Thanksgiving at "The Shack"

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone back home in Colorado! I miss you and love you so much and would loved to have been there with you.

Instead I had a "keys" Thanksgiving. Everybody I work with plus our dive guests got together tonight at the shack and deep fried a turkey. Never done that before but knew it could be dangerous. I didn't see it happen because I was still underwater.

The meal turned out being wonderful. I was surrounded by people who appreciate me and love what they do and that's what counts. Mom and Dad, you can look forward to a shack party when you are here. I've already discussed it.

I can't wait until CHRISTMAS!!!

I'm back!

It's been a while since I last posted anything.... I'm sorry for the inconvenience; I've been busy and stressed :~) Let's get caught up!

I am currently in transition from one job to the next. I found a wonderful opportunity that suites me at a different dive operation on Key Largo. I'll be diving more, teaching more and that is what is important to me. Butch can come to work with me on certain days, the new place has a hot tub (believe it or not... water temp is COLD!) I've been layering all my wetsuits that I own, so now I've got 7mm at my core and 3mm for my arms and legs. I bought a vest with a hood and gloves...Burr. Overall, I think it will be a good experience and I will learn a lot.

I had a great opportunity one day do dive the aquarius here in Key Largo, which I had never heard of until we got there, but it is an underwater habitat that astronauts train for going into space. There are also other training missions that take place there. I was on our boat and we had to wait outside the buoys until we were granted permission to enter. Then we had a "swimmer" meet us at our boat to give us all a briefing of the habitat, where we could and could not dive and other procedures. He was cute and his briefing was interesting :) Anyway, this being the 3rd dive of the morning, and me being all bundled up in my wetsuits, I decided I would peel them all off in the water (much easier.. and I had to pee)..... BAM... I get attacked by moon jellyfish.. and I lived to tell the story. Here is my picture of the battle wound and to this day... scar!

My good friend Cindy and I explored the Everglades on one of our days off. What an adventure. Cindy is a birder so she was able to spot some pretty cool birds and tell me all about them. By the end of the day, I was pointing out different birds and I even knew what they were called. But the best part was a alligators! They were so close I could reach out a touch them if I wanted to. You'll notice that we had to protect ourselves from the killer mosquitos at one point. I know! We're goofballs.

Halloween came and went and I made chili! It's tradition at home with mom and dad, so I called them up got my Mima's recipe..I think it was hers originally, and made my first ever batch of yummy chili! It turned out great! Cindy and I went to a Halloween party at a place called Sharkys... I had to come up with a quick and easy costume. What am I?? LOL A Survivor castaway :)

Farewell little termites! My house was infested with drywood termites! I kept sweeping us dirt? or what I though was the never ending dirt/dust that kept re-appering! Did a little research and found out that my dirt was actually termite poo, that of course I had in my hand up close to my face, inspecting it! Well, it was no magical dust or dirt just the re-appearing poo. They had to come a tent my house, I had to re-pack all of my kitchen basically and move out for a night! Urg.

And last but not least.... I made lobster! First time ever eating and making myself. It turned out good and yummy. Now I just have to catch my own!

Love ya'll

The things you can't do in Colorado...

WOW! I have had the best last couple days!

It all started on Friday morning. Cindy, one of the ladies I work with in the office occasionally, and myself made a plan to dive Friday morning. We wanted to dive because we knew that the 8:30 boat was going to the Spiegel Grove and we have both been dying to do it!

It was incredible! I am so fascinated with wrecks these days... And to top it off, yesterday I dove the Vandenburg! It was an adventure.... we rented a tiny boat in Key West for the afternoon and and made our way out into the open ocean. The diving was awesome. We saw 3 goliath groupers hanging out in the current... about the size of my jeep! Schools of barracuda and swarms of jellyfish floating by! What's really neat about these wrecks is that they both have a huge American flag on the superstructure of the ship.... it's blowing in the current as if it's blowing in the wind! Beautiful to see.

Next time i'll have my underwater camera.

And we saw DOLPHINS.....

Hello from Key Largo!

This has been my schedule....

Mon-10am-10pm office; no time to come to starbucks and check email

Tue-7-1:30pm office 3-6:30pool work for a refresher class

Wed-am guide yay! 6-10 office

Thurs- 7:30-1 office.... FUN DIVES!

And so here I am with a free moment to check my email, hopefully watch some shark week online and write in my blog! So this afternoon I finally got a chance to dive for fun. We went out to French reef and I had 2 great dives. On the first dive I saw a hugh nurse shark... I don't know what it is about sharks but i still get soooo excited to see them. I start breathing hard and have wide eyes :) Tons of lobster; which I'm so happy to know that there are some survivors after mini lobster season! Second dive was to the wreck of the Benwood. I watched a free swimming green moray for the last 20 minutes of my dive. Very enjoyable!

I'm finally getting my feet wet with teaching. I've been teaching some refresher courses and some Discover Scuba courses. I'm jumping at any opportunity I have to audit or teach! That is why I'm here after all! I think that once I get my dog and things here in my house; it will be easy to call this place home. I'm becoming an expert at playing pool! I've met a nice guy from Denver who shoots pool with me all the time. Small world!

I'm anxious for August 28th to get here. I leave Key Largo for Mexico for a week! I can't wait to see my mom and dad and just relax on a real beach and do some diving!

Home Sweet Home!

Thursday I moved into my house. My new address is 12 Coconut Drive, Key Largo... hehe. So me :) I don't have any furniture except an air mattress and a chair that I bought at k-mart. I'm trying to refrain from buying anything else, seeing as I'll eventually have everything here. I just have to wait until early September. So for now I'm playing HGTV... and trying to imagine how I want my furniture to look and where I want wall decor :) Unfortunately my refrigerator doesn't work! So now I can't even cook any healthy meals. My landlord is buying a new one and it should be here next week.. My best bud here in Key Largo is out of town for 2 weeks! Great opportunity for me to get out and about again by myself and meet some people. When I have time I like to jog around the park. It's called Key Largo Community Park. Very nice area; but I've got to refrain from continuing on to Sharkys for a beer after my run! LOL I guess that would defeat the purpose of exercise. I'm becoming quite the "pool shark", I play almost everynight! I LOVE it!

Anywho- Here's some pictures of my house

Found it!

Alright- so the apartment I talked about before is a no go. That one was on the lower level of someone's house and just didn't seem like it would feel like home to me....

I finally found one that I couldn't pass up. It's a house! Better to have more room then not enough, so it's kind of a 2 bedroom house with a beautiful kitchen! I can't wait to move in so I can work on eating healthier!

Random

I went to Anne's Beach- nothing special, but one of the only public beaches. The really nice one is a private beach that Stevie showed me and a went sneaking around to take some pictures.

And then another beautiful sunset from the park behind my new house!