Weekend Fun!

Sorry that this post has been so long in coming. I've been swamped with work and school. But here's what's been happening . . .

Here are some pics from the past couple of weekends.

Several weekends ago we went to Lima so that I could help our friends, Caroline and Neil, do some wedding things. They are getting married Jan 17, and I'm the Matron of Honor. I love planning weddings! This way you can put some faces to names when we talk about people.

Neil and Caroline~ The Happy Couple

Phil Chapman

Shane McCarthy

Paul McCarthy

The following weekend a couple that works on the project got married on the Cerro Azul beach. It was really pretty and a lot of fun.

Seth with Stuart

Sam, Stuart and Jen's Son

Us

The Groom, Rob with friends Paul (left) and Steve

The Bride, Wendy, with Best Man, Fatty (Lawerance)

The Newlyweds

Last weekend we had a fun weekend just hanging out with friends at home and on Sunday Seth went surfing. It was too cold for me to go (I'm such a fair weather surfer, literally) but I sat on the beach and watched. We went with Tom, who we met in London and has just arrived on site, and Karen, who just arrived from London too. (Note: They are not a couple. I don't think Tom's girlfriend in the UK would approve! HA!) Anyway, here are some pics from that.

Seth on his new board!

Looking good!

Karen boogie boarding in!

Seth walking around to catch that next wave.

Tom, yes, he is mildly crazy because he's not wearing a wetsuit, and it's COLD! But he's never surfed before, so he was doing quite good!

And one last thing from today, hot off the presses!

I saw and Seth participated in our first Air Raise! CBI is a specialist in building tanks, and they pioneered a construction method for placing the dome roof on top of the tank. So they build the outer ring of the tank, then on the inside of the tank, they build the dome roof. Once they have finished the outer ring and the roof, they perform an Air Raise, and it is what it sounds like. They place giant fans underneath the roof on the inside of the tank, turn them on and because of the pressure that builds up, the roof rises to the top of the outer ring of the tank. When the roof is in place the have pins that they hammer in to hold it then they weld it all together. It's a pretty amazing process and sounds much easier than it is. These things are huge and obviously heavy.

Today's Air Raise went really well according to people who know; it took about 2 hours and 15 minutes when it was expected to take about 2 hours 45 minutes. Like I mentioned, Seth got to participate. He was one of four guys standing at the top of the outer ring of the tank while the roof was being pushed up. He and the other guys held tape measures and relayed the heighth periodically to make sure that the roof stayed level. He had training and loads of safety gear but of course I was still a nervious wreck; those tanks are huge! But like I said it went well, and it was a good experience for him.

Here are a couple of pictures of that. Oh and by the way, Seth was on the ocean-side of the tank so unfortunately he's not in the pictures.

Tank 2 is on the left

If you look closely you can see the flags that are on the top of the dome on either side of the red crane.

"My man's up there!"

TaDa!

Alright, until next time . . .