Playing catch-up!

Please forgive me for this mass-blog-update. I'm about to cram four events into one post, so it may be a bumpy ride.

Two weekends ago, Christian and I spent a day at the Delaware Water Gap. This was our second visit, and we thoroughly enjoyed becoming one with nature during our almost 9 mile hike.
Below is the pond that we spent hours walking towards. It's considered one of New Jersey's natural wonders. For some reason this pond is very acidic, and only two species of fish can survive in the water. Acidic water or not, it was still very picturesque.
Since I'm putting so many things into one blog entry please excuse my use of the collage to recap the hike and lack of commentary. (If you'd like to see the photos closer up, just click on the collage.)


On April 13th, our family got a little bigger. Christian's cousin Danielle welcomed to the world her first baby, Joseph. A healthy 8 pounds 8 ounces, and seriously has the cutest face I've ever seen on a baby boy! Way to go Danielle and Mike!!Speaking of babies. A girlfriend of mine, who's husband is good friends with my husband, is expecting her first baby in about five weeks. Her baby shower was this past weekend, and although I couldn't be there for reasons which you will learn shortly, I sent to the shower a name plate for her little man who will be named John. I really liked how this one turned out. The reason I could not attend the baby shower, Christian and I spent the weekend down in Asbury Park, NJ attending a chiropractic seminar. Asbury Park is right on the beach, and our hotel was mere feet from the boardwalk and crashing waves. I forgot to bring my camera, so the few photos I have of the place, I did not take, but if I had my camera I would have loved to attempt to capture what my eyes saw, and it would have looked something like this...Again, sorry for the jammed pack entry. I'll try to be better at posting more frequently. Hugs!

Just 5 minutes later...

I left the house less than 5 minutes later than I normally do this morning and my goodness, what a difference it made! I take the back roads to get to campus for class, and usually it only takes me about 15 minutes door to door. But this morning, Murphy's law was upon me. I was only four blocks away from my house when I came upon my first road block. A school bus.It made four stops on the way up the hill, so I patiently waited knowing that it would turn down a road in less than a mile. Once it made the left turn, I zoom down the road trying to make up for lost time. (No worries, I never go over the speed limit. It was 40 mph on this road.) At the bottom of the hill, I was stopped by a crossing guard. Once allowed to pass, what should pull out in front of me, but another school bus.So now I'm caravaning with a school bus and at least ten cars behind me, when we all get stopped by a commuter train.
Now I'm starting to get agitated because less than half a mile down the road we get stopped at the second set of rail road tracks as another train passes. So I'm close to school and I'm sure I'm in the clear by now, when I come around a bend and what do I see? A garbage truck taking up the entire lane, with three cars already behind it, as the "waste management engineers" run out grabbing trash cans, flinging them into the back of the truck, and then chucking them on the lawns from whence the came.
I let out a sigh, and just wait the less than 100 feet to the next light because I know they're going to go straight and I'm turning. The light of course is red!
I turn the corner, I can now see the buildings on campus ahead of me, I get nervous because I have to cross over my third and final set of rail road tracks and I just know I'll be stopped with an on coming train. To my surprise, I was able to make it across without a hitch. I turn onto campus, only to be stopped by, not one, but two public transportation buses that are taking up both lanes to allow students off and on. Finally the buses pull forward only to clear my line of sight to the parking deck that I am allowed to use, where I see a line of cars all waiting to pull in. (The photo below really is my parking deck) Luckily both gates were working this morning so the wait wasn't more than a minute or two. I drove up to the fifth floor, and ran across campus to my 8:30 class.

I was only 4 minutes late, but turns out that my professor had as rough a morning as I did because she was 5 minutes late and blamed it on traffic. I totally believing her! Whew!