Had a great time at RUVI and thought I'd write it up too.

Friday I managed to get off work a little early. Of course that was overtaken by the fact that there was a huge traffic jam on the way home and I had to go to the next town to get around it. Finally I got home and we finished up the packing we'd started the night before and took off around 4:30. Got to the airport around 5:30 and had dinner in the Quizno's there. (Not bad, but Subway is WAY better.)

Got on the plane and we were so far back that we sat right next to the propeller/fan/moving-the-air-thing. It was kinda cool because we were also right behind the food area and so I couldn't see anyone in front of me, which was a nice secluded feeling.

Anyway, we arrived at the airport around 10 and got the keys to the car (a Chevy Malibu) from Enterprise. I always thought (and was told) that Cincinnati had the most humidity in America, but I (and everyone else) WAS WRONG! Virginia was painfully humid. My jeans clung to my legs the minute we stepped out of the airport and my hair grew five feet wide or something like that.

We got the car though and then headed off. The tunnel-bridge was cool and I even managed to drive over it without having an anxiety attack. We got a little lost when we got close to Chincoteague, but called Sam and Leen and finally got the hotel. We met everyone by the pool until for around 10 minutes during which Monkeyman told us his crazy driving story. Then we noticed that the pool area closed 2 hours prior to then and moved to some crazy shelter thing which was hotter than a very hot thing. It was so miserable that we decided that it was bedtime and we'd see everyone in the morning.

When we got in our room and Sam and Leen gave us our late wedding/early anniversary present. Hehe. It was A S'MORES MAKER! It is TEH BETS THING EVAR! And so far we've had two nights of s'morey goodness. :-)

Saturday our room (Sam, Leen, me and wintermute) was awakened around 5:30 a.m. by an alarm clock that apparently Leen had set for the morning before. We all went back to sleep though and then got up around 8ish. After showers we headed down to "breakfast". After waiting fixty years for them to restock the food we chowed down on super sugary doughnuts and orange juice.

Fast forward a bit and we all ended up at the conference center which was locked and still dirty. We hung out in the parking lot and I called Ticia and Don to see if they were close by since they didn't arrive until that morning. They were and we had just gotten in the room and had the tables and chairs set up when they walked in. Sam was just starting his opening when Ticia went behind him and said "Boo!" while poking his sides. Sam was PWNED and shocked. Quite a good way to kick it off.

OK. The events of Saturday are as follows: (I'm getting tired of writing already)

We all passed out goodies that we had for each other including:
beads from Sara
a picture of Gahalyn and James (her guinea pig) from Gaha
bubbles and parachute men in a horsie bag from Leen
silly putty from wintermute and myself.

Sam introduced the tokens. I got 18 total, but I can't remember what they're all for.

Then we had a game where Sam asked everyone to list people in RinkWorks who's names started with certain letters. I totally sucked at the game, but wm didn't do too bad and we ended up with one of the prizes (a super huge smiley face ice pack for lunch boxes and the like). And when that was done, he passed out the smaller versions of the smiley face to all the losers as the official RW give-away. BTW the game letters he used were B, M, S, G & K, and T.

Sam then made me recite the alphabet backwards as I've done in years before.

TalkingDog got up and did the poem: "hallo i am a teenager and i am talking about teh death" in the voice of Goofy. Very funny!

Then we played the matching game. And I WON!!!!!!!!!!! Yay me! I thought it was so easy this year. I don't know why no one else even got close to my score.

(OK, grem won, but really wasn't that fun just for a moment to think that *I* could beat him. YES IT WAS!)

Then it was time to break for lunch.We went to Hades and had a nice lunch. I had cheese pizza and ended up giving two pieces to Sam since his pizza didn't come until we were nearly done. It worked out though because he didn't take his pizza home from the hotel, so I had that for breakfast on Monday.

After lunch we returned and I thought it would be a good idea to pull the tables away from the display tables so that more people could get to look at various things on display (including my RU scrapbook). Sounds like a good plan, huh? But being who I am with the luck I have, just as I had wm help me move Sam's table so that I wouldn't knock things over, the can of Diet Moxie on the floor. It ASPLODED immediately shooting the liquid for miles around! Ok, maybe not miles but it was definitely a good 10 feet or more, I think. It was on the floor, the nearest wall, a few of the tables, and on the underside of Sam's table.

I frantically worked (along with half the other people there) to clean it up before Sam got there only to find out that it was actually ahmoacah's drink that she brought to share. Sam had only brought regular Moxie. But the clean up was good and you'd never know we had it in there.

Anyway, when we all settled down Sam read the usual bad/silly emails. And then he read a few of last year's 3-word-descriptions of people that he'd kept and had us guess them.

Then Monkeyman passed out Smarties for all to have. I PWNED TEHM ALL!!!!!!!11

Sam then passed out Moxie to wm, Sara and Dan (TD's brother). All seemed to like it, but 10 minutes later Sara and wm at least got the after effects of the drink and suddenly hated it like the rest of us.

Monkeyman passed out his Canadian Mountain Dew after that. It wasn't as sweet as our Dew here, but with the Smarties it was almost too much sweet goodness for me. ALMOST. I finished at least one can. :-)

Kelly shared some yummy juice that she brought, which I need the name of because it was awesomely good. Reminded me of the juice you get in Baptist churches for communion.

Then Sam read the "haiku's" that he had all of us write about ourselves. Hopefully he will share some in a write up, but needless to say they were all pretty funny and most people were easy to get.

THEN WE HAD A BREAK.

BREAK IS OVER.

Then it was show and tell time. Sam asked me to kick it off since no one was volunteering. After pulling out my wedding album and sending it around I shared a few old poems including the "southern" version of "Stephen, Start Talking". Then I read my new poem, "I'm not pregnant" -- a title in which I came up with after Sam saw the first line earlier in the day and started questioning me. This is the poem:

----------------------------------------------------
I'm Not Pregnant -- By Amy Thompson

I could be a mother someday
But right now I think not
For in my life there is a child
My husband fills the spot.

He won't eat peas at all
Nor change a toilet roll
He hates the thought of a dentist
This is all the child's role.

He lets me have the sheets
But he still crowds the bed
And just like a little kid
He wakes with a spikey head

The man in black you call him
Because he'll never change his style
And he'll never dust a single thing
And with that thought he smiles

Oh I have my issues too
Vacuuming isn't my deal
And I'm not so good at cooking
I don't make edible meals

I hate mowing the lawn
And doing errands in the town
So I guess after all of this
He's not the only child around
----------------------------------------------------

Next Iss got up and did his interpretive dance of "The Suckage of Laying off Sam". It was AWEXOME to say the very least. Iss always manages to out do himself.

Then (Ticia's) Don got up and did a "Smelt" poem/rhyme thing. It R0X0red and it was cool to have him participate in the show and tell time. :-)

Sam had me sing Black Socks since no one else seemed to remember it, and wintermute joined in. So you can tell I've sung it to him at home before. I think he's glad I launder his black socks though.

Iss got up again after that and sung a song about snot. Needless to say, it was funny.

Oh, and then because some of us have been so completely taken with the Sci-Fi show Firefly, we got up to sing the theme song. If I remember right it was me, wm, Maryam and Ticia. If you haven't seen the show you really should. The theme song is great.

Sam and I got up after that and did our famous interpretation of a desk toy. We even added extra bits this year that we definitely need more practice on. It was fun though and don't you wish you could have seen it? OH YES YOU DO!

Then it was time for more stupid human tricks:
- Monkeyman showed us his trick elbows and his weird eyeball movements
- TalkingDog got up and put his foot behind his head
- Ticia did a yoga pose and stood on her knees with it.
- OUT OF NOWHERE Dan gets up and does the splits. Anyone who didn't hear him quietly say "I can do the splits" while walking to the front was concerned he'd just fell like that or something. Looked quite painful, but he seemed OK with it.
- (Ticia's) Don got up and played Happy Birthday on his hands.
- I volunteered wm to get up and move his nose like a bunny, which he does so well.
- And then Gahalyn got up and read Howard's grandfather's poem "No Starlet Eyes at Even".


That was it for show and tell. We moved the tables and took another break to grab pillows and the like and then gathered around for movie time.

The first movie was by Grishny and Scotsman with a great title that I can't remember. Something like "Indiana Ben and the ... walawala Bing Bang". It was pretty funny and reminded me of things I did in high school with friends. Way worth watching.

Then we watched the bad movie, whose name I also can't remember. Something like Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II maybe. It was great. I especially liked the end when one guy and girl are made king and queen and they don't seem to care for each other before that and suddenly they are making out. Pretty funny.

After that we broke for dinner. A few of us went to Subway (Maryam, Sara, wm, me, Sam, Leen and Iss). It was nice and really cool in there -- much better than lunch -- and we enjoyed our subs. wm migrated next door to look at kites while Maryam grabbed a sub for the road and then we headed back to the conference room.

Some people were already starting games, but some of us really wanted to souvenir shop so Leen, Sara, wm and I went to a horsie place to see what we could get. It was expensive though so wm and I didn't get anything, but it was fun looking around. Then we headed back.

I cleaned up our stuff and got it in a reasonably small pile because I knew by the time we left the conference room we'd be really tired. And then I joined the Apples to Apples game already in progress. It was great. Even WhizKid played (via Sam) and he had great answeres. Seemed a little obsessed with JFK and milk though.

After that people gathered around for the competitive reading of "The Eye of Argon" which was simply hilarious. I loved the times when it took 4 people just to get one sentence read.

But to be fair, I was really tired by then and I think I even slept a little while sitting Indian style on the floor. Around 12:20 we started packing up and heading for bed and I don't remember much after that except for a good night's sleep.

Sunday Sam, Leen, Ticia and Don left a bit early for the park we were going to so that they could sort out the details. I was left "in charge" of making sure everyone got a ride to the park. I was all excited about my little list until MY PLAN WAS THWARTED BY A MONKEY! He managed not to tell anyone he would be taking his crew straight from McDonald's to the park so we were left wondering. Eventually though we all took off anyway in hopes he'd be there and he was.

We met up and got on the bus and were off on the tour around the refuge. I'm going to leave this part up to others to give awesome descriptions for since I'm getting tired of typing as well as the fact that my memory of animals names always sucks. But I saw awesome ponies/horsies and cool birds. It was fun and the pictures turned out great.

After that we went to Don's Seafood for lunch. I had shrimp and french fries just like Sara did because we RULE! We both were at the table with wm and we got buffered on one side. Not sure which of us was really buffered, but one of us DEFINITELY WAS BUFFERED! wm had stone crab claws and I had to help him open them. But don't tell anyone that. ;-)

After that we stood around for a million years and then headed back to the hotel for changing into beachwear. For some people this meant jeans. Weirdos. Hehe. For me this was a swimsuit because I was determined to enjoy the ocean.

We got there with relatively no problems and some of us headed towards the water. I think wm was the first to get completely wiped out by the waves. They were massive, probably because of the tropical storm and high tide both. I saw him get slightly drug out there and as he stood up and started to walk towards land, he turned around for a second to see a wave that was 2 feet above his head and a foot in front of his face. He was taken out and was hit a few more times before finally making it to safe land. Poor him. Sara did a similar thing. It was fun though and I enjoyed the water.

By the way -- to the lady on the tour bus that said the water was like bath water -- NO IT WAS NOT LIKE BATHWATER. IT WAS LIKE ICE WITH ICE AND MORE ICE! Except colder.

And then "The Eye of Argon" was continued on while gathered around all our stuff and while that went on (Ticia's) Don dug himself a big ol' hole while I did a sand sculpture of the American flag. After the story was over wm made a British flag and Monkeyman and Sara dug some holes. We eventually buried Monkey and Don both in the sand (at different times as you'll see on the pictures). Great fun.

Then we took a stupidly late group picture. We all failed to get it together earlier and missed out on TD and his brother, but oh well. Next year we'll try better.

Anyway, after that it was back to the hotel for cleaning up. Then we went off to Not Just Salads which is teh bets name for a restaurant. We had a great time and Grishny gave me a surprise call to get all the details before any other non-rink-union-goer. It was fun.

OK. I'm on page 6 of the Word document of this and I'm getting really tired of recounting. Here is the sum up of Sunday night and Monday:

- Ice cream!
- RU Scrabble -- I read on the floor during this
- HUGS
- Sleeeeeeeeeeeeep
- HUGS
- Wake up
- HUGS
- T.V. -- An episode of The Practice that wm didn't want to miss.
- NASA Space Museum with Ticia and Don, and then semi-surprise visits of Gahalyn, Monkeyman, and gremlinn!
- HUGS
- Back to Chinconteague for souvenir shopping and another trip to Don's Seafood place for lunch. We really liked it! :-)
- Long trip back to the aiport.
- Crappy dinner at the airport since they didn't have anything in stock at the ONE place they had to eat past security.
- Gate change!
- Slightly late plane that we had to walk on the outside of the airport to get to.
- Uneventful plane ride.
- Baggage claim and ride home and then crash in bed!
- AND THEN SPENDING STUPID AMOUNTS OF TIME WRITING IT UP!

The very end.