Tag Archives: Traveling

Exhausting Week & Playing Catch Up

Posted on Saturday July 18th, 2009 by | Comments Off on Exhausting Week & Playing Catch Up

It has been exhausting.  Finally taking a breather and watching The Silver Streak.

We left by 05:15 Sunday and made much better time getting to the border then we expected, even through we hit some bad storms south of Olympia.  We didn’t expect to get there until 11-11:30…got there just after 10:00.  We got to the hotel had time to kill before we could get our room, so had a breakfast that just didn’t sit well at all.  I think it didn’t feel right since we have been up for 7hrs and it was sweet.

We were exhausted and so totally not looking forward to what we were getting ready to face.  So we tried to lay down for about 3hrs and get some sleep……didn’t quite work.  But it did help some.  We dressed with heavy heart so not wanting to face Diesel’s death.

We got inside the funeral home and they had board up with some pics of Diesel & his family, with notes from his boys.  When we walked into the viewing room, it was hard.  We went and hugged Liza, the oldest son Jon was holding up, but when I went to hug the youngest son Dylan, he just started to cry so hard.  Harold went to hug him and he just jumped into his arms and won’t let go.  He just lost it.  It was so hard…….

They had Diesel in his Navy Dress Blues and he had a smile on his face.  Looked like he was about to wake up and tell a joke….it was perfect with who he was.  He did looked a little crunched around his shoulders in the casket, but it worked since he was such a big man in that was a normal look at times.

It was so hard, we choked up so many times and lost it a few.  One of the times that I hugged Liza, we just held each other so hard as we cried.

The viewings was different from what we are use to.  Most viewings you just wander around visiting and paying your respect, here they actually had a service.  Diesel and his wife belong to a nontraditional church that is mainly made up of Philippines, so they do it a little different.  So us nonchurch members felt kind of off balance knowing what to do, but I really did like the support that the church gave Liza and I really hope that it helped to comfort her some.  I really liked the funny pictures during the slid show, that they showed of Diesel that got all of us laughing.

Like most of these types of events you ended up seeing people you haven’t seen in years…which is sad, because we love visiting with all of D’s family.  We actually made sure to get everyone’s contact info.  A lot of us are gathering our pictures of Diesel and sharing them.

Liza and the boys started to lose it when the did one last viewing before they closed the casket and then when they took it out and they followed…..oh boy…everyone lost it, especially the Dylan.  =(  They looked so alone that my heart just felt crushed…..

We couldn’t get the 21 gun salute.  =(  Due to passports and weapons.  But we did get the flag presentation and taps.  I keep expecting to hear the guns….  =(

They had 8 pallor bearers due to the D’s size and that didn’t seem like enough.  You can see them struggling over the uneven ground.  We later said that Diesel was probably laughing at them.  But they got him set up and he was sent off with honor.

At Liza’s request she watched them lower him down with the roses and flowers that she wanted everyone to place on him, entombed him and finished burying him.  It was touching and so final. =(

We all went over to their house and shared in our memories of Diesel. By the time we got back to the hotel we just wanted to chill out so we ordered room service and just relaxed.

We left early Wed and got through the border better quick and totally lucked out on the express way being open south bound through Seattle.  We saved at least 30min off of our time.

Once we got home, I have just been working since I had payroll and 4 days of catch up.  Today is really the 1st day that I’ve had time to do things for myself.  Watched a local parade, vacuumed the house, replaced my lost ringers and did a few errands.

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What A Week

Posted on Thursday June 25th, 2009 by | Comments Off on What A Week

Well, I don’t know where to begin, a lot of things are kind of blurred.  I guess I’ll start from my last post.

I spent Thurs & Fri of last week just trying to get as much work done as possible and to get us packed for the weekend.  Our trip of fun visiting wasn’t really going to be that. We lucked out the last 3 times drive the I-5 past Seattle, but it wasn’t to be these 2 times.  It SUCKED!  Got stuck just before the Seneca Exit of 165 again….interstate turned into a parking lot. And they never have the express lanes open when you need them.  I HATE driving the I-5 past Seattle….gggrrrr But we got through it.  The border, both ways, wasn’t too bad.  We’ve had much longer waits in the past….still hate the wait, but nothing to do about it.

We visited with Diesel in the hospital Saturday.  He was having a hard time talking and was nodding off a lot, but he was surrounded by family and visitors were coming in from all over.  We worry about how his wife is holding up with 2 young boys and a sick husband.

The hospital is in a town outside of Vancouver and our hotel was down the King George Hwy in downtown…..took us about 45min to get there.  We hit about ever stop light, including all the pedestrian lights.  Our hotel wasn’t much to talk about at all….but we didn’t spend much time in there at all and it was great for walking where we needed to go.  We had friends that provide us with a great distraction Saturday night & Sunday.  The city was not something we could ever handle living in, but I really like being able to walk nearly every where you needed to go.  I hate having to drive all the time.

Monday we were heading home, but we stopped by the hospital to visit some more and to see if the doctor has said anything.  Now there is where it gets kind of confusing.  We found out from his wife that when he was diagnosed with the brain cancer in 2007 he was given 6months to live, but he never told anyone.  Well, he did get better and even went back to work for time.

So we were waiting on finding out whether or not they were going to try surgery  or chemo again, even other 1 doctor Thurs/Fri said it wasn’t going to help.  So Monday there still was no word on it and it really didn’t sound promising.  Today we got an email from him wife, they are going to try a different kind of chemo.  Just don’t know when….fingers crossed it helps.  Hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst…..we seen 2 friends of our die of it.

But Monday, D may not have been able to talk much, but still was able to pull a joke or two and be a smart ass.  =)  That was great to see.

It was really good to get home, after spending so much time on the road….icks.  We did stop half way down to have lunch with some good friends.  Wish we had time for more, I love visiting with them.

Drew must of just gotten bored in the last few hours that we were gone because he got on top of the fireplace and ate the leaves off of one of our plants…there was still drool on it….the little demon.

Tues it was back to the gym, did better on the treadmill then expected. But the rest of the workout and Wed wasn’t much to speak of…..I maintained, so I guess that is a good thing.  Today was a much better workout.  I even had one of the regulars stop me to ask how much weight I lost and compliment me on it.  As she pointed out, women don’t hear as much as they should and she felt that she should say something.  It felt good that it has been noticed, I feel bad because I suck at observations on others to return the favor.  But that really was nice of her.

It is kind of weird, we’ve been going to the gym roughly at the same time for about 18months now. You ended up working out with the same bunch of people everyday.  In fact, it is when they don’t show up or there is someone new when you notice the difference.  Neat, but weird to observe.

This has been a strange week in celebrity deaths….Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and now Micheal Jackson….all this different peaks into eras.  MJ was messed up in his personal life, but made great music.

Well, it is late here and the gym comes early…..

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Horrible Week….and It Isn’t Even Over

Posted on Wednesday June 17th, 2009 by | Comments Off on Horrible Week….and It Isn’t Even Over

Well, I thought this week was going to have promise but it hasn’t happen yet.  I did start out good at the gym on Monday, that was plus.  So it has been a blah week so far.

I got the call from my mom yesterday about my great-aunt Marie.  She was the oldest of my grandma’s siblings and lived the longest…..into her 90s.  She went peaceful, so that is a good thing.  But she was the last one of that generation on that side of the family and I’ve lost the last living connection to my grandma.   I was named after her mother and she had that name as her middle name.  There isn’t many of that family left and the family last name is dead.

I wasn’t that close to her the last few years, but I have a lot of memories of us visiting her in Florida when I was kid.  She had a strong personality and loved her irises.  =)  Now I have another address to remove from my holiday card list.  =(  I still haven’t removed my other great aunt from that list.  I can’t seem to hit delete on it.

I called my mom today and she is handling it much better then I thought she would.  She still gets into funks around my grandma’s birthday and losing her sister isn’t a good thing.  But like she said, she lived longer then any of the others.  =)

We’ve made plans to head up to Canada this weekend.  As hubby went to confirm our plans with his brother Diesel, the phone call went very strange.  He answered, yup…nope with 30-40sec delays.  His wife called about an hour later, D is being admitted to a hospice and they were waiting on an ambulance.  The brain tumor has gotten bigger, chemo and surgery is no longer going to help it.  =(  They have 2 young boys, 7 and 4.  =(

Needless to say we have been devastated and not really in the mood to do anything.  But I will have to attack my work since we are going to leaving Saturday and won’t be back until Monday evening.

It is a 6hr drive and that is without the wait at the border.  That is normally about an hour during off hours with the new requirements of passports in effect, don’t know if it is going to be worst.  Many people will walk the gardens at the border and leave a drive in the car in line.

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Our Trip

Posted on Tuesday June 2nd, 2009 by | Comments Off on Our Trip

You know, I had started a post a few days ago and it has disappeared….wacky.

Watching WALL-E while doing this.  I love this movie!

I spotted my 1st raccoon in our neighborhood. I heard something up on the neighbor’s roof, thought it was one of the many squirrels, looked up and saw him.  It was hard to see him with losing daylight…..but he would come to the edge of that roof and look towards me as I talked to him.  =)

Today, I was actually able to get my work done after getting bombarded with things needing answering as soon as we got back from the gym.  I actually got time to get some things down around the house and have time to write up a blog. =)

My abs are sore as hell, that is what I get for not doing anything for week.  I can’t even laugh without it hurting.  But because my abs hurt, I’m not feeling the pain in my thighs, that I know is there.  And my new nose piercing isn’t hurting until I do something goofy, like hit it……..lol You don’t realize how much you touch your nose until you can cause pain doing it……grin

For those who missed my tweets (check them out…because I do post pics), I got my nose pierced Sunday and hubby got his other nipple done.  Since we got our anniversary presents early (the iphones in Apr) and we went camping last week for it, I knew we weren’t going to do much on it.  So I wanted to finally get our piercings done on a special day just to break it up especially since I was going to be working late on payroll.

Here is a hint, never have your wedding on a holiday or end/beginning of the month.  Messes up planning, so that is why we plan our celebrations early.

We went camping for the 1st time since our honeymoon….damn, can’t believe it has been that long.  We brought our tent and sleeping bags for our anniversary last year, but with trips and moving, never got to our camping.  So a year later, we finally got to use our stuff.  =)

We went down to the Redwoods in CA.  We took the quick route down, I-5 until we needed to cross over to 101.  Once we got to 101, we got to see some stunning scenery…huge trees and beautiful coastal views.  Once you opened your windows you could smell the forest….I love that smell.

We stayed at Prairie Creek campgrounds.  They have the last herd of Roosevelt Elk that frequents the meadow.  It was so cool to see.  They were just getting their antlers, so those were small and covered in felt.  The meadow was a fern meadow and not very tall at all, but it was amazing how they could easily hid in it.

We got a very nice spot, felt semi-private and tucked away.  We had one of the faucets for water right in front of our site, worked out nicely for washing dishes.  The fire grill was kind of high and big.  So you could sit and get the heat of it very well and with the size, couldn’t get good ashy fire.  The fires that are steady with the burning that makes it easier to cook over.  But we enjoyed anyway and learned a few things.  =)

We got our tent set up pretty quick.  Practicing in the living room really helped that.  =)  What flustered me, was that we try extremely hard to be organized and we couldn’t maintain that at all.  Always having to get our stuff out of the bear box and then forgetting that we had snacks and lotions..and stuff in our travel bags that we needed to put into the box….boy, we need more practice….lol

I know that camping is suppose to be roughing it and that doesn’t bother me, but I’m a female and love having a bathroom with running water.  And that campground had that.  =)  I really wasn’t looking forward to latrines….males have it so much easier for that.  They even had a few coin operated showers, which was great on the 2nd night after hiking…even if it was chilly on the walk back.

On the second day, we went hiking to the Tall Tree Grove.  That was really, really cool to see.  We had to get a permit to use the access road to get to it.

The 2nd night of sleeping was much more comfortable then the 1st night.  Think we were finally getting settled in it.

On the third day, we took the 101 out all the way.  We wanted to drive the Oregon coast. Wow is what I have to say about that.  It was a winding and hilly road, you really had to take care.  But it was stunning.  It was cool to see the sea and mountain air hit to make just beautiful mist.

We stopped at a great diner called Kozy Kitchen in Coos Bay. We had the best Turkey Manhattans ever, of course they were called open faced sandwiches and looked at us as if spoke a different language when we called them that……lol

We were going to drive all up to Cannon Beach, but we were so tired of driving and just wanted to chill.  So we ended up staying at Newport and got a room with a jacuzzi.  It was nice to chill out and check up, because we haven’t had a steady connection since we left home…lol  You don’t get the ATT 3-g network in the Redwoods or 90% of the drive up to Newport…grin

We had decided to head home the next day, but before we did that, we visited the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport.  It is one of the best ones I’ve ever seen.

What was surprising about our trip is that we got totally perfect weather for it!  At this time of the year the Redwoods it is normally rainy.  This time, it was sunny and clear, in the 60s and got to the mid 40s at night….perfect!

Even Portland has had great weather since Memorial Day and they haven’t had a non-rainy Memorial Day since 2005, I believe they said on the news….lol  We are suppose to get some thundershowers in the next day or so, but compared to last June with the constant chilly rain, I’ll take.  We have been having some perfect weather.

Overall, I really enjoyed myself even with the small things that drive you batty.  It was great to be out in nature and have fresh air.  Felt wacky as heck not to have some sort of online access, sadly……..lol…but nice.  I do need to learn how not to do anything again, felt kind of weird doing that.

I know that I should post more, but I spend a lot of my time working online, going to the gym, laughing at our cats, and doing everyday errands.  So I really don’t have much to post about.  Hell, I think most of my tweets are about work………lol  I need to work on that.  No one wants to hear the same thing over, over again.

And I’ve started to use twitter to make my comments on politics most of the time, since they are shorter and not long rants.  Boy, I could do some ranting about what has been going on….grin

I can tell you that our cat Drew loves to “roar” for no reason at all…….grin  He is always touching stuff….I swear he has ADD…..LOL

**I just noticed that my blog design is screwed up.  Looks like I may need to find another one.  =(  I really like this one.

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