Photo Miscellany 2

Some older pictures:

On the hike up the Quill.

Taken the day I saw my first waterspout. I sprinted home for the camera and headed up a hill for a better view. By then it was either gone or just obscured by this huge column of rain.

Sometimes when the sun sets, the ocean turns metallic blue. It's one of my favorite things, but this is the best picture of it I've been able to get. Sorry :-(



This picture is not dedicated to Kelsey. These birds fly over the ocean and make the most horrific noises. Pretty, though.

Local women fishing at Zeelandia. They told us that just the night before there was an 8-foot shark feeding in the shallows. When we asked if it was safe to eat any sort of fish caught off the shore, they replied with an enthusiastic 'yes', followed by a little contemplation, then a list of the fish that will kill you if injested.

I love this picture, but maybe only because I know that he's standing at the highest point of the Crater Rim Trail, only a foot away from a sheer drop into the center of the volcano. That makes his noble pose just that much better, doesn't it? Doesn't it??

For Annie

No one get overexcited. There are only a few of these on the island, and supposedly they’re owned by Kings Well Hotel. Oftentimes we can see (and hear) them from the beach - always too far away to even consider breaking out the camera. But Saturday we heard them quarreling as we were headed down the hill, and only had to go slightly out of our way to spot them.

Now the rest of the post is for everyone (Sorry Annie, it was short-lived.) It was our first beach day since being back on Statia, and we picked a good one. Sunny, breezy, big waves. My hair will be sprinkling sand for days.

Some other pictures from our Saturday of Fun, aka the walk down to the beach and back again:

Should have kicked that beer bottle out of the way...

Plans for the week: Jon studies for upcoming exams (Monday), Jessie meets 'Snoopy', the tiny dog currently being pet-sat by a friend.

Babble

It rained yesterday, all day. At some points it was coming down so hard we couldn’t even see the ocean, which gave me the perfect opportunity stay in bed and attempt to stave off what seemed to be threatening to turn into a full-blown UTI with 2 liters of cranberry juice, 12 hours of sleep, a few episodes of Mad Men, a couple of movies, and a rambling blog post.

Here it comes.


1) A few nights ago as I wandered around the house getting ready for the tri-annual school party celebrating the beginning of a new term, Jon came across something interesting on the local Statia channel. I can’t even really describe it. It seemed to be some sort of 80’s public service announcement declaring the dangers of unprotected sex, set to music. With dancing. And chanting. At one point the entire cast participated in a ditty entitled “Uncontrollable Urges”, but my absolute favorite part must have been when the main character announced to his friends ,“I’ve got all the tools I need riiiiight here” and the camera zoomed in on the crotch of his acid wash jeans. We sat and watched for longer than I care to admit , mouths agape, shaking our heads in bewilderment.

2) This happened.



3) Sometimes, when I’m moments away from sleep, I have the sudden impression that OH MY GOSH I HAVEN’T FED PENNY IN WEEKS. It only takes a millisecond for me to realize that she’s at my parent’s house, happy and loved, but by then it’s too late. My heart is racing and sleep is miles away. Anyway, so JUST IMAGINE my delight when my sister Annie, out of the blue, mentioned to me that she still sometimes has dreams that she forgot to feed the bird she had back in high school. (Annie loves birds. As in, there is a picture floating around my mom’s house of 10 year old Annie wearing a hyacinth macaw t-shirt with Sunny the cockatiel perched on her shoulder. She had a subscription to Bird Fancy and everything. How cute is that??)

4) WE GOT AN ATV. It’s old and corroded, the engine dies when it idles, it’s physically painful to ride, and it might not start tomorrow, but it’s OURS.

It’s a beautiful thing, having transportation.

------------------------

Edited to add: It didn't start :-(


Also, lately I've been getting tons of spam, so I'm putting captcha word verification up on comments JUST FOR A WEEK OR SO to hopefully deter them. I'm torn up about it, because I srsly hate those things. But I hate the constant spam even more. Kthxbai.

Worse than Pert Plus

Well, we made it to Statia. Again. Our trip back was mostly uneventful, but we procrastinated buying our puddle-jump tickets and as a result had to spend a night in St Maarten. It was sort of nice, though it set us back about $200 for the hotel and taxis. (Our place was fairly decent and right on the beach, but they offered up what must be the cheapest shampoo-and-conditioner-in-one available that left my hair so destroyed my only option was to try and remedy the situation with a bar of soap. Yes. I washed my hair with a bar of soap. I felt so ashamed.)

Anyway, the point is, we're here. And also, Jon wore a Speedo.

There is no charge for awesomeness

My mom dragged my box of archives up from the basement the other day. There wasn't much (just one box full; The result of a life in the Army that sent us moving across the country every couple of years), but I had a heyday sorting through it all.

The best thing I found was a picture I drew at church of "My Earthly Family" when I was a Sunbeam (the Sunday school group for 3-4 year olds). My teacher filled in my family members' names for me, and THIS is what's written underneath the portrait of my brother:

Jacob

With 3 mouths and 2 noses -

the whole class wants to meet him!

...Jon and I taught the Sunbeams for over a year in Tucson and suddenly I'm so disappointed that I never thought to send their drawings home with added commentary.

Picking up where I left off

My brother Jake and his wife Serena couldn't make it down from Alaska this year for Christmas, so they sent the next best thing:

Fifteen pounds of king crab legs. Drool. They were amazing.

Love this picture: Jon and the General preparing a black powder musket for shooting, Kyle tweeting about it. (PS - Jon's sweet denim coat was borrowed from my parent's hall closet. Just FYI)

Amateur video effort:

Family shot inside of a cowboy themed restaurant in Driggs. The amazing food caught me off-guard, considering I had to stare at a tiara-adorned mounted cow head whilst eating it.

Lastly, Corinne asked for an 'amigurumi' book for Christmas. It's this method of crocheting cute little anime-looking creatures. When she opened it up, she could not control her excitement and held up the entire present-opening process to flip through each page. Kyle rolled his eyes and said, "She used to work in finance...." and Jon completed the sentence with, "Now she's crafty". Anyway, I mention it because LOOK AT WHAT I MADE.

That's an octopus with six legs. And a chick. I've never been more proud of myself.

Uhh...

So how weird is that UFO in this picture of the Tetons I just posted yesterday? I didn't notice it there until just now. We took several and it's not in any of the others.

TWILIGHT ZONE MUSIC

It's like a catapult

The rest of the family showed up over the past few days. As it turned out, Jon's flight HAD been delayed: Five hours in St Maarten, which made him miss his connection in Chicago. He spent that night in a Hilton lobby armchair. All in all, it was 33 hours of travel time, including the drive to St Anthony from Utah. Oh yeah, and a few more minutes were tacked on when his plane almost landed on top of another plane at the Salt Lake City airport. I don't like to think about it, but apparently they were seconds away from landing when a plane on the ground decided to move onto the runway underneath them. So up they went, with lots of g-force, circling the airport waiting for another try. Good job, Air Traffic Control!

It hasn't been too eventful around here - just how I like it. Lots of slipper-wearing, lots of movie-watching, lots of game-playing. There's this one called "Bananagrams" that is a new obsession. There's a big pile of letter tiles in the middle and you have to create crosswords, like Scrabble, only it's timed and you can rearrange your words as much as you need. Then, if you want to trade a letter, you call out "DUMP!" and exchange it for three others. DUMP. It's written in the actual directions. Capitalized and everything. I like to shout it as obnoxiously as I possibly can.

What else, what else.... Oh. Corinne and I braved a trip to the Wal-Mart in Rexburg which was pretty interesting. We saw the saddest Santa ever, tucked away in a corner near cosmetics, wearing what appeared to be red pajamas with unraveling white trim. The only Christmas decoration nearby was an old heavily-creased hand-drawn backdrop. I wanted to cry.

Speaking of crying, have you ever been to Ririe, Idaho? We accidentally drove through it FOUR TIMES in one day. I sank into a deep depression.

So I've got this overachieving follicle on my right arm. I was pretty proud of the two-inch-long hair it had produced and showed it to my whole family once I got here. Then last week, while Jon and I were cuddling on a loveseat, he suddenly grabbed hold of it and yanked it out while I hollered in protest. Then he explained that I was getting too attached to it. We laughed for an hour.

Anyway, here are some pictures. I hope your Christmas was merry and bright. Ours was.

Ada staring down a bottle of fry sauce at Big Jud's - just outside of Ririe :-(

Gunner and the General

Fondue on Christmas Eve - Sweet family tradition!

Mom trying out her new Wii

I gave her those boots. That's why they're so cute.

Trying out my brother-in-law Steve's trebuchet (movie below)

Another one down

Happy 5th Anniversary, babe!

Back off

Jon may or may not have missed his connection in Chicago. I still don't know for sure. But I really hope he didn't, because I can't stave the masses off this special-made-by-me-for-him sugar cookie for much longer.

Every time I turn my back, someone's trying to eat it or give it away to their visiting teaching companion.

That's what she said

Apparently the entire state of Idaho is without power except for my parents' house. I'm writing this blog post just because I CAN. Corinne invented a scenario involving the entire population of St Anthony turning into zombies and wandering through the dark to come pound on our windows, like moths drawn to a flame.

Last night we went into Rexburg and visited a while with Jon's sister Kelsey, her husband Jake, and my little niece Norah who, as it turns out, can say "baby" unprompted - biggest shock of my life. She and Ada loved each other. We showed up about 40 minutes after I said we would, which may or may not have been the result of my getting lost on the way to Little Caesar's to pick up our Hawaiian pizza. Corinne had called in the order ahead of time and explained to me once she hung up that she couldn't tell if he'd said the total was 7 dollars, or 11 dollars. And I'm like, "ewww, he must have said 11". But no. $6.99. You can buy a large, two-topping pizza for $6.99. And they have "Hot and Ready" ones available for FIVE DOLLARS. Immediately I was suspicious. Nothing that big should be that cheap. Especially something that's edible.

It's been pretty low-key. Just sort of waiting for the rest of the family to show up (Jon gets in this weekend!!). One of the most exciting moments of the past few days was when I checked my Analytics and discovered "huge Scandinavian women" on my list of keywords. Meaning someone ended up on my blog by typing that phrase into Google. I was a little bit crept out, and a little bit proud.

Then there was a really funny story that my dad told that just bombed every time I tried to type it out. So let me just say that it involved a little boy who started wailing out of disappointment when he realized his grandma wasn't pregnant, just fat. He was really looking forward to that baby. Funny? Not funny? Never mind. I'm done with this post anyway.

So far

It's all fun and games until....

Five seconds later, Penny whipped Ada in the eye with her tail giving me the perfect opportunity to exclaim, "Look what you did, you little jerk!" as Corinne tried to comfort her baby.

Let me help you with that....

I made it! 13 hours of travel time and two connections put me into Salt Lake City. My first flight was a 15 minute puddle-jump. I flew from St Eustatius to St Maarten for only 60 dollars and all I had to do was sit with a 400 pound man on my lap! What a deal. I spent two hours in the St Maarten airport before boarding my first-class flight to Atlanta. I don't think I realized ahead of time how serious first class is - like, I'd only get more leg room and a hot meal. I definitely underestimated the level of service. I swear the flight attendant would have dangled grapes over my head while I nibbled at them if I'd asked her to. And I'm pretty sure she took it personally that I declined wine each of the seven-thousand times she offered it to me. Everything about first class was just how it's portrayed in movies. The hot towel, the free-flowing alcohol. And an actual curtain separating the cabins so we didn't even have to look at the jerks sitting back in coach. Everything was also more complicated. Like the tray tables for instance - crazy contraptions that hid inside the armrest. I needed help both getting it out AND putting it away. It was like I was five all over again, and for what? I mean, as far as tray tables go, they were just alright. Definitely no more functional than a regular tray table, but a million times more complex.

As a general rule, I don't use airplane bathrooms, so by the time we landed in Atlanta I had to pee so bad I felt nauseous. But there was no time - I had only an hour to get through customs AND security AND take the tram from one side of the airport to the other. Luckily there were no lines and I made it to my gate with time to spare for a bathroom break, and also to check the upgrade screen. Jon tried to get me on first-class again for the rest of the trip, but I was like number 31 or 32 on the list of priority so needless to say I rode from Atlanta to Salt Lake with the plebeians. And somehow I ended up in the only window seat without a window. It's a long fall down.

I always feel close to home when I'm amongst the group flying into Salt Lake. They're not always the most attractive bunch, but they're familiar. The college-aged girl with skunky hair wearing Uggs and five camisoles. That older guy that looks like an apostle. Some kid with an extreme side-part, obviously fresh off the mish. The "hot mom" in platform flip flops with an orange tan and hair teased so much it's see-through. And that interesting-looking young couple in front of me - they must be just visiting. HAhahaHA I kill me. No really, I love Utah. It's home. Sort of.

I was supposed to meet my mom out on the curb when I landed, but Annie ended up taking a day off of work and surprised me by showing up with her, bearing a homemade cheeseburger. You all would have been disgusted to watch me devour it. Then came the joyous reunion of owner and dog. Penny gave a little start when she first sniffed me, then continued to be a little stand-offish for about five seconds until she pieced together our happy memories (I'm only assuming here) and pretty soon was wiggling and jumping all over the place. On the drive from the airport to my grandparents' house, she sat on my lap and leaned as hard as she possibly could into my chest. All that worrying for nothing.

After a couple of days in Salt Lake and Heber, we made the trip up North to St Anthony (or Satanthony, as Jon calls it). It started snowing yesterday morning and it's been piling up ever since. Christmas Christmas Christmas. I'll put up pictures sometime soon, but this post has already gotten out of hand.

I love you, Tomorrow

GUESS WHAT?? I'm flying first class from St Maarten to Atlanta! Hooray for free alcoholic beverages! Hooray for free hot towels! Hooray for free more-than-six-inches-of-leg-room! I hope it doesn't go to my head.


This weekend was pretty boring, what with Jon studying for finals and me just trying to get all the laundry done before I LEAVE TOMORROW. Which is easier said than done, because our washing machine isn't like YOUR fancy new-fangled washing machines. The kind that sit inside your house and do all the work. I have to manually fill the washer with a garden hose for the wash and rinse cycles, then physically move the clothes to the other side for them to spin. Then once they're hung on the line, I'm at the mercy of the weather. But then I remind myself, "Oh yeah, I live in the Caribbean". So it's all a trade-off I suppose.


Last night we tortured ourselves by watching Food Network's "The Best Thing I Ever Ate: Holiday Edition". All these celebrity chefs were discussing their favorite holiday food traditions. Then it was announced that after the break, Giada de Laurentiis would be discussing some Italian raisin cake and my first thought was, "Oh GOSH I hope she can get through this without smiling too much." Because.....gehhhh.


Anyway, so I'm going to be traveling the next couple of days - first my flight into Utah, then a drive to my sister's house, then the drive up to Idaho - so don't hate me if I go a few days without posting. Hopefully I'll have all sorts of travel-related stories to relay on the flip side. Like how I threw my gingerale in the stewardess's face because she measured out a thimblefull that barely filled in the cracks around the ice. A CAN. I said a CAN of gingerale. FIRST CLASS HERE, COME ON.