Summer Vacation Continued (Part Two)

Greetings everyone. Forgive me, but this might be a slightly longer post than usual. As I explained in my last post, with Meghan and I both finished with our Florida obligations (school/work) we've taken the rest of the summer to vacation and get ready for the eventual move to Ohio. The lineup of summer activities has been stellar. After Matt and Kate returned to Texas (and then eventually headed off to their respective desinations: Germany and the entire USA), Meghan and I went on a cruise with Meghan's best friend, Megan (yes I know that's confusing, but notice the difference in spelling), and her husband, Ben. I failed to take very many pictures, so unfortunately I don't really have anything to display here. I will, however, let you know that the trip was absolutely fantastic. We sailed to Key West and Cozumel, Mexico and enjoyed the sun and leisure of being on a cruise. Ben and I played probably 30 hours worth of ping pong throughout the cruise, and we had a very interesting time wandering the streets of Cozumel. Quick story: As we are meandering through Cozumel a number of vendors were trying to convince Megan, Ben, and I to come into their stores and buy things. Most of it is relatively cheesy stuff: hats, t-shirts, postcards, etc. Most of the time we just ignored them and walked away, but occasionally I wanted to practice my Spanish so I said simply, "No gracias." Upon hearing this, one guy says back to me "Hablas Espanol? Hey, if you speak Spanish to me I won't rip you off so much!" We just about went back there and bought a t-shirt.

The following weekend I met up with some college friends in Tampa for a guys' weekend. Once again, not much photo evidence for this one (my camera was having problems), but a lot of great stories. I won't overwhelm you with all of them, but we did manage to watch a Cubs vs. Rays matchup, play some wiffleball, watch soccer, eat at some good restaurants, blow $75 at an arcade (yes it was a throw back to middle school), and go on a casino cruise. All great times, and a really awesome chance to hang with all those guys again. At the end of it, we were talking about making this an annual outing.

Okay, here come the pictures. After traveling to Key West, Cozumel, and then Tampa, Meghan and I journeyed to Columbus, our future home, in search for a dazzling domicile. It also happened to be our two-year anniversary, so we made sure to get some fun into the 13 hour days of apartment hunting. Here are some pics:

We rented a car when we got to Columbus in order to get around to all the different apartments. Though we ordered a sub-compact (Ford Focus), they ended up giving us a Sebring convertible. I thought this fitting considering that it was our anniversary and on our honeymoon we rented the same exact car for our trip down the PCH. Cool stuff.

Here's me in my awesome "summer-casual" outfit (just purchased at the Banana Republic) going through our apartment checklist. Meghan and I were super organized on this trip, which made things significantly easier. This apartment, by the way, was immediately withdrawn from consideration (it was super small).

Along the way, we noticed an Aldi Grocery Store and decided to take a peek. For those of you who don't understand the significance of this: Meghan's brother, Matt, is working for Aldi and will eventually become a district manager over a number of stores presumably in Fort Worth.

After checking out numerous apartments, we took the evening and went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. It was located in this interesting little upscale village in the center of Columbus. Very sheik. I was just happy to eat cheesecake.

Here's our place for the next year. It's a two-bedroom townhouse owned by an University of Florida alumni. Crazy stuff. It has new appliances and an interesting floorplan; it was also very cheap. Altogether, I think it's going to be really great.

Because you've waited so long for a post, I figured I'd give you two sets of pictures for the price of one. Just two days ago I returned from the high school youth group's mission trip to Birmingham, Alabama. We went to a Group Workcamp there and had an amazing time. Some really awesome stuff happened in the lives of the kids and in my life too. Here are some fun pictures from the trip:

Here we are at the beginning of camp. This is the three guys of the high school youth group, myself, and Gram, the new youth minister. For all you former workcamp staffers, notice that the name of our group is WAT1. It was a dream come true...

Here I am at my worksite with my double crew. In the middle is Ms. Annie Wormley, our resident, whose house we painted and fixed up that week. My crews were also great.

At Group Workcamps we always say: SAFETY FIRST. That's why I was demonstrating appropriate ladder safety to our photographer, Andrew. My question was who was going to keep him safe from those white knights I'm flashing.

In previous posts, I've mentioned my buddy, Brian Anderson, who I met through workcamp. It just so happened that at this camp was Brian's brother, Jake. It was great to get to know ANOTHER Anderson through workcamp. Interestingly, Jake was also a member of Kate's summer staff crew last summer. The connections are mind-boggling. Also at this camp was a great friend of mine, Drew Jones. He directed the camp and did a fantastic job. He also managed to Seran-wrap our vehicle the night before we left. Thanks again man.

The Saturday after camp, the youth group went to Atlanta and had a day of fun. Gram planned out a visit to Six Flags during the day along with a Braves game that night, and a sleepover in a great hotel suite downtown. Gram wins MVP for that weekend. The first pic is us at Six Flags and the second is us at the Braves game. The third pic is of William displaying his exuberance over eating at The Varsity, Atlanta's famous hamburger joint.

That was a bit of a whirlwind of activities and pictures. My apologies for the length of the post. Anyways, it was in fact a whirlwind of a month, which was really a lot of fun. Meghan and I are moving out of Gainesville for good tomorrow, and we'll spend the rest of the summer hanging with family and getting settled in Ohio. More posts to come.