I told you so!

As promised, I am finishing my trip updates.

In Illinois time to rest was an imaginary thing.  There was always something to do or someone to see.  The first weekend I was rushed to southern Illinois for Michelle's Bachelorette party.  The night was a lot of fun, consisted of lots of drinks, crying, and Charleston.  We hit up EIU for the night to party Fall 2008 style.  It was awesome being back at the old stomping grounds, but it also felt so weird.  The girls had a job of selling Lei's for Michelle's party, I took the cake with $20ish dollars.  Turns out I am an excellent sales person.
We rented a party bus to safely get us to and from EIU which was a lot fun.  I wasn’t impressed when the bus driver told us we had to pay more money for him to drive us back to Vandalia.  Not cool.  Not cool at all.  Regardless everyone had fun and the night was a success.

 

We were at EIU.  This was a must.

After the bus driver slammed on the breaks about 6 girls ended up on the floor.  Don't worry, Michelle's neck hitting the pole broke her fall.

The following day included a ridiculously long drive home and an evening at Danielle’s house where her nieces (2 and 3) styled my hair.  I wish I had pictures to share.  It was awesome.  It hurt like hell but I have never seen Linda laugh so hard in my life.  The girls had fun and everyone had fun watching, so I was happy to take one for the team.  The next day I went into Chicago to see everyone and go to musical night.  I have nothing good to say about musical night, so I won’t say anything about it.  It was so wonderful to get to see David, Katelyn, Jessica, Tina, and to spend more time with Danielle.  We cruised around Chicago, took a picture between Marilyn Monroe’s legs, did the standard Bean pictures, hung out in the park, and had an awesome meal at a restaurant whose name I cannot remember.    

David and I

Loves

First try.  Excellent photography skills, Tina!

Overall, a pretty good day and I even got to sleep that night!  Finally!!

The following weekend was Michelle’s wedding.  The hardest part of the weekend was trying to keep Michelle calm.  I think we received a C grade at this task.  Not an easy task!!!!  Ok, I’ll give us a B.

Who knew Maid of Honor duties included putting the garter on the bride?!

  

It was a beautiful wedding, tears of happiness were shed, my feet hurt like a pain I have never before experienced, and the reception was a great party.  

Bridesmaids.  Like the movie, but no one shit their pants.

Mr. & Mrs. Caleb Miller.

Regardless of the fun, I was pretty excited to hit the hay that night.  It had been such a long busy and at times stressful day it was good to just lay down and pass out.

 

At the reception

The rest of the time at home was spent running around trying to see family and friends and spend time at home and relax.  It was kind of strange to be “home” again and it made me realize that Oregon, IL is no longer home.  I was homesick for Alaska and Ruckus and my house.  It was really nice enjoying the sunshine and grass and farm smells.  I almost forgot how much I miss farm smells.  I enjoyed being able to drive into Chicago and take the Metra back to Elburn.  It was the little things that I noticed I had been missing.  So it was good to experience those things again.

I was super excited to come back to Girdwood and find everything yellow and orange and absolutely beautiful.  (and new snow on the mountains.)  Can't wait for winter and snowboarding! 

Don’t get used to my updates being so frequent.  It probably won’t happen again.

Rachel is better at blogging than I am. So this one is way too long to make up for it.

I have been meaning to update this for a few days now, ok, a few weeks, but life has happened and it has taken longer than planned.  I hope I can stay on top of this again.
Dylan and I took a trip to San Diego then home to visit friends and family and to attend Michelle's wedding.  San Diego was a lot of fun visiting Danielle.  We started the trip off on zero sleep and went straight to a whale watch tour, where I got horribly burnt.  Imagine that someone used to Alaska getting burned in California, preposterous.   We ended up seeing hundreds of dolphins and blue whales spouting before diving down.  It was a pretty awesome tour.

Yes, they said "don't worry we aren't running them over..."

After the whale watch we went to Danielle's house and made a fantastic meal of steaks, sweet potatoes, corn on the cob, tomato salad, salad, and wine.  After our awesome meal we went out dancing where I fell asleep standing up in 5inch heels.  My mom is proud of my talents.

YUM!  Isn't Danielle delicious looking?

The following day we slept until noon (I finally laid down to sleep) then went and Dylan got his tattoo of St. Christopher.  It hurt him a lot, so Danielle and I went shopping to help ease the pain.

The day we had planned to go to the beach, San Diego got rained on.  The city that never gets rain, got rained on while we were there.  Thanks weather, we hate you too.  Her Aunt Donna gave us an awesome tour of The Del Coronado and took us up to a tour that is closed to the public.  It was such a beautiful view up there, and I loved hearing about the quirks of the building.  Who would have thought that the top floor has such low ceilings that certain guests have to be moved to lower floors so they don't hit their heads!

Beautiful views

Inside the last (or one of the last) manned elevators in the US.  The bell hop, Andrew, is absolutely awesome and was so sweet.  He probably still remembers my name.

Soul Sisters.  We love laundry.

Really, just Epic.  (with a capital E.)

 Later that night (after more shopping and a stop at Dave and Busters, and In and Out burger) we had S'mores on the beach and did some midnight swimming.

Double s'more.  She got scared about doing a triple.

 After spending such an awesome time with Danielle and Mike they had to go back to work, so Dylan and I went to the zoo!  The day started out rainy (really, Seriously?!) but being from Girdwood we weren't scared so we went to the zoo in the rain.  It only rained a little longer than the sun came out.  Then the humidity started to rise.  Then the temp started to rise.  Then it was 110F and we decided we weren't really enjoying the zoo that much anymore.  So we went to the beach.

The last bit of shade we found in the area of the zoo we were in.  This is about when we said forget it, quickly saw the elephants, and about sprinted back to the AC of the car.  (That was parked on blacktop in the 110F heat...)

The beach was awesome.

 That night Danielle, shipped us off to L.A. and said "see ya losers, they are your problem now, Sandy." and abandoned us with my insane...ly awesome step sister.  (whom I love dearly.)

Sunset on the ride to LA (ish area)

After some mexican food (and french fries) and the worlds largest medium drink, Sandy transported us (safely) to Hollywood to do things up tourist style.  We started at the Chinese theater checked out some hand prints, looked at the stars, had giant margaritas, then hit up Madame Tussauds wax museum.

Having the same side hands as Marilyn made me feel better about my gigantic man hands.

 

Inside the $6.99 store.  I am a fierce polar bear.  Sandy is an elephant.  "I don't know what elephants do..."

This is us being "sexy" with Beyonce.  Why didn't anyone tell us....  WHY?!

Chatting up Ryan Seacrest.  He 1. is tiny (notice how monstrous I look next to him.) 2. Was more interested in Dylan.

Sandy is abusive, look out.

My favorite picture of the day.  I laugh so hard every time.  Sandy kills me.  And the baseball hat.

This is for you, Earl.  Why am I smiling like such a fool?

 That evening we went up to the observatory to view the city at night and we were able to see the Hollywood sign from a distance.  On the way there the GPS went stupid and took us on a tour of stars homes.  Whether they were actual stars homes, we will never know, but you would have to make their salaries to live in some of the houses we saw.

Don't look directly at my legs.  Blindness may occur.

The next morning, Dylan and I flew home to Illinois, where nothing exciting happened and we took no pictures.  The end.

Ok, exciting things did happen and we took maybe 5 pictures.  But I will write about them later.  Like this week.  Promise.  Ok, no promises, but soon.  Maybe.  We'll see.

Bye!