our beach house…in the dark…and discovered we were staying smack dab in the middle of nowhere. (it was awesome!) :)

Leaving the mainland of Honduras...


On the dock upon arriving in Utila.


The sun going down on day one.


The place we stayed...it rocked.


As a thank you for carrying the boxes, they left us a pod of bananas and a case of beer in the fridge.


Now is that a rough view to wake up to or what?

Alive and well in Hondo...

Hey all! I only have limited time here on the net so I'll make it quick. We made it here late Saturday night and had quite the adventure. Note to self: learn spanish. This place is very interesting. Think Mackinaw Island-meets-third-world-HUMID-country-meets-youth-hostel-meets-blue-carribean-sea. There is just way to much to tell but it will be an interesting story. God bless Deep Woods Off...currently I look like a leper from the bug bites on my legs but finally the trade winds started blowing and now the bugs are mostly gone. We've gone on four dives here (the water is a steamy 87 degrees) so far and they were quite good with sightings of trigger fish, a ray, trumpetfish, needlefish and about a zillion other colorful specimens. Our first dive master, Brian, was very good - and get this his parents live in Prudenville, MI! Talk about smalllllll world. Ok well the power and internet are sketchy here so I'm signing off for now. Don't know if there will be any posts until I get back...but stay tuned! It's back to snorkeling out front of our place... :)

The big 0-4

It's not just everyone that gets a Mustang on their fourth birthday. Ethan has developed a love for these cars and as a treat Jill brought over a nice shiny blue one. Ethan thought the heavens had opened...


Too bright! Too bright! The boots are my favorite. Doesn't everyone wear them to a summer birthday party?


What uncles and summer are all about...wagon rides, popsicles and fun.

Quick excursion...

I took my boy for a birthday scuba trip to South Manitou Island and saw looooots of great pictures go by because I was too chicken to bring my camera out to the island. Tony and I did a shore dive onto the wreck of the Three Brothers and it roooocked! Info here: http://www.ship-wrecks.net/shipwreck/projects/3brothers/ We spent Sunday traipsing around Traverse City...wine tasting, partaking of gooooood food and in general, having a great time. On Monday it was out to the island for the day and we couldn't have asked for more gorgeous weather. The place we stayed had this teeny tiny beach that overlooked the bay and we spent part of Sunday just watching the boats (and the ducks) go by...(stretching the 70-200 to the limit)

Back in business

Whoa baby. The first picture with the new 40d...and the new lens is on the waaaay. (Please send any contributions to..... teehee - Visa and Mastercard accepted.) I haven't pushed all the buttons yet so I'm sure there are much better photos forth coming. :)

Camping...the wet way.

During July some friends of ours invited us on a camping extravaganza...that was promptly cut short by torrential rains and thunderstorms. But we still had fun for the first couple days and did I mention it was about a billion degrees? Whew. I only have a few pics to share but I'm sure you'll get the hint as to what we did a lot of....



Corn on the cob and smores...does it get any better?



Yes, there was a group that took great pleasure in riding around on their....cooler. I had forgotten how entertaining people watching can be at a campground.


Little Ella. I just can't resist her.

Quilt Numero Dose

On the trip to Indy, Tony's Mama showed me how to use the big quilt machine and we finished the quilt Jenny and I started last March at girls weekend. Tony's Mama took a few pictures and here is the very first stitches that I inflicted upon my quilt. It was actually a scary process and I was sure I was going to wreck the machine and the quilt. We only had to tear out a few (hundred) stitches but then it went pretty well. It was a great weekend and I can't thank Tony's mama enough for all the patience and fun!



Here is the finished product...only edges are left!

Emily and Jeff

As the summer rolls on, things don't seem to be getting any slower! I have pictures from camping to post but I just haven't gone through them yet. Tony moved into a new house and it was quite the adventure but I spent most of today catching up on things I've been neglecting...while parked on his breezy, beautiful, wonderful screened-in back porch. It was really awful, but hey, I can take one for the team. The fun continues this week with a trip to Indy. Sit still? Me? Ha! Never. I hope everything is going well with all of you!

Despite the fact that my camera is off on an adventure to the factory (it thought it could swim)...I was able to secure a backup and shot some engagement pictures tonight. If everyone was as easy to work with as these two I might do this as a regular job. Here are some of the ones I really liked at first glance...so, um, I say good luck picking out finalists to Em and Jeff as they get the CD with these and a good 60 others.

Summer - Part deux

More from our summer escapades...Jenny and Carter are attempting to give mean looks to the fish in order to get them into Carter's net.


Hannah and Rachael continuing the fun...






So. The summer continues with more volleyball, golf, softball, camping, scuba diving, up north trips and potato salad to keep me more than busy...but I have to admit, it's been fun so far! I'll try not to get behind on the blogging again! I hope you all are doing well and partying like a rockstar!

Summer - Part I

I've been gone! gone! gone! And here is the compilation of where I've been...


I was the second bugler on Memorial Day at the cemetery and was taking pictures of interesting things people leave on graves and I couldn't resist a patriotic shot of my old, worn, beat up coronet. That thing has been with me for many years...best $35 I ever spent.


That would be Hannah (Tony's middle girl) figuring out a way to enter the hammock...from the underside. She is really a trip - she might be the only human on earth louder than me.


I completely forgot to take pictures on our last scuba trip...until the ride home. Tony and I headed to Port Sanilac for a shipwreck diving trip a few Sunday's back. It was fantastic! We had a beautiful day, dove three wrecks (I only made two due to ear issues) and can't wait for the next excursion!


Every now and then you catch that fabulous wedding moment where the new wife and the organist are both doing the "mom-hand-lick" and getting something off of the poor unsuspecting groom. doh. heehee


Way to go Amy and Dave!


At the end of June, we held a screaming-teenage-girl-slumber party and it was rather entertaining. It was rockstar themed and I could not resist bringing the 'fro wig I own. Tony was out-estrogened by eight girls...he had no chance.



Everyone gets tattoos...even the dad.



We made a hike up north as my sister's kids were up from NC. We blew up the neighbor's lake toys and the fun began...

Let summer begin...

We took a quick trip up north last weekend and I told Jenny that we should bring the boys swim stuff and she said "nah this will just be a beach playtime." Both boys went home in a towel. Carter decided 'commando' was the way to be.



Nana Sue does not like the geese to be parked on her front lawn so Ethan and I went out to scare them away. He played the part very well with full-on scream and hands waving. :)



Play two boys outside all day up north and they ask to go to bed...

One weekend. Six dives. Bring it on.

So. Where in the h-e-double-hockey-sticks have I been? Why learning to scuba dive of course! For the first three weeks in May I spent in a classroom, the community center and the quarry getting my scuba I and scuba II certification - and it ROCKED! In order to become an open water diver you can opt to complete the final piece of the course at a quarry in Ohio. So last weekend I sweet-talked a boy into coming with me on a road trip, and here we went...to the quarry. Very peaceful looking isn't it? Well read on...


The beautiful, calm water above looks nice enough however what lies beneath is a whopping 45 degrees and as my dive instructor put it: "it's not cold, it's lacking warmth". Um, yeah. But you'll be glad to know that at 50 feet below its only 38 degrees. As I put it: "that's ass cold is what that is". You'll see by my super-hot outfit below that leaping into that kind of water temperature requires a nice 14mm of wetsuit...which is nice and hot on the dock but then the water slowly seeps in from the top. Oh baby.


The boy that was kind enough to be sweet-talked into jumping in that water with me. He wasn't wearing quite as thick a wetsuit so I owe him hot chocolate for the rest of his life.


In case you're wondering what exactly is the draw at the quarry - here's the map. It's really kinda cool because there is lots of sunken stuff like an airplane, bus, helicopter and an interesting assortment of oddities from cars to soda machines. I thought all the sunken stuff rocked and I have always thought shipwrecks were cool so now I can't wait to dive a real wreck here in Michigan.



The whole crew (about 12 of us) went to a nearby town for a uber-good BBQ dinner. While waiting Tony and I stumbled across a great little town next door that had a gorgeous church, great little park and a very interesting cemetery - all the stones were made into a grotto at one corner. You gotta love road trips and the unexpected places they take you...



I'm looking forward to diving all summer throughout Michigan but I can hardly stand the wait until we go diving in Honduras in September! OK. So that's it, I'll shut up and I'll try not to be such a blogging slacker from now on...