Fell Off the Face of the Earth...Again

Somewhere between the week of St. Paddy's day in Florida and today, I fell off the face of the Earth.

I hope to post the Florida pics at some point, but in sum, this is what we did:

1) Rented a car (which I've never done before, but totally recommend because the process isn't that ridiculous)
2) Bought food from Publix (as in Puh not Puy -blix)
3) Ate hot dog salad
4) Went to some weird neighborhood where there was NOT an Old Navy; then went to Old Navy
5) Went to the beach, but we couldn't park, so left the beach and went to the pool instead
6) Went to Sonics
7) This time made it to the beach, and then headed to the pool
8) Wee practiced driving and nearly killed us (well, not really)
9) Made ziti
10) Drove to Miami to eat at this place called Versailles
11) No one thought the two hour ride across state to eat was worthwhile without actually going to the beach as well, so we went (it was raining but let up)
12) Walked around Miami Beach
13) Stopped at a rest area along Alligator Alley, saw an alligator; "Hotstepper" was on the radio, which made the experience even better
14) Worked on assembling wedding invites
15) Ate chicken
16) Went to another beach where there were mangroves and dinosaurs and jaguars and pandas, and then went to the pool
17) Ate at Iguana Mia where we met a fellow Jerseyian
18) Went to the pool
19) Packed up
20) Went to Sonics
21) Flew home

Florida was awesome!

The next week, I went to San Francisco for about a day with Jon where I hung out with Tiffany. Jon had a conference there, so I tagged along. (I have some pics from here too...)

4:30 AM: flight was supposed to depart (but something was screwy with the air conditioner or something)
5:00 AM: flight departs
8:30 AM: connect to flight in Denver (Denver is quite pretty--you fly around flat land and suddenly you're in mountains that just keep building up)
10:30 AM: land in SF
11:00 AM: meet up with Tiffany
Until about 6:00 PM: We went to the Ferry Terminal/Embarcadero area for lunch and got Thai crepes; then we took the BART to check out 826 Valencia's pirate shop and walked around this neighborhood; we stopped around the Civic Center then took the MUNI to check out the De Young museum in Golden Gate park where we also walked through some gardens; then we went back to the Civic Center and took in the view from her apartment; then walked to Jon's conference area, and from there walked through Chinatown toward Fisherman's Wharf.
6:00 PM: Tiffany heads off for dinner and Jon meets up with me. We get turtle-shaped bread from Boudin's. (So freakin good!)
8:00 PM: We have dinner with Jerry and Rosalie at Coi. (Really good!)
10:30 PM: Sleep
4:00 AM: Eat breakfast in bed
5:30 AM: At airport to fly back to Dulles through Vegas and saw some of the Grand Canyon (awesome!)

Yeah...24 hours...but it was worth it!

On April 1, I thought I was going start to do some contracting work for a few courses at my old company, but I became sort of a temp for a few weeks instead. We'll see what happens, but this is mainly why I've let go of writing up my weekly Goals and such. Lame, I know.

In addition to work, Jon and I are still doing kendo. I hit him in the head last week (the guy was standing too close behind me...). We've learned some steps on how to do the cha cha and swing. I'm finding that ballet isn't so hard when you lose like 20 pounds, but pirouettes are still difficult. The class is good though--it makes me think and stretch and work physically harder than I have in awhile. Plus, I think I pretty much rock the rest of the class (mostly old ladies, one old man, two women around my age or older) with my across the floor turns.

On the wedding front: invitations have gone out (just some stragglers to do because we just got their addresses); we're getting in the little RSVP cards, which is exciting!; my dress is due to arrive in North Bergen on Tuesday; the girls' dresses are in and all they have to do is pick it up--the question is, will they?? Just waiting on my mom's dress. Hopefully, once we see the colors we can finalize the flowers. I'm pretty much dead set on Vendela roses, but I ache for ranunculus too, and I want to get orchids for the moms and use the extra stems for the altar arrangements.

So now I have a choice between catching up on correspondence, sending out the straggling invites, or getting ahead of work by working on some archeology of religion outlines right now. (The lecture I'm on is about the Hopewell tradition of mound building.) So I guess, right now, those are my goals.