Blog Update

It's been years since I posted to my blog, but I've returned because I have a trip coming up and folks have expressed interest in hearing about it. I considered starting a new, travel-specific blog but figured it would be fine just to keep everything in one place. So, expect some revival here! = )

50 Years of Marriage for My Grandparents!

This is an overdue post, but here is a picture of me with my grandparents. This was taken after the first formal dinner on the cruise the whole family (save Chucky, how we missed his presence) took to celebrate Grandma & Grandpa's 50th wedding anniversary. Congratulations, you two love birds!

My First Citizen Watch

Yesterday I returned from a 7-day Carnival cruise of the Western Caribbean. The extravagant vacation was to celebrate my paternal grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary. I am so happy for those two love birds! It was wonderful to see the family!

8 years ago my dad bought a super spiffy watch onboard a cruise as his big souvenir to mark the trip. On this cruise my grandpa and I both bought new watches. I'd been needing a nice watch for a couple years now, and I'd budgeted the money for a souvenir, so I bought my first Citizen watch. It's brilliant - I love checking the time, haha! Here is what I got:

Beachmania Half Marathon

This post is for an outdated event, but I wanted to get it on my blog. Back on Sunday, 4 March 2012 I ran my 4th half marathon: the Charlie Alewine Beachmania Half Marathon along Huntington Beach in California.

My training paid off as I dropped my time to run 13.1 miles from 2:10'22" to 1:56'56" (14' improvement). 

The event was SUPER low-key; only some 30 participants. Charlie keeps things intimate. There were no mile markers, no fancy start or finish lines, no chips - just a good, ole, plain race. It was an out-n-back along Huntington Beach. It was a great race!

It was an especially fun event because I got to do the race with my mom! = )

jumping after the race

with Charlie Alewine at the refreshment station after the race

Labor Day Weekend

I've never been so excited to have a

weekend. Why? Well, this year I am driving home with one of my best friends, Sam,

and my baby girl, Heidi,

to do some serious camping!

Today I vacuumed, washed, waxed and organized my car in preparation for the trip.

It's gonna be a long haul from Florida to Indiana!

We'll probably make it in about 18 hours. We will have CD books, MadLibs and snacks to make this  

a ton of fun. We're pretty excited. This will be Sam's first visit to the great Midwest!

We'll be passing through Atlanta, Georgia,

Chattanooga, Tennessee,

and Knoxville, Tennessee.

Then we'll brush past Cincinnati, Ohio,

before entering

AKA:

Something I've missed out on for a couple years is Sno-Castle! We're gonna have to get some on our way to the camp site.

Then, while camping, I'll spend some time near the camp fire cooking the perfect s'more,

enjoy some boating,

and play some Euchre!

Oh, I can hardly wait! T-minus 3 days!

Staying in Orlando

You may have heard by now that I am no longer moving to Denver, CO. No particular thing led me to the decision to remain in Orlando, FL, but I did come to the realization that now isn't the right time. So, I'm staying in Orlando at least until I complete my masters degree, which will be in 2013.

So, if you're planning a visit to central Florida, please do let me know! I love to visit with family and friends!

January in Review

Before February gets going, I'm gonna be all over it and do a photo-review blog for what went down in my corner of the world in January 2011.

Rang in the new year with some friends who've become close over the last few months: Sam, Alex & Julie, as well as a couple of old book club friends, Casey and Ryan. We celebrated at an indie, dinner-movie theatre called The Enzian during their James Bond theme party. Casey, Julie and I got all dressed up in sparkling formal-wear, and the men all looked snazzy in their suits and ties!

Just 2 days into 2011 I had the pleasure of hosting my best friend from Down Under, Tamara! We had a blast together all week, catching up, playing with Heidi and Ashes, dining out, having PB&Js, playing Euchre and discussing our cultural and language differences. That weekend my Mom flew in town to run the Walt Disney World Half Marathon. I was supposed to run it with her, but I had to back out due to knee injury... She ran it, had fun, and Tamara and I supported her. The next day we all enjoyed ourselves at Universal's Islands of Adventure. We were blown away by the feature Wizarding World of Harry Potter ride inside the Hogwarts Castle!

During the Tamara visit I had to deal with Heidi having caught some gastro-intestinal parasites. Got her all treated for that, and she's doing MUCH better now. Still hanging around 55#, but she's already healthier.

Through the month I hosted a couple of euchre nights. I taught my new Euchre playing friends how to play bid-Euchre so we could have 6 or 8 people playing one big game instead of breaking into 2 smaller games. It's a lot of fun. I'm really glad I can get that taste of the Midwest down here through Euchre.

The Spring 2011 semester at PSU started on Monday, 10 January 2011. I'm taking 2 classes this semester: IST 552 Data Management and IST 411 Distributed Object-Oriented Programming. I LOVE 411 and am doing well there so far, but I'm praying to pass 552. The class overestimates the students' background knowledge and is very accellerated in pace...

I had a lovely Skype date with Miss Kristin! When I Skyped with her she announced that her and her husband, Aric, were getting a puppy - a Cocka-Poo! They've sinced picked him up from the breeder and named him Hiro, from the main character in the shoe Heroes. I've seen a photo, and he's just adorable! Can't wait to Skype with her again soon to hear all about their transition into puppy parenthood!

On Tuesday, 11 January 2011 my brother, Chucky, turned 22! I sent him a card, a book he requested ("The Art of War"), and a gift card to Target. I wish I could have celebrated with him in person, but when you're on opposite coasts of the country, it's kinda tricky and we make do. Happy birthday, Chuggy! Here's a favorite photo of the two of us, taken at Lana & Geof's wedding back in September 2009:

Last weekend I got to go skiing with a bunch of great friends from work; they are all in the IS Leadershpi Development Program with me. We had a blast! We stayed in an awesome, 5-bedroom cabin, tucked away in the woods, and we had 2 full days of skiing! Here are a few of my favorite photos from the trip:

My parents bought me Dave Ramsey's "The Total Money Makeover" for Christmas. I have sinced read it all the way through and am working to have my own Total Money Makeover. With all the student debt I have, this just made perfect sense. In fact, tonight I'm finalizing my Allocated Spending Plan for February 2011. It'll be interesting to see where my bad spending habits reside (I'm thinking eating out and groceries are my bane, aside from my car loan payment). Anyway, I like being organized and I like budgeting, so to implement his plan has been fun for me so far.

Last Saturday was my first Hackathon, hosted at Sam's house. He made a super cool white board, DIY-style that I got to use while Joel taught me how to do dynamic programming tables (part of my first IST 552 homework assignment). It was a lot of fun boucing ideas off one another for different programming projects and hanging out with like-minded career/student/developer friends. I'm excited for the next one and hope it goes from monthly to bi-weekly! Here's a photo of Sam displaying my dynamic programming table on his home-made white board:

The last big thing I did in January was epic! My friend Alex and I participated in our first Warrior Dash! On top of that, it was his first 5K! He picked a great one! We ran through mud rivers, crawled through mud pits (I'm talking several feet deep pits full of sloshy/suctiony/smooshy mud), climbed rope nettings, scaled balance beams, leaped over fire and swam through a muddy trough with barbed wire just over our heads! It was so adventurous and challenging and fun! I haven't seen my official chip time yet, but my watch clocked me at approximately 35 minutes. That's 5 minutes less than what my goal was!

Team Rodent

Team Rodent, in short:

Team Rodent is a non-fiction book written by Carl Hiaasen about the Walt Disney Company and its stance towards the outside world. The book's primary focus is on non-film related Disney enterprises such as Disney World and their effects on the environment and local culture. (Taken from Wikipedia's article on the book.)

My friend, Matt, a Floridian, loaned me this interesting book about the famous mouse. It was a straight-forward way of looking at the dreamy corporation where no wrong can occur. Turns out wrong does occur for Disney, and Hiaasen points out various examples. If Disney does wrong, someone complains or files against Disney and pushes hard enough, Disney will usually write a check and be done with it. I don't recall Disney ever really having admitted fault by Hiaasen's accounts.

It makes for something interesting to think about, how Disney affects everyone. You don't have to go to the park and pose with Pluto to interact with Disney; all you have to do is watch Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Lost or Dancing with the Stars. Disney owns ABC. Unless you're a non-TV watcher like me, I bet I just touched on everyone who reads my blog.

It's pretty absurd the lengths that Disney goes through, legally and politically, to keep it's happy, perfect, Mickey Mouse with a spotless reputation.

Personally, I'm kind of torn. I grew up watching Disney movies - The Classics, at that, and those were some darned good cartoon full-length movies for children. That being said, I feel like I'm being duped if I'm a fan of Disney. Disney is pretty sneaky. Now I'm in on a lot of dirty details about Disney that the vast majority of the public isn't even slightly aware of because of how swiftly Disney cleans up afterwards.

Disney is a hungry beast. I think any Orlando resident - probably any Florida resident - can tell you that Disney affects the world in big ways.

Anyway, interesting read for sure, especially if you live in Orlando.

Wikipedia Article

Indiana Visit

It was so wonderful to see my family! I missed them SO much! Dad picked me up from the airport, so we caught up on the ride home. He was happy to hear that I'd been getting involved with the OCC. That night I survived the barrage of questions fired by my folks (mostly Mom, hehe) about how life was going for me down in Orlando. I assured them that all was well, and we called it a night. Cali is still her rambunctious self, and Creasy has a new hair-do which, as everyone agrees, suits him better.

Friday I slept in, which was unintentional but awesome. I got my hair cut for 50% of the price (yippie!), picked up movie tickets for the group for X-Men, and stopped by the mall and picked up a cool grey and cream striped scarf. It reminded me of Australia.

After being rowdy with Chucky and leaving Dad a hilarious voicemail, haha, Mom, Dad, Chucky & I went to dinner at Fazoli's to load up on carbs for the big race the next morning. I actually drank half a cup of Cherry Coke. I dunno why. After dinner we went to the movies.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine was an action-packed movie! Of the comic book films, X-Men is my favorite, so, naturally, I really enjoyed the flick. Hugh Jackman is a favorite actor of mine, which promoted me to enjoy the film that much more. The story line was pretty decent, and I liked learning about the story behind Wolverine. I didn't care too much for Ryan Reynold's character, but whatever. The film was still quite entertaining.


X-Men Origins: Wolverine



Saturday was the Indianapolis Mini 500 half-marathon; see the post devoted to that event. That evening I headed up to Purdue after soaking in the hot tub and napping a bit - I miss the hot tub!

I had a great visit at Purdue. The most overwhelming feeling was the nostalgia of the last 4.5 years of my life. It was really really strange at times. Part of it is due to the fact that the most recent and best year of my stay at Purdue involved Adam, and we're not the same anymore, so when I was at Purdue it was as if part of it was missing. But upon digging back into the years, back to the days of Earhart and parties at Roy's and Jason/Jared/Josh's, and movie nights at Steve's and the Triathlon Club and NROTC and - I enjoyed remembering my whole Purdue experience. But it was still so bizarre being back as a graduate, haha.

Anyway, I met up for dinner at NIBS with Feras, Alex, Devin, the Sees, Pratt, Roy and Jordan. We had a great time catching up and having a few drinks, then we headed to Brother's for a few more rounds. Being at Brother's reminded me of some good times at Breakfast Club. Afterwards a few of us hit The Hookah, which was definitely not the same, but enjoyed nonetheless. The next day I had lunch with Toni; it was great to catch up with her! We talked about this that and the other, and she gave me a parting gift of a beautiful hand-made necklace! After lunch I met up with Jordan to catch up with him one-on-one before we headed out of Purdue Country. Man, how I'd missed him! I hope he visits me soon here in Orlando!


Jordan and I outside of Grey House


After meeting up with Jordan, I had to make a stop at Von's Bookstore. It's one of my favorite bookstores. I ended up picking up a book recommended to me by a dear friend, Inga. I've heard great things about the book and am currently being blown away while only 1 chapter into the novel.


The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffeneggar


When I got back to Anderson it was time for the cookout at Grandma & Grandpa's for Mom's birthday celebration. The food was spot on, the company couldn't be beat, and Sam even kicked off the Birthday Song - a priceless memory! = P Mom liked her gift, a cute jewelry rack, and we all enjoyed had a nice evening. Here are some photos:


Mom and I reaching for a hug



Grandma, Grandpa & I



my two baby brothers and I just before I hopped in the hot tub that night


-Amanda

Christmas Parties

Just a quick post on the Christmas parties of 2009. It was yet another crazy holiday season, haha. The Saturday before Christmas I celebrated with my mom's extended family. Highlights: everyone was happy with their presents from the White Elephant Exchange, I made Jello (finally; it only took me 3 or 4 years). The next morning was my commencement, Monday I must have been lazy, Tuesday I went skiing/snowboarding with Chucky and Nick, Wednesday I went last-minute-Christmas shopping with my mom and brothers (wild). And that brings me to Christmas Eve.

Grandma had all of the awesome hors dourves, naturally, and my mom made a cute cookie Christmas tree:



Dad had made cute, personalized decks of cards for Ashley and Tori, so we got to visit briefly with them:



Christmas Day was spent with my parents and brothers. We watched It's a Wonderful Life (a favorite part of my holiday), and exchanged gifts.

I got some great shots with my brothers and the Christmas tree:





Christmas Dinner was spent at my Grandparent's house, which means more time with them and more great food! We all had a blast trading presents. I can't wait to try some of the chai tea my aunt made!

Here's a shot of mother dear and me:



So, wudja get? Wudja get? My big Christmas gifts this year were a nice and big jewelry box (which I've managed to fill almost completely) and a sewing machine (quite a surprise)! Here is the jewelry box I got:



And here is the sewing machine I got (Mom's kind of disgruntled that my first sewing machine is so nice, tee hee). I'm excited to learn to sew - Mom is teaching me. We're going to make pillows that match our respective bed sets! I'll be sure to post about it all when we get started on the project.



Everyone had a pleasant Christmas, and I'm thankful for all of the kind and thoughtful gifts. Most of all I enjoyed spending time with my family.

-Amanda

Summer 2008

As overdue as this post is, I really want to recap my Summer 2008, starting with my return to the USA and ending just before the start of school.

I flew back into Indianapolis on Sunday, 29 June. It was the longest flight journey I've ever had, but more on that in my Australia blog that I've yet to finish. By the way, there's a perfectly good reason why I've not finished the blog yet, and that reason is that I don't want the trip to be over; I'm just not ready for that right now...

So I get in Sunday evening and am greeted warmly by my parents and Adam. I can't put into words the wonderful wave of happiness I felt when I saw them for the first time in so long! They had flowers for me, and took me to the one place I wanted to go upon returning to the USA: Steak 'N Shake. I had a delicious meal, great conversation, great company and an unbeatable, dearly missed milk shake. The evening was a bit sad when I had to say good-bye to Adam: he had a full-time job to attend to, and I was heading up to Anderson to visit with family and friends in that area. In just a few days I would be visiting him in just three days' time, so the first few days back were set for catching up with family.

Monday I slept but not as much as one might expect. I was up around 10a every day of my first week back. I had a lot to do in the next three weeks. A LOT of laundry and packing/unpacking. It really sucked when I realized I'd be living out of a suitcase for the summer after having done so as often as I had in the last half-year.

Mom and I spent a lot of time together while I was readjusting to life at home. I helped out with the daycare (man, I'd missed those little buggers), and we did yoga and ran. Daddy took me to the Texas Roadhouse for our evening together (mmm, cinnamon butter). I had a delicious steak that I'd been craving for several months. It was splendid to catch up with my parents in person. Skype is nice, but it's not the real thing.

Finally, Thursday arrived and I went to Indy to visit Adam! I can't tell you the joy I felt when I was able to spend time with him again. Oh, how I had missed him! That evening we hosted a party at his place, themed around the Fijian drink called Kava. We did drink some of that dirty, tongue-numbing water, haha, and we played beer pong, had some hookah, played some cards, and had a wonderful time. It was fun to catch up with his crew.

Friday was the Fourth of July. Adam and I celebrated with his family at a park. It was a lot of fun: great food, wonderful company, his nieces were warming up to me by then (they enjoyed catching the frisbee I'd toss to them), Adam and I lost at the egg toss right off the bat (in our defense we DID have a broken egg to begin with), and the weather was lovely. That evening Adam and I met up with a bunch of his friends downtown to watch the fireworks. Afterwards we celebrated Ryan Sexton's long-awaited 21st birthday. It was a great evening spent at the Claddagh Irish Pub. It was also the evening that someone snapped my favorite photo of me and Adam.

Saturday morning we drove up to Salamonie to camp with my mom's family. I enjoyed sharing Salamonie with Adam as he'd never been before. My mom and I got a run in while we were there, so that was nice. The weather was fair, and I was glad to visit with Brady, Tiffany and the girls. Hayley had grown up so much, and I got to finally see Lily for the first time - oh, she's a sweetheart! Both girls loved their souvenirs from Australia. I'll never forget when I gave Brady a lighter souvenir, and my realization that he'd recently quit smoking, haha. Tiffany liked the shell earrings I got her, though. Seeing Darin, Barat and their girls was pleasant, too. Gracie was doing so well, and Abby and Lexy were such cute little girls as they always are. And that was my first week back in the USA.

Monday I kept working on packing and unpacking and laundry. Tuesday I took a quick trip up to Purdue to visit with friends up that way. I met up with Nick See for some lunch, then Pirita joined us. We were supposed to see The Wanted, but Pirita had caved in and seen it without me, ergh! Instead, we had Sean over, watched a movie and had a couple drinks. I crashed at Nicks, and the next morning we had breakfast at Christo's. I'd never been there before, and I was very happy with the place.

By Thursday I was back in Anderson. Mom and I ran together at Shadyside with the Anderson Road Runners - SO much fun! I wish I'd ran with them while I still lived in Anderson, but I'm truly happy that my Mom has taken to running as well as she has. She makes me so proud! And now my Dad is into it, too - so good for both of them! What a great way to spend time with one another and socialize and keep healthy! After running with Mom that night we had dinner together at The Olive Garden - mmm! We are suckers for the unlimited soup and salad deal, hehe!

Saturday I had the great pleasure to spend a week at Dale Hollow with Adam and his family. The annual trip is Adam's very favorite, and I was glad to be a part of it. We stayed at Wisdom Dock in a cabin, but most of the time was spent relaxing, having fun, eating and drinking on the boat rigs (we had four boats strung together). The weather couldn't have been more perfect, the water was just right, and we had a blast! Adam and I jumped off the cliffs - that was a crazy fun thing we did, haha! Very thrilling, though! It was a lot of fun to have the pontoon with a slide - Adam absolutely loved doing wild jumps. Karen got some great photos! Ah, what an awesome vacation!

We returned to Indy after quite a fun drive, and that Friday we went to Dick's pool party at the West Chester pool. We started the evening off with a few games of bags. I was doing really well for some reason, haha. Pat let Adam and I try out some Red Hot hot dogs - pretty tasty! For the majority of the evening Michelle and I held the hookah table down with ease while the men battled it out at beer pong. It was a nice, laid back evening with friends.

By Sunday Adam and I were back in Anderson to wind things down before I flew out for my Orlando internship with Lockheed Martin. He and my parents saw me to the airport Sunday, and Jason Brooks, the friend from Purdue I would be living with for the duration of the internship who works in my office, picked me up that evening. There wasn't much settling in to do since I was living out of a suitcase for the next month (by this time I was really looking forward to moving in with Nick Peelman for 6 months).

Monday kicked off my first day of work. During the first half of my first week I did the basic intern/new hire stuff, some orientation and compliance training. From then until the second week I did some inconsistency discovery. I'll admit that it was tedious work, but I did a fantastic job and enjoyed those I worked with. My team was virtual, and so I gained some valuable experience in working in virtual environments.

From the second week and on I did the aforementioned project and a second, more enjoyed project: I coordinated the implementation of a team's resources onto a website. For example, the team had several documents they used, but these documents weren't in a central location. I worked with the website's technical team and the team with the documents to figure out the best way in which to implement the documents, etc. to this website. In the end the team had all of their documents in one place, allowing for better performance, money saved, and positive results all around. Working with people is what I enjoy most and do best, so it was a wonderful project fit for me.

During my stay in Orlando Adam visited me for a long weekend. We rented a car and checked out some apartments I'd hunted, and spent a day at Cocoa Beach. We had delicious pina colada's on the pier - mmmm!! I took him to a favorite restaurant of mine, Bahama Breeze, were we enjoyed a few drinks, a fantastic dinner, and later went on to City Walk for some night life fun! It was a great visit, and, as always, all too short!

The following weekend my mom, grandma and Aunt Dawn visited. Talk about an awesome girls' weekend! We rented a car and hit the beach at Melbourne. We spent a while searching for beach gear: mugs, booze, rafts, a new bathing suit for Aunt Dawn who figured out the secret of packing light: don't bring anything at all! Haha! Grandma brought back a shell pasty, haha, and my mom stated that she was surprised that she could retrieve that information in her current state when asked about a ride in a mall out at a previous residence. Oh, we had a great time. One night we even stayed out until 3am at City Walk, after a detour through downtown Orlando in search for Pleasure Island Drive DISNEY, not the neighborhood street, haha! It was a fantastic girls' weekend!

While I was in Orlando the Summer 2008 Beijing Olympics began. Phelps rocked the world when he broke the record for the most gold medals won for any one individual. What a way to go down in world history! He had some amazing races. I remember one commercial that demonstrated how super-human he is - that guy has a huge wingspan and is just engineered for speed. A human torpedo. I also remember a lot of hype about the age of some Chinese gymnast girls. The American gymnasts did very well this year, too. I loved the phone carrier commercial that had one of the top two American gymnasts as a butterfly; very cool.

When I flew in to Indy on the last Friday of my internship I was just stopping through Anderson because Saturday morning I borrowed my grandpa's Chrysler Sebring convertible to drive up to the Indiana dunes to camp out with Adam and his crew for their 6th annual trip up there. It was a blast! We had Top Dog hot dogs, flew off sand dunes, sculpted Egypt in the sand, played frisbee in the water, drank and gambled at the casino (Adam doubled his money!), and roasted marshmallows. It was a great trip with some great people!

During the next week Adam and I moved ourselves from Anderson and Indy up to Purdue for another semester of school. Adam now lives at College Station with 3 potluck guys who've turned out to be pretty cool. One is quiet and to himself, another is a friendly couch potato, and the third is fairly sociable - Jeremy. He's tossing around the idea of doing a work-study in Australia. Of course, I've told him to go for it a billion times.

I'm now living with Nick Peelman in a house just past College Station. It's really nice to live so close to Adam; it makes things a little easier, especially with having only one car between us right now. Ashes and McKenzie (Nick & Kelly's kitten) have been getting along famously, which I'm very happy about. The kitchen is huge, too, so it's perfect for me and Adam's fancy dinner nights on Wednesdays.

And that's my recap on the Summer of 2008.