FAMILY REUNION AND TEST SHOTS

This weekend was Memorial Day weekend 2011. I bought a new camera and the above pictures are a few test-shots. It’s the new Canon A3300IS or something like that and you can read my review on Amazon.com. I think the camera is just ok. You be the judge.
      We had a great weekend with friends, whom some are as close as family but we haven‘t hung out in ages because everyone is so stupid busy. So it was nice to reunite with them.  Ryan and Diana were down visiting from the Baltimore area and we went to a cook-out party thrown for them. It was a trip down memory lane because many of the guests were friends my husband and I hung out with and have known for over 20 years. It was a night I didn’t want to end because I knew that afterwards I’d be snapped back into reality that it’s not 20 years ago, it’s 2011. We have kids, we have busy jobs, we have mortgages, we have debt, we have stress,  we just don’t have time…
     Anyway, by Sunday I was already on “E” as far as my sleep-tank. In the evening we headed over to other friends/family’s house for a slumber party. Again, I wanted to stop time. They have a screened-in porch with cozy rocking chairs, a ceiling fan, and a cooler full of ice-cold beers. Between drinking on that porch and lounging at their neighborhood pool, we didn’t do much else and that was the way it was supposed to be.
       Oh yeah, and we ate a lot this weekend! Bacon, beer, brats, biscuits… DANG YOU, Trader Joe’s B-word foods!!!! I gained no less than five more pounds over the weekend. I really need to just start hanging out with friends who do nothing but go to the gym and encourage me to work out too. Wait, I have those friends but the intervention failed.

BOOKED

I told you I was going to do it and I did it! I booked my flight to Ecuador! I leave July 9th. It's such a great feeling to do what you say you're going to do, isn't it? I can't wait to see my friends there again. It's been since 2009. 

THE POINTS SYSTEM

     I’d like to think I’m still pretty young and cool. Yes, I may have a kid going on eleven who‘s almost taller than me. Yes, I may have a *few* fat rolls here and there….along with a *few* laugh-lines around my eyes. Yes, I may buy the majority of my clothes at Wal-Mart to save us money. But, you know what?? At least I can say that just five years ago I was still in my 20s! Now that’s cool! Except, when I’m 50, am I still going to be crowing the same line?
    Well, anyway, this past weekend goes to show I still got some whipper-snapper left in me, and I‘ll outline it with the cool-points system below:

 Friday night I was bowling with some friends.
Bowling + a group of  15 friends = 25 cool points
Having to use the bumpers and still scoring under 56 = -12 cool points
Then I got a phone call.
Talking on my new Droid + talking with my friend who is under 30 =  9 cool points
She invited me to Busch Gardens Williamsburg for the following day.
 Last minute plans + amusement park + kid and husbands not invited = 100 cool points.
We would be using a coupon = -27 cool points
My phone died mid conversation = -18 cool points
I got to go to Busch Gardens the next morning with three of my friends under 20 = 30 cool points.
I was the only one who packed my breakfast and ate it on the ride there = -30 cool points
I was the only one who packed a lunch too = - 30 cool points
I’m scared of roller coasters + I held their purses while they all rode the coasters = -137 points
I got my picture taken with an orange peel on my head just for sheer silliness = 35 cool points
We all used a map to get around the park = - 49 cool points
We all drank a few rounds of beer, throwing caution to the wind as to our waistlines = 300 cool points
I forgot to bring my ID, so they had to buy the beer for me =
- 600 cool points
One of the girls had her boyfriend meet up with us later.
1 cute guy + my 3 cute friends all under 20 = 1,500 cool points
He bought me beer too and now I owe him money because I didn't bring enough cash = -900 cool points
At the very end of the day the skies opened up and poured down rain leaving us soaking wet to the core.
 We were too cool to care and just laughed + we changed our clothes in the backseat of her car = 1,800 cool points
I didn’t change my wet underwear, so it stained my dry jeans like I peed on myself + I wore my pee-stained jeans to a restaurant and everyone stared at my crotch =
Subtract whatever cool points I earned the whole day.
I drank some more beer = 13 cool points
I had to do it behind the waiter’s back because he wouldn’t serve me alcohol since I forgot my ID + all my young friends laughed at me for being 34 and having to sneak beer sips = - 600 cool points
I got hit on at the bar = 9,000 cool points
He was 48 and bald + the bartender wouldn’t serve me alcohol without my ID = -6,000 cool points
We didn’t get back home until after 2am = 10,000 cool points
I had drank too many liquids + there were no bathrooms on the road we were on so I had to pee on the side of the road in the rain = - a million cool points

So while I may have come out in the negative in the end when it comes to being young and cool, I still had a great time with my young friends and we’ll be laughing about this for a long time to come.

TORNADO ALLEY

I know these photos are over a  month late, but I still thought I should post them and tell you the story of the day a massive tornado hit our area.
    It happened on a Saturday sometime after four. We had just gotten home from somewhere; I can’t recall where. It began getting dark outside and windy and overall gloomy, just like it always does before a rainstorm. Except we had this eerie feeling it was more than just a regular rainstorm, so we turned on the weather channel. It was like something out of a movie. There, on our TV screen, was live feed of a tornado touching down and literally eating downtown, about 25 minutes south of us. The station, not our TV, kept going to black about every two minutes as the weatherman  screamed “Oh my god! It’s….”
Black screen, no sound.
 Back on.
 Back off.
Back on long enough to hear “It’s heading towards…
in about seven minutes”
My husband’s eyes got big as he directed our daughter to put the dogs in their crates and clear out the floor of a hall closet. This was it. A tornado was heading to our suburban town. Our state is known for getting whacked by hurricanes. I’ve lived through some big ones here. But never a tornado. I dusted off our flashlights once I found them. My daughter put on her bike helmet “just in case”. We filled up a couple jugs of water and grabbed some thick blankets and did all those other odd things that you’re supposed to do in an emergency. And an emergency this was. The calm before the storm had my daughter and I huddling in the closet with my husband standing at the window.
A long silence.
Then…
“It’s HERE!” He dives into the closet with us like it’s third base. The tornado skirts down our road. It indeed sounds like the proverbial train. My ears pop. The whole ordeal lasts less than two minutes. We opened the front door to assess the damage. The air was thick with the smell of pine sap and the rain was still coming down in sheets. But the actual tornado had lifted and dissipated, so my husband helped neighbors pull a large tree out of the street. Two doors down, a tree was laying on its side in a living room. We had no water or electricity for about 15 hours, so we spent that night at a friend’s house 30 minutes away who got no damage. I had a very large glass of wine that night, said a prayer of thanks and relief, hugged my daughter tight, and went to bed before ten completely exhausted from stress.
      The next morning our friends had hot coffee ready for us and we all sat on the couch in our PJs watching TV. News reports and videos were flooding the news station from around the whole state. The city was a wreck! I was anxious to get home and see if my neighborhood had survived. The pictures don’t due justice to what we saw, but at least our house was unscathed. Now I can say I have also lived though a tornado. Some in our area cannot say the same. Three kids who lived about ten minutes from us were killed in the storm.

LIVING LIKE A BOSS IN THE JUNGLE

So I'm planning a return trip to Ecuador in mid-July and I'm thinking about visiting the jungle town of Tena in the Napo region. I was thinking at first I would just book a cheap hostel in town, but then thought, "Hey, I'm in the jungle, I should spend a few extra bucks and stay in a jungle lodge." (For some reason I'm always talking myself into spending more money.) So I've been getting on Google, Lonelyplanet .com, and tripadvisor.com trying to find a budget jungle hut that I can wyle-out in for 5 nights or so. I found your average, run-of-the mill lodges basically all the same: thatched roofs, hammocks for a bed, mosquito netting, no AC, jungle breakfast included in the price brought to you on a wooden tray by a spider monkey in a little red tuxedo... *yawn* Then I stumbled onto this: http://www.hamadryade-lodge.com/ 
First of all, who knew this kind of luxury could exist in the RAIN FOREST of all places??!! 
Second of all, how can the owners/guests throw such Donald Trump-like luxury in the faces of the natives who live on less than a dollar a day and eat ants??
And thirdly... Can I borrow a couple hundred bucks? I mean, it does include breakfast.

EDIT: Although I am amazed in a drool/trance way when I view this website, it does not compare to the work of the web developing master and my friend Christina R.

Termas de Papallacta

Since I have Ecuador on the brain, I thought you guys might want  to read one of my Trip Advisor reviews on a resort a couple hours away from Quito:


We live in Otavalo, Ecuador and were having friends from the States come visit us. We picked them up in Quito and took a bus from the station to the town of Papallacta the next day. I think the bus said Baeza on the side and it was just a few dollars. The road to Papallacta is beautiful, but at some parts not for the faint of heart. (dirt roads, curvy, steep drop-offs with no guardrails...) We got off at the fork of the road just before the bus continues on to Baeza and had some cold beers at the La Choza Don Wilson before hailing down a truck that all seven of us rode up the hill for 60 cents. It drops you right at the door of Termas de Papallacta. We got a large, 2-story cabin with kitchenette and fireplace. Several private hot pools were right outside our door, literally 10 steps away to heaven! The staff was pretty friendly (but not overly) and the maids let us peek inside the other non-cabin rooms. They were very clean and cheery, but not near as awesome as our cabin. The grounds are full of huge heated thermal pools and you can swim all day in a different pool of different temps and depths. Our group ranged from age 6 to 56 and we all had a GREAT time, however this town and resort is in the middle of NOWHERE and there's not much to do but relax, which was PERFECT for our group. We did a self-guided hiking tour which you can discover lot of flora and fauna including llamas that let you pet them. For a fee there were also longer guided hikes and horse-back riding, but not much else, so bring a book if you bore easily. We ate at the restaurant once, but the prices are "Americanized" and food wasn't  that special, so we instead walked down the road out of the resort to the other small hostels which also had restaurants with great, cheap, authentic food. And since they don't get much business, they bent over backwards to make our meals extra special. Another thing to keep in mind is the weather. I brought a terry-cloth robe to wear when walking from pool to pool because the altitude there is still quite high making for chilly and cloudy days. I saw other wet guests shivering and running to hurry and get into the next hot pool.  But if you get lucky and the skies clear, look to the north for a view of a snow-capped volcano in all its glory. All in all, this resort is worth the price we paid for the cabin and I WILL be back!

ECUADOR BECKONS

I'm doing it. I'm booking a flight and just going. I miss my friends, I miss the flowers, I miss the food, I miss the craziness, I just MISS Ecuador. My friend Jenny wants me to come visit her in Olon in July and then travel around the country visiting various friends that we know throughout. Who knows...maybe I'll even go back to Cotacachi and re-rent my old apartment. And in case you're wondering about the picture above, that used to be my view out of my bedroom window. Yep, it's a real volcano!

HOT

Can anyone tell me why it's already in the mid 80s in May??!!