Happy Birthday Dad!

HOPE YOU HAVE A GREAT BIRTHDAY !

WE LOVE YOU!

Warrant Officer Candidate School (WOCS)

As most of you know, KR has been down in Ft. Rucker, Alabama for about the last 2 months. He will graduate from Warrant Officer Candidate School on April 1st! He will then be home for about 10 days and then head back to Alabama to start Survival School (SERE) and then Flight School. I found 2 videos that shed a little more light on what he has been "going through" at WOCS. Check them out:

(This first one is about 3/4 down the page where it says "Becoming a Warrant Officer Video")

http://www.iowahawkeyewoa.org/WOCS.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45RbU2qCwDo&feature=related

FOOD!

This post is going to be all about the food we ate on our vacation. Weird, I know, but isn't that one of the most important parts of a vacation? I think so! Don't worry, it's not like I'm going to write about every meal! Overall we felt the food we had was just mediocre and way overpriced! We did have some good stuff, but nothing too memorable.

The first night we went to one of the restaurants at the hotel. It was called Sea and Stones and was right on the beach. It was a place where you have a sizzling hot stone on your plate so you can cook whatever raw meat you ordered and then dip it in different sauces. It was interesting (and $50 later, we were barely full). Funny thing was that we were the only ones in the place at first. They dimmed the lights for us, lit a candle at our table, and turned on some sappy music. It was nice, but we tried not to laugh. We found this to be the theme at a lot of the places we ate. We kind of preferred, and were looking forward to the more laid back, happy-go-lucky, Mexican Fiesta attitude we encountered at most restaurants in PV. In Cancun, every place tried to be real fancy and romantic. Oh well.

We did find another great Thai restaurant to go to! (We found one in PV last time.) It was one of the coolest restaurants too. It was like half outdoors/half indoors, and each table was in its own separate bungalow type thing. Some of them were out over the water and some were over land. There were different colored lanterns all around which had an awesome effect, though not many of our pictures turned out in the dim light. And yes, I look a little scared or something in this picture for some reason. Maybe it was because practically the whole time we ate, our server was stationed in the darkness behind the table waiting for us to need something. They were trying to be all fancy, but we found it a little uncomfortable and creepy. Even still, the curry was worth it! YUM!

Wherever we ate, we had to have some Limonada to drink! It is just the best down there. Too bad it was usually around $3 for one small glass of it, and when you're hot and thirsty you need more than one. You really learn not to take free safe water for granted here in American restaurants, or even free refills!

For the first couple of days, we hadn't had any real authentic Mexican food yet and I was craving some chips and salsa at least! We had plenty throughout the rest of the week, and some were pretty good, but mostly, I realized that my homemade salsa is just plain better!
Does it sound like I'm bragging? OOOPS!


One thing we love about Mexican restaurants in Mexico is the Mariachi Bands! We ate at one particular restaurant called, Sisal. It was a huge place with a Flamenco dancer show (you had to pay extra for that of course) and a Mariachi Band. Here is KR trying to serenade me!

I also took some video of the band playing. Sorry, the picture quality is terrible and dark, but you can hear it at least!

Like true Americans, we flocked to Wal-Mart not long after we arrived in Mexico. We were able to stock up on bottled water and some snacks for the week. They had an incredible bakery there. Rows and rows of pastries for very cheap! I'm not just talking about donuts, but yummy fruit tarts, muffins, breads, danishes, etc. I know, it was pretty corny to take a picture here, but I was living up the tourist thing.
To wrap up my food post, one of the last places we went to was a place called La Mission in Cozumel. We had walked past it in the days before and were pretty excited to eat there because the menu looked good and the place looked fun I guess.


When the time came, however, it just didn't live up to our expectations (by then we should have learned not to get our hopes up). I ordered coconut shrimp. They brought out some huge coconut shrimp served in a half coconut shell on my plate amongst other food. The shrimp was real tasty, but when I went in for a closer look, the coconut shell was crawling with tiny bugs. I had to do some major damage control on my plate, but somehow was able to eat most of my dinner. I'm sure I consumed some extra protein. BLEK.

Mexican Vacation 2008

Well, I've put this off long enough, so before I forget all of the details of our trip to Mexico, I better get them blogged! I had about 750 pictures to weed through and it's been overwhelming. I'm going to attempt to share just the highlights so you don't get too bored, however, with the way the narration is already developing in my head - it's going to be more like a journal of play-by-plays. Sorry! I also reserve the right to embellish my stories to make it sound like we had the "funnest" vacation ever! -All of which will probably cover several entries over the next few weeks with lots of pictures - so deal with it! :)

In January, KR and I went on vacation to Mexico-this time to Cancun and Cozumel. We wanted one last trip before he went to Alabama and also to celebrate our anniversary and his graduation. As a graduation present, his dad gave us 4 free nights in a hotel in Cancun with one of those deals where we had to attend an infamous timeshare presentation. We had been through one of these before and felt it was still worth the free stay. (And yes, when the time came, it took us 2 hours to make it through the gauntlet of sales sharks. And even though we did get a free breakfast with the best fresh squeezed juices we had ever tasted, we vowed not to put ourselves through such a thing again!) We were a bit worried about the "free" room but it turned out to be a very nice hotel! We stayed here at the Westin for those first 4 days.

We loved our room and the hotel staff was great. Our room's view of the Caribbean was gorgeous as you can see!

Our hotel was the last one along the hotel strip and was the only one which had the ocean on one side and the lagoon on the other side. Here are a bunch of pictures around the hotel.

We were really impressed with the beach around the property too. It was a public beach, but they groomed it every morning and it was far from crowded. Unlike Puerto Vallarta, we didn't have vendors trying to sell us stuff every 5 minutes either. Looking back, we wish we had just spent more time relaxing and enjoying that beach! This was one of the nicest days. Unfortunately, it was at least partly cloudy for the rest of the week and even rained a little.

More Funny Cat Videos

The other day I had a school assignment to watch some YouTube videos. One of them happened to show experiments with mice and I noticed the cats were paying attention to the screen.

After the mice, I got an idea to look up cat videos. They were intrigued by these too although it wasn't so much the cat's image on the screen but the cat noises. They couldn't figure out where they were coming from. This video was of a really angry cat! Simon knocked over the speakers trying to get to the cat. I felt bad afterwards though , because as you can see it got them pretty riled up and Simon's tail was all puffed out! For the next half hour they were on the prowl outside for these cats and on edge around the house.

Crazy Neighborhood News

Update: Here is a news video from earlier today (sorry, it's kinda long). A news crews was in the neighorhood trying to get more interviews. I happened to be outside and chatted with them but did not want to go on camera. You can see our truck though-whoo hoo! Anyways, there is a witness saying the man had his hands up when officers shot him, so of course there is a big controversy brewing.

This is the newspaper article about what happened on my street - just a few houses down.

Nampa man shot by police after dispute
The officers thought the 19-year-old, who died at the scene, had a knife, Caldwell chief says.

A domestic dispute and a piece of broken glass led to an early Friday confrontation between police and a 19-year-old man, who died after he was shot by police outside his home.
. When two Nampa officers responded to a 911 call at Sugar Cane Drive and South Kings Road at 2:20 a.m., Rudolph Andrade came out of the house and approached them, holding what appeared to be a knife, Caldwell police Chief Chris Allgood said. Police later learned it was a large piece of glass, he said.
. Andrade ignored the officers' commands to stop and kept coming toward them, said Allgood, whose department is leading the investigation into the shooting. The officers opened fire, and Andrade died at the scene. No one else was injured, he said.
. Streets leading into the neighborhood southwest of the Nampa airport were blocked throughout the morning as investigators pored over the scene.
. By 2 p.m., police cars and TV crews were gone, but a small group of people who live in the neatly kept home were standing outside with somber expressions. They politely declined to give their names or discuss the incident. One young man said they all were in the house when the incident happened, and the man who died was his sister's fianc.
. "We're not going to talk to anyone," a female resident said. "We've talked to an attorney."
Several neighbors in the Kingsgate subdivision also declined to give their names or talk about the shooting.
. Andrade lived in the house with his girlfriend and her family, Allgood said.
Canyon County court records show that Andrade was arrested for misdemeanor domestic violence Dec. 6 and pleaded not guilty; he was scheduled to stand trial in March. His record shows other misdemeanors, including a November 2006 concealed weapon charge and several charges of underage purchase or consumption of alcohol.
. According to the 911 call early Friday, Andrade was breaking windows at the Sugar Cane Drive home, Allgood said.
Asked how close Andrade was to the officers when he was shot, Allgood said, "It all occurred in the roadway."
. Friday morning's snowfall complicated the investigation at the shooting scene, Allgood said, but investigators were able to do considerable work on site before it started to snow around 6:30 a.m.
. Many questions - such as how many shots were fired, which officers fired the shots and whether Andrade had said anything to the officers - remain unanswered publicly. Investigators with the Critical Incident Task Force have asked that details not be released until all witness interviews are complete, Allgood said.
. Results of Friday afternoon's autopsy also will not be announced immediately, he said, adding that he doesn't anticipate releasing more details in the case until Monday.
The two Nampa patrol officers - one a three-year veteran of the force and the other a new officer with several months on the job - are on paid administrative leave, standard practice after such an incident, Nampa police Chief Bill Augsburger said.
. Also following standard practice, Augsburger said, his officers secured the scene and witnesses, then turned the investigation over to the Critical Incident Task Force, comprising the Canyon and Owyhee county sheriff's offices, Idaho State Police and Nampa and Caldwell police.

No I didn't know the guy and I didn't hear the shots, which kind of bothers me that I slept right through it all. My cats might have seen it though because it was in sight from our front window! My backyard neighbor texted me early that morning to see if I was okay since there were cops and news crews all over the street and it was all blocked off. It was crazy.

Our Snow Fort

Last weekend it snowed so much that church was cancelled on Sunday! It was KR's last day at home before leaving for Alabama so we were pretty excited about a snow day from church. We had tons of snow in our backyard so we planned at first to at least make a giant snowman. Quickly that changed into a plan to build a fort. As you can see, we built it around our swingset for support.

It took us several hours and was more work than we bargained for. (KR had the toughest job packing the garbage can to make our pillars. I mostly packed the inside of the fort and tended to the interior decorating...)

In the end it was definately worth it. Our snow fort was pretty cool! Complete with a slide, couch, and yellow snow thanks to the cats!

Poor Simon

Upon returning home from Christmas vacation in Utah, we noticed Simon had a wound on his chest. It looked like a puncure or a bite but we had no idea what had happened. It didn't look infected, but Simon had been licking it so much that a patch of hair bigger than a quarter was gone around the wound. A blister of sorts started to form around the wound from all the licking and more sores opened up. I had no cones handy to put around his head, so I decided to improvise. I first tied a bandana around his chest and it helped a little but he managed to lick around it. The next day I got out th ace bandage and wrapped it around him. He hated it! He would walk really low to the ground for a few steps and then just stop and fall over. Have to say it was kinda funny. This worked for a day but then the ace bandage started to shift and I felt bad that it felt so tight on him. So, next I cut up an old shirt and made a little shirt for him- one that was not too tight but that he couldn't lick around. I went through two of these because he would lick at them and bite at them and would get the threads caught in his teeth. Luckily though, after a couple of days it worked and his wound healed enough for him to stop licking it worse.

The End.

Tubing

As part of our anniversary weekend, we decided to go tubing at the ski resort in Boise. They have a tube hill where you have to call sometimes weeks in advance to get a reservation. It was pretty fun but not so spectacular that we thought we'd go again. Here are a few pics and lame videos. It's hard to see how fast or far we are going, but watch them if you're bored and go "Wheeeee" with us down the hill.

The Many Faces of Greg

Just noticed how many pics I took of Greg over Christmas!