25th Anniversary in Belize (2018 catchup)

But first, the boys made a homemade apple pie for Thanksgiving dessert and that was nice.



And we ate on my grandmother's antique china - also very nice.

I finished this sweater just in time, which is a cool pattern where you knit whatever gauge you do and then find the appropriate directions, complete with various sleeves and borders. Little bit see-through.

And then it was off to Belize! This was our 2nd trip, but the first time we took Lucas for Spring Break and stayed on the mainland. This time we jumped on another tiny plane and headed to Ambergris Cay and the city of San Pedro - Madonna sang about it in La Isla Bonita.

This is my view from the balcony, and that's the sock I brought to work on. I should mention at this point that when flying within Belize, you may not have knitting needles or tiny scissors of any sort, and so my precious scissors gifted me by Becky were confiscated because I was doing Alabama Chanin sewing on the plane but the knitting was in checked baggage. (Moment of silence please for the sharpest scissors I ever had.)

Belize is the easiest Central American country in which to vacation (in my humble opinion) because it is 2.5 hours from Houston, the official language is English, it's on Central Standard Time, and they use the American dollar, plus the Belizean dollar is twice the American - no complicated arithmetic! This was new construction being held up by trees, apparently, until more rebar presents itself. Interesting.

Pause for beauty:



Haha - that's the dessert the resort (Victoria House - fabulous) sent to our room after dinner - total surprise!





And this isn't beautiful, but there aren't many cars on San Pedro because it's so tiny, so everybody drives a golf cart - precious!

This was some wildlife that ventured into the open-air restaurant.

This is a Cuban and fish tacos from the coolest joint in North San Pedro called Truckstop. It's a bunch of container trucks that all serve different kinds of food and have live entertainment. We took the boys back there for this Thanksgiving - more on that later - and they had a Family Feud game with families from the audience that was hilarious.

This is behind the containers where they have a huge space with Cornhole games, ping-pong, giant Jenga, and they put up a movie screen behind this pool for movie nights...that you can watch from the pool - what?!

Dean knew about "Chicken Drop" which is on select nights at a local bar, and for $1 you can pick a number and if the chicken poops on it, you win $100. Very touristy.

We did take a fishing trip and I caught a bonefish, which you don't eat, apparently, because it's full of bones, but it's sure pretty to look at before you throw it back. And if you wonder why I'm so buttoned up, this was a half-day fishing trip with no roof or shade whatsoever - I was NOT going to burn in Belize!

And this was in the iconic bar at the airport heading back home where the owner is a little old short guy (think the Oompa Loompa from Johnny Depp's version, and I mean absolutely no disrespect, but he's quite something) who's kind of hard to understand but does all kinds of tricks like yanking your napkin out from under your drink, etc. He's not in the picture but Dean couldn't resist the mooner next to me. We were figuring out how to AirDrop pics to each other on our phones when a chick in the bar yells out, "I got your pictures, Dean!" Good times...

Fall 2018 Update - Groove

Okay, so the coolest thing I did in 2018/2019 was get my Groove certification! I've been watching Body Groove videos by Misti Tripoli on YouTube ever since my sister showed them to me, and when they said they had training classes to lead Grooves with kids and families, I realized that my calling is to dance with my patients and inspire kids to get moving, and this will fit the bill much better than the Dr. Fun dance channel, so I pulled that big ole trigger. I also invited my sister to keep me company in San Diego, where the training was.

Just a shot of Atlanta's underground jungle - there are fake birds flying overhead and fake rain - so cool.

So we arrived Thursday afternoon, had some drinks to get ready for 1.5 hours of dancing with complete strangers, and headed to the resort where the Community Groove was. It was a packed house and definitely culture shock, but kind of liberating. After that, Tracey had to sit in the lobby another hour and wait for me to finish the first official class.

Our room looked over a lagoon with cool fog every morning, and Tracey stitched and read while I was in classes for 19 hours over the weekend.

This was the epitome of training - putting in your earbuds, firing up your playlist, and grooving around the resort in public - yikes! We got lots of weird looks but had so much fun.

After that I had to do 6 practice classes with at least 5 participants each and send one in for evaluation and certification. This entailed lots of research into sound systems, speakers, receivers, headsets, etc. Totally out of my wheelhouse.

This is my first Groove party at the hospital, and they even had an Azalea Trail Maid come! Unfortunately, I only had 1 patient and her grandmother show up, but the 3 of us danced anyway. The second party was even more interesting, as an elderly couple showed up by themselves, and I talked the husband into dancing with us instead of sitting in the car waiting on his wife. They were completely willing to come to another class, but I broke it to them that I'm only certified for kids and their families, not adults. So I moved on from the hospital to the Crichton Boys & Girls Club, and danced with 40-50 kids over this past summer - lots of funny stories there. The sweetest was having kids run up and hug me when I walked in and one girl telling me I was her best friend. Another was having a couple of the older boys roll their eyes and yell, "Not HER again!" And there was that one escapee who ran out of the gym after the coach broke up a fight and when the coach went after him it sounded like I was in the middle of a prison riot. I'm still working on the appropriate location for future Groove parties.

Okay, this is Halloween at the office...

I made my fake fur wrap out of fleece and the black dress is the first one I ever made back in about 1996 or so. Still fit in it - booya!

This was at the American Heart Association national meeting in Chicago at the employment fair trying to hire a partner. I think I looked more like a cougar on the prowl...hmmmm.

And this was for "Couples' Weekend" in New Orleans. We bowled, so Dean went all out and found us matching bowling shirts!



And this was just a funny moment while Jake and I were watching Bruce Almighty.

More updates on the way so I can look back and remember what the heck I did all year.

GCGSW 2019 (#6!)

My goodness, people, I totally forgot how to blog! I need to go back and update 2019 because a lot happened, but first to update the GCGSW, because #7 is coming up in 2020! I vaguely recall that we had a great time, but I needed the pics to remind me of what all we did. Let's get to it. Lots of knitters and hand-sewers on the couch, and Nancy attacked a king-sized duvet cover because that's how she rolls!

I'm pretty sure this was Trinh's first year - she's on the machine pretending to sew, haha.

Don't let her fool you - that pillow was made by 2 or 3 other people working on her machine, which gave us fits, but she kept us fed and with drinks in hands, so we let her claim she made it.

Nancy went from tiny animals the year before to acres of silk and satin - and she finished it!

I'm totally blanking on what Becky made.....argh!

Looks like Katrina has some sort of quilt going....

And I'd bet that Yaffa's beading some jewelry!

Okay I missed a lot of the projects, but we had some delicious sangria!

And some precious mini-quiches for breakfast...

With Trinh's "berries French toast casserole" - yum.

What an awesome breakfast!

Calm breakfast, I just can't remember what we did for dinner...

I do remember that I didn't have a project in mind so I just mindlessly started knitting a random sweater using inappropriate yarn. Frogged that a couple of weeks ago when I organized my yarn stash finally.

SOOOOO....this year I have a (second) hand-painted sock to finish knitting plus a sweater with cables on the trim in progress, and I toyed with the idea of making another Mardi Gras dress, but I bought the wrong fabric for the pattern I had - boo. Anyway, I'll be better at taking pictures in 2020, and hopefully I'll have time to backtrack for 2019. See ya!

Biannual Catchup!

Life apparently only gets busier until you retire, I guess! So after Mardi Gras, we did Spring Break in Las Vegas, and the craziest thing we did was indoor skydiving - that's me in the air. Important to note that it's hot, loud, and your mouth will dry out if you don't keep it shut. But it was a great once-in-a-lifetime thing to do.


Also we went to Red Rock Canyon - beautiful, but my pics don't do it justice.





Then 2 of my sewing/knitting friends who are also involved with Boy Scouts invited me to join them for a campout - woohoo! We went to Magnolia Creek Branch near Atmore for a weekend, but the trouble began when there turned out to be a Cub Scout Jamboree there too, and they were between our site and the bathrooms.


We relocated ourselves to an RV site, which is a big no-no, and the next morning the Poarch Creek Police showed up while Edith was cooking breakfast.








He wanted us to pack up the 3 tents and move back into the midst of the kids, so we just decided to enjoy a day knitting by the river, then head home after dinner. Ain't nobody got time to repitch a tent!


In the spring, Dean suggested a Warrior Dash, which is a kinder, gentler Spartan, so Lucas could see what he and Drew have been up to for years. I was kindly allowed to tag along, and it was way less muddy than I was expecting.


Lucas was initially trepidatious (not a word) and wanted to all stick together for the course. After I fell off one of the early climbing walls in a very embarrassing, arms-pinwheeling-as-I-go-to-ground type of maneuver, he realized he had this and asked if he could just meet us at the finish line. We made him stick with us just so we could keep embarrassing him.


And there was only muddy water along the course until the very end, when you got to slither through mud, so everybody was fairly clean up to this point.


He insisted on jumping the fire by himself so we wouldn't be in his picture - sweet kid.


He did let me pose for a final pic with him.


Pause for beauty:




And I attempted another T-shirt-yarn crocheted rug, but it didn't turn out as expected this time. I really think it looks better when the color changes are at the end of the row instead of the middle, but I was trying to maximize the yarn.


Also it's too small, so I may just undo the whole thing and buy more T-shirts. I'm trying to match the colors in the pillows, obviously, but it's not looking too good.


Speaking of creativity, Drew wanted to make his girlfriend a king cake for her birthday but didn't have a mixer, so instead of going to Walmart to get one, he carefully cleaned his drill and used it instead.


And the cake was amazing - no metallic taste at all!


And one last picture of the cake Dean made for Lucas's birthday using a Pioneer Woman recipe - it has Nutella and homemade whipped cream with shaved chocolate on top, and that was the moistest cake I've ever eaten. I have such a talented family!


I'm tired of uploading photos now and want to get upstairs for some possible sewing, so I'll tell you about the awesome week we spent in Montana later. I bought Barbara Emodi's sewing book and it's inspiring me to get some new projects going. What have YOU been working on lately?