Knives, Spoons, and Forks

Ok, first off, this post has nothing to do with knives or spoons. It is all about Forks!

Forks Washington that is! Yep, the VAMPIRE capital of America!

The famous sign

It was great to be there with my sister

Jenetta and I went on a little sister's weekend while I am living in Oregon (she is in Washington) and decided to go out to the Olympic peninsula.

The ferry out of Seattle was a new, fun experience for me

The water was beautiful!

Cute little harbor

We stopped at a very amazing little restaurant in Port Angeles on the way, and had great seafood, Italian sodas, and creme brulee. YUM! It was raining as we drove which was a little scary, but we survived.

It was dark by the time we got to Forks, but our cabin was so adorable!

It was pretty small

but had very cute decor

and even a little kitchen

and a loft.

The next morning we went to breakfast, and it was then that I realized just how over run by Twilight this little town is. EVERYONE in the little diner was talking about something to do with Twilight!

Next we headed out to the coast and La Push from the books. We went to first beach and walked down the beach looking at all the amazing driftwood. It was very fun, even when the tide started coming in and we were running from the waves and water.

It was sprinkling and the wind was blowing like crazy!

But the view was still wonderful

There were so many trees on the beach!

Just to get some perspective of how wide this trunk was

It was massive

And my pictures don't do it justice!

After first beach we drove to the head of the trail going down to third beach. I wanted to be able to walk in the forest. I had recently dislocated my rib (and hadn't gotten it put back in yet) so I wasn't up for any real hiking. This hike was so beautiful!

My camera doesn't do it justice, it was magical.

It was really raining pretty hard, but we loved it anyways

We were very prepared for the rain.....we were the only ones on that whole trail with rain ponchos.

This was so much cooler in real life....click to enlarge and it might be better.

Jenetta and her poncho

Where we turned back. The forest was beyond amazing!

After our hike we did the Twilight fan thing. The whole city is filled with Twilight shops, and we went to 3 of them. One was insane. I didn't get any pictures and I wish I had. There were things that no sane person would ever buy. The most insane thing in the store was a little piece of paper that detailed exactly what Kristen....whoever wore in one of the movies. It was FIVE DOLLARS!!! What normal person would pay that much money for a piece of paper?!

I bought a hoodie, and a water bottle, so nothing too crazy. The other two shops weren't too crazy, which was a relief.

That evening we went back to Port Angeles to eat dinner and see a movie.

This mural was by where we parked....it was pretty cool

We went to dinner at the restaurant that Bella and Edward go to in the books.

It was good food, but the waitresses were really snooty! It wasn't as good as Michael's where we ate the night before. We still had fun, and it was amusing to see how many women stopped to take pictures of the restaurant while we were there.

We went to a fun little book store and I wanted to buy SO many books that I had had as a child. I really want to get more books for Kaylee, but I never think about it, and when I do, I have forgotten to budget for them. Oh, well a little at a time I guess!

It was pretty late when we got back to forks so we went straight to bed. The next morning it was clear and sunny. Too bad it couldn't have been that way the day before. We got to stop and take a couple pictures of a lake on our way back to Seattle.

Then we were back on the ferry and headed back to real life.

There was a beautiful little beach down from the parking lot for the ferry

And it was neat watching them steer that huge boat into the dock

Our ferry

The Seattle side

My VFFs (I love that I am using my toes to hang on to the mesh railing)

We got to have lunch with Jenetta's in-laws and my parents and I got to see little Evelyn! She is so adorable, and it almost walking! I can't wait until Christmas when both of them will be walking and able to have so much fun together. I tried to take a nap before I drove home but I only got about 15 minutes.

Driving home to Eugene

It was great to be home, and have our little adventure to look back on. I had a lot of fun, and can't wait to go on our "official" sister's retreat sometime next year when all three of us sisters can go.

Viva Las Vegas

Robert and I decided to go to Las Vegas this year for our anniversary trip. It was quite the job for me to prepare to leave Kaylee for almost 3 days. That is about 80 oz of milk that needed to be stored for my mom to use. My mom was an angel and agreed to come up for the weekend to watch Kaylee. It was a much better plan than us sending her down to their house. Kaylee was able to be in her own place, with all of her normal stuff. One of the most important things for her was her crib. She just doesn't sleep as well in the pack n play. Still, I was beyond worried about leaving her for so long.

After writing down Kaylee's schedule in explicit detail, showing my mom the freezer full of Kaylee food, letting her put Kaylee down for a nap or two, and kissing our little angel goodbye, Robert and I left on Friday morning. It is a long 7-8 hour drive to Las Vegas, and I only managed to sleep for about 15 minutes of it. Boo!

We got a wonderful package deal at the Luxor casino with tickets to several different attractions there. Our room was nice, and the bed was great! King size beds are always a plus. The first thing we did was get our tickets to Criss Angel. I was excited for the show, but a little worried that it would be a darker "magic" show since some of the stuff I have seen of his is a little weird. Then we went to get food from the buffet, and ate enough dessert to last us the whole trip. It was SO good!

Oh, about half way to Vegas I realized that I had forgotten the camera, so this is going to be a picture-less post. Forgive me!

After dinner we went to watch Criss Angel's show, which was interesting. His stuff looks a lot more legitimate on his show on TV. There were a few pretty cool "disappearing" acts, but the rest was the usual stuff. The little helper magicians on stage with him were hilarious though!

We walked from casino to casino and down the strip a ways late at night. It was wonderful to just spend time together, and get away from the grind of being parents to a new baby. By the time we got back to our room it was almost 2 am Nevada time, which was 3 am back home. Ugh, so much for catching up on sleep.

I was expecting to sleep in on Saturday, but I woke up at 8:30 after only 6.5 hours of sleep. We ate a big brunch and went into the casino to gamble with some of he $25 we set aside. I didn't want to be tempted to spend all our money, so we agreed that once that 25 was gone it was over. We lost some, won some, and ended up walking back to the room with about $40. I didn't like gambling as much as I thought I would. The only thing I really liked was putting money on the horse races. I only bet on one, but the horse let me down so I didn't try again. It was really fun though! Roulette was the only game on the floor that I really understood and could strategize, craps was WAY too complicated for my little brain.

We went to the Body World exhibit, which was smaller than the one in SLC, but it was still amazing, and had some new things in it. We also went to the Titanic exhibit. That was really cool! They gave everyone a card detailing someone who was on the ship. Then at the end you could look up your person's name on a wall that named the survivors and people who perished. Robert ended up dying with all but one of his family, and I lived along with my husband and servant. There were a bunch of artifacts that had been brought up from the bottom of the ocean. They were amazing!

Saturday night, after dinner, we had planned to go to one of the dance clubs at the hotel, but neither of us really wanted to go and be around everyone drinking and smoking. We are still tempted by those things every single day without hanging out in the middle of it all. We instead decided to look up a casino that had less expensive roulette tables. The ones we had been playing on were $15 minimum bids, and we eventually found out that Circus Circus had tables with $4 minimum bids. We took our lives in our hands and drove down the strip to the older part of town.

This is where the best part of the day happened! We brought all $40 we had and sat down at the first $4 roulette table we came to. After only about 5 minutes of playing, we hit a number. It was a last minute gut decision on Robert's part to put $2 on Red16 and it paid out at $70! Great! We had won back more than double our starting money. I pocketed what we had first invested and we decided to play with the winnings. About 5 minutes later we hit Red16 again, this time with $4 on it, paying out at $140! In the half hour we sat at that table we won on Red16 4 times!! That is pretty unheard of, especially sense they changed dealers and balls while we sat there. We won on other numbers as well, and soon had $415 to our name!

We decided to stop while we were ahead and cashed in our chips....all but the last $15. We went to a different table to see if our number was still lucky.....it wasn't. After a few minutes we decided to go home and call it a night. We walked past our old table to see if Red16 had hit again since we left.....it hadn't. Just for the fun of it, we decided to see if we were just that lucky. We sat down with our last $10 and played for a minute. Just that quickly we won again on Red16 with $5 whole dollars riding on it. In that same roll we won an additional $20 on something else, making our winnings for that round $195, bringing our total winnings for the evening to $595......on one number!

We stopped and went back to the hotel with that final win. We didn't want to push our luck any more than we already had. It was a wonderfully lucky evening and a great end to our trip. The next morning we headed home to our little daughter. Refreshed as parents and ready for the next year as a couple.

Ready to Fly!

My sister is blessing her baby on November first and Robert and I were planning to drive out there for it. That is, we WERE until yesterday.

We went up to his parent's house for his birthday dinner and just to visit. It is about a 1 1/2 hr drive and Kaylee screamed for almost half of it. She hates her car seat SO much it is insane. She doesn't just cry she screams so hard and loud that she can't breathe and then screams some more. It is VERY hard on me especially to sit in the car with her screaming knowing that there is nothing I can do for her! By the time we got there we knew there was no way we would be able to handle a 14-15 hr drive to Washington.

I decided that if it wasn't going to be too expensive we would buy just me a plane ticket and I would fly there and back. Flying has to be easier than driving because she doesn't have to be in a car seat. We looked up flights and it would have been about as much as we were planning to spend on gas for there and back. Then Robert's Dad offered to let us use his frequent flier miles to get TWO tickets and then we would pay them back for the sale price of one ticket next summer. So now we both get to go and I don't have to try to fly alone!

Now I am getting my list together of everything I will need for a flight. I am hoping my sister has something for Kaylee to sleep in while we are there because we wont be able to take the pack 'n play. I am going to be using mostly cloth diapers while we are gone too which will hopefully work pretty well!

The only thing I am worried about now is that her schedule for that day will be thrown off. The flight is in the middle of the day so I am hoping to get a good nap in her before we leave. If I can get her to sleep for 3 hours first thing in the morning I will!

Cabin Trip 2008

Robert and I took another trip to the family cabin in Oak Creek canyon Arizona. Robert's friend Brian and his girlfriend Kaylin came along. The plan was to have a big group of friends go, but they all had other things to do.

We all crammed in Robert's work truck so that we didn't have to pay for gas. The truck is ok'd for personal use so we took advantage of it! It was a tight fit though. Brian and Kaylin sat sideways in the back with their legs over each other, Robert drove, and Hobbs and I sat in the front seat. Hobbs was going to go to a friends house, but that fell through at the last second, so we took him with us. He went last year as a puppy so we figured it was not a problem this year.

After the LONG 9 hour night time drive to the cabin, we all fell into bed. It was good to have the several rooms so that Brian and Kaylin each had their own room. Robert and I woke up earlier than our friends so we walked up to the "Bat Cave" and then drove to Sedona to buy food. Hobbs came with us so that he could go to the doggie bakery there. Last year he was able to come with us souvenir shopping, but this year he would have had to stay out of the shops. I wanted to take him to the bakery though.

When we got back we all ate breakfast, and then went on a hike up west fork trail. It was great fun, but we had forgotten to tell Brian and Kaylin to wear sandals, so they couldn't get wet. Robert and I swam a bit at the "slide rock" a smoothed slab of rock that was covered in moss. You could slide down it and into a natural 3' deep trough of water. Hobbs swam some, but I was afraid he would slip and fall....I know I am a worry wort!

That evening we went into Sedona again to shop, which was very fun. Robert and I both got shirts, and we bought our Christmas Ornament for the year. In case I haven't ever blogged about it, Robert and I have a tradition to buy a Christmas ornament every year that has something to do with something in our lives that year. This year the ornament is a small plastic cactus covered in Christmas lights in a pot that reads Sedona AZ.

We went to dinner that night at Casa Bonita, a Mexican restaurant that was really good food. The only problem that night was that I was getting sick. Robert had had a cold since we got home from camping, and I was hoping that I wouldn't get it....no such luck. By the time we got back to the cabin, I was feverish, and my throat was on fire! We started to watch Disney's Three Musketeers, but I fell asleep after about 10 minutes of the movie....thanks to good old NyQuil cold.

On saturday, I was full blown sick and robert worked hard to make a yummy breakfast. We had slept in later, but wanted to go fishing that day. We stopped to buy bait and licenses, and some directions to the lake. We had the name of a stocked lake, but we couldn't find it on the map and we didn't see any signs for it on the road. So we went to a different lake. After fishing for just over a hour we hadn't even had a bite so we headed home. It was hard to believe that fishing had taken up the whole day! That night we had hot dogs and s'mores which was great even though I was still sick. I didn't want being sich to ruin the vacation, so I was drugged up on Tylenol cold all day long. That night we played Quidler and watched the Mask of Zorro, but again I fell asleep like 10 minutes into the movie.

Sunday morning Robert, Brian, and Kaylin went to church. I chose to stay home and try to recoup a little bit. I slept until just before they came home, and then I sat outside reading while Hobbs played. For the rest of the day we napped, and played Apples to Apples and Egyptian Ratscrew. I don't think I laughed more than I did during the game of Egyptian Ratscrew! It was raining that day so it was nice to have a day to just relax. That night we watched A Knights Tale and this time I stayed awake to watch it. I packed up most of my clothes that night so that we could leave earlier the next morning.

Monday morning Robert and I woke up super early for some reason. It was a good thing though. We gathered up all the dirty laundry; sheets, towels, and wash cloths and once Brian and Kaylin woke up he drove into Sedona to the laundry mat. There is a washing machine at the cabin but not a dryer, and I didn't want to wait around all day for the stuff to dry on the line. Brian, Kaylin, and I cleaned the cabin and packed up the rest of the stuff. I think we were all a little reluctant to get back in the car, but we had books on tape to help pass the time. The drive back didn't seem near as long during the day! In no time we were all back home. It was a great trip, but I think we will plan to go somewhere else next year....maybe the Grand Canyon, or Zions, or Yellowstone park.

Here is the slideshow of cabin pictures. Click on it to see the pictures better!

Now for a description of the trip

Our trip to AZ was so amazingly refreshing! You don't realize just how much you need to get away until you do.

A little back ground for people who don't know me. This cabin has been in my mom's family for years and we made trips to the cabin with her side of the family a couple of times while I was growing up. I have a ton of great memories of this place and wanted to share these with my dear husband. The last time I was there I was no older than 13.

We were planning to leave Thursday evening after both of us got home from work, but it didn't work out like that. Robert smashed his hand in a ladder and had to go get it x-ray . It wasn't broken but the doctor said that it should have been and that it would be sore for a while. So we ended up leaving Friday morning. It was about a 6 1/2 hour trip, but with books on tape and Hobbs to keep us entertained it wasn't so bad. It was dark when we finally got there but we drove through to Sedona (only about 15 more minutes) to get food and things we needed. That evening was pretty uneventful, we ate dinner and went to bed.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of rain pouring from the sky! Are you serious?!? It rained really hard most of the morning but we still made a trip out to see the "Bat cave" and got poured on going there and back. So we hung out in the Cabin, playing games and watching a movie until around 12:00 when it stopped raining and the sun made an appearance. Yeah!! We quickly got everything we needed to hike up the West Fork of Oak Creek. Little did we know that the break in the rain was going to be brief. Hobbs loved the hike and went crazy every time we had to cross the creek. We had been hiking for almost an hour and a half when we both realized that Hobbs was tired and getting cold from all the water. I am sooooooooooo glad we decided to head back then! After about a fourth of the way back we heard the sky groan and thunder roll. The torrents of rain started soaking us through as we raced back down the trail. The trees provided some protection, but there are no trees where you cross the creek a good 8-10 times. By the time we got almost to the head of the trail the downpour had lightened a bit. Hobbs was miserable! He was visibly shaking and just wanted to go home. Back at the cabin we changed and gratefully drank our hot chocolate as we listened to the pounding rain start once again. It continued into the night and we were afraid it was going to last the weekend.

Sunday morning we awoke to sun shining down from above. We were so grateful that it looked like the rain was gone at least for the day. We decided to go window shopping in Sedona that morning and all three of us had a wonderful time. Our favorite store was this bakery for dogs!! Hobbs met three new friends there. A boxer mix, a Pomeranian with a casted leg, and a Siberian husky named Summit. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and fishing at the trout farm down the road. How is it that as a child I didn't notice how bloody fishing can be? Is it because children don't notice those things or is it that I just didn't think about it? Either way the blood really grossed me out. We caught 5 beautiful trout and ate them for our Sunday dinner. Later that evening we explored the part of the creek near our cabin, climbing up and down the mountain, and weighing our warmth against the spontaneity of swimming in the pond below the bat cave. We chose the warmth after my calf cramped from being in the water for about a minute.

After a rough night of sleep, we woke Monday morning wanting to stay but needing to go home to reality. Our other animals needed us (Dodge, our other dog was kenneled for the weekend and Momma Kitty was locked in our second bedroom) and we both had work to get back to. So after chopping wood, cleaning the cabin, a frantic search for the tool shed keys, and a last visit to the bat cave, we packed up everything and headed home.

We found everything almost as we had left it. The only thing missing was Momma Kitty who had somehow squeezed herself out the open window, through the screen, and jumped down to the ground from the second story. After searching for the rest of the evening and on into the night we finally found her this morning and she is unharmed if not very hungry!