Summer 2010 - Week 3

This was the Kids On Stage week. Emily had been looking forward to this since last summer. I spent the week driving between home and Leiper's Fork. It's a beautiful drive, but by Friday, I was done. She spent the week in Song Writing and the Elite Vocal Jazz Ensemble. She loved camp and really enjoyed the Jazz Ensemble, even though she wasn't sure about it initially. I can't get that song to upload, but here's the song that she and the girls in her song writing group wrote called "Wake Up". It's very catchy.

First 2 weeks of summer

The first two weeks of summer, we had nothing planned. It was nice. I started organizing the house, we visited the pool, worked out at the "Y" and I planted a small garden on a very hot day. I had to remove the sod, build the box (it was a kit), break up the dirt, put more soil in the box and plant. I planted 2 tomato plants, 1 cucumber, rosemary, basil and a jalapeno plant.

This picture is about 2 weeks after the initial planting...

The last day of school!

The picture on the left is from the first day of school for both. It's the first day of middle school for Michael. The picture on the right is from the last day of school and the last day of middle school for Emily. Time flies...

6th grade Awards ceremony

Today was the 6th grade awards ceremony at the middle school. Michael got an award for all "As" for the year. His best bud from church got one, too. As you can see, he dressed up for the occassion!

The Fermatas

Emily at Rocketown

Emily along with 12 others performed at RCKTWN on Sunday night. It was students of Emily's voice teacher and Kid's on Stage. The band was awesome and it was one of the last show's at RCKTWN before being torn down. :( They will be moving to a new location that is not in the way of the new Nashville Convention Center.

Page Middle Band concert

The middle school band had their Spring Concert on April 15th. They played 4 songs. This is one of them...

Day 4 - Costa Rica Spa Day

Day 4 was our day to relax. It started with a walk on the beach, then we went to the pool and planted ourselves. Then we had appointments at the spa. I got a 75 minute facial - fabulous! Kevin was going to get a facial, but he changed it to a pedicure (his first) and I think he kind of liked it. After that, we went back to the pool and stayed there the rest of the day plotting how to get the kids shipped down to us...

Day 3 - Costa Rica: The Zip Line

Day 3 started out much like Day 2. The birds and monkeys started making noise about 4:00 am. This time, I woke up early. After Kevin got up, I took some picture from our floor and then we went for a stroll on the beach.

I thought these were monkey footprints, but now I'm thinking they belong to a raccoon, since we saw one on the beach the first night.

The cacti were scattered on the hills.

We really didn't see many shells on the beach. it was mostly rocks and coral. I was going to bring some coral home, but then read later that it was illegal to remove anything from the beach. I really didn't want to end up in a prison in Costa Rica!

After our walk, we came back to the room and had breakfast delivered. Can I just say that their version of skim milk is...interesting. It did not taste right. If it came from the skinny cows that we saw on the way to the resort, I can understand why!

This was our day for the zip line. The day that Kevin has been dreading for two months now - ever since he picked the activities that we would participate in for the trip. For those of you who know him well, he is terrified of heights! He started plotting ways to either avoid or survive the adventure. Some of those included "maybe it will rain that day" or "maybe I'll ask for some medication from the doctor to help me through it". Neither of those happened.

We headed up to the lobby to meet up with the group. When we got there, we were asked to sign a waiver releasing the resort from any injuries that we might incur on the trip. Nice! Then we loaded up the buses and drove about 20 minutes to Witch's Rock Canopy Tour. As soon as we got there, we were sent to the office to sign another waiver, saying we wouldn't sue them if something happened to us. Kevin was feeling pretty confident at this point!

After signing our life away for the 2nd time, we were sent to get our gear on. It was extremely attractive and quite comfortable.

They geared up everyone, which took a little while and then said "is everyone ready to rock and roll?" Uh, are they going to give us any instruction?! We hiked up a hill and when we got to the top we got about 3 minutes of instruction - you brake with your right hand, hold on to the straps with the left, and don't put your hand in front of the thing on the wire. We felt confident and ready - ha! They snapped a shot of the entire group and we began. Check out the expression on Kevin's face. It's classic!

At about the 3rd zip, they took the individual pictures.

Kevin took this picture at the beginning of the longest and highest zip and then again about half way through.

There were a total of 11 zip lines, 2 suspension bridges(very difficult for Kevin), 4 ladders to climb and a lot of hiking! It was definitely a workout! You'll have to ask Kevin about getting stuck at the first zip and then taking out one of the workers towards the end. He did it, though! As you can see from the picture, he was very relieved when it was all over! I loved it! I am already researching places to zip line around here. I'm thinking it's going to be a girl's outing.

We went back to the Four Seasons and were very happy to lounge by the pool the rest of the afternoon. With the helmet and equipment and hiking, we got pretty hot - not to mention the fact that is was 90 something degrees.

There was a market on the beach where I bought some more "authentic" handmade items for the kids.

That evening was the Awards dinner. It was held at the golf course clubhouse. It was dark, but what we could see was beautiful. After dinner, they introduced each person and told of their accomplishments for the year. They also announced the next trip planned for 2012. Needless to say, I will be encouraging Kevin to qualify for that trip. It will be at the Four Seasons Resort in Nevis, West Indies. Can you blame me?!

Day 2 - Costa Rica

Day 2 began kind of early. The birds and other creatures start making noise about 4:00 am. I didn't hear them, but Kevin said it woke him up. We got up and walked around the resort a little. Then we went to breakfast and sat outside at the restaurant. We had a bird friend join us. It was their blue jay or magpie. It was pretty big and really pretty.

After breakfast we went to the pool. I went to the pool boy to ask for some towels, but they wouldn't give them to me. They asked where we wanted to sit and then proceeded to set up our chairs with towels neatly tucked in and then used another towel and rolled it up to make a pillow. They put a table in between our seats and brought us cups of ice cold water. Every so often they would come by and see if we needed anything. During our stay, here were our poolside amenities: ice water every time we emptied our cups, Popsicles, cold wash clothes, someone would come by and offer to clean your sunglasses, someone would come by and offer to spritz you with Evian, samples of a frozen cappuccino and a strawberry/banana smoothie plus we ordered lunch there a couple of times. Oh, and popcorn shrimp came with popcorn and shrimp. Really. We also had our first celebrity citing that morning at the pool. It was James Hetfield from Metallica strolling by on his way to breakfast.

After we were at the pool for a while, Kevin's group decided to play a little beach volleyball. I was very excited to play. Unfortunately, I was on the only girl. We won the first game, but lost the next 2. They did have 1 more player than us and they had all men. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Sorry to let you down guys!

Down on the beach, there we 2 guys selling pottery. I went over to look at it. I was talking to 1 of the men and he was telling me how he made the pottery and fired it for 40 hours. He showed me his name on the bottom and then showed me another piece with another name on it and told me that his friend made it. Kevin and I picked out a couple of pieces and bought them. Fast forward to Sunday. While in the gift shop at the zip line place we saw a shelf of pottery that looked exactly like the pieces that we bought. Wow, those guys have been busy! :) I didn't bother to look at the price. I didn't want to see how much I had been ripped off. Fast forward to Monday. We went to the other beach and there was another guy selling the same pottery. I asked him "did you make that?" and he said with a big smile on his face "Yes!". I said "no you didn't". I showed him - ha! I did end up buying some bracelets that "he made". Right!

After purchasing our pottery that was hand made by the man on the beach, we headed back to the pool. There was a planned boat outing, which we weren't going to go on, but changed our mind when we found out that the catamaran had 2 levels, so we could get out of the sun. Plus they were serving lunch and going to watch the sunset on the water. While waiting to leave, the moneys appeared on the beach again. I went down to get a picture, but they were moving too fast. Then a guy on the beach got my attention and was yelling "parakeet!" I was looking, but didn't see a parakeet. I did see 2 monkeys above me. He keep saying "parakeet" and then said that the monkeys had a parakeet and were eating it. Nice! I took a picture, but it's hard to see the parakeet in it's hand.

The boat was on the Pacific side of the beach. While waiting for the boat to come to shore we had our 2nd Metallica front man sighting. I tried to discreetly take a picture of him. Tacky, I know. Back to the boat...they were trying to get the boat as close to the beach as they could by riding the waves in so we could get on. In the process of doing that, the dinghy tied to the side of the catamaran was shoved into the side of the boat and flipped over. I think at least 1 person bailed when they saw that. 2 of the men from the boat jumped into the water to try to flip it back over and bail out the water. All of this took place while there were still waves crashing in. Fortunately, no one was hurt. We boarded the boat and there were couches and chairs set up all over the place like a lounge. There was also a bar and buffet.

We sailed to a cove where most of the people got off and went snorkeling. About 5 minutes later, most of the people got back on the boat. Apparently, there were jellyfish in the water stinging them. We lounged around there, ate and chatted with people. After about an hour we cruised around until the sun set. While we were cruising, a pelican decided to hitch a ride with us. Then he/she decided that the buffet looked pretty good, so he jumped up on the table, stepped in the salsa and left. Needless to say, they removed the salsa.

The sunset was beautiful. We did not see a green flash, though. We were so glad that we went!

We came back to the room and it was clean. Whoever cleaned the room did not like how I had arranged all my products on the sink, so it was rearranged. They also did not like where our shoes were, so we had to search for them. Apparently, shoes belong in the closet. We took a little snoozer, because it was such an exhausting day - ha! After that we went to dinner - celeb sighting #3. Kevin and I went to the outdoor restaurant and got a romantic little corner table overlooking the beach where someone had paid to have dinner on the beach with their honey. We had the Brazilian buffet where they bring around a bunch of different types of meat to your table. I tried most, but not all! The breeze was blowing and the stars were out. It was a lovely evening.


When we got to the room there was a note from the manager apologizing again for the ceiling fan incident (he had already called twice to see if everything was ok). His note said "Dear Mr and Mrs. Gabhart, We hope you have a wonderful stay with us. We sincerely apologies (that's how he spelled it) for the inconvenience you had regarding the ceiling fan. please do not hesitate to contact us if you need anything else. Warm regards, Gustavo Monks". He had delivered a bucket of beer along with chips, salsa, guacamole, and trail mix. Unfortunately, we were so stuffed from dinner that we didn't eat any of it. Plus, we don't like beer. It was a really nice gesture, though. We were supposed to go back out and meet up with some of Kevin's coworkers, but were just too tired. Again, it was an exhausting day - ha!