African Adventures

As many of you know, I just returned from volunteering in Africa for 3 weeks. I created a blog to share my experiences there. For those of you who would like to check it out, go to: http://tanzanianadventures.tumblr.com/ It's pretty long, so feel free to just check out the pictures and skip past the words if you wish :)

Gator Hunting

**Warning to my friends who may be offended by killing animals (sorry Brenna, don't judge me! Blame it on Doug) this does involve hunting. Very sorry. **

For those of you who know Doug at all...it has been his recent *obsession* over the past 3-4 years to go alligator hunting. He went a couple of years ago with a friend for the first time, but they were not successful. Since that time, hunting an alligator is all he can think about! The only other things he is more obsessed with is rattlesnake hunting and someday going on a bear hunt. He didn't like to hunt when I first met him. What happened?? Anyways, last week he was able to put a check on his bucket list.

We went hunting in Sea Drift/Port Lavaca TX. Gator hunting season is only 20 days long here. At first I was only along for the ride, but was eventually convinced to join in on the fun. We set out rotten chicken on lines (redneck note: our hunting guide did stop and pick up some road kill on the road and used this as bate. This is when I came to find that it was much more redneck than I realized). We had a lot of bad luck, because unfortunately the gators were smart & didn't want the chicken (they did end up eating the raccoon the next day when we had left). We eventually found some gators. I was the first to find a gator, but it was too big (7 ft and we paid for a 4-6 ft gator). Then I found one that was too small. Third time's the charm for me because I found one that was exactly 6 ft the third time. We then spent the rest of the day finding Doug a gator that was big enough to fulfill his dream (he wanted a 8-9 ft gator).

I never thought in a million years that I would ever hunt an alligator...it doesn't seem like something I would do...but I did it!

While we were searching through a swamp, it started to down pour. It hadn't rained in TX in FOREVER, and of course it rains! This made it difficult to go check some of the other lines on land because it was so muddy. After we had been out for 11 hours, we got the truck stuck in the mud. We tried to dig it out a few times and it only slid closer to the creek and about rolled in. We were stranded for a couple hours waiting for someone to come find us! A million mosquito bites later...we were rescued and continued on.

This picture doesn't do it justice...it was really muddy and we really were close to rolling into the creek!

Twenty minutes before we sundown (the legal time to stop gator hunting) Doug found him a 9 ft alligator. We were able to keep 10 lbs of meat and sent the skin and heads to get mounted and tanned.

I can't say our experience was exactly like "Swamp People" because our guides had all of their teeth and weren't as ghetto, but it was pretty darn close! The hunting guides did live up to our swamp people expectations by yelling “choot em, choot em!” when it was time to “shoot him.” I can definitely say it was a once in a lifetime experience although Doug is still talking about going again.

On another adventurous note...I am going to Arusha, Tanzania (Africa) October 5th for 3 weeks. I don't know my exact placement yet, but I will be working with some other medical people there. It is something I have always wanted to do, so I am really excited to go! I will post again with details of how my trip went.

Yearly Happenings.

It's been over a year since my last post; I guess its time to dust off the old blog and put it to some use. It seems a few things have changed over the past year....

September 2010 we moved from Fort Rucker, AL to San Antonio, TX. Flight school didn't go as planned (can you believe you have to have depth perception to fly?!) so we moved to Fort Sam Houston so Doug could work on getting a Masters degree in Social Work to become a Licensed Clinical Therapist. It has kept him super busy, but he enjoys it. He will graduate with his academics in December, and then we will move again for a two year internship (hopefully in Hawaii or Washington state).

Texas offered us this housewarming gift..there were actually five of them. Three in our light, one behind the couch, and this Mama was outside. Notice the babies on its back?

In January we were able to make it to UT for a short trip over Christmas. This was while we were waiting for my brother to come home from his mission in Ribeirao, Brazil.

Doug celebrated the big 30 in February. He found enough time to blow out his candles before getting back to his homework.

We have been lucky enough to have some family and friends come visit us here in TX. We love having visitors! Some of the local attractions we have discovered are the River walk, the Alamo, Sea World, Natural Bridge Caverns, the zoo, and the yearly rodeo. Lots of fun so far! We are hoping to float the Guadalupe river one of these days, but it's been a little bit dry here in TX . We need some rain!!

Natural Bridge Caverns

San Antonio Zoo

The Alamo

And last but not least, on May 6th I finally graduated! I can't believe its already over. For many, it couldn't have happened fast enough. I agree, but I also feel like I still have more to learn before I jump into practice! Right now I am studying to take my board exam, and then if I pass I will officially be a Family Nurse Practitioner. The big question is what I am going to do next. Since we will be moving again in December, it would be hard to get a job for such a short time. I am considering a medical mission for 4-6 weeks so that I could use and improve my medical skills and knowledge while fulfilling a lifelong dream of mine.

Well I think that just about sums it up for now. We now have an iMac instead of a PC, so blogging doesn't seem to be so painful. Hopefully I will update before June 2012. :) I hope to hear that all of our family and friends are happy and doing well!!

Cruise

We recently returned from a Western Caribbean cruise to Belize, Isla Roatan Honduras, and
Cozumel Mexico. As you will see from the pictures, we had a great time and it was very beautiful!


















We went Snorkeling in Belize. Afterward they took us to a private island where we could drink unlimited Rum Punch (or.....water for us!) There were about 10-15 senior citizens on our boat ride back that were VERY intoxicated. Very good entertainment.















As a matter of fact, I think that a few of these drunken individuals are in the background of this picture.














Isla Roatan, Honduras. Awesome coral reefs!















We wanted to snorkel out to this ship wreck, but we had to reserve this snorkeling adventure before hand. Maybe next time!




























Doug's main goal of our vacation was to take back a number of shells. We rode a lift over the water and Doug found a conch shell that he HAD to have. Security let him take one shell. This shell caused us more problems than we anticipated. First of all, we had to keep it in our room for the rest of the week with the conch still inside. It produced the most foul smell that my nose has every encountered. THEN we had to make it through customs with this stinky shell. You could smell it through his suitcase! Miraculously, the dogs only knew how to smell drugs and not rotting sea creature so we made it through customs. The worst part was driving home with it in our trunk. The smell was so bad that we could smell it while driving, with the shell wrapped in 5 bags in the trunk. All for a stinkin' shell!! He really likes it, so I guess it was worth it :)




























There were hundreds of iguanas laying around in Mexico. This one was really big, but the picture doesn't give it justice. We're still trying to figure out our camera.














Mayan Ruins of Tulum, Mexico














This was the biggest temple in Tulum. It was where sacrifices were made. It was amazing how much work was put into this temple, especially back when they didn't have the resources that we have today.

































































We finished our day in Mexico with some Fish Tacos and Chicken Cheese Quesedilla's and fresh coconut milk. It was all really tasty!!

We're still here!

It's been about 5 months since the last blog post, so it’s about time for another one don't ya think?
Life has been pretty good the last few months. We had a great Christmas in Utah! I stayed the whole month of December for some friends Weddings and Doug joined for Christmas. Our trip back home to Alabama was quite the adventure. We flew out of Vegas, because we had been staying in St. George with Doug's Mom. Long story short, our plane had maintenance problems and we had to stay in Vegas for the night. We were given hotel and taxi vouchers...this is where it got kind of ugly. We were lugging around 4 large bags and 3 carry ons (I stayed for a month, plus Christmas gifts) and so we wanted to get our stuff into the hotel so we could explore the city of sin. Turns out, we gave our hotel voucher to the taxi driver and had 2 taxi vouchers. We spent the rest of the day trying to track down a taxicab driver in Vegas, who had our voucher and didn't understand English. Meanwhile we had all of our bags and no where to stay. (This was New Years day, no hotels were available unless you had a VOUCHER from the airport) It made our trip a little rough, but an hour before our flight we ended up finding our Hotel voucher and didn't have to pay for it. Thanks to Doug calling about 100 times. I am getting used to the fact that something crazy will ALWAYS happen when traveling. Makes things much more fun that way!

Alabama has been treating us pretty well. There was even a little snow storm a few weeks ago! It was nothing compared to snow in UT, but for AL it was a big deal. Word on the street is that it was the biggest snow storm here in 12 years. Pretty much everything shut down for the day because of the snow. They just don't know what to do but put sand everywhere and hope that the snow will melt quickly. It was a lot of fun! My friend Challis and I even took a little run in the snow, just to celebrate.
To put it nicely, the military decided Aviation was not the pathway for Doug. He is now re-branching to the Medical Service and has applied for a Behavioral Medicine program to get his Masters. He'll find out in March if he is accepted, and then we will be moving again if he does. I am still going to school, and won't be done until May of next year. So, things could get pretty interesting here in the next couple months. We're used to the waiting game, we'll just have to see and have faith that everything will turn out how it is supposed to.
Well that about sums it up! Here are some pictures of our recent adventures..they'll explain what we've been up to better than words. They're in no particular order...

Our highlight of Vegas: We HAD to go to the Carnival World Buffet in the Rio. After waiting in line almost 2 hours, we were HUNGRY! We got to the front of the line, and they only had tables for large parties (6 or 7) and not for 2. After seeing about 15-20 people surpass us, we decided to buddy up with the small groups behind us in line. We ate dinner with 5 complete strangers, and we had the time of our lives! The couple on the left got married the night before with Elvis, and the man with the mustache is with his son (right) and son’s wife (left of him). They were hilarious; it was such a great time!


Christmas Eve dinner at Grandma/Grandpa Carlsens