"TinkerKel" turns 29

That's right folks, yesterday was my 29th birthday! It didn't start out so great and there was much drama...is that a sign of what's to come in my thirties?! On Friday night Courtney and I went to get some things for my party on Saturday. While we were out Brent called and said the power was out. This was at about 6:00 Friday evening. It had been raining all day due to what is now called Tropical Depression 16 and should become Tropical Storm Noel today. (Tropical Storm Noel is official and will should drop an additional 3-5 inches on us today...Lord let it stop!) It rained nonstop Friday, Friday night, Saturday, Saturday night, and today...you get the picture...it's WET here! Anyway ~ We grabbed dinner and came home expecting to have power. Called the power company many times and each time were today, "Oh sure you'll have power tonight." That's electrical company code for, "Screw you, you're not that important!" After attempting to sleep Friday night in the heat and with all the loud noises that come with living on this island we awoke yesterday morning to, you guessed it, no power! Okay, no problem, it will be on soon. Called the power company again and got the same answer to which I said, "Oh, that means we won't get power today, right?!" We decided to call Tom, another American teacher, to see if he had power which he did. We took all of our things to be charged up over there: cell phones, computers, PSPs, etc. Came home to see about the power, surely it would be on...nope! Back to Tom's to take showers because our Karaoke DJ would be in town around 6:30 to set up and Courtney needed to go be his assistant. Went back to the house to get ready after showering to yet again, no power. Enough of this, we load up all of our costume things and some drinks and head back to Tom's with the Dills to get ready...might as well make the best out of this! Katie and I had fun playing with mustaches that she bought in hopes that Brent would shave his and wear one to be her "gangsta" man to her flapper. Joel (DJ) arrived and he and Courtney head to the bar only to find it locked up and noone there. In the meantime we get a call saying people around town have heard the party is cancelled due to the weather. WHAT?!?! Why would they cancel a party and not tell the people throwing it?!?! I was taking my wig off to go hurt Jorge when Courtney called back and said Jorge was just running late and everything was good. Okay so I had to get ready again. We decided we all needed to eat before partying so Brent went to grab food while Katie and I grabbed a few things from home where we discovered we finally had power!! It was only off for 26 hours this time. So we got food and headed to the bar where there were already party goers, most dressed in costumes. We had an absolute blast! Today will just be recovering and watching football. I should probably clean house too because Hoshi will be here on Thursday for a visit. Enjoy the pics and have a spooktacular Halloween!

Mustaches and wigs are FUN!







Courtney before and after! I can't believe he let Katie put on makeup and he let me paint his nails!!





Friends at the party











The Casa Benny 5 Crew







Sidenote: Honestly people, I did not realize how much skin I was showing until I saw the pictures. I apologize for any feelings of nausea while looking at the pictures!!

Guamaní Private School

Well my husband, parents, and sister must really love me. This year for my birthday I wanted a new digital camera because ours is pretty old. (It's old in technology age!) Last weekend before our 5K my hubby presented me with a new BEAUTIFUL high tech digital camera. I have been taking pictures of everything with it! Plus - this weekend Katie and I went shopping and got some new outfits and looked so cute this morning so we decided it was time to get a staff picture at GPS. We finally got all the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade teachers together and then Kate got Courtney's crew of 4th, 5th, and 6th grade teachers together for a pic. The first picture of the primary elementary group we're all mixed together but for the 2nd picture you can see we're all showing what grade level we're at. Yes, Courtney and Brent are the only men in the Elementary level. Our P.E. and Computer teachers are men too but they weren't around for pictures. Nothing else too exciting to report. We had a pretty lazy weekend but this weekend won't be. My 29th Birthday is Saturday so we're having a Birthday/Halloween party at JR Pub (Jorge's Bar). It should be tons of fun if you want to come celebrate with us!! I will definitely have pictures of that...we went all out this Halloween! Oh - I almost forgot - how 'bout them COWBOYS?!?!

5K Results Update

We checked out our results today and we are so excited!! There were 3,397 people who finished the 5K and out of those I got 816th place and Katie got 818th place!! Not too shabby for beginning runners. I also checked out men vs. women and there were 2,088 women who participated. Of that number I got 198th place and Katie got 199th place! I can't believe it!! Top 200 out of 2,000! If you want to check it out for yourself go to www.allsportcentral.com, on the right hand side you'll see "recent results", click on "Race for the Cure 5K San Juan, PR". Click on 1000 where it says "Top". We are on page 17. You can click on our individual names to see all of the places. Yahoo!

Our 5K! (Click on the bottom right corner to advance the pictures!)

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

Hey...Are those people naked?

What an interesting Columbus Day Weekend! We took it easy on Saturday because I've been sick for the last week (real nice when I'm supposed to run on Sunday!) and Courtney had to help Papi (Mendez) with his car. Saturday was pretty uneventful - we went groccery shopping and watched a movie. On Sunday we got up ready to go to Albuergue Olimpico which is the Olympic training center with a wave pool and everything. That would have been great...if it were open to the public! Then we were going to go to El Tuque which is another water park - fun...if it were open still. After 2 strike outs we decided to just watch football and stay home. But Monday was a different story. We were bound and determined to go to another little island. We drove to a town where they usually have boats to take you around. There were no boats since it was Monday but we found a phone number to call for one. The man wanted way too much money and we wouldn't have gotten off of the boat. I was pretty excited about it because we could have snorkeled around a sunken ship and we would have gone to Monkey Island...yes people, an island completely inhabited with monkeys! We decided not to do that and instead drove to Fajardo to catch a boat to Palominito. If you'll recall from a post last March it's the island we went to with Sharon and Wilbur. It's the same on from the cover of the travel book. We found a cheap boat ride out there and hopped on! As we were making our way out there I said to my husband, "I dare you to run around naked on the island!" I knew we would be the only people out there...besides the Dills and Papi. As we pull up to the island Courtney says, "Hey...are those people naked?" Just then I look and see a woman handing her bikini top to her boyfriend as she gets in the water. Then it happened! I looked at the boat next to us and saw a man's "stuff" a little too close the the flaming hot BBQ grill!! We saw 5, count 'em, 5 naked people - 3 women and 2 men! What were we to do? We set up our chairs and the sun shelter away from them as to not be caught looking...how could we not look?!?! Papi took pictures of the nakedness!! Katie and I tried to not look and just talked and swam and what not...the men on the other hand were looking and looking and looking!! Who knew we would go to our first nude beach! When we got back on our boat they told us that happens alot when noone else is out there. Wow! And of course as the saying goes, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em which is exactly what we did! Who wants to come visit now?

Just kidding! Picture time: 1) Miller and Winston on Saturday...how bored was I? 2) A teensy tinsy lizard we found. 3) The Marshes and the Dills before heading to Palominito. 4) Papi and Courtney on the boat. 5) The Marshes on the boat. 6) The two 5K bound K's! 7) Papi being cool on the boat. 8) Courtney with Palomino in the background....you can go there if you're rich enough to stay at El Conquistador. 9) Where we set up camp with the lovely (not naked) island in the background. 10) Just keep swimming...and drinking... 11) Fixing Katie's sand boobs...yep folks, we buried her! 12) Buried alive!!