Feelin' Hot, Hot, Hot

The young one and I are in PA right now. Oh my god, is it ever hot here. I almost forgot how the Pennsylvania summers are..temps near 100 with almost as much humidity. Just walking outside makes you sweat. Although I hear that Seattle is nearing 90 degrees this weekend, so it's almost as bad there.

It's good to see the family again. Even though they're all pretty crazy (and I do include myself in that), it's nice to be around so many people that you love. I miss that in Seattle. I'm here for about 2 weeks, and tomorrow we leave for the beach. East Coast beaches are so much better than Washington state beaches. We're only going for a couple of nights, I wish it was longer...but I'll get to see my other cousin there who is coming down from New York to meet us there, so that will be cool.

I miss J and the beagles very much. He sent me a bunch of pics yesterday, which helped a bit, but I still miss them.

In Big Brother news, looks like James is HOH this week. Mom lurves James so she was pretty happy. We are cautiously optimistic...we don't really trust James, but better him than some of the other non-S6 group. Can you believe Mom doesn't like Howie or Janelle? What?? How can you like James and not like Howie or Janelle? She's insane.

You can't get a mojito in Harrisburg anywhere except Charlie Brown's...but they make a pretty good one, so if you're in town, go there.

The Biggest Beagle

We went to Beaglefest 2006 yesterday. It was a beautiful day to be surrounded by dozens of beagles. We weren't there 10 minutes when they announced the contests for Smallest Beagle and Biggest Beagle. YES!

Smallest Beagle was first...there were 3 major contenders. Nobody had a tape measure, so "guess a number" was used as a tie breaker. Then it was time for the Biggest Beagle contest. Of course, it was no contest at all. Zac was far and away the largest beagle there. The other beagles were so intimidated that they didn't even come up for the judging. He was awarded a container of treats, and a certificate.



Beaglefest was awesome, and the dogs had a great time. Even Trixie, who seemed much more social when surrounded by those of her own kind rather than the strange beasties she sees at the dog park. Pictures don't do it justice, but maybe can help you imagine what it's like to have so many beagles in one place.

Prostitution and choking on the chicken

People in this town seem to love bumper stickers. Some cars are absolutely covered with them...kind of like a driving billboard. Today on the way home from the gym I passed an old beat up Honda with a bumper sticker that said "Never wear panties to a party" and right next to it was another that declared "Legalize Prostitution". Guess we know what this gal is up to.

What up Kaysar?? Our favorite Iraqi is HOH on Big Brother All Stars this week. Even though the Chenbot tried to get that boring Daughter of the Moon in there instead. Good thing they actually show these competitions, or who knows what kind of shenanigans Julie would pull?

I think the older child has some serious problems with her throat. She can't eat a freakin' piece of chicken without it getting stuck somewhere on the way down. I believe she needs her esophagus stretched out like her grandpa used to do. Maybe then it wouldn't take her 2 hours to eat dinner :-)

The younger child announced this week that she's going to be a general surgeon. Thank you Grey's Anatomy.

Money Money Money Money........MONey

I am employed again. I got part time job at a small software company, 20 hours a week doing assistant/bookeeping stuff. I start on Monday. It's a Monday - Thursday schedule for 5 hours a day, so I still get to do my jobshadowing at the Eastside clinic on Fridays, and plenty of time for my online classes this quarter.

I'm actually looking forward to working again. I appear to have the potential to be incredibly lazy, and I was beginning to be fearful that I would literally sleep the summer away without having someplace to be every day.

I joined a gym last weekend...almost as soon as we came home from the cruise. I went to the gym everyday on the ship, and realized how much I missed the routine of working out. The part time job will fit in great with that too...I'll just go right to the gym on my way home, spend an hour, and I'll be done with it. That still puts me home by 3:00 so I still have plenty of time to be lazy if I want, or do school work which is probably better.

We're going to a barbecue today at my study friend's house. I have to make a dessert. Which means I have to shop for dessert items. I'm making some triple chocolate chip fruit pizza thing. Looks delish in the book. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Back from Alaska

If you just want to see pictures instead of read about the trip, you can go directly to the picture gallery. But you'll miss a stellar trip recap.


We just returned from a one week cruise to Alaska aboard the MS Zaandam (aka the JC VaanDam) This trip was courtesy of the man's very generous mom and stepdad. On board were me and the man, the girls, the man's brother and sister-in-law, and the aforementioned parents.

The trip by and large was wonderful. We had a terrible thing happen to us the first day. Something very valuable to us was stolen (or lost) between luggage check in and delivery to our stateroom. Most disappointing was the utter lack of concern shown to us by Holland America. They seemed to just want us to get through the week and off their ship so they wouldn't have to deal with us anymore. Seriously, the people at the front desk would literally flee to the back when they saw us coming.

Other than that, Alaska was very cool. It really only rained one day while we were there, during the ziplining adventure. That was in Juneau, which besides the ziplining was our least favorite stop on the cruise.

If you're interested, check out our zipping videos by clicking on one of the names below:

Kelly

Susan

John

Megan

The next day was cruising Glacier Bay. The sun was shining and the air was so crisp and clean that we spent most of the day out on deck just staring at the glaciers. They didn't look the same as the glacier that the man and I walked on during our honeymoon in Banff, but were cool in their own way.

In Sitka, we took a whale and sea otter watching trip. Again, it was a beautiful sunny day, and we saw whole colonies of sea otters, harbor seals, and humpback whales so close we could almost touch them.

Ketchikan is a pretty little town, known mostly for being the 1st Alaskan town and a big salmon place. No salmon were running while we were there, but we enjoyed a horse-drawn trolley ride around the touristy part of town and spent some time later enjoying the sunshine and walking around the shops. Again, it was a beautiful day but we didn't have a lot of time to spend in Ketchikan.

Victoria was the last day of the cruise. We were only there from 8pm - 11:30pm, so we didn't have many daylight hours to see the city. We really liked it there though, it was so clean and pretty. We decided we'd definitely take a weekend trip back there since it's so close to us. Maybe we'll have High Tea at the Empress hotel.

All in all, a great trip. We really enjoyed being able to spend some time with the family and catching up on everyone's lives. Now if we could just get some of those people to move here...yes, architects, we're talking about you :-)

Check out My People's Picture Gallery if you want to see some of the pics of the trip...be forewarned, there are many. Editing is not our forte.