Vacation Report

My first couple days of vacation were spent being lazy. I slept in, went out to eat, went to a couple movies. (The new Underworld was awesome, and Gran Torino was a much better movie than I anticipated.)

On Wednesday, the boy and I loaded all our shit into the car and headed for Whidbey Island. It's about a 5 hour drive from Salem and it's always murder on my back, but it's much more enjoyable when I have company.

My mom made us chicken fettuccine for dinner, which was super tasty, and after that, we sat around a lot. I get bored fast at my mom's house. I started to hope our whole stay wouldn't be that boring. Thankfully, it wasn't.

On Thursday, my mom drove us up the island, into La Conner for lunch. I love driving up the island, it's so beautiful. We went to the Calico Cupboard -- it's one of my mom's favorite places to eat. About 20 minutes from La Conner I realized I'd forgotten my wallet at home, and I had been planning to buy lunch for everyone. Shit! Then the boy informed me that at no point would I have been allowed to buy lunch because he was already planning to. [Andrea blushes] He's cute. :)

After lunch we drove into Anacortes, up to Cap Sante Park, around through Washington Park, back down the island to Fort Casey where we took some lovely photos at sunset, and finally back home to the south end of the island.


View of Padilla Bay from Cap Sante, Anacortes, WA


The boy and I at Cap Sante


View of Anacortes Marina from Cap Sante


Olympic Mountains and Strait of Juan de Fuca, from a beach near Fort Casey, outside of Coupeville, WA


The boy and I on the beach at sunset


On Friday the boy and I had a great day hanging out together. We got off to a late start, went to lunch in Langley, shopped around at some of the touristy little stores, went into Freeland to my favorite metaphysical shop, then went to Double Bluff to hang out on the beach. Sunset was amazing, and we got some more great photos.


View of Useless Bay, taken from Double Bluff, Whidbey Island, WA


The boy walking towards the bluff - I call this his "bigfoot picture", lol


The boy and I


The boy and I - I really love him


Sunset at Double Bluff, with Olympic Mountains barely visible among the clouds


My mom met us at the local mexican restaurant for dinner, where we told her about our plans to get married when the boy returns from Iraq! She seemed pretty happy about that -- she's already been bugging me for grandchildren for about the last 5 years.

After dinner, we went to a movie at the tiny local theater, which I hadn't been to in at least 10 years. We saw Yes Man. It was pretty funny, but predictable. I think the boy liked it better than I did.

On Saturday we drove back to Salem, stopping at Dick's on our way through Seattle. People, if you're ever in Seattle, you must find time to visit Dick's. It's absolutely my favorite fast food -- tasty cheeseburgers, fresh cut fries, and really good shakes. There are 5 of them in the Seattle area (and 1 in Spokane, but that one doesn't really count!).

We had plans to go skiing at some point during my vacation, but we failed repeatedly. Every day that we planned for it, we'd wake up, look at the clock, look at each other, and roll over and go back to sleep.

We saw the movie Taken, which was alright. I really like Liam Neeson, and he was good in this film, but it was hard for me to feel sorry for the spoiled rich girl and her bitchy mother.

On Tuesday, we did a little shopping. I finally (after 3 years) got a new phone, and I finally bought a new mattress set for the bedroom. We're soooooo much more comfortable at night now. I'm very happy with my purchase! :)

Yesterday we ran some errands, went out to breakfast, and then saw the movie Push, which I really didn't like at all. The acting was good, the effects were decent, and I really liked the concept, but the story just dragged and dragged. Right after the movie, the boy had to go to drill. This is his one-weekend-a-month for the guard.

Other developments...

The boy's sister is pregnant, and she's been in the hospital with severe preeclampsia. This all happened before my vacation started, but it's been ongoing for a few weeks now. She was only 25 weeks pregnant when she went in, and her doctors have decided to keep her on bed rest in the hospital until the baby is born. They're hoping to make it to 30 weeks, but they will induce sooner if her blood pressure or protein levels get too high. The hospital is nearly an hour away, and we've been back and forth a lot visiting, delivering fresh clothes, shuttling her boyfriend, etc.

While I was at my mom's, I found out that my friend and coworker, who had been battling cancer for several years, passed away. I was heartbroken. She always had the most amazingly positive and vibrant attitude about life, despite all the pain and hardship she was dealing with. She was instrumental in getting the boy and I together on the night we met. I wouldn't have gone out in the first place if she hadn't twisted my arm, and once I was out, she encouraged me to hang out with the boy even when I thought I was crazy for picking up some strange guy in a bar. Her courage and laughter will be deeply missed.

The boy and I had been talking about moving in together when he gets back from Iraq, probably picking out a new place together. But the boy's current roommate started looking for a new roommate to replace the boy, and he's already found someone who wants to move in on March 1st. So the boy is going to move in with me before he leaves for Iraq, and I think we're going to stay in my apartment rather than looking for a new place. He's basically already living here even though he hasn't moved all of his stuff yet. I absolutely love having him here. It's so awesome having him come home here. It makes me so happy. :)

I guess that's about it. This has been a really great couple of weeks, even though there have been some ups and downs. I've got one more day of vacation left, and then I go back to work on Monday.