Idaho again random pictures of the night in no order

The best part is this picture is how my blog will be seen on Hayley's blog until I travel again. I just loved all 5 years I had in the 80's.

The party animal sister of mine getting the last things ready before Mike walked in.

I still wanted to rock out 80's style after the party was long over, my brother had to control me.

Good news is, Idaho wasn't freezing cold this time around. I last went home at Christmas but a few weeks after Sally invited me to a party for Mike's birthday. I happened to be looking at airfare that day and was looking for a reason to travel as it was so cheap. So I went. This was the cheapest trip home I have ever taken. Even when I flew one way for the holidays and drove back with the Atwood Family was more expensive.

Here's how it went down. Tyler dropped me off at the train station, I paid $4.25. I got off and onto BART, paid $1.5o. Got to the airport just in time to have some time to work instead of traveling during good working time. The plane never got there. That blasted United flight was delayed 2 hours. The pilot tried to make up time by flying like a fighter pilot. I have no reason to believe we were under attack. He just had a date with his Salt Lake hottie.

Picked up my rental car, made the girl at the counter laugh a few times. She loved it. We had a great time and next thing I know I'm being offered a free upgrade from the lowest economy car to a minivan. I guess she just was looking to the future and saw me in a minivan. I sort of laughed at her offer and asked if she had anything that would get a little better gas mileage so she gave me what she called something like a small minivan. It was a Kia something. May not be the best looking car but it ran well. I got it with only 1850 miles and added a good 600 in 2 days. I went on down south where I had a great time and dinner with Grandma Bird. I loved seeing her and she was so funny. My favorite part about seeing her was as we walked down the hall she was holding onto my arm and she nudged me and asked if I could speed up. She's wonderful and by far the greatest 90 year old in the world.
After Grandma's I was going to go to the Griffin's house to sleep as I was pretty tired but instead I went to my cousin's house and was shocked when there were lots of people there. My favorite part of seeing all of them was hanging out with Ralph and looking at his pictures of Honduras from 30 years ago. Turns out we went to the same church when we lived there. I loved the idea of going back with him so hopefully that will happen soon. I finally wore out my welcome there and headed to the inn where I triumphly found the secret key (Grandma gave me the secret code) and then entered the house to the alarm going off. I put in the code with Grandma also gave me but it didn't seem to work. It was so loud and it finally calmed down and I got Sally on the phone to tell me the code. I entered it and all was well for about 10 minutes when I got to meet a fine officer of the AFPD. He must of thought I looked like a nice boy because he just laughed at me. Too bad I didn't get a picture of his face.

Woke up at the crack of dawn and I drove up to Draper to attend an open house for the new temple there of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was really neat and I was glad I had the chance to see it. Then I met some old friends for breakfast and spent an hour or so hanging out with them. Then I drove to Ogden where I picked up Chrissy because she was cool enough to go home with me for one day. We got to Idaho on Friday about 4 pm. I hung out with my family until about 6:45 then met up with Chrissy and this is what we looked like before we left her house a little after 7.

Mike's party was sweet. When I walked in I was a little nervous as I looked around and everyone looked weird. I wasn't sure who these people were and if they were dressed up for reals or really dressing up to the 80's theme. I tried to get the party started with my dancing skills but that didn't seem to work. I tried again at limbo and I claim that the bar holders always put it lower for me since I was the first one in the round. I took a close second place...tied with about 5 other people. I split my pants a bit and possibly threw out my back in the process. I love limbo but that was the first time I actually tried it. Usually I just watch. Must have been those sweets on the table that got me into the fun.

We did group performances as well that were well cool to say the least. Ours was highlighted with my old friend Trent running and diving across the stage many times. It was so funny he even burned a hole in his pants. Mike on the drums, Trent and I hitting the high notes.

Please note everyone is watching me bust a move. Too bad it wasn't a 90's party, I could have thrown down my Carlton dance.

The bad part of being with the hosts was the rope in job into clean up. I got home, hung out with the family. Went and saw Whitney's nook and went to bed about 1am. Woke up to Chrissy knocking on the door about 3:20 and I quickly got ready and we left about 3:40. The fog on the drive back was crazy but we made it. I made it on the plane and was asleep before takeoff. There were many things to see and do but for some reason when I'm in Idaho I'm kept under close watch. If I move towards an exit, I'm almost tackled as if I were trying to steal something. But it was great to hang for a few hours. Thanks for the fun party sister. Also thanks to my buddy Jake for the sweet shoes he let me wear. It was all worth it.

What a Shippy Life

HER MAJESTY OF THE SEAS

(The Ship, not my mother in the lower corner)

Ever been on a cruise? I now am proud to say I have. I spent my first of many cruises to come on rough waters between Miami and the Bahamas. It was a short cruise that left on Friday and came back on Monday morning but it was a good way to get in touch with my inner seafarer desires. So funny thing was while we were docked I looked around and saw everything and enjoyed the beauty of the ship. I couldn't help but think why I had never considered being a captain on a cruise ship. How hard could it be? Then we did a little drill...
After the muster drill we sat down for dinner and from that moment on I realized people that works on ships must not get seasick like I do. Here is my mom showing off her investment in an attempt to put the pains aside. She claims they never worked and I tend to believe her as I heard regurgitation more than once.

The sickness I felt wasn't enough to make me want to never go on another cruise but it made me realize I was not meant to be on sea, birds are meant for land. This bird, the odd and rare Brooklyn Bird loved life at sea. She was convinced that she could take the pizza man home with her to bake her pizza anytime she wanted as if she were still on the ship. She also loved the little pool party they had one night. They started dancing and I had to snap a few shots of my little sister who was breakin it down with the best of them.

Besides food, I don't remember much. The food was extremely good. The first night I had lamb with something I didn't understand, the second night I had Steak that didn't need A-1 and the last night I had the option for snails but I passed and went with the shrimp cocktail to start, a ceaser salad, a roast and banana something custard cake with a special order of ice cream.

There was some time to do other things. I spent the early afternoon hours sitting up on deck getting a little sun as I relaxed. I loved to just stand on the deck and watch things. The sports court was a fun place to hang out as well. We watched a competitive dodge-ball tournament as well as basketball games and little kids playing soccer. I tried to hook Brooklyn up with them but she was a little skiddish with the idea of a teen club. It was all fun. I was often scared I'd be marked as "gone overboard" if I didn't check in with my mom so I did that as she sometimes forgets things like I know how to not fall off a ship and I don't even like to swim.Being away from everything was great, knowing how inexpensive this little vacation was really great and having everything I needed and more all confined on a moving resort was awesome. I mean hey, they even let me board with my mom and sister. They made the journey fun and I was happy to be with them. If I had to do it again I'd probably drug up my mom a little more so she could enjoy things other than the shuttle from the port back to the airport. I thought for a second she was going to exchange me for the driver. Afterall, he was the guy that reminded us if anyone asked we needed to say we made a reservation last week. Everyone on the shuttle was thinking the same thing but we made it and I'm glad I dont' live in Miami.