Home, jeeves

Listen, life at home is not always blog-worthy. That said, I still want to remember the small things. Jackson worked in Hartford City on Friday so he came by campus to lunch with me before going home. He looked very handsome and he took me to my favorite spot: Pita Pit. We had a little extra time so we got really wild and went to the new frozen yogurt place in the Muncie village called, "Let's Spoon." It was so, so good. It was also super fun to have a little date with Jackson in the middle of my work day!!

My handsome lunch date! :) YUM x 2

We spent Friday night and Saturday morning at the gym making sure we met out fantasy fitness goals. I don't think we've ever been more in the zone with working out than we are now. I guess having our gym right down the street and being in a fierce competition will do that to you. Anyway, we got a lovely surprise Saturday afternoon when Ms. Josslyn Bates and her parents stopped by. They were just in time to try some banana bread muffins I'd made (but didn't eat because I'm not a big fan). It was Fall weather and banana bread seemed appropriate. Josslyn agreed and gobbled up her little treat. It was so cute! She kept doing the baby sign language motion for "more" whenever she came to the kitchen.


What a cutie!!!!!!!

"I'd like another!"

We had a pretty quiet weekend other than that. We watched Grey's Anatomy on Netflix (only the greatest show ever!) and even hung out with MacKenzie.

"Down here! Share!! Down here!"

We had blueberry pancakes (the whole wheat kind- yum!) and Jackson made MacKenzie one of her very own. Then he made her beg for it. See how he ruins being a kind man?! ;)

I love "pupcakes"

I see this post has a lot of photos of our dog, but that's what happens we spend a weekend at home.

Sleeping with her best friend

Finally, we got this adorable photo of the Porterfield kids from their Fall family photo shoot and I just had to share it. Aren't they just little treasures?!

Is this not the most adorable photo ever?! We love "our" kids!

Fallish weekend

We had a busy week of working and fantasy fitness (more on that subject in a future post), but both felt bad on Thursday and ending up being home together. It was lovely to have an unexpected day to snuggle and hangout. What? We've been married for almost nine years and we're still a little bit obsessed with each other. I hope we're lucky, but maybe we're just weird? Anyway, it was back to work on Friday because I had a birthday party to throw for a co-worker's 50th. I got a cake at Taylor's Bakery right by our house for a mere $38. There was neither gold inside or thought that went into building the cake because it fell apart before I even made it to the office. Imagine my dismay when I went to reveal the cake and it was so ugly. I quickly told my co-worker that I did it on purpose because life after 50 is all downhill. Ha! She loved that. ;) The cake tasted OK, but when I informed the bakery of the incident they didn't even say sorry. Hello, people. You put a dense cake (white) on top of a fluffy one (chocolate) and didn't think that might be a disaster? Jerks.

DO NOT GO TO TAYLOR'S BAKERY
UNLESS YOU LIKE SLOPPY, EXPENSIVE CAKES

Still, the party was a success and my co-worker was surprised so that's all that matters. We had our typical date night at the gym Friday night before hitting it hard there again Saturday morning. Then it was finally time to head to Bloomington to catch an IU football game. We also moved a couch from Upland that my parents didn't need anymore down to Aunt Jill & Uncle Charlie's condo in Bloomington. We love the condo so we were excited to help in the delivery of new goods.

Couch delivery squad

"That way, dad!"

The most adorable co-pilot EVER

"Are we there yet?!"

SUCCESS!

I was so excited because a neighbor was out with his dog so for the small price of holding a leashed pit bull, the dude helped Jackson carry the couch inside. Winning! MacKenzie got to hang out at the condo while we headed to campus for the game.

It was just a lovely day for college football :)

We'd gotten tickets from a fellow gym member who is a season ticket holder so our seats were really pretty good. We sat there for the first half before moving to a less crowded area where we could stretch out a bit for the remainder of the game. (Note: football games are LONG!)

Petefish.

View from the less crowded seats

We enjoyed our time in Bloomington then headed for home. It is tax extension season and I had to put in some hours at Bill's place. Boo to working weekends. I've gotten so spoiled about that since leaving public accounting. We did get to have some fun Sunday night when the Porterfield's had a fire with s'mores. I knew we loved that family.

Gunny, Heidi and Jossi enjoying the evening

It was a PERFECT night for s'mores. Thanks again for letting us crash, Porterfield family! :)

It was a perfect early Fall weekend. I'd pretend to be one of those people who welcomes the end of summer but I don't want to lie on my own blog. I hate when summer ends. :( The only good thing that comes with the Fall is football. Both of our teams (Seahawks for me, Colts for Jackson) are having rough years already, though.

The Colts need help

P.S. The Colts are now 0-2 and MacKenzie has threatened to remove her Colts collar if they keep losing.

Back home again...

We got the funniest video from Grammy of MacKenzie while we were away. MacKenzie doesn't love going to her cage if she thinks she is going to be missing something fun. Grammy had to use her deep voice- HA! It is a good thing MacKenzie is so cute or I'd be worried that Grammy wouldn't deal with her antics.

MacKenzie was glad to be back in her little bed in our room, though. She didn't even walk slowly to it. ;)

She missed her bed, too!

We muddled through the rest of our week and got back to the gym before the weekend finally came so we could recover. Vacationing is tough, you know. ;)

My friend Amber convinced me to buy a Groupon for an adult art class so we went on Saturday afternoon. I've never claimed to be a team player and this is why, I hated life at that art class. I hated art in school. Why did I give up weekend time to pretend to like art? 

Actually enjoying herself

Hating life and counting the minutes until I could leave

My artistic "inspiration"

Being a perfectionist and a terrible artist made that class a long two hours for me. I survived, though, and had a nice addition for a garbage can in Carmel. :) We did explore the Carmel's Arts and Design district which is very cute. Their shops are great for browsing. I couldn't afford to buy anything, though. Whew!

Rooting on the Colts.
Kind of.

We spent the rest of the weekend just kind of hanging out. We watched the Colts lose despite having an adorable little fan in MacKenzie. It is always nice to sleep in your own bed again but man do I miss the view of the water...

Last day in PR

Our last day on the island came too soon. We spent the morning walking on the beach, working out in the beachfront gym, lunching on the beach and playing in the waves for the last time. It was a great morning and we were bummed to leave! We returned our car without much hassle (island time, but still not much hassle) and headed for the airport. Security felt me up like I was in high school on a date- it must have been all the aloe and itch cream I'd applied that set off the sensors. Other than that, it was an uneventful trip. Our flights were mostly on schedule and we got home to bed around 1 a.m. Thankfully I'd taken the morning off so I slept in. Jackson was not so lucky and had to leave the house around 7 a.m. He's tougher than me. :)

We'll miss this view...

We did bring a little piece of the island home with us in this 2 pound bag of Puerto Rican coffee. It is so good! We cannot wait to brew it and sit on our porch thinking of memories of our trip.

YUM!

Catamaran livin'

Tuesday was our big day of sailing and snorkeling. We actually set an alarm (!!!) and made our way from the hotel to the marina. Along the way we stopped at McDonald's for breakfast (no free $70 breakfast at the new hotel) thinking it would be quick and easy. Clearly we didn't learn from our lunch there the other day that nothing about a Puerto Rican McDonald's is quick or easy. First, we waited about 15 minutes for our order to be taken. They do not have any of the same sandwiches available and there were no explanations for what the meals actually entailed. It was wild. We stood in line googling to names of things to figure out what to order. Big ups to Google on that one.

Nothing looks familiar...

Jackson being photobombed by an amused
Puerto Rican man

Clearly our woes were seen by the fellow McDonald's patrons because they were snickering at us. One guy even came over and told us to enjoy our meals while he was still laughing hysterically at us. Whatever. Also, the cashier tried to improve Jackson's Spanish by telling him how to pronounce the sandwich he called a "McRollo" without success. The whole thing was comical. Anyway, we survived and our food was just fine. I'm glad the locals could have a chuckle at our expense.

Our ride for the day

We made it to the marina around 9. The reservation said to be there at 8:30 sharp, but this was not our first rodeo. We understand island time. The boat actually left closer to 10 because the tour company's shuttle was running behind. See? Island time. We watched the goings on of the marina for the hour, emptied our bladders in an outhouse (ohhh urinating in foreign lands is always an adventure!) then finally boarded the boat. We met a nice mother and daughter (she was about Jackson's age) from Dayton, Ohio that we chatted with for most of the day. The first stop was a little island about 45 minutes from the marina. The views along the way were fantastic.

LIFE IN A SCREENSAVER! 

The island was magnificent. I couldn't get over the beauty.

Icacos Island

An oceanic swimming pool

Warming up

Fish!

There were a few other boats anchored there, too, but it was not crowded and beyond gorgeous. I snorkeled with Jackson for a few minutes before getting tired of it. :) I asked if I could use the paddle board they'd brought along and set out to explore. I kept just stopping during my paddle to soak it all in and take mental photographs. I did fall one time on this paddling journey. Bummer. But I started a trend of people wanting to try it and compared to those amateurs I looked like a professional. ;) We ate a really good lunch on the boat (their tuna was probably the best I've ever had!) before pulling up the anchor and heading for deeper water.

View from the deep snorkeling spot

Ready to go snorkeling again!

Petefish.

I went out with Jackson for the first few minutes and we saw a ton of oceanic animals. Hooray. ;)

Coral that looked like a potato

And he's off!

I turned back so Jackson could explore in peace without having to worry about my drowning. Truth be told, I'm not sure he really does worry about me, but I do. :)

We really enjoyed the slide on the end of the boat. I must have gone down that thing 25 times. By the end of the tour we were ready to be out of the sun. Jackson was toasty because he doesn't believe in sunscreen. I was toasty because sunscreen can't hang against that strong Puerto Rican sun.

We made it back to San Juan in a quick manner and cleaned up so we could go explore Old San Juan before it got too dark.

Old San Juan

Such a cute area

Reminsecent of New Orleans

We loved this area. It was so historic and beautiful. We wandered around for about an hour before calling it too dark to really appreciate beauty and heading back to town to get dinner. We could have eaten at one of the lovely restaurants in that area, but we were not feeling adventurous after a long day of sun so we grabbed dinner at Cheesecake Factory (no vacation is complete without it- but we did not have dessert!) at the largest mall in San Juan. They're really proud of this mall. It was fine, but a mall is a mall in our humble opinion. Dinner was great and we headed for the hotel to retire. We spent a good hour applying anti-itch cream to bug bites and aloe to our burned skin before we could actually go to bed. Sigh. Puerto Rico isn't for the weak. ;)

Poking around PR...

I'd say we had a busy day, but that would be a lie. We were certainly on island time today. We woke up and looked outside for a bit.

The morning view

We went down for our $70 free breakfast again. The service continued to be amazing as was the coffee. 

Waffle art!

After breakfast we went for a 3 mile walk on the beach. We hunted sand dollars and soaked in the lovely surroundings.

A swimming puppy

We made it to the end!

Beachin'

He's got a handful of sand dollars :)

Clouds rolled in, but no rain!

Our haul

After our walk we headed to Old San Juan to check it out. We also wanted to stop at the Hard Rock Cafe to get a pin for my Mom. It is NEVER easy to find their locations and we had to really hunt for this one as the actual location isn't open yet, just the rock shop.

SUCCESS!

The newest pin

We went from there to Old San Juan only to see that it was closed down for a Labor Day Parade. (I can only assume it was similar to Upland's famous parade only in paradise and with Spanish being spoken.) We'll have to try it again in a couple of days.

Closed! :(

No need to dwell- we headed back to our hotel's beach. :)

Some beach...

We left in the afternoon to head to our new hotel. We moved about 45 minutes down the road so that we'd be closer to our boat tour tomorrow. We're staying at a Wyndham resort which is pretty sweet. The views are amazing.

Our new view

Pano.

We headed to the beach restaurant for "linner" before getting a little more beach time in.

LINNER date

We're a long way from everywhere...

You cannot keep him on the shore for long

The view from my chair

 We left the beach and headed to the pool to get some laps in.

The hotel's grounds are just lovely

Our swim (ok, mine was more of a trying-not-to-drown than a swim, but c'est la vie) was cut short once the rain finally caught up with us. We found the hotel's gym and mocked ourselves with a selfie. YOLO? ;)

The dorkiest photo ever

We then had this great idea to go for a walk around the grounds. Except there are a billion bugs here and no lights. We went towards the lighted path and only made it for about a mile before getting eaten alive and turning back. Sad.

Then we rolled over to the beach for a bit. We were the only ones there and the night was clear again with a million stars. Lovely. It is certainly more of a rainforest feel here. The humidity is right at 700%.

Chillin'

The hotel at night

Now we've officially run out of things to do. We were supposed to hike today and instead opted for a day without plans. We've had fun, but I think we are both ready for the structure of our boat snorkeling tour tomorrow. Wish us luck...