Out Again for a week Plus

We're heading out again for a while. My sister's getting married in Arizona and then we'll be checking out the Grand Canyon and Zion. Should be fun - especially since we'll be stopping in Las Vegas for a couple days to see what all the hoopla is about. I wonder if it will remind of us the cruise ship at all...

See y'all later!

This is a view of Nassau Docks in the Bahamas. I stitched together 3 photos taken from the upper restaurant as we left. Our cruise was great - mostly because of the company we had! Brian and Kerri (The Soxies as I have started calling them.) were exceptional travel partners - always in a good mood and ready to explore anything and everything the islands or the ship had to offer.

The ship itself, a Carnival "FunShip", was a gigantic box containing a small piece of Las Vegas and about 2,500 vacationers. We stood in line a lot for food, to get off the boat at port and for food. There was food available 24/7 - it was strange. We worked out a few days in the gym to try and counter the eat-fest, and we danced a lot in the disco.

We tried snorkeling for the first time and absolutely loved it! We snorkeled on all three islands. When the boat docked we rushed off and tried to get as far from the port as possible. We wanted to experience whatever island culture we could and find the best snorkeling. At Nassau we rented a scooter and drove to "Love" Beach. On St. Thomas we took a bus and ferry over to St. John and hiked to Solomon Beach. On St. Martin we rented a car and drove around the entire island and snorkeled at Baie Rouge. I think we might go back to St. John to hike and snorkel - and maybe St. Martin.

After we got back, Brian took us to DisneyWorld so I could go to the Lego store! I got a shirt and mug, but no Lego sets. It was great to see all the kids & adults having so much fun.

This is a panorama of Grand Case on St. Martin. I was standing out on a pier. I think I could retire here!

Overall it was an amazing adventure and although the boat was the weirdest part, we still enjoyed being there because we could hang out and laugh a lot with The Soxies. We have done the cruise thing once now and I don't think we'll go on a cruise again, but we will definitely go to the Caribbean again. (And we'll definitely be hanging out with The Soxies again!)

I've finally found time to upload all of our vacation photos. Chu recommended Flickr.com so I tried it out. It's really cool but I spent a lot of time labeling each picture and writing a caption - they make it so easy!

This is the overlook on the trail on St. John. It was raining earlier - but it's still gorgeous!

Anyways - check out the pictures here: Carnival Cruise 2007 - Caribbean
I plan on putting more pictures up in the future to keep the traffic on my website down. The main "spaceJASE" photo gallery is http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacejase/

Praying Mantis Party

Hey - we're back from vacation!

Before I go into our trip, I want to show you the bugs I'm growing. Last year the praying mantis in our yard impaled itself on a aloe/cactus thing and died. When OSH had their bug bags this year, I got a container of praying mantis eggs. I left them in the planters outside because it said they would hatch after a few weeks of warm weather. That was a couple months ago and nothing has happened because it's not really all that warm here in the bay area... until this week - we're having a warm snap.

Well the egg sack seems to have done something and this little guy is one of the family now - he's going to keep the garden clear of pests and buggies that eat my plants. He and all 200 or so of his brothers and sisters that is!!!

I saw Michael Thomas chasing something on the ground - when I noticed it was a baby praying mantis, I looked at the plant and saw that it was covered in babies! I was totally excited and snapped a bunch of pictures. Then I picked up the plant and shook it over all the different areas of the garden. Now those guys will have enough food and my plants will grow better! Hopefully they will be able to avoid the birds for the most part.


They are kinda creepy - but I like them because they eat all the other creepies.

Out for a week or two...

Going on business to SCAD and then down to visit the Sox's.
Should be FUN!

See ya in a couple weeks!

Oil Painting #3 - Flowers

A few weeks ago I went to the office next door and asked them if I could have one of the bouquets they have in the office. They get a new awesome bouquet every week and they let me have one. At first I painted on it a couple hours every day, but then I lost interest and had to really make a point of sticking with it. That meant that the flowers died off and I was still painting - so a lot of the painting is made up from what I think flowers "ought" to look like. In the end I think it came put pretty nice considering I've only painted with oils twice before. It was fun. I learned some things.

VodkaBear

Here's a neat little animation I found while Googling for images at work. Yes I was working. Yes I took a moment to watch this. Yes I used Google as a verb.

Watch it - it's cute.

Growing Things

Since this is the first time we've ever had a yard, I thought it would be neat to try and grow things.
It's been a learning experience - and gardening in the bay area is different than I remember it in Michigan. It's super hot during the day and really cold at night and not humid at all in comparison. I have been able to grow frost hardy plants from November like brussel sprouts, cauliflower, scallions & onions since the winter here only gets down to ~32 degrees or so.

Everything else here was planted in March.

The picture above shows the largest part of the garden. There are smaller areas of soil around the house where I have cilantro, parsley, sage & oregano.

I'm having fun learning & growing. The cats like it too. Mike rolls around in the dirt and Maddi suns herself among the plants.