Parasailing!!

Justin and I took a rather last-minute trip to Orange Beach this weekend and had a blast, but one of the highlights was parasailing! I'm VERY afraid of heights, so the thought of being way up in the sky connected to a boat way down below was pretty scary, but I figured it was a good thing to do to help conquer that fear! 


The rope between the boat and the parasail was 800 feet long and didn't appear much stronger than the rope we use wakeboarding or tubing... the one that snapped several weeks ago while Justin was pulling someone on a tube. There was a group of 5 women on the boat with us, and three of them went up first. I was glad to get to see how it worked, but watching how high they were made it even more scary! Naturally, Justin and I were too cheap to pay $35 to get pictures taken during the ride, but these women were nice enough to take some and email them to me so we'd have evidence! Here are some of the pictures. 


This is one of my favorites. Even with the rope in front of my face you can see that I'm screaming, and I'm gripping the straps so tightly that I'm sure my knuckles are turning white. This is as the boat is first pulling us into the air. 

Here's a little further out - Justin looks relaxed, and I'm still holding on for dear life. My hands and forearms were actually tired by the end of the 9 minute ride. 

It was actually a TON of fun and not very scary at all. I didn't realize the harness had a back strap so you could lean back and relax. That would have helped a lot! I was holding myself up like on a swing the whole time! We had a great view of Orange Beach (and probably Gulf Shores and Pensacola, too) from the sky. We also saw a shark swimming around underneath us! Part of the fun is to get "dipped" where the boat slows down until you float down to the water, then pulls you back up. We were a little nervous about being dipped after seeing the shark! He pulled us waist deep into the water, I guess because he knew we'd enjoy it. He only dipped the other women's toes, but I think our way was more fun! It was a great experience that I'll definitely do again!

I'll post more Orange Beach pictures soon!

Today's craft project - a table skirt!

We shopped and shopped for a "perfect" table to put under our TV to hold the DVR and PS3, but never found one that seemed right. When I got a new end table, I decided to use our old end table as a DVR holder. But the mess of cords under the table looked awful!

Rather start the table-shopping again, I decided to hide the cords with a skirt! I made it for $11 (would have been $9 if I had remembered that I already had off-white thread), so it was a lot cheaper than a new table! :)

It still isn't "perfect" and could definitely look better, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! Now it's Justin's job to figure out how to make the cords look better from the TV down to the table!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Getting all crafty...

It's been a while since I've unleashed my inner Martha Stewart, but I got crafty today and made a "curtain" in my bathroom. Our vanity has a space between the sets of drawers, presumably for a stool or maybe because it was cheaper that way? For me, it has been a space to store stuff, which doesn't look very pretty!




To hide it, I made a little curtain to put in the space and I think it turned out well! The pleat is centered on the curtain, but the whole thing is off-center, but I am ignoring that for now. It is held in place by Velcro, so I figure if it falls it will be a good time to make it symmetric, but for now the industrial strength Velcro is good and stuck, so I don't want to mess with it!



I'm hoping to finish a similar project where I am skirting a table tomorrow. If I do, I will post pictures!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Annie Oakley Sprint Triathlon

I haven't updated this blog in ages and blamed it on not doing anything interesting enough to post about, so here goes! This morning I did the Annie Oakley Sprint Triathlon at Herb Parsons Lake. There were several reasons that I wanted to do this race.

1. The logo is cute (this is a good enough reason to choose a race, right?)



2. The awards are JEWELRY! It was an all women's race, which didn't mean that much to me, but it turned out to be pretty cool to only race against women. But the jewelry awards gave me something to work for!

3. It's SHORT!!! It was a 400 yard swim, 11 mile road bike and 2 mile trail run. I generally want to get the most of my money and effort by doing longer races, but I've only done one triathlon this summer and wasn't entirely happy with my performance, so I thought it would be fun to do something shorter where I could push the pace (in theory) and get in an open water swim and brick as training for whatever is next.

The Results:
Swim - this was my best swim of all the triathlons I've done so far. I don't know or care how the time compares (hopefully pretty good, since it was only 400 yards!), but I felt comfortable and confident for the first time. I haven't seen the results, but I'm pretty sure I passed more people than passed me, so that's good! It was a time trial start where a swimmer started every 3 seconds, so we weren't all on top of each other like a wave start. I hardly got kicked or even touched anyone else, but even when I did brush against someone I kept going forward and swam my own race. Normally it takes forever (more than 400 yds!) for me to find a rhythm and feel comfortable, but today I did from the start. A friend at the men's tri last night said that he did a pre-race warm up swim and it helped, so I did the same. I'm going to have to make that a habit because I think it really prepared me for the dive in and the murky water, which started the race out on the right foot!

Bike - The bike was an 11 mile loop that I heard was really hard and hilly, and it didn't disappoint! The first 5 or 6 miles were relatively flat and easy, so I thought that people were exaggerating about how hard the course was. However, by around the halfway point the hills picked up and it was pretty tough. I was proud of myself for pushing the downhills and trying my best on the uphills, and ended up averaging around 18 mph and passing a lot of people. It was fun!

Run - I was disappointed in my run. First, I should do bricks in training. I NEVER run off the bike. So it makes sense that I wouldn't be that good at it. But I'm supposed to be a runner, right?! I've been running really poorly lately and today kept of the trend. I stopped and walked at least twice, plus at two water stops (remember, this was a 2 MILE RUN!) I think I've just forgotten how to hurt. When it's hard, I stop and walk instead of pushing though. It's pretty frustrating!

Overall, I had a great time and am really glad I did the race. I got to hang out with a new friend, Lisa, and her family. I placed 3rd in my age group, which I was really happy about for the jewelry award! It turned out to be a pennant with the swim/bike/run logo. And it was a gorgeous morning for a race!