Headed out

Posted by Evan in Vacation, What's new with me?

With Kristen and I leaving tomorrow morning for Florida I’m finding myself getting more and more excited. It’s not so much being in Florida that’s exciting as much as it is just the excitement of a long road trip though I have to admit that I’m really looking forward to spending some time on the beach.

We don’t have a lot planned in the way of events, but we do plan on spending some time in the pool, on the beach and hopefully on the driving range. Kristen is really excited and I think most of her excitement is centered on being in the pool. I was very excited to find out that there’s a weight room in the condo where we’re staying so I’ll be able to keep up my workout routine while we’re there, which is something that I was worried about.

The place we’re staying at is a country club I believe and it sits right on a golf course. I doubt that I’ll play a round considering I don’t even have my own clubs, but I’d like to get to the driving range and Kristen is interested as well.

Aside from relaxing I’m hoping to take in some good restaurants too. I don’t think you can have a great vacation without having some great food. It’s just not as fun to eat in your room all of the time, I’d much rather be out trying different restaurants.

I’ll be taking my camera and I’m sure that I’ll get a lot of pictures and I’m sure that you’ll see some here. Hopefully they’ll all turn out okay.

Getting ready for Florida

Posted by Evan in Vacation, What's new with me?

With only one week left until Kristen and I hit the road for Florida, we’re getting very excited and can almost taste the ocean air. Though we’re there for a wedding, we’re really hoping to turn it into a vacation as well. With visits to the beach and hopefully other fun activities planned, we’re looking forward to this very much. We’ll be leaving on Tuesday the 12th of July early in the day and returning Wednesday the 20th.

I’m planning on taking my digital camera and I’ll have lots of photos posted here as soon as we return.

Back from Arizona

Posted by Evan in Vacation

Well, we got back from our trip without a hitch and it was a great time. We spent most of our time taking trips to a nearby, larger town that contained just about everything we wanted to do. We went to the movies 2 or 3 times, took a trip to the mall, went to Best Buy a couple of times and ate lots of good food.

One of the things I bought with my Christmas money was a Nintendo Game Cube. They had a sale at Best Buy where you got the Game Cube and 4 of the Zelda games with it for $99. So, we bought that and a few other games as well. We’re having a lot of fun with that! I also utilized a deal that Blockbuster video had, which was buy two used movies (or games) and get one free. So, I ended up with about 6 new DVDs as well.

Here are the movies we saw (along with my rating):

• Bad Santa (1/10)
• Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (9/10)
• Minority Report (8/10)
• Elf (5/10)

We had a small delay coming back because our co-pilot got sick, but we still ended up getting back in time. After finally getting back to our house at around 4:00a.m. we were beat. We’re still trying to recover.

I’m back at work now and trying to get back in the swing o things.

Leaving for Arizona

Posted by Evan in Vacation

Well, this has to be some kind of record for me… I’ve written 3 days in a row. Let’s hope I keep this up.

Well, we had our gift exchange with Kristen’s parents last night and it was a blast. I got some wonderful gifts (including a printer/copier/scanner) and I’ve been excited about them all day today. I couldn’t believe that they bought be that nice of a printer, it was almost perfect. However, it didn’t do the borderless printing that I needed so I took it and exchanged it for the one that did do the prints I needed. I got it setup last night and I’ve been in designer heaven ever since. It makes production quality prints and it scans at the highest quality I’ve ever seen.

So today is my last day of work before our trip and I have to say that I’m very excited. Warm weather, all-day-movie-days and other fun items are on our vaction-to-do list. There will be lots of great food and plenty of fun to be had as we spend Christmas with my dad, step-mom, half-brother, my dad’s 3 brothers and my grandmother. It’s going to be a vacation to remember.

Well, I think that’s actually it for now. I’ll try and post an update from Arizona.

Back from Kentucky

Posted by Evan in Vacation

Beautiful Lake Cumberland in Kentucky

Well, we got back from our trip to Kentucky and everything went well. We mostly sat around the hotel room and watched TV and played Risk, which we bought while we were there. It was a great time.

I didn’t really meet any family at the family reunion that we went to. There were so many people there that most people just stuck with the groups of people that they came with and didn’t try to inter-mingle with the other families that were there. It wasn’t bad though, Kristen, my uncle and I took a walk through the park and down to Lake Cumberland, which is a very nice lake and looked around. It was very humid, but it was still fun. We got back yesterday afternoon and spent the rest of the day relaxing at home in preparation for today.

Well, I’m officially done with my Pizza Hut job as of last Thursday and I have to say that I’m looking forward to having a little extra time during the week. I plan on devoting most of my time to Bible Study (which starts this next Monday) and getting some work done on some personal web projects. It will be really nice.

Last Friday was my 23rd birthday and it really wasn’t that eventful. Kristen and I went out to dinner with my mom and step-dad, but that was about it. We were mostly preparing for our trip to Kentucky.

Well, I think that’s it for now. I’ll write back later.

Back from Arizona

Posted by Evan in Vacation

Well, Kristen and I just returned from our trip to Arizona with my Grandmother and brother. It was wonderful…

It was wonderful to spend time with my brother Mitchell again. I don’t get to see him much and it was really nice to be able to spend an entire week with him. We spent most of the week outside in the 90-degree weather. Their pool was only about 67 degrees at it’s warmest point, but we enjoyed it all the same.

Recently I mentioned that I was applying to an art school and that I hadn’t been accepted. Well, I found out the day before we left for our trip that I HAVE been accepted!!! So, you probably want to know what the school is right? Well, it’s the The Art Institute of Phoenix in northern Phoenix Arizona. Kristen and I visited the school last Monday and it was wonderful. The Art Institute of Phoenix (AIPX) is part of the prestigious Art Institutes which is a collection of schools with campuses across the US and parts of Canada. It’s a private school, so it’s a little more pricey than a university, but I’ve talked with a couple of students that attended AIPX and they have had nothing but great things to say about their experiences there. I can’t wait… I start in October of 2004.

We’ll be moving to Arizona (not sure on the area yet) about this time next year. So, it’s a while off, but it’s coming.

Kristen and I are trying to get back in the swing of our normal routines and it’s a little tough right now after being without a schedule for the last week.

Oh yeah, I just thought, my brother Mitchell is planning on moving out to Arizona the beginning of next month! He’ll like it so much out there. Indiana has some beautiful country, but it doesn’t even compare to Arizona (at least the parts I’ve seen). I think I’m just more of a desert kinda guy than I am a trees and grass kinda guy.

We had an interesting experience yesterday when we went out for mother’s day dinner with my Mom and some other family last night. We made a trip to Dayton, Ohio with plans to go to the Olive Garden, but upon arrival discovered that it’s gone out of business since the last time we visited. We made our way back towards another part of town and ended up going to Lone Star Steak House.

We were expecting the place to be pretty busy with the holiday and all, but we were pretty upset when we found out that the wait was going to be 45 or so minutes… One hour of windy weather later (we were sitting outside because the inside was full of others already waiting) our small pager-like device finally went off. We could now enter the restaurant.

We walk in and finally get to our table where our overly-excited waiter starts taking drink orders. He was nice, but he seemed a little too excited to get me my grenadine cherry Coke (they didn’t have normal Cherry Coke…). So, he comes back out, we order and we wait… and wait… and wait. Finally over an hour goes by and our food still isn’t out to us. We asked several times VERY nicely where our food was and after coming out to tell us twice that our food would be out in 6 or 7 minutes, the manager comes out a third time and tells us that Lone Star is going to pay for all of our meals. This was pretty cool considering the overly-expensive price tag on my small bowl of chicken pasta. I was happy.

A few minutes after they tell us that they are paying for our meal, our food comes out. It looks great! However upon tasting several us that didn’t get steak found that our meals were somewhat lackluster… My meal was tasteless and I assume the other people that ordered pasta had a somewhat similar experience.

Joe’s Crab Shack was right next door to Lone Star and I would have been MUCH happier to have gone there.

Oh well. It was free.