My Adventures and Travels

Sorry, photos will have to be added later...my mom took most of them, and I'll need Toni's help to get the others off my camera. Anyway it has been a weekend full of celebration! I had my very last graduate class on Thursday and took Friday off to celebrate and RELAX! I slept in, read in bed, and picked up my cap & gown. Then at 5 it was off to Cindy's to PARTY! She and Matt threw a great party-food, drink, family, friends, and even a poker game later on! It was a wonderful graduation gift. I think I can safely say a good time was had by all! As a little icing on the cake, we played a late poker game and Toni and I got 1st and 2nd place (we don't know who got what, it was getting late and we decided to split the winnings). Early Saturday morning we headed downtown for graduation. It was hot, and long, but worth it to celebrate such hard work! I saw an old friend from UNC and a friend from a few classes, which was nice. After the ceremony, we did the pictures and wen...

Yes, it has been forever since I updated....apologies, life has been quite hectic! Since my last posting I have submitted my portfolio (HUGE amount of work!) for graduation and been working hard to finish all of my assignments for my two grad classes. Unfortunately I'm nowhere near done, work-wise. Although I have only two classes left, Monday and Thursday, I have four papers and a presentation to do! However, I'm in a great mood. Here's why: I am supposed to find out about if my portfolio is accepted sometime tomorrow or later. I asked my professor tonight, how much later? Because I have been having nightmares about that thing. He said, "I can't tell you now that your portfolio was accepted, but you can stop having nightmares." Woohoo! Although my school's third grade class has the lowest CogAt (cognitive abilities) test scores in the whole district, our CSAP reading scores came in this week and they went up 5 percentage points. Yippee! (We worked our col...

It has been far too long since I've gotten back from Vegas, but I've been unable to log on and post for some reason! It was a great weekend. I went with Toni, his cousin Johnny, and Johnny's wife Jess. We stayed out until all hours because we could (who knew the monorail stopped running after 3am? Darn! I thought the city never slept!), played in several poker tournaments (Jess and I made more money than we lost, but the guys weren't so lucky), watched the filming of the National Heads Up Poker Championship (that was cool, lots of famous poker players up close!), and in general just gawked at the over-the-top-ness of Vegas. Huge hotels, chocolate fountains, the garden in Caesar's Palace....it was a fun weekend!

Okay, for those of you following it....the old record of 63 consecutive days of snow cover....still stands. We fell 2 days short with 61 days. Then we got some lovely Colorado-style February weather with several days in the 60s this week! Woohoo! And then, of course, snow this weekend. And now: I will try not to blog about the weather anymore, because I think that's all I've been doing! Unfortunately, I think it is because I have been too busy to do much of interest to anyone else lately. Work, class, homework, grading, report cards. See, where's the fun in that? Things are busy as always with report cards and 2 class assignments due this week, and parent-teacher conferences 2 days next week but behold! There is fun on the horizon! After conferences next week, I have a 3-day weekend and Toni and I are going to Vegas with his cousin and cousin's wife! So that will be a very welcome break! I don't really know what we're doing as they are planning everything but so...

Below is copied snow on the ground from one of the news websites-we are going for a record here. It snowed yesterday. It snowed today. It pretty much always snows now. It's tough at work because the kids can never play outside...oh yes a cold front came in today and it's below zero and WAY below zero with windchill....normally I just stay inside but tonight I had to take the light rail downtown for class! Boo! Anyway, that's all my whining, cause who wants to read a post of someone whining, especially if there aren't even any interesting pictures? Oh, speaking of...yesterday the radio said it was snowing when it woke me up so I looked outside. I couldn't even tell if it was snowing or had snowed because everything was all white as usual. Okay, the good news? Tomorrow is Friday! Yippee! December 2006 20 -- Trace 21 -- 21 inches 22 -- 21 inches 23 -- 16 inches 24 -- 15 inches 25 -- 15 inches 26 -- 9 inches 27 -- 6 inches 28 -- 4 inches 29 -- 11 inches 30 -- 12 inches ...

Okay, my postings are becoming fewer and farther between! For one, of course, I am back to school. It's a busy time of year (what time isn't?) with CSAP, report cards, and parent teacher conferences all looming. My class also seems to be getting more difficult every day. Maybe it's all the inside recesses and 6th weekend snowstorm in a row in the mail? Even more than that though I am taking 2 grad school classes. See, I would've taken 1 last semester and 1 this semester but neither of the 2 I needed to graduate were offered in the fall! I really want to graduate and be done (and get a raise!) in May so I have to just get through it....which means 2 15-hour days a week with evening classes, and homework all weekend-boo! Okay, now I'm done whining...err, that is, explaining why you might not hear from me for weeks on end! On the bright side, I've had some good poker games lately....got 4th in Hold' Em on Sunday and 1st (!!) in Omaha! Then I got 2nd on Tuesday....

WOOHOO! Today Denver won their bid for the 2008 Democratic National Convention! Cool!

With the newest snowstorm moving in, Toni and I went off to poker at a bar/restaurant in Lafayette called Dillingers. For those of you who don't know, Toni's job is to run poker games; he owns a small company that does this. Because of the snow, it was a smaller-than-usual crowd. The adventures began when the power went out....and stayed out for over 2 hours! However, we are die-hard poker players because there wasn't even a question of ending the game-and we even played a second game afterwards! Many candles, flashlights, and even cell phone lights were used in order to see the cards. I tried to take pictures of this fun night, but either it was too dark, or the flash went off so it's hard to tell how dark it actually was. It was definitely a different kind of poker game! It snowed all evening and night, but the 18" predicted never materialized for Denver....it was maybe a foot of snow, but that's plenty when you get plowed in on all 3 sides! (Thanks, Toni, fo...

We are getting yet another big winter storm....and I don't even get a snow day for this one! The good news is, I don't have to go anywhere. This one they are predicting 9-18 inches for the metro area and it is the WET stuff (read: heavy). I spent a couple hours on Tuesday chopping away at the ice coating my driveway, and shovelling off my porch, which conveniently drips water onto my driveway as the snow melts, making it very slick after it freezes! I guess, if it was possible to go anywhere in my Corolla (it isn't) it would be a great time to go skiing with the ticket I got from mom! Ah, well, I'm starting to wish I stayed in Costa Rica! Hope everyone is warm out there, and that there is actually food in the grocery stores where you live! Til next time...

Luckily, we had a small Christmas planned this year with no one coming or going through the airport! It was just Peter, Mom, Mark, and I up at Mom's house. We went up mid-afternoon on Christmas Eve, and Mom cooked up a storm! The feast included some polenta appetizers, homemade spinach pasta and 2 sauces, a giant salad, and some great bread. The pasta was delicious! We were all stuffed. Mom was scheduled to work on Christmas day, so we opened all of our presents last night, too-what fun! I think everyone got great presents. Some highlights of mine included a ski ticket, some good knives, and tons of books-many to prepare me for my travels! Luckily I was the one with the camera, so caught everyone else looking silly at some point-haha! It was almost 1:00 a.m. by the time we were finished unwrapping-with a break for some dessert. Mom got an extra Christmas present this morning and didn't have to go in to work! She has the most seniority at work now, so she didn't have to go i...

Here are some pictures of the winter wonderland we've been experiencing...I went up to Toni's and we spent a good part of the day digging out. Above, you can see the actual level of the snow by the house--and then the mountain it became as we shoveled! At one point Toni went to stomp it down because we kept throwing snow up and it just fell back down where we shoveled. Today we both are pretty sore, but no longer snowed in.

About 14 hours after the flakes started falling, they are still coming with no sign of stopping any time soon! The city is pretty much shutting down....schools, major highways, malls (4 days before Christmas!) and the airport are all closed. So today was all about hot cider, white chili, and plenty of relaxation! I'll admit I'm getting a little stir crazy, though it is pretty to look at.

Well, since I have a snow day from school today, I've decided to start up with the blog thing again. Originally I started it to update people on my Costa Rica adventures....I don't really think my day-to-day life is that exciting! But lots of out-of-state family members have blogs, so I guess I'm feeling left out! So the big thrill is that it's a SNOW DAY today! There is almost no snow on the ground but the predictions kept going up....from 4-8 inches to 10-20, now they are saying 16-24 inches for the Denver area! Yahoo! Hopefully I can post some pics when the snow is impressive-looking enough!

I've been having a hard time posting photos to the blog. Check for them here instead: http://www.flickr.com/photos/12391659@N00/

First of all I want to paste in something that Danielle wrote about her travels in Argentina (and pretty much all of South America): As one girl said, in the life of traveling a day can be a week, I mean honestly you are thrown into living together and often it works out that you do absoluetly everything toghether until you say goodbye, which is a bit strange, it is like making excellent friends and then turning around after you say goodbye and never knowing if you´ll speak to each other again, a sad but wonderful experience, you take a little piece of each person with you!!! Ok enough of my sentimental stuff, maybe it´s the wine talking or the sappy eighty music. See, she has the same punctuation problem I do, but I think she summed up how quickly you get to know people, especially traveling solo. It{s great but strange too. Thanks Danielle for the quote! :) Plans for my last full day at the beach...the boat ride I wanted to go on is full but I{m going to go anyway in case there wer...

Hola amigos! Let me tell you, I am mad this computer has too short of an attention span for me to post pictures, cause I have some fun ones! Anyhow here is the weekend update. On Saturday, Aarti and I took the bus to Liberia. From there we EVENTUALLY contacted a hotel with a correct phone number in our guide book which took some time given the pay phone, wrong number, phone card in spanish complications. The park is really remote and so are the hotels near it; thus we had to get them to come and get us because no buses came. So Oscar picked us up in Liberia and it was a bumpy hour long 4WD ride to the hotel. Oh this is great: 4 by 4s in Spanish are called "cuatro para cuatros." Anyway the hotel was very basic but nice because it{s a small, family owned joint and they are so helpful in making plans, asking you what time your meals are and all that. We had dinner there and breakfast the next morning (amazing food and so much fresh fruits and veggies, mom!) and then a driver too...

Hey all! I am now DONE with my 4 weeks of Spanish classes and have 1 week to travel. First, important parental stuff: Mom tomorrow I am going to Rincon de la Vieja National Park. It has stuff like an active volcano, boiling mudpots, and hot springs. I'll be staying with a girlfriend in Hotel Boyeros, phone number 666/0995 if you really need me. Country code for CR is 506. Then 2 nights (probably) on my own in the same park in a place called the Rinconcito Lodge, 666/2764. Then I'll be heading back to the beach, I think Playa Braselito, don't know hwere I'll be staying yet but they have email there. Thursday will head down to San Jose to catch my flight on Friday. Now that that's taken care of, I JUST GOT BACK FROM PARASAILING! It was totally amazing, i have pictures, of course they are trapped in my camera. The trip was led by a really nice guy who moved here from NY (assured me he's a coast guard and that he put the engine in the boat himself, etc). It was abso...

Haha I read that on a tshirt yesterday on a guy that only spoke Spanish and it cracked me up. Anyway, the best laid plans...I got up at 3:30am on Saturday morning to catch a 5am bus to Liberia, Costa Rica. My first public bus adventure! I slept through most of it. Got to Liberia at about 8am, went to the OTHER bus station (why they can{t have just 1 I don{t know)to meet my friends and catch the bus to Nicaragua....which had just left! And it doesn{t run that often, and I didn{t know where everyone was going and all that, so I opted against going by myself. So, what to do in Liberia? Not much, took a cab but instead of returning to Playa Flamingo decided to check out Tamarindo, the surf town, instead. Headed there, hung out on the beach and watched people surf. but I couldn{t swim cause I had my whole weekend bag for Nicaragua and it just wouldn{t do to have all my money and passport and camera, etc. stolen. Then I wandered the town and shopped a bit. Walking back to the beach ran into ...

I have 5 minutes left of my computer time so here goes. This weekend Im heading up to Omatepe in Lake Nicaragua for some volcano climbing with my roommate here and several of her friends from Tamarindo. Should be great. Wednesday night is ladies night here and it is the talk of the town all week before and after. I had a little mishap stepping from the deck onto the beach, which is a very big step for someone short like me...so I twisted my ankle when I landed and totally fell and skinned my knee. Sad. Mom, I cleaned out the sand best I could and have been putting that bacitracin zinc stuff on it. But I could barely walk on my ankle the next day, but it has loosened up and is getting better. A nice lady at the B&B even gave me an ice pack. I think I{ll survive, if I can get my hiking boot on it I{m climbing a volcano this weekend. I figure if I can{t get my shoe on I have no business hiking. Also the keyboard here is weird and I can{t figure out apostrophes so sorry about all that....