Alaska in 2009

This is my favorite picture it isn't actually in Alaska. We were in the Yukon Territory. This lake is called Emerald Lake. Isn't it great.

This is coming back down the Tracy Arm from the glacier that was up there heading on our way to Juneau.

This is a little late but that's okay. Bill and I went to Alaska, by cruise, in the beginning of August with my parents and my grandparents. It was a lot of fun. It was a blast. It made me want to live there for the rest of my life. I have no idea why but I have a love affair with Alaska. I'm not sure if it's the cold (because I'm always running hot), or if it is because there is just so much nature and very isolated, or if it is just because it is absolutely breathtaking but needless to say I have a love affair with it. Now don't worry I'm not going to move there because Bill never would and because RJ wouldn't be able to follow me up. It's just fabulous. There aren't any words to describe it at all you just have to go there for yourself. I'm sorry I have so many more pictures but since I'm on dial up it takes forever. I'll try to post more when I have access to someones high speed internet.

Life has it's twist and turns

So life really does have it's twists and turns. I've been trying to get together with my best friend from high school for a good few weeks. I haven't seen her since her beautiful baby boy was just born in the hospital that night. So it has been about 4 months. Now mind you I have gone about a year without seeing her so considering that it hasn't been that long but still to long in book considering that we live only 2 hours away from each other.

There I was at work just watching Patty getting back from lunch my phone was vibrating. Surprisingly I heard it and the picture on the screen was no less then Danielle. It was amazing. I answered the phone and I was like perfect timing I'm going to lunch right now. So Danielle was on the line and was telling me that Josh was going to be in Salt Lake City next week for a few days and she didn't have to work. So would it be alright if I came down to stay there with you on Tuesday and Wednesday. I was like well let me look. Perfect the only thing that I have down on my schedule is the Biggest Loser!! So needless to say she is coming out here with her 4 month old son Aiden and staying with Bill and I.

I was starting to get very discouraged that I wasn't going to see her at all because both of our schedules are so full right now. But, Hallelujah, she is coming here next week!!!! I think that when she is here we can plan our next meeting hopefully!!!

Spider Solitaire

I'm sorry to say that I'm addicted to Spider Solitaire. I'm here on my computer and whenever I'm connecting to or connected with the internet I'm constantly in the process of playing a game. Since we have dial up still, it gives the best reward to pass the time while something loads on the internet. However dial up hasn't been extremely bad lately it's actually pretty fast, comparatively of course to DSL it isn't but we have no comparison when we are home so we just keep our games of plain solitaire for bill and spider solitaire for me up no matter what that way we have a game to play to pass the time.

Right now I'm in the middle of a new game while typing this message. It's such great fun thats all I have to say. One day we might change but it will be a little while.

Halloween

I'm so excited for this Halloween. Bill and I are watching mama griffiths kids complete with trick or treating and pumpkin carving. We have enticed Matthew to help us (one of our friends), well not so much help, but to come with us and have some fun. For the last few years we try to do something together the three of us or more. This year I'm have coerced Bill and Matthew that they need to dress up and come and trick or treat with me and the kids. I don't know what Bill is going to be but I'm thinking that there is a red neck costume at the store that I think that I will buy for him. Me, however I'm going to be a mobster. Complete with hat, ring, vest, and a gun (a fake one of course). However if I got my CHL I actually could have a real gun on me and visible. Haha. That tends to freak me out when I'm watching kids or even around kids so I most likely wouldn't do it anyway. So back to the story at hand. Only a month and a week and a half away and I'm already getting the buzz and trying to find some really cool things to keep the 3 entertained for hours on end. I don't think that it will be hard because really I could just run around in a circle and they would just follow me and climb and attack me. We have such a great relationship. I get to be a kid again and its fabulous.

The New Biggest Loser Season

So tonight was the 2nd episode of the Biggest Loser!!! It is so much better then the last few seasons of the Biggest Loser. However there are some interesting differences or maybe not differences but its just showing up within more people and sooner. The crying is almost unbearable!!! It is just so painful to watch guys cry then girls. I mean I hate when I see Bill cry its almost like I can't take it. Growing up in this society has taught men not to cry and so as a woman when you see other women cry its not a huge deal and you feel more sympathy and you know for the most part how to help them. But when a man cries there is the chemical reaction that goes off in my head and it makes me laugh. Not that they shouldn't cry but in the society where men aren't supposed to cry it's just built in that when a man does cry it's like there less then a real man which in fact they aren't but it is just hard to bear and watch. I don't know what to do when a man cries because we treat men and women differently. Therefore when I watch the Biggest Loser and a man cries my physical reaction isn't pity or feeling bad it's laughter. I know that it's mean but I just can't help it.

I'm glad that the plot is different this year they really needed to do something different. I hope that they do some fun challenges within this years season. I can't wait until the next episode!

Working out

So I have been working out steadily for about 5 months now. Yahoo. It's been really nice to have my once was walking partner who is now my jogging partner back in town for the last 5 months. It has been extremely nice. We do Pilates in the morning for about 20 minutes and jog at night for 2.5-3.5 miles every other day and walk the other 2 days with weights.

I work with an amazingly athletic girl who was my inspiration to start jogging. She can jog 21 miles at one time. Crazy I know. So I decided that I would start jogging and talked it over with my walking partner. So off we went. Sadly I could barely make it to the stop sign down the road and I had to walk the rest of the way around the loop. Slowly but surely we made it 1 mile before Rj went away on vacation for 2 weeks. There it was our first hurdle. So I asked Renee (the girl I work with) to jog with me. Boy that was craziness. We did 2 miles that first day!!!! She had to actually stand behind me and push me up the final hill that lasted forever. It was the most killer jog I had been on. The next day that I was with her we did a different route but still 2 miles. Slowly but surely these past 5 months we've gotten to the point of being able to jog 4 miles consistently if we wanted to. We have decided lately that we needed something different within our workout so we decided everyTuesday and Thursday we were going to walk with weights. We started with 2.5 lbs and have moved it up to 5 and 10 lb weights. Which still don't make my arms hurt but thats ok. We will still burn more calories.

We went on vacation this last week and we unfortunately didn't work out the entire time that we were in Utah/Nevada. A little disappointing but nice. However it was amazing to come back and start up everything again. Yesterday we did pilates and it hurt!!! The jog that we did was 2.5 miles and it was painful as well but the last .1 miles we sprinted until the end of her road. So that is the latest thing that we are going to be doing. We are going to sprint .1miles and slowly push it out so that we can sprint the whole 2.5 miles (hehe). I think that it will take at least another 5 months or more to get to that point but at least it's another goal to push towards.

Not My Thing All The Time

So I know that I'm just using this thing lately to just talk about my problems and vent and for the people that actually read it I'm sorry. I truly am but it's my only real venting system that truly makes me feel better. That and nothing exciting happens in my life on a regular basis.

So I use to have movie nights at my house every Sunday. That was fine and I got used to it but then something happened. I changed. Really I got amazingly depressed and I didn't want a lot of people at my house all the time. So I stopped having them and also another triggering affect for it was that someone said well you don't have kids so its the best place to have them. I have kids and I can't have the TV up loud because it would wake them up was her excuse for not having them at her house sometimes.

I can't tell you how much it bothered me but at the time I think that I was slightly disturbed but in the mind set of just pushing my feelings back(not a good thing to do). So now I'm even more in the mindset that I don't want to do them because of that one person that thinks that I'm the one that should always be putting them on because I'm the only one that doesn't have kids. She has made similar statements about being a parent and I'm not. So I'm in the mood that I really don't want to have girl nights anymore besides for the few friends that would actually come to spend time with me and not make me feel worse. I know that she is probably not doing it on purpose let alone she probably doesn't even know that she is hurting my feelings and that I should tell her but I don't want to have that conversation and confrontation about it. I've done that to much lately that I'm tired of crying and talking.

This last Saturday I got back from Utah at about 10:40pm. Sunday Bill and I slept in and that was great. We got up at 10ish and then I went to Fred Meyers and Costco to do some grocery shopping. By that evening I was even more drained. I haven't done anything besides paying bills and the laundry which is still unfolded in the laundry basket. I then get a call from her asking if I was going to have a girls night. I replied no. To that she asks well can you? I said no again. Maybe I'm just reading into this to much but really if you want a movie night that bad have it at your house and invite people there. I really don't care if you have kids or not it's the same thing no matter what if you want a movie night then have it at your house don't except that that one person is always going to have it every week. Besides it's funner to move it around from house to house that way not one person is doing it and having to keep there house clean at all hours of the day and week. I personally like not having to clean the house all the time.

I know that I'm venting but it has made me feel better. I'll let you know when the next movie night is going to be.

Utah Salt Flats

This week we went on the long awaited trip to the Utah Salt Flats. Bill and a few other friends have had this trip planned for about 2 years now and it finally happened. I'm sorry to say that it was a let down of sorts. Not the entire week but a few days and specific events.

First off the drive down was good we changed time zones a few different times surprisingly. It went back and forth between states that we went through. We got there at 11:30 to the KOA at West Wendover, NV. Walking up to the door of the office we noticed that there was a black widow spider, yes a black widow, on the door. Greg instantly brought up his flip flop and killed it. Not a good start at staying at a campsite. We had our instructions taped to the door of where our campsite was and the code to get into the bathroom. (Never had that before. I felt kind of cool having a code to the bathroom.) So there we are trudging slowly along to the campsite. It is down the road and right there. We are next to a wooden fence and there is a section formed by railroad ties to say where you have to put your tents. We all looked at it hoping that all 3 tents were going to fit in the space. It was very small. Before we put up our tents (since we found 1 black widow) I took a lantern and ran it across the back fence to see if there were any other creatures there that needed to be killed. Yep, there was. We found another Black Widow spider. Greg again took off his flip flop and killed it. It was most disconcerting to find 2 black widows not knowing that they were going to be there waiting for us. There were also big bats that were flying about. Quickly we put up our tents, Bill and my tent had to go in sideways in order for all 3 to fit in the site. Soon we were off to sleep alarms ready for 6:30 am.

6:30 rolls around and we get up slowly (Bill and I a little late) and hop into the truck and hope that we can find a Starbucks from the city of Wendover. I forgot to mention. On the way there to Wendover as we were driving there was a nice glow of lights in the distance. A little later we found out it was our little town of Wendover. There were about 6 big casinos neon lights everywhere welcoming us to Wendover. The best casino name is The Red Garter. Hehe. You know thats where they have interesting people. Anyway, back to the story. We finally get into the truck and try to find a Starbucks. We know that there is one in town. It was actually in the Golden Nugget, a casino!! We get inside and there is a long line with only 1 guy working and taking orders and making the drinks. Ugh. We get our coffees and off we go to the salt flats about 10 miles down the road. It is so much different then I expected. I've seen it in the movies and never thought it was really that white but it is very, very white. Sunglasses required. We find out that the Salt is really wet and we can't race on it so they were just teching the cars and then we had to come back tomorrow for the race. So the guy comes over and techs the car and it was about noon finishing up we decided to head to Salt Lake City to do some shopping. Shopped we did. It was fabulous.

The next day we got up again at 6:30 and off we went to Starbucks again. Again the same guy was working doing all the orders. We got to the salt and got to drive to the pit area. Drivers meeting was at 9 and then pushed back to 10. So Rj and I took a walk looking at all the cars and people there. Which I'm sorry but Hollywood has lied to us!!! There were absolutely no good looking guys or the track hoes anywhere. They were all old people and there wives. So sad. Bill and Greg go get in line which is about 2.5 miles away from the pits and leave Rj and Mat and I at the pits to read and do whatever. By 3pm no one had raced yet and the people that were in charge said to go back to the pits and they would let them know when to come back. Apparently they were having printing issues. Apparently they couldn't get the names and numbers to print on the piece of paper. Personally I think that they should have just taken a pen and paper and written it down. At 3:30 they got the call to go back to the staging area so off they went and waited in line some more. They finally started to let people race and said they were keeping the salt flats open until 7 to let people do there calibration runs. At 7 Greg was up to the front of the line ready to go and they closed the salt down!!!! So Bill and Greg waited in line for 10 hours and they got to do nothing!!!! How horrendous is that. When we got back to camp I again took the lantern and went along the fence to see if there were anymore spiders. Yep I found 3 Black Widow Spiders. I got to kill them this time so it was Greg 2 and Nyssa 3. While we were sitting around there was a cockroach that came out of hiding. That was the final straw for me. I slept in the cab of the truck. I could handle Black Widows and Bats but not Cockroaches!!

Next day, Friday!!! The last day at the salt flats that we had. We had to get Bill and Greg through the line to get in at least 2 or 3 runs in. Almost impossible. Since they cut off Greg at the very front of the line they let him go first so one down. He waited in line again for 2 hours because the timing place was so exceptionally slow they couldn't or wouldn't send more cars through faster. They apparently haven't heard the words walkie-talkies before. It took 5 - 10 minutes for each car to get through from start to finish!! So long in between cars. So much waiting around time. Finally Greg got up to the line and did his second pass. He hit the speed limiter at around 120mph!!! We didn't know that it was on there. He was supposed to go 130mph. Argh!! They brought the car back to the pits and were able to disconnect the speed limiter. Bill got it teched again and was off back to the line. Bill finally got up to the line at around 3:30 and was able to do his first pass. He got 133mph and then it stalled out and as he crossed the line it read him as going 127mph. Ugh. He was out of gas. So he went and got 2 gallons of race gasoline which I'm so sad that it cost $10/gallon. It was frightening to think about. Bill got back to the front of the line at around 5:30ish and off he went hoping that was the only problem about why the car stalled out. Apparently it was not. He got up to 140mph and it died again making him cross the line at 117mph. Double Arghhhh!! We decided to leave then and go out to a cheap buffet and play the penny slots.

Well we went to the first casino to find out how much the buffet was $25!!!!! That is atrocious. So we moved on and on everything was $25 dollars. We finally ended up at the Golden Nugget and went to there steakhouse and had the best meal of that day!! We took our $1 and played the penny slots for about an hourish. It was the best night that we had had all week long.

Saturday was the day that we were coming home. It went well until our trailer blew a tire. Luckily we were close to Hermiston so we found a Les Schwab and had the tires replaced on the one side and off we went down the road to home! We finally got in at 10:30. It was nice to be home.

I think that thing that bothered me most was the fact that we didn't have any nights out besides the two. Otherwise it was come home from the salt, quickly shove down dinner, and then immediately sleep. The other thing that bothered me was the fact that the organization was atrocious! It was the poorest put together event I have ever been to in my life!!! I won't be going back there for another few years. I need some space between the two events to get me to go back there. Anyway, I think that I'm done ranting now.

Friendships

Do you ever get the feeling that you are the only one trying in a relationship? I'm to that point right now. Not with my marriage but with a certain friend. Obviously I know that as time goes by people change and I'm not sure if it's me that has changed or my best friend that has changed. I'm sure it's a lot of both but you know how much to I have to pester her to get a date to get together. I have been commenting on her facebook wondering when we can get together for the past few weeks. Waiting for an answer still.

The last time that I saw her was a little of 3 months now which isn't the longest that I haven't seen her so I guess I should be glad about that but it's getting rather annoying to have her come to some decision about when to get together. I'm to the point that I just want to stop bugging her. I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm the one that always has to go out to Vancouver to visit her that it's almost to big of an inconvience for her to travel to the coast. Maybe it's her work schedule maybe she only gets a month schedule so maybe I'm just being paranoid who knows. But argh!!!! I want to see her and I want to see what she is up to lately since I barely ever get to see her. So I'm sure that this doesn't make sense my head is a little jumbled together right now. Argh!!!