Blog Every Day Feb: Day Eleven - Travel Story

Linking up with Bailey Jean for a story of travelling. Gulp.

There are a few ways this post could go. You have the option to read stories or summaries from various trips, or I could tell you a new story from different travels. Or there's "my worst experience on a plane/train/boat/bus" stories that we could all tell, but I don't know if you will laugh or cry at them, so I hesitate. 

Here are some fun highlights from time spent actually travelling:

During my junior year of high school, my class went to Italy for 10 days {I know - best school ever}. Mr. Simon was our favorite teacher, and he is from Britain, which means that his passport is a fancy red instead of the American blue. So to entertain ourselves, my friend EB and I created a short film using euros, Mr. Simon's passport, and the many layers of the seat-back in front of us. Basically EB pretended to be James Bond and open the table-tray, remove the cloth lining under it {probably not what the airline wanted us to do}, take out the British passport, and count the euros inside. Then he looked casually {Bond-like, of course} over his shoulder and put everything in his jacket pocket. Smooth.

before we left...babies!

When Dahlia and I were returning from Prince Edward Island, we were wearing matching sweaters {because in our hearts, we're like 7 years old}. As we were moving to our seats on the plane, one lady looks at us and asks "Sisters?" Now I know we were matching in our clothing apparel, but other than that, Dahlia and I do not look alike. Oh well. Tourists. ;)

Dahlia and me, not matching, not looking related ;)

Shortly after college graduation, Samara and Lois and I ventured down I-5 to Portlandia so we could watch "Frankenstein" {for the first time}. We arrived in the city and found our hotel. After a minor kerfuffle with checking in {"Tell me your confirmation number one more time please?"}, we got a key and directions to our room. Glad to have a room, we unloaded our suitcases and headed to our room. Surprise! Someone else was already in our room... well, at least someone else's belongings were in our room. Ugh. Samara went back to the front desk to kick butt and take names sort out the problem, and we had a new key to a different room very shortly. So we learned that maybe Portland is a bit more chill about hotel reservations and room-sharing and all that. Oh well. {P.S. It was on this trip that I watched my very first episode of Doctor Who!}

enjoying the fresh air before "Frankenstein"

Well, how were those for travel stories? At some point in my life I would love to create a page just for various trips...we'll see if that happens this year. 

Go visit Bailey's page for some more travel adventures!

prompts & challenge deets

Travel Journal: Wednesday

Well, first let me bring you up to speed with Tuesday night: We arrived.
Here is our hotel room:

This is the view from my bed… the front door is on the right.

Here’s Dahlia journaling about our travels. She really was the best at journaling on this trip; I just pretended ;)

Ok, so we got there and went to bed. Thus ended the first Tuesday.

Wednesday we dragged ourselves out of bed {4 hour time change…ugh!} and went to breakfast in the office of the hotel, then we walked across the street to the airport in order to pick up our rental car. Full tank of gas = good to go!

Our goal was to go to Cavendish, which is believed to be what L. M. Montgomery {or Maud, since we’re on a first-name-basis} turned into Avonlea. But first, we stumbled upon The Great Canadian Soap Company! They make soap with goats’ milk- how cool is that!?

So we continued on our journey to Green Gables. After following a map and the highway signs {these signs would say “Highway 2 RIGHT” and then when you get to the right, there would be no mention of Highway 2; just the name of the road. Confusing!}, we finally made it! Here is our first sight:

Isn’t it gorgeous!?!?!?!

Once there, we tasted Raspberry Cordial!

Please note that Anne’s face is on the bottle. It’s legit.

Then we took a tour- such fun! We went in the house {more pictures to come} and then walked around the grounds… as in, we went in the Haunted Wood and walked down Lovers’ Lane! Gah. The nerd-dom is killing me, even now!

Here Dahlia is haunting the Haunted Wood.

After visiting Green Gables {which actually was Maud’s great-uncle’s place!}, we had lunch at this fabulous place called “The Sandbox.” We took a picture outside, and Dahlia audibly wished “…that there was a way to make {my} head bigger.” Thanks.

After lunch, we decided to head back to the one stoplight in Cavendish and find Maud’s grave. What an adventure. I will come back and share this story at a later point in time, I promise! And to guarantee that I will keep my promise, here’s a picture of not her gravestone.

We had planned from the beginning to go to Wednesday Evening with Lucy Maud, which was really fun! Getting there was another adventure, and the person we met there was quite the character. But since I wanted to put pictures in this post, so you get pictures today, adventure-stories another time. Cross my heart.

Anyway, we made it all over the Island! And we made it back to our hotel at the end of the day, so points for us!

Can’t wait to share more with you tomorrow, and to share more about Wednesday’s adventures! Perhaps this one week trip will take up two weeks of “journaling!”

***I promise that you will get all the details! My plans for this evening had to be modified, so this isn’t as in-depth as I was planning, but let’s just spread the fun out another week! Thanks for your patience.***

So Many Thoughts

Well, here goes. It feels like I've been thinking I should blog about that for too long, so I'm going to try and get a few thoughts out. Brace yourselves.

1. Dahlia and I have made it official: we are going to Prince Edward Island in August!!!
   
   Woot! We are super excited because a) we got tickets at a GREAT price and b) we found an adorable little inn {Sherwood Inn and Motel-how perfectly quaint and Island-ish!} for a magnificent price AND that has a shuttle to and from the airport! Oh, and yeah, because we found an Anne of Green Gables itinerary. We are totes going. It's ok- you can be jealous. I would be, too!
   
2. Update on the job thingy: I interviewed for 2 Saturday positions, and one I knew wouldn't work out and the other didn't call me back, which was fine because I realized I don't want to be tied to a consistent weekend schedule. So God knew what He was doing {as per usual!}, and actually I interviewed with two different families to babysit and so that will be fabulous. One family will call me eventually {the dad is going to China for a month, so no date nights for a while!}, and I'll be babysitting for the other family for the second time tomorrow. Totes perfect. Thank You Jesus!
   
3. Grandma is getting settled. I think we're all getting more used to each other, and things have been working out pretty well these past few weeks. Again, thank You, Jesus.
   
4. I would really like to blog every day in May like Jen is doing, but May is like the craziest month for me! I leave Saturday to go to the Great Nation of Texas for 5 days, then I'm home for less than a week before I go to the Bluegrass State for work {and play!} for a week. Blogging is highly unlikely this month, let alone every day, so I will do my best to do something fun in June. :)
   
5. This week was my second time volunteering at Care Net. I'm really enjoying it. Technically, I'm still in training, so my 4 hours consist of watching videos that we show clients and reading the volunteer handbook. Still, it's been amazing. The clinic has such an atmosphere of peace and honor and service; I feel God's peace when I'm there. Oh, and crazy thing! The other volunteer who is there for the Thursday afternoon shift -Brandi- is a cousin of one of my friends from Berea! Small world.
   
6. Speaking of this afternoon, I almost passed out today. Yeah... So I don't do needles... or blood or guts or anything that is yucky...as in, I don't like to see them. And I really don't like to hear about any of that.

   

   These lovely Crate and Barrel sheets perfectly matched the color of my face.

   The first time I passed out was in the 4th grade when I found out that my wrist was broken. The pain didn't do it; it was looking at the x-ray {which looked pretty normal, bee tee dubs} and hearing the doctor say, "Here's where the fracture is..." Boom. Down I went.
   So today I was shadowing Brandi's parenting class client, and the video we watched was about the 3rd trimester of pregnancy and then it went into labor and delivery. Now, I've known about the birthing "activities" since I was probably in 2nd grade, but it has always been one of the aforementioned topics that give me the heebie jeebies. I was doing alright with this video, until the narrator started talking about this little surgery-like cut the doctor can make during labor...and so I went into the kitchen and put my head down and waited for blood to return to the upper half of my body. Yep. Second day volunteering, and I have to go lie down in the other counseling room. Awesome.
   
7. I'm excited to go down to Texas next week {technically this week} because I get to see my friend Laurie without having to visit the Frozen Tundra! :) And also because we are planning on watching Season 2 of "Call the Midwife," yet another BBC show that has captured my attention. If you have not seen it, finish what you're doing and go watch it. SO well done. Not like steak. Like a dozen roses...perfection.
   

Well, 7 seems like a good number to end on. I hope that this brings us up-to-date on most items of late... oh, and as for the last post, I think that writing things out and then going to Book Club {a group of us are reading and discussing Lady In Waiting} and talking with the bestie for a good hour afterwards helped me move forward in my thinking. I'm still thinking and praying about things with my parents, and I think God and I are getting closer and I'm comfortable thinking more openly about the future. So, thanks for listening. :) Happy May!

Monday’s Post on Tuesday

Ok, I’m a day late. Yesterday was my day of rest. I apologize for all the hurt feelings out there. Which I’m sure total up to like 2. Including mine. So yeah.
Enough of self-deprecating humor and slams on this blog! Get on with Monday’s post on Tuesday!
Ok, as promised:

• our butler: Lewis was our office’s butler, and he was awesome. He is from Porto Rico and used to play volleyball. Now he walks around a hotel in a suit and makes sure that guests are taken care of.
• book signing: another gal and I worked a booth at the expo hall handing out books to the attendees, and hysterically we offered to sign the books. So a couple people took us up on our offers. The best was a guy who was picking up a book for his friend and he asked us to sign it to “baby daddy” or something like that. I signed it “Happy reading, Studmuffin!” and called it good.
• fruit leathers and their imposters: I asked Lewis for some fruit leathers. You know, the natural fruit that is squished together and looks like a tongue or something else that’s gross? Well, Lewis had never heard of it, so I tried to describe it to him and said “it’s grown-up fruit roll-ups!” So the next day, he brought me a box of variety: gushers, fruit rollups, and some other fruit-sugar-squished creation. Oh well. Good effort, Lewis!

And that was my week. SO glad to be home with my grandparents again!