Jamaica Medical Missions Trip 2009

This October, my mom and I went to Jamaica on a medical missions trip.  We were there with a group from Ohio and served in 4 different local clinics and provided free medical care to local Jamaican’s.  Mom and I were there for a week total (including travel time) and it was her first trip.

View from our hotel.  AMAZING!

Mom and I at the hotel ready for another amazing day.

The “rich man, poor man” card playing group. 

Rocking out the shoe bags full of meds.  The always portable pharmacy!

Mom doing triage at the clinic.  Isn’t she cute!

Outside the clinic built by ACE.  It’s the nicest clinic we are in all week.

Nikki and I in the traveling pharmacy.

Traveling on the bus to the clinics.

This is the dental clinic where several team members work to clean teeth, pull teeth, and hand out toothbrushes.

Quite possibly, the best part of our entire trip.  Have you ever seen a happier person?

Los Angeles-October 2009

This past weekend (October 2009) I went to LA for a conference.  I got to catch up with my hip LA friends, Kim and Greg. 

We visited the tar pits in central L.A.  The fossils date back to the Ice Age and include a saber-toothed tiger (ooohhhh…scary).  They were very interesting and we had a great time!

There was some interesting art at the tar pits.  Kim and I couldn’t figure everything out, but we had fun touring around. 

Kim and I went on a bike trip towards Santa Monica.  Naturally, I biked behind Kim the entire time.  She’s such a machine!

  We even stopped at Muscle Beach so I could work out.  We didn’t have time for me to do my full work-0ut so I just watched others.

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Of course, we traveled down some famous streets.  I tried to snap some photos while Kim drove me in the Jeep, but I couldn’t catch them all.  I had SO MUCH FUN!  Thanks to Kim and Greg for hosting!

Halloween 2009

This was my first year (that I remember) carving pumpkins.  Matt, mom, and I went over to our friends house (Elayne and Alex) to get some expert carving advice.  They had all the right tools and the expertise to teach us the right way.

We started with some patterns…naturally I picked the vampire.  Mom picked the surprised face.  :)

 

Next came the carving and final product.

Here’s my final product.  Fantastic, huh!

 

Mom’s final product.  VERY SCARY!

 

Side by side…How cute. :)

The cute little carvers. 

Little Louie Ladybug

Recently my sister Rachel and her love kitten (Joe) got a new puppy.  She’s a cute little Vizsla and during a recent trip home, I managed to put her in a Halloween outfit.  She LOVED the outfit, as you can see by the photos below. 

Poker Genius?

A couple weeks ago, Matt entered a charity poker tournament for Juvenile Diabetes Research.  There were almost 100 entries in the tournament and after a VERY long night, he ended up with 1st place! 

Here is the trophy that Matt won at the tournament.  In addition to the trophy, he won a gift certificate to a local Brazilian steakhouse and one of our local fancy hotels.  DATE NIGHT! 

Here is a comparison of Matt’s happy face and Matt’s poker-face. 

Megan Visit-Sunday

Megan Bauman, my long-time friend, FINALLY visited from Kansas.  We had a fun, jammed packed weekend together.  On Saturday we went to Butler and participated in homecoming.  I somehow managed to spend the entire day and take no pictures.  On Sunday we participated in the Walk From Obesity.  It was a fund-raiser to promote healthy eating and exercise. 

  They had a good turn out and the weather was perfect for walking.  We walked almost 2 and 1/2 miles before calling it a day.

We also went to the Children’s Museum to look at the King Tut Exhibit.  We were not allowed to take any photos of the exhibit, but it was very interesting and I learned a ton.  We did manage to take some photos of the other museum treats.

Megan almost got attacked by this giant T-Rex coming out of the wall. Luckily, she’s quick on her feet.

This was a huge glass-blown sculpture at the Children’s Museum.  It gets cleaned annually and looks like a lot of extra work.

  Who is the prettiest of them all?

Megan Visit-Monday

Monday Megan, Matt, and I went to visit the Exotic Feline Rescue Center (EFRC) near Brazil, Indiana.  This facility houses big cats that were abused or obtained illegally.  They have over 200 big cats, mostly tigers and lions.  We got to walk around and see nearly 1/2 of the cats on a private 2 hour tour.  It was AMAZING. 

Our tour guide was super nice and knowledgeable.  One big No-No is touching the cats.  You did not have to tell us twice, there is no way we were putting our hands in the cages.

We started out by feeding some of the cats.  This little guy was not interested in sharing his raw steak.  All the food for this facility is donated.  The sheriff’s call when road kill is found and a man working for the group goes to bring it back.  Other people in the area donate dead horses, cows, or deer when they come across them.  Each day they feed 3,000 lbs of meat.  Mmmm…yummy.

Same cat…just different views…one scary, one calm and in control.

This leopard gets fed by having a chunk of food thrown on the roof of the cage.  He jumps up and pulls it through the cage.  They knew food was coming when we arrived and were hissing and growling, after breakfast, they were different cats…content to nap.

 

The lions mostly slept all day.  This one was sleeping like my big girl Allie sleeps on the deck.  Most of the tigers were awake throughout our tour, but the lions were sleeping.

More sleeping…with her tongue sticking out…how precious.  You almost want to cuddle, don’t you.

The tigers were wide awake and ready to talk.  We got sprayed a couple times with cat butt juice.  It was stinky and un-cool.

This is the illusive white tiger.  Completely blind, but able to move around in her cage.  It takes the right combination of recessive genes to have a white tiger.  There is an illegal breeder in the US that is still trying to create one…many of his mis-haps are at the EFRC. 

We got all the way to the end of our tour and Matt realized we had not taken a group picture.  We sat in front of the lion cage, can you find them in the back?

Expert in the Kitchen?

I’ve been trying to use new recipes and check out some food blogs.  Now that I’m proficient on my Google reader, I can stay up to date on my favorite food blogs.  This recipe I got from Annie’s Eats.  I’ve tried a couple of her recipes before and have liked them very much.  This is a Zucchini boat with sausage and lots of vegetables. 

 

The side dish is baked garlic rice, from the same website.  Matt loved it, but I thought it had a little too much garlic.  I think next time I’ll incorporate some chicken and make it as a main course.  The bread is from the Schwan’s man…delicious frozen French loaf. :)

Desperate to Hunt?

While sitting on the couch to do a little light reading, Matt and I heard some growling in the backyard.  Now our dogs are not strangers to barking, but this was not the typical barking.  Matt ran outside to check on the situation.  I ran to the front door to see if something was tormenting our lovely, angelic, dogs.  Next thing I know Matt is running back inside screaming that he needs a gun.  Now I know that our dogs are not always well behaved, but I was slightly concerned that Matt had just had enough.

Panic stricken, I dash outside behind Matt.  He’s in the middle of a dog on groundhog fight and the neighbor behind us is screaming.  We manage to pull the dog fighting ring apart long enough for Matt to shoot the groundhog in the head.  After the fatal blow, Jenny is still not convinced and pounces on the corpse just to make sure.  Allie is traumatized by the shot, but left to her devices, she would have killed it with her blind-dog fighting skills.

This beauty weighs in at 16 lbs. Average size is 4-9 lbs.   The only conclusion I can come to is that Matt needs to go back to KS and hunt.  He’s getting desperate here in town.