I have a few hours with absolutelynothing to do for the first time in a while...and it is great! I've been enjoying the Giants game on Sunday Night Baseball while surfing online, reading a book and drinking a homemade smoothie. I figured I could take a break from reading to update my blog :)
Fireworks on the 4th were super fun - I even set one off! I think I still enjoy watching more than creating the show, but it was a good experience. I was able to snag a few photos, too. Here are my favorites:
The next fun event of note was Thursday night, when my small group spontaneously decided to go to a Tacoma Rainiers game together (too bad we missed the Grizzlies by one week). Sadly one of our friends is moving to Minnesota, and she mentioned she hadn't been to a Rainiers game yet and she wanted to go, so a couple of women stepped up and pulled it together overnight to make it happen. Here are a couple of pictures:
Then, the next night, our church softball team had a game - and we won! After 2 forfeits and 2 losses, it was really fun to actually win one. Here are a couple of pictures my friend Sarah took:
This week also included a trip to the mall where I actually found several items I liked (I'm really picky). I kept forgetting there was an Old Navy in Olympia; now that it moved to the mall I'm much more likely to stop by. The sad news from my trip to the mall: I found out bothAuntie Anne's and Wetzel's Pretzels are gone! Of course, upon this discovery, I started craving an almond flavored pretzel. I might have to venture up to Tacoma sometime soon...
Happy 4th of July! What do you have planned for the day?
Matt & I will be heading up to a friend's house to hang out with them for the afternoon / evening. Last year these friends introduced us Matt to the excitement of setting off fireworks, so I'm sure the evening will include a few explosions. At least it's legal and the friend we're visiting has 3 acres of land :)
Matt setting off fireworks with our friends last year
Last night, Matt started teaching me how to do the scorebook during a baseball/softball game. I mention that because baseball is American. Anyway, my dad used to keep score when we'd go to games so I've understood the basics before, but never actually filled out a book myself. Granted this will probably mean I get to keep score during our church softball games...but it's a useful skill, right?
Regardless of what you do, I hope your 4th of July is a great one! Want to know more about America and Independence Day? Check out this fun infographic.
For those of you that don't know, Google+ is slowly rolling out. What is it, you ask? The basic definition is "Facebook, but with a few key differences." Check out their demo to get a better feel for what it is and how it's different.
So what do I think? I really like it so far! Granted, I've only been using it for a couple of hours and I only have 10 contacts, but there are a couple of elements I really like so far:
Circles. I like to organize things. I like it when everything fits into little boxes. Unfortunately, relationships just aren't like that. A relative can also be a friend from church; a neighbor can also be a friend from college. I've tried to organize my friends on Facebook from time to time, but it just gets confusing…and I don't really see much of a point beyond me liking to be organized. Google+ organizes your contacts through circles, and when you post something you can select which circle(s) you want to see it. So my friends from rowing can see crew posts and my friends from the area can see local area posts…or everyone can see them all. Circles give you the ability to decide who sees what in a very easy way in addition to being extremely easy to set up, edit, etc. The organizer in me likes it!
Sparks. You can basically save search terms for things you're interested in, read them in the browser and post them to your profile really easily. Kind of a cool way to keep up with random things you care about.
I'm excited to keep using Google+ over the next few weeks so I can understand how to use it even better!
July 4 update:
A few more things I love about Google+
The ability to format your posts. You can use bold, italics and strike throughs.
The ability to edit both posts and comments whenever. There isn't a time limit, you just select "edit" from the drop down menu.
The ability to mute a post. You know how sometimes you comment on a post, and then a bunch of people you don't know have a whole conversation? Google+ lets you mute the post so you aren't notified for every. single. comment.
This month has been busy. Really, really fun, but busy.
Weekend 1
It started out with the regular busyness: working 40-50 hours/week, rowing, church, small group...add a Sunday School teacher meeting, Matt coaching youth baseball, and me anticipating the busy month ahead and trying to work ahead a little bit...and it was busy.
Weekend 2
I knew I was taking a half day on Friday the week leading up to this weekend, so I tried to work ahead a little bit this week as well. Of course, I still managed to work about 50 hours in addition to attending our weekly small group, having dinner with a family new to the church (a fun couple with two really great kids) and trying to make it to crew practice.
So why was I taking off early on Friday? Well, one of my best friends is getting married in August, and her Bachelorette Party was this weekend...PLUS another best friend was flying up from California to attend! I got off early on Friday so I could pick up her up from the airport, get a few last minute things for the party, eat dinner with another local friend, and make cookies for everyone (also for the party). Of course, the actual party was a LOT of fun, too. I love the bride (she was a roommate for 3 years in college), and I like her friends - those from college that I'm friends with, and those from high school that I've only seen a few times. We had a lot of fun hanging out in Seattle - from dinner and a show to karaoke. Plus we all stayed in a hotel together and got brunch the next morning. All in all, a really fun weekend!
Everyone at the Bachelorette Party
Weekend 3
I knew I was taking half days on the Thursday and Friday during the week leading up to weekend 3 (more about that later), but this also happened to be the week Common Ground was in town! Last year was the first time in 15 years I didn't get to see their show, so I had to make it to one of their Washington concerts. Plus my brother is one of the sponsors - I wanted to see him, too! The night we ended up going, they were staying in host homes anyway, so Matt and I took my bro home with us so we could actually get to see him for a while. We went for pie at Shari's on the way home, and then hung out for a little while before hitting the hay. The next day Common Ground was coming back south through Shelton, so we decided we'd rather drop him off their instead of driving all the way back up to Auburn, so I took a few hours off to grab lunch at Daddy O's before heading out to Shelton. I had SO much fun seeing my brother, and I'm SO glad it worked out for him to stay with us :D
NOTE: I totally spaced and forgot to take a picture with my brother while he was here...so the above is a video he created (along with a few other talented individuals) for the show!
Of course, all of the above meant I still had a lot of work to do before taking off early on Thursday afternoon. Matt's parents happened to win a week a timeshare of their choosing at an auction through their church, so they picked one near Long Beach as it was about equal distance from us and from Matt's sister in Portland. So on Thursday, we packed up all our stuff and headed out to Long Beach to hang out with the in-laws. Of course, I still put in a few hours of work in on Friday (yay for Internet access everywhere and a boss that's really understanding!), but it was still a really fun and relaxing trip!
Matt and our nephew at the beach
On Friday we wandered around Long Beach, played cards and enjoyed [some of] the Ole & Lena jokes Matt's dad was reading from his new Ole & Lena joke books. On Saturday, Matt's sister came up with our adorable 3-year-old nephew! Over the next couple of days, we went to the beach, went swimming in the hotel's pool, and just hung around enjoying each other's company. One activity I really liked was seeing the pictures Matt's parents took on their recent cruise to Alaska. It was fun seeing what it was like - from life on the ship to their excursions of whale watching, flying over glaciers, dog sledding, zip lining and kayaking - and really inspired us to want to go on a cruise (we'll see if that happens within the next few, or 20, years).
Our nephew playing with bubbles
Weekend 4
The week leading up to weekend 4 was actually a bit quieter. I actually had 5 full days to work, and was even able to get a little housework done, too! Yay for clean dishes and clean clothes that are actually put away :) Of course, I've had a lot of work to get done this past week, too...and I also got to go to dinner with a friend from college that was in town visiting her sister.
One perk from this weekend is I actually got to sleep in on Saturday. I usually get up at 6am to row (yes, I'm a crazy crew kid that rows instead of sleeping in every weekend), but practice was cancelled this morning since half the team was already at the regional regatta down in Vancouver (more on this in a minute).
Anyway...after sleeping in on Saturday I got to go to lunch with a couple of good friends from college, which was super fun. I always love seeing good friends! After that they took me over to Shari's and a teammate picked me up so we could head down to Vancouver for the Masters Regionals regatta at Vancouver Lake.
Talk about a big regatta. I don't remember the numbers, but over the course of the weekend there was something like over 1000 races...? There were a lot of crews there from all over the region - even one as far as Los Gatos, CA. Our team's guys were already down there since their race was on Saturday; all of our women's races were Sunday. Saturday night was fun. I always enjoy hanging out with the team, and steak fajitas/tomalito from Chevy's never hurts, either (guess where we ate dinner). Anyway, I was in two races on Sunday, and I felt like both went well. We didn't make it into the final for either race, but I felt like we had a strong showing and we hung with the rest of the pack. We were only a few seconds away from making it into the finals, too, so that's encouraging. Now we have even more motivation to train for next year!
Vancouver Lake
So after we were done racing Sunday afternoon, we packed up the boats, stopped for lunch, drove back up to Tacoma, unloaded the trailer, and got home around 5:45. Just in time to start getting ready for the youth BBQ. As it was our last meeting of the school year and the first week for new 6th graders to come, we fired up the grills at our apartment complex, ate hamburgers and hot dogs, and played on the basketball and tennis courts. It was really fun, despite being worn out from the regatta (leaving the hotel at 5:30am, hanging around in the sun, 2 races plus moving boats around really takes a lot out of you). Again, I always enjoy hanging out with people.
The Rest of June
So it looks like the last few days of June will be a little bit less crazy...last night we went to dinner and Super 8 with a friend, and tonight I finally had a chance to sit down and play online for a while plus talk to a good friend from California for a couple of hours on the phone. I'm looking forward to getting back to our regular amount of busyness as opposed to being just insanely, crazily busy.
A few other random items of note:
The Giants have been doing well, despite all the injuries. That makes me happy (the doing well part, not the injuries part).
We downgraded back to dumb phones (as opposed to smart phones...), and the transition has been amazingly smooth. I miss browsing Facebook from my phone sometimes, but actually prefer calling and texting from a regular phone...and ultimately that's the point, right?
My mom is awesome and sent me a couple of really cool items in the mail...don't want to give away the surprise for when I pull them out, but if I'm ever invited to another white elephant / ugly sweater party I'll be prepared.
If you're looking for a good movie, go see Super 8. Great story, good characters...I won't reveal any spoilers, but I will say that I felt invested right away. I love how they told the story and used dialogue to explain important events the viewers don't see; the characters filled the audience in without needing to stop and say: this is what happened.
I'd make time to see it in theaters, too. With the effects, etc, the giant screen and surround sound makes it that much better. We even splurged to see it on in an IMAX theater and it was totally worth it. There's a fun part to the credits, too, so don't leave right away.
During the month of May we went to two movies in the theater: Thor and Pirates 4. Sadly, I found both to be a bit disappointing. Maybe I've just become pickier about movies, but I thought both movies had a lot more potential. I'll try not to reveal any spoilers (at least any that aren't obvious) in my reviews:
The good: This movie was visually very good. I thought all the effects looked really cool, and I liked the overall feel of the film. It was an adventure, but it could have been a LOT better.
The bad: I thought the characters were really weak. They could have shown a lot more character development for Thor. Not to give too much away, but it was like he just all of a sudden flipped a switch and did all his growing all at once and everyone could see he was different. I'd like to see that take more time, or see him go through something more emotionally challenging that takes more of the movie. I just didn't end up caring about him, or really any of the other main characters. To be honest, I thought the most interesting character was the gatekeeper. I would've liked to know more about him.
The good: Visually everything looked okay...but I can't really think of anything I liked.
The bad: To be honest, I was bored. Although I wasn't offended about anything, I actually considered leaving because I felt like I was wasting my time. As amazing as Captain Jack Sparrow was in the first Pirates movie, I'm done with him. I just don't think he's a deep enough character to carry more than one (let alone four!) movies. He doesn't (much) about people, and I don't see really any character development over the course of the films. If anything, I think the movie would have been better if they explored the relationship with his father as opposed to some woman he cares about that we've never seen before. And of course they left the door open for yet another sequel...
I keep telling myself I'm going to blog more, and then another month and a half goes by without writing a word...I don't feel especially verbose at the moment, but at the same time I feel like writing. Strange combination, I know, which I think will amount to a post of lists.
I've been feeling extremely blessed lately. Here are 5 of the many reasons I'm blessed:
I have a husband I adore that loves me despite my imperfections.
I'm surrounded by supportive friends that I get to see on a regular basis.
I like, respect and have a good relationship with my parents and my in-laws.
I have close friends I can go for months without talking to, yet pick up exactly where we left off once we do finally talk.
Despite there being a lot of things I want, I have more than I actually need.
Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to be born in a different time. I wonder how I would do being cooped up knitting all day, what it would be like living in a tribal culture, or what my opinions of current events would have been - without knowing the end result.
All of this also gets me thinking about how technology has changed so much more than adding the convenience of shopping from your living room or streaming movies through to your TV. As much as I enjoy Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogger, etc., I think it's easy to get distracted from real, face-to-face socialization. That being said, here is a list of what I like about my favorite types of social media:
Wow, there are numbers in each of those movies titles...weird.
To change topics again, I'm switching to animals. I recently realized I'm not an animal person. As much as I find pictures / videos adorable, I'm just not into taking care of them...maybe that's why I prefer wild animals? Here's a list of my top 5 wild animals:
