Early Memories

The earliest I can remember is when I lived in Oregon. I lived there for almost two years until I moved to Arizona and started kindergarten. (I still remember my teachers name at Taylor Hicks Elementary--Mrs. Jarvi.) Anyway in Oregon we grew sunflowers in our front yard and I remember taking some inside and getting all the seeds out. I remember preschool a little bit; playing with magnets, and my first crush was on a little boy named Ryan. I had a neighbor friend, a little indian kid. We used to blast the macarena and dance like crazy little crackheads.

I also remember my first sparkler, still in Oregon. My dad brought me outside for it and I guess my mom was really mad. She thought I was gonna burn my face off or something. He didn't ask her. This was also the house were I got the scar on my forehead (very Harry Potter if I do say so myself). If you don't know the story it's a little embarrassing so I won't go into it right now.
It's weird how much I do remember if I sit and really think about it. But I also don't remember certain things that happened that my mom told me about later, like I guess we had a flood in our house.
My brain is weird. I remember my early childhood but there are so many bits and pieces missing after that, and I remember things later I completely forgot happened at all. And I have really vivid dreams so sometimes I don't know if what I remember is real or not. It's very confusing. I don't remember most of high school (but there are reasons for that) and I really don't care to remember pretty much any of middle school. Unfortunately it's a lot of bad stuff I happen to remember, not as much good stuff as I'd like. But that's probably not just me.
If I sit quietly and just let my mind wander it's surprising what I can dig up.

Mexico

Honestly I don't have much to report. Ever since my dad divorced his second wife, who had two kids to bring along, and the family of kids we used to hang out with in the neighborhood moved, it's gotten really boring there. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to be right by the ocean and relax, but compared to what we used to do this trip was especially boring. My grandparents live about an hour away from anything but we didn't even bother leaving and doing anything interesting. We did have some good food tho.

One of the neighbors made these. I love me some homemade tamales, that's for sure.

Otherwise I pretty much did what I could've done at home, which is sat on the computer talking to Michael and playing my DS. Kinda lame. I didn't even bother going down to the little beach off the cliff my grandparents live on. You have to climb down these rocks and usually the tide is too high for it to be enjoyable so I just didn't bother.

I mostly swam at the neighborhood pool, walked around a little bit. There didn't used to be so many houses, and all of them are pretty extravagant and they only seem to be getting more so. My uncle and his son played some tennis but I'm no good at it so I didn't try that either. 

Pretty lame, right? So I'm just gonna dump a few pictures and that'll be that. Only other thing I can really think of is on the way out in the line to cross the border I saw a guy with parts of his arms missing so he had no hands. That's always a little alarming. *shrug*

A photo I took on the way in.

The back of my grandparents' house.

Day 28 of FBC: Something You Are Recently Proud of.

Holy shit, I haven't bothered with the last bit of my blog challenge. I thought I'd finished it, silly me! Okay, here goes:

   So before I moved I'd lived in Prescott for about sixteen years. No matter how you look at it that's a long ass time. It was hard to do but also kind of exciting being able to minimize my possessions, unpack and reorganize. But for those of you who have been to my dads house you knew that the only things in my room were a bed and a blue dresser. This was kind of a problem. I also had a bunch of weird old stuff I'd left behind in my closet. So I began the process, but could only get so far without more furniture. I wanted to get rid of the blue thing, because I didn't really like it and I'd "had" it for a good seven years.

I'm almost done, and here's what most of it looks like:

 

This is the view from my bed, which used to be on that wall, but I moved it. Everything you see here is new. The desk, the shelves, the organizer, the dresser. My computer (which is a present and I'm not supposed to know about that either, shh) is gonna go on my desk, obviously. And there was just enough space on that second shelf for my dvd collection, which as you know has expanded a lot in the last while. I brought Mikey's TV and set up my wii next to it, and put my games and stuff in a drawer. I only have three boxes left, but I have a lot of stuff to get rid of and a few more things to figure out. I have an enormous eight foot tall vinyl Tron: Legacy poster from Harkins, given to me by a good friend that I still have to hang behind my bed. And a very large pretty fan I'd like to find a place for as well. I want new bedsheets, but I'll probably put that off for a while. I didn't buy this stuff, my dad did, because he's awesome like that. We went to Ikea and I'd never been to one before, so it was pretty insane. There were like three floors and a map and a food court and a guy making animal balloons. Freakin' crazy.

So that's been interesting. It's nice having my stuff so much neater, and I'm proud of myself for doing all of this. :)

The Trip pt. 2

So when we walked out of our room that morning, this is what we were greeted with. Canadian Geese. Birds kind of freak me out, especially bigger ones (the smaller ones are just annoying) so I really wasn't sure what to do, especially when I tried to sneak past them and was greeted by one nearly in front of me. Turned out it was injured tho, which was kinda sad, but animal control got called to help it.
Seriously though, it was really weird. Geese are scary. They hiss and chase you if you're a small child, like the one we had with us. And one group chased another group off of the little turf outside our door. Very odd.

After some frustration on Heather's part (she had to be on the phone for some time figuring some financial stuff out) we finally got onto the base and met up with our boys. Bases are strange. It's like a college campus surrounded by a tiny community. And they can be kind of confusing to navigate, but as long as you just keep driving you're bound to end up somewhere recognizable since there's only so much of it. We did get lost a few times though. And once again if you went slightly past the base area you'd find yourself in the ghetto. Old stores with broken windows and shit, not so good.

I look really weird but I was laughing.

We were safe though, nothing too major happened. Michael and I went on a walk around the hotel area and found that Virginia is not pedestrian friendly at all. I didn't see a single crosswalk. We were also definitely the minority, and having been in a place where I know maybe a handful of people that aren't white it was a little odd to realize. All of us went to a place called Huddle House and Mikey and I shared a ginormous meal. I tried grits, which are pretty good when mixed with a little bit of butter and sugar. Most of the food in Virginia was uber fattening and I do believe I gained a few pounds while I was there but I'm also fairly sure I've lost it already swimming in Phoenix so it's okay.

So Sunday I got dropped off at the airport. Mikey and I hung out for a bit, had some smoothies/coffee and looked at books. It was really tough saying goodbye at the security gate and rushing to my flight (I was one of the last people to board, since I doddled) and it was the first time I flew by myself but it wasn't a big deal. I got delayed in Atlanta because it started to rain, but I was in Phoenix by about nine. The three hour time difference really threw me off though, and I didn't sleep a lot while I was there in the first place. We were always up by eight in Virginia, which is like five in Arizona. I'm still adjusting and most days I'm up by nine, but sometimes I sleep till ten (woah!). Pretty weird compared to my old habit of staying up till the sun came up and sleeping half the day.

Anyway, that was that. You'd think it be easier since I "just saw him" but it's actually been harder. We talk every day now since he has his (shiny new) phone which is great but when I came home it was like starting all over again. I don't know how else to explain it. We'll get through it though.

Here's a couple more pictures:

To answer a few questions some people might be wondering:
1. Yes we got a little alone time. It was awesome. Enough said.
2. No we didn't secretly elope, though we talked about it. I'm positive now we'll be married by December but according to Mikey I'm not supposed to know that so Shh! :)

Phoenix is really sucking right now since I have nothing to do and I'm afraid of driving just about anywhere, but it won't last forever so it'll be alright. Plus, tomorrow I'm off to Prescott to see the midnight premiere of the last Harry Potter movie and right after that I'm goin' to Mexico for the weekend, so the next several days will be busy! I have my Tumblr all queued up so if anyone follows that it'll still be running.

Feel free to say hello sometime, I'm pretty much bored out of my mind.

My Childhood Ends July 15th

If you haven't watched this yet you ought to. I watched pretty much the entire thing (had some technical difficulties) and this last bit made any boringness completely worth it.

So the Harry Potter saga is ending, and being a die hard Potterhead I'm very very sad. I picked up the first book when I was eleven, the same age as Harry, and have been growing with him ever since. Half my life I've spent going to midnight premieres, standing in line for book releases, buying merchandise, having Harry Potter themed birthday parties and feeling like it'll never possibly end.

So I'm kind of depressed. Maybe some people don't get it but more people understand than the people that don't.

All I can say is I love this woman, for following through with her ideas, for creating a world to escape to and giving me something to look forward to year after year. And even though she made a joke about writing another one, I really really hope she changes her mind someday and does, and I know I'm not the only one.

I will read these books to my kids someday.

Phoenix

As you may have guessed, it's pretty fucking hot and I don't like it. There's at least once a day when I question if I am actually melting and what I should do about it. It's very convenient having a pool, however, and I've been taking advantage of it once to twice a day. Not great for my hair, but I'm not sure how much I care when its this hot.
It's really miserable, and I keep questioning why I did it but I start school next month, so I'm sure once I get a routine going I won't have as much time to sit around and wonder why I'm here as I'm sweating my tits off.
I did get Skype working with Mikey tho, which has been the best part about today. I couldn't get my webcam to work last night but I fixed it today and we had a fun chat. He says he can come back to Arizona for labor day weekend in September. I reeeally wanna pick him up from the airport. That's one of the reasons I'm here.
Moving was craziness. When I got back from Virginia I did a bunch of important stuff like go to the doctor and then I packed what I could with my dads help and headed down, but came right back for fourth of July to get more stuff. I ended up getting in this big fight with my mom because she seemed to think I left without saying goodbye and when I stormed off she tore apart my room, which turned out to be a good thing because she squared everything away and did what would've taken me days in a few hours.
I watched the fireworks with Michael's family from a hill in a neighborhood behind theirs and headed back to Phoenix in the morning. I'm kind of proud of myself for driving by myself back and forth, honestly. I was really intimidated by the drive before. At one point on the way back it was raining pretty hard and I got stuck in a cloud of mist someone was spraying from their tires to my windshield and could not see a thing and managed not to have a panic attack. So. Go me.
I'll be here for six months before I move to Oklahoma, not Virgina, because Michael's orders got changed and he's transferring in a few weeks. So I just have to remember that it's just six months. I can drive back to Prescott virtually any time before that and I will in fact survive.
But it's so hot it feels like I won't. Yuck.

Back Into The Flow/The Trip pt. 1

So I've put off blogging for a while, for several simple reasons:

1. Laziness

2. Adjusting to life in Phoenix

and 3. Thinking about/absorbing the last few weeks.

As most of you know, I went to see Mikey graduate boot camp, or BCT as they call it (the army loves its acronyms). Once I finally got home it really wasn't my priority to blog about it. I put up pictures on Facebook and let it sit in my brain for a while. It was probably one of the strangest most exhausting trips of my life, so just for those who want to know (for whatever reason) I'll do a little summary illustrated by pictures most have already seen. By little summary I mean I'll probably end up going into a lot of detail anyway because a lot happened.

So the first part was getting there in the first place, which I only documented a little bit. I had my duffel bag all packed Supai style with everything rolled up since we (Michael's parents and myself) weren't planning on checking any baggage and after a little debate we decided to stay at Michael's uncle Brian's house (there was more to that but I don't feel like going into it). We went swimming, had margaritas etc. Then we got up at the ass crack of dawn to go to the airport, only to find that our flight had been delayed till much much later. So we got put on another flight, meaning we didn't get seats next to each other. I actually fell asleep on the first flight, since I hadn't slept hardly at all that night before. We landed in Atlanta Georgia and were put on standby for our connecting flight to North Carolina. Ah, the airport. So much retardness. Thankfully we didn't have to wait too long and that flight was only about an hour instead of three.
So then we got a shuttle to our rental car and started the adventure of driving to South Carolina and finding a hotel.You know how in Arizona all you see when you look into the horizon is mountains? It's like that, but with trees. Trees everywhere, and really close together so when the sun goes down you can't be sure if there's anything but trees out there and the road you're driving on.
Anyway we couldn't see Michael that night but we finally found an Extended Stay Inn to park at right as a storm was starting up. I noticed, after the whole trip, areas around army bases aren't so well off. You drive just a little too far and suddenly you're in the ghetto, passing really strange creepy buildings and looking for a place to turn around. I don't know what that's about.

We got up at around seven am, which was really four am AZ time (I'm still screwed up, two weeks later) and got some coffee before heading to the base and benches for Family Day: the day before graduation where you hang out and walk around the base looking for stuff to do. Their intro was pretty epic. They threw some stuff that exploded and made green and yellow smoke and ran through it yelling, which is pretty overwhelming to see in person.

There's no PDA on Family Day, so this was as close as I could get. No epic jumping on him and I didn't even cry. He showed us where he'd been sleeping and everyone in his unit kept walking up to me saying hi, already knowing my name, which was weird. But cool.
There really wasn't a lot to do on base; we went to a bowling alley but we just played music and games and had some food. We also met up with the Vandervoorts.

I'd been talking to Heather, the wifey, for a little while before we actually all met. The guy is Michael's ginger friend, and they get along pretty well. Their son, I don't wanna talk about. I questioned whether or not I want to have children. But it's hard when one of the parents isn't around most of the time, so I tried to understand. There's a lot of issues and reasons but I had to spend over 8 hours in the car with him and three nights in a hotel and I was pretty happy to be done with that and just let them be them.

Graduation was incredibly boring. Seriously, nothing interesting to say about it. They got in formation, said a bunch of stuff, I don't even know. What I remember the most was what happened after that. Originally Heather was going to take all of us and the guys to AIT in Virginia, and we were gonna have a fun road trip together. But her car was over heating and was in no condition to drive more than two miles.
So that meant we couldn't take them, which meant they had to get government transport, and that meant I had to decide whether or not I wanted to fly home with the Cooks or wait it out and see if Heather could get the car fixed and we could just follow them there. It was really really stressful and I hadn't slept much and I wasn't taking it well. I'll just put it that way.

Heather found a mechanic almost right away who was willing to fix the car as soon as possible though, so I stayed. And we drove. And drove. And drove. And finally we were by the base in Virginia and started searching for a hotel. The first one we thought we were gonna stay at we ended up leaving, because as soon as we got up there we knew we had to leave. There were stains on the walls, some of the lights weren't working, the chair was broken, there was hair on the sink...it was just bad. And since we've both worked at hotels we pretty much left immediately after filling out the comment card.

It was exhausting. I was a mess by the time we finally settled on a Quality Inn, which turned out to be really comfortable. I slept well from what I remember. There was a lot of money spent on this trip, lemme tell you. Splitting the hotel fees, gas, a new plane ticket, food...It was crazy. Michael was nice enough to help me out, which was really weird actually. I'd been paying for stuff for us for the last year and now he goes out and says stuff like "it's only a hundred dollars." To which I immediately responded "did you seriously just say that?" It was super strange seeing him have that much money to be able to say something like that.

So I'm going to work on the last part of this later and post this just to have something new up. I feel guilty for spending so much time on Tumblr alone and neglecting my blog but it keeps happening.

Anyway, come on back in a bit if you want to know the rest :)