Happy 4th of July!

Well seeing as it's after midnight and I'm STILL up... I can wish you all a very happy and safe 4th of July! Hope you all have a wonderful long weekend!

I headed after work to get a pedicure to get my feet nice and pretty for the beach. I think it was one of the most painful experiences of my life. I can't stand the actually toe part of a pedicure (meaning i have ticklish feet and get nautiuos at the sound of nail file), but I always love the leg massage and foot massage that comes with it. But of course I get the lady with the boniest hands with sharp nails. I'm not sure how many awful faces I must have made during what was supposed to be the relaxing part of the process. She insisted on rubbing the top of the bone in the front part of my leg instead of the calf muscles that could actually use it. But oh well, I survived and my feet are pretty now darn it! :)

We finished packing a bit ago and now I'm just still on the computer letting my iPod charge for the long trip...hehe. We're super excited and are looking forward to a week or relaxation. We will take tons of pictures to share with you all when we get back next Friday. We're keeping our eye on stupid tropical storm Bertha...should be just fine, but just pray that it continues to go more north than west so that it won't dampen our vacation. :)

Also, just a little shout out to my Gabers who turned 5 years old today (the 3rd)!! Happy birthday Gabriel!

Everyone stay safe and healthy and we'll be back soon!

Counting down....

2 more work days left in this week...then it's off to vacation! Now I apologize (again) for going on and on (and ON) about this vacation - I know it gets very old hearing and reading about it. But this is just the exciting thing going on in our life right now and I can't wait! :) It's been a while since we've taken a vacation at all - and there's just something about kicking back at a tropical resort for a week! Michael called me this morning briefly on the way to his training class he was running and was saying how tired he was. He said he just can't wait for the trip and he just wants to sleep and rest! As for me, I'm already trying to develop my shuffleboard strategy so I can dominate him while we are there! hehe

A lot of people have asked me where St. Lucia is exactly. And I admit, I had to mapquest it myself, haha. Many people think it's part of the Virgin Islands, but it isn't. It is it's own country and is located in the way southern part of the Caribbean in the West Indies. Here is a map....

All our plans are coming together! We decided to go for it and do a couples massage for the first time - something we've always wanted to do. I booked it last night so we're good to go! Now if someone could make the next 2 days fly by, that would be much appreciated...

Dinner Party

We had a really fun night Saturday night. It was kind of a last minute thing, but we decided to invite friends from our church group over for dinner on Saturday - our first party in our townhome!

Of course that meant Michael and I spent a good part of Saturday cleaning and tidying up - but it felt good to get it done. Our friends came over about 6:30. Michael smoked some chicken that was a huge hit! So yum! Then I made potato salad and spinach salad.

I think the potato salad was a bit different than what they are used to here. Heather said she had never seen it with mashed potatoes. I had to inform her that they weren't mashed - they were just broken down from stirring everything together. hehe Then for dessert, Heather had made a yummy key lime pie.

We had 5 people total come over: Heather & Jim, Patrick & Kelly, and Sheena. We had planned to play games after dinner but we all got to talking like crazy - and before we knew it, it was 12:45am!

Michael headed out today for his crop insurance training in Illinois. So I headed to Target to get some necessities for our trip that is FIVE days! :)

Left to right: Mikey, Jim, Kelly, Patrick, Heather & Sheena