West Coast!

Jake took me to Portland to meet his family.  Very exciting.  I missed a family reunion with the crazy Hastings clan, which is really too bad because I so love those crazy people, but it was worth it to spend some time with my honey and meet his family.

He's from Portland so we jetted that way.  His dad is very sweet.  I don't know why Jake was so worried about me meeting him.  Jake's friend, Jake, had me a little worried that his dad was all big and mean looking but I found him enjoyable.  Conversation was guns and dogs.  I can cover half of that with no trouble so I think it was just fine.  It was really nice of him to let us stay with him.

After a few days in Portland seeing the city and Jake's friends, we took off to Bend to see his sister.  I drove thank you because someone was a little hung over... a lot hung over.  We spend the 4th in Bend and it was really great.  I love his sister.  We could be friends just fine I think.  She's wonderful with Samuel, he was there a whole two weeks before us I think, which I really admire.  She has some horses so she took me riding which was wonderful.  I miss riding so much.  If I had the cash and the time I'd own horses.  My dream house has always been out a little from town with a pack of dogs and some horses, which is exactly what she has.  Jealous.

The 4th was great and we celebrated with some poppers and sparklers.  Great fun for all but it's especially fun watching kids enjoy those.  There's nothing like the joy and innocence of a child is there?  We watched the fireworks from far off and then hit the hey.  Can't ask for anything more.

Then we returned to Portland and had a full day to go hiking and play in a creek and see a waterfall.  That was the best part.  Warning: mush alert!  I have to say, I really felt like a little family.  I am more in love with Jake than ever.

PICTURE TIME!

Dashing!

Can't believe how much I look like my sister here...

I love water and green things!

Tough crowd...

Gone riding!

Aren't we cute?

Beautiful Oregon coast.

Panorama!

Back in town!

I'm home from Boise!  It was a good trip and I'm so proud of Angie but I'm very glad to be back.

My man picked me up from the airport with chocolate covered strawberries!  Squeee!  I sure can pick them can't I?  He asked me to bring back a potato from Idaho so what did I do?  That's right, I brought my baby a real potato and a little potato man.

Aren't they both so cute?!

I don't normally mind going out of town.  In fact, I love traveling.  However, this is the first time that I have missed someone back at home.

Of course, on the way back my eye started feeling weird.  My right eyelid began hurting and swelled up a bit.  I swear to God that if I get pink eye again I'm going to be pretty upset.  I've never had problems with my eye before and now twice in recent memory.  Course I could just be bitter because it has me back in my glasses, which I do not like.  Hopefully it feels better soon.  I kind of want to look up my symptoms on WebMD but I know that will be a mistake because it will tell me I have a parasite in my eye or cancer or something else equally as horrible.  WebMD is just never a good idea.

Night folks!

Back home but still on the rat wheel

The end to the crazy travel weekend.  This morning I was up and ready to go at 5:45am and my uncle drove me to the airport.  Flight at 8am and back to Dallas.  Then off to Colorado Springs and landed at 1:30 or something.  No problems with the flights.  I slept like the dead on them which is always lovely.

I wish that I had more time with everyone in Edwardsville.  Although I am glad to live away so that there is a certain amount of privacy and independence in growing up, I do sometimes wish that we were all closer.  I am a lot different from them, mostly in the fact that I am not at all religious, but there is something about family that bonds you together.  Lovely people and I miss them.  Love you all!

After landing, Jake picked me up and we had lunch before I had to be at work.  That's right, I had to work today.  Then after work I had to go to Black Forest for some petsitting.  It was probably a little dangerous for me to be driving back because I was falling asleep but I made it in one piece.

What an absolutely crazy day.  I am really too tired to talk about it much.  So goodnight.  Just know I made it home safe and sound all said and done.

Whirlwind day...

This weekend is going to be crazy busy for me. I feel a bit like I've been swept into a hurricane and it will be a miracle if I can keep all my balls in the air.

This has been my day:

• Finished packing and made sure everything was set up for the dogs.  (Whitman and my sister's dogs.  Been at their house)
• Met with Astrid to petsit some cats.
• Went to Geoff's house to pick up a present.
• Off to work for a couple of hours.
• Straight from work to Jake's house.
• Jake took me to the airport.
• Flew from Colorado Springs to Dallas.
• Layover.
• Delay.
• Delay.
• Delay.
• Finally fly from Dallas to St. Louis.
• Wait for my brother.
• Drive from St. Louis to Edwardsville.
• Chat a bit with family.
• Now finally in bed updating my blog.

So why am I in St. Louis?  Well this year is probably the last time we will all come together as the Hastings clan and see each other.  If I didn't come I would be the only one in like 50 that couldn't make it.  Everyone is here and that's quite a feat.  My grandma does this Nativity play every year but since it is getting to be so hard to get people together for Christmas in this huge crazy family, this year, the 25th year, is going to be the last official year that it happens.

It has been a crazy day and I'm already wiped but I'm glad that I could make it here.  I'm kind of irritated that it is going to be so crazy because stupid work wouldn't give me more than ONE day off for this.  So I worked this morning, flew out and I have tomorrow to spend here.  Then Monday I fly back home and go straight to work.  Yay for the crazy holiday season.

I love flying.  I am not such a huge fan of the airport though.  I was pretty pleased with Colorado Springs though because I got to do the TSA precheck thing at security.  They do a chemical test on your hands, for explosives I assume, and if you pass that then all you have to do is walk through the metal detector.  It's amazing.  Usually you have to basically undress and bend over backwards in order to get through security.  I am a huge fan of precheck.  It got me through so fast that I had lots of time to sit at the gate.  I will say that I probably won't fly American again.  Their agents are little power hungry jerks and don't seem to know what is going on.  The lady at the gate in Colorado Springs was a dragon lady wielding her little power over bag size like a Grinch.  This other girl and I were watching her make people repack their bags so they could fit in the carry on cage thing.  I've never seen people actually check that.  And she was being a bitch about that.  Yeesh.  When it was my turn to board, by God she was not stopping me and making me do anything to my bag.  I just brushed on past her.  Take that dragon lady!  At least the flight was good.

Usually I just put on my iPod and either sleep or read/write.  The flight from Colorado Springs to Dallas was different though.  I was sitting next to this cute army guy and he was pretty talkative.  He just got back from Afghanistan and he was making his way to New Orleans to go on a cruise.  We had a great time talking about almost everything and we were actually making each other laugh.  It's rare for me to connect so much with a stranger so that was fun.  That was something new for me and I'm glad I didn't just brush him off and put on my earphones.  I wish him well.  Doubt I'll ever see him again but it was good to share that flight with him.

Dallas wasn't so bad.  I just meandered my way to my next gate and plopped down.  There is a storm out east that was muddling travel though because there were quite a few delays and people RUNNING for their next flight.  Luckily I was only delayed about two hours total so it wasn't so bad.  I got some good people watching in.  That's a good past time.  It was amusing to see so many people just take off as fast as they can run to get to their next flight.  I feel their pain and don't want that to happen to me but it was amusing to watch.  So silver lining if you ever have to run for a flight is that you're probably amusing the people watching you streak by.

Once I landed I trecked on out to my dad waiting to pick me up.  I was about two hours late but it all worked out because my brother who was flying in right behind me was also about two hours late.  We only had to wait about a half hour for him then we drove off to Edwardsville.  Finally having arrived, it was nice to see family but even nicer to climb into bed.

Tomorrow is another busy day so I'll actually try to sleep now.