Vocabulary Challenge (#1)

According to Vocabulary.com there are 100 words every high school graduate should know.  I've been out of school for over a decade now, so I thought I'd challenge myself and see how much I managed to retain.  I'll start out with 10, and follow-up on this post again.

Do you know the definitions of the following words :

  1) Abjure
  2) Abrogate
  3) Abstemious
  4) Acumen
  5) Antebellum
  6) Auspicious
  7) Belie
  8) Bellicose
  9) Bowdlerize
10) Chicanery

I admit, I'm a bit embarrassed... I call myself a writer and yet a few of these words I've never heard before and a few I recognize but have no idea what the definition is!! 
What about you?

Water Parks

During our holiday we decided to try out one of the local indoor water parks (it was too hot to be outside).  I'm from Florida, I'm used to Wet 'n Wild, Typhoon Lagoon, & Adventure Island, which are some of the best water parks in the US.  These parks are hard to compete with!  I'm not really used to the concept of indoor water parks, prior to moving to the Netherlands I had never been to an indoor water park before.  To be fair, they do their best with little space.  We often go to the indoor pool inclusive slides here in Eindhoven, called the Tongelreep.  It also hosts many different pools for many different activities.  This time we decided to go to the Center Parcs, Kempervennen.  Who knew we had such a great place so near by, swimming, wake boarding, skiing, camping, hiking, playgrounds, animals, etc.!  I've heard of it, but just thought it was a camp site, it's way more. 

The indoor water park (Aqua Mundo) consisted of 3 big slides, 1 wave pool, a pool with an aquarium, & kiddie area.  For what we paid, it was worth it, and the kids had a great time.  I thought I had seen it all at the parks in Florida but Aqua Mundo has the "wildwaterbaan".  It's a slide that is broken up into multiple slides, just as you recover from one slide the next one starts, it was great!  Part of it is indoors and part outdoors.  Luckily my husband & I love water, so we didn't mind taking our toddler & 2 nieces around 20 times on the slide. 

I can't really explain the set up so I included pictures (no that's not us in the pics, I found them online).  Sure, we all walked away with bruises and a few close calls, but overall it was a fun day and I would definitely recommend it to others! 

Wordless Wednesday #16

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Stupid Scammers

Back in November I was almost scammed, I made sure to write a post about it to help other people avoid the same situation.  It was called the Ammyy.com Scam.  Just because they know how to run a scam doesn't make them intelligent, the stupid scammers actually called me again today!!!  My caller i.d. registered a 0000000 number which I automatically found strange, but as soon as the woman started speaking I knew who it was.  She started out with her spiel about calling on behalf of Microsoft and that they were receiving errors from my computer.  I burst out laughing and said, "I know what this is, this is the Ammyy Scam, you've already called me, I'm not falling for this."  The woman hung up before I could say more, oh well, probably best.  Who knows, maybe you'll get the call this week!   

Self Serve

In America buffet style restaurants are quite common, but here in the Netherlands you don't see them so often.  This weekend we stumbled upon an interesting new restaurant with this self serve idea behind it.  It's called Lundi, and it is here in Eindhoven.

At first we were all a bit taken back because the restaurant had rules, a lot of them, but once we were used to the system it was an enjoyable dinner.  Rules, you're wondering... one of which, you have to chose up front whether you'll be dining for 2 or 3 hours.  Another, you pay upfront.  And the one that took us by surprise was the alcohol card, if you want to drink you have to put money on a card and use this at the drink station.  The buffet was not strange, it was the self serve alcohol that caused a good laugh.  You place your card on a scanner and tap your own beer (there's also wine) and the amount of alcohol gets deducted from the card.  The first few beers splattered everywhere, wasting money, but we did eventually get the hang of it.  Since we had to get our own drinks, we joked about possibly having to cook our own food too!  Surprisingly the food was good, you never know with a buffet.  The food was fresh and was often cooked or prepared at a station directly in front of you.  It's called a world-kitchen, so they had everything from sushi to chicken nuggets.  By the end of the night we were stuffed and they even had to kick us out because the 6 of us stayed until well after the restaurant had closed.  Over all it was a fun experience.  The downside is the location, sure it's close for us, but most people will not bother to go because it's outside of the center and the surrounding block 'has not been kept up so well.  The upside, it's huge and decorated nicely, and it's definitely family friendly and can host large groups of people.  I hope for them they stay in business and manage to market themselves properly (maybe my blog will help, ha-ha)!

Wordless Wednesday #15

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New Dress

Being in fashion is not important to me, I'd actually prefer to look a little different than other women I know.  Conforming is not my thing!  But occasionally things happen and I buy something that's considered trendy... usually on sale at the end of the season so technically it's no longer in fashion, oh well.  We had planned a trip to Ireland this weekend, but a chicken pox scare forced us to cancel our trip.  Prior to the trip I had ordered quite a few dresses from H&M but since we decided not to go I didn't bother to open the bag.  Then last night unexpected dinner plans popped up and I needed something to wear.  I generally never wear new clothes unless I wash them, much less wrinkled ones straight out of the bag but I had no option (actually I own a lot of dresses but I felt the need for a new one).  I tried on around 6 dresses and in the end let my husband pick.  I knew it was too wrinkled, I tried to iron it but with no avail, and yet I let my husband talk me in to wearing it out.  While it was still daylight I hid between my husband and my purse, and of course sunglasses that don't actually hide a thing but make you feel concealed.  It was a friends birthday and she was shocked to see me out in a dress.  I wear them more than she realizes, but in the 8 yrs we've known each other she can count on one hand how many times she's seen me in one.  It was nice to know everyone thought I looked so nice considering how uncomfortable I was.  By nightfall (and on to a fav bar), I came out of my shell a bit and didn't mind the attention the neon pink dress was bringing, and to be honest the flowing skirt made dancing around fun.  I still have a few other dresses in the H&M bag that I might try on again and consider keeping, but then again I live in The Netherlands and it's rarely warm enough to truly enjoy a dress.

Wordless Wednesday #14

Again, a day too late!  And no other posts, what's going on!



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Wordless Wednesday #13

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Summer Vacation

Summer is almost over for the kids here in The Netherlands, next week they all head back to school and everyone gets back to their normal schedules.  I'm hoping that once my toddler gets back to her normal routines I can actually get back to blogging!  This summer we've been so busy between activities and the new puppy, I've only found time for short posts lacking flare and of course Wordless Wednesdays.  Besides play dates and dog training, we've also managed to find time to babysit.  A few days this summer I chased after 3 kids and 2 dogs!  Most of friends thought I was crazy and I admit it's a lot but the kids are cooperative and enjoy spending time together and the dogs, well, they'll work it out.  Yesterday was the last day of babysitting this summer, so I thought I'd mark with a shot of my niece and a ladybug she caught.

Wordless Wednesday #12

I'm a day late, oops!

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Board Games

I'm going to keep this post short; since the puppy entered our lives I've been lacking time for side projects like my blog.  I don't want my readers to think I am just a series of Wordless Wednesdays nowadays. 
I did want to recommend a game though, it's called Settlers of Catan.  You might have heard about it on the tv show Big Bang Theory.  It may seem boring at first glance but it's actually an interesting game that will hook you.  Like Monopoly it takes hours.  Since we don't have the actual board game at home we downloaded a version on the iPad and to be honest I prefer it.  Only because you can stop when you like and resume the game days later if needed.  Lately my husband and I have had a running game, and as soon as it's over we start a new one.  Playing games together has been something we've enjoyed since the beginning our relationship.  Some of our first few dates consisted of playing pool and Trivial Pursuit.  Sometimes we have the tv on, a game going, and all the while talking away... who says it takes a lot to entertain people these days, ha-ha!