Saturday, May 27, 2006

Golf

I have not played the game of golf for very long. In fact, the last time I actually played was when we still lived in Phoenix, a good two years ago.

So when I had the chance to play in a charity golf tournament with my husband and two of our friends, I jumped at the chance. Especially since it was for charity and there was really no pressure on me to perform well.

We arrived at the golf course at 8:40 am on Friday, ready to smack some balls around. I had my clubs, some new shoes, and pretty pink balls. Let me tell you how excited I am about these balls! They have a clear plastic cover, which gives the pink on the inside a depth that just is a visual masterpiece. Seriously, I was impressed with my golf balls!

At 10:00 am, we finally got off to start the tournament. It was a scramble format with a shotgun start, and our team started on hole dos. That's two for all of you gringos. The men tee'd off and we women stood back and admired their strength! Woo hoo! We were off to a good start.

Hole three was interesting as one of the guys in our group (coughcoughAARONcoughcough) was trying to chip onto the green, a mere 5 yards away, and swung for the fences, clearing the golf course and scaring the bejeesus out of some soccer mom in her mini van on the road adjacent to the course. On a side note, I wonder how many golf balls these people who live in the houses surrounding the course find in their yards on any given day. I know two of them will find some pretty pink balls in the backyard soon. Moving on.

As the day wore on and the beer girl realized we were her best customers, we started getting fatigued. I did well overall, for not having golfed in so long. Chris did well, Steph did well, even Aaron did well. We had a good time, really. Mulligans and birdies abounded, beer flowed freely, there was some crazy golf cart antics thrown in for good measure, and tons of sexual harassment on the links.

Just another good day at the golf course.

Springtime in New England

Chris and I left San Diego on a beautiful Southern California day. The weather was fantastic, the breeze warm and beautiful off of the Pacific. The sky was blue with soft puffy clouds.

We arrived in New England a week later, October 1st to be exact, on a blustery, rainy fall day. It was dreary, windy and wet. The sky was gray. We had to make a trip to the mall to gear up for this crisp fall, since we hadn't packed accordingly, and our stuff would not be able to be unpacked until our house was bought and moved in to, a good thirty days away. We were bunking down at the hotel, and there wasn't a whole lot of room.

We moved into our house on November 1st. The leaves were a beautiful red and orange blur, and started falling en masse. By Thanksgiving, we had our first snowfall. We hibernated for the winter. It's difficult to do anything productive outside when you have spent the better part of the last 15 years in two climates that allowed for shorts and t-shirts year round.

So with a few false starts and teaser days, we actually broke into spring for good this week. Suddenly, we were renewed. We've bought flowers and plants for the yard. We bought new patio furniture for the deck. We gave the house a thorough spring cleaning today.

Chris and I sat on our deck tonight, admiring the cool Spring night air. We can honestly say that we are finally feeling like this is a place we can live in for a while. Mid-winter, we were planning for warmer climates. Right now, we're thinking this isn't that bad.

Of course, summer and humidity, two things that are by now foreign to us, are only days away.

Friday, May 12, 2006

Slacking

On a whim and in between phone calls and meetings today I decided to revisit my Blog. Then I realized I haven't blogged in over a month. Well, ok, it's a DAY over a month, but it has still been a while.

So let me catch you up really really quick:

Work, work, work, Puerto Rico, work, work.

Yup, we snuck a quick weekend to PR in there. Chris' birthday was May 3rd and I decided to take him on down. Well, he hooked up the plane tix, and I, well, *I* hooked us up FAT with a hotel room....POOLSIDE....in PR.

Puerto Rico is a beautiful island, full of beautiful, friendly people. They all are bilingual to some extent, with most of them being able to easily transfer between Spanish and English. Even that nice man who insisted on bringing me Midori Pina Coladas (and anyone at our Memorial Day BBQ Bash will get to taste those) and on bringing Chris DonQ and cokes while we lounged poolside for three days was a gem. Nelson was his name. His Spanish was impeccable and his English was really good.

Chris and I did what any fun loving American couple would do while on a short vacation. We sunned. Oh, we did some touristy stuff, but mostly laid by the pool and lounged. And drank. And tanned. And drank. And lounged.

It was a nice preview to our Jamaica vacation...in T-minus 4 months one week and one day....and counting.