Wednesday, 8/1/2018 – What an exciting Wednesday! We got home to find that we had two packages delivered that we were super excited about. When we were in Key West a few months ago, we visited the Hog’s Breath Saloon and I was admittedly jealous of all of the stickers that passers-through had pasted on the walls and ceiling at the bar. I could only imagine that it felt like they left a little, tiny bit of themselves behind as passed through Key West and traveled on to places unknown. I immediately started yammering about wanting to design and get stickers printed. Well, it may have taken me a few months, but, it finally happened! (Got somewhere to plaster a sticker? Or just want one because they’re super cool?! Let us know!)

The second package was just as exciting as the first. For us, anyway. Now that we’ve both obtained our advanced scuba diving certifications, we decided it was time to start acquiring our own gear instead of continuously renting gear each time we dive. A whole lot more on that soon, I promise. But, one of the pieces of safety equipment we needed were “surface marker buoy signal tubes.” More affectionately known as safety sausages. Josh pulled the trigger on ordering both of us a safety sausage over the weekend and they were delivered today. Safety first, kids!

Friday, 8/3/2018 – It’s funny how life changes when your priorities change. Finding out that the interest rate on our Ally High-Yield Savings Account went from 1.65% to 1.80% literally made my day. Woohoo for an increase in passive income without lifting a finger!

Saturday, 8/4/2018 – Sunday, 8/5/2018 – What a BEAUTIFUL weekend! It was the first weekend that I can readily remember that it didn’t rain and we took full advantage of it! We cleaned out the third bay of the garage on Saturday, in preparation for storing all the stuff that used to be stored in our destroyed shed. Then we spent the rest of the weekend on the motorcycle, eating, drinking and napping.

Wednesday, 8/8/2018 – Today we celebrated Christmas in August!  Josh got the call from West Shore Scuba that all of the scuba gear we ordered was finally in, put together and ready to come home.  How exciting?!  After dragging it all home, we, of course, had to try it all on in the kitchen.  We are very pleased with everything and can’t wait to do a few test dives with the new gear in a few weeks.

Thursday, 8/9/2018 – After getting my Advanced Open Water scuba certification, I swore that I was done with scuba certifications, classes and anything that had to do with learning more before I had time to really master what I already learned in the whirlwind so far.  Andddd thennnn I got a notification for an upcoming PADI Yoga Diver certification course for the end of September.  And I couldn’t help myself!  I even got Josh to agree to do the class with me.  We made another trip to West Shore Scuba to register and pay for the class and I’m super excited about it!  It’s the first time that I’ve actually picked what I wanted to learn with scuba and I kind of can’t wait to do the class in a few weeks.  More to come about the class and how it was after we’re all done, for sure!  For now, here’s the certification description:

The Yoga Diver course is an exclusive PADI distinctive specialty course, the first of its kind, taught by the author herself, a Master Scuba Diver Trainer and certified Yoga Instructor with worldwide teaching experience.

Wednesday, 8/15/2018 – We hatched a plan to shoot out of work early on Friday, pack the truck and head for scuba diving at Dutch Springs for the weekend.  In anticipation, we headed to the dive shop to rent some tanks and weights for the adventure.  The dog was thrilled about our plan to ditch work early in favor of diving…NOT!

Friday, 8/17/2018 – We planned to leave work at 1100 and head to Dutch Springs for a weekend of test dives with our new gear.  Things didn’t go quite as we had planned on Friday, thanks to both work and the weather, so we took the night to shop for a new tent, get things together to head to Dutch Springs on Saturday and relax.

Saturday, 8/18/2018 – Sunday, 8/19/2018 – Since we got our own scuba gear a few weeks ago, we’ve been dying to take it all out for a trial run.  The stars aligned for us this weekend to head to Dutch Springs and spend some time getting acquainted with our new stuff.  We logged a few more dives and were exceptionally pleased with how our gear felt.  It was the first time that we took our camera underwater with us, too.  It was a fun weekend, just Josh and I, and it was pretty great to just be able to dive – no skills, no instructions, just making bubbles.  We got to see some fish, despite some mediocre visibility.  And, we were happy to learn that the new tent we bought (because our old one leaked like a sieve!) weathered a good amount of rain and kept us dry.

Friday, 8/31/2018 – A few exciting things happened today.  The interest rate on our Ally High-Yield Savings Account increased, again!  The increase wasn’t a lot, but, anything helps and increasing is definitely better than decreasing.  We’re also creeping closer to the work starting on repairing the gigantic, gaping hole in our roof that’s been there since mid-May.  If everything goes as planned, hopefully the workers will actually be working on our house by the end of next week or the beginning of the following week.  What a relief that will be!  After a stressful week at work for both of us, we packed the truck full of scuba and camping gear and headed for Dutch Springs for the weekend.  And a much needed mini-vacation!