Tom and I competed in a Guitar Hero competition with his boss, Frank, and Frank's wife, Shanna at the inContact Christmas Party this year. Our band took gold, with the highest GH score the gaming/hosting company has ever seen. :)
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Rock On!
Tom and I competed in a Guitar Hero competition with his boss, Frank, and Frank's wife, Shanna at the inContact Christmas Party this year. Our band took gold, with the highest GH score the gaming/hosting company has ever seen. :)
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Shaolin
Probably the quickest blog post ever here. Josh started Shaolin (kung fu and tai chi) about 3 weeks ago and last night he earned his yellow belt. I'm very proud of him.
Best Way to Spend Halloween
I was scrolling through the very small number of postings on this blog and tripped across the one from Halloween last year. It seems my ho-hum attitude about Halloween has actually gotten progressively worse. How can that be? Well, this year I completely gave up on trick-or-treaters.
The boys were all at the other house, which left a Saturday night alone for Tom & me. Now why would I spend that hopping up and down answering the door? The answer is, I didn't. Tom and I put two big bowls of candy out on the porch with a sign to take some and then went out for a nice dinner and a movie. It's the most enjoyable Halloween I've had since I was a kid. Oh, and the bowls were completely empty when we got home so that eliminated the possibility of my snacking on candy for weeks afterward. This may well become a tradition. :)
The boys were all at the other house, which left a Saturday night alone for Tom & me. Now why would I spend that hopping up and down answering the door? The answer is, I didn't. Tom and I put two big bowls of candy out on the porch with a sign to take some and then went out for a nice dinner and a movie. It's the most enjoyable Halloween I've had since I was a kid. Oh, and the bowls were completely empty when we got home so that eliminated the possibility of my snacking on candy for weeks afterward. This may well become a tradition. :)
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Bayly Family Camping
It's nearly a month late, but figured I'd better post. The last weekend in June was our annual camping outing with the Bayly family. Our last camping trip with the Baylys ended in evacuation because the entire mountainside was on fire.This year it was rain. Okay, I can't complain too much because it didn't rain the entire trip, just the first night. And boy did it rain!! It started literally as we zipped up the tent the first night at 10:00 PM and didn't stop until about 7:30 the next morning. The entire campsite was drenched, everything was soggy, and to make things truly enjoyable, our tent leaked. Tom and I both woke up to a long trail of water down the entire side of each of our sleeping bags. Hmpf!
Fortunately, things did dry out and we were able to enjoy the next couple of days relaxing, fishing (the kids, anyway), reading, and hiking (okay, walking on paved trails). Treg & Carolyn brought a zip line for the kids and it was definitely a hit. I think my kids played on the zip line from sunup to sundown. Wtg, Cole and Jordan for lashing a ladder so the kids could get to the zip line!The one thing this camping trip taught us was that it is time to buy a camping trailer. We've now found the one we want, but based on the price tag, we'll be saving our pennies for a long time to come. We had hoped we would be able to purchase one before the end of camping season, but that's not looking promising. Sell, Tom, sell like the wind! We need those commissions! :)
Monday, April 27, 2009
Best Vacation of My Life
Day 1: Saturday
We boarded the plane in the morning, direct flight to Los Cabos. There were 15 or 16 people from inContact, along with their spouses/guests, and we were all buzzing with excitement. After a 2-1/2 hour flight and 30 minute van ride, we arrived at the Riu Palace in Cabo San Lucas, an all-inclusive resort where we would all be staying for 8 days. The resort was absolutely beautiful!
After checking in and unloading our bags (we both managed to pack for 8 days using only carry-on luggage - we were so proud :)), we changed into swimsuits, hit the beach and hung out there until sunset reading and talking with Tom's boss Frank, who was primarily responsible for making this entire trip happen for all of us.
Day 2: Sunday
Sunday is a day of rest, and that's exactly what we did. We slept in late, and spent the entire day on the beach and by the pool, reading and napping.
We picked up a couple of Sony Readers (competitor to the Kindle) before we headed to Cabo so we wouldn't have to pack so many books. May I just say what great toys they are! We were able to load several books, including a triple combination, onto them. I ended up reading 3 books during our vacation. Great investment!
Sunday night we had a late group dinner for all inContact employees and their spouses/guests. The food wasn't that great, but the company was a lot of fun.
Day 3: Monday
Another lazy morning by the pool. But after spending the entire day doing nothing the day before, Tom was starting to get antsy so we rented a wave runner and bumped around on the waves - and I do mean bumped! My behind got so sore that I ended up supporting all of my weight by basically doing squats so I wouldn't take so much of the shock. My quads hurt for days afterward.
Late in the afternoon we headed into town to board the Fiesta Cabaret for a sunset dinner cruise. Admittedly, the boat was rather cheesy. The food was actually pretty good, and they had a show after dinner, which was a bunch of different styles of Latin dances. Tom and I were feeling a bit ho-hum about the show until the guys came out and did the dance with the I-can't-remember-what-they're-called things. But here's a clip I found on youtube that shows what they were doing. This is the same guy we saw in the show that night. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YQ1hwzRB9k It was INCREDIBLE! It made the entire night.
Day 4: Tuesday
First thing in the morning we headed out to the middle of nowhere in the desert to do the Wide Open. It's a place where you get to drive the dune buggies (they don't call them dune buggies) that they use in the Baja 1000. It was absolutely Tom's favorite activity of the entire vacation. They put a governer on the vehicles so you can't drive past 70 mph, but I'm quite sure we pushed the limit several times as we raced around the track, took the jumps and the 90-degree turns. What a rush!
That afternoon we paired up with 5 other couples to try out parasailing. Tom and I thought it would be kind of a thrill ride, but it turned out to be not at all what we expected. It's actually quite peaceful and quiet way up there in the sky. They had us harnessed in tandem and we sat up there and took in the scenery, chatting. Tom made pals with the guys driving the boat because of his Spanish, and he asked them to dip us low enough that we could drag our toes in the ocean at one point.
Day 5: Wednesday
Another morning and early afternoon sitting around the pool reading and snoozing. Late in the afternoon we headed out to the middle of nowhere again to do sunset horseback riding. It was absolutely my favorite event of the week. Some people say they should have been born in a certain century or certain country. I'm convinced I was born to be on horses. I don't want to own one, but I sure do love riding them. It still cracks me up that we live about a quarter mile from an equestrian park, but the only time we manage to ride horses is when we're out of the country on vacation.
Tom was hoping we could gallop along the beach, but it seems these horses are so well trained that they can't seem to reach any speed higher than a trot for about 3 seconds and they appear to be most comfortable with their noses in the arse of another horse; i.e., they only walk single-file. It would have been nice to ride side-by-side with Tom, but try as we might, we could not get those horses to do anything but walk one after the other.
Day 6: Thursday
After all the fun and excitement for the last three days, I needed another break. We had planned to go 4-wheeling, but someone from our group said that after doing the Wide Open, the 4x4's would seem pretty boring. So we saved the cash and laid around by the pool again. (Why always the pool and not the beach? Not many chairs in the shade on the beach; many shade umbrellas by the pool.)
There wasn't much swimming in the ocean at the resort because the waves were pretty strong. It was actually pretty humorous trying to get in and out of water taxis and on and off wave runners. By Wednesday night the waves had started to get pretty intense. There were some people who said that it actually kept them up that night.
We went to dinner with Frank and his wife Thursday night and they told us a story about one guy who went out into the waves Wednesday evening and lost his swim trunks. I say it serves him right for not having the common sense to stay out of the water under those conditions. Our dinner with Frank and Shanna was out on the terrace of the restaurant where we had a clear view of the beach. The waves were incredible! I really wish I'd had my camera with me to take a shot because it was really breathtaking, and rather frightening at the same time. It certainly gives you a deep appreciation and respect for how powerful those waves can be.
Day 7: Friday
On the docket for the day: ziplines and bungee jumping. The zipline course we chose was the "extreme" course. It had 8 ziplines throughout the canyon, some as high as 300 feet up. We discovered that the "extreme" part was not necessarily the ziplines themselves, but the extreme heat in which we had to hike from one zipline start to the next. It really sapped my energy.
I enjoyed the feeling of zipping through the air and the rush of the wind, but we ended up missing out on a lot of the scenery. We were told time after time that we needed to keep the wire in the center of the pulley, otherwise we would create friction, slow down, and get stuck in the middle of the zipline. The only way out: hand over hand until you reach the end. No thanks. So we spent the majority of our time watching the pulley above our heads, rather than taking in the scenery. Admittedly, though, there wasn't much to see, just one big desert.
Following the zipline, Tom, his CEO Paul, and Paul's wife all headed to attraction #2 of the zipline area: the bungee jump. They put you in a little suspended cart-thing like a cherry-picker and haul you out to a glass-bottom tram fixed to cables 300 ft in the air smack dab in the middle of the canyon. You jump from the tram. There was no way I was going to do that, so I sat by on the secure ground in a shaded area to watch. We actually have Tom's jump on video, but it was done with Paul's phone so we don't have it yet. I'll post it when we get the file.
Day 8: Saturday
Last day in paradise. We slept in, packed up, and waited in the lounge area playing cards while we waited for transportation to arrive. Tom and I had talked about doing another horseback ride on the beach right outside the resort, but we didn't end up having time.
This was absolutely the best vacation I've ever had. I've never felt more relaxed and carefree. This trip was great incentive for Tom and me to make sure we end up going on next year's trip to Playa del Carmen.
My two goals between now and then are (1) get in better shape so something like zipline hikes doesn't kill me; and (2) become fluent in Spanish. I noticed while I was surrounded by people speaking Spanish all the time (yes, they knew English, but with Tom around there was quite a bit of Spanish speaking going on), that I got really comfortable with the language, understood quite a bit, and was even speaking un poco myself by the end of the week. With that in mind, Tom and I agreed that we're going to have "immersion" days at our house. Every Sun, Mon, Wed, and Thu we will speak only Spanish, including when we're speaking to the kids. We don't expect the kids to answer in Spanish...yet.
We boarded the plane in the morning, direct flight to Los Cabos. There were 15 or 16 people from inContact, along with their spouses/guests, and we were all buzzing with excitement. After a 2-1/2 hour flight and 30 minute van ride, we arrived at the Riu Palace in Cabo San Lucas, an all-inclusive resort where we would all be staying for 8 days. The resort was absolutely beautiful!After checking in and unloading our bags (we both managed to pack for 8 days using only carry-on luggage - we were so proud :)), we changed into swimsuits, hit the beach and hung out there until sunset reading and talking with Tom's boss Frank, who was primarily responsible for making this entire trip happen for all of us.
Day 2: Sunday
Sunday is a day of rest, and that's exactly what we did. We slept in late, and spent the entire day on the beach and by the pool, reading and napping.
We picked up a couple of Sony Readers (competitor to the Kindle) before we headed to Cabo so we wouldn't have to pack so many books. May I just say what great toys they are! We were able to load several books, including a triple combination, onto them. I ended up reading 3 books during our vacation. Great investment!
Sunday night we had a late group dinner for all inContact employees and their spouses/guests. The food wasn't that great, but the company was a lot of fun.
Day 3: Monday
Another lazy morning by the pool. But after spending the entire day doing nothing the day before, Tom was starting to get antsy so we rented a wave runner and bumped around on the waves - and I do mean bumped! My behind got so sore that I ended up supporting all of my weight by basically doing squats so I wouldn't take so much of the shock. My quads hurt for days afterward.
Late in the afternoon we headed into town to board the Fiesta Cabaret for a sunset dinner cruise. Admittedly, the boat was rather cheesy. The food was actually pretty good, and they had a show after dinner, which was a bunch of different styles of Latin dances. Tom and I were feeling a bit ho-hum about the show until the guys came out and did the dance with the I-can't-remember-what-they're-called things. But here's a clip I found on youtube that shows what they were doing. This is the same guy we saw in the show that night. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YQ1hwzRB9k It was INCREDIBLE! It made the entire night.Day 4: Tuesday
First thing in the morning we headed out to the middle of nowhere in the desert to do the Wide Open. It's a place where you get to drive the dune buggies (they don't call them dune buggies) that they use in the Baja 1000. It was absolutely Tom's favorite activity of the entire vacation. They put a governer on the vehicles so you can't drive past 70 mph, but I'm quite sure we pushed the limit several times as we raced around the track, took the jumps and the 90-degree turns. What a rush! 
That afternoon we paired up with 5 other couples to try out parasailing. Tom and I thought it would be kind of a thrill ride, but it turned out to be not at all what we expected. It's actually quite peaceful and quiet way up there in the sky. They had us harnessed in tandem and we sat up there and took in the scenery, chatting. Tom made pals with the guys driving the boat because of his Spanish, and he asked them to dip us low enough that we could drag our toes in the ocean at one point.Day 5: Wednesday
Another morning and early afternoon sitting around the pool reading and snoozing. Late in the afternoon we headed out to the middle of nowhere again to do sunset horseback riding. It was absolutely my favorite event of the week. Some people say they should have been born in a certain century or certain country. I'm convinced I was born to be on horses. I don't want to own one, but I sure do love riding them. It still cracks me up that we live about a quarter mile from an equestrian park, but the only time we manage to ride horses is when we're out of the country on vacation.
Tom was hoping we could gallop along the beach, but it seems these horses are so well trained that they can't seem to reach any speed higher than a trot for about 3 seconds and they appear to be most comfortable with their noses in the arse of another horse; i.e., they only walk single-file. It would have been nice to ride side-by-side with Tom, but try as we might, we could not get those horses to do anything but walk one after the other.Day 6: Thursday
After all the fun and excitement for the last three days, I needed another break. We had planned to go 4-wheeling, but someone from our group said that after doing the Wide Open, the 4x4's would seem pretty boring. So we saved the cash and laid around by the pool again. (Why always the pool and not the beach? Not many chairs in the shade on the beach; many shade umbrellas by the pool.)
There wasn't much swimming in the ocean at the resort because the waves were pretty strong. It was actually pretty humorous trying to get in and out of water taxis and on and off wave runners. By Wednesday night the waves had started to get pretty intense. There were some people who said that it actually kept them up that night.
We went to dinner with Frank and his wife Thursday night and they told us a story about one guy who went out into the waves Wednesday evening and lost his swim trunks. I say it serves him right for not having the common sense to stay out of the water under those conditions. Our dinner with Frank and Shanna was out on the terrace of the restaurant where we had a clear view of the beach. The waves were incredible! I really wish I'd had my camera with me to take a shot because it was really breathtaking, and rather frightening at the same time. It certainly gives you a deep appreciation and respect for how powerful those waves can be.
Day 7: Friday
On the docket for the day: ziplines and bungee jumping. The zipline course we chose was the "extreme" course. It had 8 ziplines throughout the canyon, some as high as 300 feet up. We discovered that the "extreme" part was not necessarily the ziplines themselves, but the extreme heat in which we had to hike from one zipline start to the next. It really sapped my energy.I enjoyed the feeling of zipping through the air and the rush of the wind, but we ended up missing out on a lot of the scenery. We were told time after time that we needed to keep the wire in the center of the pulley, otherwise we would create friction, slow down, and get stuck in the middle of the zipline. The only way out: hand over hand until you reach the end. No thanks. So we spent the majority of our time watching the pulley above our heads, rather than taking in the scenery. Admittedly, though, there wasn't much to see, just one big desert.
Following the zipline, Tom, his CEO Paul, and Paul's wife all headed to attraction #2 of the zipline area: the bungee jump. They put you in a little suspended cart-thing like a cherry-picker and haul you out to a glass-bottom tram fixed to cables 300 ft in the air smack dab in the middle of the canyon. You jump from the tram. There was no way I was going to do that, so I sat by on the secure ground in a shaded area to watch. We actually have Tom's jump on video, but it was done with Paul's phone so we don't have it yet. I'll post it when we get the file.
Day 8: Saturday
Last day in paradise. We slept in, packed up, and waited in the lounge area playing cards while we waited for transportation to arrive. Tom and I had talked about doing another horseback ride on the beach right outside the resort, but we didn't end up having time.
This was absolutely the best vacation I've ever had. I've never felt more relaxed and carefree. This trip was great incentive for Tom and me to make sure we end up going on next year's trip to Playa del Carmen.
My two goals between now and then are (1) get in better shape so something like zipline hikes doesn't kill me; and (2) become fluent in Spanish. I noticed while I was surrounded by people speaking Spanish all the time (yes, they knew English, but with Tom around there was quite a bit of Spanish speaking going on), that I got really comfortable with the language, understood quite a bit, and was even speaking un poco myself by the end of the week. With that in mind, Tom and I agreed that we're going to have "immersion" days at our house. Every Sun, Mon, Wed, and Thu we will speak only Spanish, including when we're speaking to the kids. We don't expect the kids to answer in Spanish...yet.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
More warm destinations
One of the very nice things Tom learned during his sales conference in Las Vegas is that we will be going to Cabo San Lucas in April along with several other people from the company. Eight days, seven nights. While this winter has been relatively mild, I do still look forward to spending some relaxing time in the sunshine.Ahora, necesito practicar mi Espanol. :)
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Viva Las Vegas!
Tom was in Vegas all last week for a their annual sales conference - the big meeting to kick off the new year. Things went very well for him and he was very excited about all the things that are coming up this year.
We went to see "Defiance" (movie) on Saturday afternoon. It's the Daniel Craig film about the Jewish people who hid out in the woods for years during WWII. It's based on a true story. I enjoyed the movie, thought it was well done. Tom said he was expecting it more to be an action flick than a drama so he didn't like it as much.
I flew out on Friday afternoon to join him for the weekend when the conference was over. We went to see Phantom Friday night. When Tom bought the tickets (as a surprise for me) he asked
the lady where the best place to sit was. She told him, "Row M, that's the best place for this one big special effect". So yes, we were RIGHT UNDER the chandelier when it fell. It was a really spectacular effect. I was impressed with the way they coordinated everything as far as backdrops, stage props, etc. It's amazing to me how creative it all was and well it worked to draw the audience in.
the lady where the best place to sit was. She told him, "Row M, that's the best place for this one big special effect". So yes, we were RIGHT UNDER the chandelier when it fell. It was a really spectacular effect. I was impressed with the way they coordinated everything as far as backdrops, stage props, etc. It's amazing to me how creative it all was and well it worked to draw the audience in. I will say, sadly, that the live musical was not as good as the movie, IMHO. Maybe it's just because I fell in love with the movie without ever having seen the musical. Emmy Rossum just has a sweetness in her voice and character that really makes her Christine for me. The woman playing Christine in the live performance had a very strong voice. Kind of took something away from the character. And besides, who could ever beat Gerard Butler at being the phantom?
We went to see "Defiance" (movie) on Saturday afternoon. It's the Daniel Craig film about the Jewish people who hid out in the woods for years during WWII. It's based on a true story. I enjoyed the movie, thought it was well done. Tom said he was expecting it more to be an action flick than a drama so he didn't like it as much.
Saturday night we went to see the O show (Cirque du Soleil). It was very impressive. People were diving from the rafters of the stage (about 100 feet up) into the water, there was fire dancing, trapeze work, you name it. It was quite a spectacle. And of course the musician in me homed right in on the live singers in the wings. One of the singers had an absolutely beautiful voice. Wish I could have found out who it was so I could see if she had cut any albums.
After the O show we decided we wanted to go for ice cream. We punched Cold Stone into the GPS and arrived at our destination a few minutes later. Unfortunately, it was also a few minutes late, as they had closed about 10 minutes before we arrived. Undiscouraged, we typed "ice cream" into the GPS and found there was another place very closeby, only about 0.2 miles away. We turned left, we turned right, we turned left...and found ourselves in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Huh? Tom joked, "What if this is just a guy who drives an ice cream truck?" We made the last turn left...into a cul de sac, and there in the driveway of one of the homes was, yep, an ice cream truck. I laughed so hard it brought me to tears. At that point we gave up and headed back to the hotel (Red Rock) and just ordered room service. Not Coldstone, but it sufficed.
We packed it up and headed home Sunday. It was a great weekend, nice to get away.
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