Lots to be thankful for...

Joe and I know that we have a lot to be thankful for.

At the end of October, we flew to Southern California to visit our very good friends, the Zadra's. Since it was Halloween when we arrived, we got to see Kennedy and Brooke in their costumes and the next day, we got to see Disneyland - all decked out for Halloween.

Kennedy is a Candy Corn Witch:


Brooke is a Pink Punk Pirate:


Halloween Disney:


For Thanksgiving, Joe's parents joined us for a little vacation. We've done lots of eating (as usual), but we also saw a few things around town.

Here we are at Ranchman's in Ponder, TX having a Thanksgiving Dinner with my parents.


On Friday we checked out a very cool ice sculpture exhibit at the Gaylord Texan here in Grapevine.



Yesterday we went to the C. R. Smith Musuem. Now, I and Joe have both been to the museum several times as airline employees, but it's always been to work events or some social gathering (once a wedding reception and I went once to see Rick Steves). But, we've never been just to see the museum and that's what we did. We even watched both movies - one of which Joe received a Special Thanks for driving the film crew around on a Friday and Saturday and assisting in the making of the movie.

Today we went to see The Boy in the Striped Pajamas at the movie theatre. This is a movie that was made of a book that Joe, Barb, and I all read. I thought the movie was pretty well done, but I don't know that we would have seen it if we hadn't read the book. Very sad story related to the holocaust.

It's the conclusion of the Thanksgiving weekend and we realize that we have tons to be thankful for...each other, family, friends. We both have jobs, we have a roof over our heads, and we have way too much to eat. We may not be rich in money, but we are rich in blessings and for that, I am especially thankful.

Glacier National Park

When Joe and I got married, we bought tickets on United Airlines. There were a couple of reasons - 1) I wasn't working at American at the time and it was actually cheaper and 2) the routing was better because we got married in Lake Tahoe and honeymooned in Hawaii. (To travel on American, we would have had to come all the way back to Dallas from Reno to get to Hawaii.) So, since we were traveling over 10,000 miles, we both signed up for their frequent flyer program. Joe would have been content to let the miles expire, but I decided we should each get a Chase credit card, earn some free miles and take a free - confirmed - trip. So we did!! And for our free, confirmed trip we picked Kalispell, MT because AA doesn't fly close to there and neither Joe nor I had ever been to Glacier National Park.

We moved around the park during the week and even took a side-trip up to the Canada side of the park - Waterton Lakes. It was a really beautiful week of exploring, boat trips, and hiking.

Our first stop was at the historic Lake McDonald Lodge. We would make this our home for a couple of nights. Unfortunately, I was not able to secure us a room IN the lodge, but instead, we stayed in an extension. I was mildly disappointed, but I must say that the room was clean and comfortable, and we don't spend that much time in our room anyway! It was Lake McDonald where we took our first boat tour - AND we saw a bald Eagle!!! He was quite beautiful!! It was also here we saw evidence of the 2003 Robert Fire and learned a little about the natural cycle of the forest and the eventual benefits of fire.

This is actually the back of Lake McDonald Lodge - the front faces the lake because that's how visitors arrived before they built the road:


Bald Eagle in the tree:


We did a couple of hikes from the Lake McDonald area including the John's Lake Loop Trail and the Avalanche Lake Trail. I was a little nervous when I saw all the signs posted concerning the Bear warnings. I'm not the least bit interested in happening across a bear on a hike!!! We did happen across a deer, which was okay, but scary in a way because we never saw - or heard - him coming. He just appeared!!


At Avalanche Lake:


From Lake McDonald, we headed over to Many Glacier Lodge, which was my favorite lodge during our visit. It was on our way there that we had our first bear sighting - a momma and her 3 cubs. Also during our stay at Many Glacier, we did our favorite excursion - the Red Bus Tour. They picked us up in the morning and we spent all day touring across the Going-to-the-Sun road back to Lake McDonald. It was really fun!!! The day was nice, so we had the top down and Joe was able to enjoy the Going-to-the-Sun Road since he wasn't driving!!!

Many Glacier Lodge:


Momma and her babies:


Red Bus Tour:


At St. Mary's Lake:


From Many Glacier, we headed north to Canada to Waterton Lakes National Park and the Prince of Wales Hotel. We were on the 6th Floor here. Unfortunately, the elevator only went part of the way and was often hard to catch, so we took many, many stairs during our visit!! Still, I enjoyed our little room in the attic - and, in general, liked this hotel although I thought the staff was least friendly here.


We took another boat ride while at Waterton Lakes - of Waterton Lake. The tour actually docks on the other side of the lake, which is in the US at Goat Haunt. And, we did a few hikes in Canada - the Blakiston Falls Trail, the Cameron Lake Trail, Akimina Lake Trail, and Bear's Hump. Bear's Hump was really hard for me, but the reward at the top was spectacular!!!

Cameron Lake from the hiking trail:


From the top of Bear's Hump:


Back to the US, we stopped back at Many Glacier and took our final boat tour - Swiftcurrent Lake and Josephine Lake (2 for the price of 1). You take the boat to the far side of Swiftcurrent Lake, get out, and walk a short trail over to Josephine Lake. At the far side of Josephine Lake, you can get out and hike to Grinnell Lake. This was probably my favorite hike of the week. Grinnell Lake is so beautiful!!! We opted to hike all the way back to Many Glacier instead of taking the boats - it was a nice hike, as well.

Grinnell Lake:


Our last stop was at Two Medicine, but we didn't hike here. It was late in the afternoon and we were on our way to the last of our historic lodges - Glacier Park Lodge.


Overall, we really enjoyed our trip and our week in nature. We saw a lot of different wildlife while we were gone - bears, elk, mountain goat, and big horn sheep - and we thought that was pretty cool. The mountains are absolutely beautiful and we saw a couple of the glaciers that are still left. We have a full week of stuff left on our to-do list and we have, more than happily, added Glacier National Park back to our vacation destination wish list.

Bear:


Elk:


Mountain Goat:


Bighorn Sheep:


Sperry Glacier:


Jackson Glacier:


In the end, we didn't regret our free trip (or rather, free airfare) - AT ALL!!!! We loved every minute of it!!

Endeavour

We made it!!! I consider all shuttle launches historic, but this one could have been particularly historic because it was the last scheduled night launch (the shuttle program is scheduled to end in the year 2010). And it was WAY COOL!!!

The space shuttle Endeavour lifted off at 7:55 PM on Friday, November 14th. We were on a causeway bridge looking toward Kennedy Space Center during the count-down. A few seconds before liftoff, the engines ignited and it looked like an explosion!!! Then it lifted up and away. We saw the rocket launchers fall away and then in just a few seconds, it was off, flying at 17,000 miles an hour toward the international space station.

Part of any trip to Florida is a visit to Joe's aunt Rita. She and Uncle Bob were great hosts and we had a wonderful, relaxing, LONG weekend before coming back to reality. We rounded out our weekend with a trip to the Astronaut Hall of Fame on Saturday and then the Navy Seal Museum on Sunday.

Chicago and Austin

Joe and I love big travels, but we also like small travels. And during my hiatus from the blog we've taken a couple.

Chicago is easily one of our favorite cities. Of course, we met in Chicago, so there is a lot of sentimental value to it. But, it's also home to Joe's sports teams - the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago Bears. He also loves the Bulls and Blackhawks, but the Cubs and the Bears are definitely the tops. Since I moved back to Texas in 2002, we've tried to return at least once a year for a weekend in the Windy City.

This year we returned the first weekend of April for a Cubs game. I couldn't take a day off work for this weekend because I'm an accountant and the beginning of each month means BUSY!!! But after the game we walked around town and took a Lake Michigan boat tour (one it turns out we've done before!). And best of all, we got to return to my old neighborhood and have our favorite pizza while we were there, too! We (I) still have a pretty extensive list of "to-do's" for Chicago, so you can expect to see Chi-town turn up on the blog and the photo site in the future!

A couple of weekends later, we headed down to the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas. Joe had never really been to Austin and since it's my favorite Texas town, I decided it was about time. We started out our weekend in Barton Springs, a natural spring that is about 70 degrees, but feels MUCH cooler. This was the biggest reason we opted to go in August - I mean if you've ever been in Texas in August, you would know how nice it would feel to plunge into COLD water. After Barton Springs, we tried out some Texas BBQ at the County Line, a restaurant that consistently makes the Top 10 of best BBQ restaurants in Texas Highways Magazine.

Sunday morning we woke up and headed to the LBJ Library. Joe and I have another list - all the Presidential Libraries to vist. LBJ is our 3rd, we've previously been to the JFK Library in Boston (2002) and the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, CA (2007). We're not exactly blazing a trail through these libraries are we?? After the library, we took a tour of the Texas State Capitol. It was quite informative, lots of fun, and FREE.


Other things we marked off the Austin list: (1) Visiting the bats under the Congress Avenue Bridge (unfortunately, this didn't go very well because the weather was a bit dark and dreary and by the time they flew, we couldn't see them!); (2) Lunch at Hut's Hamburgers (again, a restaurant that is consistently on the Top 10 list of best hamburgers in Texas in the Texas Highways Magazine).


So, like Chicago we left many "to-do's" on the Austin list. We'll be visiting this beautiful city again!

WTF

So...I've been noticing a lot of new license plates around town. 3 numbers and then the letters "WTF." Seriously??? Doesn't someone monitor these things? And yet, in the great state of Texas, WTF made it through the sensors. HA!!! It makes me laugh every time.

Tomorrow we are heading to Florida to watch the Space Shuttle launch. Hopefully. There is always the chance of postponement due to weather, but we have 3 days, so hopefully it'll make it during one of those days. Joe has seen it many times throughout the years because his aunt lives close by. So now it's my turn to see a launch. Wish us luck!!

Lists and Tahiti

Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love a list. I have lists of lists...what I need to do at home, what I need to do at work, what I need to do this weekend, where I want to travel to, weekend trips I want to take, what books I want to read, what layouts I need to complete. It goes on and on and on. Last weekend I had a quite extensive "to do" list. Sometimes it just feels like I haven't gotten anything done in months and so a new list comes out and that's how I've been feeling lately and that's what I did to compensate. So, now I am accomplishing something on my list - "catch up blog." It's such a satisfying feeling to mark something off!!! Joe was sweet enough to mark something off my list for me - grocery shopping. But, that's a topic for another day.

Now to the good stuff!!! There was a lot of anticipation leading up to our trip to Tahiti, so now I want to talk about that. I didn't take the laptop with me (and I'm way behind), so I will recap:

Adventures in French Polynesia:

Although we debated, we ended up non-reving into JFK for our flight to Papeete. Not wanting to take any chances, we flew up the night before and stayed overnight close to the airport. It was fairly heavenly to sleep late and relax while we waited to catch our flight instead of getting up early and stressing out about whether or not we would make it!!

Our Air Tahiti Nui flight was fairly uneventful, albeit L-O-N-G!!! We were greeted with little "tiare Tahiti" flowers, the national flower of Tahiti, which was a great touch. We left a little late, but other than my usual impatience, that was a non-factor. The food on the flight was AWFUL, just for the record and the seats were pretty uncomfortable. BUT...we were on our way to paradise, so I'll leave my complaints there. Ha!

We spent our first day (2 nights) in Papeete on the island of Tahiti. We stayed at a hotel on the hill across the street from the airport - for convenience (we arrived at midnight) and because we were spending lots of money on resorts on Moorea and Bora Bora, we wanted to save a little money.

Here's our hotel on the hill:

We rented a car to do a circle tour of the island:

We started out our day in Papeete by having lunch at a restaurant called "3 Brasseurs." It's a microbrewery (I believe that "brassuers" means beer instead of bras in French). The guidebook recommended the pizza and it was a very good start.

The island looks a lot like Hawaii. Tahiti is by far the largest island we stayed on all week, but it still only took us a couple of hours to drive all the way around. The waves on the north side crash into the beach like they do in Hawaii, but on the south side there is a barrier reef, so we could see the waves crashing in the distance. Most of the beaches here were black sand, which we found interesting, but overall I would say that if my friends asked my advice, I would recommend hopping on over to the smaller islands and skip Tahiti.

The next day we headed to the island of Moorea where we stayed at the Sheraton Resort in a garden bungalow, and boy was that an upgrade from the Tahiti Airport Motel!!! It turned out to be my favorite resort of the week. We arrived to find this cat on our patio, which I thought was really funny because as we walked by the first time, I wondered if the cat belonged to the people who were staying there.

We spent our first full day at the resort - sunbathing, reading, and doing a little snorkeling:

For dinner we went into town to the Te Hono Ito restaurant. The draw to this restaurant is that it is right on Cook's Bay and they have some resident stingrays that swim around while you eat your dinner. We had the mahi mahi in vanilla sauce. It was very good, but our favorite part of the dinner was dessert (surprise, surprise!!). We had apple pie and ice cream, but it wasn't like traditional American apple pie, it was like an apple frittata. Light and flaky and DELICIOUS!!!

Our second day, we took a 4 x 4 tour. It was good and bad. Our first stop was up this incredible mountain they call “Magic Mountain” for a spectacular view down on the Sheraton (our hotel!) and the Bungalows Resort. It was a bit of a scary ride. Some of the hills were incredibly steep, although most of the road was paved. We were in a small truck – in the back – and our guide, Tom, told us to stand up for an easier ride. He was a great driver, but I almost peed my pants when he had to turn around and go up the last little bit backwards! A short climb and we were on the very top. Excellent views. From that viewpoint, we drove into the center of the island to Belvedere – a lookout point from where you can look down on Cook’s Bay on one side of the mountain and Opunohu Bay on the other. Another beautiful lookout. From there, Joe and I would have been happy to return to our hotel, but our tour had a few more stops. First we stopped at a “temple” where human sacrifices were made. Tom explained how the men were killed outside the area and then taken in through a “door” which was just a low place in the rock. The head was cut off and displayed for respect and then the body was cooked and eaten – yes, the Tahitians were cannibals!!! Only men were sacrificed – never women or children. Next, we went to the agriculture area where we were treated to some jam samples and Joe and I had some pineapple and vanilla bean ice cream. It was so incredibly hot at this point, we both thought we might evaporate, but we took our ice cream to the shade and sucked it up. From there we took a short tour through the pineapple fields and fruit orchards, before making another stop for some fresh fruit and photo ops in the flower fields. Again – HOT!!! Our last stop was a place that makes fruit drinks and alcohol from fruit. We had about 3 samples. The last one was vanilla rum and it was pretty hideous. As usual, Joe and I bought nothing at any of the stops!!!

Here's our 4x4 "tourmobile:"

Joe shows you where the Sheraton is from Magic Moutain:

Here we are at Belvedere:

And now for the "climax" of the trip - Bora Bora. I'm pretty sure that Bora Bora is the favorite of most people who visit French Polynesia - at least the 2 people that I know that have been and myself!!! We stayed at 2 different resorts on Bora Bora - another costs savings initiative - but this time both in overwater bungalows. Our first stop was the Intercontinental Le Moana. They let us check in early, so this time instead of spending the afternoon on the beach, we spent it on the patio of our bungalow!!! It was so awesome!!! It did get really windy while we were at Le Moana and sometimes we could feel our bungalow swaying, which kind of freaked me out. I kept looking at the poles that the bungalow was sitting on to make sure the water level wasn't rising. Ha!!!

Our first night in Bora Bora we had dinner at Le Villa Mahana. This place was frankly a little out of our league, but came highly recommended so we decided to splurge. I had the Mahi Mahi this time in banana curry with mango (or something like that) and Joe had the Catch of the Day, which was snapper. Our dinner came with a salad with that marscapone cheese, which was excellent, and bread. For dessert, we had the chocolate cake, which had a fudge center and ice cream. Yum-my. We really enjoyed the dinner – at least I did. Damien is the chef there and he comes out and personally takes your order. The service was good – especially for the islands.

Our second day started out with us doing nothing. Seemed great, but was admittedly a little difficult for me. I guess I’m used to being on the go, but I tried to relax – I DID!!! We hung out in our bungalow until about 11:30ish, booked an excursion for Saturday, had some lunch, and headed into town for souvenirs and to send postcards. Town was small. We found some souvenir shops, but in all honesty, it wasn't cheaper there like we thought it would be.

The second half of our stay on Bora Bora was spent at the Intercontinental Thalasso. This resort is only a couple of years old and is definitely one of the nicest places we'ver ever stayed.

The bungalows here are called "villas." Here is ours:

The view from our BED!!!:

Mt. Otemanu and the infinity pool at the Intercontinental Thalasso Resort:

One of my favorite shots - from the patio of our villa:

Unfortunately, we had a little bad luck with the weather while at Thalasso. Believe it or not, this is Bora Bora in July 2008:

The day of our anniversary we sucked it up, bad weather and all, and went on the shark / ray feeding tour. Fortunately, the rain held out until we were done – so I guess we were lucky there. The tour was actually good and I was really glad we went. The sharks are black-tipped reef sharks. Not huge, but sharks nonetheless. The guide gets in there and feeds them, then after they are done eating, you are allowed to swim around with them. It was kind of cool, but the weather was creating such chop, it was hard to stay in one place. Our 2nd stop was the Coral Garden, where we were actually given fish to feed the fish. There was a huge moray eel hiding in the coral, but the guides drug it out so we could see it. It was huge. My comment to Joe was that this was the best and the worst snorkeling ever. The best because since we were feeding the fish, they were everywhere. This, of course, would never be allowed in the states because the fish would come to depend on feeding from the tours and would lose their instincts to hunt. The worst because the huge waves made it difficult to concentrate on anything but staying close to the group. Our last stop was the ray feeding. This is in very shallow water. I was a bit nervous at first, but ended up warming up to them in the end. I even gave a couple of them a “kissy, kissy” as requested by our guides. They are somewhat intimidating, with their long, pointy tales, but overall it was a fun excursion.

The shark feeding:

Joe feeding the fish:

The eel looks much smaller in this quick shot I got as I was trying to back away!!!:

For our anniversary dinner, we made reservations at Bloody Mary’s, a fairly famous place in town. To get there, you have to take the shuttle boat over to Le Moana and then be picked up by the van there. Our ride over was a bit terrifying for me (Joe said he was never worried!). The rain was POURING and the waves were crashing over the bow of the boat. The driver had to use his cell phone to light up the compass to make sure he was going in the right direction!!! I was pretty relieved to get to land.

Dinner was fun. You pick it out when you walk in the door. We had an hour and a half until the shuttle back, but the time passed really quickly between drinks, appetizers, dinner, and dessert. The ride on the boat was much more uneventful!!!

So while I was a little disappointed with the weather on our last couple of days in paradise, I was just as disappointed to have to leave. As we walked out of our glorious villa, the sun began to peep through the clouds. Sigh. Back to reality.

WOW...long time, no write

You see? I told you I wasn't sure how long I would be able to keep up the blog. After spending last weekend with the Zadra's, Michelle (Sheli) side-ways convinced me to update when I learned that she, too, has started a blog on this very site. AND, she's made several posts already!!!

So...I have a lot of catching up to do. Here is the recap:

July:

• Our trip to TAHITI!!!!

August:

• A weekend in Chicago
• A weekend in Austin, TX

September:

• Our trip to Glacier National Park
• Joe's mom and my mom both have surgery within a couple of days of each other

October:

• Joe and I participate in the Komen Race for the Cure
• We go to the State Fair of Texas to re-live my childhood
• We travel to visit the Zadra's on Halloween and spend the next day at Disneyland

Probably most significantly, our country elected a new President on November 4th. Barack Obama will not only be our new President in January, he is the first African-American president elected in the United States. It was a great historical event for many reasons and one that we watched closely - closer than any election before, but not because of the historical significance of electing a black man (or a woman VP, if the vote would have gone Republican) - more because our country seems to be in big trouble. Our economy is in trouble, we are still at war in a country that didn't have much to do with 9/11 (the reason we were given for going to war), and we are still under threat of terrorist activity. I know things won't change overnight, but we have hope again. It was time for change and "change" was the focus point of Obama's campaign.

So, I'll be spending some time trying to catch up - and then keep up. Thanks for the inspiration, Michelle. This isn't the first time and it probably won't be the last. :-)