Day 10 Letter 6 from Cabos San Lucas

Hola... and stuff...

So, it's been a long 10 days and we are ready to come home now....

Today we went jet skiing and then lounged on the beach for about 6 hours. We had 8 strawberry daiquiris between us, a large plate of nachos, and some KILLER JUMBO coconut shrimp - which will be my biggest reason for returning soon. We got the jetskis and $80 to spend at the Baja Cantina for doing the tour yesterday.... VERY WORTH IT. Then we came back to the hotel and watched "Hitch" - (they love Will Smith here - he's been on every channel every day). Then we walked around the marina and bought a bunch of little plastic animals and small packs of gum from the adorable kids walking around pedaling them. We figured it would be a great way to get rid of our change.... they were adorable anyway. :)

Now we are emailing you. :) Karen, thank you for writing back to us and telling us about your days while we've been gone! Mom, Dad... thanks for typing a word or two so we know you are still alive - see you tomorrow night at the airport. We will call you when we are in LA. :)

Anyway, for the pictures: They are mostly just random stuff: Jason. Me. The annoying vendors that plague you on the beach. Some of the cute kids that we bought stuff from. The view from the 2nd room we stayed in. A boat being pulled out of the marina. Jason jet skiing - no Cabo Wabo. The cute way the maid made our bed one day. And, the swimsuit that I fell in love with - it was only $196 - not pesos. Other than that, we will see you soon!

A & J




Here is Jason doing some awesome tricks in the Sea of Cortez right inbetween two GINORMOUS cruise ships. :) Isn't he amazing!



The last day in Cabo, we took one last walk on the marina, most of the people had gone now that the Brisbee tournaments were over and so most of the vendors and street peddlers were gone as well. What remained were a few straglers, We had to bribe them to pose for us, and even then after spending our last few coins on them, they ducked. LOL


Right before our last night out on the town. This is in the Hotel Room.


Oh yeah... She is that ~HOT~!!


Jason on the beach, under an umbrella and on a chaise lounge... nice tan lines!


The Vendors that walked up and down the beach all day in the hot sun with piles and piles of merchandise to move. Its the best way to shop, they come to you LOL


Jason on the beach, under an umbrella and on a shaise lounge, sipping Strawberry Daquries and eating coconut shrimp the size of your fist with an amazing cocunut mango pinapple sauce.


Our Hotel at night looking over the Marina


I couldn't pry Jason away from this scene. He was like, "wow check that out!" They were just taking it out of the water.


Aimee's really expensive Bikini that she wanted until she found out how much it was. $196 USD.


Here is the view from our second room.


Here is the cute way the maid made our bed one day.


Here is a view from the beach, in the distance you can see the peninsula and on it Lover's Beach and the Arch. Truly amazing!



On our way home! The airport in Cabo (Actually San Juan), only has 6 gates - so everyone loads and gets off the planes on the tarmac. I know I am a geek, but I was really excited about this!

Day 9 Letter 5 From Cabos San Lucas

Hi!!!

First, don't forget to pick us up from the airport on
Tuesday night.... k?

We haven't updated you, mom and dad, 'cause you
weren't responding! Gosh! Whatever. :) Karen already
knows this stuff, but here's catchin' yous guys up:

So, nothing's really happened. We have been just
vegging. The other night at about 1:30 AM Jason woke up
shaking uncontrollably and nauseous. He had to get in the
shower and turn on the hot water cause he was so cold and
couldn't stop shaking - he was violently shaking. I
think he was in there for about an hour before he felt
better. Then he threw up a lot and went back to bed. It was
pretty scary for me, but someone today said it sounded like
a bout of sun stroke. Not fun. The next day we just spent
entirely in the hotel room because he had a massive headache
the entire day.

Our older couple friends left yesterday morning, not that
we got to see them much. We bought them drinks and desert
the other night at their resort to pay them back for helping
us out. They still got away with buying us dinner - they
wouldn't let us pay them back. Errgh!

Yesterday, we did go parasailing! That was a blast.... but
also the only thing we did the whole day. We even had
dinner brought to us! You can check out the pictures of the
parasailing. It was fun... but I will be honest.... I
delayed going for a few days 'cause I was TOTALLY
scared! We had a couple of friends tell us that they made
you land on the beach - when we saw that they pulled you
back down onto the boat (and that it was totally painless!)
we were super cool with going. :) AWESOME!!!

Today, we decided to go for a tour through the Cabo Villas
Resort - just so we could get a few free activities. It was
about 2 hours. It was great because we got these to
grandma's who are retired here with their husbands and
just do the tours for fun. They were more concerned with us
coming back with a "baby bump" than selling us
anything. They wanted you all to know that they had your
interests at heart. "Your baby already has two Aunties
in Cabo waiting!" They were cool. One was from Canada
and the other from Scotland. They mentioned that McDaniel
was a very nice Italian name. :) We also went snorkeling
today at Lover's Beach - total disaster, but I don't
think I am capable of leaving a beach without a scar from
coral. A "Cabo Wabo" to go with my "Maui
Owie" - only this one is way worse.... took a chunk out
of the bottom side of my foot.... oh yeah, same foot. And
the antiseptico burns LIKE HELL FIRE!!!!!! But, we did see
one or two fish.... Hurumphhh....

Tomorrow we are to go out on a few Jet Ski's (free for
going through the tour). I am ok with that because there
won't be any coral around..... They are actually
pretty crazy - you can go anywhere with them! And as fast
as you want. :) :O Jason is counting on his own Cabo Wabo! :)

Alright. Time to hit the sack! Love you all! Miss us!

A & J - just like PB & J!!

P.S. The lizard in the picture is not the puny Hawaiian
lizard! He was 6 ft long!!! (ok, ok.... like 10 inches...
but still!) Just enjoy the animal life here - we do!!


The gigantic lizard. :)


Livin' the dream... on the beach.


The arch from the parasailing boat.


Strapped up and ready to go!


Us in the air! Up so high!


Me and the cruise ship.


A view on our way to the pool.

Day 5 Letter 4 from Cabos San Lucas

Ok, So today was pretty basic. Aimee was up late again as
usual reading the Twilight books. She is on the third book
and will finish it Tonight no doubt. I will be watching TV
and playing Saduko. Since we don't drink and party we
are fish out of water at night. The Marina is quite alive at
night though. Maybe one of these nights we will venture out
just to see everything in chaos LOL. Anyways, we went to
Maricado Beach. (I think its called that) It was nice. Aimee
bought a sweet cowboy hat, that looks good on us both! I
feel kinda weird when I wear it though, there is something
perverse about wearing a cowboy hat lol. Just kidding.
Tomorrow we are planning on going Parasailing! That will be
a blast. It looks like it will only cost us $80-$90 bucks.
Should be pretty scary. We also FINALLY found hot fudge! We
have been looking for it since we got here. Dairy Queen was
out of ice cream. Johnny Rockets was out of hot fudge.
Finally it came down to McDonald's. We shared a hot fudge sundae. It was good.
We will talk to you later. We hope everything at home is
going really well. We love you all.

Jason & Aimee McDaniel

Day 4 Letter 3 from Cabos San Lucas

Hi guys,

Sorry we didn't write last night.... we were too tired.
Yesterday we went to Lover's Beach. It's a
beautiful beach. You have to take a boat to get there, but
they take you around the point of the Baja - we got to see
the famous arch. It is so beautiful! We also saw sea lions
and TONS of pelicans. We were dropped off at Lover's
beach and had 4 hours before our boat was to return. The
beach faces the Sea of Cortez on the east, and you can take
a very short walk to the west side - to the Pacific ocean.
The water's waves are MUCH stronger there. They
affectionately call that side Divorce Beach.... It looked
more like Widow's Beach to me... it was pretty crazy!
For the four hours, we just laid around in the shade. We
also went swimming (on the safe side), though Jason had to
swim out and save a couple from being thrown into the rocks.
It was pretty scary, but at least they were able to get
back on their cruise ship later.

After we got back, we showered and got dressed. Then we
went to dinner at Hooters and had the yummiest buffalo
wings! Then we walked back to our room. It was a quiet
evening.

This morning we had breakfast delivered to our room, but in
my opinion it was a waste of money... it didn't taste
very good. Oh well, I will just stick to the box of Trix
that we bought. At 11, we had our massages and facials at
the spa in the resort. IT WAS AMAZING! Totally worth it!
It was a good 3 hours of pampering. Super nice! Then we
had lunch on the marina. Jason was exhausted and took a nap
while I read by the pool. I am halfway through the 3rd
book.... thanks mom.... Those are seriously addicting
books....

After that we went to Dairy Queen for dessert. They were
out of ice cream so we ended up at our 3rd choice, Johnny
Rockets. (Our second choice was closed... :( ) We are
now back at the hotel and pretty pooped... it's tough
laying around!

Well, we just though we'd check in and say
"hi"! Congratulations to Eric for getting a job!
We have been keeping our fingers crossed! Mom... Dad... we
haven't heard from you and we are starting to suspect
that we might be seeing you soon...... BEFORE we get
home.....

Love you all! Take care!

Aimee & Jason


Me. The supermodel. Lol.


Jason. Just adorable!


Divorce Beach (I'm not kidding.) Check out those waves crashing! The Pacific Ocean side is brutal. NO SWIMMING ALLOWED.


On our way to see the arch!


A peek through to the Pacific side.


Look close... it's a pile of sea lions!


The famous arch. It was SO beautiful. Love it!


Us. Taken courtesy of me. :)

Day 2 Letter 2 From Cabos San Lucas

Hi guys! This is Aimee.... :) I figure if I avoid using my
email I can assume its broken so I don't have to see
anything that has to do with work. :)

Thanks for writing back! We were going to call, but this is
cheaper. Plus, we can send you pictures! Check them out.
It is beautiful down here. The people are pretty nice, too
- once you get past all the vultures at the airport.
"Only 90 minutes of your time for $300 dollars"
Yeah, right. I was glad we had Tom and Tina to get us out
of there! They are great people and we will probably hang
with them in the next night or two. Don't worry,
they're not our "replacement older couple",
dad. :) But they were a big help. They are also RCI
members and are staying a couple of blocks from us on the
beach. We haven't seen their place yet, but ours is
absolutely beautiful. Yes, mom, we took pictures of the room
the second we walked in. They are attached. :)

We haven't done much today but get some sun. We are
using serious sunblock and are actually getting tan - not
burned. It's been nice to lay around the pool. I
started the Twilight book half way through the second
flight. I finished it about 2 hours ago and I am so mad!! I
didn't bring the second one!!! It is so good!! Jason
found them on the internet for me and downloaded them so I
keep reading. :) 10 finger discount.

The harbor is beautiful, but we haven't been to the
beach yet. Too lazy to walk there. :) It is a pretty busy
place with the festivals going on. It's fun, though.
The resort is pretty quiet - even during the day when
everyone is surrounding the pool. It's a different
breed of people, though. All they do is drink and smoke....
I don't even think they really eat.

We are planning on going to Lover's Beach tomorrow or
Wednesday. It's where the arch is. We also are planning
on going ATV'ing to a beach at "Land's
End" where the movie Troy was filmed. We hear it's
pretty spectacular to watch the sunset on the Pacific side
of the Baja.

My Spanish sucks. So, its a good thing most everyone speaks
some English. I forgot my Spanish dictionary (even though
there are 3 at home), duh.

Oh well, Jason is going through the Sudoku book at an
alarming rate, so I better end it here. We will write again
tomorrow. :)

We love you, guys. Be safe and enjoy the warm weather.
Don't worry about getting a tan, we'll do that for
you. :)

Love you!! Aimee and Jason


P.S. About the pictures: All of them, except the two with
the darker sky, were taken from or in our room. The other
two show our hotel, the Marina Fiesta Resort, from the other
side of the harbor. The pic of Jason is on our balcony,
eating our first dinner here. PB & J. :) I cooked!



Me and my dorky fetish to take pictures of myself!


Jason enjoying his first meal in Cabo - a PB&J!!!


This is our room. Cute, huh?


The view from our room. (Left side - like a panorama)


The view from our room. (Right side)


View from the roof.


The harbor at dusk.

Day 1, Letter 1 from Cabos San Lucas

Hey!! Buenos Dias! We are safe in Los Cabos Mexico. Its been
a nice day. We met an older couple from Denver who have a
condo here and are with RCI as well. Their names are Tom and
Tina. They rented a car and offered, within the first 3
minutes of talking to them on the plane, to drive us to our
hotel! That saved us $60-70 bucks. We also may have plans to
go fishing and four wheeling with them. They have also
helped us get settled by letting us go to the grocery store
with them! They are fun. They have been coming here on and
off for 25 years! They also said we picked the perfect week
to come here. It's the big Brisbee tournament! Check
this link out!

http://mexicoloans.blogspot.com/2007/10/lets-go-fishing-los-cabos-bisbee.html

http://www.allaboutcabo.com/marlin-tournament-fishing.html

Anyways, they said it would be like a big fiesta on the
Marina for this whole next week as people real in big
Marlins and they get weighed! We saw one today, it was
huge!! Anyways, another cool thing that we found out was
that they filmed the movie Troy here! They said that we can
rent ATV's and go see it, they even said that the set is
still here! Pretty cool hu!?

http://images.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http://www.troy-movie.stasi.co.uk/troy-movie-film/troy-movie/troyset2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.troy-movie.stasi.co.uk/troy-movie-film/troy-the-movie-pictures.htm&h=233&w=350&sz=85&hl=de&start=2&um=1&usg=__w22eB9x4X7kjzkK69xqcBvpLpIQ=&tbnid=HHYuytFN728NnM:&tbnh=80&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcabos%2Bsan%2Blucas%2Bmovie%2Btroy%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dde%26sa%3DN

Anyways, we took pictures of our room before we moved in,
just like Leslee wanted. LOL. Our balcony is overlooking the
pool and Marina. Its beautiful here and dry in the morning
and afternoon but humid in the evening. The Time Share
people here are vicious! So is everybody that is trying to
sell anything though. The jewelry people, the people trying
to get you to eat at their resturant, etc.

Anyways, we will keep you updated. it looks like the
cheapest rates to call the US will actually be my Cell
phone! 99 cents a minute is the cheapest we can find. Even
to use the room phone to call a local number is 2 bucks a
minute! Please write back so we know that you got this! We
love you both, Hope to talk to you soon.

Cabo San Lucas

The first point I have to make, is that Jason is way better at this "blogging" thing than me. I am so good at not doing it for a while that I feel like there is so much to catch up on that I get overwhelmed and I never update. It's just like my journal writing... uugggh... Last year's New Year Resolution was to be better about writing in my journal - at least once a week. Look's like it's going to stick around for 2009 - maybe another year will help me get the hang of it. My grandma, who passed away in December 2005, wrote in a journal nearly every day and I have taken the liberty to start transcribing her journal from 1984. I haven't been very good about doing it, but it does inspire me to keep up my journal writing. Blogging is similar enough, I should be able to do it! (Honestly, one thing that kind of "un-inspires" me, is that people very rarely comment on my entries. I know they aren't amazing or anything, but I would just like to know that people are at least somewhat interested... :) That's a hint, guys.)

So, what has happened that I didn't write about. We went to Cabo San Lucas. That was a big deal for us - it was our first vacation by ourselves. I know that sounds silly, but it's not. My parents are usually nice enough to let us tag on to their adventures and we usually invite them when we have fancy plans, but this time we wanted just us. (We still haven't heard the end of how mean we were to not invite them on this one.... )

K, I kinda figure that the easiest way to do this is to post what we emailed home to our parents: So we hope you enjoy!

CheesCloth Ghost Craft

Ok, with Halloween speedily approaching and not much time left on my Calender, I decided that I was going to do something that I have wanted to do for a number of years. Years ago, my mom had made a ghost out of cheesecloth that was just freakin cool to a 7 year old. Anyways, I was reminded of this craft when I was visiting Roberts and they had a small one out on display that I suppose one of the workers had made. Well I decided that mine was going to be big and kinda scary (or at least cool).

So I bought the necessary supplies.

4 Sheets of Cheesecloth (1yd square each).
A bottle of Fabric stiffiner (its pretty much like glue).
A big foam ball (for the head of my ghost)
Toilet paper or Paper towel rings (the cardboard inside roll)
2 or however many metal hangers you think you need
Hairdryer
Construction paper or some sort of thicker paper
Pencil
Permanent marker

With these supplies I went over to my mothers house to enlist some more hands. Muahahahahaaaa!! I took two metal hangers and made a metal figure out of it to support my ghost head and the arms. We used the cardboard Paper towel rolls to cover the arms so they looked a little more proportionate.

We dumped the entire bottle of fabric stiffener into a bowl and then filled the empty bottle about 1/3 to 1/2 full or water and added that to make it easier to work with (trust me you will want to do that, I tried it the other way and it didn't work worth JACK!).

So as my mom soaked the cheesecloth in the watered down fabric stiffener and then squeezed it out (not hard because the fragile cloth will tear). My brother Eric and I (wearing disposable latex gloves, I did mention that we all wore them right?) and we draped the sheets of cheesecloth over the Foam ball and metal frame we made and positioned the cloth the way we wanted it to fall. We continued to do this until all four sheets of cheesecloth were draped over the figure and it looked awesome!!

We supported the outstretched arm with something underneath, since the wet cheesecloth was heavy, and we got a hairdryer out to help speed up a few crucial spots that support the entire figure. Then we left it to sit for about 12 hours and VIOLA! it was stiff (it can take up to 24 hrs to dry). Once the Ghost is dry simply remove / take out the wireframe and foam ball so the ghost is ... well... a ghost! It will now, with the cheesecloth dry stand on its own. Pretty cool hu?


So then I just drew the shape of eyes I wanted on some cardboard and cut them out and then traced both eyes and then filled them in with permanent marker right on the cheese cloth.


The ghost turned out really good in the end, I look forward to displaying it on Halloween, or helping somebody else with theirs! Pretty neet. I encourage you to try it. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask!

Here you can see the overall form of the Ghost. The outstretched arm was a little tricky but we got it!



Here you can see that we mostly let the cheesecloth fall where it wanted to, except for a few effects we wanted. You have to remember that this base will support your ghost so it has to be strong. Feel free to fold or overlap some cloth, just remember that it has to look natural and ghoolish!



This is the cool part. The ghost when dried and finished weighs close to nothing. It is empty inside and partly see-through depending on how much cheesecloth you have.

Update from Aimee :)

Hi! I just saw that Jason posted again! He's so cute, huh? :) Anyway, I have been working on getting stuff for our Halloween party up and going - good thing I have help! I just finished sewing a bunch of "leaves" for a dress that I designed. One of my best friends in the whole world is the one responsible for making it come to life. It's for one of our Young Women in our ward, Jackie - she is going to her homecoming dance this Saturday and had asked me in June to design a dress for her. It looks FANTASTIC so far! It is so exciting. I will post pictures when it is done. It's going to be great!!!

Best 80's Cartoon?

Hey, Everybody! So I have recently undertaken a number of new projects. The first one is the upkeep of this blog. The second is making a Ghost out of cheesecloth for Halloween. Its always been my favorite holiday! Anyways, it's drying right now and as soon as its done I will put a couple of pictures on here to show you how freaking cool it is! It's really simple to make too. Anyways, the third project is more out of curiosity and goes along with the blog. Its a Poll!! Anybody can vote and its completely anonymous. The first one is Which is the best 80's Cartoon? I know there were a ton of them but for the four that are listed please vote! And, if yours wins I will post a video or maybe even an entire episode of it on the blog for everyone to watch! So get voting. Its just right over here -------------------> on the right side of the blog.

I finally finished my online portfolio!

I am just excited that I finally finished my portfolio - I just have to blog about it! Feel free to check it out and let me know what you think I even had to dive into a bit of scary JavaScript.... that was pretty much the toughest thing I have ever done (not really :) ).

You can check it out here!

Sudoku

I am just playing around with the blog at this point and seeing what is possible. So, in an effort to keep people checking out our blog, perhaps even when we are not posting, I have posted a Sudoku game on the right side under "Stalker List". I played it and its not bad if I say so myself. So if your bored check us out!

I am soo in.

Ok everybody I finally added myself to the contributors list. So now when I post something it will say me and not Aimee. Just FYI!

CHATROOM!

Ok Everybody here is a code based chatroom. It is located in the upper right hand corner of the blog page and is called "McDaniel's Living Room". I figured the blog was not a blog without a chatroom in which anybody on the site could talk to anybody else on the site in real time! Pretty Sweet hu? Well I thought so anyways. Enjoy!

Adventurers...

Anyways, Aimee and I have decided that we need to spend some time getting to know Utah more. So, last week we decided to be adventurous and go explore two things in Utah that we had never been too. One was the Golden Spike Museum and the other was the Spiral Jetty.

For those of you who don't know what either of these two are. The Golden Spike museum is
located at the spot that the last ceremonial spike was driven to mark the completion of the first transcontinental railroad. This Spike joined the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroads together on May 10, 1869.
You know it’s funny how the whole thing transpired. The government offered the company that could build the first transcontinental railroad a lot of money, not to mention that every other mile of railroad that they built they could own ever other square mile of land touching the railroad on both sides. This was great encouragement for the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific. Both built like crazy and met in Utah. Actually, neither railroad wanted to join together because that meant that they would not get the complete grant that the government offered, nor as much land as they would if they each built straight to the coast, so they actually passed each other and continued building. Fed up with the fighting, Congress declared where and when they should be joined. Pretty cool hu?!

Anyways we also went to see the Spiral Jetty. It’s a giant spiral built off of the North Coast of the Salt Lake coast. It was built by American sculptor Robert Smithson in 1970 during a drought with black basaltic rock, but after it was built the Salt Lake rose burying it with water for nearly three decades. Everybody just about forgot about it because of this and the death of the artist. Years later in 2004 the Spiral Jetty re-emerged because of a drought and everybody was like, "WTF where did this come from?" I'm sure a couple of loons were like, "Aliens!!" LOL.

It was a cool site. The Salt Lake is still very low, We walked out about 50 Yards to even reach the water. I believe you can walk out to Antelope Island from the South Shore. Which by the way there was an old anchor out there a while ago and I intend to go and get it! :)

Anyways, we plan to continue this tradition of exploring Utah for as many weekends as we possibly can. Its amazing, you live somewhere forever and you never go see anything thats there! We will try to keep everybody posted.