Alyca's Daily Life

Rising airline costs combined with the recent chapter 11 filings of two Hawaiian servicing airlines has caused us to book our flights to Hawaii early.

So.

We are heading out! September 2008! Still need to book a hotel for Honolulu for 2 nights, but other than that we are set.

For our Mazatlan trip coming up in 2 weeks, I just bought some snorkel fins off of eBay for Ethan. He has a hard time getting fins that fit (size 14 shoes), and just ends up stuffing his feet into the biggest ones they have available, usually ending up with a blister or at least sore feet. So, I found some supersize, big enough and cheap enough fins that we can just bring along with us. I am going to run back to CostCo to get a set of fins/snorkel/mask for myself (they carry them up to size 11-13 for men, but I am sick of Ethan having to stuff himself into too small shoes, so he gets the special treatment). Then I will find a mask/snorkel for Ethan and we are good to go. I figure that we will snorkel enough in our lives (once or twice a year, multiple times each vacation if we have our own access to snorkels), and the equipment isn't really big, easy enough to pack (we are not heavy packers). Might as well spend a couple bucks and have our own stuff.


Mazatlan is a little special because Ethan will have his knee surgery less than a week after we get back. So we are going to have a lot of fun and make enough memories to get him through the boredom of the week he has to take off of work. We are going to do the second surgery either this summer (depending on how the first surgery goes as well as how Harborview's new building opening goes) or after we get back from Hawaii in September. We want to get it all done this year, as soon as we can.

In other news, all is well with the Amersons. Lots of little medical things going on with the both of us, but nothing we won't get through together. This is the first year that we will both meet our deductible for our insurance!! It is only $200, so it is not much but we never usually go to the doctor and never end up meeting the deductible. Woohoo???

Kitties are doing fine....house is still standing.......

I have been doing lots of fun scrapping in my scrap room, making slow but sure progress on my Australia album (I cannot believe it has been 6 months since I was there!)

Speaking of Australia, I have become a little obsessed with going back there with Ethan. I am earmarking every single airline mile we have for a couple plane tickets to Sydney. Ethan must snorkel over the GBR. He must. And those plane tickets are spendy, so airline miles are the way to go!!

Speaking of obsessions.....I have a thing for Blue Diamond smoked almonds. So good! I have a CostCo tub of them and I just love them so much. I tried some generic smoked almonds and they tasted icky, so go with the Blue Diamonds!

Another new obsession is playing the travel IQ game on tripadvisor.com. Basically, there is a map of the world (Or asia or europe or something like that), and it pops up with a city name or a famous place and you have to click as fast as you can and as close as you can to that city or place. You get points for how close you are and some for how fast you are. I forgot how much I love maps and geography and all things like that. I play and play. I still suck at Australia, but I am doing okay on most of the others. Go check it out!!