The Puerto Rico Detour

How behind am I on this stuff??? I'm a little annoyed at myself, but I'll try to play catch up. I hope you don't mind being a little behind, but I'd rather tell you about my trip late than not at all. We cool? Cool :-)

A few weeks (now months *ahem*) ago, Nathan and I finally got to go on a nice welcome home vacation. I'll skip the annoying details, but thanks to the Atlanta airport's poor planning, they made us miss our connection from Syracuse to St. Lucia. Delta re-booked us to St. Lucia by way of Puerto Rico. The only thing was instead of getting to St. Lucia at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, we'd have a six hour layover in San Juan. Nathan and I decided that since we had such a long wait and it should be relatively simple to leave the airport and come back in time for our flight, we should go try to see SOMETHING in Puerto Rico. I mean, since we were there already, why not? So with a little advice from some in-airport ticket agents, off we trudged with our carry on bags (Nathan was sweet enough to deal with the one rolling one). We didn't really have time to do more than eat and go stand on the beach if we wanted to get back to the airport with a big time buffer (we REALLY didn't want to have to miss another flight)... so we took a cab to a highly recommended restaurant that just so happened to be a couple of blocks from the beach. Kill two birds with one cab fare.

We went to a restaurant called Metropol. From what we heard, it is THE place in San Juan to go for authentic Puerto Rican food. Our server was very nice. He gave us directions on the easiest way to get to the beach from where we were, told us about moving back to Puerto Rico from Brooklyn when he was a teenager, and about all the famous people that come to the restaurant when they're in town. We tried the flan...

And the tres leches cake...

I actually like my own tres leches cake recipe better. Okay okay, to be fair, it's P-Dub's recipe. But I still like it better.

I couldn't help but notice this place right next door...

I forget that cockfighting is legal anywhere in the U.S., but Puerto Rico gets to play both sides. They're American, but pay no federal taxes and they get to do pretty much whatever they want.

And again, for a place with such rich culture, this street is a little disappointing. Can you count the fast food restaurants in this one picture?

The beach was beautiful...

And we were being very touristy :-) Standing on the beach with suitcases, taking pictures - I'm sure we looked pretty ridiculous.

After the beach, we headed back to the airport. The Caribbean being a tropical place like it is, it started raining just before we boarded the plane. Now, I've done a good bit of flying. I've even been on quite a few regional "puddle jumper" jets. I have never before this trip, however, been on such a rickety PROP plane. A.k.a. death trap. A.k.a. vomit comet. It was so small, it never even made it above the clouds (and therefore, the storm). We had to fill out our customs form during the flight, too, so imagine trying to fill out a legal document while your hands are bouncing all over the place. It was MISERABLE. Pray you never have to fly on one of these guys...

Coming soon - St. Lucia!

Welcome Home!

After approximately four delays in the two days leading up to their scheduled arrival, Nathan FINALLY made it home Sunday morning at 2 a.m. Yes, 2 a.m. He spent 360 days away from home. Most soldiers don't push the 365 day limit so much, but in Nathan's group someone had gotten to 362 days. If a soldier spends 365 days in the country he's deployed to, it costs the Army a lot of extra money. The Army tries to cut it as close as possible without risking going over.

Our good friend Sarah spent the day helping me frantically clean, and then came with me to the ceremony to take pictures for me :-)

Since the Welcome Home Ceremony was supposed to start at 1 a.m. up until they changed it four hours before, I decided to show up a little before 1 juuuuuuuust in case it started early anyway. At 1 a.m., they started showing the video of the plane carrying all the soldiers landing, and then all of them coming off the plane and shaking the big wigs' hands. They played the video over and over and over... It was painful to watch, really. I just wanted them to hurry up already. This was also the point where my hands started shaking and I got light-headed. Nerves do some crazy things to the body! It was a long hour for sure, watching my hands shake and trying to focus on breathing.

Here is the huge open gym where the ceremony took place.

It was agonizing just sitting there, watching some of the important people come in, hug their families, knowing we're all watching them and wanting our soldiers back. I think if I wasn't allowed to see my husband yet, they shouldn't have been hugging their families right in front of us. I just think that's bad taste. But you know, my opinion just doesn't matter much to the Army...

Here is the group of soldiers. Now how in the world am I supposed to be able to pick Nathan out of that group???

I couldn't very well. This is me, totally not clapping like we were supposed to be doing, and thinking "Which one is Nathan?!?!?"

He told me later where he was in the line up. He's in that second row, fourth in line. The one with the tiny black arrow head pointed at him. I most definitely couldn't tell that from all the way up in the bleachers.

After a short speech that I couldn't understand because of a bad sound system, and really didn't care to hear since I was looking for Nathan, they said a prayer, sang the 10th Mountain Song (I'd never even heard of it, but it was so important they had to sing it at 2 a.m. before turning the soldiers loose???), sang the Army Song, and then all out chaos. Fortunately for me, Sarah spotted Nathan. How were two short people supposed to find each other in that crowd?

This is my favorite though. You have no idea what a good feeling this is.

I really really missed this guy :-)

Also, the guy on the left hugging the woman in black is Nathan's friend Rich. He was creeping in most of our pictures. There's a picture where Nathan is kissing me, and Rich is looking over at us and laughing. I've done a bit of creative cropping :-) Rich said we're in all of his, too, so I guess that's only fair.

Somewhere around 3:00 a.m., we finally made it out of there and headed home. Saturday/Sunday morning was probably the absolute longest day I've had all year, but deployment is OVER!!!

Winter Activities

After this one, I think I'll be pretty much caught up for the year. Finally!

I did quite a bit of traveling during the winter. I'm glad I did, because the weather here was MISERABLE. Here's a picture I snapped with my phone one day. Yes, that is snow halfway up the garage. And yes, it is starting to cover the living room windows - and this wasn't even at the worst of it. Miserable.

So like I said, I got out of here as much as possible during winter. My bosses were very understanding about Nathan being gone and my having zero family around. I was basically off work for three straight weeks.

Now cut me some slack on all this, because it's been a while and the details are a little fuzzy...

I went home on Monday before Thanksgiving and spent it with my family. It was so nice to just relax and be home with them. Nathan was flying into Columbus (Mississippi, near Starkville where his parents live) possibly on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, so I went down to Starkville ahead of him and checked into a hotel, got all the stuff Nathan wanted to have for R&R, and waited. The waiting is awful. He ended up flying in Saturday afternoon. I'm not usually an overly emotional person, but I cried for at least five straight minutes when he walked in the gate. Deployment messes with your head.

We spent the evening with his parents, brothers, and sisters having a slightly delayed Thanksgiving dinner. They had waited for him to get home to have the big dinner. We also spent a lot of time that week just sort of hanging out around Starkville/Mississippi State, going to all of our favorite restaurants (I really miss the barbecue!). We even got to watch the seventh Harry Potter movie while we were there :-)

Over the weekend, we went to visit some of our very good friends Brian and Becca Page, who were living at Fort Benning, Georgia while Brian finished up his infantry training. Some other good friends came while we were there - Allen and Lindsay Arant came from Fort Rucker, Alabama, and Jeff Cummings came up from EOD school (explosive ordnance disposal) at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. It was a Mississippi State ROTC reunion! We had a great time watching the SEC football championship game. I really miss getting to watch SEC football. Here, all they like to show is NFL (lame) and hockey (even worse). But anyway, absolutely awesome weekend. Saying goodbye to everyone was sad because with PCSes (army moves) coming up and the possibility of deployments, we were just guessing at when we might see each other again. I am so glad we got to see them for the weekend though!

We squeezed in a quick visit to Tennessee so Nathan could see my family, and then (sadly) it was back to Mississippi to say goodbye. If I thought saying goodbye the first time was hard, this was so much worse. I think because after eight months, I got only two weeks and I just felt cheated. Two weeks in eight months is just. not. enough. Not even close to enough.

Nathan just missed Thanksgiving, and wasn't home quite long enough to spend Christmas with me, but I'm still grateful I got to spend some of the holiday season with him.

After his R&R, I still lucked out and got to go home for Christmas. I flew home Christmas Eve, miraculously making all my flights on time, and so I got to see my family a third time for the winter.

Basically, I was all over the place this winter. Now that Nathan is home and spring is nearly here, I'm hoping to spend some time with him enjoying all the local (or relatively local) things - the walking trails along the Black River, Lake Placid and the Adirondacks, boat tours along the St. Lawrence River. Or maybe just sit around the house together watching movies :-)

Labor Day Weekend 2010

I know I'm behind, but I'm catching up, OK?

Labor Day weekend, I went on a little road trip with my friends Sarah and Kim to the Finger Lakes region of New York. I'd never been there before (except for just driving through), but this place was absolutely beautiful. You can bet that Nathan and I will be visiting.

When we got there, it had just stopped raining after several days of bad weather. This picture pretty much sums up how great the weekend was...

Kim knew about this great state park called Watkins Glen. It's too bad it was pretty close to dark when we went, but there's a series of beautiful waterfalls that have obviously been wearing away at the rock for a very long time.

I am sooooo looking forward to going back and hiking the rest of the way into this place!

Funny side note: I guess we weren't the only ones who had the idea to take a spontaneous trip to Watkins Glen. We tried to find a hotel room and out of the maybe twenty hotels/motels/B&Bs we called, we finally found one that had two available rooms - one with two beds that was a "smoking" room, and one with a king bed that was "non-smoking". We unanimously voted to go cozy and save ourselves from coughing all night. I guess I didn't realize places still had hotel rooms for smokers. Random. Anyway...

After we got home, there was a storm system moving in. I snapped some pictures from the marina in Sackets Harbor and a couple of cloud pictures from the Lowe's parking lot. Hey - you've gotta take your chances when they come.

Next time, I'll tell you about Thanksgiving/Nathan's R&R/Christmas. I didn't bring my camera, so if you're the type to like pictures stories, I'm sorry. You won't like it. If you have a problem with it, tell the airlines that fly in and out of Syracuse to let me actually keep my carry on bag inside the cabin with me so my camera will be safe when I travel. I'm not putting my camera in a bag that's going to get thrown in the cargo hold. Nope.

Mom and Dad Came to Visit, Part III

It hasn't been very long since Part II, has it??? Nah... Just seems like it to you, maybe...

Before I start, some of these pictures are from Mom, so if they aren't the most amazing photography ever, don't look at me ;-)

After NYC, I took Mom and Dad up to the St. Lawrence River. We took a boat tour of what's called "Millionaires' Row". Millionaires' Row is what they call all the houses built along the St. Lawrence by millionaires when industry was huge. A lot of the homeowners were wealthy business men from New York City. This house is a good example of one:

One millionaire's house in particular is a gigantic home called Boldt Castle, built by the owner of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel around 1900. If you want to read about it, Wikipedia has a pretty good article. The house was extremely ornate, in typical industry mogul style.

Can you even imagine a dining table for 20??? I get nervous having more than two people over. But I guess it's easier when you have an entire staff of servants, right?

I think Mom and Dad had a good time seeing the house :-)

A few days later, we decided we should go to Niagara Falls. Dad had never been, and Mom and Dad DID say that they wanted the whirlwind tour of New York, so I tried to make it happen.

All of the pictures are taken from the Canadian side of the falls. Sorry, America, but you really lost out on this. Your view is pretty lame. My advice, if you're ever planning to go to Niagara Falls, be sure to take your passport so you can get to the Canadian side!

We got there at night, so we got to see the falls lit up. This is the American waterfall.

The Canadian fall is pretty amazing, too.

In the mist, I found a double rainbow. What does it mean?!?!? (Sorry - if you don't follow pop culture, you're not going to get that one.)

See? I was on the trip :-) That girl on the left just wouldn't get out of the picture.

Mom and Dad had to squeeze in to get in front of a section of fence. That place was crowded!

There's a lot of water going over these falls! A picture just doesn't capture that.

We ate lunch at the top of this tower.

It had quite a view! See how small that huge Canadian fall is now?

Well, ladies and gentlemen, that wraps up the Mom and Dad Came to Visit blog series. Up next, what I've been doing all fall and winter. Maybe I'll get to it BEFORE summer rolls around?

I'm famous! Not really, but...

First, I know this doesn't count as a real blog post. Now that I'm not traveling all over the place (like I have been since Thanksgiving), I'll get back to it.

Second, so here's the thing. There's this blog called Copy Cat Chic that's pretty famous with home decor kind of people. It's been featured in Better Homes & Gardens, among other big magazines. The idea of the blog is to take a high-end item (lamps, rugs, drapes, furniture) and find an affordable alternative. Since this is pretty much how I have outfitted my whole house, I follow the blog. My awesome dining table that I found? Now it has been featured on Copy Cat Chic, and I got an honorable mention. Go me!

Here's the link if you'd like to see my amazing copy cat-finding skills :)

http://www.copycatchic.com/2011/01/pottery-barn-montego-turned-leg-dining.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+CopyCatChic+(|+Copy+Cat+Chic+|+chic+for+cheap)

In case you care about my house furnishings...

I know you probably don't though. But look at it this way - until I get my dining room furniture, I'm not posting pictures of the house on the blog. So indulge me and I'll get there faster :-)

If you've talked to me about dining room furniture in the past four months or so, you know I'm pretty much obsessed with the Pottery Barn Montego table. Of course, I'm not so much in love with the price. But just for comparison purposes, here's what the table looks like...

I've been looking and looking for a copy cat that I could actually afford. I wanted a rectangular table that seats no less than six people, dark finish, turned wood legs, wooden seat chairs (so the cats don't ruin the upholstery by sleeping on the chairs all the time), and no small vertical slats on the chair backs (super country style).

I've been looking for months and I almost went today and bought a set I'd found, but it didn't fit all my requirements. I got busy this afternoon, though, and didn't make it to the furniture store. I'm glad I didn't. That set would cost nearly $1300 by the time I paid taxes and had it delivered. I looked at thesimplestores.com (where I found the TV stand I have now which I love) one more time and found this great set...

Including six chairs (all chocolate finish, no red ones :-) ) and delivery, this one will cost just over $800. I think I'll take it.

Pictures of the house soon! I promise!