summer travel rewards

we've been working hard on 2 houses and finally have a vacation lined up to reward us for all our efforts. we head to OBX with family in june and Puerto Rico, just us, in august. we even managed to use flight credits on both trips for 1 of the tickets. i've been the ultimate bargain shopper and its paid off. i invite you to check out my newest discovery: www.farecast.com. oh my gosh, it worked for me and its awesome. i had just missed a cheap fare on PR and that irked me to no end. i came across this site which watched the fare for me and advised 'wait, wait, buy!' every day until the magic day came and the cheap fare reappeared. i grabbed it and thanked the website profusely. and did i mention its free? like it should be. give a look. meanwhile, anybody been to PR and have advice about lodging? we like the sounds of the rainforest for a few days, and the beach for even fewer. oh and aubrey must hit a casino to try to find texas hold'em. but only very briefly...i hope.

beauty comes to green county

aubrey is putting the finishing touches on his remodel in green county this month and its just gorgeous. i cant bear to think of someone renting it, so i'm hoping to convice him to sell it. either that or we have a psuedo lake house now...or we can at least spend weekends there this summer, drive the 10 miles to the lake, rent a boat for the afternoon and claim we have a lake house.

meeting socrates

my nephew nick turned 10 today and he, his sister, his dad (my brother chris) and I went to see the Atlanta soccer team play for his birthday. he and madison are both rocking in the oglethorpe county league and very into soccer. so we sat on the front row of the half field line at silverbacks stadium in gwinnett, built recently for the team. seeing minor league play is so great b/c everyone is so approachable. the kids got autographs, pictures, and immediately developed not 1, but 3 favorite players! OJ (pictured below), Rodrigo Rios, and Tony McManus.
the atlanta silverbacks are in the USL not the MLS which is why i called it minor leagues. and indeed there was a little less profes-sionalism on the field than when i used to attend DC United of the MLS or world cup matches in general. we saw 2 fights, lots of fake injuries, 16 yellow cards, 1 red card, followed by a police escort off the field. i just hope the kids dont think thats what the game is all about. oh, and a penalty kick deflected by a header came right at us and the tall guy next to me stood up and caught it, at the last possible second. the kids loved that (i was a little nervous)! meanwhile, socrates, oh yeah i'm getting to that. their mascot, a silverback gorilla is named socrates. and they got his autograph too. now tell me, why is a gorilla named socrates?

all dressed up

another school year is done and we've graduated 30 more leaders. aubrey and i got all dressed up for the occasion and celebrated with them over a nice dinner. we never dress up so that's why you get a picture of it. of course, the pic is me with some of my students. i'll round one up of aubrey shortly...okay, here we go.