Tuesday, September 25, 2007

...to Port Townsend.

Just about every year now for the past three years (maybe four) my family has gone to a little hut in Port Townsend for vacation. This year it was to celebrate Alison's birthday. (Her birthday was on the first but she was gone and since then the family has been busy so we are just now celebrating it.) The hut is officially on Beckett's Point in Discovery Bay where the YWAM base is. (Yep, I got to visit the gals I went to China with! Yippee!) So for Alison's birthday my mom made the best ice cream cake ever!!! Oh it was to die for! We also had a little bit of fun in the local Swain's which is kind of like a Jayhawks for those who remember them... And we left our Murray mark by leaving a police helmet on one of the stuffed animals on the top shelf. It was all around a good trip, good weather, and some yummy food. Here is the view from the back porch. Usually we take out our kayak but we just never got around to it so we will have to wait until next year.
Grade: A-

Monday, September 17, 2007

...to the farm.

What would a summer be like on the farm with out working in the hay? I almost missed out this year but lucky me, I got in on the last load of hay for summer 2007. You might guess that I don't like working in the hay and you would be right. For some reason hay is just not my thing. I would rather gladly pull weeds, or work on the fence, or herd cows all day before I work in the hay. This last time it was just me, my dad and my uncle. Usually we have a whole team of maybe 5-6, but this was a fairly small load and very last minute. I am the designated driver of the 1956 GMC flatbed truck. Yeah, it's quite the experience considering I don't usually drive a stick. It took about two hours+ just to put in two loads like this. It's not easy work. A typical team would have about two people on the ground tossing the bales up onto the truck, there would be another two on the truck stacking, and ofcourse there is the cool driver. And don't think driving is a piece of cake because it's not! Once we have crammed as much on the truck as possible, everyone piles on top and we drive down the road to what ever barn we are going to unload in. That is the typical hay day except we enjoy a few breaks in between loads in my grandma's basement where she has cold soda and snacks. Yep, that's a day in the life of a farm girl.
Oh, one random cool thing is that my parents decided they wanted part of our driveway paved, so now it looks really cool.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

...to the Wedding Expo!

Yep, I'm getting married and moving to China. So I randomly went to the Tacoma Wedding Expo to check some stuff out and find a cheap dress. I could only do that on my one little break though... oops did I let that slip? Yeah, I lied. I'm not moving to China or getting married any time soon. But I did go to the Tacoma Wedding Expo, only I went to work for the florist. It was quite the experience, what a random mix of people. It was interesting to see everything, but I had to stand for about 9 and a half hours so I was EXHAUSTED by the end of the day. I thought about sticking around since Justin Timberlake was at the Tacoma Dome, but I decided to go home and go to bed.
Sunday was much more fun! I had the wonderful privilege of having two of my very good friends, Kim and MaryBeth come up to visit me. What an honor! It seriously made my month (that and I just paid off fall quarter tuition!) We had a wonderful time; I showed them around the property, we went to one of the best ice cream shops around, saw Carl, jumped on marshmallows while eating marshmallows and ate a scrumpcious meal. One of the more exciting points of the evening was the giant spider that we found in my room. Yeah, that was on my counter when we came down to eat. It is the biggest one I have ever found in my room. I know it doesn't look that big but when we first saw it, it was huge! I find a lot of spiders in my room since I live in the basement and have an outside door to my room, so I think I am a little used to them. No worries though, I killed it after I took the picture! Kim and MaryBeth were able to enjoy their food then.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

...to Alderbrook Resort and Spa.

The title makes me sound so rich, let me just enjoy that for a little bit... ah ok I'm good now. I did actually get to stay the night there, but I was actually there working for the florist who buys peonies from us, Carin Diaz. We had to set up the flowers for a wedding. The resort is gorgeous! It is right on Hood Canal and has a ton of stuff for people to do. I don't think I have really told anyone about my second job.
It is a really fun job (at least for a girl) because I get to see all these different weddings and what people do. If I can, I steal a program to get ideas from. Of course the weddings are always on the weekends so it works out great with working at Leonard's Metal. For the most part people are really nice, but we have met a few overbearing moms and bridezillas. This wedding was outdoors and had flower buckets lining the aisle. There was an individual flower vase at each place setting and we made "dahlia trees" by sticking wire through the dahlia and tying it to curly willow branches. Carin also put flowers on the wedding cake. Isn't it beautiful!!
Usually I don't get to stay anywhere, but since Hood Canal is so far away we thought we might as well spend the night there. As soon as we were done moving stuff around from the wedding, we went and got dinner at the resort. Wow! it was yummy. All the stuff on the menu had fancy names and stuff I couldn't pronounce or I had no clue what it was. I got salmon with baked raviolli, there was rosemary bread and we had an appetizer of giant prawn something or other. Those melted in your mouth. And to top off the evening we all split a banana foster, which is leaning a little. After dinner, Nancy (another gal that came to help Carin) insisted that we walk off our food. So we went for a short walk down the boardwalk and back. We went back to our room and watched a movie before we fell asleep. It was a lot of fun. Breakfast was fun to, I had some berry waffle mountain thing. (Wow, I am getting really hungry!) On Monday we drove around and enjoyed the scenery before we headed back home. It is a BEAUTIFUL place!
Grade: A