Next Stop: Margaritaville

One Tuesday night eight short summers ago I had my first Jimmy Buffett experience in St. Louis. And it was so good that on Thursday, Jeremy, Val, Ryan and Kim and I played hooky head to the show in Tinley Park. Totally spur of the moment...

That show was Jimmy's last show in St. Louis ... until for some reason he had a change of heart and came to town on Thursday.

Rog & I tried to get tickets, but the show sold out in 4 minutes! I hadn't planned on going, and even turned down ticket offers.

But it was a randon Thursday...

After a phone call from Jackie B. about grabbing drinks, I thought about making the 10 minute drive to Riverport and tailgating. Next thing I know, it's 6:05 and we decide that we're going to the concert ... which starts at 8. Luckily, she tracked down a ticket through a co-worker and Fanchon's crowd hooked me up so despite some traffic issues we had no problem getting in for the start of the show.

In typical Jimmy fashion, it was a great show. Not sure whether the show or the crowd were my favorite :).

Sorry no crazy Parrothead tailgate shots, we got there way too late for that!!

Our Crazy Mayan Adventure

So I remembered that in the post about our trip that I mentioned something about the alternative to our snorkeling trip...which I of course forgot until yesterday, but ended up being really busy and didn't have time to put anything up.

Since the wind was so strong and it was rainy, we had to cancel our snorkeling trip and opted to hop in a van that would take us about an hour away from Cancun for a jungle tour. Oh wait, that jungle tour is actually on a zip line, and then a mountain bike.

Most of you know that heights aren't exactly my thing, but the brochure (and their website) claim that the lines are only 15-20 feet from the jungle floor. I call BS on that one! We were OVER a lot of pretty big trees! After the first 2-3 of our 15 zip platforms, I finally stopped shaking. I was freaked out but knew the only way down was on that damn cable.

From the parts I saw when I wasn't scared to death, it was very pretty and pretty cool. I was more of a fan of the biking on rocky trails through the jungle, but Rog seemed to prefer the cables. I found out why when I saw him have an up-close & personal encounter with a tree (tree won, gave out a few good scrapes). The bike trail took us to another zipline that dropped us into a natural spring that was 100 feet deep. That was cool!

If you're in Cancun and looking for something different to do for about six hours, this was well worth it!

An Early Arrival - 1 Down, 6 To Go

While we were en route from the baggage claim to our car after our trip, I flipped on my cell and was inundated with texts and a few voicemails - the most important ones updating us on Janell.

Unbeknownst to us, she was having some complications with high blood pressure and the doctors elected to induce her about six weeks early. You can imagine the surprise when we found out that Hudson Kane Pope had arrived! A little sooner than expected, but is doing well.

Rog was slightly disappointed that Hudson was born on the 16th, one day after his birthday. But he was glad to hear that both mo mand baby are well. Hudson whould be home tomorrow (April 24).

Here are a few pics Janell sent of her and her mom with Hudson.

The first baby has arrived, six more to go!

Back to the Rat Race

We made it home, safe and sound, from our trip to Cancun without any troubles from either of our flights :) ... just in time to knock out a retirement dinner and a groundbreaking on Friday. Nothing like hitting the ground at an all-out sprint after some time off!

Our trip was awesome, the only thing that could have made it better would have been if it wasn't rainy and windy for two days we were there. That changed our plans a bit, but we did something I never thought I'd ever do in this lifetime. I'm post more about that tomorrow...

We had a boatload of work to do when we got home, yardwork included since the 40 days and 40 nights of rain had stopped pummeling the STL while we were gone. Needless to say, I'm tired!!

Here are a few pictures for the time being. Needless to say, I did the ISU girls proud and even pounded a few tequila shots in the shower getting ready to go out the last night we were there!

Adios!

In a few short hours, five to be exact, Rog and I will be at the airport waiting to board our flight to Cancun. A vacation could not have come at a better time ... I work with some great people but a few of them have really been wearing on me over the last few weeks, soo needy!

While we were booking our trip, we got a bunch of info about add-ons - one of which was the Caribbean Carnival Dinner Cruise (aka the booze cruise). Granted it's probably dressed up a bit during non-spring break times, but can you believe that trip costs $75 per person!?!

We'll post some pictures when we get back later this week ... and we'll of course continue trying to figure out who the F Alice is while we're there :).

Let's Go Blues GNO

Saturday night marked several firsts ... the first GNO (girl's night out) in 2008, my first time on the big screen at a major sports event and my first NHL game. The Blackhawks were in town so the game was actually sold out since the Blues are pretty close to pathetic.

It was Komen Race night so Erica hooked us up with some free tickets that are pretty good seats. The Blues recognized the race and put us up on the scoreboard screen during one of the intermissions. I was kind of disappointed, the spotlight they had was soooo bright I couldn't even see the screen!

The game got interesting during the last 10 mintues when the Blues actually cracked the scoring column, not just once but 3 times! By that point, though, I was too busy people watching. Next to the airport, I've decided that hockey games are the best place to check people out. Lots of mullets, business men, girls who look like they could be on Rock of Love and normal people like us. It was awesome.

Our Latest Guest

Last week we had the pleasure of babysitting/fostering Speedy, a small two-year-old hound. Her foster family went to New Orleans to rehab some homes and she needed a place to crash until the family that adopted her returned from Florida. Everyone must have been on spring break last week!

She was such a sweetheart, her only flaw was that she ate like Kobayashi - her entire bowl of food in like 2 minutes! It's a good thing she had a family waiting in the wings, had we fostered her for a while she probably would have become a permanent resident.