Surfacing for Air

If you've been wondering where I've been, it's been a very busy summer for me. I am still loving life back on the mainland and being in the DC area. I have one last set of photos to upload from the Alaska trip, then I will be done with that trip. Here's a snapshot of what I've been up to since Alaska.

In August I traveled to Nebraska for my great grandmother's 100th birthday celebration. It was great to see my family again, including my great grandma, my grandpa (her son) and my aunts on my Dad's side of the family. We also got to briefly see some distant cousins that we haven't seen since we lived in Nebraska (when I was in 4th and 5th grades). After spending a couple days in Nebraska I spent a couple more days in Colorado visiting my college friends. It was great to see all of them and meet the newest additions (there are two new babies and another one on the way). During the summer I also went to my first Nationals (DC's baseball team) game with my friends, participated in a walk to raise awareness about Human Trafficking (modern day slavery) and just enjoyed hanging out with my friends over countless meals including one trip to Allison's brother's restaurant in Southern Maryland.

At the end of the summer I finally decided to buy a house (after thinking about it for a long time and doing a lot of research about buying a house). In September I began that whole process. It's a strange market we're in out here right now, and not quite what I was expecting. I am pleased to say, however, that an offer I made on a two bedroom condo was accepted on my Birthday and if all continues to go well, I will close in about 10 days. I am very excited to be a homeowner and have a place of my own.

In September I also began a class at the community college. It's an introduction to Photoshop class and I am really enjoying it. There are several bloggers whose work (photography) I really admire who talk a lot about Photoshop and have written articles about how they do different things and showing comparisons of their photos before and after. While they have REALLY expensive cameras and multiple lenses, I cannot afford that kind of camera. I think I take decent photos with the camera I have now, but I saw the potential to make them that much better with better editing software (sorry HP, but your photo editing software just doesn't compare). The Photoshop software is so complex that my class really only skims the surface, but it will be enough for me to get started. This class is also one of the reasons I haven't posted much. I keep wanting to wait and post pictures and everything after I've learned enough to be able to edit them in Photoshop. However, I am taking photos at a pace that is far outstripping my future ability to edit and blog about it all since the class goes until December. Thus, I'm going to try and just post the photo's (time is still an issue for me) unedited and come back later and post a few favorites at a later date after I edit them.

At the beginning of October I travelled to Albuquerque for a long weekend with my Mom during Balloon Fiesta. I manage a hotel there and I was very happy to be able to meet the managers I work with who are on site and see the hotel, which just finished a remodel. It was also a fabulous opportunity to get two rooms at $40/night during the biggest event of the year in Albuquerque, and go see an event (Balloon Fiesta) that I have always wanted to attend. More to come on that in a separate post.

Last weekend I went camping at Cunningham Falls with four of my friends and it was great. I thought since the park was named after a waterfall that the waterfall must be great, but alas it was little more than a small stream flowing over a very large boulder. We hiked around in the park for several hours, then headed over to our camp site where we enjoyed the requisite hot dogs, hot chocolate and smores. The campgrounds had an actual bathroom building, which was nice since I am used to backpacking and no toilets.

This weekend we celebrated my friend Ellin's Birthday with a get together on Friday night. Yesterday morning I met my friend Allison at a local spa courtesy of her financial planner (as a way for him to meet new potential clients) and we enjoyed a morning of mani's and pedi's. I braved the mall in the afternoon for a little winter clothes shopping then gave my hair stylist free reign late in the afternoon. My hair is now a little blonder and I don't really have bangs anymore. Right now, I love the change, but I haven't had to style it myself yet- so I'll have to see how it goes.

And there you have it, the past couple months in a nutshell. No doubt I've forgotten some activities. Perhaps downloading my camera someday soon will jar my memory.