kgrp

from the city to the mountains to the beach

on friday, we went to creamer’s 30th bday party in pasadena. it was neat seeing old friends from college there!

but the real fun began after church as we drove up to big bear mountains looking for glenn and the rest of the rock climbing group. FarmBoy drove all over the fire roads looking for the 3n07 road off the 3n16 and we spent more than an hour enjoying the scenery of the back roads. we never did find them on the mountain, but we did get to meet up with them while they ate dinner in town. every one of the campgrounds was full and you could see a lot of cars parked on the perimeter of the campgrounds, but instead of joining them, we ended up sleeping on the ‘bridge’ over big bear lake. yup, that’s right, we just camped out in the bed of the truck on the bridge, surrounded by the lake on both sides! it was almost a full moon… i thought it was so neat to see the sunrise too, but i guess i’m just a citygirl who hasn’t seen too many sunrises! FarmBoy couldn’t believe i woke him up to watch a sunrise!

but c’mon… this sunrise was sooooo beautiful!

see the lake on the side of the truck? there were people fishing there all night....

on sunday morning, we met up with the group again to follow them to the rock climbing site. we had fun doing that too, but we had to cut our time short to make it to laguna beach cuz we had tickets to the pageant of the masters! if you’ve never seen ‘living art’ then you’re missing out… it’s so neat to see them make a scene and make it look like a painting using real people!

it was a great weekend - we got to spend time with friends, with family, go to church, enjoy the outdoors, do some activity, and enjoy the arts! i am so enjoying my time with FarmBoy =)

muchos tacos

these past few weeks have been chock full of activity - i’ve hung out with my family to watch WallE, gone to dinner with my parents, hung out with my friends, gone to a few concerts at the hollywood bowl, played tennis, ping pong, racquetball, volleyball, billiards, gone bowling, and i even went to legoland! it’s been a whirlwind of activity for me… but the best part was that i got to do all of it with ‘Mucho Tacos’ =) starting with ziplining and skycycling and snorkeling in mexico, we’ve just been including each other in everything we do, and it’s been awesome! i mean… i knew we were good friends and i knew that he understood me well, but i never ever thought that we’d be part of each other’s lives this way.

i think i’m just excited being able to share all sortsa activities together, and it’s awesome to feel like he’ll make the time for me no matter how busy he is. it’s so neat to share thoughts, feelings, and activities with each other… and i’m looking forward to everything else we have planned! i’m gonna have a ton of stuff to blog about =)

in the meantime, here’s a pic of the flowers that he gave me for our first date =) what a sweetie, huh?

geometry institute o' fun!

ok, so i’m currently on day 2 of the geometry conference i (voluntarily) signed up to attend during my summer (during which i don’t have to work). yes, i know, my co-workers already let me know how crazy i am for signing up for something that is not mandatory during my time off. and never mind the fact that i don’t actually teach geometry - my current assignment is to teach 3 classes of algebra and one double block class of algebra and algebra support. never mind the fact that during vacation i’m waking up at 6:30am to eat breakfast and get my butt to cal state san bernardino in time to do 8 hours worth of math.

i’m SO totally enjoying it! we just spent this morning doing perspective drawings and learning different aspects to drawing perspective correctly, followed by doing some (extremely long) proofs on properties of quadrilaterals. yesterday we did constructions using a compass and then learning to make the same constructions using geometer’s sketchpad on a computer. i believe by the end of this week we’ll have done all of constructions possible in euclid’s book 1, and that makes me excited.

yay! more constructions! all week long!

yes, i’m a nerd. that’s probably why i enjoyed taking the pre-test yesterday as well…

but i think the reason i’m enjoying this class so much is that finally, my creative and problem-solving side is being used and i’m enjoying the artistic aspect to the math as well. as a teacher, my job is challenging because i have to work with students and that is more of a psychology experiment, trying to get them to co-exist and learn. but this week, i just get to look at puzzles and try to figure them out and i haven’t stretched that part of my brain in a while.

i think i’m so gonna have to sign up for my masters here at csusb to get a masters in math education. yay! i’ll be a student again!!

fishing boat charter

on friday, we went on a fishing boat charter in cozumel. our captain barak was pretty cool - was from turkey, worked for the US navy, been all over the place, and works with nuclear stuff when he’s not taking out people onto the waters…

we had a lot of fun even though we didn’t catch a lot of fish, but we caught enough for lunch and dinner that day!

kat caught the first fish, and we used that to make ceviche for lunchtime. fresh caught ceviche was awesome!

i caught the next fish, but i didn’t do such a great job of reeling it in… i paused too long and therefore shared part of my catch with a shark! that’s ok, we were able to eat what was left =)

marlene caught the last fish! we brought our 1.5 fishes over to a great restaurant called kinta - the owner kris was working as a waiter and the creations he made with our fishes were spectacular! that restaurant is now marlene’s most favorite restaurant in the entire world!

if you ever get a chance, go eat at kinta!

and a zip line into the trees

2 days after our hidden worlds adventure, we went on a jungle jeep adventure where i got to drive a jeep around mexico, zip line through the trees again, swim in another cenote, and even hold some crocodiles. it was mucho much fun!

here’s a video of me ziplining into the tree because i couldn’t find the brake. hahahah! on the first half, i slammed into the guy (i’m so sorry, elmer!!) and slammed into the padded tree, but i like this video better =)

holding a crocodile (and trying to kiss it!)

my first time holding a snake

and some big iguana relative....

and sporting my brand new snake necklace

isn’t that coolio?

zip line into a cenote

i had so much fun on this trip to cancun/cozumel, and this trip to the hidden worlds cenote was one of the things i enjoyed the most.

there also was this cool sky cycle thing that was basically a bike hanging from a cable and we got to bike through the trees and everything, and i even got some cool pics while cycling into caves hanging right over the undisturbed waters.

i 100% recommend this hidden worlds adventure to anyone in the cancun/cozumel/playa del carmen area!

i always eat orange popsicles

You Are an Orange

You have a zest for life, especially for anything colorful, wild, or dramatic.

You have a unique take on the world, and you’re not afraid to be a little funky.

You are a bit reserved toward people who don’t know you well.

You have a thick skin, which can protect you from anything that goes wrong in your life.

Once someone does get to know you, they totally get and appreciate you.

Your friends see you as a bright person with a refreshing take on life.

What Type of Fruit Are You?

looking for a love like she has

a few weeks ago someone posted a link to this declaration of love, and ever since it’s been sitting open in one of my firefox tabs. i see it everyday and it’s a daily reminder of what i want to have.

http://bohemiangirldesigns.blogspot.com/2008/06/happy-birthday-boho-boy.html

enjoy!

white water rafting with the educators

marlene, shyla, cami, and i had quite the adventure going white water rafting last week. from an abandoned campsite straight outta a B horror film, to making friends with the visiting fire fighters from mo-val, to sleeping on the back of an inflatable raft/boat under the stars, and floating down the river through class 2 rapids. you can read more about it here on marlene’s blog, but true to form, i just wanna post up some pictures right now. maybe i’ll fill in the rest of the story later…

anyways, you can see us here tackling the rapids!

i have a wicked bruise on my back from belly-flopping on my back (back-flopping?) while jumping off a jump rock, doing a forward flip and not rotating fully. my arms are soooo dark from all my outdoors activities i’ve been doing, but i’m not really that sore. my body’s getting used to all this fun stuff =) i’d have to say thanks to neil from dave’s sports bar for calling us pretty ladies and giving us $5 for the jukebox. and the fire ant 3am tent invasion could never be forgotten, along with the body bags being dumped into the water… hmm… would that have been related to this sign we saw earlier that day?

at any rate, we had a lotta fun laughing about our misfortunes while they were happening knowing full well we can tell this story over and over again. here’s to having our summers off and to the adventures we had!!!

fire fun with kerley

so you know how you learn that you should never mix water with a grease fire?

well, kerley took a can of grease leftover from the grill, and stuck that in the middle of the fire. he then used a cup on the end of a long stick to throw ice water in it....

the first one was a dud… he totally missed the can.

but if you wait till 40 seconds....

now that’s what i call fire fun!!