in portuguese that means vacations. our vacations have been few and far between, but fun. we are trying to get into the position where we can take consistent, tropical vacations and have (virgin) strawberry daqueris every day!
spring of 2005 we went back east to see my family. my dad lives in one town, my mom in another, my grandparents and cousins in yet another, and a high school friend about 4hrs away by car. we visited everyone we could within the driving radius, and it proved to be more tiring than a vacation! it was great to see everyone, though. we also spent more time at the smithsoneans in downtown dc. david took lots and lots and lots of photos of the rocks. looking back through the roll there were two photos of the world's largest squid, but the rest were just rocks. the little geologist. my mom was "reffing" high school girls lacrosse, so we watched her games--don't you love her little white legs?!
july of 2006 we both miraculously had the 4th of july weekend off, so we visited david's parents camped up in the mountains near alturas, ca. we hiked up to lake patterson (what a hike!--it looked like we were on the top of the world!), and his parents rode the horses along the trails. it was just so quiet and peaceful up in the mountains--no fireworks or drunken parties to ring in the holiday. i really enjoyed the peace. i remember july 4, 1998: i was nannying for an italian family taking their summer vacation at the beach and galavanting about the country after graduating from high school (while the rest of my friends were going off to college), and i felt so isolated and lonely. about 11 o'clock that night fireworks started going off in the little street outside of the beach house! i looked outside my window and loved hearing, feeling, seeing, and smelling the fireworks. they were actually celbrating an italian holiday, but the fireworks made me feel close to my american roots.
being a ups driver has its perks, but also some downs. one of the big downs: no one in the plant is allowed to take time off between thanksgiving and new years. the package flow is too big that time of year. that translates to not being able to leave utah valley and go to either montana to see david's family, or virginia to see my family. on one hand, we like being independent and being able to spend the holidays with just us, but on the other hand, it would be really, really fun to be able to spend it with our families. last christmas i decided to take david out for a little "weekend holiday"--i found a bed and breakfast outside of salt lake city, got tickets for a movie, and made reservations for a nice dinner. the b&b ended up being someone's house they rented rooms out of...we got the "blue room"...this entailed a blue shag carpet, fake satin blue sheets and a fake velvet comforter on the...oval...bed, and that healthy, musty, grandma's attic smell that comes with old houses. oo la la.
this past christmas, christian and robin got married in arizona, and david begged and pleaded to get a week off for the wedding (and extra vacation time for us!). his managers couldn't let him know if he could have the time off until the week before we were about to leave--we'd already gotten the tickets and were hoping everything would work out. as it was, i ended up flying down there a day before david. that was the first time i'd seen everyone in my family since our spring visit 2 1/2 years ago, so i really enjoyed it! after the wedding we spent another few days seeing cacti in arizona.
2 comments:
hey! when did you guys go to bob's big boy? that was my favorite restaurant when i was little! and that "blue room" is amazing!
the big boy was actually part of the little historical museum at your reception!
Post a Comment