ripping on nick

Sleepy Hollow (Mangan)

July 12, 2008

Dive 16

Finally, Nick and I got to go diving this year. We headed out early Saturday morning (approx. 9:30) with Curtis and Blog Reader Kristen. Kristen and I rented gear from MSD on Friday night, Nick was using Ted’s gear and of course Curtis has his own. I bought a dive computer on Monday (along with a BC and another dive computer for Nick, both on back order, the BC of which I’m going to exchange right away) but decided against using it because I didn’t want to unhook any of the rental stuff.

We decided to go to Sleepy Hollow, part of Mangan, because of some Beaver dams and fishes. It wasn’t terribly hot outside, mid 70s, but once the farmer john wetsuit is on it becomes quite uncomfortably hot. It took a while to get everything set up, we haven’t had to do it since October and I was a little rusty. The water was a bit chilly, but it felt good considering the wetsuit. The dive went good other than a little fiasco with my weights. One of my pouches slipped out of my BC. I thought I felt something tugging, then I looked underneath me and saw the swirling of the silty bottom and something black. I thought it was my camera and I did a panicked check for it. I found it still attached to me but suddenly I started rocketing to the surface. I figured I just didn’t have my buoyancy under control because I’d been struggling with it for the dive… I think I was a bit over weighted. Anyway, I let some air out of my BC and started swimming along. My tank kept falling over to one side. At first I didn’t know why, then I realized my weight pouch was gone. I was about equal distance from Nick and Kristen and assumed Nick would be the better diver for assistance in recovering it. I struggled to lopsidedly swim to him while staying at the same depth. I grabbed his fin and gave the thumbs up sign. He looked at me and immediately turned around and kept on going. Fortunately Kristen saw the event transpire and surfaced with me. Then we waited for the boys to realize we were missing. It only took a couple minutes for them to return and find us. I tried to assist in finding the weights, but without the extra 9 pounds I was helplessly stuck at the surface so Kristen and I stayed while the boys went searching.

It wasn’t a very fun time at the surface for me either. I stayed fully inflated and upright. I couldn’t snorkel around, swim or even look underwater because I’d just tip over sideways. Nick ended up finding my weights, Curtis got them back in my pocket and away we went.

The dive was fun, although most of the dive was uneventful. There was a spot with a lot of fishes. Curious little buggers. I tried to stay really still so they would come up to me, but I was having trouble with my buoyancy, so I tried my best not to get in Curtis’s way or stir up the bottom and ruin the visibility.

On our way back there wasn’t much to look at again other than trees, so I snapped a couple pictures of Kristen and Nick.

After the dive Kristen and I were pretty tired so we hung out while the boys dove again. Maybe next time I’ll be up for two tanks!! Maybe next time I’ll have more of my own gear as well :D

More pics in the gallery.

Read Curtis’s account of the dives.

I ♥ Chocolate Ox

June 23, 2008

This weekend I went with Blog Reader Kristen up to the cklahr cabin. We left on Friday afternoon. Curtis joined us on Saturday afternoon. There was a whole lot of nothing happening. Lots of books, audio books, lounging lake side. The highlight of the weekend was pizza at Zorba’z followed by ice cream at the Chocolate Ox (licorice chip and Caribou java chunk, mmm…).

Nick didn’t attend the festivities because he had a concert to go to on Friday night. I tried talking him into coming up with Curtis on Saturday, but he claimed he had a lot of stuff to do around the house, something about a leaking faucet outside. I figured he’d fiddle with some broken computers, then play WOW for a good portion of the weekend. Party pooper.

I got home Sunday afternoon. To my shock and awe, my husband spent the weekend doing yard work. Not just his typical version of yard work like spraying weeds and crop dusting ants with poison, but yard work like trimming hedges, planting flowers in the bukkit in front of the house and in the planters on the deck and repotting the aloe plants which were in dire straits for some decent soil.

I’m not used to this kind of stuff happening when I leave for a weekend. It’s usually video games til the break-a-break-a and when I come home I find him in the same position I left him in. Or the cat doesn’t get fed. Well, I guess he did let my Amish friendship bread explode from not letting the air out. And he did think Boo ran away at one point. But all is well that ends well, and the weekend ended really well.

Par-tay

May 26, 2008

I threw a birthday party for my sister Lani today. She’s turning the big 5-0 next week!! ;) The turnout was pretty good. We had a ton of food leftover. Fortunately everyone made to go plates. There’s no softball tomorrow (Memorial Day, ya know) so it would have taken longer than normal to consume everything with 10 less guys in the house. Nick was the grill master of the afternoon, even though he had the meat cooked 5 hours before anyone got here. All right, maybe not that early, but most of it was done before people arrived. It actually turned out quite well because everything stayed warm and we got to eat right away. His burgers got rave reviews.

As a side note, it was one of those rare occasions where I had to thoroughly clean the house. As high traffic area as my floors are, I don’t typically get random dirty stuff stuck to my feet. Strangely enough every time I walk around now I’m peeling something off the bottom of my foot. And not just peeling something off, but having to aggressively wipe away some sort of sticky residue. Weird stuff I tell ya.

It was the first super humid day of the year and some pretty big storms rolled in later in the afternoon. Tornadoes, hail, straight line winds and such. The sirens by our house went off at one point, but other than that it wasn’t very stormy directly where we are. It was really neat though. From the sliding door in our basement, I could see it start down pouring over the softball field before it started raining on our house. It cleared up in less than 5 minutes, and I hadn’t realized how dark it had gotten until the sun came back out. Everything after that was uneventful, although I guess there was a lot of damage elsewhere.

Rent a Husband

April 16, 2008

What??!? Why didn’t I know about this two years ago?

Wait a minute, a husband that repairs, builds, remodels, installs, paints, does yards, garages, houses, windows, you name it (foot rubs?), and will clean? Hmmm. I guess Nick builds… computers. And installs… computer stuff. And he keeps repair tools in the garage in case he wants to… build stuff. Does playing paintball count as painting?

This was a great photo op.

Nick & My 2nd Anniversary

April 15, 2008

Today is Nick and my 2nd Anniversary. Ahhhh, two years ago we were surrounded by wedding bliss. I was sorting through some pictures last night reminiscing about the big day. I was trying to find the perfect photo to put on my blog. I do believe I found it. There is no better photo that reflects Nick’s feelings toward me as this one: