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I guess it's been a little while since I've written anything! Last week I came down with a cold, and while it was nothing compared to the one I had in early December, it still had me moaning and groaning and asking for my mommy, and there were a good two days when I was unable to do much of anything other than stare off into space. It was a short cold, though, and I was better by Thursday morning. After that, well, it's amazing how behind in life two days of uselessness will get you.
But I do have something really exciting to share. You already know about this if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, but for those who don't, here's the scoop. Last Saturday night, we decided to join a few of our friends for bowling. Okay, they bowled while I sat and watched.  We heard that there was a karaoke competition going on in the bar inside the bowling alley. Sandra and I finally gathered enough courage to go sing, but by then the contest was over. We still sang a few songs, as did a couple of other members of our group, and we all had a really good time. While I was singing one song, Sandra was chatting with the girl hosting the karaoke, and found out that the competition is an ongoing weekly event, and at the end one winner from that location wins a trip to Las Vegas. Deanna (the host) pointed to me and told Sandra, "that girl singing right now has a really good chance of winning; she should come back and enter next week."
!!!!!!!!!!
Amazingly, without a drop of alcohol in me, I agreed to do just that. I even talked to Deanna and got her business card (which I promptly lost; thank God for Facebook!). She told me to e-mail her if there were any songs I wanted that she didn't have, and she would get them for me. I'll also be bringing my microphone stand so that I don't have to have someone hold the mic for me; I'll be a lot more confident that way!
I'm so freaking excited! I feel like my voice is not nearly what it used to be, so to have someone who isn't my friend, and just trying to make me feel good, say that they think I could win feels awesome! I've had my USB microphone and stand in the office hooked up to the computer all week so I can practice and record myself to see what I really sound like, and decide which songs are my strongest. I think I'm going to kick some butt!
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Well, here it is, my last post of 2009. It wasn't an extremely eventful year, but there were a few highlights. I went to Oregon to visit family and old friends. I turned 30 and celebrated in two parts: a surprise party thrown by friends, and a day on Block Island, RI with my sweetie. And we went to a few weddings, including the long anticipated wedding of Joe and Sandra, for which Chris was the best man.
Checking in on the bucket list I started in January...
Get the hell outta Dodge... I mean, Hood River.Go to Disney World.Ride on a boat in the ocean.- Go on a cruise.
- Drive my own vehicle.
Swim with dolphins.Make contact with my biological father. *- Compete on a television game show.
Have someone call me Mommy.- Have someone human call me Mommy.
- Visit Australia.
- Travel somewhere solely for the purpose of meeting an online friend in person.
- Own an actual house on my own land. (new)
- Get a prize winning video on America's Funniest Home Videos. (new)
* I Googled his name and found a listed address in the right area for where we thought he'd be living. I wrote a letter, and mailed it. In the letter I stated that I was not sure I had the right person, gave some details that would identify who I was looking for, and I also promised that I would not make repeated attempts at contact if he did not wish to have any. I received no response. If it wasn't him, the person who read the letter didn't see fit to let me know as much. If it was him, he made his wishes clear.
So, not much progress on the bucket list this year either. I've added a couple of new items, but I don't expect to get very far in the coming year either. Now that I have my new camera I guess I can at least work on the AFV video and some application videos for game shows. Who knows, maybe one of those will happen in the next year.
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Mondays can go jump off a cliff. Especially the ones that follow a long weekend.
Today's misery aside, I had a pretty awesome Christmas. I totaled up $330 in cash and gift cards toward my new camera - the one thing I wanted this year. I went Saturday and got a Canon Powershot SD980. It's a sweet little camera. It's a member of Canon's "Digital ELPH" series, super compact for what it does, but not too small for me like many of these cameras tend to be. 12.1 megapixels, touch widescreen, and shoots HD video.
One of the main reasons I wanted a new camera was so I could use a gift I got last Christmas from my sister Dana: my 2GB Eye-Fi SD memory card. This thing is awesome. It's wi-fi enabled, and uploads your photos to your computer wirelessly as soon as you power your camera on within range of your wireless home network (or wherever you choose to set up the software). For a $10/year subscription, it will also automatically upload to any photo sharing web sites you choose out of the thirty or so that are available (this is a free feature with the more expensive versions of the card). With Eye-Fi I will almost never need to fiddle with manually connecting the camera to my computer, unless I need to upload video (something else the more expensive cards do but this one does not).
Apart from the camera, Santa also brought me some clothes, the "World Adventures" expansion for The Sims 3, and Wii Fit Plus (just the software as I already own a balance board). Chris got a TomTom GPS and a Griffin PowerDock 2 (a dual charging dock for both of our iPhones), clothes, cologne, and lots of underwear. His parents gave us some money to put toward a new couch at some point in 2010, and our crazy friends Joe and Sandra got us a toaster oven.
Even Brooskey and Vixen made out. Brooskey got a new bed from us, and two new toys from Auntie Dana and Nana (Chris' mom). We got Vixen a soft, plush blanket to cuddle up in, Dana sent her a pretty pink coat/harness, and Nana got her a rawhide bone almost as big as she is - just the size she likes them.
I hope Santa was as good to you as he was to us! What was the best gift you received this year?
(FTC Disclosure: Product links are affiliate links which will generate a commission payment to me if purchases are made through them. My opinions on these products are not influenced by this compensation.)
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I've been paying a friend to help me with grocery shopping and cleaning at home on Tuesday nights when Chris is playing poker. If you're thinking Chris should be helping with these things instead of playing cards, let me be clear: he does plenty. The whole rest of the week, he does all of the cooking, all of the laundry, and most of the other cleaning. But with one person cleaning up after two, plus two dogs, on top of a full time job which often includes overtime, it becomes impossible to keep up. This is my way of contributing, even though I have to pay someone else to do most of the legwork.
We're making gradual progress in making the place presentable again, and this weekend Chris and I got the bug and made a lot of headway. We got the dining room and coffee tables cleared and cleaned a bunch of stuff out of the office, throwing a lot of it away. We still need to go through all of the shelving units in the office - I'm sure there's a ton more to get rid of - but the floor is finally visible again and that's a huge improvement. We were so proud of the progress we made this weekend that we even felt comfortable having company in the house, so we invited Joe and Sandra over for a delicious Italian dinner. Hopefully there will be many more dinner parties in our future as we get rid of the rest of the clutter!
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The biggest weekend of the summer is over, and Joe & Sandra have finally tied the knot! It was an awesome weekend, starting with the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner on Saturday, the big event on Sunday, and even our recovery day off from work yesterday (Monday). I'm so happy the weather held out, even though the threat of thunderstorms loomed all Sunday evening (with an outdoor reception!) - they stayed away! Since Chris was the best man, he wasn't able to take any photos during the ceremony, but our friend Greg took some shots with our camera beforehand, and Chris got some during the wedding party's photography session after. Those are all up on Picasa. We were way too busy having fun during the reception to worry about pictures!
(In case you're wondering, the ceremony took place in Newport, Rhode Island, at Salve Regina University's Ochre Court, one of the cliff walk mansions which now serves as an administration building for the university. The reception was at NYLO Hotel in Warwick.)
I'm so proud of Brooskey and Vixen (especially Brooskey) for getting through this weekend without any tantrums, destruction, or other bad behavior. It was just them and me Saturday night, as Chris was already at the hotel with Joe, and we both stayed in the hotel Sunday night, so they spent their first ever night alone at home. Vixen was gated in the hallway because I couldn't possibly leave her in her tiny crate for that many hours. She didn't escape, and Brooskey didn't jump in with her or knock the gate over on her. We had our pet sitters make frequent visits including a trip to the dog park for Brooskey Sunday morning. (They were willing to take Vixen too, but Brooskey is very protective of her and we were worried about a fight starting if any of the dogs he dislikes were to mess with her.) Yesterday we rewarded them with a trip to "Porter Park" - i.e. Nana & Papa's backyard - for some quality play time.
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I just realized I haven't written anything about how I spent my birthday weekend, let alone this past weekend.
The morning of the 4th (my actual birthday), we woke up early to try to catch the little neighborhood Fourth of July parade in my boss' neighborhood. When we realized we were an hour early (I blame my boss for that), we decided to skip it and take the dogs to the dog park instead. Unfortunately, Vixen took a spill off the back seat of the car on the way, and hurt her leg. When we got to the park and got her out of the car, she seemed okay at first, but after a few minutes she wasn't putting any weight on it at all, so we decided to head back home. (She is still limping a little bit now, but healing gradually.)
![[me by the ocean]](http://www.confoozled.com/archives/assets/earlyjuly/001-thumb-200x150.jpg) Getting my hair all windblown at Beavertail State Park in Jamestown, RI. Chris kept insisting that he had failed at boyfriendhood and had made absolutely no plans for my birthday, and as the day wore on I was getting antsy to get out of the house, so we eventually got in the car and drove down to Beavertail Point in Jamestown. We took some pictures of the ocean, and toured the lighthouse and the tiny "aquarium", which was really just a room full of fish tanks of the size one would have in their home. 
![[my 30th birthday cake]](http://www.confoozled.com/archives/assets/earlyjuly/002-thumb-200x150.jpg) My cute little birthday cake made by Sandra and Tiana. Thanks, girls! On the drive back, Chris tried to make it look like he was making a casual stop at Joe & Sandra's house to see what they were up to, but as I half suspected, we were actually arriving at my surprise birthday party - the third one to be held at their house! Sandra and Tiana, Joe's sister, made me a cute little cake. My favorite, yellow cake with chocolate frosting, with an added bonus layer of chocolate pudding in the middle, and a "30" written in strawberry slices on top. We spent the rest of the day there, enjoying tasty alcoholic beverages and the beautiful weather (which miraculously cleared up for the weekend after epic rain and thunderstorms for the past month at least). Then the four of us headed down to Newport to crash the party on Joe's dad's boat, and drink some more.  (Those of us who weren't driving, that is.)
![[frozen drink at the beach]](http://www.confoozled.com/archives/assets/earlyjuly/003-thumb-150x200.jpg) A delicious piña colada at Ballard's Beach Bar on Block Island. Monday (the 6th) was my birthday gift from Chris: we spent the day on Block Island, off the south coast of Rhode Island. Now, while I do not have any tendencies toward seasickness whatsoever, I did learn that having a drink on the ferry at 10am with no food in my stomach was apparently pushing it a bit too far. No worries, though, I was fine once we got back on dry land. We headed right for lunch and more drinks (awesome mudslides at the National Hotel). Unless you're into lying on the beach all day, which I'm not, all there really is to do on the island is shop and drink, so that's what we did. And then we drank at the beach. We took the 5:45 high speed ferry back to the mainland, and had dinner at the Mews Tavern in Wakefield.
![[me and Chris at the golf tournament]](http://www.confoozled.com/archives/assets/earlyjuly/004-thumb-200x133.jpg) Me and my goofy boyfriend at the post-tournament dinner. Last week was a nice, short, three-day work week, as I took Friday off to go help out at the second annual charity golf tournament in honor of Joe's mother, Kat, who lost her life to cancer two years ago. The weather again miraculously came through, as it had gone back to rain as soon as the Fourth of July weekend was over. The tournament went great; we didn't have quite as big a turnout as last year, which is understandable with the economy the way it's been, but still managed to pull in just as much money if not more. The dinner was more fun, an outdoor barbecue as opposed to an indoor sit-down meal. Emotions were very raw last year, and there wasn't a dry eye in the house by the end of the night. This year everyone was better able to laugh and have a good time, which I know is the way Kat would have wanted it.
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We had a gorgeous weekend here in New England, though it did start out a little bit chillier than expected. We took advantage of the beautiful, sunny weather, and took Brooskey and Vixen to the dog park Saturday morning. Unlike last week, there were some dogs in the small dog area when we arrived, but just like last summer, Vixen wanted nothing to do with them and demanded to be moved over to the big dog side. She got quite the workout chasing after Brooskey and the other dogs as they chased balls and frisbees, and she slept like a baby in my arms the whole ride home. We also had a surprise meeting with Abbie at the park, and she got to play with some of the dogs, too (until one knocked her over in the sand!).
Saturday afternoon after running some errands, we went over to Joe and Sandra's house. Sandra and I played Trivial Pursuit while Chris and Joe did a little bit of work in the basement (Joe is under orders to have it finished by their wedding in late July). Then the guys grilled some hot dogs while I helped Sandra concoct a pasta salad from random leftovers (which turned out quite yummy).
Yesterday it got up over ninety degrees outside! In April! It was hot, but I was happier than a pig in mud. I wore shorts for the first time this year. (Actually I had put some on Saturday morning, but changed when we realized it wasn't going to be as warm as originally forecasted.) We took care of a few more errands, then went up to our friends Greg and Shanley's house to hang out and enjoy the hot weather. We took Brooskey with us so he could play in their big yard, but left Vixen home so she wouldn't get swallowed whole by their grouchy Akita, Raven.
It's much cooler today (sixty-six right now), but still gorgeous out. And it really sucks to be back at work.
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I have so much to blog about but still so little time! For now, here's the rundown of what I got for Christmas (in roughly the order I opened them)...
From my Secret Santa, a $25 iTunes card and a sugarplum fairy ornament.
From Joe and Sandra, a vanilla bath set and an All Stars gift certificate.
From my mom, two Cabin Cuddlers, a wind chime, and a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt.
From Dana, a pretty purple sweater, and a nifty Wi-Fi memory card for my camera.
She also sent Vixen a purple leopard print harness.
From Chris, another $50 to iTunes, and Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader for the Wii.
From Chris' parents, a silver chain to wear my "Sisters" ring on (several years ago I bought myself and my sisters matching rings with all four of our birthstones on them), a green turtleneck and fleece pullover, and an alarm clock with a dock for my iPhone.
We also got a few gift cards from them for restaurants and several stores.
And from his grandparents, $50 to spend wherever I choose. I haven't decided what to do with it yet.
What about you? Did you get everything you wanted?
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Sorry to bore you with another meme (yeah right, according to my stats you love them!). Angela at mommy bytes combined an e-mail meme with similar questions she found on four other blogs into a massive four things meme.
Four Jobs I've Had (not including your current job): This is going to be a stretch because I haven't had four real paying jobs, even counting my current one. For actual paying jobs, there's data entry clerk for the hometown school department, and temporary/seasonal sales associate at Electronics Boutique (now known as GameStop). Quasi-jobs include March of Dimes poster child (ick), and student aide for a couple of teachers in high school. I wasn't a kiss-up, I only did this for the cool teachers. One of them was a typing class, and it's where I was inspired to teach myself touch typing in a way that works for me (something the school didn't want to attempt because they thought it was impossible). I memorized the keyboard along with the class, and then spent tedious hours learning just the right distance to move my arms to make the three usable fingers reach all of the keys. The result: three-fingered touch typing speed that rivals those using all ten. Anyway, getting a little sidetracked here...
Four Movies I Can Watch Many Times: A Christmas Story, The Land Before Time, The Matrix, and Flight of the Navigator.
Four Places I've Lived: The only four: Los Angeles, CA; Eugene, OR; Hood River, OR; and Warwick, RI.
Four Places I've Vacationed: Canby, OR (where I used to go to summer camp); Rhode Island before I lived here; New Hampshire; and Orlando, FL (Disney World).
Four TV Shows I Love(d): I agree with Angela on Providence and Ally McBeal, but will try to come up with four more. Or rather, trying to limit it to four seems to be the bigger challenge. Okay, we'll start with the series return I'm most anticipating right now: Lost. Most unfair cancellation (twice): Jericho. Long time favorite I'll be sad to see go: ER. Favorite semi-new show: Eli Stone.
Four Novels (or Series) I've Enjoyed Re-Reading: Afraid I can't answer this one... don't think I've ever re-read anything.
Keep reading...
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 I did it. I applied color to my hair for the first time ever in my life. Yes, it was just spray-in color and I washed it out as soon as I got home from the Halloween party. Anyway, now I can reveal who we dressed as for the party: we were Peter & Lois Griffin from Family Guy. And you know what? It wasn't even my idea. Yes, Chris, he who has never dressed up for Halloween as long as I've known him, came up with the idea himself. It was a nice and easy (i.e. cheap) costume, too. Chris wore clothes he already owned (yes, Peter's pants are supposed to be green, but we couldn't find a decent pair of green pants anywhere and we figured most people wouldn't notice that detail anyway). All we had to buy for him was a $5 pair of reading glasses which we removed the lenses from... quite forcefully, by shattering them with a screwdriver. I bought my shirt and pants at Wal-Mart, for fairly cheap, and I can wear them to work so I'm not even counting it as part of the cost of the costume. And of course I had to buy the red hairspray.
I have two people to thank for some much needed help with this costume. First, Sandra, for helping me with the hair color. She and Joe also attended the party, dressed as Juno and Bleeker from the movie Juno. Second is a very generous local Freecycle member for allowing us to borrow his son's Stewie doll - the prop which made the costume. We had hunted all over town for a week and could not find one anywhere to buy, so this person is my hero.
Okay, I know you're dying to see the pictures. Here they are.
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Yesterday Chris and Joe took me and Sandra to our first Red Sox game at Fenway Park. We'll be lucky if we ever see another game from seats as good as the ones we had for this game. We were right about at the center of the bright circle in this seating chart. The only drawback to these seats, aside from lack of protection from the weather, which I'll get to in a minute, is that they're not up high enough to see over the heads of people entering and exiting the stadium. But as long as people weren't walking around, we had a perfect view. We were hoping to catch a foul ball (actually I was hoping the guys would come together over my head and keep me from getting hit) but the ones that came our direction all went too high.
A small but nasty thunderstorm rolled in during the sixth inning and the game was delayed for about thirty minutes. Our seats had no type of shelter overhead, and since the walkways into the concourses were completely jammed, our only option was to climb up to the higher seats under the pavilion boxes (balconies), but not before getting drenched by the rain and hail. Of course we weren't going to let a little weather ruin our day. Our seats and clothes all dried eventually, and when the sun came out afterwards I actually needed my sunglasses. iPhones and cameras all survived the rain, and here are the photos to prove it.
And best of all, a must for a first game... the Sox beat the Oakland A's, 5-2!
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Well here we are. I'm twenty-nine now. No, really. I really am twenty-nine, and next year I'll be thirty, not twenty-nine again. You can rest assured that I will never be one of those women who lies about her age. I will always be exactly the age I say I am, unless of course I get senile and lose count. I'm too proud of each and every year I've survived this life to ever lie about it.
Our friends Joe and Sandra hosted my birthday party again, just like last year, except it wasn't a surprise this time. It was going to be... it was in planning for a month before I found out about it. But between my attempts to make other plans for the same night, and Chris' realization that he'd never be able to sneak off and buy food with me home on vacation, he decided to tell me. The party was Thursday night. It was small, but we partied into the wee hours of the morning just the same. Good food, good friends (who are far too generous), and Rock Band are the makings of one great party.
Friday, the Fourth of July and my actual birthday, started out gray and drizzly. This always depresses me, but it was actually okay, because we needed to just lounge around and recover from our three hours of sleep while giving Brooskey and Vixen some time to be out of their crates and play with each other. They had been cooped up for a long time. Friday evening we met up with Joe and Sandra again and we all joined Joe's dad on his boat to watch the fireworks in Newport. We had a perfect view, and I wish we had taken the real camera, but all we had was Chris' iPhone (I left mine safely locked in the trunk of Sandra's car just in case we ended up in the drink while attempting transfer from the dinghy onto the actual boat). We haven't transferred the pictures to a PC yet to see how they came out, but there are a couple that look promising. I will post them here when they do get uploaded. It was another late night, and although we got home earlier than the night before, we were up just as late letting the dogs do their thing.
Keep reading...
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It seems that everyone who's going to participate in my little quiz has done so, so I've gone ahead and tallied up the scores. I averaged the scores for the two parts, and then added bonus points for anyone who got the last two questions right. Those questions were by far the hardest, since they dealt with my political opinions, which I do not often discuss publicly. You could have eliminated some of the wrong answers by hunting around here a bit, but the two correct answers were things I have never discussed directly on this blog or with anyone other than a select few.
Why don't I discuss my views on these issues? Mostly because, judging from the rah-rah political e-mail forwards I get, I feel like most of my opinions would be fairly unpopular amongst the company I keep. And since I'm not so naive as to think any of us can change one another's mind, I don't think it's worth it to jeopardize those relationships by making waves.
Anyway, I gave bonus points on those questions because those of you who were able to take a look at what you know about my personality and what's important to me, and deduce what the answers to those questions must be despite my never having discussed them... well, you just might know me better than anybody who can figure out that my favorite color is purple and that I'm a chocoholic.
Keep reading...
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![[sample wedding invitation]](http://www.confoozled.com/confoozion/archives/wedding-invite.jpg) As I previously mentioned, our friends Joe and Sandra are in the early stages of wedding planning after having gotten engaged two weeks ago. I will have to be sure to tell them about 1st Class Wedding Invitations, an online wedding invitation store I just found. They have tons of different designs, and you can browse by theme, color, or paper type. I especially love the one pictured here. Another really cool thing on their site is the zoom feature. Allegedly this is something no other wedding invitation site has. When viewing an invitation design, you can move your mouse over the image, and on the right-hand side you will see an extreme closeup of the area the cursor is on. You can see incredible detail.
While browsing I also recognized another of their designs as the invitation Laura and John (Abbie's parents) sent for their wedding four years ago. It brought back memories of the wildest wedding reception I think I've ever been to. Picture lots of drunk people holding lots of beers, dancing and singing along to Billy Joel and Garth Brooks. Oh... what do you know? I've got video! 
Keep reading...
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![[photo of me blowing out my birthday candle]](http://www.confoozled.com/confoozion/archives/28thbday-thumb.jpg) It's been a busy week; I've been trying to write this for three days. Last Tuesday night Chris fooled me into thinking we were going to On The Border with Joe and Sandra, and when we arrived at their house to pick them up, there was the party which I knew was happening, but honestly thought was going to be on Wednesday. Even Laura and John and baby Abbie (Chris' goddaughter) came. We spent most of Wednesday back at Joe and Sandra's house, eating up the leftovers from the night before... making for a really bad diet day, but what the hell, it was my birthday. I still lost another pound over the course of the week, so I don't think I did too much damage.
Unfortunately the weather was not kind to me for my birthday. Wednesday was cool and rainy and miserable, and though Thursday, which I also took off from work, was a little bit better, it still wasn't nice enough to really enjoy the outdoors.
But Sunday more than made up for the bad weather earlier in the week. We got to spend the day out on the water on Joe's dad's yacht, and it was awesome. The weather was gorgeous, and I was perfectly content just leaning back, closing my eyes, and letting the warm sun and the boat rock me to sleep. I remembered my sunscreen this time, so only got burned on a small spot on one side of my neck where the sunscreen missed. It was a totally fun and relaxing day, and I can't wait to do it again.
Oh, and my birthday surprise from Chris? A little addition to our trip to Florida... we're going to Discovery Cove at Sea World! Even better, we're doing the Twilight Discovery package, which is an all-inclusive evening program including twilight swims with the dolphins and tropical fish, dinner, and dancing - and they only admit 150 people a night. ![[tropical fish smiley]](http://www.confoozled.com/smilies/icon-o-matic/oceanic/fish_16.png)
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It's taken me a while to sit down, upload all my photos, and write about my summer mini-vacation, but at long last... here it is!
Thursday, July 3
We decided to take a short road trip up to the Kittery, ME area. We started in York, because I had read that it was full of fun, touristy things to do. Well, it wasn't quite as exciting as they made it out to be, but we still had some fun driving through and exploring. One thing I can say, is that York must be the antique capital of the world, or something. I counted no fewer than six antique shops... and that's just the ones I spotted.
We continued driving north out of York, into Ogunquit and then Wells. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Mainiax, which couldn't seem to make up its mind whether it was in Wells or Ogunquit. After lunch, and after looking at the free area map the restaurant provided, we visited a little outlet called The Sweatshirt Shop, which we would never have spotted without said map. After doing a little damage there, we drove down to Kittery to check out the many outlet malls there. I have to say there wasn't anything that special about it. There weren't really any outlets we couldn't find closer to home. Still, I managed to find a dress for Saturday's party at the Tommy Hilfiger outlet, so I was happy.
When we got bored with Kittery we drove back up to York to visit a place we had spotted before. York's Wild Kingdom: Maine's Largest Zoo & Amusement Park. If this was the largest, I really have to wonder about the smallest (or maybe it was the only?). But it was a lot of fun; the animals seemed to have a lot more personality than those you see in large metropolitan zoos, and there was a lot more interaction between visitors and the animals. There were several hands-on feeding/petting areas, including the usual goats and llamas, but also ducks and geese, and even deer. The highlight for us though, was three of the caged animals - I only wish we had taken the camera in with us!
First, was the kangaroo. It was rather warm out, but at the time we visited the kangaroo cage, a breeze had begun blowing, providing some relief. The male kangaroo took advantage of this breeze, by lying down flat on his back, legs spread with everything on display, letting the wind blow across his belly and other unmentionables. You could tell by his face that he was thoroughly enjoying himself.
Then, the frustrated lion. The male and female lion were separated, presumably to prevent unwanted breeding. And there was the male, pacing back and forth, rubbing against the female's cage door, grunting like Tim Taylor. Another guest standing next to us said, "I know what he wants," resulting in many chuckles from other onlookers.
And finally, the best of all, was one of the monkeys. This guy knew people were looking at him, and definitely knew how to work a crowd. He would prance back and forth across the front of the cage, strutting his stuff like some kind of model, and then suddenly he would stop, grab the cage with both hands, give the toothiest grin you've ever seen, and bob his head from side to side. Bursts of laughter would set him off again, prancing back and forth, making everyone wait until he would do it again, drawing it out, then finally doing it again just when you were about to give up on him. I have to say it was the funniest thing I have ever seen in a zoo. Oh how I wish I'd had the camera!
During our exploration of the area, I made note of a few business names which struck me as funny for one reason or another. "Sister Mary Catherine's Internet Cafe" - I don't know why; this just made me laugh. "Rent-A-Husband" - do I want to know? And "Yum Mee Chinese Restaurant" - need I say more?
Friday, July 4
The long-awaited fireworks cruise on the Southland Riverboat! We wanted to go on this cruise last year but when we called for tickets, it was already sold out. So we put in a reservation for this year's cruise. We nearly forgot about it in the busy year that has passed; fortunately Chris remembered just days before they sold out, because they didn't bother to contact us and would have sold our tickets. What was the point of making the reservation then? I don't know. But we did get our tickets, and I got to go out on the ocean (well, the bay really) for the first time in my life.
The fireworks themselves were a bit disappointing. They were low and kinda difficult to see, and they started 20 minutes late, which meant the boat had to turn around and head home before the grand finale. But the boat ride itself was well worth the $25 ticket - I loved it! Now I'm hooked; I'm going to be out on the water every chance I get. The water was beautiful, the sunset was gorgeous, and the ride was so relaxing. We took lots of pictures... tried to capture the fireworks but no luck.
Saturday, July 5
We had the best party we've ever hosted (it helps when people show up). There isn't really much to say... we just had a really good time. We did have a slight problem with our first attempt at making Jello shots - way too much rum. Seriously, they tasted like jellied rum. However, that didn't stop me from going back for a second one, after I had a few drinks in me. Lesson learned, next time we'll try using half as much.
We played a great party game called Man Bites Dog, courtesy of my sister Dana who bought it for me for my birthday (thanks Dana!). It was a lot of fun, and I suspect the levels of alcohol in our bloodstreams compounded that fact. We had to slightly change the rules... play is normally to 500 points, but since Chris decided to score half that in the first round(!), we doubled it to 1,000. Unfortunately, he still won!
Since Chris got a little distracted by his bottles of Corona and forgot to take pictures, we let our friend Joe get ahold of the camera. He came up with some interesting shots, to say the least.
Sunday, July 6
Ah, the morning after... Surprisingly, I did alright. In fact, it was the first morning all week that I didn't wake up with a headache. Hmm, maybe I should eat jellied rum more often!
Chris, however, wasn't so lucky. Even the dog was worn out. Of course, I had to finish filling up the camera's memory card, at their expense.
Thursday, July 10
Now technically, our vacation was only the week of the 4th. But since it took me so long to get all of this posted, I decided to include this week's adventures in the same post.
Thursday was the day of the Bayside Country Club (our apartment complex) annual pool party. Okay, so it was nothing special... a bunch of neighbors we don't know, a dorky DJ, mediocre food. The only reasons I have to make note of it here, are 1) because I actually won one of the raffle prizes - a three-tiered tabletop water fountain with a candle holder at the top - and 2) to lead into Friday...
Friday, July 11
Sandra (Joe's girlfriend and my best friend on this side of the country) works for the company that owns our complex, and invited us to the pool party at her complex, Cowesett Hills, Friday night. This party kicked the pants off of the one at Bayside! The catering was wonderful... beautiful displays including huge floral arrangements, and awesome food. And they had karaoke! And the most surprising thing, I got up the guts to sing... not once, but twice... without a drop of alcohol to encourage me. I'm so glad I did, because it was a blast. I had so much fun. I have Sandra to thank, for being the type of friend who brings me out of my shell, brings out the wild girl hidden under my shy exterior. Given the chance, I will definitely sing karaoke again, especially if Sandra is there to egg me on.
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