More on the Baseball Road Trip

I'm having a bit of a tough time falling asleep so I thought I'd write a little more in detail about the trip.

So we left Friday morning and had a pleasant drive. We played the ABC game (our favorite car game... where you have to be the first to find words that begin with each letter of the alphabet in order and the first one to Z wins) twice and Seth won both times! We saw some of the Ohio big arrows:) We got into Cleveland early so we just went to a bar by the field and had a few drinks and a snack. Then we met up with Kristi and Josh... I was so good to see them! It's been too long... the game was a lot of fun. Nice to get to talk to them, and it was fun to get to walk around and see a new park. Plus it was a good game and there were really good fireworks after. Then we drove back to Kristi and Josh's house in Canton, OH and sat up for awhile visitting, talking, playing with the dogs, etc. It was great since it's been so long since we've seen them.

On Saturday, we slept in and went to get some lunch at a little place by their house. It was a nice day, so we decided to walk to the Football Hall of Fame since it's so close to their house. It was a really nice walk through this cute park. Like I said before, I'm not that into football but it was still interesting just to see all the exhibits and stuff. Seth, Kristi and Josh really loved it though since they're big football fans. While we were there, there was a crazy hail storm... the hail was HUGE! (Later when we got home, we found Seth's car had lots of little dents in it. It's not too bad cuz you can barely see them but still...) Anyway, after we were done there we walked back to their house, relaxed for a little while. Then Kristi and Josh BBQed us some yummy chicken and sides and we had a great dinner. Then we went for ice cream, which was fun. After that, we played with their Wii... we played Wii bowling and Wii Olympics. The Olympics game was so funny. I scored a World Record in javelin the first time! I had no idea what I was doing but it was, like, perfect. So funny. And Seth doing the fencing was especially hilarious:) We ended up being up quite late playing:) But, like I said before, it was great because it's been so long since we've hung out. But it's funny because it was honestly like no time had passed. We went right to the comfort level of when we saw each other ever day. It's good to have friends like that. And good, after all our guy drama in college, that we both are happily married to great guys.

On Sunday, we got up early and drove to Pittsburgh. The drive to Pittsburgh was a really great drive since it wasn't on the highway... it was mostly on US Rt. 30 so it went through some great small towns. The landscape was nice too since it went from flat Midwestern cornfields to some low, rolling foothills of the Appalachians. But the best part of the drive was through this little slice of West Viriginia... there were all bars and clubs and it was hilarious...there was one called the Hillbilly Cafe! Anyway, eventually we got to Pittsburgh and to the game. The stadium in Pittsburgh was really, really nice. Food was yummy, and the park is on the Allegheny River and part of the stadium is back right on the river... like a river walk. It was a really hot day, though, sitting in the sun. And the game wasn't the greatest. But there were lots of fun things during the game.. like they had this crazy hot dog thing where the mascots shot hot dogs into the crowd and there was this little silly song on the scoreboard about it. And they have a pierogi race (like the Milwaukee sausage race) which was fun. The other funny thing was the give-away was this little stuffed animal pierogi guy. But they were only giving it to kids and I was so sad... I wanted one SO BADLY. And at the end of the game we were walking out and there was one sitting on some seats just left... so I took it and I got one!:) I was so happy. So afetr the game we went to a bar and had a few drinks while waiting for the traffic to clear. Then we drove a little bit to our hotel in West Virginia. We went out to dinner, but we were so sleepy we ended up just crashing.

And on Monday we woke up, got some brunch at Bob Evans and were on our way for our long drive. We had an ABC game to finish and I won!:) I took a nap... and then we played the game again and I won again! Very exciting... we were then tied two-two. We played a third game and Seth was winning and then I made a come-back and we were stuck on Z... eventually we saw a truck that said ZeroZone (or something like that) and we both said it at the same time... it was a big dispute and eventually we decided to just keep it as a tie. Anyway, we made it home around 8:00. The house seems so lonely though without Toby (he's staying at my Dad's). We really miss him.

Now we're looking forward to Vegas!!!!! The next blog should be about that!:)

Baseball Road Trip '08

Seth and I got back earlier tonight from our Baseball Roadtrip. I have a bunch more things to do tonight so I'll write more details later... but here's a little bit... and a link to pictures. http://www2.snapfish.com/share/p=502281217299407351/l=413776791/g=99697777/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

We had a great time. Good weather, easy driving, lots of fun, and got to visit with Kristi and Josh.

The game in Cleveland was good... the Indians won, it was a nice ballpark, a beautiful summer night, and some good fireworks. The we went back to Kristi and Josh's house in Canton, OH and visitted for awhile. Then the next day, we got some lunch, and then walked to the Football Hall of Fame. Although I'm not a huge football fan, I did enjoy it. Seth really loved it. Then that evening we had dinner with Kristi and Josh and played Wii Olympics... that was so much fun and so funny. Then the next day we drove to Pittsburgh (which was actually a really great drive... it wasn't on the Interstate so there was lots to see. The little stretch of West Viriginia was the funniest cuz there were all these crazy bars!) Then the game in Pittsburgh was nice... hot but fun. The Pirates lost, but the ballpark was wonderful and they had lots of fun things at the game. The we spent the night in West Viriginia and drove home today.

We officially had a draw for the Alphabet game for the trip... it was 2-2 and then on the last game we were both at Z and had a tie. And we had been playing forever and were almost home and we declared a tie.

Sunday....

Sunday night blogging again. This weekend was nice - very relaxing. It's the one weekend for awhile that we didn't have anything going on. We ended up going to a neighborhood fest on Saturday night with friends and then having people back to our place for a few drinks after. It was very chill and fun. Other than that, we just did a few things around the house and ran some errands.

We're getting ready for our back-to-back out of town weekends. This weekend coming up we'll be seeing baseball games in Cleveland and Pittsburgh and visitting with Kristi and Josh in Canton. Then the weekend following we'll be in Vegas! I'm getting so excited for it cuz it's a big group going this time and it's going to be awesome:)

Anyway, that's about it for now.

Scuba Certification 2

Hello! I'm now an officially certified scuba diver! I'm proud of myself for doing it all! Today was easier physically, and pretty relaxing overall. I had trouble with one skill but it was more of a mental block than a physical problem (in case of an out-of-air emergency, you can safely swim to the surface slowly and by taking one big breath and then breathing out the whole way up --- for some reason I kept feeling like I was going to run out of breath and not be able to breathe so I kept stopping, like, halfway up. I finally did it on the 3rd try). But overall I'm proud of myself for wanting to do something for a long, long time and finally doing it. I'm so excited to be able to scuba dive somewhere exciting now:)

Anyway, I'm exhausted so I'm going to take a shower and go to bed not long after...

Scuba Certification 1

So today I had my first day of scuba certification... we did the first two of the four dives today. It went well... I mean I did everything, but it was exhausting. Very physically demanding, more so than I expected. We go diving in a quarry that was flooded... and the water is somewhat cold, we have to wear very thick wet suits which make us very buoyant, therefore we have to use a lot of weight, which is on a weight belt. So swimming at the surface was tiring because my muscles aren't used to kicking for 34+ more lbs. Plus, one of the skills is to remove the weight belt and put it back on and that was the most difficult thing since it was so heavy. It was actually really difficult... I had a very tough time. I mean I did it, but not without a major struggle. Also, the visability was very poor on the 1st dive (it was a little better on the 2nd) so that made it tough. At one point I couldn't see anyone or anything... it's very disorienting not to know what's up or down or front or back. But I didn't really panic, so that's good. And in the end one of the dive masters found me and everything was good. But diving in the adverse conditions is somewhat good because if we can do it here, most other dive sites will seem so easy in comparison!

The best part was when we were on the bottom (which was 23 ft.) doing some of the skills there was down time while other people were doing their thing... so we were just kneeling around and there were all these bluegills all over the place. They were very curious ... they were so funny gathering around and watching the people who were doing their skills. And they got very close... one was looking at me right in my face so I stayed very still and then he swam right up and poked my mask! Then a big fish (which I later learned was a bass) came over and all the little bluegills scattered. It was pretty funny. It was so relaxing and watching the fish. It was like how watching an aquarium is very calming, but instead of watching the aquarium I was in it:)

So tomorrow the skills seem to be somewhat easier... or at least less physically demanding. Then by tomorrow evening, unless something goes really weird, I should be a certified scuba diver!:)

Once again... Sunday night...

So it seems that the Sunday night blogging is becoming a weekly thing:) Things have been good... work is going well. The summer hours have been great (except for Wednesday ... it felt so long after getting out at 12:30 Monday and Tuesday).

And I'm now done with my classes for scuba! I'm so excited:) I really enjoyed it and it's looking more and more like going to Cozumel with Chris and Lauren will happen, so that's cool.

For the Fourth of July, we had some friends over and BBQed and played some bags.. it was fun and relaxing. Then on Saturday Seth and I played tennis, which was lots of fun (we've had beautiful weather this weekend - it was great:)

I know last time I blogged I mentioned wanting to get back to doing Weight Watchers more seriously. Yeah, that hasn't happened yet. I still want to, it's just been tough to get it going and stay motivated. It seems like every time I get started some event seems to get me off-track (i.e. vacation coming up, 4th of July, etc.) It's frustrating, so I have to find the motivation to keep things going even if I get off track one or two days.

Anyway, that's about it for now...