Angie's bachelorette party & rehearsal

I'm finally getting around to posting pictures from my trip to Pennsylvania for Angie and Marshall's wedding. For those that don't know, I went to high school with Angie and we were Girl Scouts together. We'll start with the bachelorette party, but I'll be selective in my picture choices!! :o) All the bridesmaids (4 of us), Angie and another friend of Angie's went to dinner at Applebee's and then to an outside cabana/tiki bar somewhere between Cranberry and Pittsburgh. The bar was really neat because there were sandy areas with hammocks, lounge chairs and 4-5 different areas where they had campfires of sorts burning. It was a lot of fun.

L: Michelle (maid-of-honor and cousin to Angie) put her party veil on before entering the bar. M: Michelle, Catrina and Lisa (the latter two are sisters, if there was any question) R: All the girls from back to front and left to right-Katie, Lisa, Michelle, Angie, Jena and Catrina

L: Angie and Catrina get silly. M: Pedicures the next morning R: Angie gets pampered

The girls after the rehearsal and dinner Friday night

Moving on up!!

Praise the Lord and let the angels sing...I was promoted to a GS-11 today!!!!

Hawaii 2007, VI and final installment

And 3 weeks later I finally finish posting the Hawaii pictures. I know you all like suspense. Our last day on the Big Island we made a beach day. It was a really cool beach called 69, named for the number on the telephone pole where you park to walk down. :o) Due to the palm trees and other vegetation, there were small pieces of beach that were quite isolated from the next. It felt really cozy.

We did some snorkeling and it was kinda crazy because this beach is a protected area, so the fish were quite a bit bigger than those we'd seen before. The lava island on the left picture was home to many kinds of fish, and I had to turn back to shore after not finding Justin and Billy after about 20 minutes because the fish were kinda freaking me out. They weren't afraid to come really close to you because they are used to people snorkeling around them...and these snorkelers aren't allowed to have spear guns! Cool house just beyond beach on the right.

Neat palm branch fence on the left. We then took a little drive up a dirt road toward Mauna Kea to look at the scenery...the center picture shows some wild boars we came across.

Socked in with fog on the left, and some pictures of Billy and Laure's house. The right picture is if you were to walk in the door to the left in the center picture.

Kitchen, awesome bathroom sink, and the coastline as we flew out the next morning. And there you have it folks, Hawaii 2007.

Heading back to Nevada

Well, my trip home to PA for Angie's wedding is just about over...we're leaving for the airport in an hour. It was a short trip, but I had fun. I'm still recovering from my hangover from the reception last night...that darn sweet Pennsylvania wine just tastes like Kool-aid!! I took a bunch of pictures, but most of them were from the days prior to the wedding. Expect future posts to contain the highlights. See ya'll when I'm back in NV.

Gone to PA

I'll be traveling to Pennsylvania tomorrow for the pre-wedding festivities and the wedding of my good friend, Angie, with whom I went to high school. The wedding is Saturday and I am in the wedding party, so hopefully I'll still be able to take a bunch of pictures to post later. If I have the time, I'll post some whilst I'm home.

Justin is down in southern Nevada attending the Carbonate Aquifer Tour, so maybe I'll get some pictures from him to post too. Oh, and I still have one more installment of Hawaii 2007, so that will have to wait till I get back to NV on Sunday. See ya'll in PA.

Fiber-optic temperature surveying

So I've been super busy at work the last few weeks and I haven't taken a ton of pictures of what I've been doing, but I have taken some. The first few days back at work were spent up at Lake Tahoe attempting to deploy a fiber-optic cable into the lake so we can find where the "cold spots" where ground water is seeping into the lake...which I tried to numerically model where this would happen. Unfortunately, the two days we had the equipment were cold, windy, rainy and miserable. The wooden rowboat we tried to use was a joke and we ended up just putting one cable about 300m directly out into the lake and then use hip-waiters (of which I just bought a new pair, woohoo!) and laid it down along the beach as far out as the waiters would let us (right picture shows it before we put it out in the water). Of course I didn't just in time to avoid one wave from topping my waiters, so I still got soaked. It was also strange to we working as a colleague with Scott Tyler, my old academic advisor through my masters degree.

We need to do this again in last August, early September when there is a bigger temperature difference between the ground water and the lake water. Then it will be easier to find the "cold spots", but I like to call them my "hot spots" of ground water discharge. I know, I'm such a nerd.

Hawaii 2007, installment V

And now for 5/31-6/1. In the morning of 5/31 we packed up and left for an overnight road trip. With the truck packed down with enough stuff to last a week, we drove through Kona on the east side and made our way down to a black sands beach on the southern part of the island.

We stopped and did some beach-laying, the guys did some snorkeling and spear fishing (and Billy got one!).

Then we drove down to the official "South Point" where the cliffs were. We saw some cool windmills, although many of them were not in working order. It really wasn't that far of a drop where I was standing...maybe 30-40 ft. In the right picture you can see some stuff built onto the edges of the cliffs. Many people jump off and then there are ropes and ladder to get back up. I was SO VERY CLOSE to jumping off. Actually as I think back on it, I'm kinda upset that I didn't. Justin absolutely did not want to hear that I was thinking about jumping, he doesn't seem to be into the adrenaline pumping stunts as much as I am. Maybe next time...

Left is a cave like structure that was linked to the ocean and the center pic really cool because you can see the windmills. And the right picture is the southern-most bar in the USA!! We had to stop. Justin and I drove past it last year, but didn't have time to stop as we were on our way to Volcano National Park to pitch a tent before it got dark.

Although blurry, the left pic is of our campsite that night on a little upland grassy patch on the ocean. The center pic is from the campsite down to the ocean the next morning. Later that day after continuing up the western coast and doing some shopping in Hilo, we stopped and took a little walk down to the shoreline near the botanical gardens.

Check out the palm pic Justin took on the left. Me with a big flower behind my ear in front of one BIG leaf. And a crazy tree.

Awesome palm tree, except the wave came up and got me in the butt.

Hawaii 2007, installment IV

Sorry for the delay in Hawaii pictures, I've been back in lovely Fallon, NV doing more 12 hour field days. It just doesn't leave much time for blogging. Anyway, on with the show! I believe we're onto 5/30 where we went to Kalopa Native Forest State Park for some hiking in the rain forest.

Add another Forest to my list of pictures! Awesome ferns.

L: funky tree growth C: check out the colors on the tree trunk R: Back at the parking lot, after having been lost for a short time due to the infrequency of trail markers.

L: Rooster farm, they raise them as fighting roosters to make money by gambling on fights C: Awesome valley that I can't remember the name of R: Us

Blurry picture, but this was the huge seafood dinner we had that night at a local Waima restaurant. There was supposed to be swing dancing that night too, but the band never showed up! But we did spend a few hours at that table eating and drinking.

Hawaii 2007, installment III

Tuesday, 5/29, all five of us went out on Billy and Laure's boat. They have a pretty sweet fishing boat that's I'd say about 25 ft long. We traveled up the western coast toward the northern tip of the island and anchored for a while to do some fishing and snorkeling.

Justin got a bit too much sun over the 1st few days we were there, so he sported Billy's straw hat on the boat. :o) That's Mona Loa in the background of the right picture, I think.

Billy kinda looks like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, doesn't he? Later in the day I had had enough sun too...you'll find me under the striped towel and straw hat in the center picture.