Bellingham, Push, Flag football, Oh My!

Jenn and I had quite a weekend. We started out by loading up the arbor to be returned to it's home in Bellingham and making sure I was comfortable in the truck. Here's a picture of me all ready to go north.


















We made it safely to Bellingham and participated in the ALS walk on Saturday morning. It turned out to be a nice day, which Jenn was glad about since she had only packed shorts and a t-shirt. I heard it pouring down rain at around 6 a.m. and thought my dress might get soaked if it kept raining like that when we were walking. The walk took place along the harbor, near downtown Bellingham. Here are some pictures.


















Orcas or Lummi Island in the background. Jenn wasn't sure. Nice shot of me, I think.
















































Here I am in front of Bellingham's Museum, which was City Hall a really long time ago.

























Jenn took me on a short driving tour of downtown Bham. She pointed out two of her favorite spots and made me promise to eat a potato burrito at casa que pasa, and a bagel at the Bagelry.



































After the brief tour of downtown, Jenn's dad's old truck overheated. Here is me and the overheating truck. I would have helped, but was unable on account of my lack of opposable thumbs. Later, when the truck wouldn't start because it was out of gas and then after that when the truck died on the side of the freeway on the way back to Seattle, I proved to be of huge help emotionally up until the state patrol came to give the truck a jump and get 'er going again.





















We made it back to Seattle just in time to make it to the Push fundraiser. The excellent navigational skills I picked up on my Europe trip proved helpful in getting us there in a timely fashion.



















It also turns out that I am KILLER at playing the air guitar. Check out this video of me ROCKING IT to Brandi Carlile's new song, Dreams. It turns out that I love Brandi Carlile, and hopefully will get to go see her with Jenn and Mal in October.





I was also a huge help with soup ladling, dishes and wine disposal.














































The next morning we went for coffee at Jenn's favorite spot, Neptune Coffee in Greenwood. It was delicious!






































There was a globe inside Neptune so I decided to tell Jenn a little about my trip to Europe, and I pointed out Italy to her.

























After coffee, Jenn and I busted down to Tacoma for the Land Sharks' first flag football game. We took a team photo. Sadly, the Land Sharks lost and my cheer leading efforts were fruitless. However, the team is filled with people who do not know how to play football, so I'd have to say they did remarkably well for their first go of it.


















All in all it was a great weekend in spite of our truck debacle and in spite of my vertebral column issues. My face seems to still be intact but more importantly, I learned that I am really quite good at a lot of things. Also, I'd say the first years are pretty rad and I had a fabulous time hanging out with them.

Pisa - May 24th

Our first trip to a city to see some cool stuff! Since CJ and me were staying close to Pisa with Brian, he took us into the city on our first weekend there. As I said before, dirving in Italy is a bit scary, but all of the one way streets and very narrow roads had me a bit concerned but CJ assured me that we were safe driving with "Brian J. Hughes Professional Driver". First we drove around a bit till we found a parking spot along the Arno river and stopped for a minute to get a picture.

Then we walked around a bit stopping at a cafe and a gelato place. While we were walking we found this really cool building along the river that the guide book says was built to house a thorn from the crown of thorns that Christ wore while on the cross. Unfortunately it was closed and we couldn't get in to see it.

Then we walked toward the leaning tower of Pisa and the church that the tower was built to protect.


Did you know that walls use to encircle the church and tower...here is a picture of some of the wall that is left.

By the time we were done we were pretty tired so we headed for the car. Here are a few pictures taken in Pisa from the car ride home. This first one in particular is kind of interesting because it is of one of the many roads in Italy that have trees planted on both sides. The trees were planted on Mussolini's orders to provide shade for his troops as they marched along these streets.

Italy (May 21 - June 17)

So Italy was amazing...DUH! Anyway, we did so much in the month that CJ and I hung out in Italy. I will post independently on the specific trips that we went on (like Pisa, Rome, Florence, Lucca, and my fav Cinqueterra!) but I also wanted to tell a bit about the day to day hanging out in Tuscany with CJ's brother Brian! So first of all CJ and I spent a lot of mornings just sleeping in after all of the early mornings that we all did this past semester. Quite often we would just head to the beach for the day (where you had to pay to park, pay to get in, and pay for a chair!) but it was so nice that we really didn't mind. CJ got into reading Atlas Shrugged and I spent the days wishing I had sunglasses so that the Italian men in speedos couldn't see me staring.

Driving in Italy was crazy! Those Italians are just wako on the roads, but after some time I realized that it wasn't so bad, and some of their driving rules/customs were better than ours (like no police pulling you over for speeding...you just have to slow down for the speed cameras, and that you are expected to drive in the right lane and pass in the left...not hang out in the left lane), plus CJ drove us just about everywhere so at least I didn't have to drive (AAA wouldn't give me an international drivers license anyway). We also spent some days just hanging out at the house playing with the kittens...Brian had two, an orange one named Harley and a black one named Davidson (I wonder if Brian is slightly obsessed with is motorcycle???).

Brian also took us out on the bike and that was a blast. Here is a picture of what it looked like and a bit of what it felt like to be on the back of the bike! We took it through the country side and through Pisa on our way home!
Some mornings we would head to the coffee bar just down the street for a cappuccino and some sort of breakfast. We both got hooked on cappuccino, but CJ prefered hers in the evening (con Baileys!).

Other than that most of our adventures involved traveling so I will post about each trip ASAP. More to come soon!

A day in London - May 20, 2009

Wow! So here I am in England...London to be exact. The fight wasn't so bad and once we got in to the Heathrow airport we went through customs (again) and took the train to Paddington Station! Once at Paddington, CJ's cousin (Kris) found us and we headed for the Tube (or what we might call the subway) and took that back to Kris's place. After a shower and a change of clothes we were on our way to take a trip on the London Eye and a boat ride down the Thames were we got to see all kinds of cool stuff. After that we took a double decker bus to a different part of town and walked down some of the major shopping streets in London (Unfortunately they didn't have anything in my size). After a bit of light shopping we went to meet Kris's boyfriend for a bit of Sushi before returning to the flat for a good nights sleep before another flight to get to Pisa, Italy. What a great time I had in London for one day...I can't wait to come back and hangout with CJ and Kris for a whole week at the end of my European holiday! But for now, it is time to head off to Italy! How exciting!

Canada

May 16-19, 2009



My first trip of the summer was a nice drive from Tacoma to Vancouver, Canada with the OT class's token Canadian, Andrea! We had such a wonderful drive chatting the whole way...I am sure that we are well on our way to being just the best of friends.

I was excited to spend a few days with Andrea in Vancouver before CJ picked me up on her 7 hour layover on her way to London. Once CJ got into town we went to see a few of the sights...just the three of us.

Then it was time to head back to the airport to catch our flight to London. I wasn't looking forward to the 10 hour flight but CJ assured me that the seats in coach would be plenty big and that she would even let me have a window seat if I wanted. So off to the airport we went...next adventure...London!

Traveling Europe

Sorry to everyone for delay in getting up blogs and pictures! I will start blogging more often and will catch up with all of the great adventures that I have tagged along for in Europe. Stay tuned!

SOTA end of the year PAR-TAY

Whew! Finally time to post the pictures from the SOTA end of the year party. I have to say, it was quite a busy evening for me.

It all started out with a lovely dinner of chicken stuffed with some sort of gigantic cheesy butter stick, green beans, salad, potatoes, and I don't remember what else...

After the baseball game the previous week, I stuck with soda for the evening.
Thanks, Maggie!
It was so fun to visit with my tablemates, Kim, Karyn, Maggie, Elissa, and Derek.
Derek promised to take me to Afghanistan if he gets deployed there. He is going to special order a helmet and flack suit for me.
After dinner, I made the rounds. Everyone was so excited to see me, and I was happy to see some familiar faces, though everyone was so elegantly dressed, I hardly recognized some people!
Ann and Dom...
Alison, Jackie, and Tonya...
Brenna...
Ashley...
Chris, Alex, and George...
OMG, I feel underdressed! Everyone looks so lovely! Erin, Steph, American Andrea, Karina, and Karina's boyfriend...
Leah loves me like a baby...Ed is not so sure.
Vanitha, whom I hadn't seen since the AOTA conference in Houston...
Michelle and Jeff, looking just a wee bit maniacal, don't you think?
Katie and Brandon were concerned about my low tone...
But some sweet cuddles with Brandon made it all better:
I even had front-row seats for a most unusual skit presented by the instructors (that's me in the corner of the window).
And I had an exceedingly odd encounter with Amanda, who is apparently afraid of dolls...or is it just me?

A nice visit with Sarah was just the thing to make me feel better.
And Melanie was also all kisses for me...
We even had a rather fearsome encounter with a shark on the way out...fortunately Canadian Andrea is a good swimmer, so she managed to make it to safety...
Off to Europe with CJ--who knows what she has planned for us!