Christmas spirit

Well, by this time, most people are pulling out the Christmas decorations if they haven't already and are dusting them off. I, myself, have pulled out the little tree and am deciding how I want to display it in the front room. We usually pull one of our nightstands into the front room and cover up the stand with some fabric and put the tree up on that but I'm thinking I don't want to do that this year. I need to go find a small table to use. I know! I could go to Ross and they always have little tables on sale for low prices--I could find something there, I guess. The question is do I want to brave the shopping traffic today? It probably isn't too bad at Ross...maybe. Most of the traffic will be at the mall area. At least the weather is beautiful today. It's blue skies and sunshine but still chilly. We haven't had any snow yet. Last year, we had had several snow showers by this time. Maybe we won't get much this year...I know, as soon as I say that a month later we'll be wishing it wouldn't snow anymore. The bad thing is that the skiing mountain, Bogus Basin, doesn't have any snow on it which is bad for us since we have season passes! Oh well. Right now, I've got both tv's turned on to the Christmas music channels. I had a nice, warm cup of coffee and I've got our kitchen table all switched over from the Fall to the Winter/Christmas theme. Red table cloth, fancy, sparkly arrangement I made last year and a bell-shaped...um, what are those things called that keep hot dishes from burning your table??? I totally forgot the word...anyway, a bell-shaped thingy-majigger, and holly berry placemats. I put our Christmas wreath out on the front door. Now, I also have to find a Christmas-y welcome sign. BigLots usually has those kinds of things for cheap. Ahh, Christmas preparations...aren't they fun? The other challenge I have to face this month is the temptation to bake cookies. Well, I'm already planning on doing that but I will strategically plan my baking day for a Saturday (my splurge day). I like baking in the Christmas month. Nothing gets me in the spirit quicker than baking for people. I'm gonna make one type of cookie this year. Last year I spent so much time baking all types of cookies for the neighbors and so this year, I'm making it easier on myself. I'm gonna make HUGE cookies like Mom and Dad do for the church sometimes. There's a recipe in the baking cookbook that Mom gave me earlier this month that makes cookies out of 1/4 cup scoops! HUMONGOUS!!! Can't wait! :) Now, I've got more people to make them for. Guess that's a good sign. A good sign that we've made more friends. :)


Last night was fun. My friend, Karen and her 15 yr. old daughter, Kori, came over last night to watch a couple of movies. I invited them over after they got done with their Thanksgiving plans at her mother's house. They came over and Karen said she was glad that I didn't have to spend Thanksgiving night alone and that they could come over and keep me company. I was happy to have them over! Also a plus, my living room/kitchen areas were clean, so what better time to have people over?! Next time we all hang out, they said we should all play Guitar Hero (a video game that's all the rage right now). I'm SO not good at that game. My fingers aren't coordinated enough to play those guitar games. I like Rockband better because it has a singing component and that's about the only thing I can do on those games. The drums are also hard for me. I introduced Kori to sweet tea. She had never had it so I gave her some and she liked it a lot! Karen doesn't have much of a sweet tooth (lucky her, right?) so she didn't have any so I gave her a beer. We watched 2 movies: "Happy Feet" and "School of Rock". Anyway, it was a good night and I didn't get to bed until about well after midnight. Late late! I slept in majorly today then. Probably later than I should have but it's nice to do that on the holidays. No obligations and no fuss. :)

Our Thanksgiving 2008 spread...without a hitch--well, not much of one anyway

The meal was pretty good except for the fact that the sweet potato/acorn squash bake didn't turn out as I expected, which is always a disappointment. I forgot to bake it with foil covering it and remembered the last 5 minutes of the 35 minutes it was supposed to bake. So, I tried to see if I could make up for some of it by covering it and then pushing the time up a little more. Nope. The stuff came out a little dry and some were moist but it still just didn't do it for me. Kyle said that he wanted to try it again sometime and then he would help me peel the acorn squash. I was like, "Good because this was a tedious dish and I'm sad that it didn't turn out as well as I had imagined for as tedious it was to peel that dang acorn squash!" Oh well, the green bean casserole was really good! I made it with 98% fat free cream of mushroom soup and it was sooooo goood! Kyle said he noticed a difference with the type of soup I used. Most of the time, he wants me to use real ingredients and he doesn't like it when I used the reduced fat stuff....this was a little of an exception because he liked how the taste of the green beans themselves came out more instead of being so rich with creamy soup. But, I think he still prefers it with the real, heavy, creamy soup. I told him that I have to do this so that I can get through the holiday season dishes and not feel "deprived" even though I don't feel deprived at all (well, most of the time I don't but when I do feel a little bit, it's still manageable). He seems to understand but I know he really wants the real thing. The ham was good as always! I made the pumpkin custard and it was the star of the show...until we saw what it looked like all dumped on a big platter. Let's just say that it tastes SO SO SO much better than it looked on the platter. It was just one big splatter on the platter (ha!) when I pulled it out but once we garnished it with some fat-free whipped topping and some pecans, it was to die for! It tasted JUST like you were eating the filling of a pumpkin pie! mmmm....

We started thinking about what we were thankful for and this is what we came up with:

We're thankful for:

Having the means to fix our own Thanksgiving meal

Having the skills necessary to cook the meal

Kyle says he's happy to have a wife who will cook this wonderful meal for him

Being able to pay the bills no matter what, even though it might be a stretch sometimes

Not being in debt

Being together in a new place

Having wonderful families back home GA who love us more than words can say

Those are just a few of the many things we came up with. :) We wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and know that we were thinking of everyone at the different family get-togethers at some point throughout the day!

Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!! The menu for us Campbells tonight is:

spiral-sliced ham
sweet potato and acorn squash bake
green bean casserole
pumpkin custard with pecans


Mmmmm.....

Oh...My...Goooodnessss....!!!

Yes, we do! :)

Oooh...intense!

Watching Bella across the school parking lot.

My favorite picture of him...

I ABSOLUTELY LOVED THE TWILIGHT MOVIE!!!!! It was the BEST movie I've EVER seen!!!! It was funny because this movie's been built up since this past summer and everybody was kinda worried that it wouldn't be as good as the book, well--no movie is ever as good as the book, but this one came close in my opinion and the main vampire character in the movie made all the teenage/young adult women swoon and squeal in the theater whenever he gazed at Bella (the mortal) or smiled or moved or whatever he did. He was definitely an attractive vampire... :) I would certainly become a vampire just for him if I were in Bella's shoes! Oh my! :) Maren and I were all smiles after we left and were talking all giddy like and skipping along back to the car. It was great and I want to see it again and again and again! I can't wait until it comes out on DVD and I definitely can't wait until the next movie comes out in the saga!!!

I'm a Weightwatchers lifetime member...it's official. I even have my little keychain token (small, golden key figurine)! I'm still going to go to my meetings and track my points though to keep me honest because I still want to lose a little more. But I'm happy! Not many people can reach that status. Now, I just gotta see if I can get ahold of Donna at the Weightwatchers office to talk about possible employment. :) :) I'm all smiles today.

I leave you with this movie quote:

Edward: "And so the lion fell in love with the lamb.."

Bella: "What a stupid lamb.."

Edward: "What a sick, masochistic lion.."

Falling behind on my duties

It's been awhile since I've done this thing! Sorry to all my faithful readers! Not much new has happened though except for the fact that I recently acquired a new place to sub at...Bishop Kelly Catholic High School....interesting, huh? It's a private school and really the only reason I'm doing it is because of one of my classmates, Marino. He wanted me to be a sub for him sometime so he asked me to fill out the necessary paperwork in order to sub there. I had my first job there today. I subbed for an English class (which I really didn't do anything because there was a student teacher in there and I decided I wasn't going to infringe on her and take away any power that she had...I know how that feels) so I just sat in the back of the classroom and read my book. I stayed in there for awhile and then the sub placement person came to me and decided that I would go sit in for another teacher that left today and had no sub (shortages run rampant in that school, apparently--should I take this as a good or bad sign that there aren't enough subs?). She just kinda assumed that I wasn't certified since all of the other ones they had typically weren't and when I said, "Oh yes I am..." she said, "Oh! GOOOOD!!!!" I basically saved the day for them, I guess since I just so happened to be certified. hahaha. The only bad thing is that they pay less than the other districts but hey, money's money....and if there's a chance that neither Boise nor Meridian call me, then I'm probably gonna have a job with them. I'm being resourceful, if you wanna call it that. :) So then the other class that I subbed for was a teacher that taught things like theology, psychology and social justice...wow. Luckily, I wasn't exactly expected to teach...just babysit while they took tests or did bookwork or worksheets...busy work. It's odd to come from a public school and then to go into a private Catholic school and see crosses everywhere and morning prayers to open the day and a closing prayer at the end of the day...just not your typical experience for someone who's been raised in public schools where religion is totally taboo to even really talk about much less have religious symbols hanging on your walls for fear of being sued by a parent who refuses to let their child's horizons be expanded...the nerve! This high school seems to be pretty wealthy, well, it probably is because the students are expected to pay a pretty hefty tuition, I think...also another clue was that in the hallway, I saw kids with these fancy cellphones and those electronic planner things (forgot the name of them) and whatnot...things I would never even dream of spending money on--not that it wouldn't be nice to have a fancier phone and maybe one day, I will but it's just not necessary right now...and I certainly don't think it's necessary for 15-19 year olds to have something fancier than the teacher! ha! I guess that's how it will always be though, right? The kids were really nice though...a different type of student--at least the ones that I came in contact with anyway.


Let's see, what else...? Not really that much has changed...so sorry to disappoint! At least I refreshed the blog with some more random ramblings so you don't look at the same thing over and over again, time after time....hehehe. Oh, I've completely finished the Twilight saga...finished the last book today...while subbing. ha. It's so good that it only took me about 2 weeks to read all 4 books. Now that's a good book then. I can't keep my attention on any one single book unless it hooks me right away, which is what this did. The second book was a little boring but I kept going because I wanted to get to the better parts so that kept me flipping pages. Mom, you should read them--you'd be done in like 2 days... :) If you want, I could bring the books to GA when we visit and I'm sure you'd have them done by the time we left again.



The order of the books are as follows, in case any of you have any desire to join the Stephenie Meyer (she's the author) craze: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn. The Twilight movie comes out tomorrow and I'm going to go see it right after work! I'm excited! I've read one review that said that it was nothing short of amazing. Of course, it's not perfect like the book, but it's GOOD. Even people who haven't read the book will be able to enjoy the story. It's a wonderful love story and yes, it's aimed at the adolescents but it really is a great story!














Have I mentioned that the story's good? Okay...I'll shut up now. G'night!

We're gonna try something

Kyle and I want to try getting our picture made together at the Walmart studio...a really nice picture together, whenever we get the time. We'd like to do this so that we can make see how much we've changed since we got married also hopefully we can send these pictures out with Christmas cards. I look at our engagement photos occasionally and think, "whoa...we look young!" even though it was only a couple years ago...I think we'll look at these new ones and see how much we've matured and grown up. I think this move has made us grow up in many ways--not just stressing us out beyong belief but made us depend on ourselves and each other and nobody else. It's hard. We've established a beautiful, comfy and cozy home (that's eating us alive, financially--although who isn't having trouble nowadays?) with a cute and cuddly kitten, and we're starting to make new friends. I'm establishing some roots, very small ones, with a few schools/teachers through subbing and Kyle's feeling really happy/worried/nervous in his job. He's happy most of the time but he's still worried in the back of his mind about Micron and their financial woes. He really would like to stay with them as long as they'll keep him because he truly enjoys his work. He feels needed and respected there unlike where he worked for his co-op at Polytron. At Polytron, he was seen basically as a mere minion...just a college student with not much experience. However, he does realize that Polytron gave him certain skills that he wouldn't have gotten if he didn't have the co-op experience: he learned about how to deal with the work/professional environment such as professional behavior in the workplace. Anyway, he's just extremely happy with where he is right now but he's kind of worried also that it's getting closer to time where he'll get a promotion on the payscale and he's scared that something will happen where he won't meet the standards required in order to jump up. I keep telling him that he's met all he needs to do and his supervisor seems to be on his side constantly and that his supervisor really gives him so much praise for what Kyle's been doing in their area...there has to be something to that, right?

Total loss....

My weigh-in went really good today! I lost over a pound and that pushed me over 30lbs making it a grand total of 31.6 pounds lost. :) I'm happy! Next week I will hit lifetime and won't have to pay after that! Kyle said that he's noticing more and more my "feminine curves"--haha! Like I already didn't have them but maybe he means that they're more attractive now...hehehe. Not that he didn't think I wasn't attractive before but anyway, that's his way of finding compliments for me and I'm not complaining! I heard a funny story today in the meeting where this woman said she was in the shower and she was washing her body and all of the sudden felt these lumps and she started worrying and yelled out to her husband saying that she had lumps in the middle of her body and her husband said, "Kris, those are your ribs!" That was so funny to hear! I actually had a similar story...this morning as I was getting ready to get in the shower, I bent over in the bathroom and happened to look in the mirror at my back and I was able to see my ribs more clearly (not anorexic-like, just normal looking ribs--if you know what I mean). It's not like you can see my ribs if I'm standing normally because that would look weird and scary.


I'm on the last book of the Twilight saga that all the young people/young adults (female) are raving about...it really IS good! I haven't been able to put the books down! That's usually not like me either. Usually, I get bored with books and don't finish them, but not these! The Twilight movie is coming out next week and I can't wait! :)

It's about time to relax for the WHOLE weekend!

The last few days have been stressful, well, maybe just Thursday was stressful for me. It was not a good morning for me at all. I was subbing for another friend of mine at Garfield ES and it was first grade. I guess I should've expected this but at the same time, I wasn't expecting it so here goes the story...

This friend of mine has an EXTREMELY intricate routine for her children in the morning and every routine is governed by what song is playing on the CD player. These children are so trained and conditioned that if ANYTHING goes out of order, they have such a big hissy fit! Well, I was walking into a warzone...her instructions were so detailed that I really didn't have time to read all the way through them and get a good comprehension of what was to happen. So then the bell rings....

Everything seems to start off fine but then the bickering started the minute I messed up....geez!!!!!! I tried to diffuse the situation by saying that it's okay if something doesn't happen exactly how their teacher does it. That didn't help. I started reading the job board and a word on the board started them up again and it was mainly one girl that had the biggest mouth. I said that I was just reading what was up there and just get over it! That didn't shut them up either. ...gosh!!! I got so frustrated and I felt myself getting emotional from the stress of them yelling at me and then arguing with each other. There was a special ed. assistant in there watching the whole thing and that probably was one reason I was getting really frustrated because it was kinda embarrassing to have her in there watching the kids eat me alive. She finally piped in and told the kids to hush up because I was the teacher in the room and they should listen to me instead of arguing. Did that help? Nope. I finally couldn't hold my emotion in any longer and asked the special ed assistant to stay in there while I went out to collect myself and to find another teacher to go in there and get control of the little idiots. I found my friend, Karen, and she went into the room and yelled at them and said that I was her friend and that she didn't appreciate them making me upset and she yelled at the main instigator and she started crying and Karen asked her how did she like it if people yelled at her? Of course, the girl didn't like it. I collected myself and cooled down as best as I could and went back in and the room was silent. I walked to the desk and the kids said quietly that they were sorry. Since they are first graders, it doesn't hurt to show a little emotion to them to show them that their actions have consequences. It's not wise to get that way all the time, but with students this young, they feel instantly bad if somebody they see as an authority figure break down, they know they did something wrong and bad. The rest of the day went smoother but after all that, I was still wondering, "do I EVER want to sub for that teacher again????" I guess the next time probably won't be as bad because the kids would know me and might feel a little more comfortable with me but still. That's a lot of stress for one morning! I don't mind subbing for Karen's class because she usually doesn't have such a stringent routine for her kids. She's more random so they're more forgiving for something different (within reason...ha)! Routine is good for young children but at the same time, if it's TOO structured, it makes the kids slaves to that routine and makes it really hard for change.


Today wasn't so bad because I decided to take a shorter sub job (3 hours). Granted, it's not as much pay, but I needed to work with as little stress as I could after yesterday. I was able to leave at 12:30 and I went straight home because I had some chores that needed to be done...lots of dishes, lots of dirty laundry....avalanches of stuff! It was okay though...it was quite liberating and relaxing. (I don't feel that way all the time) :)

Training myself to do new tricks

I recently went to my annual endocrinologist visit to check on everything and to get my blood drawn to check my thyroid hormones (medicine levels). They called back today to say that they needed to readjust my dosage again. They had me doing 250 mcg five times a week and then just 200 mcg two times a week. Well now, I have to take 250 mcg four times a week and 200 mcg three times a week. It looks like my dosage is lessening because of my weight loss--because of the weight I had gained, my last endocrinologist (Dr. Van Meter) increased my dosage and he was worried about me and the possibility of me getting diabetes if I gained too much more weight. No worries, Dr. Van Meter!! (not anymore)!

It's alright now

My backyard neighbor is okay now and so is her baby girl. She was having contractions and they took her into L & D to stop them. They just told her to take it easy and get more rest. She said, "Don't they know I have 2 (young) children already???" hahahaha....I'm just glad she's okay.

To continue about last night's concert

The concert was so loud but it was worth the ringing ears afterwards! The TSO uses a lot of lights and lasers that are all cued to the music and the rhythmn of the sounds and whatnot so when songs were playing, the lights would dance right along. The lights were flashing EVERYWHERE and they were so bright! You better not have epilepsy or anything if you ever want to go see them in concert. They also had pyrotechnical stunts going on with fire blasting in the background every once in awhile (mainly in the second half of the show--the first half was a Christmas story so not as much pyrotechnics during that). It was so cool! Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures but I don't think the pictures would've turned out so good anyway with all the bright lights all over the place. Anyway, in case you don't know who the Trans-Siberian Orchestra is, they're a group of musicians that play anything from electric keyboards to electric violins to all types of electric guitars and they're most known for their renditions of Christmas music. They also play non-Christmas music. For their non-Christmas music, classical music is their inspiration so basically, they make anyone who thinks classical music is boring think that it's cool. I was definitely impressed with their performance and Kyle and I think we may like to definitely go again next year when they make another round. I highly recommend this group and you can look them up online and possibly hear samples of their music.

Last night

I went to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert last night with Kyle and it was AWESOME!!!!! I was planning on going with my backyard neighbor but (I think I'm psychic) she couldn't go at the last minute. Now, at first before I even heard why, I was so aggravated that I knew something like this would happen....BUT then I heard what happened--she called me and left a message for me to call her back and she sounded really worried. I called her back in a hurry and while she was talking, her voice was shaking and it sounded like she was crying...she was. She suddenly started having some pregnancy problems and her doctor told her to come to labor and delivery (which doesn't sound like a good thing, seeing as though she's not due until February). They were gonna check her out and see what was going on but it doesn't look too good...I haven't heard anything from her but I'm gonna give her time before I call. I emailed her so that when she feels up to it, she might be able to email better than call. I'll keep ya'll posted.

What a nice Sunday morning!

Kyle came home this morning from work and of course, I was still snoozing away. He came into the bedroom and said that he was hungry and was either wanting to make pancakes or go out for breakfast. So we did something we've not done in a long time...we went out for breakfast to IHOP. It was good! All I had though was some eggbeater eggs and a portion of pumpkin pancakes. I ate all the eggs but only ate probably an equivalent of 1 whole pancake and MAYBE a small fraction of another. I want to keep going on my weight loss since I did very good this past week and lost 2.2 lbs--it counteracted a little more than what I gained last week (1.4) :(. That's okay though. I knew what was different and I tried not to let it happen again. Those IHOP pancakes are huge so there was no way I was going to eat all of them, nor should I. The waitress was impressed on my self-control--haha! (Her name was also Jennifer). I also had some coffee. We enjoyed our morning together just eating and then visiting together afterwards. We don't get much idle time together a lot of mornings. :)


Kyle told me something interesting yesterday. He said that Micron is forcing people to take mandatory 3 week vacation time. It doesn't have to be 3 consecutive weeks though. So, we're already taking 2 in late December/early January so that leaves him with 1 week to use as he pleases. Maybe we'll take a vacation somewhere (assuming we have the money). I'm not exactly sure why they're forcing this time off...I'll have to ask him again and then let you know.

Cute pictures of the baby kitty to cheer us up!

He loves the sequined purse and it goes purrrfectly with "Sex and the City".

"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful!"

His new friend, Lambie.

This picture would freak Kyle out because it kinda like he's positioning himself for another accident.

Not much to say

I don't have much to say this weekend. We had our last class meeting for one of my classes. It was kind of an irritating because we were supposed to present our research papers and I was expecting that we would probably present part of them on Friday and then the rest of them on Saturday....nooooo. Friday we had this pointless discussion that only ended up in everybody getting tense and angry with the professor because he started talking about a subsistance culture vs. a capitalistic culture. He sounded like he was putting down capitalism even though he was pretty much brought up in a capitalistic culture. One girl called him on it and from then on, it was a free-for-all. I hated the whole class time and felt like it was a waste of time. Another thing that came up was when the professor was talking about 9/11, he said that this friend of his came up to him and said that the WTC had been attacked and his first reaction was, "Good riddance!" This was referring to the whole capitalism thing....How could he say something like that as a first reaction?????!!! What a horrible thing to say! It really ticked me off and then he finished it off by saying that he finally saw the footage on the tv and saw people jumping from the buildings and he felt bad. UGH! This is why we should've just stuck to the initial plan of presentations!! Anyway, today was presentation day finally and we had to stay longer than normal. It was annoying. At least it's over now.


I'm not doing much tonight except chilling out and watching a movie and cuddling with the baby kitty.

On the bright side...

Kyle and I make well below $250K/year so maybe Obama can throw some money our way??? :)

Some thoughts I had last night

After the president was elected last night, I went onto my facebook to see how my fellow facebook friends were responding to the news. I especially wanted to see what kind of response my African American friends were having. Of course, it was all jubilant and why shouldn't they be? Obama achieved something for the African American race that was really never thought possible and I'm happy for that group of people because this is quite a milestone in history! The only thing I started to wonder is the use of the word "we" as they used it in the phrase "Yes we can!" and "We did it!" Now, does that word "we" mean that the newly elected president only belongs to the African American people? Because that's not the case now. He's OUR president for an entire country and should not belong to one race of people. The president is for ALL people: white, black, yellow, red and purple. You know what I mean? I also saw something on someone else's facebook that said that she didn't want to hear anymore about the "white man" keeping the "black man" down! I agree with this because over the past few years, I've heard or sensed from black coworkers or acquaintances that they feel oppressed or underprivileged in the white world....well, not anymore! This election proves that the African Americans can and will overcome whatever stood in their way. I'm not racist by any means because I've grown up with friends who are considered the minority (i.e. Asian, Indian, and African American) and I have all the respect in the world for all people of different cultures. In this election though, it really made me think and actually it made me a little nervous I guess because I've always taken for granted a white president of the USA. Maybe this is the change we need, I don't know, but whomever the country would've chosen, they have a lot to take care of and the presidency is absolutely NOTHING to take advantage of or go into unknowingly and it's definitely not something to be taken lightly. We have a serious mess on our hands and we need someone who can keep a level head and look out for EVERYONE (rich, poor and middle class) instead of just one particular group of people.


I hope this made sense because it actually sounded a lot better last night when I first was thinking about it and maybe it was because I was, at first, disappointed. Now, I'm a little worried but I think if our country can overcome any prejudices or any other hangups we have had about color/nationality/religion that has held us back in the past, then surely we can overcome the problems we're having right now and possibly become a stronger country in the future. This is me being optimistic because I really don't want to complain because I know we'll be hearing a lot of arguing and whining from now on and until the next four years are over.

Here goes nothin'

Well, Obama made history. Hopefully it turns out to be a good history. Oh well, all we have to do is wait and if it doesn't go well, whoever becomes president four years down the road will have hopefully watched and learned from Obama and will be better able to make better decisions. But like I said, we'll just have to sit back and wait.


On the lighter side, I just bought a small crockpot. :) Now I can make stuff to take places if the occasion arises or I can make multiple things at one time! My main motivation for the smaller crockpot was so I could make this pumpkin dessert that my mom made while I was at home this weekend. I want to make it for Thanksgiving. :) Can't wait!

A few fun pictures from this weekend!

This was supposed to be near the end but oh well....Aunt Judy giving her little girl a hug.

An Oscar cake for Oscar

Erin's cake

The official kiss!

The altar

Cousins!

Aunt Erin with Evie and Karleen

Awww...Daddy and Daughter

Uncle Arthur, Aunt Judy and Erin Misty

Mr. and Mrs. Praxedes and Elva Ortiz (Oscar's parents)

The love mobile! Off they go!

Getting ready to leave--one last smile!

Carrying the bride to the car--what a gentleman!

Brother and Sister

I'm back! The trip was a lot of fun! The plane ride back was okay. The ride from ATL to Denver was pretty full but luckily, my set of seats only had me and this other heavy set guy. He sat on the outside and I sat next to the window and it gave us both plenty of space. We were both hoping that another person wouldn't run on at the last minute and squeeze into the middle seat. The flight from Denver to Boise was a different story though. I still got 2 seats to myself but the plane was really cramped and I'm really glad I got the other seat to myself. It was a propeller plane and it scared me to death! I sat at the window right next to the propeller and so I finally had to just close my window shades so I wouldn't keep looking at the propeller expecting it to just quit at anytime. It was a rough take off because of the plane being so much lighter than a normal plane. The wind just kept knocking it around and we would go up and down for a long time and then we finally got settled at a comfortable cruising altitude. I still really couldn't look out the window as much as I usually do in a normal sized plane. It was extremely clear outside so I could see the mountains VERY clearly! The landing was rough too same as the takeoff. As soon as we landed, it was kinda hot and stuffy on the plane and of course, this girlfriend and boyfriend across the aisle from me opened up CHINESE FOOD! The smell was nauseating! I was already feeling so shaken up from the landing and then to see people stuffing their faces with chinese food and the smell combination all but made me puke. We finally got to get off the plane and I was fine then. :)

It was nice seeing everybody this weekend! I had a great time visiting with everyone.