Home sweet Iowa...

Thursday through Sunday I'll be vacationing in Iowa with my Dad. My cousin Ryan is getting married on Saturday in Denison Iowa. We are originally from Iowa, but moved to California when I was only 3 years old. I love going back to the Midwest it feels like home to me.

When I was 7 or 8 years old I started flying back to Iowa for a month or two during the summer so I could be passed around family members. I LOVED this! I think traveling at such a young age, by myself, has helped me to become the adventurous traveler I am today. As a child I wasn't clingy or "attached" to my parents as most children are, so being away from my parents for a length of time was not a big deal to me. I have always been an independent person.

My mother is 1 of 13 children, so I had a lot of family members to take me in. I have so many pleasant memories of these hot mid-western summers. I used to love the heat showers with thunder and lightening. As a child I didn't mind the thunder and lightening, but now as an adult I get a little stressed when the lightening gets too close. Probably childhood trauma, I don't know.

So Thursday morning I departed California a little before 8am, and I met up with my dad in Denver Colorado. We then flew from Denver to Omaha, Nebraska, where we rented a car and drove 1 1/2 hrs to Denison Iowa. We pulled into the parking lot of our motel about 10pm.

This morning (Friday), after stepping out of our motel room we were greeted with a very unpleasant smell. I almost lost my stomach the smell was so horrible. It smelled like pig crap to the extreme. By the afternoon the smell had calmed down, or we are now used to, either way it is now bearable.

The motel we are at is the Historical Park Motel. They had a nice website and it was recommended by the bridal party, but if we hadn't pre-paid I think we would be relocating. The sink hadn't been clean so there was left over toothpaste form the previous vacationers. The Motel is located between the train tracks and the main highway into town, so there is a constant roar of traffic through out the day. When ever a large truck goes down the road the whole building shakes, which gives it a real historical feeling. All night long we could feel the floor shake, which in turn vibrates the bed. Being from California my first intuition of a shaking bed is that it is an earthquake, so through the night I would wake up thinking there was an earthquake, not realizing I'm in Iowa where earthquakes are very, very rare.

Well the rehearsal dinner is in a few hours so I better start thinking about what I'm going to wear.

Take Care!

Did someone say Apple Pie??

I'm taking a leap and I've entered myself in the Apple Pie Baking contest for our cities 4th of July Celebration. I'm very excited! I have a receipe in mind, but I have been searching online for other ideas. I want to find something that will stand out, something that isn't your normal "Apple Pie." Six entries are allowed per contestant. I doubt I'll make six, but I keep finding delicious, mouthwatering receipes.



All my co-workers have incourged me to bring my pies in for a trial run. So guess what I'll be doing this weekend... yup baking pies!

Being sick is no fun!

I had a great time in Ohio (Jeff will return Monday afternoon). The Sighlo show at the Newport was awesome, by far their best! We got what we asked for, and there were some great thunderstorms while we were there. Unfortunately, I started feeling under the weather before we left on Thursday, which put a damper on things, and almost a week later I am still feeling crappy. I was taking a decongestant every 4 hours so I could breath, and at one point during the night on Saturday I woke with my nose completely stuffed and my throat was thick with mucus which made it hard to breath even through my mouth. It was horrible!



I'm sick of being sick!



I returned Monday afternoon and by Tuesday I was able to get into the Dr. He diagnosed me with a sinus infection and fluid in my ears. He sent me out the door with antibiotics and an inhaler because of my horrible cough.



Well, it's Friday and to no avail I don't feel any better. I don't have the regular symptoms of a cold. I don't have the full body aches, fever run down feeling. In fact it is just the opposite. At night I'm wide awake and I can't sleep.



I wish I could hear again. I wish my cough would go away and my nose to stop running.



This is crazy!



**sniffle**



**sniffle**



*COUGH*



*COUGH*

Ohio here we come.

Jeff and I will be leaving for Ohio Thursday night. Jeff is originally from Ohio so we will be visiting with his family, and catching up with his friends. Some of his friends are in a band, Sighlo, who will be playing a headliner show at our favorite venue, The Newport, on OSU campus.




If you haven't heard them on XM readio check them out: http://www.myspace.com/sighlo They play a lot of hard rock but there are a few songs that are more mellow like My Calvary and Capture. They are very talented, which will one day pay off for them.



I will return on Monday morning, but Jeff will stay another week to travel to Chicago with Sighlo for a show case with a lot of important people, who could change their lives.




The forecast calls for a few thunderstorms which can be okay in small doses.

Reunited after over 5 years...

My very best friend from grade school is back in California after living in Okinawa for over 5 years. While Tiffany and her husband, Steve, were stationed over in Japan they had 2 beautiful boys.

Christian, who is 5 and Luke is almost 2 years old.





I can't believe how polite and well behaved they were. Luke doesn't say much, he is a little shy, but he was excited to see Sabian and Sasha. The girls (Sabian and Shasha) are a little sketchy with new people, especially kids, so they mostly stayed up stairs under the bed, where they thought it was safe. Christian would run up the stairs to check on them and run down and let me know they were hiding between the boxes under the bed. He is so cute he melts my heart. I showed Christian a trick for getting them to come out, which is to shake their treat bag. Sabian never came down, but Christian was able to feed Sasha a few treats, which he thought that was the coolest thing. I love that the simplest things can make children so happy.

I always looked forward to new pictures of the boys throughout the years, mostly because I didn't want to miss out on them growing up. A little over 2 years ago Tiffany, Steve and Christan came back to California and that was the last time I saw them. So this was the first time I got meet Luke. Did I mention how cute he is?


I look forward to getting to know the boys and catching up with Tiffany. She will be living a little over an hour away, at least it is in California, which I'm very thankful for.

Crazy weekend

This weekend we celebrated my sister, Gayla's, Birthday and Father's Day. Both are next weekend, but Jeff and I will be out of town so we took the opportunity to celebrate early.
We celebrated with a BBQ in San Diego on Fiesta Island (Fiasco Island). Despite the windy conditions we had a great time. My sister lives a little over an hour away, and my dad flew in from Norther California, so it isn't very often we all get together.

While we were trying to enjoy the sunshine we were fighting to hold down the fort because the wind was blowing incredibly hard. I am convinced it is ALWAYS windy there. This was my second visit to Fiesta Island and it was no different then the first.

Not only was the wind a little crazy but so were the people. I was very surprised the island wasn't patrolled or regulated by law enforcement, except for the two San Diego Police boats that pulled up on the beach to the site to the left of us. We never found out what happened, but there was definitely paper work involved and one of their cars was towed. The San Diego Police boats hung around for about 45min to an hour. That was about it for law enforcement.

Once the Police were gone things around us got a little crazy. Two sites to the right of us there was a dog fight with two dogs which included two men trying to break up the fight. One of the guys had one of the dogs by his hind legs and was trying to pull the other dogs off. I was completely freaking out and thought a dog had one of the guys hand/arm. I was panicking, a little, saying "call 911, call 911." This later became the running joke.

After the fight had settle down we didn't see either of the men hurt but one of the dogs was hurt pretty bad. From where we were sitting we couldn't see much, but it didn't seem like the dog was hurt enough to need immediate assistance. But all throughout the day we kept watching this group with the dogs because we suspected they were on drugs. A couple of them were acting really weired and he couldn't stand still or hardly stand up for that matter. They got crazier as the sun set and the fires were lit.

My 9 year old nephew, Jordan, and his new friend found a MOUSE on the beach, and they proceeded to pick it up.

I had to put that in for my mom, she is completely repulsed by these four legged creatures.

Here are a few pictures I had to snap before the sun set.


Me and Jordan
Me and Jeff
Me and my sister, Gayla

Once the sun set the wind died down, but it did get pretty chilly, as long as, we stayed close to the fire we could keep warm. The night ended with some delicous s'mores, is there a better ending to a perfect, but crazy day at the beach?