Courtesy of Scott Dial

I love to make squished penny souvenirs in those crank handle machines. I have been doing it for years, long before I started traveling for work. They are all in my wallet too, along with some foreign coins. They are small, lighweight and each is very unique. My collect was much bigger a few years ago, before my wallet was stollen. If they were only going to take the cash and drop the wallet, why take my worthless squished pennies. Oh well, lesson learned.

So I still continue to make them, every so often pulling out a few to reminisce. What is your collection?

***This is part of a series of posts called “Travel Tuesday“, each covering topics unique to our lifestyle***

Josh posing in front of our Marina's booth

There are two other teams that we work with we consider to be family. The team that helped get us hired, Lynn and Lloyd, and the team with own our boat with, Nathan and Traci. It is rare that all six of us all together let alone with the amazing timing of an event life a Boat Show. Lynn and Lloyd are to blame for getting the rest us into sailing, our boat was owned by them first. They now live aboard a gorgeous vessel in Florida. After seeing each other at the office on Friday, plans were made too all meet up for the Detroit Boat Show on Saturday. Not that any of us really need a new boat but it is still fun to look and even more fun to do it together.

This was just too cute to not try out

Now I did mention that we are all sailing fans and unfortunately this time there was not a single sailboat at the show. Not even vendors that sold things for sailboats. It was just rows and rows of pontoon boats. Very disappointing, so after a couple of hours we all decided that lunch might be a better place to catch up. We really haven’t seen anyone for a year and so much has happened. Houses were bought and sold, relatives engaged and had babies. I can’t think of a better way to spend a weekend in Detroit then with these fine folks.

Enjoying a Delicious meal at Bistro 24

waterskiing Roo

There are actually kids inside those balls, this was about the only exciting thing going on

Filed under: Friend Visits, Sailing ]]> http://thevangelders.com/2012/02/20/all-my-rowdy-friends/feed/ 2 akrsouth 20120220-115315.jpg 20120220-115330.jpg 20120220-115324.jpg 20120220-115335.jpg 20120220-115339.jpg http://thevangelders.com/2012/02/19/coming-this-week-february-19-25/ http://thevangelders.com/2012/02/19/coming-this-week-february-19-25/#comments Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:00:22 +0000 Abigail http://thevangelders.com/?p=5138 ]]> This week we will be spending most of our time wrapping things up at the office for a month long trip back out into the road. We will be arriving in the Twin Cities on Friday to launch. This is just an outline for the trip, check the calendar page for updates. Twin Cities – Feb 24-26; Tomah, WI – Feb 26-28; Appleton, WI – Feb 28-Mar 3; Dallas/Fort Worth/Houston – March 6-11. We have a week of time to travel around then onto Washington DC for March 19-25.

Courtesy of Google Maps

Post of the Week: After telling my buddy Ree over at Rockmad about botching a flight booking, she posted this gem about a much worse incident. Lucky for me I’m only out $75, cheaper than the original flight.

For someone who likes to find new beauty products and loves samples this is perfect. They pick a variety of products that might fit your general interest and others that introduce you to new things. They even have special edition boxes you can send to others, like brides or new moms. Hmmm, I know more than a few of those this year.

One of the reasons I’m so loyal to Sephora is the massive amounts of samples that you get with purchases. Needless to say I frequent the site, spent enough last year to be upgraded to “V.I.B.” status.

While I don’t think that decal eyeliner or garnet tape will become a permanent part of my routine, it is fun to try something new. Thank you Birchbox, I’m hooked.

Courtesy of Ree Ericksen Photography

We were able to work about this little issue and continued taking it down. After a couple of days Josh had a try at it. Unfortunately something went wrong with the housing and it LEAKED!!! Yep drowning my camera. So I will be taking it in this week hoping that the insurance will cover the damage. Otherwise I get a new camera!

Josh and I bought the house about a year before we got married. We started our life together there. We housebroke two puppies there. And we had many wonderful times there.

To the nice man whom purchased the house, thank you and I know you will love it as much as we did.

On our first three dives he experienced issued that could have been bad had he not remembered his training. On our first dive the tank came lose from Josh’s BCD, when he knew something was wrong he signaled me to look and come fix it. On our second dive his regulator, that wonderful device that allows us to breath underwater, started to “free flow”. Air was pushing through the mouthpiece without Josh drawing it in. This can shorten a dive by draining the tank and there is a constant flow of bubbles in front of your face. After trying what he knew to fix it, he signaled the dive master and they were able to get it back to normal. Neither of these issues are life threatening but scary. However on our third dive something a serious did happen. The needle on his air gauge got stuck, he didn’t notice at first. The reading was matching his accent and air usage. While at a safety stop to “off gas” he knew something was wrong. The gauge hadn’t moved and his air was dragging in. Quick thinking, he signaled the dive master and hooked up on backup air to safely make his assent. After we were back on the boat, his gauge read correctly. His tank was empty .

We are enjoying our dives even after these issues and nothing else has happened. The photo above I shot with my camera using a borrowed housing. I’m thrilled at how these early attempts are coming out and know they will only get better from here.