Normally I'm a good influence on people

Here is a picture I took of Michael shortly after we started dating:

Here is a picture I took of Michael this Saturday, after five months of dating:
Interesting.

Northwest Tour 2010

I had a week off for Spring Break. Since the northwest is the last region of the country that I have never been to at all, and since one of my best friends just moved to Seattle, I decided to drive on up (863 miles, estimated 14 hours) and see what I could see.

Seattle did not disappoint! The report of my adventures will revolve largely around the things I remembered to photograph while there.

I saw the sights.

The troll under the bridge (yes, that is a real VW Bug under his hand)

The World-Famous Pike's Place Market (the flowers were my favorite by far)
I had fun seeing lots of friends. Originally, I just thought, "I'll go see Becca in Seattle." Then when I was checking my route and saw I would pass through Boise, I decided to stop and visit Rachel (which I have been meaning to do forever) and meet her hubby. While I was driving up, I remembered my hero/adventuring mentor Amber who is currently running a disaster clean-up business in southern Washington. She is my favorite and I haven't seen her in years. Plus, when I changed my plans to see her, I saw my new route would take me through Portland, which made me wonder if Amy still lived in Oregon. Turned out she does, and I got to see her for breakfast Saturday morning! Add wonderful Jenn, who also lives in Seattle, and I got to see five awesome friends for the price of one! I love my life.



One night Becca, Jenn, and I stayed up until 3:30 playing Ticket to Ride and laughing laughing laughing. I kept telling myself: "Married people don't get to do fun things like this."
Jenn took me to a brothel-turned-pizza restaurant for dinner. They even have lingerie there that you can put on while you eat. (You might think that it would be a cute idea to send your boyfriend a picture of you wearing lingerie in a former brothel because, after all, you add MORE clothes to what you had on before, so it's really not scandelous or seductive or anything. Oh, what a silly little naive girl you are. Don't do it.)

I came out one day to discover my hubcap was missing. I couldn't figure out why anyone would want to steal just one hubcap and then it occurred to me that it must have fallen off. Which might explain why my wheel had felt woobly the day before.

In other car-related news, I hit another milestone which, true to form, I missed by about 6 miles



As it should be, the vacation food was unbelievable!

Becca and I accidentally ate an entire container of fortune cookies in a little over 20 minutes. They were very delicious. But there were only four fortunes in the whole box and all of them were, oddly enough, sponsored by the US Census. I am not making this up.

Jenn and Becca and I went and got some heavenly cake

This pie I ate with Amber in southern Washington. It was so good I literally had to put my head down on the table and pound my fist. Seriously. It was that good.



My time in Seattle reminded me that there are things I love about big city life (the architecture, the stores, the parks, all the people), but that there are definite advantages to small-town life (most notably- parking lots).

I had so much fun shopping, looking at beautiful spring in Seattle, and mostly catching up and laughing with friends.

Then right after my breakfast in Portland with Amy on Saturday morning, I took off quick like a bunny to get home because I wanted to spend Easter with Michael.

I got home at 11pm and was very pleased to see Michael (who had been sufficiently lonely while I was gone) had gotten there before me to turn on the heater so I wouldn't be cold and put dinner in the oven so I wouldn't be hungry. What a man! This picture is actually the next day when he was carving the Easter ham. One of the best things about having a man around is never having to carve the meat yourself.

The next day I got to watch conference with my special fella, while cooking up a nice Easter dinner. What a good way to celebrate Christ's triumphant over death and sin. As I listened to the choir sing about Him and His living prophets and apostle talk about Him, I felt very very thankful to Jesus Christ for what He did for me on the first Easter and how he continually manifests himself in my life today. I know that He lives and that He is the Son of God. I am so thankful for my testimony of His restored gospel.