Home, really home.

Okay yes, for god’s sake I am alive. And that should be the last of that kind a phrase I have to say for a while. I wish I could stop saying, “No, this is not Jorge” (pronounced whore-hey). But that doesn’t seem likely as someone gave out my phone number as theirs. I guess it’s payback for getting my business cards for Ribbon Jar misprinted with another companies phone number (so not my fault by the way, Qwest sucks). I digress:

Lifesaving drills rock. Well they do if you have a cute dancer as your unit leader (and guess who did? that would be me). No silly, this isn’t him, but my brother. I found out later that you can’t bring your camera to these things. Did my curly haired dancer stop me, nope. So ya, we were on a cruise. My whole step-dad’s family (22 strong). From 18 months to like over 80 years. He has a really nice family, and they are pretty funny so that is awesome (I mean like they enjoy a good joke, not like they look weird or something). We saw all the Alaskan things that I was semi-afraid were going to be ploys to get you to come on a cruise. But they are real people!!!  I saw a friggin huge Humpback whale jump completely out of the water. It was just frolicking around. And the killer’s?  Ya I saw a bunch of those, traveling around in packs. Much to Taylor and my disappointment however we did NOT see one kill a caribou. So I guess I will be going back (seriously they gang up and kill big animals like that, Taylor told me and I didn’t believe him so I went and looked it up in the ship’s library. They even eat the tongues out of Humpbacks and other Baleen whales :<).

I did lots of really cool stuff too. Here is my step-cousin, Brice, and me getting ready to risk our lives on a ropes course. Even though I did end up almost doing a complete split twenty feet in the air between the ropes I guess it wasn’t that dangerous. But seriously fun (and the next day I was so, sooooo sore).

I also hiked around the Mendenhall Glacier area (with from bottom: Arron (my step brother who is back from Iraq yeah!!), Brianna (niece, way too cute), Coralia (Arron’s wife and maker of best pico di gala ever -sp?), Brent (brother, and general jokester), Mom, and Bill (step-dad who has not said too much about me taking over the house, and even helped me put stuff up!!!). Hmm, Taylor (another step-brother) must have been racing ahead and is not in the picture.

I even canoed up to a glacier (so it had a little motor, so what). Now how did I get to go on this adventure?  Well Bill’s mom, Mrs. Walters (“not Pat, Amber, that is rude,” said mom) took all her kids:

And their significant others and children. And she included me and my brother, which was so nice of her. I hadn’t been on a family type vacation in a long, long time and this was so nice. Guess who’s getting a cool scrapbook thank you?!?!

Okay so what happened between Memphis and Now besides that week?  Well Sciarrino and I headed down to San Fran for a trade show and drove up the redwoods way which I managed to get super horrible pictures of. After I got back the realization set in that I had exactly three days to move and wasn’t really packed. So I got to work and still didn’t finish it all. Luckily I have the best boyfriend in the entire world (no, I really dare you to find a better one), who moved the rest for me when I was up north. Then we were gone.

Wait I feel like I forgot something? Hmm… Oh ya:

BJ GOT A JOB, A REAL JOB, WITH BENEFITS AND EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He is a grown up people. And the best part? It’s in Oregon. Wait, PORTLAND> that is only an hour away!!! Of course I did get a little teary eyed when I realized it was 54.2 miles to his cool new apartment and that takes 56 minuets in really good traffic, but still, it could have been California! He starts on Monday and I get to go help him pick out new clothes this weekend, as Tex says, I can, “dress him up like a little man doll.” I don’t know about that but he did say he would try on three outfits of my choosing which is really good since he usually doesn’t try anything on.