Day Three Hundred and Sixty One

Well I made it back to WA. Barely! After being told by our pilot we were arriving 25 minutes early we ended up sitting on the tarmac for 30 minutes waiting for a place to pull the plane in. I guess it is kind of like searching for a place at the mall. I finally got to my car to find my battery was dead, of course.

When I got home I found a package hadn't been delivered because the 'apartment number' was missing; I live in a house! And my first paycheck was sent to me with my married name on it and an AZ address and AZ state taxes taken out of it. GRRRRRRrrrrRRRRR!  Hopefully this is a sign that next year is going to ROCK. It better!

Day Three Hundred and Fifty Five

I got the airport like 2.5 hours early, luckily I had lots to entertain me while I was waiting. The flight was uneventful and when I made it to AZ it was overcast and sprinkling. What happened to the sunshine and clear skies?  They better be here tomorrow! Already went and visited with Susie and saw Mike and AJ and now going to knit and watch TV with my mom. :)

Day One Hundred and Seventy Eight

Well.. I made it back across the border! It was quite a wait to get back into the States, but they did let us. It was a long weekend but I had tons of fun. I am so glad Cyn and Sandra invited me to spend the weekend with them. :) Oh, and it was pouring rain as we were leaving Canada... I think Canada was crying because it was sad I was leaving :(

Day One Hundred and Seventy Seven

Has a great time today! We picked Chickie up from the bus station so she could join us for the day and then we went to a huge park and then to have Pho and then derby.  I will write more later when I get home because we are getting ready to play some Scene It! (and drink some cranberry and vodka!!)

Day One Hundred and Seventy Six

I made it to Canada! It was a nice drive and we didn't have too much trouble at the border. The border guard did ask me, "How long have you been in the States", which I answered 39 years. He then got frustrated and said I didn't hear him right and we should start over and then asked me a totally different question. 

I KNOW what he said, and Cyn heard the same thing as me.  I think he just messed up and didn't want to admit it! But we made it across and that pic is a view from in front of Sandra's place. Pretty mountains!

Cyn then made us some yummy nachos which we ate while watching "Whip It", in preparation for the bout we are going to tomorrow! I am excited about seeing our friend Chickie who will be joining us!


And Sandra and I jammed playing some "Lips" on the Xbox, after we figured out that we had to sync the mic's before playing!  Duh!

Day One Hundred and Twenty Eight

Very exhausting day. I stayed up all night in order to get the soldiers, Zach and two of his fellow battle buddies, back to the base by 0430. So I didn't get back to the hotel until around 0500 and then conked out until around 0900.

We then went to breakfast and stopped to get some sandals, my mom and I found some but Susie didn't, she was sad :(. We then headed off to the airport. My flight was changed around because of delays and I ended up being on the same flight as my mom and sis for the first leg of the journey. I got to travel around the Charlotte airport on one of the carts which was awesome because the airport was HUGE!

I had a looonngg wait before my flight left, and the actual flight was pretty nice. There was no one sitting between me and the other person and I was able to watch a movie on my laptop, create my menu plan and shopping list for the new eating plan we are starting Monday, and take a nap.

Daniel picked me up at the airport and it is so nice to come home, Riley missed me TONS! And I missed Riley and the weather TONS!

Day One Hundred and Twenty Six

Fun but exhausting day. Sooooo happy to see my boy and hug him. We went shopping, wandered all over the base looking at things. Zach hadn't seen anything else on base except his small area. We also ate in their mess hall, which they called D-Fac (Dining Facilities), which wasnt bad at all! And we got to see an early preview of Iron Man 2. Looking forward to graduation tomorrow! So proud of my boy!

Day One Hundred and Twenty Five

Busy day today. Holly picked me up to take me to the airport and we caught up on a lot more things. At the airport people were pretty freaking chatty. I was stopped at the security check and had my body and bags thoroughly checked off to the side.

At the gate a guy chatted me up and talked about fishing for some reason and then I met a military guy whose wife was graduating from a different company as well. I was able to  pre board on both flights and on the second one the military guy helped me carry my bags since we had to go on the tarmac to get on the flight. While on the flight I met another guy, same age as me, whose daughter was graduating from Zach's same company.

The flight finally landed. And Susie and my moms flight landed the same time at the gate next to me! Very handy!

Day Three

I was chatting with my friend Daniel last night and we decided, on the spur of the moment, to go on a road trip the next day. That day is today! He hasn't seen the Hoh Rain forest yet, so we decided to head over to the western side of the Olympic Peninsula and check it out.

First things first, grab some coffee! We went to one of the many, many coffee stands in the area and I grabbed a triple sugar-free vanilla soy latte!

Next step was the ferry. As with a lot of places in Washington the ferry was dog friendly when you are on the top level. Riley and I quickly made our way up there to enjoy the view. It was pretty cold up there.. but we snuggled to keep warm.

On to the town of Forks! Forks has been made famous in the last few years because of the discovery of glittery vampires. So in honor of the latest craze, we decided to grab a pamphlet and do a quick tour of the town looking for all the Twilight highlights. Neither one of us is big fans, but we had a blast finding all the hot spots!


First up...the high school where everyone, including the sparkly vampires, attend.  Go Spartans! The school was pretty plain (from the outside) and there wasn't really anything exciting about it that we could see, but we grabbed a quick shot of the school sign.


Next up was the hospital where Dr. Cullen works. To our delight we found that Dr Cullen has his very own parking spot! Check out my super sneaky vampire pose.

And the last stop on the Twilight tour was the sheriffs office where Bella's dad works. You have to wonder what the people in the sheriffs office think of all these crazy people taking pictures of their signs!

After that whirlwind tour of the town of Forks, we wandered a bit further out of the bustling town of Forks (population just over 3000) and stopped at Ruby Beach. It's a real pretty beach with a nice walk down a forest path to a beach covered with driftwood. There was also a large stream running from a lake to join with the ocean running down the middle of the beach. Riley jumped in it and got caught up in the current, but luckily she was able to paddle her way back with tons of encouragement from me! That was scary!

After the beach we finally made it to the rain forest. It is really beautiful and I plan to put my camping gear to use and spend a weekend there sometime soon!

And the final stop in our journey was at a road side stand that was selling chainsaw carvings. This handsome dude caught my eye! Overall it was a great day.. but a really long one! I think we were gone about 12 hours!

I am looking forward to tomorrow since even though I am really sore from the gym yesterday, I am hitting it again tomorrow!

See ya :)