This is going to be a busy week. My boss is on vacation and I’ll be covering many of his tasks for the week. I’m hoping that it won’t be as bad as it has been before when he took extended vacation, since there is another individual in the office who will be doing some tasks, but I guess only time will tell. So far it’s been a really busy day.

Our Memorial Day labor day weekend (I always mix the two up) was good though. We were back in Cincinnati for the wedding of one of Kim’s cousins. Kim was a bridesmaid in the wedding and we’ve known her cousins husband for awhile as well, so it was nice to attend their big day. And since a good number of her extended family was there it gave us a little taste of what our wedding will be like. Everyone better get their dancing shoes out and be ready to swing all the way into party mode! I took some pictures throughout the day and I hope to get them online sometime soon. I’ll be sure to post a link.

I just read that my beloved Frontier Airlines is going to start charging for the second piece of checked luggage, just as United has already done. Personally, I think it’s a dumb move as the free luggage could be viewed by some as a reason to fly Frontier over United. It won’t matter to either Kim or me as we are both ascent level members, which will retain the second piece for free, but overall I don’t really agree with this decision.

At least we don’t have to use American, which is now charging for any checked luggage. And I guess we better get used to these additional charges, as this is likely just the beginning. If gas continues to rise the airlines are forced into finding new ways to make additional money. There will be no more free food, though a bag of peanuts hardly counts as food. I heard one analyst say that it could go so far as to start charging people for their seat based on their weight!

Last night, Kim resumed playing volleyball over in Wash Park. Her and a small group of friends played in a league at the park last summer, and they are back at it again this year. Since I don’t consider myself to be very good at volleyball, and that whole ankle injury thing, I don’t play but I have resumed my role as team coach. This role is also known as the guy who sits on the side and drinks beer the whole time. I encourage everyone to try it, it really is a good time!

I attend my first Rockies game of the season last night, along with Kim and some of her coworkers. We sat in the row of purple seats that is exactly one mile high, and enjoyed a relatively exciting game especially toward the end. With the team’s record currently at 18-28, a win is not something to be expected, but we were all hoping for one. Going into the ninth inning the Giants were up 4-3 and they added a couple more runs. Many people left the game thinking it was over, but the Rockies quickly added two run in the bottom of the ninth. Even though they still ended up losing 6-5, it was quite an exciting finish. Hopefully I’ll be able to catch more games as the season goes along.

Sunday morning we found a new coffee shop that is walking distance from our house called Wash Perk at 853 East Ohio Ave. Both Kim and I had a big cup of their coffee of the day and we split a couple of croissants and a piece of coffee cake. We enjoyed all of this from the spacious outdoor patio with a large group of others gathered on neighboring tables. It was the perfect little start to our day, which soon included walking all around town for a total of seven miles. I guess Kim was a little jealous of the five mile hike I took the day before, and wanted to some walking of her own. It was a nice way to spend a Sunday though, that’s for sure.

Saturday morning I went for a hike with a small group of people from work. The guy who put it all together is a very experienced hiker, and he has created a program for the summer culminating with a hike of Mount Elbert, one of the many 14,000 foot peaks in Colorado. Though I don’t think I’ll be able to attend any of the other group hikes, I am hoping to hike a bunch this summer, including at least one 14er. So his knowledge will definitely help when I have any questions arise.

Back to Saturday, we hiked on the Ben Tyler trail for around 5 miles round-trip. As this was the first hike in the series, it’s the easiest on the schedule, but still provided enough challenges to make it interesting. The toughest thing that I found was hiking on the snow that we encountered. We crossed over a creek, around our halfway mark, and onto a north facing slope. This was still covered in snow and quite slippery as you could imagine. It was a great first hike filled with varying terrain. I can’t wait to get back out in the coming weekends.

Today is a big day for Kim. She is scheduled to have LASIK surgery in just over an hour from now. I know how excited she is for this, and I couldn’t be happier that she is finally having it done. She’s been saying to me the past day, “This is the last time you’ll see me with glasses on at 8AM,” or whatever time it happened to be. Keep your fingers crossed for an easy surgery and recovery.

It just occurred to me that I’ve yet to talk about our planned honeymoon after the wedding. Well, this will likely be the first of many posts about it as I work on planning each stop of the twelve night Mediterranean cruise on Royal Caribbean. We start and end in Barcelona including one night there before the cruise, but I’ve yet to plan anything for that stop.

So our first stop once we actually get on the ship is Cannes, which is famous for the international film festival. However, there doesn’t appear to be much else to offer us, besides the beaches we’ll find in surrounding cities, so my initial plans have us taking a train ride out to Monte Carlo. Obviously there’s a famous casino in this tiny country, but there is much more to see including the Prince’s Palace and Cathedral. I doubt we’ll make it inside the Grand Casino since a jacket and tie are required, but I’ve heard that the outside is worth seeing anyway.

From there, I’m planning to stop in Nice on our way back toward Cannes. This city is the center of the French Riviera, and I’m sure we’ll take a stroll down the Promenade des Anglais which runs right along the beaches. There also appears to be many other historical sites to see along the way. And once we spend some time in Nice, we’ll take the train back to Cannes to finish the day by exploring the city before getting back on the boat.

Are there any other must sees in or around the cities mentioned? Also, I’m up for considering other nearby cities/towns if there is something high on the list. I’m sure we’ll take a couple of the excursions offered by the cruise line later in the trip, but I’m thinking that we should explore any cities that we can easily sightsee on our own.

Another season of men’s league hockey started last night. Due to the Monkees lack of interest in the summer league, I’ve joined another team at a rink I’ve never played at before. A couple of guys from the old team put this team together and asked me to play on it. It was nice being back out on the ice after taking weeks off. This league is one division lower than what I played in last, so it’s a bit slower, but there is still enough talent to make it interesting.

We had sixteen guys show up for our first game, so it was hard to get into the flow of the game. We ended up with four forward lines, which is the equivalent of what we had on our varsity high school team. A little bit much for men’s league hockey. I guess it was too much for the whole team, as we ended up losing 4-1 after never really finding the groove. Hopefully less people show up for the next game and we have better results.