It's an Exciting World

Steph and I got some time together the day before thanksgiving as I was flying out of SFO and she was flight in.  We were scheduled to have it so that she landed at the exact same time as I was taking off, but my flight got delayed by almost two hours.  This let us spend a good 30 minutes together and we got to chat a bit at the airport.  I made it to my parents early Thanksgiving morning and we had a full family dinner, minus Steph.  She spent thanksgiving with her parents.

Thanksgiving was exciting, and I got to chat with my mom a lot, and spend a lot of time with my sister.  It wasn’t under the best circumstance, but it was still good to spend time with them.  I also got to see her new place, which is very nice.  I can see them have a great life there.

Friday I went over to Jeff’s house and helped him move some boxes around and break down a few more boxes.  I also really like their new house.  Both of their houses are much bigger than ours, with much bigger yards.  They are prepping for family raising so it makes a lot of sense for them to have the bigger houses.

I went to the W that evening to meet up with Steph.  She got in and we just relaxed that evening.  We walked over to Poor Calvin’s, one of the places we were going to cater from for the event on Sunday.  The food was really good, and the place was cute.

Saturday we didn’t do very much.  I walked around Georgia Tech campus and saw all the things that had changed.  I was hoping a few of the brothers would be at the house watching the game, but when I went by it was quiet.  I also was hoping that I could go have lunch at the student center, but everything there was also closed for the holiday weekend.  I ended up just having lunch in Tech Square and heading back to the room.

Steph and I joined our parents for dinner at the country club, and it was a nice affair.  Not many people were there because of the holiday weekend and the football games.  The dinner went by without drama, which is nice.

Sunday came around and I went to pick up a zip car, Steph and I then drove out to Sweetwater Creek state park.  We checked in and the car didn’t start after that.  We were able to catch a Lyft to and back from the grocery store in time for the first people to start arriving.  Uncle Russel helped us to set up the tables and chairs.

My parent showed up with the platters of deviled eggs, and Jeff showed up with the BBQ.  It was all very tasty food.  The family then showed up in the van, and I was able to have a good conversation with most of them.  Brian and Brittany came, as did Nick.  The other fraternity brothers weren’t able to make it, but I still enjoyed being able to chat with the three of them.  The Lee’s came by around 2, and I was able to introduce them to the family.

Everything slowed down around 5pm and we packed up and headed out.  The whole event was nice and chill, just the way Steph and I wanted.

That evening we just relaxed at the hotel.  We went across the street for dinner, and got to sleep early.

All in all it was a good Thanksgiving.

We took a Saturday in SF to watch Jurassic Park with the SF Symphony doing the music.  It was mostly amazing, just the random kid behind us that talked most of the time got really annoying.

I took a day trip to St. Louis for Michael’s bachelor party.  My flight to Chicago took off at 11pm and I got to St. Louis around 9am.  I had breakfast at the airport and had a nice long phone conversation with Jeff.  I went to the neighborhood where the party was going to start and walked around a bit in a park.  Then I called Steph before it was time to show up.

I got to the party right on time, and brought some steak, apples, and peanut butter.  The steak was really tasty and the apples and peanut butter got completely eaten.  I talked to Michael’s family, including some cousins, his brother, and his father.  They were all great to talk to, especially his brother, Marty.  After a bit we headed to the Airbnb where people were going to crash that night.  One of his friends, Ricardo, offered to drive me to the airport at the end of the night, and I accepted.  We went out bar hopping and hit four or so bars.  We met up with Ala and the bachelorette crew at the last one and did a bit of dancing.  To end the night we went for some midnight tacos.  Ricardo dropped me off at the airport between 1am and 2am, and I took a nap outside security until they opened around 5am.  I got on the flight at 6am and made it back to SF a little before 9am.  I was drunk when I got on the plane, and that quickly changed to a hangover by the time I’d landed.  I decided to have a nice big breakfast at the airport in SFO and then got a Lyft back home.

Steph and I joined a group from Diver Dan’s on a Bali and Komodo diving live-aboard.  We never actually dove around Bali, with most of the diving being done around Komodo National Park.  We had a pretty good flight, with the longer legs being in economy plus.  It was really nice to have enough room to lean over and sleep.  We also got to hang out in the lounges given Steph’s status, which made the layover in Taipei pretty nice.

We got to Bali in the mid-afternoon and went to a resort for the evening.  We just hung out around the resort and tried to get over our jet lag.  The next day we got on the boat and started the long leg of the boat ride out to Moyo Island.  It took about 16 hours to get to the first dive site, which was about 2/3 the way to Komodo.  We dove there and everyone checked out as far as the dive crew were concerned.

The crew on the Mermaid II was amazing, and the diver coordinator, Liane, was great.  We had so much food and it was all delicious.  They were also great about providing vegetarian food for Steph.  Doing 4 dives a day was a lot of energy expenditure, so we didn’t end up putting on weight, despite the amount of food we were eating.

I backed out of a second dive in Manta Alley to go kayaking, and saw some dolphins, which swam underneath the kayak.  I had a good time, but the water washed the sunscreen from my feat and I got a decently bad sunburn.

We also went on Komodo Island and saw the dragons.  They are big, but mostly move around really slowly.  I’m sure they could move fast if they really wanted to, but none did around us, thankfully.

One dive on the way back was on an active volcano, with bubbles coming out of the sand, and rocks giving off heat.  It was pretty amazing to see that much activity.

We got back to Bali and got a hotel in a more typical tourist area.  We took a day trip to jump off some waterfalls, and it was lovely.  The drive there and back was long, but worth it, as we got to see much of the country and some more of the wildlife on the journey.

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We also did a Balinese cooking class that was very interesting.  There was a huge similarity to Thai food, but with a bit more Indian and Chinese influence.  The best part was probably the peanut sauce, which is simpler to make than I had thought.

We ended up getting multiple events to ourselves that normally would have been with larger groups.  This included the cooking class, the canyoning, and the sunset tea service.

Steph and I had a big party in Huddart Part to celebrate us calling each other husband and wife.  We didn’t file paperwork, but we are now calling each other by those titles.  It was a great time.  Lots of people helped out by bringing things to the park that we had dropped off with them over the previous few days.  The food was from Rangoon Ruby and amazing.  The drinks were all from places within walking distance of our house.  One cider was even made with the Rosemary from our front yard.  We had a lovely time and it was great to see all those people.

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We had a good time doing some Karaoke at George’s place on Friday.  A good number of people showed up.

Steph and I sung a few songs together, and had a great time.

We played two rounds of Gloomhaven last night.  Tina couldn’t make it so I played her character, and it was interesting.  I was playing support and tank both times, and generally succeeded in doing both.  We had a few close calls, but both Adam and George were able to put lots of curses in the monster deck.  Those curses came up just in time to save us from massive amounts of damage.  We progressed the story a good bit, and I think we are getting close to the ending.

We also delivered some cucumbers and jalapeños to Adam.  One of which we left on the vine too long: