cleaning
With 5 more weeks till the boy comes home, and after seeing how neat and tidy Don + Colleen's newly decorated apartment is, I am motivated to *attempt* to clean the apt. *clears throat*

First I started out with my magazine pile. Good gosh golly i never did realize how many magazine subscriptions i have... i need to list it out so i can get a grasp of the reality!

Marie Claire
Glamour
Lucky
Redbook
Eurotuner
FHM x2 (1 from Elaine + Mike)
Stuff x2 (1 from Elaine + Mike)
Men's Journal
Fitness
Budget Living (i get duplicates for some reason)
Forbes
Cosmo Girl (why in the world are they sending me this?!)
+ misc like european car, simple, and cosmo that i buy in passing

That brings the grand total of 14 magazines per month. And since apr is the last time i cleaned, i now have at least 14x6mos = 84 magazines sitting around on the coffee table, dining table, bathroom, nightstand... etc.

Any good idea how i should get rid of them, in case Colleen doesn't need all of these to bring to the Y that she works at?

I'm about to have a panic attack.

blah blah
So i earned bragging rights for the week on PhotoFriday.com, as my photo of the arch was voted "noteworthy" by fellow participants. Yay!!!!

the Trip

• I flew into ATL on thursday night. The airport was packed with evacuaees from FL.
• At Hertz, they ran out of compact cars (which is what i reserved), so i got upgraded to a midsize with Nav for free. Whoo hoo!
• Drove 2 hours east to Augusta. The cellphone kept ringing on the way. it was ryan, and he kept saying, "I can't wait, I'm so excited!!" x 100. ;)
• On friday morning he brought me to the chow hall for breakfast. i said, "mmmm! they have crispy bacon!". he said, "well, they have crispy everything..." :p
• We then began our journey to Savannah.
• The boy did very well with the hotel reservation. We were in Hampton in on Bay St., which is the prime spot of the historical downtown, and just a street a way from River St.
• We didn't have an agenda. All we wanted to do is relax and hang out together.
• And we ate and ate and ate. We either had seafood, or southern food.
• My fingers were all scratched up from eating crab legs.
• I told ryan, "1 pound is just enough for appetizer, 2 will make it a meal, but i need sides to fill me up, "3 pounds is almost perfect".
• We went out to Tybee Island. I saw the crashing waves and crazy wind - thanks to hurricane Frances.
• When i got back into the hotel and clean up, i noticed there were specks of sand all over my face. Yeah, my face has been exfoliated and sandblasted while i was out at the beach.
• We also explored Ft. Pulaski on our way back.
• The next day we went on a mini boat cruise up and down the river. We got tired of walking.
• Then we hung out on River St. again, beer in hand, listening to two guys belting out tunes. It was a lot of fun.
• We never got rained on, and it never got really warm. It was such a perfect vacation.
• We left on monday to go back to Ft. Gordon. Had lunch at Cracker Barrel (it's our road trip tradition), then went on base to meet up with his last-name-only buddies.
• Got home and the post visit blues begin.
• 44 more days and my honey will gradaute and be out of there!!!

*ps. I do have photos but got corrupted. Luckily the boy have backup copies on his laptop. I'll have to wait till he mail those to me before i put anything up.

club med
Our 4-day trip to Club Med Cherating Beach was simply awesome! I am actually looking forward to going back there. It was so relaxing, you didn't have to worry about driving or looking for food or what to do. Here are some photos:

Interesting little side car and message at a rest area on our drive to the village. Makes me feel proud to be a Malaysian!

Have you seen a Ford truck enterprisingly turned into a hawker stall at a rest area? The entrepreneurial spirit is rich in Malaysia ...

Some photos of the village.

Every morning, this funny G.O. (Gentle Organizer) will come around to haunt everyone with his costume. I only managed to capture these two though.

In the afternoons after lunch, we'd head out to the beach with a book and just lay there enjoying the sun and ocean. And sometimes we'd fall asleep right there as well! Very cozy siestas, I have to say.

We tried quite a few of the activities they have there: archery, rock climbing, flying trapeze. My favorite is the flying trapeze! I went up there 5 times, the last 3 were attempts at the "knee hang catch". (If you want to know what the knee hang catch is, look at the last trapeze photo.) Yes, I finally succeeded the catch after 3 tries! (Mike succeeded on his first attempt) :P They even gave us certificates of achievement for completing the catch!

Some fun and random competitions they have throughout the day -- we took part in a few, but only have photos of this swimtube competition in the afternoon. Sad to say, both of us were eliminated in the first round and didn't make it to the finals. :P Those who won actually got medals.

Dancing ... a lot of dancing in the village. This one is an afternoon sun dance right after the pool competition, just before lunch.