Jamaica!

This was the view from our balcony. We went to Montego Bay and it was amazing! Every day was sleeping in, eating breakfast, doing something on the beach (except the day we ziplined!), meeting the friends from college we went with for dinner, drinks, and usually cards (we are avid euchre players, and no one seems to know what it is on the west coast). Sometimes after cards we'd relax in the hot tub you see in the photo- it was for anyone on the resort, but didn't seem to get a lot of use being away from the bars and such.

My favorite activity was probably the snorkeling, although the zipline course makes it a very tough call. The included resort snorkeling was fun, but the afternoon tour that went out further to a nicer reef was just fantastic. We got to see sea snakes, urchins, trumpet fish, and a HUGE sting ray. DBF did some free diving and I got a few nice videos of him swimming around in the ocean. The zipline was crazy, I had never done a verticle one before (read: they DROP you straight down, about 60 feet) and was unaware we'd be doing that beforehand, but it was quite the rush. I enjoyed the kayaking, though DBF was less than excited about it since it closely resembled excercise on vacation.

We were pretty fortunate in that it didn't rain much- about half the days in the mid-afternoon. Since it's rainy season, that's to be expected. We were also lucky Hugo dissipated and we had no tropical storms in the area; while we'd gotten trip insurance, we would have been very upset to miss out on our vacation! It was a risk we knew we took booking in off-season, to get the rates we did on the room.

I also really liked that it was an inclusive resort, so the only stuff we paid extra for were the zipline tour and the longer further-out snorkeling. Frankly part of why it was nice was things being faster- bartenders aren't having to figure out what a drink costs, ring it up, etc, etc. Also, it was very convienient to be able to walk around without a purse since we didn't need money or ID within the resort- and it was DBF's job to hang on to the room key. The swim up bar would have been particularly interesting otherwise.

All in all, certainly the best vacation I've ever taken myself on- it was definately worth saving up for. What about you, what's been your favorite vacation?

A crazy month, Part 1: Side business

Last month when I got everyone's favorite coupon friendly magazine- All You- I saw an ad that said "Will work for Chocolate". Since I like chocolate (alright, LOVE chocolate), I decided to take a look at the website. I submitted my info after looking at some of the products, and spent a few hours over the course of a week or so speaking to the woman who called me about it. Long story short, I decided to give it a go, and am now a Dove Chocolatier part-time.

So far it has been going pretty well- I did a launch party with my friends at my place, and another with my family during a reunion type weekend. I'm also signed up to do a few boutiques this fall with other Chocolatiers and have another party tentatively booked. In another week or two I think I should be about the break-even point and it doesn't actually feel like work- at least not yet.

I don't mean for this to sound like a plug- which is part of why you don't see a link in this post (though I am happy to talk more about it if someone would want)- I'm just quite excited to be doing this! It has been so nice to get my head out of engineering while still using it and doing something different in my free time. I'm also meeting new people outside of my typical circles (in case you don't know too many engineers, please feel free to read that as "people who don't make bad jokes about circuits, pump curves, or the periodic table") which is refreshing.

Much love, and hope everyone has been doing well! I hope to continue summarizing my crazy month over the next week or so. Part 2: Vacation...