Hey All! How's your summer going? Ours is dripping on by,,, I swear, I looked at Google weather, and it said "clear with sun...", so what does our lovely little piece of the peninsula do? RAIN! And then Google says "Cloudy with Rain", can you guess? YEP, it was clear and sunny the whole darn day! I tell you, this place is screwy! LOL, but, enough about our depressing weather... and on to what we have been up to these days.
I recently got back from Idaho... I was a Matron of Honor at Mr. and (now) Mrs. Oneil's wedding. It was absolutely gorgeous! I'm pretty sure I cried more at her wedding, then at mine... Here are just a sample of the hundreds (literally) of pictures I took:
Getting ready
Every bride is late to her wedding
Before the walk down the isle
During the ceremony
The kiss
Group picture
The cake
The bride and I (Alyse, I am so happy for you two, you are both wonderful, again, thank you for letting me be a part of your special day)
Ladies and Gentleman The O' Neil's
Hang on, I've got to go dry my eyes LOL ;)
I really enjoyed going back to Idaho and seeing family and spending time with everyone! Though, driving my aunt's stick was a little adventure on it's own. My Aunt let me borrow her car, which is a Kia (cute little thing), with a stick. I was feeling pretty confident, because I had to drive around in our S-10 chevy truck for the last month (the jeep is broken down, again!). So, I start the engine, and pull out, everything is fine, about half way to my best friend's mom's house, it starts to smell hot, and whine, I kept pulling over and stopping. I was completley freaked, on the verge of tears. Easy solution, use my cell to call my aunt.... but of course, nothing can be THAT easy.... my cell was dead! Great, good and wonderful! So, I drove really slowly (I got passed, on a double line, in the middle of nowhere country road!) finally got the the Anderson's home. I knocked (now these guys have not seen me in like 8 years!)... I knocked on the door, and Alyse's dad answers, I said something like " HI, you must be Alyse's dad, I'm her friend from Alaska, Amber, it's good to see you, can you help me, I'm borrowing my aunt's car, and it's doing something weird, I've had it for like 5 minutes, and she's gonna kill me"... after a couple of minutes he comes out with this smile on his face, and says "did you put the E brake on?"... Uhhh, no!?! SO, I call my aunt, and what does she start to do... laugh at me! not a chuckle, giggle, but full on laughing at me! In the midst of this, I hear something that resembles "wait til I tell you uncle!".... yep, I'm home! However, I have come up with an excuse, I asked 2 Alaskans why we don't really use the E brake up here? They said it was because most of the time it freezes to your wheels.... there you go! I'm not as goofy as I thought I was.....okay, yes I am, and I fully deserved what I got :D I love you Aunt Debbie:) Thankfully, she didn't kill me ( I'll just never live it down!).
NOW, for the adventure coming home.
The flight from Idaho to San Francisco was smoothe. I was extremely excited to have my five hour lay-over.... my Aunt Mary and Uncle Bob were meeting me at the airport. When I got there I learned something (I actually learned a lot of things while in California)....that when they say San Francisco Intrenational Airport.... they don't really mean that the air port is really IN San Francisco, they mean, near San Francisco, you need to drive an hour to get to the actual San Francisco.... As a result, we ended up going to San Jose to visit my grandfather. We got to his house, and he was totally excited to see me... and I couldn't have been happier to be able to be blessed with being able to see my grandpa and Cuz Chris. It was a real nice visit. They got me back to the air port in time to get through security. If you know anything about San Francisco airport, you know that their security has a knack for taking FOREVER... yep, no exception this time! I finally got through and got settled at my gate, so I figured I'd give Miah a call... only, I couldn't find my cell phone. So I asked a couple if I could use their phone to call my aunt and have her bring it to her.... I swear, they looked at me bug eyed like I'd just asked them for a million dollars!!!!!!! Then, after studdering, they said "well.................... I guess this is an emergency...." I called my aunt, and we set up to meet where I got dropped off.... in my mind, I went to the place that I had been picked up (I was a tiny bit on the frazzled side). Looooong story short, I missed my flight, no thanks to the airport or the people in it!!!! So, after tracking down my aunt... I stood in line to see if I could hop on another flight, all the while cursing this whole experience under my breath! (Little did I know, this was the tip of the ice burg). When I got up to the counter, little miss sunshine was waiting for me! Now, I've missed my flight, I'm exhausted... I just want to get home!!!! So, yeah, I'm a little short.... apparently she wasn't in the best mood either.... and proceeded to charge me 150.00 to get on the "next available flight"... which was the same flight 24 hrs. later. May I remind you, that I had no clothes, no toiletries, nada! However, I did have my grandpa's house, I have my very own room there, and despite everything that happened that day, it was wonderful to have a room with a comfy bed to curl up in. The next day was fun, as I got to not only visit with grandpa some more, I also got to see Aunt Lorie, Ann and Cate. However, I don't know how I managed to get stuck in California on a nice 98 degrees above zero....I'm from Alaska people! 70 degrees is hot to me!!! When you're walking and your feet are going squeak squeak squeak from the sweat rubbing on my flip flops as I walk, something is wrong, terribly, terribly wrong! Aunt Lorie saved the day, and let me cool off in her pool:) So, special thanks to Aunt Lorie, Ann and Cate for saving the Alaskan from melting. So back to the airport, early this time. I had 40 bucks on me... was in a jean skirt, and tank top and flip flops (I got a wonderfully painful blister on the bottom of the big and second toe as a sovenier), but by golly I was NOT going to miss my flight.... I got to my gate, just in time, to see that the gate had changed... to the complete last gate, like 30-50 gates away, let me tell you... those moving sidewalks, were GOD sent at that moment... when I got there, I bought some food, and stupidly some water.... for one sandwhich, two SMALL bags of chips (one for later on the flight), and a waterbottle... the bigger size.... yep, 20 dollars later....So, I'm sitting at my gate... and it gets moved again, only a few down. And then delayed about 2 and a half hours... so I'm freezing by now.... and go in search of the whole airport to find a twenty dollar sweatshirt... (got to tour the whole airport). We were all hopeful by now that there would be no delays, when I heard my name called over the intercome... I went up to the desk, and I don't have a seat, well isn't this just dandy! The only one that is available is an isle seat... I'm afraid of flying, and at least in a window seat I can LOOK out the window to see why the plane is turning and such. I could not believe it! After everything I had been through with this wonderful, easy airport and its staff! So I board the plane, and asked the stewardess if there were any window seats available, I was informed that the only window seat was seat 17... and it cost 59.00 to get that seat..... good lord! Again, long story short, the flight was horrid, I still got no sleep, and when we landed I had tons of fun trying to locate my suitcase at 4 am in the morning... apparently, there were so many suitcases that mine was "hard to find".... but all in all, I think this was a blessing in disguise, as I got a chance to see my grandfather and family. OH, and if you're wondering what carrier caused me SO much trouble? One word UNITIED!
K, I'm off my soap box (for the relief of you folks!) You guys have a great night/day and I'll talk to you really soon:)
