That's what I have to blog about...nothing! It's not that I don't want to update my blog, it's just that I don't have anything interesting to write! But, due to the pressure I've received lately to "keep posting", I'll try to come up with something.
I don't know if anybody will actually do this with me, but I thought it might be fun if I shared one of my (many) embarrassing moments with you (so you get a laugh...or at least a smile) and then you can share one of your embarrassing moments with me (either through a comment, or post to your own blog). Maybe I'll share 2 stories with you:
1.) I was 16 and in the 11th grade. My French teacher had a baby and, in an effort to only teach one French II class, we met in the mornings from 7:10-8:00 before school started. I had had my drivers license for 3 months and I was driving a huge Toyota Land Cruiser (it is important to remember that I am exactly 5'2" and really needed a booster seat to be able to see out). It was a misty morning and I was running late, as always. I was also sick, which is an important fact in this story. The road I had to drive on to get to school was the main road connecting my school with our rival school, meaning everybody I knew would be on that road at some point that morning. The road was under construction. It was a 2 lane road that they were widening, therefore there was no shoulder. At the edge of the road there was about a 2 foot (at least) drop where they were smoothing the ground. It was also homecoming week. I don't know if y'all did this at your school, but we dressed up everyday the week of homecoming. This particular day was "Character Day". One of my best friend's boyfriend had gotten us fireman hats and badges, so we were dressed up as firefighters. I had on a huge poncho and big rain boots, and I think leggings (which weren't in style then like they are now). Ok, so I'm driving to school, in a hurry because I'm late and I start coughing, because I'm sick. I reach down to the passenger side floorboard to get the box of kleenex and when I look back at the road I am in the process of falling off the construction drop off. Well, in my 3 months of driving experience, I completely flip out and jerk the wheel back towards the road. When the tires that are 2 feet lower finally pop back onto the street, the car (I) loose control and wind up in a ditch on the other side of the street. I sit there for a minute trying to figure out what has happened and then decide I should just pull out of the ditch and drive somewhere (home? school? I'm not sure what my plan was). Then I noticed that the front bumper was no longer on my car; it was on the opposite side of the road. I then looked down and noticed that a lot of things that should be under the hood of the car where in the front seat with me. Oh boy, this was bad. I couldn't find my cell phone but about that time a very scared lady came running out of the house in her pajamas to see if I was alright. Her neighbor came too and I could instantly tell that they didn't like each other because the lady whose ditch I was in told the other woman to mind her business and go back home. I called my mom and she showed up 10 seconds later. When I saw her I took off running and bawling (I didn't cry until I saw her). When she hugged me she just died out laughing and I looked at her like she had lost her mind. She said, "I'm just so glad that no one else was involved, that you're not hurt, and you look like you're 4 years old playing dress up and running to me crying". That's when I realized that I was dressed up like a fireman. We had to stand by the totaled car as everyone else I knew passed us on their way to school. I was so embarrassed about the fact that I had wrecked the car, but standing there, filing the police report in a fireman's costume made the whole situation much worse. When the police woman asked me if the accident was my fault I instantly said "no ma'am" and when she asked whose fault it was and I told her that I was the only car involved she laughed and said "then I'm afraid it's your fault". She was very nice and quickly added, "but that's why it's called an accident". I continued standing there as the firetruck showed up. Oh boy. They laughed and joked to me, "Hey, get back to work", as I stood there watching them in my costume.
2.) I'm not sure exactly how old I was in this story, maybe 10 or 11. My family was in Albuquerque snow skiing. We had been skiing before, so we were all decent skiers. My brother and Dad were pretty brave and would go down the trails that were marked as being more difficult. I think there were 4 levels, maybe green, blue, red, and black? I don't remember, but for the sake of this story let's say the easiest level was green and then they got more challenging from there. My mom was completely happy sticking to the green trails all day, everyday. I didn't want her to ski alone so I would go down them with her, but they got boring after a while. Adam and I had gone down some different trails in ski school, so I convinced Mom to let me take her down one of those. I promised it was easy. We ride the ski lift up to the top, get off successfully, and start our trip down the mountain. We were doing great until a few minutes into the trip Mom noticed that the trail was marked blue. She panicked. She kept trying to stop other skiers as they zoomed past to ask them if there was another way down (a green trail). Nobody even slowed down to acknowledge that she had asked them a question. This made her mad. She made me take my skis off and start to walk back up the mountain because she wanted us to ride the ski lift back down. If you've ever been skiing, you know that ski boots are very difficult to walk in, especially up a snow-covered mountain, carrying your skis, while it is snowing. Mom would see a skier and would yell "Excuse me, is there another way..." too late, they zipped past her, so she shouted "HEY THANKS FOR YOUR HELP!!!! APPRECIATE IT!!!". I got hysterical. I was so miserable trying to go back up the mountain, but I couldn't put my skis on and leave her. It was either laugh or cry. I just couldn't stop laughing. When we finally got to the top (at least an hour later, probably longer) there was a little building were you could get hot chocolate and go to the bathroom. This was the early 90s, so we both had those huge crazy bangs that you curled and sprayed and no amount of wind or rain could mess them up. Well, during our long trip back up the mountain, through the snow and wind, our bangs had frozen. I just remember trying to thaw them out in that tiny bathroom. Ok, so we safely made it down the mountain and Mom made it clear she was sticking to the green trails. As I was going down a green trail with her I veered off the main path and found a few little (very little) bunny hops to make the boring green trail more exciting. We kept going down the same trail over and over and I continued going over to the bunny hops. So Mom had been observing this and decided that she wanted to give it a try. Important fact: at the end of the bunny hops I had to do a quick turn because there were a bunch of baby trees that had been planted with that orange plastic fence around them to protect them. Mom heads towards the bunny hops and as she hits the first one she gains speed...her poles are off the ground now and she is yelling "whoa-oh-oh-OH" and then, just like that, she had flown through the orange plastic fence and was face down in the middle of the baby trees. I had to leave her this time because I was laughing so hard that I was about to have an accident. I couldn't find her for a little while, so I just jumped on a ski lift by myself. I started talking to the other girl on the lift with me and as we drifted above the crushed baby trees the girl said, "Oh my goodness, earlier today I saw a crazy lady just plow through that fence and take out the trees!!!". I just said "REALLY?", but never mentioned a word about Mom. Now that I think about it, this might be more embarrassing for her than for me. Sorry, Mom. :)
I know that I shifted tense several times in the post, but I don't care to take the time to correct it, so just know that I know that I messed up! And please, give me something to smile about and share an embarrassing moment with me! :)
I flew to Barbados Thursday afternoon to meet up with my parents. We are staying at the nicest place I have ever stayed in! The restaurants are fabulous and the views are unbelievable. I can't capture it on my camera. You can look at the place more at http://www.thecrane.com/. I really love Barbados! When I came here with Julie & Ralna in May we stayed on the Caribbean side. This time I am staying on the Atlantic side. There is a very big difference. The waves on this side are big (there were hardly any waves on the Caribbean side) and the winds from the ocean make it much cooler. Here are a bunch of pictures and videos of our trip so far. I'm going back to Dominica on Saturday (9 whole days here!). One of the neatest things (I think) is that Barbados has wild monkeys! My dad and I went to play tennis one day and there were 5 or 6 monkeys hanging out around the court! They have little yellow faces. I wanted to go back and try to feed them some bananas, but Ryan told me about some diseases I could catch from them. Oh well. We went out on a catamaran one day and went snorkeling. It was SO much fun! I would definitely recommend it to anybody coming to Barbados (Courtney & Andy) and to anybody who likes to sail (Courtney & Andy). We went with Cool Runnings Sailing. The crew was super nice and waited on everybody hand and foot. They served lunch and it was delicious. We went to two different spots to snorkel. The first stop we snorkeled with sea turtles. We fed them bread and so the turtles and the fish swam right up to my goggles. It was a little too close for my comfort! A fish actually scraped my arm with it's fin. Of the islands I have visited (Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Guadeloupe, Saba, San Juan, and St. Martin), Barbados is definitely my favorite! I have flown in/out of Antigua several times and hope to visit there someday.
