I don't want to grow up...

My brother Joe

It's been fun to hang out with my younger brothers. I can watch cartoons, play hide-and-seek, and just plain act even more like a big kid and not feel too weird. In fact right now we're watching Monsters Inc. I love this movie! Pretty much any cartoons for that matter. What can I say? It's been great. A couple of days ago my brother Joe and I had a ketchup packet fight. Good times, good times.

My youngest brother Jon is quite a cutie and quite a character as well. Today the poor guy wasn't feeling good. He started with a cough and he said his stomach hurt. To say he's not a good patient is a understatement. Anyone who came into the room was told either to be quiet because the noise made his stomach hurt more or to please pray for him. I got both. He asked my dad to pray for him and to anoint him (can you tell he's a Pastor's kid) then he told him not to touch him. He asked my sister Chrissy to sit by him then told her not to touch him. We feel sorry for his wife when he gets married. But my personal favorite was when he started to feel nauseated then he prayed "Have mercy on me Lord!" I kid you not, you never know what that kid will say.

The sicky Jon

Today it was like old times. Helping dad work on the car. Today we changed the shocks on my mom's van. I played all around go-fer and grunt. Like I said just like old times. Actually I always enjoyed helping dad work on things. It was always a good way to spend some time with dad. After we finished the shocks we went out to Sam's for some things for the Mother's day brunch that's on Sunday. My sister Chrissy, brother Joe and I ran around on the hunt for samples. The best part about shopping at Sam's. Then we went to another store but I took the car and hit Starbucks. The only one we have near us is in a town a half hour away. I know I don't know how I do it either! Actually I don't usually have a Starbucks except on Thursday when we have Mini-church. Today my brother Joe had his first Frappicino. He was all excited about having coffee. When he heard that the one he got didn't have any coffee in it he was bummed. So I gave him a few sips from mine. Mom wasn't happy. Just as I was sitting here writing this my sister Katy came over and was looking at the pictures and saw that we had Starbucks. She was understandably upset. Then Joe mentioned that he had coffee. Some sips of mine. Jon asked if he could have some coffee. This is how he asked,"Can I have coffee? I have hair on my chest!" I told you, you never know what he'll say.

Chrissy enjoying a Vanilla Bean Frappicino

Joe and his first frappicino

Yesterday my friend Rebecca, sisters Melody and Chrissy and I went down to the lake and got some Ice Cream. It was so cold we had to sit in the car to eat it!

Relaxing in Sam's

Playing in the carts

The Captain and his ship. Check out his figurehead. Looks pretty life-like doesn't it.

All you need to know is you're home...

So far I've been here for 3 and 1/2 days. It's been so good to be back in my mainland home. It hasn't been quite as crazy as last time. I'm glad about that, I don't think I could survive another one like that.

The mountains by Salt Lake City, Utah

My welcome home sign

The first night I was here some of my siblings took me swing dancing with friends. They have a regular dance the first Friday of the month. It was fun though I couldn't remember much of the steps other then the basic steps.

My sisters Melody and Katy and my almost sister Jillian

My sister Chrissy and her boyfriend Graham

My sister Chrissy and brother Josh tangoing (is that a word? If not it is now)

Josh spinning Katy or at least I hope that is what that is

Graham and Jillian

Melody and Josh

Saturday I got up surprisingly early considering I went to bed around 2 and I didn't get much sleep the night before. And it was a wet and rainy morning, perfect for sleeping in. Though after a hour I fell back to sleep on my parents bed for about 2 and a half hours. When I got up again my parents were back after doing some things in the morning and we decided to go out for lunch. On the way back from lunch I remembered something that happened the night before when I was going to sleep. The toilet gurgled which might sound weird to you but for us that usually means something not good. You see our house was made back in the 50's and the sewer pipe going out to the main sewer pipe is made of field tile. Outside we have a beautiful maple tree that has some bad habits. Every once in awhile the tree will send out roots looking for water and it seems to like the water it finds in the pipe. Well, the roots are like hundreds of hairs clogging the pipe and unfortunately that means that the gross sewer water backs up into the basement. So the usual procedure is to go and rent a drain snake and snake out the pipe. Dad and I got the snake and we were thankfully we were finished in about an hour. After we finished with that, took the snake back and got cleaned up I hit the mall with my mom and some of the sis's. We were on the hunt for flower girl dresses for my sister Rena's wedding. Thankfully the wedding won't be until next spring. When we got out of the mall we discovered that the sun had come out and though it was still chilly (for me) it had turned into a really nice afternoon.

Some lilacs in the sun

Sunday started all bright and beautiful. Church was great. A little weird to be going Sunday mornings again. It was funny my sister came in and there was a crowd of people in the hallway when she asked what was going on she was told that it was her sister causing a stir. A friend asked that night how it felt to be a celebrity. After church a bunch of us went out to eat to celebrate my friend Connie's birthday. I think there was about 20 of us and the staff at the restaurant almost had a heart attack because we weren't the only large group to come in that day! After a great lunch it was back home then service again in the evening. I got to see my cousins 3 week old baby, Nadia. She is just precious. Then I got to hold my other cousin, who is about 9 months and rock him to sleep. It took some doing but I was finally able to get him to go down. He fought it tooth and nail. After service we headed to my friends Rebecca and Gareth's place for games and Ice Cream Sundaes. Yummy. I had waaaaaay to much and felt sick to my stomach for a little while. My Aunty took home my cousin's baby when she went so my cousin was able to come hang out with us for a little bit. Yea!

Some of the lunch bunch: My sister Rena, Gareth, brother-in-law David, sister Katy, Jillian, Shannon, Rebecca, sister Angeline, sister Dara, Faye

I love that once you hit 62 you become a kid again!

Rena

Melody, Rena, cousin Hannah, Josh all squished in the back seat. I think Josh is squished more then everyone else judging by the look on his face

I'll fly away oh glory...

It's been a little bit since I updated my blog. Partly since I spent a bunch of time up in the air and the other part has been just spent hanging with the fam. More about that later, now I tell you about the time in the air.

I left Thursday night around 9:30. I found that I like taking the night flight out. You don't feel that you lost the whole day that way. A friend took me to the airport and dropped me off. I was able to get one of those nice curbside guys to take my luggage, which is great because when I travel home I don't pack light. For those of you interested 38 manapuas and 20 sticks of Portuguese sausage weighs 40 lbs. It was suppose to be 40 manapuas but 2 of them got soggy from the ice pack in the cooler when I first got them. So what's a girl to do. I ate them and they were good.

After I got my boarding pass and went through security I headed to my gate for about a hour and and a half wait. I've gotten to be quite proficient at going through security, first I have to grab 2 bins for all the stuff I have to pull out of my bags. Computer, check. Wallet and cell phone, check. One quart bag of all liquids including lip gloss, gel pens and extra spit, check. Ok ok maybe I'm being a little facetious, they let you take gel pens on the plane. Cameras (yes I said cameras, I got my new one the day I left YEA!!!! And I'm bringing the old one home for dad to play with), check. Slippers off feet and in bin, check. I think I'm ready to go. There is always that little nervous feeling when I go through since I've been stopped before. I think they can sense fear. I had no problems this time so I was happy.

Like I said I had a hour and half wait so I got settled in and comfortable...or at least as comfortable as you can get in a airport waiting area. I decided to check my cell phone and found that I missed a call from grandma. I checked the voice mall and could barely understand her. She was near hysterical. I could make something about cool whip and flowers. That's when I realized. I forgot the Puakenikeni flowers for my mom. In the rush to get the cold things packed I neglected to check the cool whip container to see if it was the right one. Hence mom gets two scoops of extra creamy cool whip. Grandma was laughing so hard she could barely breath when she told me. Oh well! I usually forget something, I suppose it could have been worse.

The first flight was pretty good. A nice older man from Philadelphia was my seatmate. We talked for about a hour and a half hour then I started to get sleepy and since I can never sleep on the plane I thought I better strike while the iron is hot. I tried to get as comfortable as I could, it helped that I had the window seat. I always try to get the window seat if I can since I travel by myself. It's nice to have something to lean you head on. Most people don't enjoy having strangers drool on their shoulders. But like the majority of the flights I've taken, I wasn't able to sleep. Basically I wiggled around trying to get comfortable for 3 hours. I felt bad for Ted next to me. Sorry Ted.

My one and only layover this time was in Salt Lake City. I don't mind having a longer layover because then I don't have the stress of trying make it to my next gate in time for the next flight. I've done some running through terminals and it's not fun. This time it was a two and a half hour layover. It was a good thing to because I was at the end of D terminal and had to go to the end of C terminal. Essentially I made a big u-turn. As I waited to board I talked to the fam and let them know the progress so far. I would have called people in Hawaii but it was like 3:30 in the morning and I didn't think that would be appreciated.


You know the plane you are about to board is small when the ladies in front of you say how cute it is when they see it. I was a little worried about the seating conditions in a plane that size but I actually think there was more room then in the bigger plane I just rode. And I know there was more room for me since I didn't have a seat mate. I was able to stretch out a little bit. I don't know if it was because it was a smaller plane or if we just hit some bad air pockets but we had alot more turbulence then the first flight. I've been through worse but it was still pretty bad. I do want to know though, why it is that a otherwise calm flight will suddenly get turbulent as soon as I get into the bathroom? It always seems to happen that way.

About 30 minutes to landing the pilot came onto the intercom and apologized for all bumps we'd been having, as if he had something to do with them...maybe he did, who knows. Then he told us we were in for "severe turbulence". That's a pleasant thought isn't it. I thought, should we be worried? Should I take out my floatation device? And that's another thing, why do they always tell you about the floatation devices? I can understand when you are flying over the ocean but this was Ohio we were flying over. Do you really think the floatation device will help!?! Personally I would rather have a parachute. So I decided that in the spirit of David Letterman's top ten list I would give you the top ten things you don't want to hear on the intercom from the cockpit:

1. Whoops! My bad. I hope that wasn't important.
   
2. Cool! When I pull on this stick thingy it makes that dial thingy move.
   
3. If any of you ever wondered if there really is a God we'll soon find out.
4. This is your captain speaking and we just wanted to let you know that we don't quite know were we are but we're sure we'll be able to figure it out any minute now.
5. Does anyone out there know how to fly a plane?
6. This is your captain and we want to thank you for flying with us today now if you want to land we are going to need an extra $400
7. We're going to die! WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!
8. There seems to be a problem with the engines. All but one aren't working. Hopefully we can just float down.
9. I hope no one out there gets motion sickness.
10. This is alot harder to fly then I thought it would be.
    

I'm heading home...

In about 24 hours I'll be back at my mainland home. Or something like that. I always get so confused trying to figure it out. I leave at 9:30 at night here, travel for 14 1/2 hours and arrive in Ohio at 4:00pm. Like I said it always messes with me. Then that night I be going out with some of the sibs swing dancing. It'll be fun as long as I don't pass out on the dance floor from being exhausted. Traveling always makes me so tired especially when I fly back and forth from Ohio. It's such a long trip. This time will be nice though because I only have one layover. Usually I don't mind having more then one layover if that means I can get a cheaper ticket but last time I had just a 20 minute layover and we were 15 minutes late! Then it didn't help that my gate was all the way across the terminal. Luckily I talked to the ticket agent about it and she got me on a later flight if I missed my flight. Yea! The only problem was that I flew out 2 hours later. Good thing I was able to get ahold of my parents before they left. It takes a hour to go from my house there to the airport so usually they have to leave well in advance of me arriving.

I got in safely but my poor suitcase didn't. They were no where to be found. I talked to the harassed and abused lost baggage personnel. I always feel so bad for those people. That can't be a easy job having to be nice to tired, cranky, belligerent people. If I could I would have just let them bring it to me the next day. But that wasn't possible as I had about 60 lbs worth of frozen food for my family and as it was they had been in cooler bags for about 14 hours. We couldn't wait until the next day. So we went to Bob's Big Boy (yummy milkshake) and hung out. Me, my parents and my two youngest brothers.

You know one of the hardest things about living so far away from the rest of my family is not being apart of their lives and not watching them grow up. My brother Joe was, I think, 5 when I left and Jonnie was 3. And when I went back this past time it had been 15 months since I last saw them! They hopped out of the van when dad pulled up to get me and I hardly recognized them. They had lost the toddler pudginess and looked like someone stretched them out. They were so big. I can't even imagine what it'll be like when my sisters start having babies. I will be the aunty that they see just every once and a while. Kinda sad whne you think about it.

By the time my luggage came in it was midnight. Then there was the long drive back and saying hi to everyone when I got home. They were so cute. They all looked like just awakened bears. Not quite awake and bleary eyed because they got up to see me. By the time I went to sleep it was, I think, 2:30.

One funny thing coming home was I could see the house clearly from the beginning of the street because they had the Christmas lights on. This was September! They say they left them up for me. I just think no one wanted to take them down. It was a nice thought though. I enjoyed seeing them.

So who knows what this next trip will be like. Who knows what crazy things will happen. As long as I get there ok I'll be fine with whatever happens. So I say now. Hopefully it will be a nice quiet trip. I'll update you on the flight on the other side.