Christmas Time is Here...
Wow! Can you believe the Christmas season is here already? I can't! I realized that I haven't blogged since well before Halloween. Two holidays have since passed along with a good dose of LIFE in between!
After returning from my Mexico trip in early October, Bart and I reconvened here in Florida and settled in for what ended up being 6 weeks or so without travel. As much as I LOVE coming home to California, it's so nice when we don't have to deal with airports for a while. We did, however, take a little road trip down south for Bart's birthday to do some SCUBA diving! I booked us an awesome suite at a fancy little hotel right on the water in Ft. Lauderdale, and we had two days of diving planned. The first day we did 2 reef dives. Reef diving in Florida is known as being not that great however, I always enjoy it! You don't get the abundance of life that you get in reefs elsewhere, but the fish you DO see are always so interesting and unlike any other fish I've seen anywhere else. Plus, you can't beat 83 degrees at 70 feet. :) It was such a beautiful day and it was just the two of us on the boat (with a really weird and annoying Captain). We had a great time diving that day although shortly after leaving the marina, Bart started to feel sick. He was having difficulty with his peripheral vision, shortness of breath, and nausea. When he went to take a shower I noticed that he had very prominent purple and white swirls under his skin and that's when I got very nervous. We quickly realized his symptoms sounded awfully like the Bends so we got on the phone with DAN (Divers Alert Network) so we could speak to a doctor about what he was experiencing. The doctor confirmed the Bends and informed us that even when you take all necessary precautions while diving, people can develop what's known as the Skin Bends and it's usually due to dehydration. Bart was starting to feel better so the Doc told us to just wait it out, but that he should definitely not dive the next day. So we had to scrap our plans for a wreck dive the next day, but luckily Bart was ok! Instead, we enjoyed the morning sleeping in in our fancy hotel, had a nice breakfast, and some time in the jacuzzi before driving home. It wasn't what we had planned, but it turned into a nice day anyway. And seeing as how I got our turtle Sampson on my birthday, we decided that it only made sense to pick up another turtle for Bart's birthday! So that day, we welcomed Thurgood into our family. :)
The day after we got back from Ft. Lauderdale, we participated in a mud run in Daytona with 2 of our friends. I had initially gotten a group of girls to do it but they all bailed on me at the last minute except for one! So Bart stepped in, as much as he didn't want to, and we also got our friend Jimmy to join in. We had an absolute BLAST. Even Bart! I made a fun video of the day that you can see down below the pictures.
Two days later Bart's Dad, Janusz, came out for a visit and stayed with us for 2 weeks! As most of you know, Bart doesn't have much family. I've gotten to meet most of his family that's still around but I hadn't met his Dad yet. So this was exciting for me to meet the man that makes up half of Bart's DNA. :) It was definitely an interesting couple of weeks. His Dad does speak English, but he's obviously more comfortable speaking in Polish. So for 10 days it was pretty Polish up in here! Who needs Rosetta Stone when you have two real life Polacks hangin' around? He and Bart spent some quality father/son time together. They went to the beach, the shooting range, and took care of some household work that Bart had been needing help with. They refinished our kitchen stools and installed some much needed central lighting in our office! We also, of course, made sure to treat him to some of our down home cooking. :) While he was here, I also had my LASIK eye surgery! WOW. What an incredible decision that was! I went from 20/600 to 20/20 in a matter of minutes. It's been so amazing to watch my vision improve a little bit more every day as I go about the healing process. I'm so grateful I decided to finally do it! We had to drag Janusz around quite a bit that day but he was a good sport. I think overall, he had a nice time visiting and we certainly enjoyed having him!
We recently returned home from another trip to California to celebrate Thanksgiving with the family. It was an absolutely perfect week filled with family, friends, food, and fun. Bart even accomplished quite a bit of work stuff which made the trip financially worth it for him. Thanksgiving day was so wonderful. The older I get, the more I look forward to holidays every year. There are so few days that the entire family comes together to just hang out. I cherish these times with all of my heart. Even though I'm now in Florida, I know I will NEVER miss a holiday! Even if I go bankrupt from airfare, I can't imagine missing such precious family time. We even got to spend a day down south doing some skydiving with Lindsay and Nick even came along to hang out for the day! I haven't been jumping too much these days. I had to take a month off after LASIK. But even aside from that, lately I've just lacked air time. I've struggled to find people out here to jump with. And I've found that I'd rather not jump at all than spend the money to jump with people I don't know very well. Skydiving has become something that I really only enjoy when I'm doing it with the right people. At Perris, there was always an abundance of friends to jump with. At any given time I could find SOMEONE hanging around that I wanted to fly with. But that changed after a while in Perris, and I just haven't found it out here. So when I come home, it's so great to get to meet up with Lindsay and hang out together in the sky! :)
Well, that's pretty much it! Not too many crazy things going on in the life of the Kimgowski's right now. Our businesses are both pretty slow right now. It's typical of this time of year although it never stops freaking me out! So this time of year is usually when we spend our time putting effort into the businesses that will enhance our growth when the busy season comes. But we're looking forward to our trip to California in a few weeks to celebrate Christmas! Enjoy some pictures below as well as several fun videos!
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After returning from my Mexico trip in early October, Bart and I reconvened here in Florida and settled in for what ended up being 6 weeks or so without travel. As much as I LOVE coming home to California, it's so nice when we don't have to deal with airports for a while. We did, however, take a little road trip down south for Bart's birthday to do some SCUBA diving! I booked us an awesome suite at a fancy little hotel right on the water in Ft. Lauderdale, and we had two days of diving planned. The first day we did 2 reef dives. Reef diving in Florida is known as being not that great however, I always enjoy it! You don't get the abundance of life that you get in reefs elsewhere, but the fish you DO see are always so interesting and unlike any other fish I've seen anywhere else. Plus, you can't beat 83 degrees at 70 feet. :) It was such a beautiful day and it was just the two of us on the boat (with a really weird and annoying Captain). We had a great time diving that day although shortly after leaving the marina, Bart started to feel sick. He was having difficulty with his peripheral vision, shortness of breath, and nausea. When he went to take a shower I noticed that he had very prominent purple and white swirls under his skin and that's when I got very nervous. We quickly realized his symptoms sounded awfully like the Bends so we got on the phone with DAN (Divers Alert Network) so we could speak to a doctor about what he was experiencing. The doctor confirmed the Bends and informed us that even when you take all necessary precautions while diving, people can develop what's known as the Skin Bends and it's usually due to dehydration. Bart was starting to feel better so the Doc told us to just wait it out, but that he should definitely not dive the next day. So we had to scrap our plans for a wreck dive the next day, but luckily Bart was ok! Instead, we enjoyed the morning sleeping in in our fancy hotel, had a nice breakfast, and some time in the jacuzzi before driving home. It wasn't what we had planned, but it turned into a nice day anyway. And seeing as how I got our turtle Sampson on my birthday, we decided that it only made sense to pick up another turtle for Bart's birthday! So that day, we welcomed Thurgood into our family. :)
The day after we got back from Ft. Lauderdale, we participated in a mud run in Daytona with 2 of our friends. I had initially gotten a group of girls to do it but they all bailed on me at the last minute except for one! So Bart stepped in, as much as he didn't want to, and we also got our friend Jimmy to join in. We had an absolute BLAST. Even Bart! I made a fun video of the day that you can see down below the pictures.
Two days later Bart's Dad, Janusz, came out for a visit and stayed with us for 2 weeks! As most of you know, Bart doesn't have much family. I've gotten to meet most of his family that's still around but I hadn't met his Dad yet. So this was exciting for me to meet the man that makes up half of Bart's DNA. :) It was definitely an interesting couple of weeks. His Dad does speak English, but he's obviously more comfortable speaking in Polish. So for 10 days it was pretty Polish up in here! Who needs Rosetta Stone when you have two real life Polacks hangin' around? He and Bart spent some quality father/son time together. They went to the beach, the shooting range, and took care of some household work that Bart had been needing help with. They refinished our kitchen stools and installed some much needed central lighting in our office! We also, of course, made sure to treat him to some of our down home cooking. :) While he was here, I also had my LASIK eye surgery! WOW. What an incredible decision that was! I went from 20/600 to 20/20 in a matter of minutes. It's been so amazing to watch my vision improve a little bit more every day as I go about the healing process. I'm so grateful I decided to finally do it! We had to drag Janusz around quite a bit that day but he was a good sport. I think overall, he had a nice time visiting and we certainly enjoyed having him!
We recently returned home from another trip to California to celebrate Thanksgiving with the family. It was an absolutely perfect week filled with family, friends, food, and fun. Bart even accomplished quite a bit of work stuff which made the trip financially worth it for him. Thanksgiving day was so wonderful. The older I get, the more I look forward to holidays every year. There are so few days that the entire family comes together to just hang out. I cherish these times with all of my heart. Even though I'm now in Florida, I know I will NEVER miss a holiday! Even if I go bankrupt from airfare, I can't imagine missing such precious family time. We even got to spend a day down south doing some skydiving with Lindsay and Nick even came along to hang out for the day! I haven't been jumping too much these days. I had to take a month off after LASIK. But even aside from that, lately I've just lacked air time. I've struggled to find people out here to jump with. And I've found that I'd rather not jump at all than spend the money to jump with people I don't know very well. Skydiving has become something that I really only enjoy when I'm doing it with the right people. At Perris, there was always an abundance of friends to jump with. At any given time I could find SOMEONE hanging around that I wanted to fly with. But that changed after a while in Perris, and I just haven't found it out here. So when I come home, it's so great to get to meet up with Lindsay and hang out together in the sky! :)
Well, that's pretty much it! Not too many crazy things going on in the life of the Kimgowski's right now. Our businesses are both pretty slow right now. It's typical of this time of year although it never stops freaking me out! So this time of year is usually when we spend our time putting effort into the businesses that will enhance our growth when the busy season comes. But we're looking forward to our trip to California in a few weeks to celebrate Christmas! Enjoy some pictures below as well as several fun videos!
Enjoying some wine on our fancy hotel room balcony.
Our beautiful view! We had TWO balconies!
The wise one contemplating all of his accomplishments in his 34 years of life.
Funny story! Our one night in Ft. Lauderdale we went to grab a drink (or 6) at a bar across the way from our hotel. A "real housewives of Ft. Lauderdale" type lady pulled up to the curb next to the table where we were sitting, and asked us if the music inside was good. We started chatting and she was absolutely HILARIOUS! And obviously had already been drinking. She couldn't find a parking spot (well, there was one about 50 feet away but she wasn't willing to walk that far!!!) so she ended up sitting in her car and hanging out with us for about an hour.....in her car. She was a widow, obviously very rich, and we just had a blast hanging out with her. Bart even brought her a cocktail in her car! It was one of those times that we'll look back on and laugh about for a very long time. :)
While in the jacuzzi, Bart found a mini snail that he was quite fascinated by. :)
Meet Thurgood!
I had attempted to make Pierogies by myself once and it was pretty much a total failure. With Bart's Dad coming into town we decided to do it together and they came out DELICIOUS! I should've known better than to try it without the Polack. :)
Janusz doing some shooting! Pretty awesome picture Bart captured with his iPhone.
Installing some lighting.
After 6 months, we FINALLY got the home office together! It's been SO nice after running my business from the couch for the last 2 years!
Brotherly love.
Saying hi to the gator after the swim!
The Mud Runners
After LASIK I had to sleep in goggles for 2 weeks. Combine that with the
mouth guard I wear and I was a real sight!
On November 14, Bart and I celebrated 3 years together. He bought me this lovely fall bouquet to celebrate. :)
I made this for Bart :)
Some of the girls and I have been taking pole dancing classes! It's super fun and one heck of a workout! Not as risque as it sounds, I promise :)
The place we take pole class was getting all ready for Halloween!
Love this picture of Colleen and Bill and the beautiful turkey! Thanks for such a wonderful meal!
I'm hungry just looking at this...
About half the group was still around when it came time for the group shot!
Caption this...
Between Dad and Amanda, we now have some of my most favorite pictures ever of Bart and me. I had to include a few. :)
Bart found this recipe for jello shots so he gave it a try and they came out awesome!
........My experiment was slightly less successful...........
We couldn't spend a week at my parents without cooking a "Bart meal". :)
Spending quality time with the boys. It was so great to get such a big dose of them that weekend!
Scary!!!
We went shooting again this last week and I had to take about 100 pictures before
I was able to get an awesome shot like Bart got of his Dad!
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Bart bought a S&W 9mm, and this was his first time shooting it. Not bad!!!
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Dad gave me a S&W .38 Revolver that I've been having a BLAST with!!!!
I stole this one off a video screen shot. I wanted a fire picture too!!!
After shooting, Bart cleaned our guns. Which of course cannot be done without a fedora and a giant decanter of wine.
Look who finally got their own BCD!
Bart finally finished up restoring the stools this last week and they came out beautifully!
I put up some Christmas decorations this week including a
very lame, yet colorful fake Christmas tree. :)
Bart's Birthday SCUBA
(The GoPro always removes the red in deep diving videos. It's unfortunate because the colors are SO incredibly vibrant and beautiful. It really detracts from capturing the experience on video. So when you watch it, just imagine COLORS:)
Mud Run
Playing with our Kids
Throwing Bullets
Jumping in Elsinore
Last Contacts Removal
(I know, I know. Humor me :)
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