Monday, October 27, 2008
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.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
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. :)
Monday, September 29, 2008
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?
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?
Monday, September 22, 2008
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... :)
Sunday, September 07, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
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)
Monday, August 18, 2008
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. :)
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