alaska recap

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.

Surprise Trip

At the beginning of April I headed to Tennessee to see one of my old high school friends.  It was her birthday on April 3rd and I had some PTO that was itching to be used.  But instead of telling Carlie about it, I contacted her husband (who luckily I’m friends with on good ol’ myspace) to see if we could pull off me coming to surprise her.  So Tony and I planned this all out via messaging on myspace which I have to say is not the most efficient means of communication.  But it got figured out, I bought the ticket, and he was going to drive to Nashville to pick me up from the airport.  So of course the day before I leave, Carlie throws a wrench in the plans.  She has decided to take their youth group (of which they are the leaders) to laser tag because it is the kids’ spring break.  She has planned for the group to meet at 4pm at the church and meanwhile Tony is supposed to be picking me up at about 3pm in Nashville which is a good 45 minutes to an hour from their town.  Tony tried to lie and say he was going to play basketball with some of his coworkers and she got all mad at him for having plans on a day they were doing a youth activity.  He couldn’t handle her wrath so he eventually just told her that he was getting something for her birthday and that was the only time he was going to be able to get it taken care of.  So of course she was fine about it all after that.  Anyway…Tony picks me up, we head to the church, and I hide in the truck until she comes outside.  Then I sneak over, crouching down behind her car and pop up right when I’m in her line of sight.  She definitely wasn’t expecting me – the look on her face made that clear.  And then she just gasped and asked the obligatory, “What are YOU doing HERE?”  But she didn’t cry.  I would have like to have seen tears.

Oh, and I joined in on one of the rounds of laser tag and had the highest score in our group of 19.  Maybe that’s my secret life skill?

The week that ensued was mostly just us hanging out.  Which was nice and relaxing and just what I needed.  Carlie and Tony have a baby girl who is just about the most darling child you’ve ever met.  I got to babysit her a little bit which was pretty fun, but also really tiring.  Its weird how the longer I’m single and childless the more overwhelmed when I have to take care of a kid.  At 17 I was sure I wanted to be married and have 4 kids and now at 27 I can almost imagine not having any just because of the amount of energy they suck out of you every moment of every day.  Anyway, here are some pics of their adorable munchkin.

On the day I was supposed to be heading home, I got to the airport in Nashville and they said that my flight was 29 minutes late which meant I’d miss my connection and there were absolutely no other flights to get me to Seattle that day.  Ridiculous.  29 minutes causes this much of a hiccup in the system?  And I wasn’t the only one.  At least 5 other people right in line behind me were dealing with the same thing – one girl was going to Australia and there was an older couple who had driven from Kentucky and were heading to Idaho for her mother’s 95th birthday – not really things that are easy to reschedule.  Luckily I was just able to call Carlie and they turned around, drove the 20 minutes back to the airport and then we went all the way back to their place.  I did get another cherry limeaide from Sonic out of the deal, so not all was lost.  Then poor Carlie had to drive me back to Nashville the next morning to catch a 9:30am flight.  BUT, I got to ride first class from Chicago to Seattle and that made up for it all.  Did you know they give you your beverages in real glasses?  And besides warm nuts in ramekins, a lunch of warm shrimp salad and tomato basil vegetable soup, plus all the liquids you could ever want in a 4 hour period, they brought you a warm chocolate chip cookie and a glass of milk!  I had to use the lavatory twice and felt so bad about disturbing the woman sitting next to me (I mean, we’re in first class – people pay to not be disturbed here!).  So after tentatively waking her, I was surprised when she was all bright smiles and saying, “No worries.  They pump you full of liquids up here!”  And maybe you didn’t want to know about my peeing needs, but the whole thing was just amusing (ok, maybe only to me) so I had to share.

Anyway it was a great trip.  I was so happy to be able to just surprise Carlie and I love that our friendship is strong enough that she can handle me just dropping in for 6 days unannounced.  It can be hard to live so far away from her.  Luckily we get to see each other in July up in Alaska for our 10 year reunion.  Which is still weird to realize it’s been that long since we were sitting in class together in high school.