Lelaine and Chris' Wedding Weekend

This past weekend, Lelaine got married and I was the maid of honor in the wedding!

The wedding was in Pensacola, FL so I flew to Orlando Wednesday night, spent all day Thursday running errands and just enjoying being back in the US. Ryan flew into Orlando that night and then we left early Friday morning on our drive up to the wedding. We stopped in Gainesville to see Catherine (and her soon to be here baby) for a few minutes and picked up Robin (a fellow bridesmaid) On the way home from the wedding, we stopped off in Gainesville again and met up with Katie for some dinner. After some deciding on where to eat (about 30 minutes and 4 U-turns later) we ended up at Latin Cafe...an old favorite from my last year in Gainesville.

I havent saved all my photos yet, but here are a few.

The weather was gorgeous for the wedding activities...it only was horrible when I was driving the 8 hours each way! The wedding was great and no problems at all :-)

AND...I made it through my speech without getting sick from being nervous. I even got compliments on how well I did :)...I was worried!


Me and the bride to be at the rehearsal dinner!


Me and Ryan at the rehearsal dinner


On our way to the church on the wedding day!


Me and Robin before the wedding starts


Lelaine and her mom before the ceremony.


Me, right before I had to give my maid of honor toast

Another birthday!

Happy Birthday, Dah Jeh Jeh!
Hope you have a great day!!!

Being a Tourist

I decided that I would hate to leave Singapore and not to have seen more than the shopping areas of the country (dont get me wrong though...that is a tough thing to do - there are literally hundreds of shopping malls) I plan to get back to actually taking in as much of Singapore while I can since I won't be here too much longer. I started back up with a trip to the Asian Civilizations Museum.

It was a beautiful day today - no rain! (but extremely hot...as usual) The walk to the museum was nice and I got to see green parks where people were reading, picnicing, and just hanging out. If it wasn't so hot out, I would have taken a nap on the lawn after my museum visit, but instead I chose to find somewhere with air-conditioning!

Here are some pictures from the museum. Flash photography wasn't allowed in any of the exhibits and since they were mostly all dimly lit, I don't have many pictures to show from the museum.

After the museum, I took a short walk to head over to see some more sights. Right across the river from the museum is the Fullerton Hotel. It is one of the nicest hotels in Singapore. It used to be the post office building. It's also said to be haunted.

Passing the Fullerton, I made my way to Merlion Park. The Merlion is a statue with the head of a lion and the body of a fish. It's become a trademark of Singapore. There are 5 offical Merlion statues around Singapore...2 of them are located at this park.

This is me and the mini-merlion statue at the park.

This is the full size one that is right behind the "mini" one.

Behind the merlion in the picture, you can see the convention center. Its the 2 dome shaped buildings with spikes. It was built to resemble durians.

Here is the view from the merlion statue. Across the water, there is construction to build a casino and a Universal Studios as well.

Also from the pier where the merlion is, you can see a giant ferris wheel that is under construction. Its set to open Valentine's Day and I've heard reservations are booked already. It's supposed to be larger than the London Eye.

It's probably hard to see, but the tall building in the back middle of this picture is where the Fortis office is located. You can see the Fortis logo on the top left of the building in red letters.

Familiar Face from Houston

This past week, Soo (who I worked with in Houston) made a stop in Singapore and visited the office for two days. It was nice to see a familiar face even if it was just for a short time.

While she was here, we went out to dinner with some of the Singapore team. Monday night, we went for Singapore's famous black pepper crabs. The crabs are huge and they are certainly peppery. It was yummy, but I think next time I'll have Singapore's just as famous, chili crabs. It is more of a sauce and they give you Man Toh (steamed or fried bread like rolls) to dip too!

The next next, Soo and I went to a late night dinner with Boon and had roti prata and then went back to her hotel to check out the suite she was staying in. She was on the highest floor (I think it was the 6oth floor? The hotel claims to be the tallest in all of South East Asia) She had a great view of the city (unfortunately the pictures came out a bit blurry!) She had some expensive bath products that she wasn't going to use, so she graciously offered them to me. So now I have soap, lotion, even special soap for baths!

San Francisco to Seattle...or Bust!

Been a while since I've posted anything so it's time to catch up...

First off, wishing Carrie a Happy Birthday!!!

Now, here are a few pictures, ok maybe more than just a few shots from mine and David's trip from San Francisco to Seattle.

Made it to San Francisco. Checked out some sights: Fisherman's Wharf, Golden Gate Park, Mission Dolores, and Lombard Street, The Painted Ladies, Haight Ashbury pictured here. We even get to have dinner with 2 of our aunts.







We headed out from San Francisco for the short drive up to Sonoma, California. While we were there, we checked out 2 wineries, went on a tram tour of one of them, had a sushi dinner and relaxed at the Sonoma Lodge.

After leaving Sonoma, Dave spots Charlie Brown's big head on the side of the road while we're driving north. We stop to take some pics and realize we're in Santa Rosa, CA home to the Charles Schultz museum. Thanks to Tom Tom, we find out we're only 5 minutes away and decide to make the stop to check out the museum.

Saying "goodbye" to Charlie Brown and friends, we're back on the road. We drive along the 'Avenue of the Giants' that takes us through some redwood forests. We didn't get to see the famous tree that has been carved out so a car can drive through it, but maybe next time!






After stopping to see the redwoods, we're off to drive some more. I take over the driving shift and then in Eureka, Oregon I get a flat tire :( Dave changes the tire and puts on the spare and we're left looking for a replacement. At least there was a Sears 5 minutes down the road that hadn't closed yet for the night. They weren't able to patch it, so we bought a new tire and we were back on our way!!! But not before getting this picture of Dave at Sears waiting for our new tire!



Dave was determined to get to see a sunset on the West Coast. So after getting a new tire, we find a public beach and go take a look. Here we are (I can't remember the exact name of the beach) at the Pacific Ocean to catch the last minutes of the sun setting.




Here's a picture of Dave after we made it back (finally!) to car from the ocean...after he stumbled into some swamp or who knows what...twice! Good thing it was a full moon out and that there were kids out who knew where they were going so we could follow them back to the parking lot!

Dave drives through much of the night and gets us to Eugene, Oregon. Short of our original plan to make it to Portland, but it works. I was too tired to complain. I'm just glad Dave handled the driving (up and down the mountains, twisting and turning). We find a Wendy's and a Best Western and call it a night.

Seattle! We made it to our final destination of the trip and got to spend a few days in Seattle to relax, catch the sights (including the first Starbucks), have some great seafood, and even pick up some fresh wild king salmon to bring back to Florida.

* The fish made it back to Florida and from what I hear looked beautiful and tasted great!