May 2009

The Spontaneous Beach Party.

My friend Sarah and I hatched the idea to throw a spontaneous beach party Memorial Day weekend by updating our Facebook status. The experiment was a giant FAIL, but we had a blast anyway and met some new friends. We sailed a kite, made some food, had smores, and saw an interestingly beautiful performance honoring the new moon. Fun night!


The kite and the fire pit.

The Sunset.

The Performance...


ON A BOAT!!!!!
Went sailing out on Lake Washington! What can I say, being out on the water is pure joy.

Nice.

Out came the Champagne.

We completely lost our wind heading in, so we decided to take a swim.

April 2009

Hey all it has been a while since I posted. My whirlwind travel adventures are in overdrive. Let me recap some of the great places I have been before I get into my upcoming travels.

April:
April brought me back to Boston for the a trifecta event. Jacques' Boston Marathon, Sebastian's First Birthday and Dad's 60th. Unfortunately, the trip was kind of a disaster with most of the people who came falling terribly ill with a stomach virus. Jac had to drop out of the marathon at the half, and several of us didn't even make it out to see him start. I still can't believe he was able to run a half marathon with that illness. Crazy.


Sebastian's First Birthday Party.

The day before the Marathon...and the illness.

The night before for the pasta dinner and the shirts.

The 2009 Start in Hopkington. Jacques is in there somewhere.

Jac at the half. Unfortunately this is where he needed to drop out. I believe his pace was still sub seven at this point. He is a machine.

My darling god-daughter Ruby and her mom (my sis) on a mission to the finish to retrieve Jac's bag.

So, Like I said the trip was kind of a disaster, but small moments like this, seeing little Ruby run and play, provided the little silver lining that was so needed on that day.

Breckenridge, Colorado.

Another example of how lucky I am, my friend Mike called me up and asked if I wanted to go to Breck for a ski weekend. Absolutely!

After another lackluster flying experience and a 2 hour drive, we finally made it to the beautiful house Mike had arranged. It was a 5 bedroom ski cottage perched on the side of Mount Quandray.

The first night the altitude change was really messing with peoples heads. Headaches were constant and you would get winded from opening a beer. Really! Most of us live at or near sea level and our house sits at 10,000 feet elevation. The difference is striking.
After eating some great lasagna made by V and the early crew, most went to bed relatively early so we could hit the slopes the next day.

The next morning after a sleepless night (altitude) V and I made breakfast for the crew so we had energy to ski the day away. We rented some gear at a local shop and I opted to demo some new skis. I got these bad boys from Movement and was truly impressed. The only area that I had trouble was with a lot a speed executing a big GS turn. The back end would lose edge and I would check speed and slide a bit. They were great all around though.

It was snowing like a banshee and at times there was a total whiteout. We got about 6 inches throughout the day, which made for some fun skiing (even if we couldn't see).





After a great first day we hit a local bar for some Apres Ski. Back home we made dinner, drank wine and told stories of the day. Sleep was difficult again, but this time it wasn't the altitude.



Day 2 was amazing. The snow storm had passed leaving a blanket of fresh powder and clear blue skies. The surrounding peaks that were obscured the day before were out in all their glory. The sun was warm on our faces and the snow bright with it's reflection. A late start due to unfortunate matters out of our control got us on the slopes just after noon. We skied hard till the lifts shut down for the night. I think we got in 12 runs in 4 hours, not too bad.




Apres ski day 2 brought us a pre-beer at mountain base, then back home for the real celebration. This was our last night and due to flight schedules we would not be able to ski the following day, so the party pants came out. We played games, laughed, and sang the night away, capping a fantastic weekend.

Christmas 2008 - New Year 2009

This holiday season we celebrated Mema's 85th Birthday down in the Florida Keys, in Marathon.

We rented a huge house for Mema, Mom and Dad, the Puckett 4, the VanderBurg 3, LesGoupil 3, and myself. We were joined later in the week by the Rosteing 5, the Schueckler 4, the Andrews 4, and Marie who rented condos a few blocks away. That makes 28 at one point!

The babies were everywhere, my family is multiplying.

We had an amazing two weeks barring a rocky start and finish courtesy of the airlines. We ate and drank like kings. We fought off scurvy. We golfed, kayaked, swam, fished, flew, snorkeled, and celebrated another great year.

The trip was amazing and I am lucky to have such a great family to share it with.



Some of the beautiful sights of Marathon Florida. The seven mile bridge was pretty cool. The old railway bridge had been turned into a pedestrian bridge after the new, modern highway replaced it. A very interesting relic on the verge of being taken back by nature. The Keys are truly unique. You really get the sense of how vulnerable the islands are as practically no land is more than a few feet above sea level.




Key West, Boys will be boys.



Richard asked me if I wanted to come flying with him as he got checked out on the plane in FLA. I said "yeah, that would be fun". So we head off to the airport and make our way over to the little plane and Richard says to the plane's owner, "Jeff doesn't know yet what we are doing. After I take it for a spin around Key West, we'll switch seats and Jeff can fly us home."

Inside I said "What?!?" Outside I was calm and cool...No problem.
So after Richard took us on a sightseeing flight down and around Key West, sure enough, we switched seats and with less than 2 minutes of instruction, we were full throttle down the runway..."and Rotate." Flying was so much fun and the little Cessna 172s (N21277) performed wonderfully. Landing was a little hairy, but the level flight was a piece of cake. It helped the conditions were nearly perfect and there was a VERY experienced instructor sitting co-pilot.

All in all, I highly recommend it. Thanks Richard and Julie!!!




Snorkeling/Diving the reefs off the coast of Marathon, Florida.
This was really cool. I had never really been snorkeling before minus the dorky kid stuff in a pool or on the lake growing up. This was real life tropical fish, giant sting ray, sea turtle, snorkeling. We woke up super early and headed out to the boat. A short ride out to the reef and (again minimal instruction) splash, we were in the water.

My first few kicks and my flipper kept falling off my foot. There was a tear in the heel, so back to the boat to get a new pair. Now that that was fixed, I hit the open water. Now, I must have an oddly shaped head or face, because I tried two different masks and put the silicone on my face and made sure I didn't break the masks seal and didn't breathe through me nose, but no matter what, my mask would BOTH fog up and leak water. I need to figure that out because it killed the experience for me.

On the good side, when I wasn't chasing down swimmers that wandered too far from the boat or clearing the water or fog from my goggles, it was really amazing. The sea life was stunning and the experience was totally peaceful.





New Year's was a blast this year. We were all able to gather at the house for the annual fete. Hors d'ouvers were made and eaten, limes were bombed (care of the Lime Bomber, http://www.limebomber.com/) and all had a good time. Jac wore his tux with the appropriate footwear, I had the Tux bib, and through the joy of the White Elephant, Richard was rocking a sweet biker shirt with pre B.O. and booze scent, and Blue donned the leopard thongs. We laughed, ate, and toasted in another wonderful New Year with Mema and family.




New Years day, we decided to relax a bit and take a leisurly boat ride throgh the mangroves. We were fortunate enough to see a manatee swimming along side us.