Lilacs... in August?

When David told me that our lilac bush was blooming, I was completely confused. Lilacs in the Northeast bloom from the end of April (where we are in NJ) to the end of May (in Upstate NY), but I'd never heard of them blooming in August! Sure enough, I checked the bush and found a few tiny blossoms! And the best part, they smelled just as wonderful as they did in the spring! I have no idea how our bush managed to bloom twice this year, but it was a great surprise!

Girls Weekend to Chincoteague, VA

This past weekend I had the opportunity to go to Chincoteague, Virginia for a Girl's Weekend! My good friend, Karen, and I had gone there last August while she was living on the Eastern Shore for the summer. We had so much fun that we decided we should do it again this summer and invite more girls to join us! So I drove down from NJ on Friday night and Karen, Jessi, Jessica, Stef, Christina, Jenn and Courtney drove up from VA. Thanks to the research and planning that Karen, we had a whole house that we were able to rent for the weekend! It was perfect!

Saturday we headed to the beach on Assateague Island, even though the weather didn't look ideal. Here's me, Jessi, Christina and Stef being the first brave people to get our feet wet!


Poor Karen was so cold she wrapped up in her towel and took a morning nap!

Around 1:30pm there was a mass exodus of the beach as a thunder storm approached from the west. We were about 50 yards from the vehicles when the downpour hit! All of us were soaked! Karen told us to wait because she thought the storm wouldn't last for long... and she was right! 20 minutes later we were back on the beach again.

And then about 3pm the sun came out and almost all of us went into the ocean and jumped the waves. It had finally turned into a perfect beach day!

The wild Chincoteague ponies were close to the road when we were leaving the beach, so we stopped to take pictures of them. There are a lot of foals in the herd this time of year. At the end of July most of the foals will be auctioned off at the annual Pony Penning.

This is the house that Karen found for us. It had 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and beds/couches for everyone! We couldn't have wished for a better place to stay.

Here's everyone at the house on Saturday night... eatting our take-out dinners from the local seafood and Italian restaurants and enjoying each others company. It was a wonderful weekend!

Harley Ride to Strasburg, PA

As some of you know, David and I decided to buy a motorcycle last summer. David knew someone who was selling a Harley-Davidson Softail Deuce, so we said we would buy it. Well, we waited and waited and WAITED for the guy to get the title so we could buy it, but all we kept getting was excuses on why he hadn't yet received it from the state. David was very frustrated, but since the guy was someone that David had been acquainted with for many years we were patient.

Last Wednesday David heard about another Softail Deuce that was for sale. He went to look at it on Thursday and we bought it on Friday! That's how easy it should be to buy a motorcycle! David felt a little bad about backing out of the "deal" to buy the other bike, but since we waited for 10 months I feel like he was more than patient.

We could hardly wait to get our new motorcycle out on the road! Friday was a cold, rainy day, but thankfully today was beautiful. We thought about driving to the shore, but then decided to drive to Strasburg, PA instead.

Here's David before we left the house.


Sitting on the bike during one of our stops along the way.

Walking down the sidewalk in Strasburg, PA.

We stopped at this store for ice cream in homemade waffle cones... delicious!

David enjoyed his cone and his maple walnut ice cream.

It was 7pm when we returned to our house this evening. We had gone over 200 miles on the bike this afternoon! I was a bit sore (still trying to talk David into getting me a sissy bar!), but it was a wonderful day.

Weekend Visitors

This past weekend David and I (ok, this was mostly my idea!) volunteered to watch my nephews, Aiden and Seth, while my sister and her husband celebrated their 5th anniversary. Just the boys stayed with us from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening, and then Alenna and Dan spent the night at our place on Sunday before heading home on Monday morning.

The boys were very well behaved while they were here!! They enjoyed hanging out at the house... playing the piano, reading books, playing with the neighbor kids and sliding our coasters across the carpet. (Who needs toys when you've got coasters that slide?!) But Saturday morning we were able to make a trip to the Philadelphia Zoo! The boys were tired after a few hours, but they talked about it for the rest of the weekend. I guess that means they had fun!

Another highlight from the weekend was Friday night when "Unca Davy" let the boys sit on his "mogocycle". That was a HUGE hit!! Aiden even made sure we thanked God for the motorcycle that night during prayers before bed.

I am so thankful that Alenna and Dan live close enough that Aiden and Seth can get to know us, and even visit us! We had a wonderful time with them!

SKYDIVING!!

Last year for David's birthday, October 2nd, I told him that I wanted to take him skydiving. I also told him that if he wanted to take me skydiving for my birthday then I would willingly accept that as a gift! So we decided that we would go sometime in May or June of this year, after the weather got warmer. Well, due to a busy spring and summer we never got around to booking our jump. I knew we had to go before David turned 30 (I wouldn't feel like it could count as his 29th birthday gift if he wasn't 29 anymore!) so last week I called and booked our jump for 2pm on Saturday, September 20th. Things were moving a little slow at the drop zone so it was actually about 5pm when we made our jump. It turned out well, though... with the sun lower in the western sky the world looked amazingly beautiful from the air!

Here we are waiting outside the skydive center. That's the plane to the left of us, getting refueled.

There were 12 of us packed into the plane, including the pilot. A 19-year-old student did a hop-n-pop (hop out of the plane and pop your parachute almost immediately) at 4,000 ft. It was a clear, beautiful day, so David and I decided when we got to the drop zone to pay an extra $10 per person for the "extra high" jump with 20-30 seconds more of freefall. So we were at almost 14,000 feet when we left the plane!

David and his jump master, Brian.

That's me in freefall over the Pennsylvania countryside! The runway at the skydive center is to my right.

Me with my jump master, Chris. Chris is from Australia and has been skydiving for 6 years. The past 3 summers he's come to Skydive Philadelphia to be an instructor. He even let me steer the parachute for a while!

This was an amazing experience! It's hard to come close to describing the freefall... it's not at all what I thought it would be. There was no sense of speed or falling and there wasn't the leave-your-stomach-behind feeling like you get on a rollercoaster. It was just like floating... with a lot of wind rushing at you!

I hope to go again some day! And I would definitely recommend to anyone!

--------------------------------------------------------------------
"If riding in an airplane is flying, then riding in a boat is swimming. If you want to experience the element, get out of the vehicle." - a great quote from The Skydiver's Handbook, by Dan Poynter & Mike Turoff

Sisters & Best Friends

Hiking Watkin's Glen

David and I spent Labor Day weekend with my sister, Alenna, and her family. This was our first, of hopefully many trips, to their new house in NY! Saturday was a beautiful day and we met my aunt, uncle, cousin and her family to go hiking at Watkin's Glen. Thankfully we were able to start at the top and hike down, not up, the 800+ steps through the glen. Seth and Aiden kept signing "more, more, more" to the many sights around them... it was so cute! We all had a wonderful time.

Carolyn, Pam, Seth, Luke, Alenna, Aiden, David, Dan and Aunt Joan hiking the glen.

One of the many GORGEous views of Watkin's Glen.

Aiden and Alenna... with Seth and Pam in the background.

Seth started to get really tired about 1/2 way through our hike. I asked if he wanted to rest his head on my shoulder and 3 minutes later he was completely asleep! Alenna and Dan both offered to carry him, but having him asleep in my arms was so sweet and I didn't want to put him down. So I carried him for the rest of the hike (and my arms were sore the next day as proof!), but it was worth it!

Our First Anniversary

One year ago, David and I said "I do"! They say that the first year is always the hardest, but if that's the case, then we've been blessed... 'cause this past year has been great. As I think back on this past year (or even the past two years, since David and I have been together), I think of something Carla said to Turk in "Scrubs" (my favorite show)... "I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, but you've managed to erase them all, because each and every one of them has lead me to you."

We went to the Blue Ridge Mountains for the weekend to celebrate our anniversary. We stayed at a wonderful Bed & Breakfast, visited the local wineries, climbed to the top of Old Rag in the Shenandoah National Park (the picture above shows the view from the top!) and relaxed. It was a great get-away weekend!

Guest Bathroom Pictures

This project has been stressful at times, but all in all it was a good experience. It truly was a joint effort... it was David's idea to add a chair rail to the bathroom, but I picked out the paint color, he bought the mirror and I chose the shower. And, in the end, I think the whole thing came together really well!

Our Toy Story!

Even though we didn't have enough time to go into any of the amusement parks at Disney, we did enjoy taking pictures at the All Star's Movie Resort!