Journeys of a kayaking dance gypsy

Winter Wonderland Weekend

2012-01-17T17:02:00.004-05:00

We just spent a wonderful winter weekend playing in the snow in northeast Indiana! Pokagon State Park, in Steuben County, is quickly becoming one of my favorite state parks in Indiana. Last Friday Doug and I, with four of our friends (Valerie & Darren and Chris & Juliet), rented a rustic cabin at the park and spent a few days tobogganing, hiking, enjoying each others company, eating tasty food, drinking tasty drinks, and--of course--playing games.

Although the roads were a little slick on our way up north on Friday night, we couldn't have asked for better weather for this adventure. As we spent time outdoors, we all kept marveling at the gently falling snow showers and perfectly formed snowflakes.

And, we were up bright and early on Saturday morning to be some of the first people on the toboggan run! The run at Pokagon S.P. got started by the CCC boys--the Civilian Conservation Corps that helped build a lot of Indiana's state parks back in the mid-1930s. It's gotten improved quite a bit from its beginnings back then; the run now starts at the top of a 30 foot tower. With the natural hills in the area, it actually has a vertical drop of 90 feet over a quarter mile of dips and valleys. Despite our best attempts, including getting several combinations of 4 big adults all on one sled, we didn't beat the run's top recorded speed of 42 mph--we only made it to 36 mph. But it was awfully fun trying despite the bumps and bruises that I managed to get along the way! We did several several runs that morning and then returned Saturday night to try again. It. Was. Awesome.

We were a bit disappointed that we didn't get some cross-country skiing in. This was their first snow for a while, and the Parks rentals weren't available this weekend. But we had a few nice hikes. Some crazy person--there was some argument whether it was actually Doug or Valerie--also talked us into a foolish run from our cabin to the big hot tub at the Inn wearing just our swimsuits and snow boots. Doug wasn't convinced this was foolish enough and decided to run over to the lake for a polar bear dip and another dive into the hot tub. :) Also awesome.

A fine time was had by all! The video below is one of the nighttime toboggan runs with Doug, Chris, Valerie and Darren.

In other odd news, Doug and I decided to try renting our house for the Indianapolis Super Bowl Madness. We're not sure it will take--but our house is less than a 2 mile drive from Lucas Oil Stadium! Walking it is even closer, a 30 minute hike. At the very least, preparing for this possibility made us clean our house! The website we are using, AirBnB, actually sends out a professional photographer to take photos for free. Craziness! He did a beautiful job--and if you follow this link you'll get to take a look at all of the improvements we've made to our funny little house in the last year. After almost 10 years in the house I finally got to get rid of the terrible contractor carpeting for some wonderfully warm toned resilient flooring. The same contractor who did our flooring also built the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that I longed for since I first bought the house. After all that work was finished, we also repainted several of the rooms downstairs with some warm, vibrant colors. We hope you take a look using the link below. And, if you know any die-hard football fans who don't have hotel rooms booked for the Super Bowl yet, please pass this along!

Puerto Rico

2011-08-13T11:07:00.011-04:00

On July 20th, we went to Puerto Rico with our good friends Valerie and Darren. We're always up for a fun adventure, so when they suggested a trip to Puerto Rico, off we went. The plane ride was my favourite -- uneventful, and it gave Fiona time to play with her new Kindle. She loves having an entire bookcase at her fingertips. (Fiona's comment: The Kindle was an awesome first anniversary present, especially when Doug isn't stealing it!)

Arriving the first day, we decided to travel along the coast road to Fajardo, so that we could take the ferry to the island of Vieques the next day. We stayed at the El Conquistador (an okay place, but Too Many Lines), and because they didn't have our requested double beds, Fiona managed to convince them to give us free drink tickets, free breakfast, and a $25 matched bid token for the casino. Darren pointed out that the roulette wheel was only biased against you if you didn't have a free bid token--so after doing a bit of math, it became obvious that it was well worth it to play one spin. So, in a flurry of activity, giggling, and high fiving, we went down to the casino, and aggressively bet $50 on Red. The few people there looked at us like we knew something was up, and everyone at the roulette table joined us in our bet. The dealer spun the wheel, it was red! We won! We squealed and jumped and made a spectacle of ourselves. The table loved us and then laughed as we ran to the cashier cage as we cashed out in record time, 3 minutes after we entered the casino. With the free breakfasts, the tickets, and the $50 won, we easily were paid to stay at El Conquistador!

The next day, we explored Vieques. The guidebook recommended a guesthouse that was overrun by animals (cats, dogs and horses) -- perfect for us. We kayaked and swam in the the Bioluminescence bay, where Dynoflagellites will glow when disturbed. This leads to a very trippy experience, where swimming looks like this and kayaking looks like this, and you can see fish freak out when you kayak close to them, leaving trails of light.

The next morning as we started our horseback ride, Darren apparently told the guides to "take us somewhere fun", so we went everywhere. We went through scenic Vieques:

There were mountains, so we went up mountains (Fiona's horse doesn't like going uphill anymore than Fiona does). But, by far the most fun was running along the beach. I had tried goading my horse to a trot before, but even at a slow trot, the whole "horseback riding" thing looks more stable in movies than it feels in real life. So, when we went full speed, galloping down the beach, the derivation of the word "breakneck" became very obvious. But, wow, it was fun. And, I lived, and we got to drink coconut juice from fresh coconuts. And, the beautiful beaches -- wow:

That night, after we made our way back to the mainland, we were lucky enough to couchsurf with a nice expat named Coden. He had two extra rooms, with beds in each, which worked out very well. He was a concierge at a local resort, so he told us of great restaurants and gave us the skinny on the El Yunque National Forest.

The next day we went to the rainforest.
We hiked up to the highest point on Puerto Rico, where the trees are stunted, we believe due to constant winds. And, boy were the winds constant. Being cautious of windy, high, wet slippery rocks, I was content to be far from edge with the fatal drop, but of course, Fiona is fearless, looking down with wonder. We saw a lookout from the top, but it was not the day to look out.

The next day we took a day trip to Cuelbra. We got to take a Publico, which lived up to it's reputation for meandering slowness. Our trip to the beach was interrupted by a random drive through town to pick up some friends of one of the passengers. However, the beach was beautiful with snorkelling and just general goofing by the ocean.

Our last day, we went to see the forts of Old San Juan. El Morro was very straightforward -- a fort facing the sea, with most batteries facing out to sea. The puzzle we struggled with was why were there cannons at the water level? If you could have elevated cannons, wouldn't they shoot farther and be better than ones that were lower?
Answer here, for those curious (They were designed to hit the hulls -- an easier shot horizontal than trying to arc)
However, after El Morro was attacked successfully by land, the Spanish created another fort: Castillo de San Cristobal. That fort was designed to stop a land invasion, and it is *VERY* strange. There are small fortifications that extend almost to the sea, but then tunnels that lead to the main outpost. There's obviously been construction at different times, and as gun range increased, certain walls became obsolete, so they were constructed around. Which lead to weird circular dead ends, weird walls beside other walls, and moats in the middle of nowhere. Darren and I spent a lot of time trying to understand the whole fortification plan, but eventually had to leave, unsatisfied. So, now I have a research project.

More pictures of our adventure can be found here.

What a wonderful day!

2010-06-29T17:15:00.016-04:00

As an old married woman (of nearly TWO months!), I still am glowing in the wonderful wedding day we had. Amazing, crazy, full of friends and family, utterly exhausting, full of love, and just absolutely wonderful.

Friends and family poured in from all over...the cousins from Ireland win the prize for furthest traveled, but we were amazed to have guests make the journey from Canada and 8 states outside Indiana. Thank you all so much!!

The festivities started on Friday, when all the wedding party girlies got together for girly fun stuff. Then off to the rehearsal and the best rehearsal dinner ever at the Milano Inn. Yum! Thanks to Doug's parents, Joy and Lorne, for a starting our wedding weekend off with fabulous meal for all the family that night.

For the girls, at least, the wedding day started crazy early. Valerie & I headed over to start getting our hair done at 6:30 am, and my sisters Erin & Deirdre, and Doug's sister Lynn Marie joined us soon after. Kudos to Art and Krystal at Mass Appeal for great job they did with the vintage hairstyles we asked for, and for opening up the salon for us so very early! And Sarah from MAC at Nordstrom also joined us at the salon to finish off my vintage look with an amazing makeup application that had me looking like a 1950s movie star.

Then we all rushed to get into our wedding duds. Doug and his groomsmen and groomsmaids were already at the church starting off with their photos. And I finally got to slip into the beautiful dress that my mother made for me. For months after we got engaged, I searched everywhere for *my* perfect dress. Most brides want the fairy tale floor length dress with a train...but not me...what I wanted was a dance dress. Tea-length and twirly. But, still able to make me feel like a princess. :) Sadly, these dresses are few and far between. But my mom is just amazing and created my perfect dress from a vintage Vogue pattern. And as an added perk, we used material in a stunning brocade that had dragons (which Doug loves!) in the pattern.

My sisters, Valerie and I just made it to the church before the downpour started. Rain on the wedding day is good luck, right? Well, luckily for us, St Mary Church is a beautiful place inside too, so we were dry and happy. After some more photos for me and my wonderful bridal party, I scampered up to the choir loft to hide away and watch as the church started to fill up with all of our friends and family. And then the music started. Wow.

Please keep in mind, that while I might be biased (since we picked the music and the musicians) the music was all I hoped for. When we started planning the wedding ceremony, I pulled out all the of the programs I've collected from the weddings I've sung for over the years. There were nearly a hundred of them...and more than half of them have probably been at Saint Mary's in the last 10 years. Joe Burrows was our pianist and made sure everything ran smoothly with all the unusual music I threw at him for our ceremony. Joe is an old friend, and has played many of those weddings I've sung at over the years, and he is a wonderful musician. Then there were the rest of the musicians--all friends and family. Our great friends, Jill on trumpet, David on banjo (yep, a banjo at the wedding!) and Priscilla, Garrett (nephew) and Tiernen (niece) on vocals. Tiernen didn't even blink an eye, two months before the wedding, when I dropped a stack of music on her and asked her to learn many new pieces of music. They all did an amazing job, especially pulling it all together for their first rehearsal at the night before the wedding.

Anyway, back to the wedding day. The prelude music. Wow. It was divine. And then the ceremony started. Four beautiful voices were singing "Panis Angelicus" as Doug and his parents walked down the aisle to start the procession, and as our mothers lit the candles at the front of the church. Then my three sisters, Siobhan, Erin and Deirdre walked down together, followed by our best friends Valerie & Darren, then Doug's brother Andrew, sister Lynn Marie, and cousin Carol. Finishing up the wedding party were my nephew Zachary and Doug's niece Emma, who stole the show as ringbearer and flower girl.

Then Jill played the trumpet fanfare of "Ode to Joy" and cousins Matt and David opened the big church doors one more time as my parents escorted me down the aisle. I was astounded by all the happy joyful faces of our family and friends. Then finally, I saw Doug, beaming and waiting for me at the front of the church. And then, of course, we sang. :) I will always think of the joy of that morning when I hear Beethoven's wonderful song.

If you've never been to St. Mary's church near downtown Indianapolis, it's well worth a visit. Beyond the beauty of the church building itself, it's a wonderful parish that I've been blessed to be a part of since I've lived here. Father Michael, the pastor, is a big part of the reason Doug and I chose to be married here. Michael allowed us to add many non-traditional elements to our ceremony, welcoming the blending our needs and beliefs, and family & religious traditions. Our friend Juliet opened the readings with a beautiful poem by Elliot Arnold called "Benediction of the Apaches". Then Tiernen led us in singing an old favorite hymn from Doug's family, "Unto the Hills".

And Renee, who has been my friend since we were four, did a reading from Ecclesiastes. Father Michael finished with a scripture reading from John. Doug and I actually were a bit surprised...this was a reading that we'd considered having in the wedding, but had decided on another. But this reading never got corrected in the program. Ooops! But thankfully, it was still one that we liked.

Michael gave a wonderful sermon. I've heard many of his wedding homilies over the years, and he didn't disappoint us. He referred to the author Kathleen Norris, and expanded on a quote from her book-- "The very nature of marriage means saying yes before you know what it will cost. Though you may say the ‘I do’ of the wedding ritual in all sincerity, it is the testing of that vow over time that makes you married." He continued speaking on the importance of affirming that 'I do' through our lives, and reminded us all that the are no "return policies" in marriage. Doug and I managed to ruin the solemnity of the moment by getting caught whispering to each other at this point, and causing great laughter as folks wondered what we were conspiring about!

And as many others have before us, we stood before all and exchanged our vows and our rings. And I could see how much Doug loved me, and I hope he could see how much I love him. Even though I put his ring on the wrong hand.

We lit our unity candle and heard Tiernen sing "Ave Maria". My dear friend Meredith lead the prayers of the faithful and after the final blessings, Michael finally exclaimed this wonderful sentence, "It is my privilege now to present to you for the very first time, Mr. & Mrs. Doug and Fiona Becker!"

And we kissed...

and kissed

and kissed

and jumped

and then kissed some more!

And then the real party started! Well...technically we went to our house and took more photos, but then the party really did start!

There's a gem of a place, the Latvian Community Center, where we held our reception. Lots of grassy and tree lined grounds surround the building and we were the only ones there. And it was a big enough to have dinner and dancing and board games (and hula hoops). And we had wonderful friends who schlepped all the supplies there, decorated, set up table and sound equipment. Our dear friends Susan and Tony were organizers galore, and really made everything perfect for us that night. We will never be able to thank them enough. And the food by AlliCarte Catering was divine yumminess. Jamabalaya and Creamy Sun-dried Tomato Risotto. Wahoo! Allison and Daniel were a joy to work with. The wonderful Cindy Hawkins of Circle City Sweets made the heavenly wedding cake. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the gorgeous flowers were arranged by Meredith and Erica at Posh Petals in Broad Ripple, and they are also a joy to work with.

Then the speeches began. But before I get there, let me relate a funny story. My maid of honor, Valerie, wondered early on in the wedding planning, if we were going to force her to make a speech. And since public speaking is high on her list for utter terror and sleeplessness, of course we wouldn't. We'd like it if she could, but we were okay with no speeches at all. Which was a relief to Doug's best man, Andrew, who was also pleased to be relieved from public speaking duties. Fast forward to the night before the wedding, when Valerie tells us that she's be losing sleep at night, but she's ready to give her toast! What!?!? It seems that we were all confused, but dang it, if Valerie's worked this hard on a speech, she's going to give it!! Which led to the uncomfortable conversation with Andrew, who valiantly decided that he could also give a toast as well.

And Valerie and Andrew both were fantastic, despite their misgivings. Valerie's toast is something that I wish I could keep in a bottle and open whenever I've had a bad day. Two months later, the memory of that speech still fills my eyes with happy tears and the joy of the most amazing friendship ever. And Andrew opened with one of the funniest Doug stories that I've heard and finished with wonderful words of love and welcome to the Becker clan. And finally, my sister Siobhan spoke about about our families and our histories, the parallels between them, and of course, love. Beautiful words from all three of them. Thank you all so much!

And then there was dancing. Oh yes, there was DANCING!

And then everyone danced...

And then there was cake! And many many desserts...

And a lovely duet by David and Pri--a mashup of "I Could Have Danced All Night" and "I Can't Dance".

And MORE dancing!

And Zombies

And then it was over...and we were tired. :)

But we had all the family over for a lovely brunch in the garden the next day. And the sun shone. And we breathed. And then the house was empty.

And then we went on our honeymoon...but that is for another post!

So wow, our friends and family LOVE to take photos. And, our photographer, Daryl Hemmings took many of these photos and was just wonderful! All told, we ended up with more than 2000 to choose from. We've whittled those down to a mere 400ish favorites. They can be viewed in this album. If anyone would like higher resolution for prints, just let me know!

And, thank you one and all, to all of the wonderful people who made this amazing day happen--our wonderful parents, sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends.

A tale of two showers

2010-02-23T11:50:00.021-05:00

For a very long time, I've know that I was blessed with a pretty amazing family. And now it seems that I am also lucky enough to be marrying into Doug's amazing family!

About a week we got engaged last summer, I got a very fun phone call from Doug's sister, Lynn Marie. Their family's annual gathering was 3 weeks away, and it was going to be a perfect time to have a wedding shower! Seriously, who else is lucky enough to have their first wedding shower 3 weeks into her engagement?

Each summer Doug's family from his mother, Joy's side, gathers together at the Wonnacott family farm up in Ontario. There's hiking, swimming, singing, games, bonfires, plenty of great food, occasionally some dancing, and lots of great visiting and catching up done with all the aunts, uncles and cousins. In the midst of all this activity, Lynn Marie managed to pull together a wonderful bridal shower for me. There was a great game that involved interviewing Doug ahead of time, and then finding out if I could match his answers. Of course, I did this nearly flawlessly, except when Doug just plain answered wrong! Then there were the books! Since there were some space constraints on getting the gifts back home, Lynn Marie also craftily arranged for all the gifts to be books and the guest's favorite recipes. Definitely two of my all time favorite things! I was gifted lots of wonderful mysteries, cook books, and books about Canada and by Canadian authors. Oh and tea & punch and all sorts of tasty goodies!

And since all the menfolk were also at the Farm, they had a concurrent party hosted by Lynn Marie's husband John. Mostly it involved drinking mint julips, playing board games, and sitting around talking.

One of the other really sweet things about the day of the bridal shower, was that we also celebrated the fortieth wedding anniversary of Doug's Aunt Alma and Uncle Peter.

And last weekend, we travelled up to Chicago for the Solkowski family wedding shower. On my side of the family, it's become a tradition to invite (require) the future groom to attend the shower. I had pity on Doug and also invited Darren, one of his groomsman who just happens to be married to my maid of honor Valerie, to tag along for moral support. Darren and Valerie were sweet enough to drive up from Louisville for this party. They met us in Indianapolis, and then we all piled in the same car up to Chicago. At noon on Saturday, we were welcomed into a huge collection of my aunts and cousins at my sister Erin's house. Since Doug and I have just a bit of reputation for liking games, my sister Siobhan put together some fun ones for us. We played "Name that Spice", Fiona/Doug Boggle, and a group interactive "How well do you know me" questionnaire…Doug and I had to know (or guess) things about each other—but everyone else there had to decide whether we'd be right or wrong in our answers about the other. Lots of fun!

And wonderfully generous presents! Beautiful blue dishes, knives, potholders, a lamp, a lovely hand painted wineglass, camping gear, a special wedding home-brewed beer (dressed up as a bride and groom), an electric tea kettle, a theme present from Mom and Dad—Bailey Irish Cream, Polish Vodka, Canadian Whiskey and Chicago brewed Beer. There were also many wonderful cards and a keepsake box that immediately came in handy! I'm also forced to report that Doug somehow ended up with two pairs of underwear on his head during the opening of gifts. I'm not entirely sure how that happened. My niece Tiernen did a wonderful job as secretary, keeping track of all the gifts for us. There were also lots of great favorite recipes from all the guests.

My sisters and my mom did an amazing job cooking and organizing a wonderful party for us. And they had the fantastic help of 3 junior hostesses—my neice Zoe, and cousins Erica and Kate. They did a great job of keeping all the guests fed and tea and coffee cups full.

We also followed up a full day of partying (showering?) with a swing dance. I think this was the first time most of my family got to attend a dance event with me. It was great! My parents, all of my sisters, my brother-in-law Paul, my college roommate Andrea, Valerie & Darren, their friend Hannah, and Doug and I all headed out to hear an amazing 17 piece big band (the Outcast Jazz Band) that was playing at the Willowbrook Ballroom. We got just about everybody out on the dance floor. We also ran into a few swing dance gypsies there that we've danced with in other cities. Yay.

More photos from the Wedding Shower

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T23:49:00.002-05:00

Superstars revisited!

2009-12-21T10:09:00.014-05:00

Last Friday, we got to do a great small group performance at the Fountain Square Theater swing dance. There was all sorts of fun lindy hop craziness--jumps and drops and flips!

There were three couples dancing the routine, Jon and Sandy, Kathy and Aaron, and Doug and I. We've been working on this routine since early in the fall, managed not to mortally injure each other in the process and had a great time!

Kathy and Aaron are the same great dancers who taught the original "Superstars" performance class for us last year. In addition to teaching us all the whole routine, they also did the choreography for the second half of the dance.

"Exactly Like You" by Carmen McRae and "Jumping at the Green Mill" by Mighty Blue Kings. Choreography of "Exactly Like You" originally done by Lindy Movement. Choreography of "Jumping at the Green Mill" by Kathy and Aaron Altschul

How's this for wonderfully sweet?

2009-11-11T00:11:00.005-05:00

For the past few months, I've been searching for my wedding dress (yay!). There will be a lot of dancing at our fabulous party, so I've been trying to find a great dress to dance in. Since I also have a fondness for great vintage swing dance clothes, it seemed like a great idea to try to find a 40s or 50s style dress...and hopefully one that I might be able to wear again for fancy swing dance events again!

But it turns out that there's a bazillion full-length wedding gowns with trains, but not so many that are tea-length. Sigh. I did actually find some gorgeous "short" wedding dresses by a designer named Stephanie James, but I am SO not spending $1700-3000 on a dress (even though I desperately want to!)

I also took a trip up to Chicago late last summer to spend the day dress hunting with my sisters and niece. Although we didn't actually count how many dresses I tried on that day (at least 30) the very last one I put on had some potential. The right length, kinda twirly, not super ridiculously expensive... Definitely the best of the bunch, but still not exactly what I was looking for.

My mom missed out on this little shopping expedition, but we took photos. She had also seen the great 50s style dresses I was longing for, and suggested that she could make my dress for me. I love my mom. She's great. :) We've both spent the last month looking for vintage style patterns, and I went home last weekend so we could decide on a pattern and start shopping for material.

So here's the really wonderfully sweet and sappy part of the story. It turns out my Mom has kept the pattern she used to make her dress 48ish years ago. And after really taking a look at it, it seemed pretty close to the style I want...so we decided to use it as the pattern for my wedding dress. Sweet, eh?

The other really cute part of this story, is that my mother still has the wedding dress she made for herself. Back when I was in junior high, she had decked it out for me to wear in two school musicals...Glinda in the Wizard of Oz and the fairy godmother in Cinderella. This weekend we pulled off all the sequins, puffed sleeves, and alterations. It still makes me smile that my mom let me use her wedding dress for school plays. I love my mom. She's awesome. :)

Eeeek! Running from Zombies!

2009-10-17T21:14:00.015-04:00

Let me state from the beginning of this post, that running is for crazy people. And as it turns out, I must be crazy.

I am pretty sure that I never really liked running very much. I have some rather vague memories from grade school gym class that I was never a particularly fast runner either. And in the few sports that I played back then--volleyball and softball--I could pretty much get away without doing much running at all. :) I do know that in gym in high school, we had to run a 12 minute mile, but I'm pretty sure that it was just a one time thing. And with some pretty half-hearted attempts to jog through Fairview Park with my college roomie Jenni, I'm pretty sure that my feeble attempts at any sort of distance running ended at age 18.

Two years ago, I started blogging a little about my forays into the weird world of running. In fact, about this time of year in 2007, I completed my first 5k race. While my plan had been to walk that race, I ended up being shamed into running a portion of it by an adorable little 74 year old lady named Edna, whose slow but steady running pace was kicking my butt! I finished that first race with pace that I was pretty shocked and happy with...37:56...pretty close to a 12 minute mile.

Back then, running as consistent form of exercise seemed like such an insurmountable task for me. I was still really overweight and still recovering from my (3rd) knee surgery. Oh, and I really hated running. It made my knees ache, and my legs hurt, and gave me blisters, and pretty much left me feeling like I wanted to die. And really, running is for crazy people.

But wow, running was SO much better and faster at burning calories than all the other cardio I was doing. And I was feeling so satisfied with the fact that I COULD actually run. And by working at it, I was increasing my mileage and speed. So all through that winter, I worked on adding to my distance, and in April of 2008 I ran a 5 mile trail run. Well, mostly ran. It was crazy hilly, so there was a fair amount of trudging uphills, and running the rest of it.

Today is the two year anniversary of my reintroduction to running. There's been a bunch of races (listed on the left side of the blog) since then. So I celebrated by running the Fort Ben 5k again, that same 5k that started all of this craziness. And since the results just posted, I am pretty

happy about my finish time, 30:54.6. Wahoo! That's a 9:57 pace! And this was despite the change in the 5k route this year, which included a really friggin' evil long uphill. So I'm pretty thrilled all around.

So it seems that I've turned into one of those people. Those people who run. Sigh.

Anyway, let me get to the explanation about the zombies in the title of the post. A few months ago, I decided to try out the Nike+ gizmo--a sensor that goes in your shoe and records your pace & distance on your iPod. I'm all about figuring our ways to motivate myself into exercising, and this seemed like a great tool for that. My friend Jill had used it last year and it intrigued me enough to try it out. And now I'm totally hooked on it. During your runs and after, you get feedback through your iPod about your distance & pace, best run times, and congratulations on finishing your workouts. And all of your run information uploads to the Nike+ site, so you can track your progress, set goals, and join challenges with other Nike+ weirdos.

Doug, as a rule, doesn't really need too much motivation to run. In fact, he's usually been my motivation for running most days, but I've also lured him into the Nike+ fold. And in turn, we've also pulled our great friends Valerie and Darren into our insanity by challenging them to join us-- in running away from zombies! Val had mentioned that she was looking for motivation to add some more exercise into her daily routine...so we decided to create a challenge that was fun and silly.

Doug has been coming up with a pretty elaborate story segments about zombie uprisings that force us to run so many miles to escape the zombies--like 20 miles in 2 weeks. When we finish one segment of the challenge, we can see the next zombie story line and start the next mileage challenge. Doug sends us out the stories by email, along with some great zombie photos (a bunch of our other friends are helping out by sending in photos of themselves as zombies).

So far, this has been REALLY motivational. It turns out that we all might be just a wee bit competitive. The first week, my weekly mileage jumped from 10 miles to 20 miles, mostly because Valerie and Doug were catching up with me, and I didn't want to be left behind to be eaten by zombies!

Anyway...it turns out that you can become a born-again-runner. But, I will state for the record, that I still hate running. :) I love that I can do it, but it still is totally a crazy activity.

Thanks to everybody, for all the love & encouragement that I keep hearing from you--especially as my annoying shoes keep posting on Facebook. And smooches to Doug for being a fabulous motivator and to Darren and Valerie for joining us in our foolish games!

And now for the sparkly ring!

2009-08-01T21:51:00.006-04:00

When Doug propsed, he sweetly gave me a Claddagh ring (it's in the picture in the last post). It's a traditional Irish ring, symbolizing love, friendship and loyalty. It was a wonderful choice!

He decided to give me the Claddagh during the proposal, but he wanted us to pick out a nice shiny sparkly ring together. Which we did. It's very shiny. And sparkly. We love it.

The photo doesn't do it justice, and the small stones in the band are sapphires. Pretty, eh?

Yay!

We changed our Facebook status to "engaged"...it must be true!

2009-07-28T23:15:00.024-04:00

Yep. Doug asked me to marry him on Sunday night.

At the behest of various friends...here's the story.

Last weekend, we spent a wonderful few days with our friends Valerie and Darren, as guests of Darren's sister & brother-in-law at their amazing cabin near a lake down by Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. We boated, we jet skied, we rode horses, we played games, we geocached, we sang and played music, we laughed and chatted, and had an all around fabulous time. (Thanks Kathy & Mike!)

Doug claims that he had a fabulous plan. Since we managed to leave the cabin by mid-afternoon on Sunday, we should have made it back to Indy by 8 pm or so. That would give us plenty of time have a nice glass of wine by the pond, watch the beautiful sunset, and to savor a wonderful weekend. He would say all sorts of romantic things and I wouldn't be able to resist his perfect proposal.

Ha! Little did Doug know that his carefully laid plans would be foiled by Valerie, Darren and I. But really, shouldn't he know by now how easily we're distracted? By shiny things, "Ooooh! Fort Knox!" And by food, "Ooooh! Steak!" And by spooky roadside attractions, "Ooooh! Haunted Sanitarium!!!"

By the time we finally got back to Indianapolis, it was well past dark, the lonely cats had taken their revenge on some defenseless furniture, phone calls missed over the weekend needed to be returned...and we were just exhausted. And yet, Doug would not be thwarted. He did manage to convince me--despite my whining--to sit down for a nice cuddle and to relish the good weekend we'd just spent together. Then he said all sorts of romantic things and I wasn't able to resist his (not quite as perfect as planned) proposal.

I especially enjoyed that part when the ring box got caught in his pocket.

But really, the best part was that the guy that I've loved forever asked me to marry him.

Even though it was pretty late by the time all the cooing and grinning and cuddling was finished, I was able to call my parents with the good news that night...how often do I get to give my mom an engagement for her birthday present?! I managed to get the news out to all my sisters by early Monday morning....which was good, because by noon, my cousin Rory from Ireland was already congratulating me via Skype. It is just a little scary how well my family's transatlantic grapevine works! :) Doug also managed to give the happy news to his parents, brother and sister after work on Monday.

And then I was able to be obnoxious, and changed our relationship status on Facebook. Heehee.

Update: our next post has a pretty picture of the official engagement ring.

fences, fishes, and bowls...

2009-06-16T17:20:00.001-04:00

It's been a busy spring. After many many days last month of many many hours in the garden, things are really looking wonderful! Nearly all of the things on the "to do" list from my last post are finished. Shocking!

Last month, I found a fabulous handyman to take down the too-big cedar in the front yard and to finish fencing in the rest of the yard. Yay!

The landscaping around the pond is really starting to come together, and the fishes are growing like mad! Kayaked a bit, danced a bunch, spent two days reveling in the National Road Garage Sale with Valerie and Darren (yay! lots of fun stuff!). I also took a pottery class, and am finally getting work done on the kick wheel that Doug borrowed for me. Just got my first set of bowls back from their final firing. Shiny, pretty bowls!

The rest of the summer is starting to look even busier. Lots of visits with families and friends, and hopefully lots of kayaking, camping, and dancing. My yard is going to see a lot of activity next month as well! I've been asked to be on two garden tours, the Cool Ponds Water Feature Tour on July 10-11 and the INPAWS Native Plant Garden Tour on July 18. The Native Plant Tour is overlapping with my big yard party, which has a pirate theme this year. Some of the tour people may be shocked and entertained to see pirates playing croquet in the garden. :)

Not just a giant hole in the mud anymore!

2009-05-04T08:15:00.003-04:00

Yay! The pond is finished! Progressive photos of the project can be found in the album.

It took the guys from Cool Ponds about 3 days to finish the installation. And with Doug's help, it's taken 3 very long weekend days and several weeknights after work to get the rest of the yard in order.

On the completed list:

Flagstone path between house and garage
Stone path to patio
Stepping stones around strawberry bed by the garage
Rebuilt poor, abused sod couch into Lawn Armchair (mostly done, still need to buy a roll of sod to finish)
Cleaned gutters
Built & installed 2nd rain barrel
Got koi & goldfish for the pond
Lots of mulching done
Finished planting redesigned front prairie bed
Finished redesigning & turning the veggie beds
Bought a new fire dish (to replace the ponded-over fire pit)

On the still to be finished list:

Find a contractor to finish fencing the yard
Plant the rest of the veggie garden
Buy sod to finish up the lawn furniture remodel
Prettify the compost bins
Finish moving the rest of the dirt from the pond excavation
Plant grass seed around the flagstone path and the nook behind the pond
Finish planting marginals in the pond
Create & plant the 2 bog beds around the pond
Get the cannas & elephant ear tubers out of the basement & plant
Buy & install a bit more lighting for the pond
Dig back the mulch & re-edge the pebble patio with bricks
When the first rain barrel gets empty, raise it up on another level of cinder blocks & paint it (no more bright blue barrel!)
Get some flower seeds planted around the yard
Finish more landscaping around the pond
Continue redesigning the front prairie planting to be more acceptable to the lawn police
Get the chipper back to the shop to see why it's STILL not running (Sigh)
Convince the City of Indianapolis that the prairie planting in the front yard is not weeds

Whew. The "to do" list seems entirely too long. I'm tired already!

Giant Hole in the Mud (aka the new pond)

2009-04-21T14:12:00.005-04:00

On this wet and icky morning, digging started on the new pond, which quickly turned the back yard into a giant mud pit.

Sadly, the crew had to throw in the towel after a few hours, due to the treacherous muddy conditions. They should be back on Thursday to finish up digging, install the liner, and schlepp around the boulders! Woohoo!

I would bike 1000 miles, and I would bike 1000 more

2009-04-10T13:15:00.005-04:00

I bought a recumbent bike (Rans Rocket), and have had no end of joy biking around town. I've had it since 9/2007, and yesterday, I passed 1000 miles. So, I'm the equivalent of 1/3 of the way across the United States! Wahoo!

Heart Racing Dips

2009-02-27T09:38:00.003-05:00

Doug and I took our first class for the "Dips and Tricks" lessons last night with Naptown Stomp. Since I'm a little obsessed with calories & exercise these days, I've been trying to wear my heart rate monitor to all of our dance events, to see what kind of value they have as exercise. I'm still compiling a pool of data on these, but the early results show that real contra & swing dances, even with a few breaks keep my heart rate elevated enough to count as a pretty decent cardio workout. Classes, not so much for the real cardio work out, but they also burn more calories than just lolling about on the couch.

The results from last night's class were hysterically funny. Instructors talk, leaders figure out footwork...70-80 heart rate. Thirty seconds of twirling and dipping...heart rate rockets up to 130-160. It was awesome.

I love dips!

Wonderful Winter Weekend Update

2009-02-23T17:08:00.003-05:00

Doug's fancy GPS watch told him that the fastest toboggan run was really 41 mph! Woohoo!

Here's our list of races for this spring:
3/21 Holliday Park 5 mile Trail Run - Indianapolis, IN
4/18 Hellbender Hustle 5k - O'Bannon Woods State Park, IN
4/25 Road Ends 5 mile Trail Run - Pinckney Recreational Area, MI
5/30 Brown County 5k Trail Run - Brown County State Park, IN

Wonderful Winter Weekend!

2009-02-22T19:45:00.017-05:00

I started off this year reinspired to focus on improving my health. Hence restarting my running program. Blech. :)

I have figured out that if I want to run, I can find some extra motivation by training for races. Nope, not the Indy Mini--I still have NO desire to run 13 miles. But I have registered for a few 5Ks and 5 mile trail runs. In the past few years I've walk/run a few 5Ks (for a good giggle, read about how I started running at my first 5k) and one 5 mile trail run, but I haven't ever managed to keep a running pace through the whole of any of them. So I set myself a new goal for this first 5k of the year--I wanted to actually run the whole thing. In training on the treadmill or on the nice flat crushed limestone Indy Towpath, I have done okay running a full 3.1 or 5 miles. But during the races, I haven't been able to continue running where there's been significant uphills. So, the first 2 races of this year are in Indianapolis, a great wonderfully flat place where I can finally finish running a race. And Doug is being a wonderful guy in joining me for these races!

So, we started the weekend by running our first race of the year, the PolarBear 5k through downtown Indianapolis, starting at the Indiana World War Memorial. I was a bit worried about this race, since I had been having some trouble in my training running a full 5k at a pace to match or beat my previous 5k best, 37.56. But despite my worries, we started the race on Saturday morning, at the balmy temperature of 37 degrees, with the forecasted snow/rain mix still holding off. Depite stopping (TWICE!) to retie my shoelaces, we passed the first mile marker at 11:40ish. Woohoo! More or less keeping the same pace for the rest of the race, with a little bit of a sprint at very end of the race, I finished my first all-running 5k race!

"Your overall finish place was 216 and your age group finish place was 12. Your time of 36:26.0 gave you a 11:43 pace per mile."

Immediately after the race, we celebrated by picking up coffee and a tasty chocolate croissant from the Indy Winter Farmer's Market. Yum.

Then we started a three hour drive up to Pokagon State Park to meet our friends, Juliet and Frank, for some toboganning! Yep, there's a toboggan run up in northeast Indiana, about an hour north of Fort Wayne. And we had a fabulous time. It was just about perfect winter weather, a few inches of snow. We ran the toboggan runs a half dozen times, and the winners of the top speed of the day (for us) were Juliet, Frank and Doug at 37 mph. Woohoo!

We finished off Saturday evening by heading back towards Fort Wayne, to a little town called Roanoke, to have dinner a wonderful restaurant called Joseph Decuis. Doug & I had gotten some gift certificates for this place when we bought some amazing soup at the Farmers Market. And the soup from the Market was a great indicator of the fabulous meal that we had. Yum, again!

This morning, we rounded off our wonderful winter weekend by cross country skiing before we left the state park. It's the first time I've skied since high school, and I was pleasantly surprised by finding it way easier than I remembered. Not that there wasn't shrieking and falling, but it was way fun.

Yoga at the office

2009-02-06T11:17:00.003-05:00

For a few years, I've been going to a studio about a half mile from my office that offers vinyasa (flow) yoga. It was one of the first fitness routines that I actually enjoyed--when I wasn't in the midst of cursing it or my aching body--and looked forward to on a regular basis. Since then I've been trying to entice some of my co-workers to join me at the noon sessions that they offer. With one person, who already knew some yoga, she loved the classes and joins me regularly. With a completely new to yoga person, it failed miserably. Recently another yoga novice showed some interest in joining us, and I didn't want her to hate yoga too...so....

I sent around an email at work, trying to gauge the interest in having a few beginners group yoga classes during lunch. Fantastically, about 10 folks were interested, so I was able to book a few classes with my favorite yoga instructor, Eric, at a fairly reasonably per person price.

Yesterday was our first class, and it went pretty well. I think a lot of people were pretty shocked at how hard we worked--especially when I reported the calories burned from my heart rate monitor at 400 cal/hour. Which is pretty fun, since what we did in an hour for this class compares with the first 15 minutes of Eric's regular class. (Sadly, the calories burned won't multiply by 4...but even so I usually burn about 500 in an hour in the advanced class, and most of it is in the aerobic range. Not bad for yoga. Vinyasa rocks!)

Taking a yoga basics class was also great encouragement for me. In addition to reminding me of the proper way to do poses, it also really reminded me of how far I've gotten in my own practice over the last few years. I vividly remember my first classes and how crazy hard it was to hold those deceptively easy looking strength poses. Maybe it will also remind me not to be so despondent when I have a hard time holding the crazy poses that I'm trying now. I must remind myself to remember this lesson during the intense 2 hour hot yoga class I'll be taking on Saturday. :)

CSA + Bike

2008-07-17T12:12:00.012-04:00

Earlier this year, my wonderful friend Tara gave me a copy of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I loved this great book about a family eating only local food for a year. It reminded me of things I wanted to do myself, like finally joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and growing & canning more of my own food.

After driving Doug a little crazy talking about it for weeks, I found a CSA called Homestead Growers that delivers produce to our Wednesday Farmer's Market outside the City Market in downtown Indianapolis. We signed up for a full share that we are splitting with our friends Debra & Harry. So far we've been pretty pleased with all the fresh veggies, and I've had some fun finding ways to prepare some vegetables I've never really cooked with before. And getting to the Farmer's Market on a weekly basis is a lot of fun as well, since I never seem to escape before I buy quite a bit more after picking up the CSA box. In fact, I found out that the City Market also has a butcher shop called Moody Meats that provides very tasty meat from a local farm (free-range chickens, pesticide-free, sustainable farming methods, all sorts of good stuff going on there.) So, barring a few items from the regular grocery store (and from my well-stocked pantry), Doug & I have mostly been buying and eating local foods for the past few weeks. Yay! It makes me very happy!

And shamed by Doug's recent bike mileage goals, I've been trying to do more bike commuting myself. My office is only a bit more than 3 miles from my house, so I can't really compete with his mileage. But I have been pretty good at biking to & from work, including some errands around town just about every day for the past two weeks. In fact, I even managed to attach the CSA box onto my bike rack yesterday! I got a real kick out of all the weird looks, giggles and cheers I got from the farmer's market folks as I tried to stash a week's groceries onto my bike. And I managed to make it home with only one minor mishap. Bumping over a particularly nasty pothole, the little bag with my chocolate croissant (from Rene's at the market "You deserve a cookie today!") escaped from my saddle bag. When I stopped to rescue it, I realized that the bump had also popped the clip of the saddle bag off the rack and with it, the bungee cord on the CSA box! Luckily, they slid off the rack slowly & I reattached everything without bruising the precious cargo. And the croissant was only slightly mushed. :)

I'm hoping to continue this local food habit (and infect all my friends too!) There are some great books & blogs out there if you're interested in finding out more about eating local foods or being mindful about the food you choose to consume. Here's a just a few, including some sites for local Indy food: Going Local, Plenty & the 100 mile diet, Slow Food USA, Market on Morris, Goose the Market, Ominvore's Dilemma, and Indiana Market Maker.

It was also in the plans to expand the veggie garden this year. The expansion didn't happen, but I did plant the exisitng beds. Which the weeds are trying to take over. :) Hopefully I'll take control back soon, at least in time to get the tomatoes staked up. The plan is to do a little more canning this year and to make some crabapple jelly!

Petting Catfish

2008-07-14T11:21:00.013-04:00

Over the July 4th weekend, we joined our friends Valerie & Darren for some camping in southern Illinois. They were getting some scuba dive certifications at a spring-fed former quarry called Mermet Springs. Doug & I mostly just tagged along to try out our new tent, hike, play games and eat good food!

It turns out the Mermet Springs is also home to some huge, hungry catfish! And they like hotdogs! And while you are distracting them with the hotdog (before they steal the whole thing) you can pet their very soft noses. :)

The quarry is just a few miles from Metropolis, IL, home of the giant Superman Statue. After visiting with him for a bit, Doug and I also wandered down for a hike at Fort Massac State Park. Fort Massac is a restored wooden fort on the Ohio River originally built by the French in the mid 18th century.

Feeling inspired, we also decided to take a run on the trails at the Mermet Lake Conservation Area. Vaguely spooked by this sign, we ended up running on the very sunny (and hot) bluebird trail in a prairie field.

European Adventures (and Misadventures) Part 2

2008-07-13T15:12:00.004-04:00

If you have jumped into our story half-way, check out Part 1 to find out how you can accidentally end up in Italy on the way to Switzerland.

We finally got on the right train that would take us to Switzerland! We might have checked with 3 or 4 or 10 different people to make sure we were on the right train. :) I was still a little twitchy, worried that we'd get in trouble for having tickets from the night before, that we were in someone else's seat, etc. But as we got closer to Switzerland, I calmed down. Especially when we started to hear a little German spoken by other passengers. One of the big problems with our unexpected trip to Italy was...errr...Italian. Doug can speak a little French and I can speak a little German and neither of us (or our handy France & Switzerland guidebooks) has any Italian!

But we finally make it into Switzerland, made our last train change for the day (in Spiez, not to be confused with La Spieza) and we made it to Interlaken. We stashed our bags at our hotel and began to explore. After picking up maps and touristy info, we found some lunch. And WOW, it is expensive in Switzerland! But tasty! Bellies full, we decided to hike up the side of a mountain for little while, then deciding we don't really want to go up anymore, we followed another trail to the Goldswil Ruins. "Castle!" says Doug. "Nono, just some ruins" says Fiona. "CASTLE!" says Doug. Fiona sighs.

Even though it wasn't really a castle the ruins were still pretty neat. We followed another wanderweg (walking trail) and walked along the river back into town. Interlaken more or less means "between the lakes" The very cold, very bluey-greeny river Aare connects the two lakes (Thunersee and Brienzersee). Back in town we actually do see a castle...but it's a very uncastley looking one. But, we do learn the German word for castle, Schloss, which is very fun to say! We also get to see paragliders landing in the big grassy park in the center of town, lots of fun statues & fountains, and cowbells. Lots of cowbells. I really start to want cowbells. They're everywhere. We've also run into LOTS of disaffected youth in the streets all day. We had seen a huge crowd of them, pelting some poor man with empty water bottles while he was trying to announce something. Since my german isn't really up to translating mob muttering, we weren't sure what was happening. But, on our hike we'd run into a nice man with a chainsaw. :) He explained to us that the load noise (music, not the chainsaw) was some traveling music festival. And weren't "all those young people going to go deaf", says the nice man with the chainsaw. We're guessing that the angry teenage mob downtown couldn't get tickets to the festival.

As it gets toward evening, we start to walk toward the last items we want to see on our maps (another Schloss!) and we end up in Unterseen, the town next to Interlaken whose name also means "between the lakes". We find a grocery store and stock up on some slightly less expensive food and tasty cheese (yay!) and start to head back. We stop to try our first swiss cheese fondue (yum!). After a quick stop at a cybercafe to check in at home, we head back to the hotel and plan the next day's adventure.

One of the big reasons we'd traveled to Interlaken was to take a train up to Jungfraujoch, the highest peak in Europe. But, futzing with schedules, the length and expense of the ride, and the weather we'd seen, we decided to take a trip to a lower peak, Schynige Platte, at 6,564ft. Rising crazy early the next morning, we hopped on the first cogwheel train of the day up the mountain. We were very pleased with ourselves, the day was very overcast and cold, and the cloud cover hovered just above the where our train stopped! We hiked through a wonderful alpine garden park, saw marmots, got snowed on, and slid down a very fun slide! Then we hopped back on the train (it was VERY cold up there) and headed back down the mountain. With 6 minutes between trains, we managed to get our bags (craftily stored in lockers at the station) and left Interlaken to head to Montreux and THE CHOCOLATE TRAIN!

In Montreux, we ended up at a fairly fancy hotel. Woohoo! We took a nice dip in the hot tub, and then took a wander around town. Montreux is on the eastern tip of Lake Geneva (Lac Leman). The town also seems to go straight up into the mountains from the shores of the lake. So, mostly we walked uphill. Our guidebook had suggested a restaurant, Caveau des Vignerons, which sounded interesting, so we walked (uphill) to the oldtown only to find out it was closed on Sundays. Boo. After walking uphill some more, we decided we'd admired enough of the architecture and giggled at the old church surrounded by tons grape vines enough and headed back down to the lake and our hotel. We wandered the lovely trail along the lake and finished the night up with a lovely diner. Doug was brave enough to try the beef tartare, which was pretty tasty.

But really, we were in Montreux because the next morning, we boarded THE CHOCOLATE TRAIN. Really. Look closely at the pic of the departures and you will see that "Chocolat" leaves at 9.36. Woohoo! Pretty much every guide book and packaged tour I saw for Switzerland included this trip, so of course, we took it! While serving us chocolate croissants and coffee, this very pretty train took us to Gruyères (yep, like the cheese) to tour a cheese factory and to explore the town, its kinky weird alien museum (HR Giger Musee) and its huge castle. And we finally bought a cowbell. Because everyone needs more cowbell! We couldn't resist. But back to our story, we got back onto the train to the town of Broc and the Nestle-Calliers chocolate factory! We had a tour of the factory that ended with the most amazing chocolate tasting ever. Miles of tasty chocolate! As we all sugar crashed, the train took us back to Montreux. We we headed for Lausanne that night, but Doug and I tried to catch dinner at Caveau des Vignerons again, only to find out they didn't serve dinner until after 7pm. It was only 5:30, and we wanted to head out to our next hotel, so we sadly missed dinner there again. Sigh.

We arrived in Lausanne, on the north shore of Lake Geneva, and made our way to the prettiest hotel of the trip. It was a tiny little room, but best of all, we were staying here for TWO nights in a row! With maps in hand (I LOVE that every city seemed to have tourist info at the train station!) we went off to wander Lausanne before full dark hit. And we found another grocery store. We actually had been craving salad for days, so it was perfect, along with a bottle of "Frizzy" sparkling peach wine.

As we read through our guidebook that night, we realized that we'd missed out on "the most photographed castle" in Switzerland when we were in Montreux. So after hitting a few museums (Olympic Musee and the Photography Musee) we headed back there, only a 20 minute train ride. Our book claimed that we could walk the 3 km along the lake trail to get to the Château de Chillon (a.k.a. Castle of Chillon). Our guidebook was deluded, it was at least 3 miles. Regardless, the walk was well worth it. Now this was definitely a CASTLE!

"Audiotours" were one of the cool things we encountered on this vacation at most of the museums and historical sites. For a small fee, you have the use of an iPod with a self-guided tour in your language. Very nice! So, we got to learn stuff! Building on this castle began about a thousand years ago, but the current structure of it is probably from the 13th century. We tromped around the castle, from the dungeons where we pretended to be the "Prisioner of Chillon" (a famous poem by Lord Byron) all the way to the top of the keep.

As it began to rain on the way back to town, we managed to catch the bus back to Montreux and on our third attempt, finally got to have dinner at Caveau des Vignerons. Our Frommers guidebook had recommended this restaurant, and I was pleased with the description, "traditional Swiss cuisine is served in a candlelit cave". And we WERE pleased with the restaurant. Even though it wasn't a cave. :) Turns out that the building had formerly been a winery. Another tasty fondue for me and a traditional swiss dish of "horse entrecote" (steak) for Doug. Honestly, I was hoping the horse would be terrible, but it was probably the best piece of steak I've ever tried. Oh, and we finished up with "Macerated grapes in 'lie' " We ordered this dessert mainly because I liked the name of it, and we couldn't remember what "macerated" meant. Turns out that we were served a dish of giant green raisin-looking things in a clear liquid. The liquid ended up being some potent liquor and raisins that were still fairly grape-like, juicy and almost firm. Very weird. And, it turns out that "macerated" means (in cooking) letting food, usually fruit, soak in a liquid to absorb flavor. Fruits are usually soaked in liqueurs.

That brings us to our last full day in Switzerland. We headed (finally) to Geneva and stashed our bags in a locker at the train station while we touristed around the city. We decided to try out our guidebook's walking tour of the city. Sadly, about half of the items on the walking tour were not working, or under construction. But in the midst of our wandering, we did find the St. Pierre Cathedral. Impressively huge with gorgeous stained glass, the very interesting bit about this site was the archeological excavations going on beneath it.

To finish off our trip, we did have a little bit more travel nuttiness. It turned out that our last hotel was just over the border into France. The nice bus information lady had given us some great advice on bus routes out to our hotel. Our Swiss rail passes gave included bus fares, but since we needed to cross into France, we would need to pay 2 Euro per person to go the one bus stop further past the border. She suggested that we get off a stop early and just walk the rest of the way. Which we did. Then walked 30 feet or so to the border crossing and 30 feet further was "our" bus stop. And we giggled a lot about the the 60 feet of walking that would have cost us $6 to ride on the bus.

Our last night was fairly uneventful and we got to the airport without a hitch. And then things got just a little absurd. It turns out that the Geneva airport is on the France & Switzerland border. Literally. Some airlines check in at on the France side and you have to go through customs to get to the rest of the airlines on the Swiss side. And of course, Doug needed to check-in in France & I needed to be in Switzerland. :) After wandering a bit lost, we figured it out, and Doug flew off home an hour before me. But as I tried to check-in for my flight, I found out that they had no record of me on the reservation list. After lots more questions with the customer service desk, it turned out that when I missed my connection at the beginning of the trip, the airline folks had reported me as a "no show" for my flight & canceled my return flight. Aggghhh! Luckily, I still got on the flight, made the rest of my connections, and arrived home in Indianapolis just a few minutes after Doug. Whew.

All in all, it was a great trip & we had a wonderful time. And we have some REALLY funny stories about trains & Italy! There are also a ridiculous amount of photos in two albums here.

European Adventures (and Misadventures) Part 1

2008-07-10T17:30:00.004-04:00

Last month Doug and I took off to Europe for a few weeks. Earlier in the year, Doug found out that his company would be sending him to work at a conference in south of France and training meeting Switzerland. I was pleased to tag along so we could make a vacation of it after Doug finished up work!

Our adventure started off with separate flight plans. Since Doug's travel was arranged through his office, we weren't able to take the same flights. So, Doug took off on his own an hour before me and flew off to catch his connection to Amsterdam and Nice without a hitch. (I'm leaving it to him to talk about his interlude in Amsterdam)

On the other hand, my trip started off a little shakier. Before we even left for the airport, I was a little off my game. Sadly, that morning before we left, we had to put one of my cats to sleep. My poor scaredy-cat, Dugan, known for frantically hiding under and behind every piece of furniture in my house for the last 6 years, had come out of hiding the night before. It was quickly apparent that he was very sick and a trip to the vet the next morning confirmed my fears that there was probably nothing we could do to fix him. So...I was already a little shaky. Then my connection from Indianapolis to Chicago was delayed and delayed and delayed. And I missed my flight to London & France. After uncharacteristically bursting into tears at the ticket agent, when he told me I couldn't get onto another flight until the next day (I blamed the poor kitty for the tears), I ended up getting to spend the night with my parents & flying out the next day.

Finally getting to Nice, France a day late, I took are really crazy expensive taxi trip to the Club Med Opio en Provence, where Doug was still be wondering where I had gotten lost. :) I crashed for a while and was wakened with much rejoicing by Doug after the last conference session was over. Doug took me on a little tour of the resort, we found some tasty appetizers & free drinks (woohoo!) and relaxed on some lounges around the pool. Sadly, my bags were still in Chicago, so I never did get to partake in any of the lovely swimming pools...but Doug did his best to enjoy them for me.

For our last few days in France, we moved from Opio to Nice. Doug's conference had finished up, and now we were at a new hotel (cheaper) where he still had a few more days of work meetings. These meetings had originally been planned to happen in Switzerland, but ended up taking place in Nice. But, since my plane tickets were already booked, we still ended up our vacation there. I finally had gotten my luggage (3 days later!) and was ready to be touristy. I managed to navigate the bus system without getting too lost, and spent 2 days exploring Nice. Swam in the Mediterranean, went to museums (Musee Matisse was very cool), took a bus tour on the windy roads above the city, ate tasty food, hiked up a billion stairs to the top of "The Rock" called Le Château....it was all very good!

This brings us to the end of the first week. Doug was finished with his meetings, and we were ready with our train tickets to Geneva. Or so we thought. We had booked our train tickets, Swiss rail passses, and hotel reservations with Virgin Vacations. At some point when we were planning the rest of our trip, we'd found out that EURO 2008, the football (soccer) championships were also going to be taking place in Switzerland. So we needed to try and avoid some of the sport instanity and carefully arrange reservations in our 2nd week. We had been pretty pleased with dealing with Virgin Vacations. We gave them our list of cities and they found us hotels. We said, "We want Swiss Rail Passes" and they got them for us. And finally, "We want train tickets from Nice, France to Geneva, Switzerland" and they did. Well. Kinda. It turns out that nobody (including us) noticed that the tickets ACTUALLY said "Nice to Genova". And, Genova (just one little letter different) is in Italy. Not in Switzerland. Like our Swiss Rail Passes. Like our hotel booked for that night in Geneva, Switzerland.

Still blithely unaware, Doug and I get to the Nice train station and we show our tickets to the nice informaton lady, who directs us to the train we're booked on. We take our first train ride, and we have a hour or so in a town called Ventimiglia to change trains. It turns out Ventimiglia is just over the border into Italy. "Neat!" we say, "We got to go to Italy!". We get back on the train, and start poking through our Switzerland guide book, planning what we'll do when we arrive in Geneva at 4:30 that afternoon. As the afternoon passes, we realize that all the stop names still seem to be Italian sounding city names and we've still be traveling along the coast. Which is not good, since we should be heading north into the mountains. I start frantically digging through our travel documents to figure out what's gone wrong. Finally realize that our tickets have us headed for Genova, and that this is probably NOT where we were supposed to be going. None of our books (France & Switzerland) have any maps of Italy in them. Aggh!

Finally I find a Eurail map, and we figure out that our tickets have in fact sent us to Genoa (or Genova) which is a city at the top of the "boot" of Italy. Way further east and south of where we were supposed to be. Oh, and in the wrong country. :) We burst off the train and race into the station. Doug stops to wait in the REALLY long ticket line, and I head for information line. The nice man at information, speaks English (yay!), quickly flips through all his timetable books, and writes down our new set of trains to get to Geneva (3 or 4 trains, arriving at 2 am). I boogie back to Doug, and we get our tickets. The nice ticket lady is a little concerned because she isn't sure about the route that the info man has set out for us, but books the tickets for us anyway. For a mere $142 Euro ($225 US). Eek. Turns out that our Swiss Rail passes really don't work in Italy.

So we get back on the train, this time heading for Milan. During the ride, Doug and I figure out that it's pretty foolish to go all the way to Geneva that night, just to arrive at 2 am, then to hop back on the train the next morning to head out to our next city. We should just skip Geneva and go directly to Interlaken, and have an extra half day to spend there. We have a little time when we change trains in Milan...so we run to the ticket folks to find out if our new plan will work. It turns out that the next train that we are booked on, will actually get us to a train to Interlaken if we get off at a different station, a city called "Spiez". And since we'll actually be in Swizterland by then, our Swiss Rail passes will let us go anywhere. Great! So, we have 15 minutes or so to find our train to Spiez. We look at the departures board...drat...no train numbers. But, we do find the train to "La Spieza". Woohoo! Off we zoom to train platform with the train going to La Spieza. We hop on the train and toss our luggage up on the racks and breathe a sigh of relief. Doug is in his proper seat #33 and my assigned seat is #38, which isn't in this section. The train isn't very full, so it's probably okay that I'm in the wrong seat. But just in case, Doug goes checking the next section to find my real seat. And comes back to report that there is no seat #38. And I start to get a bad feeling. As I frantically start searching though our tickets and maps again, I ask Doug if he's sure we're on the right train. We start to pull our luggage back down and drag it back out to the door...but the nice lady in the hall assures us that this is the train to "La Spieza" just as I find the tiny little map I have that show Italy, and figure out that "La Spieza" is NOT Spiez and is FURTHER into Italy. And then the train leaves the station. Agggghhhhh!

Let me say, at this point, Doug is wonderful. He was still cheerful and optimistic and generally keeping me from completely bursting into tears.

Hoping to find a conductor to help us figure out what to do next, Doug starts walking down the cars of the train while I hang out with the luggage. This is a VERY long train, and Doug said that when he got about 10 cars from me, he realized that we didn't have a plan for when the train stopped. Was I going to get off at the next stop with all the luggage or no? And would he be able to see me if I did!?!? Doug comes sprinting back. In the meantime I've been working myself into a state, worrying that if we did get off at the next stop...would there even be a train back to Milan that night? And would we have to buy ANOTHER set of train tickets for the train we just missed?!? AGGGHHH!

Luckily, the train make a stop about 10 minutes later and we were able to catch another train back to the Milan station. We knew that we'd already missed the real train we were supposed to be on, but there was another train there early the next morning AND we could still use the tickets we already bought. So, we finally trudged out of the train station at about 10:30 pm...into the pouring rain. We found a hotel fairly close by and giggled at the bidet in our bathroom. And we managed to find a cafe that was still open and finally got some dinner. And then finally got some sleep. A very short sleep, since our train left at 7:20 the next morning.

But finally, it seems that the train gods were bored of messing with us, and we finally made it to Swizterland! Don't miss the thrilling conclusion of our misadventures in Part 2!

Emma

2008-07-10T13:25:00.002-04:00

Oh, and Emma is still adorable. She requested that she be on the blog in her cute duckie towel.

Recumbent bike

2008-07-10T12:45:00.007-04:00

So, last year I decided that I liked biking, but didn't like the associated pain (or the numbness, which made me worry). I had tried a "boy-friendly" bike seat, but no dice. So, I got a Recumbent bike: expensive, but I figured it'd pay for itself in gas money. Being analytical, I decided to chart my money saved verses bike cost in a progress bar -- starting at black, and slowly revealing the bike.

Well, I'm happy to say that I'm 20% paid off. I'm trying to increase my mileage to 90 miles/week (60 miles this week so far), which'll make the whole thing become visible way faster.

2007.9.20 -- First week of the bike: 2007.11.9 -- Last bike ride of the season
2008.5.30 -- Last bike ride before Switzerland

2008.7.10 -- Today, after 60 miles of riding this week

So, Fiona has gotten used to getting emails saying "I CAN SEE THE PEDAL", or "I CAN SEE THE WHOLE GEAR"

If you pass the Big Chicken, you've gone too far...

2008-05-28T17:04:00.003-04:00

Doug and I spent Memorial day weekend visiting his sister's family in Atlanta. We got to meet 10-week-old Emma, who actually seemed happy enough to be eaten by a squid. Here's the pattern for the nifty squid hat. It's a pretty fun, quick project...it was a race to see if I could finish the last half of it on the drive down to Atlanta. I finished stitching on his last eye just minutes before we arrived!

And LM and John win super extra best host points for enabling my need to visit weird roadside attractions. They took us to see the BIG CHICKEN! We also took Emma on her first hike at Kennesaw Mountain and then shot her from a cannon to commemorate the event. :) Isn't she a cutie?

Besides having a wonderful time visiting with Doug's family, we also rounded out the trip by getting all sorts of National Park Passport stamps...Kennesaw National Battlefield Park, Audubon Acres on the Trail of Tears Historic trail (complete with poison ivy, stinging nettles and ticks!), and finally a nexus of stamps at Stones River National Battlefield!

Trail Run and Camping

2008-05-01T16:40:00.004-04:00

Fiona and I went up to Pickney State Park. It's a pretty area, and we learned from last year to reserve camp sites far from the hustle and bustle of weekend partiers. We had a nice fire, hung out on a beautiful friday, and then the next day, did the 5 mile trail run!

My GPS says it looked like this:

The rolling green is the elevation -- the trails were on hils, and the 30 minute mark felt like a mountain.

But, the day was beautiful, and we rested afterwards, staring at the lake and hearing the bullfrogs. Fiona is too polite to mention it, but she beat me by 1 second!

(In retrospect, running 13.1 miles the next day turned out to be a mistake)

Superstars!

2008-04-14T08:38:00.002-04:00

It's true! Doug and I were superstars on Friday night.

For the past few months we've been taking a Performance Lindy Hop (aka Superstar Lindy) class from Naptown Stomp. Our instructors (the fabulously great Kathy and Aaron) choreographed and taught a very snazzy lindy routine to 8 dance couples. Last Friday night at the Fountain Square Theater swing dance, we managed to not fall on our faces as we performed during one of the intermissions.

This class ended up being a great idea. I think it was the first time I ever took a dance class that really required a lot of rehearsal outside the class to make it a success. We definitely learned some really slick moves--we haven't quite figured out how to fit into our regular dancing, but we will soon! It was a great way to really get to know the other Naptown Stompers a whole lot better. Our only complaint was that the ultimate goal of the class, the performance, was only 2 minutes long! We want to do it again!!

Many, many thanks need to go to Kathy and Aaron for the tons of time they put into making this a success. They did a great job with us. And to Sandy for giving us a place to rehearse on the weekend. And to all the Superstars for working so hard! And one final thanks to Debra, for taking the video of the performance for me!

One of my favorite comments from a friend afterward the performance was "Fiona, you looked like you were having a great time, but Doug looked like he was concentrating very hard." :)

Crazy Pets

2008-04-08T21:01:00.006-04:00

Early last spring, I was thrilled and surprised to find out that one of my $.30 goldfish had survived the winter in my little backyard pond. He was enormous, at least compared to his starting size! I bought a few more friends for him over the summer and fully planned on bringing them inside for the winter. With the craziness of our fall traveling last year, I never did get them indoors.

So, for the past few months, I've been anxiously waiting for signs of gold through the murk and leaves floating in the pond. I had pretty much given up on any signs of life until this Sunday, when Doug spotted the big guy! Thrilled, I tossed in some fish food and we found that four fish (out of five, I think) survived the winter. Yay! After I worked in the garden last night, I tried to take some pictures, but they are very twitchy little guys. These ones are pretty blurry, but the video clip below is better.

In the house, Agatha has become completely obsessed with getting the fishies in the new indoor fish tank. For years, I've been trying to get some cute pictures of her perched on top of my favorite gargolye (technically a grotesque, I know, but then most folks wouldn't know what I was talking about). Who knew that all I needed to do was add some fish into the household to get that picture!?!

Since this post seems to be all about pet pictures, here's one last of Agatha investigating my finished knitting project. The Amazing finally finished 14-foot DOCTOR WHO SCARF! After more than two years on this project, I finally gave it to my sister Deirdre, who has been longing for one of these since she was a teenager.

Successful yogis

2008-03-24T22:34:00.004-04:00

We did it! Doug and I successfully completed that 30 day Resolution Revolution Yoga Challenge. He has become positively bendy and I have become...well...bendier. And stronger!

It turns out that 30 days of yoga or pilates was pretty challenging. I definitely questioned the sanity of training for runs at the same time--5k & 5 mile trail run for me and a few mini-marathons for Doug. And we shouldn't forget about dance classes that we took in the last month. The weekend with yoga/pilates, running, Fountain Square Swing dance Friday night and a Saturday Blues dance workshop and nighttime dance just about killed me. But in a good way! It was totally worth it when we also managed to trick Valerie and Darren into joining us for an early morning yoga that Sunday morning.

While I'm glad the challenge is finally done, I did celebrate my second yoga-free day by doing yoga! Chances are that I'll continue with my yoga practice more often, but probably not 7 days a week. Doug claims that he'll still be doing yoga in the future as well.

And for a little plug, we were doing our yoga craziness at Invoke Studio just north of downtown Indy. One of the perks of doing yoga everyday was getting a chance to take classes from just about all of the instructors at the studio. They are all fabulous folks!

Oh, and the training is going well! My longest run yet was 4 miles last Friday, and Doug ran 10 miles tonight. (He's such a show off!)

25 days

2008-03-18T09:19:00.002-04:00

We completed day 25 yesterday. 1 more restorative yoga, 2 more pilates, and 2 more yogas. What could go wrong?

Geocaching Madness

2008-03-17T19:22:00.005-04:00

So, what was I doing in the coldest day of January? Curled beneath a nice warm blanket in front of a roaring fire? Nope! I was outside with my crazy friends geocaching.

This particular geocaching escapade took place after Lindy & Balboa dance weekend in Dayton, OH. A little punchy after 2 days of workshops, Valerie & Darren led us on a wild trek near the Mad River and Dayton Mall to find a bazillion caches on the coldest day of the year. It was very fun. And COLD!

For years, I've had a little bit of a bias against geocaching. My first real exposure to it, was a geocache that was located on a Nature Conservancy preserve, and reaching it involved rappelling (against TNC rules on our preserves) down a cliff that was populated with an rare plant.

However, I've gotten over it. Mostly because geocaching is way fun! And silly! And requires a little sneakiness. :)

(This post has been hiding out in my drafts since January. Thought I'd finally finish it and get it out here)

Dreams of 14 year old girls

2008-03-10T16:20:00.004-04:00

I recently got a call from a longtime friend. I've known Meredith since freshman year of high school and along with Renee, the three of us were fairly inseparable. Renee also wins the longest friend prize, we went to preschool together! Anyway, we were drama and choir nerds together, ran amok, got in trouble, and were general silly, best friends all through high school.

Meredith called to ask me to be in her wedding this fall, along with Renee and her sisters. This made me flash back to sleep-overs where we planned our weddings and how we'd all be in the other's weddings. :) It's a weird and wonderful thing that it's actually happening 20 years later.

30 Day Yoga Challenge!

2008-02-17T19:44:00.009-05:00

Bring it!

(Update: Fiona and I are on our 15th day. We're both fully recovered, and enjoying it immensely. Fiona has been taking additional yoga so that she'll never have to take another pilates class. We'll see if she succeeds in her goal.)

(Update: As expected, being healthy has made getting to the 21st day easy. Only 1 more restorative yoga left. :( )

15 minutes of fame....err...maybe 30 seconds?

2008-02-15T08:16:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, my co-worker Ellen and I went to our usual lunchtime yoga session. We were surprised to find a news crew there. Our yoga studio has a promotion running right now called"Resolution Revolution", which is essentially a challenge to attend a yoga or pilates class every day for 30 days. The news crew was there to interview a woman who is on her 25th day in the program.

And Ellen and I got our 30 seconds of fame doing yoga on the news. :)

I've finally figured out that I could actually be in Indianapolis for 30 days if I were crazy enough to start the program next week. I may have even convinced Doug to join me. Mwhahahahaha.

On a sad note, while I was anxiously awaiting my yoga debut on the news last night, I caught the breaking news on the shooting at Northern Illinois University. Since my niece, Tiernen, goes to NIU, I started the phone tree to make sure she was okay. No answer from Tiernen, no one home at Siobhan's (my sister, her mom), no answer from Siobhan's cell...and I was dialing her dad, I was immensely relieved to see a call coming in from Siobhan. She had already talked to Tiernen, and she was alright.

I'm relieved that my funny, wonderful niece is safe, but I'm so sorry for the poor victims, and their families and friends.

Huh. Land Sick. Who knew?

2008-01-13T14:48:00.000-05:00

Two months of crazy traveling finished up the year of 2007. Since the beginning of last November, Doug and I only spent one weekend in Indianapolis. We started our travels in Costa Rica, briefly back to Indy then off to Chicago for Thanksgiving with a little side trip up to Toronto for Karen's wedding. Back for another few days in Indianapolis, then a flight to LA to catch our boat to the Mexican Riviera. After spending an astoundingly long 11 days in Indianapolis, I was off to Chicago for the holidays (and Doug was in Florida with his family). We wanted to finish off the final day of the year dancing at the Cincinnati New Year's dance, but we made a side trip to visit Valerie and Darren in Louisville before heading over to Cincy. I find it pretty amazing that we only spent 30 full days in Indianapolis for the months of November and December. Whew!

But, this post is really supposed to be a about the cruise to the Mexican Riviera! For the first week of December, Doug and I joined our infamous friends Valerie and Darren in LA for a few days of sight-seeing before our cruise. We stayed in a quirky hotel in Chinatown. Did some of the usual sight-seeing stuff, Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Hollywood Walk of Fame, Hollywood Wax Museum and Guiness Book of World Records. OOOOO! And the La Brea Tar Pits. Very cool. Can you imagine living somewhere where your sump pumping asphalt ooze instead of water out of your basement? We also went on a doomed nighttime search for a view of the HOLLYWOOD sign, only to find out that the recent wildfires had damaged it and it was probably unlit. Sigh. That search, however led us to a rather odd "Festival of Lights" that entertained us in many ways. After a quick visit to the LA zoo on Sunday morning, we headed down to the Port of LA (after a trip to try In-and-Out burgers and animal-style fries. Yum!) to board Royal Carribean's "Vision of the Seas".

We spent 7 days cruising down the Mexican Riviera stopping in Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta. After boarding the ship on the first day, we did the required safety drill--terrifying the other guests around us all we practiced our sinking-ship expressions! Then we started our reputation at "those dancers" as we all got up and swing danced in the aisles during the the "Welcome to the Cruise" show. :)

Day 2 was all at sea, so we played around the ship. While I lazed in the sun on the solarium pool deck, Val and the boys climbed the rock wall at the back of the ship in preparation for the speed climbing contest that night. This was no mean feat for Valerie, who hates heights, but managed to make it to the top of the wall for the first time ever during the contest. Go Val! That night, we had our first fancy dress dinner, drank champagne and danced at the Captain's party.

Day 3 had us anchored at Cabo San Lucas. After we fought through the swarms of hawkers at the dock, we finally made it to the beach. Doug and I immediately dove into the waves and spent ages playing in the surf. Luckily for us, Valerie and Darren haggled a fabulous deal for parasailing while we played. This was a FABULOUS ride. We took off and landed from a speed boat, so it was an amazingly gentle way to parasail. We also hunted around for some tasty food, wandering the streets while drinking from giant Mexican beer bottles. :) We spent a little more time playing in the waves and then headed back to the boat.

On Day 4 we docked at Mazatlan and made our way to the old town center and wandered through the big city market. When we finally managed to drag Val away from the cow heads and miscellaneous meats, we hopped on a bus on a fruitless search for a brewpub (sadly it was closed for remodeling) and spent the rest of the day on the beach. The waves in Mazatlan were wonderful! We ended up renting some boogie boards and played in the surf until we were exhausted.

Day 5 was our last port, Puerto Vallarta. While Valerie and Darren were off scuba diving, Doug and I were on a giant catamaran that took us to Marietas Island to go snorkeling. It was a beautiful day, but the seas were fairly rough so the water was pretty cloudy. Not the ideal conditions for snorkeling or scuba diving, but we still had some fun. After the snorkeling, the rest of our day on the this excursion was supposed to take place hiking and sunning ourselves on a private beach, but sadly the ocean had other ideas. Beach number one was inaccessible due to the rough waves, so our catamaran headed out to another scenic beach. It looked like we'd be able to land on this one, so Doug and I were in the first motor boat that was ferrying us to the beach. We managed to get on land without too much excitement and stood at the edge of the surf amazed at the ferocity of the waves. As the 2nd motor boat ferried another batch of folks to the beach, a huge wave crashed over their boat as they tried to land. Although these folks got pretty wet, everyone was okay...and at that point the skipper decided that the beach was a bad idea that day. With a little more excitement we managed to get the motor boat back off the beach without getting totally mushed by waves, and ended up swimming off the back of the catamaran instead.

Day 6 was our last full day at sea, steaming back up towards LA. The seas continued to be pretty rough, and seasick bags had been thoughtfully displayed through out the boat. Luckily, none of our little party succumbed to seasickness on the big boat. Instead, we ran around like fools doing all sorts of silly on-board activities. Early on, we'd discovered that we could win "fit-dollars" for completing all sorts of fitness activities--dance classes, 1-mile walk in the morning, stretching, aqua-aerobics, bean bag toss---and then cash them in for prizes at the end of the 6th day. It might be said that Valerie and I were a little obsessed by this, and the last day had all sorts of activities, and we hit most of them. Aqua-aerobics was especially fun that day due to the rough seas!

Day 7 was pretty uneventful. We got back to port in LA. Valerie and Darren continued to further adventures in Las Vegas and Doug and I headed off to spend the rest of the day in airports and airplanes.

Needless to say, we had a great time. This was a first cruise for Doug and Valerie and a second for Darren and I. We ate lots of tasty food, played games, made tasty drinks with our bootleg hooch, danced like maniacs a few times a day, swam, hot-tubbed and generally ran around like crazy people. It was way fun! And although none of us got seasick on the cruise, I was horribly land sick for about a week after we were home. Yep, land sick. Still felt like I was feeling the waves. Very dizzy, rather grumpy. :) Thankfully it finally wore off.

Costa Rica Adventures!

2007-11-19T20:13:00.001-05:00

Wow. Costa Rica was amazing! Doug and I flew in on Nov 10, arriving Saturday afternoon in San Jose. We got our rental car and Doug drove the crazy, hilly, windy, fairly nerve-wracking 3-hour drive out to La Fortuna and the Arenal Volcano. It was pretty dark by the time we arrived and we were pretty exhausted. Early the next morning, we woke to heavy overcast skies and rushed to meet our tour bus to the Caño Negro Wildlife Refuge (north of Arenal near Los Chiles). We saw the refuge (24620 acres) from a boat on the Rio Frio. There were a bazillion critters--three kinds of monkeys (howlers, spider and white-faced), three-toed sloths, cayman crocs, more birds than I can remember (anhingas, little blue herons, green herons, great blues, egrets, mangrove swallows, kingfishers, woodpeckers...), and jesus lizards. Whew! We also got to reach our toes over the living-fence border into Nicaragua.

As we headed back to our hotel, the skies finally started to clear and we got our first view of the Arenal Volcano. Yep, an active volcano. It was considered dormant until 1968, when it erupted explosively and killed 78 people. We found out that the town we were staying near changed its name to "La Fortuna" after the eruption, since it was lucky enough to be on the inactive side of the volcano. :) That evening, Doug and I hopped back in our car and did a little exploring, since we could finally see the volcano. With a little bit of blind luck just as full dark fell, we found ourselves at the viewing area to see lava flowing down the active side! LAVA!

On our last morning in the Arenal area, Doug and I defied death above the rain forest canopy. :) Well, as much death as you can defy while being harnessed and well-clipped onto a cable hundreds of feet high. We did an amazing zipline tour (video). There were 7 cables in all, the longest being nearly a half-mile long, the highest about 660 feet, and highest speed probably about 40 mph. It was WAY fun. At least I thought it was and grinned and hooted like a maniac the whole ride! We could also hear from the volcano as we clipped on and off each cable, puffing away like a steam engine.

Then we defied death once more as we drove back to San Jose. I'm pretty sure that Doug enjoyed the drive back more (as I frantically clutched at the dashboard and closed my eyes). We also managed to stop at one of the roadside stands and satisfy our curiosity about the intriguing signs for "Queso Palmito"! Little palm cheese? Really? Nope. Turns out that although we managed to translate it fairly well, there's no palm in this cheese. Instead, it a long sheet of flat cheese wrapped up into a ball (maybe because it peals away like palm fronds?) Very tasty, kinda like cheese curds.

But really, the driving excitement is all about San Jose. I've never seen anything like the traffic and driving there. Since Ticos don't really seem to post street signs and directions to hotels seem to be non-existent, we blindly managed to find our way to the right side of the city, and got lost (luckily) near our rental car place, so the folks there kindly ferried us to our hotel. Whew! Sadly, for the next three days, I had to work. Blech. :) Actually, work was fine. My Costa Rican colleagues are very nice, and the software installations went as well as they could have. Doug however, got to get lost all over San Jose on foot, visited all sorts of museums, toured another nearby volcano (Irazú, which refused to come out of its cloudy shroud for Doug), botanical gardens, churches, and took a crazy amount of photos.

For the third part of our journey, we took a little 12-seater prop plan to Quepos and Manuel Antonio on the Pacific (southern) side of Costa Rica. A quick twenty minute flight and suddenly we're in sunshine and 80+ degree weather. After a quick dip in the hotel pool to cool off, we hiked about a mile down a long windy hill, and into the Manuel Antonio National Park. Smallest of the 20 national parks Costa Rica, about 1700 acres of land mass and 135,906 acres of marine reserve. Woohoo! The Pacific Ocean! Miles of beautiful white sand beaches and an evergreen forest that grows right up along the high tide line. After lounging in the ocean for a while, we chased some hermit crabs as we hiked along the beach further into the park. Then we ran into some friendly or at least, very bold white-faced monkeys again. It turns out some folks who set up their towels on the sand had fruit in their backpacks. Needless to say, the monkeys managed to get into the bags...or the people managed to get their packs back & gave up the fruit...so the monkeys were running the show at that part of the beach! We carefully stashed our bag up on a rock surrounded by ocean and took another dip. And got to watch the show as the next set of tourists left their bags on the beach. This set of tourists assumed the monkeys were bilingual and started bellowing "MONKEY! BAD MONKEY!" as they tried to sprint out of the surf and rescue their packs. :) Finally, we got out of the water and started to hike some of the trails through the forest edge. Best was the trail that winds around Punta Catedral, getting some amazing views of the ocean as we climbed up and to the edges of the forest.

On our last full day in Costa Rica, we hopped on an 4x4 bus and drove for nearly two hours on unpaved roads to white water raft on the Rio Savegre. Our trip on this river was going to be about 13 miles through class II, III, and IV rapids. Other than Doug & I, there were 3 other gringos on this trip. There was an amazingly disaffected 20-something year old, her mother & her grandmother--and none of them had ever been paddling at all, much less whitewater rafting. As our guides (one to guide the raft, a rescue-kayaker, and a photographer-kayaker, and one more "ringer" paddler to balance out the raft) got the raft and other equipment ready, we all took a walk out on a bridge over the river to take a look at the first set of rapids. As we did, I think that the "mom" in the rest of our paddling group realized that she had no idea what she'd signed up for. :) We went though our little class on how to paddle, how to stay in the boat, what to do if you fall out of the boat...and then we started the ride! Less than a minute on the river, and we hit the first rapids, and "mom" fell out! She managed to remember what to do in the water, and got through the rest of the rapids and was quickly rescued and returned to the raft. With a fair amount of cursing! After that, everyone managed to stay in the raft for the rest of the trip. And, a wonderful ride it was! Lots of rapids, gorgeous scenery, a few quick dips in the calm pools, and just a beautiful day all around!

We stopped for lunch in a little village called "Silencio", and had a traditional Tico lunch. And then realized we were running behind schedule, since Doug & I were on a 3pm flight back to San Jose, and we hopped in the bus for an amazingly fast and bumpy ride back to Manuel Antonio. With some racing around, we managed to get to the tiny little Quepos airport in time to find out that our flight was delayed. :)

The remainder of the trip was pretty uneventful, flying back to San Jose and then flying back to the US the next morning, tired and a little sunburned, back to the 40 degree Indianapolis weather. Sigh. The travel home did end on a high note, however. Our bottles of guaro, Costa Rica's national liquor made from sugar cane, came through in our checked luggage without breaking. Woohoo!

Yet another reason to love my job

2007-11-06T11:41:00.002-05:00

One of my all-time favorite silly activities is dressing up. And as extra icing on the cake, I occasionally can talk my co-workers into dressing up with me! This year for Halloween, our Science department dressed up as the League of Super Invasive Plant Villains. :) Burning Bush, Garlic Mustard, Purple Loosestrife, Canada Thistle and Kudzu were pitted in battle against the valiant super hero, MIPN Man (Midwest Invasive Plant Network Man).

Besides the silly dressing up, working at TNC occasionally allows me to get out into the field. Most recently we had a staff outing to a gorgeous new property along Sugar Creek, near Turkey Run State Park. We did a few hikes on what turned out to be a gorgeous fall day. Took a bazillion pictures hoping to get a few nice shots of the beams of sunlight through the changing colors of leaves. Got a few!

Since I've posted one Halloween shot, here's a link to the Gypsy Moon Ball photo album. Gypsy Moon Ball is the annual Halloween Weekend contra dancing in Indianapolis. It's a wonderfully absurd dance weekend where many dancers come dressed up in some pretty amazing costumes.
And, this year we had a fabulous new (to the Midwest) contra dance band called the Great Bear Trio. Andrew, Noah & Kim VanNorstrand (brothers & mother) were like total contra band rock stars. :) Dance Gypsies should definitely go out of their way to dance to this band

The fitness bug has bitten

2007-10-25T21:22:00.001-04:00

For the past year, I've been seriously into getting healthier. Primarily this has just meant losing weight, but also getting more fit. I started walking a lot last fall. Then I finally bit the bullet a few months later and started really dieting. Then I REALLY starting to exercise at a gym. Sigh. Believe it or not, I actually started keeping a food (a total pain) diary and an exercise (way more fun) diary. I've been using the selfdietclub.com site, which has some nifty online tools. Even though the tools are a little buggy, they're fairly easy to use & have these nifty graphs like this one--weight over time. This graph makes me VERY happy. Besides, I like Self.com because they gave me a little bit of (dubious) internet fame.

Anyway, it's been a good, but frustrating and rewarding year with this fitness insanity. I'm back down to the weight I was at at age 21. Just need to subtract a few more years and then I'll be happy to be finished!

Oh, and with my happy new knee, I'm back at yoga again. Yay! Yoga generally makes me very happy--and being fifty pounds lighter makes it WAY easier. Today, however, I was completely stymied by The Crane (Bakasana) and The Tree (Vriksha-asana). I totally hate balancing poses! Bah!

Running is for crazy people

2007-10-25T14:08:00.000-04:00

So, Saturday I ran in my first 5k ever! I wasn't planning on running it, I swear. For the past year or so, I've been working up a very nice brisk walking pace as part of my fitness routine. This summer, I was pretty consistently walking about 4 miles at a 15 minute mile or so. That was the plan for the 5k.

Then the race started and everyone started by running. Which seemed reasonable. So I ran the first quarter/half mile-ish. And then I walked for a while. Then these 2 ladies who had been walking just behind me started to jog again. So I jogged. And passed them when they started to walk again, went a little further, then slowed to a walk again. And so on...

But, at mile 1.5ish, a tiny little old grey-haired lady passed me. Huh. So I started running again. Made it to that big tree, and then a little further to the other big tree. Then I walked. A few minutes later, the tiny little ol'lady passed me again. She had to be at least in her mid-seventies and a foot shorter than me. Sigh. So I was, of course, forced to run again and further. This lasted until the end of the race, where I managed to beat 77 year-old Edna by 1.5 seconds. I'm surprised she didn't trip me at some point to make me quit it. Who knew I was so competitive? Anyway, here are the results:
FIONA SOLKOWSKI, Placed 280 Overall, Placed 14 in Age Group, Pace 12:12, Finish Time 37:56.0

Doug was also at this event running his first full marathon! Woohoo! Go Doug!

And sadly, I've decided that running is WAY more effective at burning calories. Sigh. So, I ran again with support and encouragement from Doug last night. I'm actually pretty thrilled (in that sore & grumpy sort of way) about the running. It means my knees are way better than they have been for years.

More Weird Yard Art

2007-10-20T23:17:00.000-04:00

Seriously, how could you pass up going to visit a Pumpkin-eating Dinosaur? This is at the Waterman's Farm Market on the Southeast side of Indianapolis. One of the most entertaining bits of this show, was the surly teenaged boy who was "feeding" Tyranny. He stabbed the pitchfork into a pumpkin...put it in the dinosaur's mouth...waited for the chewing to happen. Stabbed another pumpkin... and so on. All done with the most despondent look of boredom that only a 16 year-old boy can pull off.
www.watermansfarmmarket.com

Shiny New Bike

2007-10-10T22:30:00.000-04:00

Wow. For the first time in my life, I have a brand new *nice* bicycle. It's a Schwinn Voyageur Hybrid. And is SHINY! The other bike in the photo is Doug's weird recumbent bike--he's totally in love with his bike too, even if it's goofy looking.

In the first 10 days of owning this bike, I pedaled away over 100 miles. Probably not a huge deal for the avid bikers out there, but a way big deal for me. :)

For Indy folks, there's a great new bike shop in Fountain Square--Joe's Cycles on Virginia Avenue just north of the fountain. Joe is great & that's where I bought my shiny new bike!

Weird Yard Art

2007-10-05T14:00:00.000-04:00

So, I was inspired by weird yard art to finally start my blog. Invariably, in my travels, I feel compelled to seek out these goofy things such as 75 foot tall catsup bottles, man-eating spiders, giant pink plastic elephants, and pumpkin eating dinosaurs.

This lovely bit of weird yard art was at a roadside pumpkin stand in Ohio, near Cowen Lake State Park. This was a last minute trip that Doug & I went on last weekend, to break in our new bikes on Ohio's fabulous bike-hike trails. We started out with a quick 12 mile trip along the Little Miami on Saturday evening. On Sunday, we started out at the Xenia Station hub and made a 33 mile round trip (turning around just north of Yellow Springs).

More weird yard art & roadside attractions in upcoming posts. Also, I will wax poetic about my new love affair with my shiny new bike!