Traditions

Sunday afternoons at the Nielson home. And the tradition continues.....

A Much Needed Vacation

Exploring the ship, prior to departure

Eating dinner on our lovely cruise ship

Yes, that is me, hanging upside down from a zipline that was hundreds of feet from the floor of the tropical forests in Roatan, Honduras. That's about as crazy as I get.

Descending into the Cenotes (underground caves filled with water). They were a little bit creepy and lots of fun.

All our HOT men in their bat cave

All us ladies in the Cenotes , looking our best.

Riding in the truk in Progresso. And no, that is not a misspelling; it's really called a truk, even though it does not resemble a truck in the least. More like an ancient, rickety mine cart that someone added a canopy to. Yet, I'm not complaining, because I'm just glad I didn't have to walk. (The truks took us to the Cenotes)

Preparing for the Harry Potter Trivia Competition; it was pretty fierce, let me tell ya. Yet even Josh's Superman t-shirt was not enough to pull us through. We lost to a bunch of Harry Potter geeks who have no other life than to be obsessed with Harry Potter and memorize everything in all the books, because they've read them all, like, 12 times.

Watching the Rock Climbing competition onboard the ship. My friend, Jonna, standing next to me, won first place and her toughest competitor was a 70 year old lady. But Jonna kicked her butt. And she is pregnant. (Jonna, not the old lady.) So that's really saying something. Seriously, the old lady was really good.

Humanitarian Mission

A Fine Speciman of Manhood

Yes, Josh is buff. And contrary to whatever else he says, he is secretly delighted that I'm putting this picture of him, in all his manly glory, on my blog.

A Toddler's Take

We all see things differently. The English biologist/politician John Lubbock once wrote, "What we see depends mainly on what we look for". If this is true, then I wonder what that says about a three year old boy named Sam. Here's his interpretation of events that take place in "The Lord of the Rings". The naked man is mean and he bites the fingers of the nice guy and falls into the orange water that's really hot. And the big dragon is really scary and he tries to eat the nice kids. And the elephants are really, REALLY big.

Things I learned from Teddy Roosevelt (and my dad)

Last week our fridge broke.

Busted. Not cold. Damaged. Getting warmer. I had no clue as to what I should do. Called the repairman. Told me it would cost $300 to fix. Did some research on the internet. Identified the problem. Bought the part for $47.39. Replaced the part. Felt like the "coolest" woman on earth! "Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it." Teddy Roosevelt