Bahamas Cruise and Florida pt.1

Well the cruise is still on since nothing can be refunded and everyone has plane tickets already. There wouldn't be a wedding, but we made the best of it!!I must admit that having everyone together will be wonderful. Mom, Wendy and I all left to fly down together. Wendy and I have been best friends for over 15 years. I will blog lots about her. She is like my sister and I don't know where I would be without her. Literally, I don't know where I would be, but not in Alaska I'm sure!! We were going to meet Wendy's friend from England at the airport in Orlando. His name is Lee and she knows him from her trip to Thailand. So, we get to Florida and have a few days to relax before the rest of the crew rolls in. Mom and I spent a day in Disney world. I couldn't believe how much I remembered from when I was there in 2nd grade! We exhausted ourselves and did 3 parks in one day. It made me think, "I can't wait to have my own kids to run around with here". It was so much fun and wish we would've spent more time there! Wendy and Lee were pretty excited about each other and we didn't see much of them the first few days. We headed over to Cocoa Beach after spending 2 days in Orlando. We relaxed at our hotel and waited for everyone to arrive. Pretty soon all my girlfriends were all together for the first time ever!! I had Wendy, Angela, Amy, and Julie all together!! They have all been very important to me at different parts of my life and I was glad to have them along. Family started to arrive too. Aunt Terri, Aunt Mary, Uncle Gil, Grammy and Pop-Pop, Aunt Sheryl, Uncle Ed, Aunt Dot & Uncle Joe all arrived the day we set sail. I felt pretty awkward having them travel even though the wedding got cancelled, but some of them hadn't cruised before, so I was hoping they at least enjoyed their time!!

Cruise part 2

We set sail with everyone onboard!! Florida was unusually cold. We were hopeful that once we got to the Bahamas it would be warmer. The first night everyone was a little tired and a few people got seasick. The next day was much better and we arrived in Nassau around noon. We found our way to the beach and had a fun day!! Later that night we went back to boat for dinner then our to Senior Frogs. What a great day. It was by far my favorite part of the trip. We all had so much fun. There arent many days in life that can be that fun with nothing to worry about! I will always have great memories of that day
.


Thanks so much to all of you that were there!! The next day we sailed back to Orlando. The food was amazing and 3 days was plenty for all of us. We were ready to get off that boat!! I didnt get to see my family nearly as much as I would have liked! It was so hard to find anyone once you got separated on the boat!!


Thanks so much to all of you that came along!! I hope we can have another girls trip again really soon!! We should start planning for next years!!

Bald Lake Cabin and the Crescent Lake Incident

My first public use cabin experience was at Bald Lake January 23, 2010! We had an awesome evening and a great pot roast dinner. Eric and I get along really well and he is keeping me company. I really like the idea of the cabin rental. It's $50 bucks a night and you can always explore somewhere new. This trip was fine..no issues to report at all.
However, our next trip was not so successful. I believe it was Feb 7th and I played hooky from work. Eric and I drove to Seward to see Wendy after the polar bear plunge. We had a fun night at the American legion singing Karokee and stealing some ladys pink monkey. On the way home we decided to stop at Crescent Lake trail to do some hiking/fishing. We started up the trail around 11am. It was a steep climb in the snow. Luckily some trails were cut out by the snowmachiners. It took about an hour and half to get up the hill. I was pretty out of shape so it was a tough climb. It flattened out up top and we made our way over to the lake. It was about another 1/2 mile from the trailhead. Even though it was winter in Alaska it was surprisingly warm that day! It was around 30 degrees and we were very warm from the hike. We attempted some fishing and ate lunch. We noticed a few skiers head out to a cabin which was about another 9 miles from the lake and a few snowmachiners. We were pretty much the only ones up there. Well since it starts to get dark pretty early we decided to head back around 4pm. It was already starting to get dark. Eric said "let's take a short-cut" (famous last words, I know right!!). We got lost in some trees pretty quickly and were up to our thighs in snow. We abandoned that idea and started back the way we came. We were walking and chatting following what we assumed was the path we took in. This is the part where we realize that in the snow your tracks get covered fast and the trees all look the same. Once again we are in snow up to our thighs and looking around wondering how we got turned the wrong way. We check our cell phones for service...nothing. I start to panic. It's snowing harder and nothing is looking familiar. We still had a long hike to the truck and were almost out of daylight. I went into a full blown panic attack complete with heavy breathing, crying, and shaking. I am sure that I was helping the situation by acting like this, lol. At this point, I was sure we were spending the night out there. I also was due at work the next day and would be a no call no show. We also forgot to mention to ANYONE where we were. No one would even be worried or notice that we didn't make it back to Anchorage. My legs were starting to hurt from trudging through the snow and I was starting to get cold (not good when temps were going to go pretty low in the mountains that night). Meanwhile, Eric is cool as a cucumber (he didn't want to make it worse), but I heard him say "yeah, we are lost" a few times. I got a second wind and decided to go back to the lake and start over AGAIN. This time Eric spotted a place wear he had peed on the way up and it lead us straight to the trail. Thank GOD!! I have never been more relieved! When we found the trail Eric collapsed on the ground and admitted "He was pretty fucking scared" lol. So we didn't have to spend the night at -10 below, but we learned some valuable lessons!! Most importantly... Always leave a trail of pee in the snow to find your way home!! Phew.....

The House

Well I believe it was Christmas Eve and I was working for someone on night shift at the jail. I spent the entire evening talking to another Officer about my plans to buy a condo and share it with my Mom. He completely talked me out of it. He owns a few Duplexes and enlightened me to the wonderful world of "someone else paying for your mortgage". I allowed him to continue sharing the wealth of knowledge and picked his brain all evening. When I left work that morning, my entire outlook on the house had changed. The next day I contacted a realtor to show me duplexes for sale in the area. Since they would be quite a bit more money, I asked my Mom to go in on it with me. We were approved and started shopping! Amazingly enough we ended up putting in an offer on the first place we saw (yes I know, I know)! We had a few issues with insepction and had to get a new boiler (which the bank that owned the home payed for). However, the whole process was good and fast!! When I get back from Florida...we will have a house. We bought an awesome duplex and someone pays 1/2 our mortgage.
The funny part was next time I saw the guy at work...I already had the house! He could not believe how quick I moved on everything. I told him "When I'm serious about something, I make it happen". He could not believe it! Just in time to get the $8,000stimulus to pay back my momma for her footing the down payment! Sometimes things just work out for me. I feel very blessed and can't ever say that I didnt get what I wanted.