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Welp, I’ve been back from Alaska for about a week and half and am just now getting around to posting pictures and a recap of the trip. One reason is because my parents actually came down here the same night I did so I’ve been a little busy doing stuff with them. And another reason is just because I’ve been lazy and enjoying my days of having few responsibilities. But things are changing today! I’ve posted some pictures on facebook and now I’m writing this post. Crossing stuff off the list. 
So make yourself comfortable, I think this is going to be a long one.
The trip was great. One of the best trips home in recent years. I was able to see quite a few of my friends (sadly, for only quick visits with most of them), I got to spend quite a bit of time with my niece and nephew, I got to hang out quite a bit with one of my closest friends Carlie (and help out with her brother’s wedding), and I got to attend (and plan and set up) my 10 year high school reunion. The weather was amazing. As in pretty hot – it was in the mid 80’s for most of my trip. I only remember it reaching those kind of temps maybe once or twice growing up. I had of course packed completely inappropriately. Luckily I’d brought quite a few tank tops for layering, so I just dropped the extra layers. And I never once touched the fleece jacket that took up tons of space in my suitcase. Oh well.
The first weekend I was there, my niece (A) and nephew (Z) stayed with us at my parents’ house. A is 4 1/2 and Z is about 15 months. They arrived on Saturday evening and we had them until Monday morning. It was fun, it was exhausting, and it reminded me of just how amazing my sister in-law is to be able to keep up with them on a daily basis. It took my dad, mom, and I all of our effort to keep just 2 kids in line. Dad and I took A to the park where she ran around for 2 hours straight and someone thought my dad was either homeless or a creepy old man because he laid down in the shady part of one of the jungle gyms and was taking a snooze. When another lady asked me about him I was confused at first and then realized that she was talking about him. A little embarrassing to say the least.
That evening we took the kids to Kepler Park for a boat ride. A decided that her life jacket was killing her after my mom tied together the top set of ties. So, much of the ride was spent listening to her complain of choking and saying that her vest was “sooo heavy”. Finally she perked up a bit when she got the chance to row the boat with Granny. Then Z started fussing and we couldn’t figure out what his deal was. Turns out he wanted to row too. He’s very mechanically minded, which doesn’t surprise me a bit seeing as how my dad is a civil engineer, my brother is an areonautical engineer, and Z’s other grandpa owns his own construction company. And while a bit small for actual rowing, he did seem to have a grasp on the concept and was as happy as a clam after that.
That night Z fell asleep in my arms while we watched Black Beauty (um, how sad is that movie?) and when I went to put him down on his makeshift bed of couch cushions, I couldn’t believe how much he actually looked like a little cherub. It helped that he was just in a diaper and wrapped up in his champagne colored silky blanket. His blonde hair didn’t hurt either. I wish I had a picture of him at that moment. So adorable.
I met up with lots of my friends for lunches during the week. I went with one of them to this newer restaurant called the Red Beet. They don’t have a full menu there. Instead, they make one entree a day and that’s what you get. It helps that the food is totally gourmet and delicious. I can be a picky eater so I was nervous they’d be serving something I really didn’t like, but the food was fabulous. I thought it really couldn’t get much better and then we ordered dessert! I got this amazing almond cake with cream and I couldn’t believe how good it was. I’ve been craving it ever since that day. I can taste it right now it was so great!
My friend Carlie was up from Tennessee for her brother’s wedding and our high school reunion. Her husband is originally from Florida and has only been up to Alaska once before. It was actually when he proposed to her and it was a pretty short trip with disappointing weather, so he was excited about the chance to visit again. I asked my dad if he would take the three of us up in his plane to fly over a nearby glacier. The sky had gotten pretty hazy because of wildfires up by Denali, but the view was still amazing. I think Tony had a great time and it turns out it was Carlie’s first time having a scenic flight like that (and she grew up in AK).
I spent my last Friday and Saturday there helping with the wedding. Friday was pretty fun because Carlie and I got to zip around in my dad’s Miata going from place to place. There was the normal wedding stress, but I had fun for the most part. Saturday was a bit of a different story. I had fun, but was a lot more stressed. I’ve coined the day as “running a marathon in bad shoes”. Seriously, one of the worst blisters I’ve ever had on my heel. But it all worked in the end and the bride and groom are married (they were high school sweethearts!) and everyone survived! (But I’ve only worn flip flops since then.)
Oh, and that Friday night we celebrated my brother’s 31st birthday. I made him a spice cake because my sister in-law told me that whenever they eat spice cake somewhere he always says something to the effect of “why isn’t spice cake in our life more often?” I got him the first season of Lost on dvd because a couple of months ago he called me on a Wednesday night about 10 minutes before it was on. I told him I could only talk for that bit of time because Lost would be on and I couldn’t miss it. And he had the audacity to ask me, “What’s Lost?” AAAAHHHHH, are you kidding me? I understand to some degree – they don’t have regular tv and basically just watch things through Netflix. But Lost just seemed up his alley especially with all the conspiracy theory stuff. So now I hope he does actually like it seeing as how I went ahead and just bought the season for him instead of telling him to get it on Netflix.
That night the kids ran around my parents’ yard for quite awhile. I just sat down in the middle of it and started taking pictures.
Sunday was our reunion. We had planned on having a potluck BBQ at one of the local parks. I’d gotten kind of anxious about all the details of it (but not about seeing any of the people). Luckily my friend Hailee really stepped up to the plate and got lots of decorations and nice things to make it feel more festive. I spent the better part of the week worrying about parking, which of course turned out to be a non issue. I’d say about 40 people from my class (out of 216) along with families came. So a little dissappointing size wise, but it was so great to see the people who were there. And everyone was so gracious about thanking me for putting it together. I was really glad we did it, even if I had anxiety about it for a whole stinking year. Everyone looked pretty much exactly the same and it was weird to see little miniature versions of them running around on the park’s jungle gym. And their were quite a few little babies there. So sweet.
That night I took the red eye flight back down to WA. My parents were on another flight that was scheduled to take off at the exact same time (I’m pretty sure we were on 2 different runways). Once we were in Seattle I took the shuttle bus and they had a layover and then a commuter flight up to B’ham. And I beat them there by 5 minutes.
Here are my goals for my trip to Alaska:
1. Take lots of pictures.
2. Post said pictures on Facebook or blog when I get back.
3. Spend time with people I love.
4. Do not sleep in past 9:30am so that I have a better chance at accomplishing #3.
5. Feel free to stay up until the sun sets (around 2am) or later if it means accomplishing #3.
6. Drive to the places that I always think of when I think of being at home.
7. Take pictures when I arrive at #6’s destinations.
8. Be patient with the parents.
9. Spend minimal time on the internet and avoid watching pointless tv (watching a movie with family isn’t necessarily pointless).
10. Spend lots of time outside.
I’ll let you know how I do. Or better yet, you”ll hopefully get to see pictures and then you can judge how well I did.
I can’t believe that tomorrow is the last day in June. It went by really fast. But looking back I realize I did so much and had a good time throughout it. Three cheers for June!
I just got back from cheer camp on Saturday. It was by far the best camp I’ve taken my squad to in the last 5 years that I’ve been a coach. It was a fairly small camp because some other schools that had been signed up were still in school due to making up for snow days. Can you imagine? Still in school during the 4th week of June? Ugh. But it made camp nicer for the teams that did make it because we got a lot more individualized attention. And the girls did great! I think 16 (out of 21) of them were nominated for All American and 6 actually made the All American team (I think there were only 12 total for the entire camp). One of the girls was named Top All American of the camp for the second year in a row (and she’s only going to be a junior this year). One of the seniors was “apped” at the end of the camp. That means that the NCA staff thought she was good enough to try out for their staff next year and she got a special application to do so. The team as a whole won the “Top Performance Team” award and received a Nationals bid. And the other coach and myself won a “Been There, Done That” award acknowledging our commitment, knowledge and dedication to our squad and to cheerleading as a whole. All in all it was a fabulous 4 days. Except for the mattresses we slept on in the dorms – we called them our “cement slabs”. It was seriously an adult version of a crib mattress. And there was a ginormous hill that we had to go down and up 3 times a day. Which was never fun, but at least I felt like my legs and butt were getting a good workout. Makes up for all the cafeteria food we ate there (which was actually pretty tasty). And now I have a break until August!!!
On to other summer plans. I’m leaving for Alaska this Friday. I’m going to be there for about 10 days, but already I’m wondering how I’m going to cram in all my plans. There are a lot of people to see. Last time I was there it was for a short trip around Thanksgiving so I didn’t get to see a whole lot of my friends for very long. I’d like to be able to spend a little more time with everyone. And some of my other out of state friends will be up there because it is our 10 year high school reunion and we’re all heading back for it. (Can I just say that I’m so looking forward to the day after the reunion? Not because I’m nervous about seeing anyone, just because even the idea of planning this event has caused me anxiety for the past year and now I won’t have to think about reunions again for another 10 years.) I also get to help with one of my best friend’s younger brother’s wedding. He is getting married to his high school sweetheart who I actually knew when she was just a wee toddler. And I’ve known the groom since he was in middle school. Whenever I think of him I just think about him doing calf raises on their stairs because he wanted to get stronger so he could make the 8th grade basketball team. And now he’s getting married! And of course I’m excited to see the neice and nephew. I sent a card to my neice to tell her that I’d be coming and that I hoped we could have a sleepover. My mom told me that she was very excited about this prospect and had already decided we’d do it at Granny and Granddaddy’s house rather than her own (I have a feeling that’s because she gets spoiled more there).
Anyway, lots of blah blah blah here in this post. But I’m excited. Excited about what this past month has brought my way and what’s coming around the corner. And thinking a lot about how blessed I am. And that I have a good life. And that I’m a lucky girl.
On Monday I took my 13 year old cousin shopping. I had stopped by her house on Sunday to drop something off and my aunt asked me if I would be willing to take her. My aunt and uncle are really not into shopping – especially at a mall. Like it’s the very last thing they would like to be doing. It probably falls behind getting a root canal. But my cousin had apparently been saving up for an iphone (um, what 13 year old needs an iphone?) and then changed her mind and decided she wanted to get new clothes instead. So on Monday, we headed to the mall armed with quite a bit of money (it looked like she was pretty close to being able to afford the phone).
We hit Kohl’s first because I thought it would be good to get her in a department store setting with lots of options and I knew they usually had several sale racks. At first she was like a lost little bird who had fallen out of the nest. She wasn’t aware of the need to look at the sizes before she took something off the rack and I think the amount of racks to go through was intimidating. So once we got the sizes figured out I helped her pull some pieces to try on. It’s funny how styles have morphed since I was in middle school. There were skinny jeans everywhere and I don’t think you could have paid someone to wear skinny jeans when I was in 7th grade. Later on in Pac Sun we did happen upon some brightly colored jeans that did remind me of my green and purple jeans I used to sport. My older cousin had a bright red pair. We looked GOOD.
Anyway, back to the trip at hand. We go to the dressing rooms and she starts trying things on, coming out to check my opinion on a couple of pieces. And here’s where I about died for the first time that day – she came out in a size 1 skinny jean and asked me if I thought they would be okay if she wore them with a belt. They were too big for her! The size 1 skinny!!! Oh, to be 13 again (or more like 9 in my case!).
From there we hit a lot of other stores and she scored in basically every one. Old Navy – polk dot bikini (we had to search for the XS). American Eagle – cute hoodie and shirt. Aeropostale – a hoodie that she gasped over because she loved it so much and some more cute shirts. Anchor Blue – jeans and a cool belt. Target – a “non-blue or green” shirt (blue is her favorite color to wear and she’d gone a little overboard at that point). By then she’d done so well that we left. We did all that damage in just under 3 hours (including eating lunch).
My favorite parts of the day were seeing the balance of little girl and teenager in her. It was really fun to help her find things to try and teach her little things about shopping (like what a jeans tag that says 1/2 S means – she kept saying “half S”) and it was cool to see her handle her money and make good decisions about what she should buy and what she should just leave on the shelf. When we went into Wet Seal I was relieved that she was a little overwhelmed by the sheer trashiness of it (when did it get so trashy anyway? or maybe I just got old?) But she was so excited to go into the Pink part of Victoria Secret even though I told her that if I let her buy anything there her dad would kill me. Thankfully she didn’t.
And she was sooo thankful about me taking her. She kept saying thanks over and over again. Very sweet. We’ve got plans for another go round before school starts again this fall. I wonder if the skinny jeans will still be everywhere.
Well that Abba post has been staring me in the face for too long now. And I really don’t have anything exciting to post (when will the monotony stop???) so I thought I would just post 10 random things that have happened recently. And no, this is not my facebook version of 25 random things about me – that’s already on facebook. You can look for it there. If you are facebook friends with me.
1. I finally saw Slumdog Millionaire last Friday. Amazing. So sad, but also so well done. The story had just the right amount of intricacies to really hook you in.
2. On Saturday I went bowling with some friends. We bowled 2 games and I didn’t break 100 either time. I should have the second time, but the stupid thing froze up and then knocked down my pins that I was supposed to hit for the spare. Also of note, my friend who is currently in a wheelchair (due to breaking both of his heels) bowled too. Definitely had a few gutter balls at first, but he worked on his form and technique and by the end he was giving us a run for our money.
3. I watched Once and Step Up 2: The Streets on Saturday night. I hadn’t seen Once since probably when it was in the theater. So good, but it always breaks my heart in the end. What can I say, I like happy endings. Probably why I ended the night with Step Up – nothing beats an awesome dance routine in the rain followed by a couple’s first kiss.
4. I ate brie cheese with a mixture of almonds and brown sugar melted on top. Oh my gosh.
5. My new cat woke me up at about 3:45 in the morning on Sunday night (and wouldn’t let me sleep again for at least an hour). I am so not used to sleeping with an animal. She definitely got thrown toward the end of the bed numerous times.
6. I’m actually looking forward to Valentine’s Day. Not because I have a valentine of my own, but because even though this holiday is supposedly a contrived holiday meant to make us spend money on useless chocolates and flowers, I still really like it. I mean yes, you should love the people you love everyday and let them know any old time. But why is it bad to have a chosen day where everyone celebrates love? It’s not saying that’s the only day you can love someone, it’s just helping to call all of our attention to love. Which you know, is “the greatest of these”. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist – but it is true!) Anyway, I’m hoping to make some Valentine’s for my cheerleaders and roommate and Grannie. I sent my niece and nephew’s out today. I’m sure the 10 1/2 month old boy will be very appreciative.
7. I’m going to take part in a blog share. That means that someday in the nearish future I will be posting a post written by someone else. In fact, a total stranger. And you’ll never know who it is. In fact, I don’t think I’ll even ever know who it is. And I’ll have a post of my own on some other total stranger’s blog. But I do think that there will be a list of all the participants or something so that we can check out the other blogs. You can obviously see that this is my first time being a part of anything like this. I am so the girl who jumps on technology after everyone else is pretty much on board.
8. I was able to finish a pretty big project at work in less than one total work day. It is something that comes up every year and we have to submit it to a higher entity in our work world. (Apparently I’m deciding right now not to go into detail about where I work. Even though I may have already talked about it in a previous post.) So I think this was my 4th time putting it together and submitting it. It is a crazy statistical report for things that we don’t keep very good records of (you would think we would have learned). Anyway, every year they send it out about a month before it is due. The first year I didn’t know what I was doing and it ended up being one of the most stressful couple of days for me to get it done. Each year since has been better but still difficult tracking down all these numbers in random places and from various people. So this year, I get an email last Thursday saying it is due today (Tuesday). I completely freaked out. Turns out none of us ever got the info they send out about a month before. ANNOYING. But in the end I got things figured out and I think we’re actually more accurate this time around than ever before. Ok, that was a lot of blah blah blahing about work.
9. I have been reading Gone With the Wind to Grannie. It is so long! And it takes me forever just to read one chapter. I read to her yesterday and I think we are on page 196 of something like 1,060 pages.
10. I have flossed my teeth every night since January 21st (the date of my last dentist appointment) and I’ve made my bed every morning this month (because of the new cat). I’m sure this does not seem significant to many of you readers, but let me just tell you that it is. At least to me and probably my mom who had to live with me never doing either of these things for all of my growing up years.
So a few things of note have happened since my last post. The schools were closed for 2(!) days due to flooding. Annoying. We had a 3 hour cheer practice on Friday afternoon. Not fun – but this may have been mostly due to the fact that I was really nauseous and felt like I was going to throw up for most of it (this was not due to anything the cheerleaders were doing – I think my body was just overtired and worn out). On Saturday we drove 2 hours in a lot of rain down to our competition. It was weird being a coach at a competition. I was so used to either being an actual cheerleader or just a spectator. Being a coach, you are worrying about every girl on your team and about whether you are getting people to the right places at the right time and following all of the “rules”. And you don’t have any control once the team is out there. But all that being said, our warm ups went pretty well – just a couple of bobbles on stunts, some extreme nerves about toe touch back hand springs, and one of our girls deciding to throw her full twisting layout (a VERY advanced tumbling pass) about 10 minutes before we were going to go on. And then we go to wait for our turn. I think we waited in the lobby area for 2 teams to perform and then went into the gym. I sat in the front on the floor right in front of the judges’ table all by myself (the other coach was handling the music on the side). It was really weird to be all alone right there. I wanted so badly to be able to DO something more. Anyway, the team is announced and the girls took the floor, the music started and the routine happens. They were so good! The tumbler who decided to throw the full absolutely nailed it, they did really well on almost all of their stunts, they were the loudest I had ever heard them, and they made facials I had never even seen on their faces. One of my flyers in particular who I always give a hard time about smiling was making these crazy (but cute) faces and after one stunt where she really hammed it up she looked right at me to make eye contact to make sure I’d seen it. At the awards ceremony at the end of the night we found out that we had taken 3rd place in our division. For it being our first time ever to compete (and we’ve been coaching for 5 years now), for not knowing exactly what we were getting ourselves into, and for having to miss a couple of practices due to school closure for the weather, I think we (they) did great! I was very proud.
That night I had to drive a school suburban back in the rain and the dark and with a lot of water on the roads already. Pretty scary. I was so exhausted from all the emotions of the competition and then the driving that I slept in until about noon the next day and actually didn’t even get out of bed until 1:30pm. Sweet goodness.
On Monday I had a really bad headache. The kind that was so bad that when I was falling asleep that night and it was getting perpetually worse by the minute I seriously thought, “Can you go to the ER for a headache?” I guess you probably can and probably should in some cases, but I would have been overreacting if I had gone. Thankfully when I woke up on Tuesday it had diminished quite a bit.
On Tuesday I found out that my Grannie who lives here in town had fallen in the dining room of her nursing home and broken her hip. I saw her at the hospital that evening and she had surgery the next day. I feel so bad for her especially because her short term memory is very poor and she can’t remember what happened, that her hip is even broken, or that she is in the hospital. I’m going there tonight to sit with her for awhile. I think I’m going to bring Gone With the Wind to read aloud to her. I have her old copy of it and I’ve actually never read it.
Obviously this isn’t the most exciting of blog posts. But I have just had a rigamaroll of emotions these past few days and thought writing about them might be a bit cathartic. I’m looking forward to a 3 day weekend coming and a chance to hopefully get some good rest, some time with Grannie, some fun with friends, and some work done in my crazy mess of a room and apartment. I’ll have to report back to tell you what I’ve actually accomplished (somehow it is very easy for me to skip over the cleaning and organizing for just about anything else).
