Cochabamba. Not a Cartoon.

I’ve been home from Bolivia for 50 days. 50 DAYS! Crazy how time flies by….and it’s about time I write a little trip recap.

(The title of the post comes from the woman who checked me in at the airport - she looked at my final destination and said, "Cochabamba?! That sounds like a cartoon!")

When Bex first said that she was going to Bolivia, I knew right away that I wanted to visit her. I told her as much, and we both started to get excited about the possibility of me actually visiting. There were moments during the year that I thought the trip wouldn't happen due to tight finances, my work schedule, etc, but I am THRILLED with how the Lord worked those things out. A few things motivated me to visit Bex:

1. I MISS HER!
2. I LOVE visiting places where people I know are living (or have lived). You get the best insider-tours, the best food, and the most “homey” visit. I loved that about my trip to Lithuania (and other places in the US), and I’m anxious to continue to travel to see friends in their new homes around the world.
3. I firmly believe in supporting missionaries – financially, but also emotionally. Though I’ve never been a missionary, I can guarantee it has difficult moments. I grew up in a church and home that placed a high priority on supporting missionaries, and I continue to place a high priority on it. My sister wrote a letter (before a recent trip to Asia to see a friend) that sums up (better than I can) why she believes visiting missionaries is important: "We believe that the support of Christian workers serving abroad is a worthy and needful endeavor. We are pursuing this trip in response to John’s encouragement to Gaius to send the brothers (traveling Christian workers) in a manner worthy of God. Here is the full passage: "Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. For they have gone out of the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore, we (me) ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth." 3 John 1:5-8" I want to be a fellow worker for the truth with Bex through prayer, encouragement, and speaking the truth over her. I'm in a stage of life which allows me to encourage her in person. And I don't pretend to be the first person on Bex's list of "people to see from the states", but I think that any familiar face and touch of home would be an encouragement....I just didn't want to be too big of a burden!

Anyway, the details of the trip fell nicely into place for me to visit during a break from her teaching, and Bex is one TERRIFIC host - sending me many emails beforehand about what to expect for weather, what to pack, ideas of what we would be doing, etc. Needless to say, I WAS EXCITED!!

Highlights of my trip included:

1. Being with Bex  – talking, laughing (mostly at my Spanglish), sharing struggles and encouragements, being goofy, catching up on the lives we've been living on different continents, and relaxing (she has a grueling schedule at school – in addition to learning and speaking a different language – it is EXHASUTING – and since I was visiting her during her spring break, I definitely anticipated wanting to have some dedicated rest time with her).
2. Seeing Bex use her gifts – she has clearly been called to serve in Bolivia! The Lord has specific tasks that He prepared for her this year and it was a blessing to hear about it and see it first-hand. I was able to visit the school where she teaches and see her classes, as well as watch her pull off a talent show event for easily over 300 guests……it was awesome! Bex has been gifted to organize, draw people together, and direct. I was very, very blessed to see her in action and know that she is exactly where the Lord wants her to be. Seeing her in that environment made it easy for me to picture the busy schedule she's had over the last weeks with directing the school musical and putting on the prom.....like I said, she is using her gifts, and her gifts are needed!
3. Seeing Bex in her new home – I loved doing the day-to-day things with Bex. Going grocery shopping, meeting her friends (she had Bolivian friends over for a game night – so much fun!....even though communicating with them was, um, interesting, since I don’t speak Spanish), and going to the market (where we kept running into people Bex knows – so awesome to see that this really is Bex’s new home and community!). Even boiling drinking water and cooking/baking without typical ingredients in the high altitude was great – I loved seeing how Bex has adjusted to her new living conditions and life in the Andes.
4. Being touristy – We visited the Concha (South America’s largest open-air market), shopped for knick-knacks, sang karokee, had a picnic at a park, used lots of public transportation as well as walked for miles, ate traditional Bolivian food (saltenas), visited cute restaurants (Café Paris, the “horse” restaurant, etc), toured an active convent, and much more!
5. Easter – I think Easter Sunday was my favorite day in Cochabamba. The city held a service at the soccer stadium with all of the evangelical churches. Even though I don’t know Spanish, the songs were familiar and I knew the words in English. At one point, they were singing a song in Quechuan (the language of an indigenous ethnic group in Bolivia), much of the crowd was singing along in Spanish, and I was singing in English! It felt like a little taste of Heaven to be praising the Father with many nations on the day when we remember Christ's sacrifice for us all. After church we went home to take a nap and then had a very yummy lunch and great conversation with Ami, Bex’s neighbor. Then we went to the Cristo de la Concordia (the largest statue of Jesus Christ in the world). There was some amazing people watching at the Cristo (….is what I imagine everyone who observed the three of us was thinking), but mostly I loved looking out over the city that I was beginning to love with a dear friend and her new friend. It was an excellent near-ending to my trip.

So, as you can see, it was quite the trip……and I haven’t even mentioned being stuck in Bolivia due to airline craziness!! Not the way I wanted to end my trip, but even a few days of unknown return itinerary couldn’t ruin the amazing time I had learning about Cochabamba and spending days with Bex. It felt like only a week had gone by since I had seen her last, even though it had been months and months. I’m thankful for our friendship – that we can pick up where we left off, that we can be honest with each other, and that we can encourage each other in our faith. What a blessing to have had the opportunity to fall in love with Cochabamba! Many thanks to Bex for hosting me!

Traveling Mercies

(I'm writing this from my iPhone in the Miami airport....so I have no idea how the formatting will turn out, but this is a great way for me to kill some time!)

It is very appropriate that I am writing this post from an airport, because that is where I have spent much of my time in the last month! In fact, in 40 days, I have only slept at home 10 nights (well, that includes the trip I am leaving for now). SO....what have I been up to...?...

It started with a 'retreat' with my new small group women. 6 of us spent the night out of the city getting to know each other better, eating good food, telling stories, pampering each other (pedicures and massages!), and relaxing. I'm very thankful for a group that has immediately included me and so warmly welcomed me.

Then I headed to Dallas for work. Work has been nothing short of extremely stressful, and my body started to tell me that by breaking out in about 100 boils on my legs. I am much better now, thanks to a very competent dermatologist, but the process of figuring out what was wrong was no fun. Maybe more on that in another post...

Anyway, I went straight from Dallas to Indianapolis to meet up with my sister for the Big Ten Basketball Tournament. It. Was. A. Blast!! I was SO happy that the Gophers won their first round game, otherwise I wouldn't have seen them play at all. But even if they hadn't won, it was totally worth it to see tons of fun games, see all the different student sections and bands, eat great food, and enjoy downtown Indy. So glad we went!

The next weekend I went to Yuma to meet up with the rest of my family and visit Grandpa. Time with him is very special, especially to be there just after he turned 93! A few of my aunts were there, as well as some other friends from Long Prairie, and it was a great few days of trying to de-stress, playing cards, and watching a bunch of basketball!

The next week I spent some time out of town for work and then headed to Camp for quilt retreat. The weather was AMAZING (we saw a water skier on March 24!) and the company was just as good. I was so productive, but also had a ton of time for really nice conversations with great girls.

I worked away from home again the next week and then headed to the cities for the weekend. I really was feeling drained from my travels and I was REALLY missing my friends....so much has been going on that I haven't had time to process with some of my good friends. The weekend in the cities was just what I needed - I went to dinner and a Ben Rector concert with my 'brothers' and their wives, spent the night with my former roommate and had a wonderful catch-up session with her and the puppy, went to a sweet baby shower, spent the night in downtown Minneapolis with Bethel girls, finally was back at church, had lunch with some favorites, stopped over to see a friend and her husband and daughter, went on a walk with my bestie from high school, got a hot stone massage, and ate lots of ice cream. Whew! Talk about packing it all in! It was much needed and I cried on the way home because I felt very blessed. And very tired.

And now I'm on my way to South America. I can't believe I'm actually going! A friend lives there and I'm so excited to see her and see what her life is like! There will most certainly be a post coming about this trip.

I titled this post Traveling Mercies because I definitely have experienced many mercies during all of this craziness. I've been safe and generally healthy - and even when I wasn't healthy (those stupid boils), I felt that I could understand some things the Lord was teaching me (the need to lessen my stress at work, to slow down and take care of myself, etc). I've been blessed with a bonus that made my traveling possible, and I've connected with many people along the way who have encouraged me and blessed me during our conversations. Right now I'm longing to stay put at home for many, many days in a row....but that's not going to happen anytime soon! Even so, I'm grateful for a season of life with so much flexibility to have so many wonderful experiences.

Hawaiian Highlights

I can't believe we have been back from Hawaii for over a week! Things are so BUSY when you get back from vacation. I definitely wanted to write a post about our trip before I start to forget some of my favorite things.

Our trip to Maui in 2009 was my favorite vacation ever, so I was really excited to go back and see some of my favorite things, as well as go on new adventures. This trip ended up being quite different from the last time we were on Maui - partly because we stayed quite a distance from where we had been before, and partly because we ended up just RELAXING more, instead of hiking, etc. Which was fine with me - even though I LOVED the hikes we went on last time, it was nice to lay low.

Here's a list of some highlights (in no particular order):

1. Half Marathon. The second day we were there I ran a half marathon. I have a goal to do a half marathon in every state, so since there was a race going on while we were there, I thought I couldn't pass it up. Is a half marathon exactly what I want to be doing while on vacation? NO WAY. Am I glad I did it? YES! It was a beautiful run along the ocean while watching the whales play and the sun rise. It was well organized and I met some nice runners. The funniest moment was when I was stretching my calf against a speed limit sign and another runner yelled out to me "way to hold up that sign!"
2. Hotel. We stayed at the Ritz Carleton which was AMAZING. The pools were immaculate, the staff was overly hospitable, the ocean was beautiful, the food was crazy good. We spent a lot of time by the pool - so much so that toward the end of our stay the pool staff gave us a free cabana (usually around $300/day) for a day - complete with a couch, flat screen TV, music, ceiling fans, etc. The timing couldn't have been better since I had a fever that day and couldn't really be out in the sun. An amazing blessing to enjoy the cabana!
3. Food. Staying in a somewhat more touristy part of the island allowed us to try out many new restaurants....which were AWESOME! Personal favorites were Merimans ("chocolate purse dessert") and The Gazebo (can you say macadamia nut white chocolate chip pancakes with coconut syrup?!?!?!.......we went there twice!)
4. Friends. My sister was at a conference, so there were quite a few people we knew at the resort. It was fun to run into people at the pool to chat. We also got to know some friends-of-friends, in one of those "small world" situations, which was super fun. Let alone the fact that our group of six that traveled together was the GREATEST - so many laughs. I did MUCH less reading on this trip than any vacation ever - mostly because I did so much talking around the pool with friends! (but also because the book I was reading took digesting - but that's another post)
5. Zip Lining. In the west Maui mountains with a view of the ocean. Amazing. The longest zip line was 1100 feet!

All in all, it was a great, great, great vacation. It came at the perfect time when things were extremely stressful at work. What a blessing to have fun travel friends and to have the means and ability to see the world!

Reminiscence

About three weeks ago the snow started to really melt, the air was a bit warmer, and since the weather matched so perfectly to one of my favorite road trips ever, I started to reminisce. (That tells you a bit about how nice it has been, since the weather was exactly like our '08 spring road trip on the second weekend of March, but we took the trip on the first weekend of April!)

We called it Big and Ugly (or Weird MN). It was inspired by a coffee table book called Weird Minnesota that I received when I moved into my house in Brainerd. During that same time, my job took me through every small town in northern MN and I soon became curious about every huge statue these small towns had. After doing some online researching, I convinced my sisters that we should take a weekend and conduct a road trip entirely within the boarders of our own state. Our destination would be as many strange statues as we could fit into 72 hours. We made it to 52 cities and traveled over 1700 miles. There wasn't much sleeping (due to being up early and staying up late to drive...) but there was a lot of listening to music, watching DVDs on the computer, talking, laughing, and picture taking. We saw some AMAZING Big and Ugly statues. Here are a few of my favorites:

Let's be honest, I could post about 40 more pictures, but I'll stop.

Ahhhh. I love MN. I love road trips. I love weather that makes me reminisce.

If You're Interested

My sister wrote a Hawaiian Haiku about our trip, and also posted the (abbreviated) video of my jump from the cliff. If you're interested, you can check it out here.

Playing Catch-Up

I've been back from my trip for a week (seems like longer than that, what with the crazy busy week at work and a weekend in Duluth with sisters and friends....) so I thought I'd write down some highlights from Lithuania/Latvia/brief stop in Finland:

• The travel: AWESOME flights – personal TVs with a selection of 25 movies, 10 TV shows, video games, etc. Problem: never slept on the nine hour flights, which didn’t help with the jet lag. Also, the bus we took to Latvia was sweet – it had a coffee/cappuccino machine, restroom, TVs (that played creepy music videos), tables, comfortable enough seats for sleeping, etc. I didn't have any bad travel experiences during our nine days, except for a bit of fear in the sleeper train from Klaipeda to Vilinus (I kept thinking I was going to fall from the top bed).
• The food: There is no better way to travel than with people who REALLY know the area where you are traveling, especially when it comes to the food. Steve and Laura knew exactly what restaurants to take us to and exactly what to order at those restaurants. I would say my favorite restaurant was Stora Antis: it was like going down into a cave - very quaint and very amazing food. We tried Saltibarsciai, a traditional Lithuanian soup (cold beet soup), and Kepta Duana, a traditional Lithuanian appetizer (fried garlic bread covered in some kind of cheese). Both were AMAZING and I could have eaten them every day! We had some yummy desserts during the week, but my favorite was the peanut flavored gelato (you could even have Coca-Cola or Red Bull flavors!). I was also SO impressed with the food we ate at Steve and Laura's home. I learned that when you live in a foreign country, you become a very "flexible" cook. When I make pizza "from scratch" in America, it means I buy the pizza sauce, toppings, crust, etc, and throw together a pizza. In Lithuania, it means that you even make the pizza sauce from scratch! You can't even buy sausage there, so we decided to use hamburger for our pizza, but Steve made sausage from scratch later on in the week for an egg bake recipe. I was very inspired by their improvisation and the tasty food they treated us to in their home. OH - we also ate at a GREAT Mexican restaurant in Vilinus. YUM. Mexican is my favorite!!
• The sights: RIGA was my favorite city that we went to. Even though it was a snowy and cloudy day, I loved walking through Old Town and seeing the cool buildings. The Occupation Museum there was very educational, and we ate at the strangest restaurant, Hospitalis, that was very Hospital-themed with beautiful, delicious desserts. In Klaipeda (where Steve and Laura live) we saw the Baltic, Old Town, went shoe shopping, and toured LCC (the school where they work). Helsinki was a VERY short visit for us, since it was on a lay-over and also because it was FREEZING cold and we could hardly stand walking around for a minute more. We did see the Church in the Rock there (a church build entirely within a rock) which was very cool. Vilinus was another historical and beautiful city. I loved seeing the Genocide museum, which was in an old Soviet prison (CRAZY things happened there....). Again, the buildings were gorgeous and it was fun to walk around the city and see historical sights. We all made a wish (a Lithuanian tradition) on the Stebuklas (the "Miracle Block") - the place where 2 million people started a chain that stretch 650km to Tallinn as a peaceful protest of Soviet rule in 1989. Trakai is a city just outside of Vilinus where there is a castle that has been restored and now is basically a museum. It was AWESOME! The castle itself was quite the sight to see, and the tour was very informative and interesting. Needless to say, I learned a TON in all of the cities we went to about the culture and history.
• The company: As I said, Steve and Laura were the BEST tour guides EVER. In addition to that, I loved catching up on their lives, having good conversations, playing games, etc. We also enjoyed meeting Steve's student leaders and playing Pass-It-Pictionary and Fill or Bust with them. All of our walking and chatting and sight-seeing was wonderful, but it was also great to relax in front of the Olympics in the evenings (even though it was in Lithuanian, and even though the US hockey team lost on our last night in Lithuania).

All that to say that I really, really enjoyed this trip. I've appreciated it more and more as I've been telling people about all the unique things we saw and did, and everything I learned. I'm sure there's even more that could be said, so I'd love to tell you about it sometime if you are curious! Thanks, Hansons, for all the great memories!!

You're Going Where???

Over the last month, as I've told people about my upcoming trip to Lithuania, the most common question I've gotten is "You're going where?" The next most common questions are "Where is that?" and "Why?" Since I haven't really answered any of those questions here (and Jen asked about it on the last post), I'll give a brief answer (as I have a moment to blog on a bus that has wireless on our way back from a day in Riga, Latvia....we got up early today to make the trip and had a great day, but I can't believe it is already THURSDAY!)

Some really good friends have been living and working in Lithuania since 2008. As soon as they went, my sister and I knew we wanted to visit them because a) they are awesome and so fun and we would totally miss them for two years, b) there would probably never be another reason to visit the Baltic States, and c) we wanted to see what their life and work was like in a foreign country. We bought our tickets almost a year ago and that is when the official countdown began - Laura even made a paper chain!

We have been having a blast, but the time is going so fast!! Everything we've done has been VERY memorable - some because of weather, some because of the history, some because of the architecture, and some because of the company (thankfully nothing has been memorable due to major bus mishaps). Lithuania has an extremely interesting history, from Soviet occupation, to the Holocaust, to another Soviet occupation, to the fall of the Iron Curtain. Steve and Laura are very well-informed and the nerd in me has loved learning bits and pieces of the history. My Lithuanian is just as good as my Spanish and German now (meaning I can now say thank you, please, hello, goodbye, good night, help, and do you speak English?). It's been fun to learn and see more about the culture of the country they are living in, as well as the culture of the school where they work. We've also had lots of good, authentic Lithuanian food, lots of coffee, and we've managed to play more than a few hands of Rook.

All in all, the trip is WONDERFUL and I really don't want it to end! This weekend we'll head to Vilinus to explore more with Steve and Laura before we fly out from there on Sunday. Laura has had a chance to spend time with us the last few days after she tied a few things up with work, but Steve has been extremely busy with work, so we had to leave him behind today. We really didn't want to be a burden on their time as we realized they would have things to accomplish for work throughout the week, but it has been awesome to have Laura be our guide and hang out with Steve in the evenings, and we're excited to be with both of them this weekend!

Don't know if I'll blog anymore while we're here, but that's a little idea as to what in the world we are doing near the Baltic!

Hello From Lithuania!

We made it! It was a LONG day(s?) of travel, but so far the trip has been WONDERFUL, and it is just starting!

I have lots and lots of things to blog about. I've been reading, listening to music, and watching movies while we traveled, and my brain has been in major processing mode, so some of those thoughts will make it to the blog, and some will not. But for now I am blogging as a way to waste time and hopefully make me sleepy.....it's after 4AM in Lithuania and I'm the only one still awake. Probably because I didn't get out of bed until 3PM today after sleeping over 15 hours (to make up for basically missing an entire night's sleep on the way here). I guess I have to force myself out of bed tomorrow (Beav and I are headed into town to explore) to get myself on the right schedule.

We may or may not have eaten McDonald's twice before we were even in Lithuania for three hours (once in Finland and once in Vilinus) but DON'T WORRY....the McDonald's in Finland was more of an "emergency meal" situation (since we were FREEZING and we needed to get back to the airport to catch our flight, so we couldn't do too much looking for lunch) and our McDonald's in Vilinus only came after we had more of an "authentic Lithuanian" meal (chicken and cheese wrapped in a pancake) and we needed to buy an ice cream treat in order to use the McD's bathroom before we got on our four hour bus ride.

We were thankful for smooth and safe travel (pretty much one of the best flights I've ever been on was from JFK to Helsinki). We lucked out with the best gate agent ever in MSP - we originally didn't have seats from MSP to JFK, so at the gate we needed to figure that out. As we approached the agent, I happened to be humming (or maybe singing out loud....) a song, and that made him laugh. Neither my sister nor I even realized I was singing (maybe a sign that I do it too often??) but he thought it was great, and I think he went the extra mile for us because we were pleasant to him. We got the best seats on all of our flights, sitting right by each other, and he was able to get us boarding passes all the way through to Lithuania (something he even surprised himself by doing), which was great, since we wanted to leave the airport in Finland to explore a little. S and L met us at the Vilinus airport to get us back to their home, which was wonderful, since Beav and I were hanging on by a thread at that point and we would have had a difficult time trying to figure out the bus/train/etc.

So we're here, we're exploring, and I'll maybe update as I have a chance.

Hawaiian Highlights

What a WONDERFUL vacation! I had high hopes for this vacation thanks to last year's amazing adventures, and it did not disappoint. Well, there were a few disappointments (more on that shortly), but overall, there can be no frustration when one is enjoying the sun thousands of miles away from a job of any sort. AHHHHHH.


I'll start with a list of disappointments, since I want to end on the happy notes:

• No lava. Our first weekend was spent in Hilo, near Volcanoes National Park. We were told about an AMAZING hike you can take at dusk to see flowing lava and bursting lava bubbles against the night sky. The lava flow shifted ten days before we got to the island and it is currently only visible from a helicopter. BOO.
• No SuperBowl. Some football game ruined my Sunday. If you must, look at the box score and see how one team was better than the other team in basically EVERY stat (significantly, in some cases) except TURNOVERS. Okay, moving on...........
• No manta rays. We went on the Manta Ray Night Dive, but saw no manta rays. Our originally scheduled date for the dive was cancelled due to a significant swell that came in, which also ended up effecting the dive we went on the next night. The boat was being tossed by waves and a few of us tossed our cookies. While it was pretty cool to be snorkeling at night, the experience was marred by the sea-sickness and lack of manta sightings. Maybe next time.

NOW. On to the HIGHLIGHTS:

• Not winter. I missed a little over a week of THAT season (great post, Becca). Sunny and eighty degrees everyday is SO wonderful and refreshing. My cheeks are freckled, my skin is light brown (not pasty white), and I felt a wonderful breeze that didn't give me frostbite. Loved every second of it. Every. second. The sun even seemed to heal my football wounds. A little bit.
• Cliffs. They are beautiful, and I jumped off of them. The southern most part of Hawaii is the southern most part of the United States (and is aptly named South Point). South Point has 35-40ft cliffs that locals jump off of into the most phenomenally clear water and then climb up through caves under the cliffs. I stood at the edge of the cliff and thought about it for more than five minutes, but I jumped, and I am SO glad I did (other than the enema part of it). Thanks to a local, I made the climb back up the cliff (and I couldn't have done it without him). Thanks to my sister, it's all on video.
• Filthy Chacos. We did some exploring around Volcanoes National Park, which dirtied my Chacos a bit, but the real filth came from our AMAZING hike into the Waipi'o Valley. We were told that the hike was not for the faint of heart, which was NO JOKE. There was better than a 25% grade for over 1 mile (and unless you've done the hike, I can't explain how difficult that is). In the valley was the most amazing black sand beach surrounded by outrageous cliffs that made me feel like I was in the show Lost. Being on that beach was one of my favorite parts of the trip.
• Whales. At South Point, the whales were about 25-30 yards from us - flapping their tails and spouting like crazy. It was so awesome! When we were on our way to the manta ray dive, we saw a FULL BREACH (like you see on TV shows or in pictures). Even the captain of our boat stopped to get out his camera and was VERY excited.
• Waves. Thanks to the swell, the waves were HUGE, and we had one very fun afternoon of getting owned by them while we tried to body surf. There were some pretty amazing surfers at the black sand beach, too. Very fun to watch them. I also loved sitting on the beach in the early mornings and listening to the waves while I read. So calming.
• Waterfalls. It has been pretty dry on the Big Island recently, so the waterfalls weren't as dramatic as they looked on any postcards, but that allowed us the opportunity to climb the rocks right out to the edge of some waterfalls. At one point, there were four of us sitting at the top of about a 100ft waterfall drop (don't worry, Mom. We were safe.). The view was awesome.
• Kindle. It's probably stupid to say that my new Kindle was one of my favorite things about Hawaii, but it totally was! I was able to read seven books (two that I had started some of before we left) while I was gone, and I only brought two actual books with me! The Kindle was definitely handy-dandy and convenient to travel with, so I'm totally sold. I'm also totally sold on doing nothing but laying by the pool and reading all day. So wonderful.
• Food. Our rule on vacation is to not eat anywhere you can eat while you are at home. We pretty much stuck to our rule, other than our need to grab a speedy McDonald's lunch one day (which didn't bug me at all!). We always do cheap and easy breakfast and lunch in our rooms (HI, I LOVE PB&J) and then we go out and have a nice or fun dinner. We didn't have a single meal that disappointed, and we happened upon some really fun local places. I never even had "order regret", which is practically a miracle for me!
• Laughing. Lots and lots of laughing. Of course you "had to be there" for some of the laughs, but one of my favorite sayings from the week was: Laying at the pool I turned over and said "oh MAN, I am so dizzy!!" (I was dizzy all week, maybe from my cliff jump on day one) and what my friends thought I said was "oh MAN, I am so BUSY!!" which was funny because it was 2pm and the only thing I had done so far that day was read and sit at the pool.

I'm thankful for a restful and fun week, because the week I just had at home playing catch-up was ANYTHING but restful and fun (well, I did hang out with a few different groups of friends this week, and that was fun). I can't believe I will be on another overseas flight in 14 days. FOURTEEN DAYS! Better load up my Kindle......

P.S. The dog survived his surgeries, our flight issue got figured out so that our travel went very smoothly, and I did not come home to a toilet-water-flooded home, so everything from this post turned out fine in the end. Except for that stupid football game........

Vacation Synopsis

Well, I’m back from vacation to PA. You know that you’ve been out of touch with reality for a good length of time when putting on makeup and wearing shoes that aren’t flip flops feels very strange. I’ve come back fully freckled and….ready to take on the fall, I guess. I suppose I have to be ready for it since I saw my breath when I was walking to my car this morning!!

There were many excellent parts of the week: relaxing, reading, eating, chatting, movies, games, and RITA’S (the flavors I consumed include: Mango, Mint Chocolate Chip, Key Lime, Green Apple, and more MANGO. I sampled the Swedish Fish flavor, but honestly it was too sweet for me to have an entire Misto of it).

Unfortunately, there were also some not so great parts this year: at literally the eleventh hour, Dad found out he was unable to come with us (long story) so that was a huge bummer. Also, on Monday morning I woke up and was literally paralyzed in my neck (scariest thing). I think I scared everyone that I had to wake up that morning – the first of whom was the sister sleeping beside me who was woken up by me crying and not being able to move. She told me later that at first she wasn’t scared because she thought I was having a nightmare/night terror (which would be legit since I have scared her before with my sleeping habits) but then she realized I was actually awake and actually in a lot of pain. Next was my mom who I woke up by standing at the foot of her bed crying and saying her name. If I could have laughed, I would have been hysterical about how quickly she FLEW out of bed. Lastly, I woke up the doctor-sister (who also has neck and back issues) to help me ease my pain. The bummer ended up being that although the pain went down a bit, my week was spent with a neck spasm. I only took one (very tame) jet ski ride (where the only thing that got my pulse going was almost running out of gas) because of it, so that was my biggest bummer. I also only slept thanks to pain killers (so I was VERY thankful I was able to get a prescription filled in PA). Anyway, enough of my pain in the neck. But seriously. It was the worst.

I think what I love the most about our PA vacation is that it seems like I am in Waterworld (minus the aquatic human mutants) when we are there. I managed to never get in a car the entire time we were at the cabin. I only went back and forth from the cabin to the dock to the boat. One night I volunteered to take my cousin to sleepover at her friend’s house, but we got there by jet ski (that tame ride I mentioned earlier). I simply love being on the water. I think if I lived on a lake I would be the happiest person in the world. Wait a minute…..don’t I own a house on a lake……?????? Hmm.

So that’s the vacation synopsis. To put it simply: WONDERFUL.

I Love This Week

We go on a family vacation to Pennsylvania every year and I. LOVE. IT.

I'm basically excited for many of the same things my sister is. Reading, not working, family, Rita's, cards, jet skiing, etc. SO AWESOME!

I'll fill you in on my reading list and the many flavors of Rita's [including Swedish Fish flavor (!)] I ate this week when my trip is done!

A Week Late

I had an AWESOME trip to Maryland. I did get back a week ago, but I was playing catch up with the house, the job, the friends, and the dog. So here are some highlights of my trip last week:

• Friends and BABIES.
• RITA'S. Mango. I LOVE IT.
• Taking a break from dieting to have McDONALD'S BREAKFAST.
• A half marathon, although we finished 14 from last - out of 4500 people. Which is simply hilarious. I very much wish we would have actually finished in last place. I've done it in a triathlon before, and it makes for a great story.
• Got to watch the start of the NCAA tourney. LOVE IT.
• Took a bump on the way home. FREE FLIGHT!

Really I just LOVED talking, talking, talking and playing with the babies. I got the boys matching shirts that said "Monkey" with a little Monkey face on it. They were SO CUTE! We spent a day relaxing, a day being tourists in DC, and a day doing the race. What an EXCELLENT vacation.

I've Been Gone...

....on the BEST VACATION EVER!!!!

Oh man. Nine days in Hawaii. It. was. so. great.

I'm probably about to write the longest blog post of my life because I want to share every wonderful minute of my trip!

My sister wrote a very clever haiku about our trip.

I'm going to copy it over to this post and add explanations-slash-comments between the verses. I think that will give you the best overview of my last (glorious) week-and-a-half!

18,000 feet,
I saw a whale from the plane.
Everybody laughed.

[Just as we were starting to land in Hawaii, we were looking out the plane windows to see the wonderful scenery and EB says "Oh! I just saw a whale!" AB and I immediately burst into laughter, considering we were still at about 18,000 feet and it would be impossible to see a whale from that high up. Unless the whale was four miles long and jumping out of the water. Which it wasn't.]

Up the volcano
to see a summit sunrise.
Awe-inspiring.

[Since our body-clocks were "off" anyway, we got up at 3:30 AM on our first day to drive to the highest point in Maui (over 10,000 feet) to see a BEAUTIFUL sunrise. Although, the brilliant night sky that we saw when we first arrived at the top of the mountain may have been my favorite sight of the day.]

The luau was fun.
The fire dancer licked the
flame. It made me squirm.

[Indeed, the luau was fun - and I did my obligatory "get on the stage and learn the hula".]

Did two 4-mile hikes
to beautiful waterfalls.
Un. Be. Lievable.

[We certainly weren't sedentary during this vacation - which was great. Not only because I didn't come home feeling like a total sloth, but also because the reward on many of our hikes was AMAZING scenery and waterfalls! Loved it so much!]

Crossed swinging bridges
Just like Indiana Jones.
Ain't your momma's trip.

[One of our hikes was seriously Indiana-Jones-esque. There were literal swinging bridges, muddy slopes, and hiking across calf-deep streams. We started to say that this was not your momma's trip to Hawaii. It was adventurous, to say the least.]

Blue water rafting
on the choppiest day there.
Totally. Crazy.

But it was fun.
Swells coming over our heads
and spine-jarring jumps.

[Again, not your momma's trip. The raft ride we went on was EXTREMELY crazy on a very overcast and choppy day on the ocean. In fact, toward the end of our trip, the Coast Guard had a helicopter and plane flying close to the water searching for a lost kayaker. We were told to keep our eyes open for him as well. We then headed in, and found out that we were basically the only boat (actually it was more of a raft) still out on the water....]

We saw whales breaching
and swimming by the resort.
They. Were. Everywhere.

[We could lay at our pool, and see whales all over in front of the resort. It was awesome. The closest we got to a whale was on our raft ride - there was a mother, calf, and their "escort" within about 100 yards of us.]

Highway to Hana
Another highlight of mine.
Beauty beyond words.

[My highlight of the trip was hiking into the jungle along the road to Hana and swimming in a natural mountain spring beneath a waterfall. I could have spent the WHOLE day there! Also, there was a 400 ft waterfall at the end of the road to Hana, which was also amazing. On most all of our hikes I felt like I was on the show LOST. Loved it.]

Thought we blew a tire.
It must have fixed itself. A
Maui miracle.

[We seriously thought we had blown a tire on the way back from Hana. There is a much longer story to this, but it is better in person, so we'll just leave it at that. It really was a miracle that we hadn't truly blown a tire. Although, there may be a dead goat along the road somewhere in Maui...]

In my attempt to
remember the cross-street, I
got called autistic. :-)

[Again, a long story. A funny, long story. Oh, EB is very, very funny.]

And then there was the
"Hall of Hawaiian Heroes"
with Stacey Santa,

the bus driver guy
who only hit his brakes four
times up the mountain,

the fire dancer,
and Aaron and Mike - the guys
who kept us alive.

[We ran into so many great people who helped increase the enjoyment of our time in Maui - so we started to call them the Hall of Hawaiian Heroes. The manager at the Alamo gave us a huge upgrade w/o charge, which was so wonderful. Aaron and Mike were the workers on the raft that kept us alive on the ocean, the fire dancer at the luau was basically amazing, and the driver of the bus is another long story....]

We laughed a little.
I mean, look who I was with.
They're funny people

[We laughed A LOT]

I've never liked fish
but I ate Mahi Mahi
and Monchung. So. Good.

[I DO like fish, and the Monchung was the GREATEST MEAL I'VE EVER HAD. If you are ever in Maui, you HAVE to go to Cafe Ole in Keihei. So worth every single penny (and more). Even with all the GREAT food we ate and yummy ice cream drinks I had at the pool (every day, multiple times a day), I only gained two pounds, which is worth noting - I consider it a huge accomplishment seeing as I was out of state for nine days and out of my routine for more like twelve days.]

And of course we had
pool time, sunsets, snorkeling,
and I read three books.

[I got a great tan, which should more than get me through February (a month that I have long thought of as the UGLIEST month there is...) thanks to time at the pool. We saw a sea turtle while we were snorkeling, and I also read three books. All very good things. Another highlight was watching the end of the Super Bowl - which had an AMAZING ending - in my swimsuit at the pool bar. Definitely a first.]

Best trip of my life.
I'm not exaggerating.
Pictures to come soon.

[It seriously was the best trip ever. I'm not putting any pics on my blog, but if you are reading this you are more than likely my friend on Facebook, so you can see pics there! We ended our trip by EB and myself taking bumps for free airfare - so that is always great! The Phoenix airport has free wi-fi, so we wasted the hours online and the ten hours weren't too bad overall. EB ended up taking another bump to get sent to Las Vegas for the night, but I really felt like I needed to get home. I wish now that I would have taken the bump for more free airfare and a night in Vegas. After all, ten years from now I won't be telling anyone about all the laundry I got done on Monday, but I definitely would have been able to tell about a free night in Vegas with my sis. I need to remember these things when I'm feeling really OCD and and Type A at the end of a trip. Laundry can (and will) wait. Vegas is not always free. So...lesson learned.]

Whirlwind

I haven't posted in the last 10 days, but I have been in three states in the last 10 days.

A lot of what I've done was unplanned and super fun, but it makes life feel like a whirlwind. I'd like to think that I could make it through three more days of work (and two evenings of activities at church) and look forward to a weekend of catch-up, but alas, I will be headed to a fourth state instead. Definitely not complaining. I'm having too much fun. Minus the nasty cough slash chest cold I get when I fly too much and sleep too little. Oh well. Totally worth it.

Here is a list of things I recommend you do that I have done in the past week-ish:

1. Drive along the southern MN/WI border when the fall colors are peaking. Beautiful.
2. Play Rook.
3. Watch football while eating the Best Burger Ever.
4. Go to a costume party. With your dog - in a matching costume. Yep, I was *that* girl.
5. Decide last-minute-on-a-whim to fly cross-country to see a BFF and her new baby.
6. Get your ticket for aforementioned trip for 37 bucks (and 25,000 flier miles).
7. Fly first class.
8. Hold a tiny baby who loves to cuddle up and sleep on your chest.
9. Buy tickets to see Wicked. Again.

Now a list of things I don't recommend you do that I have done in the past week-ish:

1. Attend a week long meeting in Houston where even the October weather makes your hair poof up like cotton candy.
2. Walk the streets of Houston at night - SC. AIR. EEE.
3. Allow yourself only 30 hours to return from Houston, decide to take another trip, plan said trip, buy the ticket, pay your bills, unpack, repack, work a nine hour day, have dinner with a friend and catch your next flight. Oh, and sleep. Sort of.
4. Catch a nasty cough slash chest cold.
5. Fly with nasty cough slash chest cold. NOT fun for the ears!
6. Read a book you were really looking forward to - only to be disappointed.

Oh my, it has been a good 10 days.

And the tickets for Wicked are for this coming weekend. There is NOTHING I like more than a good musical! Except for maybe a good road trip. And I like my sisters even more than either of those. So when I combine all three on Saturday, I will pretty much be in hog heaven.

OINK!

Absent

I will not be blogging this week.....

'cause I'M ON VACATION, Y'ALL!

I have no idea what time it is right now, and I hardly know what day it is (isn't vacation great like that?!). All I know is that it is sunny and I am already tan. And I still have five more days of lounging by the lake left! We leave my Uncle and Aunt's house today to head to their (GORGEOUS) lake home in the Poconos, so I won't have internet access (and I didn't even bring my computer on this trip at all - a TRUE vacation from it all).

Now if my sister's flight would just hurry up and get here, the real fun can start!!

I'm sure with all the reading and conversing I will be doing this week I will have plenty of blog topics when I get back. Until then, have a great week - I certainly will!!

A Mixed Bag

I head to Green Bay on Wednesday to act as Dad’s nurse as he gets his third chemo treatment.

What I am looking forward to:

• Seeing Mom and Dad: Man, I seriously love being with my parents. We’ve gotten to the parent/friend point of life and it rocks.
• Time in the car: Listening to music and sermons, driving, scenery, I love it all.
• Chemo: Can’t wait to see what goes on and understand more about the whole process.
• Food: My mom = best cook ever

What I am not looking forward to:

• Seeing Mom and Dad: There’s no doubt that this has been a summer of suffering for them. I hate witnessing it.
• Time in the car: It’s when my mind wanders most. Lately I end up in tears because I get so overcome with fear and anxiety.
• Chemo: I don’t think anyone really wants to see their Dad have chemo. I mean, really. That stinks.
• Food: I have a knee injury, thus no working out for 2 months, thus an added 10 lbs. I really don’t need to be tempted with yummy food right now.

So it’s a mixed bag. Say a prayer for my family. Cancer is a long road and we appreciate your support.