Christmas Vacation pt, 3 It's Already Over

Well, I am sitting in bed dreading going back to work and starting another semester tomorrow. I am also sitting here thinking, is my 3 week vacation REALLY over?! It is amazing how time flies by. It honestly scares the crap out of me though. Before I know it T and I will be getting older and and spending most of our time chasing our kids around (not that there is anything wrong with that, but I [and T] want to be able to enjoy being young [one of the many reasons we don't want to have kids right away] and I fear all my young years will go by in a blink).

Anyway, I am excited to close 2010 and enter 2011 (I know, I know. I am a few days late haha). There are many new exciting adventures I and T and I will embark on. Now that I am back home and the "fairytale is over" as T would say, and I sadly have to get back to reality. BUT not all of it is too bad. I will be packing up my room in my parents house VERYY soon and moving to Oceanside with T. AHHHH!

I am excited our lives are moving forward. I already know a few things the New Year has in store for us (Apartment, Wedding, Deployment [boo]) but let's see what else it throws our way!

Christmas Vacations Pt. 2 The Flight From Hell

 I REALLY  hate driving long distances. Being in a car for over an hour really tests my patience. So I was incredibly excited when T agreed to fly and T's parents were nice enough to purchase our airline tickets. 11 hour drive or a 2 hour flight, we will take the 2 hour flight pleaseee.

 (Picture courtesy of Jonhthrasher.net)

On the 28th after T was released for leave, we went off to the airport. Our flight was supposed to leave at 7:30p out of Long Beach Airport. (the tiniest airport you've ever seen. The first time I pulled up it made me laugh hysterically. It is literally 1 building and 5 portables for terminals. Although it's size is quite laughable it is a pretty good airport, never busy [except this time] and very easy to fly out of.)

 I am pretty sure this airport looks exactly as it did in 1923 [when it was built believe it or not],

the bathrooms sure look like something out of the 20's

(Picture courtesy of LA guide)

We arrived to the airport pretty late and it was SUPER busy inside so we decided to curbside our bags and get to our terminal so we don't miss our flight. Luckily (or so I thought) our flight got pushed back until 8pm giving us enough time to grab a snack and hang out by the gate. WELLLLL, 7:40 rolls around (our printed boarding time) and there are no signs of us boarding. 7:50 nothing, 8:00 nothing, 8:10 nothing. I go to check the flight itinerary to see if our flight was delayed again, and guess what I see in big yellow letters by our flight number. CANCELED!

What the FREAKING HECK!? So I go and stand in line by the counter to see whats going on. I stood in line for 10 minutes (the lady was not helping anyone!) and finally they announce over the intercom that our flight to Salt Lake has been canceled. (Well, thanks freaking Jet Blue for telling us 20 MINUTES AFTER WE WERE SUPPOSED TO LEAVE!)

Luckily (well sort of) I started standing in the line before everyone else did. After10 minutes we reach the only person rerouting our flights. She couldn't get us on a flight until 2 days later! So we asked her to put us on another airline, of course she couldn't do that. Then we asked for our money back. Jerk Face Jet Blue Lady told us that she could only give us a credit because we bought non-refundable tickets. I wanted to freaking choke her. ARE YOU SERIOUS??? It was not our fault that the flight was canceled. Then we pulled the military card (we normally don't do this but seriously, nothing else was working) and of course that didn't work either. She was a serious beeotch, but I also don't blame her. I would HATE to work in an airport. Her and all her witchiness told us we could talk to a manager at the front desk, so to the front desk we went.

While walking to the front desk  I call Jet Blue and guess what automated message I get:

" We are experiencing higher call volumes than usual and all representatives are on the other lines. We do hope to hear from you in the future. This call will end now."

And they hung up on me!

When we make it up to the front desk the line was snaked around the whole building. I guess that is what happens when 5 other flights were canceled too.

We stood around, calling our parents and Jet Blue with absolutely no luck with Jet Blue, they were still hanging up. 

At this point both of us are very upset and say screw it. We found our bags, stood at the curb and called my dad to pick us up at the airport  (by this time it is already 9:30p) and take us back home. When we got back, we looked for more flights we could take but they all cost a good $800 dollars for the two of us (twice what T's parents paid originally). My mom offered to help pay for our tickets but we didn't want to risk having the same hellish airport adventure the next morning. Plus, there was a storm due to come into Salt Lake the next day, when there is ice on the tarmac at SLC, they don't let any planes land. We really didn't feel like risking that either.

So guess what we did (one of the things I hate the MOST). We packed up the truck, raided my parents pantry and began our 11 hour journy to Salt Lake. We left at 11pm Pacific time and after 4 hours of me driving and 7 hours of T driving through the night/morning we finally arrived a little after 9am mountian time.

That whole experience made me never want to travel again! But I am quite thankful we made it there safely, especially when we started hitting some nasty snowy weather in southern Utah and all the way up (where T didn't even think of turning on the 4 wheel drive)

(Somewhere north of Cedar City at 4am)

Now that our time in Utah will come to a close this Sunday, I am DREADING the drive back.

Wish us luck! And pray I don't go insane!

What The Crap Is With The Rain?

I am so excited this semester is over! Now I have one more day of work then I am on vacation for the next 3 weeks. 

I am extremely tired and not exactly sure why I am still awake. I had planned on doing some of my wedding book or creating my wedding website or search for creative invites. But none of that happened. 

Instead I am going to talk about the freaking MONSOONS we have been having. 

It has been raining non stop for the past 3 days. AND because of the rain we were not able to take our engagements this weekend. It's been flooding, windy, and COLDDD.  I HATE IT!

On the bright side it has been excellent cuddle weather AND very few times a year I get to wear these!

 

RAIN BOOTS!!

Okay, I can barely keep my eyes open and now, come to think of it, 

I am not sure what the point of this post is.

Boats, Bikes, Guns and Family!

Alright! It is time for vacation pictures!

We had lots of fun just chillin with family and friends. Although the vacation was a rocky start (for me at least), we ended up having tons of fun.

We celebrated Megan's Graduation

 

We spent a few days in this lovely "Cabin"

Which was right on Pineview Reservoir  

 So naturally we went out on the boat

Aren't we cute?

And did some "Extreme Tubing" (this is Andrew and Megan I think. The camera died when we went on.)

 Rode some beach cruisers around the cute town of Huntsville.

And ate tons of family meals!

Then we headed to Henifer, 400 acres of beautiful! Rode some ATV's, messed with some cows, you know, the usual. (This is Cousin Matt and his girlfriend Crystin. They are so cute together! We spent most of our time with these two lovely people.)

Cows!

Then we got rained on. Serious rain. But the impending storm clouds were beautiful.

 Then we headed to one of the largest mines in the world Kennecott Copper Mine. This place is absolutely astounding!

The mine is so deep, you can stack 2 Empire State Buildings, on top of each other, and still not reach the top!

Then we decided to go shooting. My first time shooting a gun! Sadly, I have no pictures of this because it was raining outside. Then a light rain turned into a CRAZY downpour and we all ran into the truck for shelter...

Exhibit A

And Exhibit B

And Before we knew it, it was time to head home =[

We made record time, because when your whole drive is through nothing, 100 mph is no big deal.

 My favorite picture of the "nothingness"

And, in a flash, our Vacation was over.

I loved this trip because it was incredibly relaxing. We weren't on the go all the time, which was extremely nice. We had the chance, probably one of the last chances until Christmas, to be with family and do whatever we wanted to do. Now were back to the "real world". Back to work, and for me back to school in a few days. All in all, I must say, we had a  fabulous 2 week summer vacation.

Much Love,

Delainey

Home Sweet Home

We're home! Although it feels good to be home I was very sad to leave.

A real post is coming soon. I am far too tired to do write right now. But I promise one tomorrow about our wonderful  (Wonderful? Yes! By the end I was having so much fun I didn't want to go.) Utah trip, and our road trip back home.

P.S on a semi-related note TJ and his cousin Matt presented me with a bet (more like an agreement, I just can't find a fitting word). They wanted me to stop drinking coffee and tea and  in turn the both of them would stop drinking soda. (Seriously, you should see how fast they go through Mountain Dew.) So, I decided to bump it up. If I don't drink coffee or tea (which I live off of), they are not allowed to 1. drink soda and 2. play video games when I am around and they agreed!

How smart I?! No more video game nonsense on my watch!

Anyhow. I am happy/sad to be home. Definitely sad to be going to work tomorrow morning but money must be made.

Much Love,
Delainey

I've Got Nothing

Hello from Salt Lake City! Well, to be honest there is not much to write about. I could write about how ticked off this vacation is making me. Which would make for a pretty interesting post, but I'm not. I am not sure why, but I am not really ready to post the bad feelings I have toward certain things on my blog. So while T is playing video games with his cousin and uncle (hint, hint) I shall conjure up something interesting.

Yup, I've got nothing.

Hopefully I'll have something interesting to post sometime soon.

Much Love,

Delainey

Too Much Stuff!

PLEASE, somebody tell me, how the heck am I supposed to fit all of this:

Into this:













I am trying to pack for our vacation but my suitcase is ALREADY FULL! I am thinking of using space saver bags but that would require a vacuum, in which I do not own. So now I have a few choices:

1. Be a creep and ask to borrow my neighbors vacuum.
2.  Reevaluate, reorganize and streamline my suitcase.
3. Stuff all I can in my suitcase and TJ's.

I am thinking I will stuff everything I can in my suitcase and T's. I can't go on a 15 day vacation with 7 days worth of clothing (what woman can?)

In any event, I am extremely excited to go on vacation and not do this for the next 15 days:

Doesn't my desk look wonderful? (And yes, if you were wondering, I was watching Glee while sorting all these Req's.) But, I do not have to do this for 2 weeks! Whoot!


Alright, off I go to finish this packing shenanigans. Hope you all are having a great weekend!

Much Love,
Delainey

Buffets, Bodies and Frozen Hot Chocolate

As always, I am exhausted, and I should definitely be asleep but there are posts to be written! So here I am, awake and on Blogspot.

First, I must say, I suck! I only have one picture from Vegas (maybe this means I need to buy a smaller camera, nothing is more discrete than this:

BUT I love this camera and will never sell it.) Anyhow, that is not the point of  this post, the point is our fun and fancy free trip to Sin City, although no sinning did occur and nothing about it was free. First and foremost, this is the only picture from our vacay (thanks to Cristyn and her wonderful, discrete, point and shoot camera):

We all had a grand time. It was nice to see Matt again after almost a year, and meet his awesome girlfriend. After we checked into the Excalibur (which is quite ghetto by the way) naturally the first thing we did was hit up a buffet, the Rio World Buffet to be exact and  MAN was it delicious!! Then we walked all up and down the strip, my favorite is the new Aria hotel they just built. It is so beautiful and a true architectural gem. Google it, it's sweet.

The next morning we went to the Bodies exhibit at the Luxor:

Oh my gosh, it was beyond amazing. You learn so much about the human body. It's almost unbelievable that all the things I saw in the exhibit are in me as well. We all LOVED it! Then we headed to Serendipity 3 at Caesars Palace for some YUMMY ($13) frozen hot chocolate.

It sounds crazy, and it made no sense to me at first, but man was it tasty! And with that Me, T, Matt and Cristyn parted ways and T and I began our trip home. We ended up staying one night to save some cash, and our little vacay may not seem like much but it was marvelous nonetheless.


Much Love,
Delainey

Vegas or Bust!

Today, after we get off work (yes I am blogging at work WHILE Judge Judy is playing in the background. Ohh, I love Fridays.) T and I are going to VEGAS!!  There are still, like always, a billion things I have to do before we leave but I am quite excited. Although Sin City isn't my favorite place ever, I'm still rather excited to go on a mini vacay and see T's cousin Matt and his girlfriend and hopefully see a Cirque Du Soleil show too.

Hope all of you ladies, and gentleman, have an amazing weekend!

Much Love,
Delainey