*We moved!!!
We finally gave up college life and moved out of the college city of "ProvOrem". We found a townhome for rent in Pleasant Grove that is closer to Mike's work. It makes my commute a little longer, but I can't complain about a 15 minute drive. Besides, I can look for another job that's closer.
See those stairs? There's no one living above us. See that non-shag carpet. Nice. And the walls are still white--not yellow from 20 years of harsh, unclean tenants. LOVE our new place.
Have I ever mentioned that owning a washer and dryer is the greatest thing ever? These were left by the previous tenants, but they didn't work. Smelly and noisy. But, Mike found a seller on Craigslist and a GREAT deal. The ones we bought are only a couple years old and work like a charm. Did you know that there's a setting on a dryer that senses if the clothing is dry? Amazing! (And not going to a laundr-o-mat is FANTASTIC!)
Remember how I said that I LOVE the new place? Yeah. We had a cleaning problem when we moved in. The fridge and freezer smelled like dead animal. Really dead animal. Mike did some further investigating by taking a plate off the bottom of the freezer and found this:
Gross. Sick. Smelly. Probably deadly. Notice the precautions we took while cleaning it, including the face mask. That's mold. It was gross. I could go into details, but the picture explains well enough. We cleaned it, but it still smelled like dead animal, so we let our landlord take a go. We were secretly hoping for a new fridge, expecting at least to be given some rent $$ back, but instead just a guarantee that he cleaned "real deep" and took care of the problem. We haven't noticed any problems with our health or food in the freezer, so we are assuming the problem is gone. But we are being careful to watch for any changes.
*We went to California. We haven't gone in YEARS, so we decided to gift ourselves considering we have no more school. We had great fun while we were there, despite the June Gloom in July. Mike got to fly his kite. There's this spot in Torrey Pines that's really windy and there's a bunch of hang gliders and such.
My mom gave it a go. It's a stunt kite, so a little difficult to get the hang of. I still am not very good at it, but Mom did well, for her first try. :)
And here's Dad. He got a good lesson from Mike, but notice the strings not going UP in the air? He did get it up, but like I said, there's a technique that can be difficult to pick up.
Mike and I took a ferry from Downtown San Diego to Coronado Island. Very nice.
Very fun.
A New Zealand battleship was in the bay and open for tours, and was free, so we HAD to go. This is the 5-inch gun (I think that's what it's called). It was a pretty cool ship. I can't imagine being on one for months at a time. Some of the quarters were VERY tight!
The helicopter on deck. PS, their accents were pretty cool!
We went to Sea World and fed, pet and viewed plenty of sea life. Here's Mike feeding a Sting Ray. You had to dangle the fish under their mouths and then just let it go. Weird and a little scary. I didn't know if they would bite me, so I let go of my fish a little too early. The rays won't eat it just floating, though, so Mike retrieved it for me and I tried again.
They like coming up and out of the water. Of course, my mom was a little wary of letting her hand get too close to the mouth, so she kept moving it further and further and the ray just followed and followed.
I "pet" a sea turtle. Very cool.
Sharks wanted to eat us!
My mom gave it a go. It's a stunt kite, so a little difficult to get the hang of. I still am not very good at it, but Mom did well, for her first try. :)
And here's Dad. He got a good lesson from Mike, but notice the strings not going UP in the air? He did get it up, but like I said, there's a technique that can be difficult to pick up.
Mike and I took a ferry from Downtown San Diego to Coronado Island. Very nice.
Very fun.
A New Zealand battleship was in the bay and open for tours, and was free, so we HAD to go. This is the 5-inch gun (I think that's what it's called). It was a pretty cool ship. I can't imagine being on one for months at a time. Some of the quarters were VERY tight!
The helicopter on deck. PS, their accents were pretty cool!
We went to Sea World and fed, pet and viewed plenty of sea life. Here's Mike feeding a Sting Ray. You had to dangle the fish under their mouths and then just let it go. Weird and a little scary. I didn't know if they would bite me, so I let go of my fish a little too early. The rays won't eat it just floating, though, so Mike retrieved it for me and I tried again.
They like coming up and out of the water. Of course, my mom was a little wary of letting her hand get too close to the mouth, so she kept moving it further and further and the ray just followed and followed.
I "pet" a sea turtle. Very cool.
Sharks wanted to eat us!
Shamu wanted to spray us. We were wet even by the time we got home! Every show we went to had animals spraying and splashing the crowds.
I think I did a good job capturing Shamu... And we had pretty good seats! Notice we have no pictures of dolphins. They don't stay up in the air as long as whales.
Natural wildlife. This was pretty cute to watch.
This one wanted to eat Mike's hand off! The red and white in the bottom of the picture is the container for the fish. We had to keep it closed because birds would come and snatch the fish right out of your hand if you weren't careful. (It happened to a little kid just down from us). But Mike wanted to have the sea lion/seal come closer, so he teased it a little. It jumped up a little higher than Mike was expecting...
I think I did a good job capturing Shamu... And we had pretty good seats! Notice we have no pictures of dolphins. They don't stay up in the air as long as whales.
Natural wildlife. This was pretty cute to watch.
This one wanted to eat Mike's hand off! The red and white in the bottom of the picture is the container for the fish. We had to keep it closed because birds would come and snatch the fish right out of your hand if you weren't careful. (It happened to a little kid just down from us). But Mike wanted to have the sea lion/seal come closer, so he teased it a little. It jumped up a little higher than Mike was expecting...
Keeping the fish away from the birds is a skill.
*Very soon after we got back from California, I went to Page with my brother, Jeremy. My sister, Desiree, and my sister-in-law, Raquel (brother's-Dan's-wife), were going to be in Page (near Lake Powell) for their 10-yr high school reunion. Since two of the four siblings were going to be there, Jeremy and I decided we should complete the gang. It doesn't hurt that we got to go boating twice and enjoy the scenery! Oh, and hanging with the nieces and nephews is always fun! I even went tubing. I got evidence for Mike, but that evidence is sitting on Jeremy's and Desiree's cameras. And they haven't shared it. But really, I do have evidence.
I think that's all we've been up to. It has been a BUSY summer and feels like we've been going non-stop since Mike graduated. But now that vacations and moving are behind us, Mike and I plan on relaxing and enjoying our time together. We signed up for Netflix! :)
1 comment:
Sounds like lots of fun! Can you believe our 10yr reunion is next year? I hope you go, at least it would be fun to see you. I guess maybe you'll go to yours in California though. Good Shamu pics!
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