Last of New Jersey Trip--More Family Fun

My Mom's cute house and colorful mums in front

My niece Kristinn and her two adorable kids, Sofia and Gabe, came to visit after we returned from NYC.  They live in Virginia and had a three day weekend so we were happy to get to see them.  Kristinn is my sister's oldest child.

Sofia Jane

Kristinn and Gabriel

We had a great dinner at Bill and Patty's one night.  My Aunt Gin joined us. She was married to my Uncle Kirby, my dad's brother, who is no longer with us.  He was our fun uncle and always kept us laughing. Aunt Gin has lots of stories as well and a heart of gold.

Kristinn, Mom and Kathi

Mom and her two daughters

My great nephew Gabriel and my nephew Billy. Funny that they are only a few years apart!

My niece Becca

Bill had added an app called "Funny Movie Maker" and had us all laughing so hard.  It's pretty hilarious. You can choose various pictures (political figures, animals, cartoons), insert your own mouth into the photo and talk.  Kinda like those characters that Conan will sometimes do on late night TV.  I guess you had to be there, but we were all rolling.

Another day, Kathi, Mom and I had lunch at my cousin Ruth Ann's.  It was great to catch up and we were sorry we didn't get to see any of the rest of her family.

Then we had lunch with my Aunt Jeannette, Uncle Tom and cousin Pat. Aunt Jeannette is my mom's sister.  It was fun to hear all their family news, too. 

And we met up with Bill and Patty one night to have dinner with some more cousins. Whew! We have a huge family and only saw a small fraction of them. 

  Mom and Kathi

 My cousin Mary Jane with Bill, Kathi and me

Mary Jane's daughter Suzanne and her daughter Claire

Before we knew it, our visit had come to a close!  Mom had made plans to go on a "Road Scholar" trip to Delaware before I had to change my ticket so she actually left the day before Kathi and I did.  We saw her off and told her we were going to have a wild party at her house, leaving broken beer bottles on the carpet, tearing up a few lampshades, and throwing trash everywhere.  :)  Instead, we did the laundry, straightened up, and went out to dinner with Bill and Patty.  Oh, we are so old and sedate these days. LOL

I took Kathi to the airport at lunch time, came back home and did a few more things, then Patty took me  to Philly to catch my flight that evening.  I had a long flight (6 hours) from Philly to Seattle, but the middle seat was empty so my other seat mate and I could spread out a bit. I actually rented a digiplayer, which I never do, but I didn't think I could read through the whole flight.  I watched "Rock of Ages," which was pure campy silliness set to '80's music, but I really enjoyed it.   I had read several reviews about Tom Cruise doing a great job in the movie, which I pooh-poohed since I am not such a Tom Cruise fan.  However, I have to admit that he rocked it in a weird sort of way.  :)  Then I was able to get onto the internet so that helped me while away the rest of the flight. I overnighted in Seattle where I had a room at the Doubletree near the airport for $70  (yay, priceline) and vegged out.  Had an early morning flight to Anchorage and the plane was SO empty that most of us had all three seats to ourselves.  Wow.  I laid down and slept for a couple of hours. Arrived in ANC at 10:40 AM and was scheduled for a 2 PM flight home.  Sat in the airport on weather hold till 4 PM, then we were officially cancelled due to bad weather in Unalaska. Ugh.  Had to find a hotel and was really tired because of major jet lag and my early morning flight.  Checked in, got some dinner, watched the VP debate (love me some Joe!) and crashed.  Back to the airport at 8 AM on Friday, left at 9 for a supposed "non stop flight" that got diverted to Cold Bay because of more bad weather. Sat in Cold Bay till maybe 4 PM, one flight got sent back to ANC and we were sure we were doing the same, but after a little while longer, the pilot said we were loading up and going to "try" to get to Unalaska. That made my stomach churn because I hate those difficult approaches, circling, circling, and then trying to land.  However, once we got below the clouds, it didn't seem windy at all and we had no problem.  Yay!  Home!

Greetings from South Jersey!

Just a note to say I left Unalaska on Tuesday evening, the 25th, flew to Anchorage, then to Seattle, where I expected to sleep in the Alaska Air terminal till my next flight at 8:30 AM.  My friend Tammy is in Seattle at the moment and asked me what time I would be in. I told her 2 AM, expecting her to say "Okay, I will see you when we are both back at home!"  But here's a real friend for ya--she said she'd pick me up when I arrived and we could hang out for awhile.  Man, I am not sure that I would get up or stay up till that hour of the morning to go see a friend (I'd like to think I might...depending on who it was. LOL).  Sure enough, she was waiting for me.  We went to Denny's and had some breakfast while catching up on lots of discussion.  The waiter was very entertaining, the breakfast was great, and we stayed and talked for several hours.  She took me back to the airport around 6 AM and I was soon on my way to Philly.

The flight out of Anchorage was on a "combi," one of Alaska Air's planes that carry cargo in the front and passengers in the back.  I've been on one a couple of times before but it always feels sorta weird.  We had a smooth take off out of Unalaska, despite the rain and fog that developed right before I left.  I was worried but needn't have been.  All was well till we approached Anchorage and then we were battered about quite a bit.  Leaving Anchorage was more of the same, though it didn't seem as scary on a big plane. :)

Arrived in Philadelphia at 4:45 PM, where Mom and my sister in law Patty picked me up.  I had to have a hoagie for dinner, of course. :)  We didn't do much the first night since I was pretty jet lagged but I was happy to be here with family, where it's still pretty warm and everything is still mostly green.

Thursday Mom and I went out running around.  I had some things to drop off at the dry cleaner--yes, it is strange to think that I have to carry dry cleaning out of state, but we don't have anything in Unalaska.  Also went to an arts and crafts store so I could get some stuff to make books for my students' autobiographies, and I bought some yarn along with a knitting book on scarves and hats so Mom could help me figure out why my knitting is so terrible.  We had a healthy lunch at Panera Bread and later went to the grocery store.  We worked on knitting and I realized what I was doing wrong, hurray.  After ripping out my scarf project four or five times, I am finally on the right track, I think!  Whew!

I still seem to be on Alaska time and couldn't fall asleep till 4 this morning.  Ugh.  After puttering around the house most of the morning, we went to Triple A to get a "trip tik" for our journey to Milton, NY next week and made a Target run.  We took a walk to the deli in "downtown" Laurel Springs and I got another hoagie.   Yes, my dieting and exercising at home may be going all to hell on this trip.  At least we walked to the deli, right?!

Tonight we went to watch my niece Alex play softball and met up with my sister in law Patty and the rest of her kids, Abby, Becca and Billy. It was fun to watch the game; Alex made some good plays and their team won--they are undefeated!  It was great to see my other nieces and nephew, too.  I have photos but will probably not get them posted till tomorrow.  Stay tuned!

This is what it looks like from the air

Months ago, my friend Judi and I went in together to bid on a "flightseeing" tour of our island on the Grumman Goose--and we won!  We wanted to wait till summer time and till after we were both back from our travels so started trying to arrange the trip in earnest in August.  This was complicated by the fact that Pen Air had decided to retire the Goose on September 1st so we were in a bit of a time crunch.  We were pulling our hair out by the time we finally got to go.  You don't know how many days we had it scheduled, only to be told "it's not a good day," "it's having mechanical work done," "the pilot says not today," and so on.  Some days I was literally calling back for an update every hour, only to be disappointed again. We were really beginning to wonder if this was going to happen or if we were just gonna lose our money.  I was getting awfully whiny, I have to admit.  BUT, finally, with no time to spare, we got to take our flight on August 29th.  It wasn't the best day, a little cloudy, but we didn't want to put it off any longer!   No worries, it was still amazingly awesome! 

Our crew of 8 people kept changing, too, based on who could go on which day.  The final group is shown above:  Rich, Judi and Michelle in front, Rob, Glenn, Paul and Vinnie.

 The Goose is a WWII era plane that has been used in the Aleutians for many years, mostly flying to and from some of the other islands along the chain.  Click here for a story by my coworker and KUCB News Director Alexandra.

 Getting instructions from our pilot, Steve. "There are four exits...."

 Rich in the co-pilot's seat

 We got to take off from the water--very cool!

Just a few more reasons why we love it out here!  Beautiful, isn't it?

 Landing on the water

 Coming in

Wow, that was fun!

Thanks, Steve!  Another experience of a lifetime!

I love vacations!

We stayed up way too late last Sunday night; of course, there was a lot to do to get the house ready for the house/plant/cat sitter, and then I always have trouble sleeping the night before we travel.  We were scheduled for a 7 AM flight out of Unalaska, which meant getting up around 5 to get to the airport around 6.  Ms. Not a Morning Person was dreading this.  We called the airport before leaving the house and asked if the plane was on time.  No, it was delayed.  BUT "you still need to come down and check in."  "When should we come?" "NOW."  Okay, so we finished up and headed down to check in.  We were told to be back at 8 so we left to run a few errands.  We FINALLY left at 9:30 AM--man, I was annoyed that we could have slept a little longer!  It was a beautiful sunny day so at least I did not have to indulge my flying fears too much.

We arrived in Anchorage at 12:30 and were not leaving for LAX till 5:30 so we were able to meet our friends Anne and Jeanette for lunch.  It was great catching up with them--we hadn't seen them since they left Unalaska about a year and a half ago.  It was sunny and warm in Anchorage so after we took Jeanette back to work, Anne, Rich and I took a little walk on one of the local trails and soaked up some much needed Vitamin D.  Then Anne took us back to the airport where we soon took off for LAX.  Long flight but not too bad.  We arrived at LAX and had to switch from AK Air to American for our flight to DFW.  First off, we couldn't find any directions or monitors showing us how to get to American.  An AK Air pilot saw me looking around with a confused expression and told me we should go to the end of the hallway and walk about 3 minutes to American's terminal. We

did that and it appeared that we were going to have to exit the secure area so I thought maybe I'd misunderstood. I asked a TSA guy what to do and he directed us back the way we came to look for a shuttle connection.  We found the shuttle area but it was dark, closed up, and no sign that there was any shuttle coming.  It was almost midnight and we were supposed to board in 25 minutes.  SO back to the TSA guy we go, tell him what we found, and he says, "Yeah, they probably quit running around 8," which only made me wonder why he sent us there in the first place.  Then he tells us we should exit the terminal, turn left and walk five minutes to the American terminal. I ask if we have to go back through Security and he says yes.  What the heck.  We trudge down to American, wind around the hallway, go through Security and find our gate.  Now for a nice overnight flight to DFW.   Rich and I both volunteered to be moved to Exit rows, not together, but our seats had not been together in the first place so we figured at least we would have more room.  I lucked out with a young couple who were willing to let me sit on the aisle. Rich was crammed into a short row that did not seem like the typical Exit row at all.  Finally we arrived in Dallas at 6 AM; poor Sarah had to get up early and come get us.  We were so happy to see her!  Here she is with her adorable kids.

We were really jet-lagged and suffering from lack of sleep but wanted to play with the kids and visit with Sarah and Miles.  Their new home is just beautiful and they did a great job building and decorating.  We are always impressed with their work!  Elle and Beck have grown so much since I saw them last September and Rich had not seen them since the Jersey shore a year ago.   They are just the sweetest!

Try as we might, we could not keep our eyes open so relented and took a nap while Sarah and the kids ran some errands.  Then we enjoyed the rest of the day playing and visiting and going out to dinner. 

Miles with his cuties before bed time

It was a very quick layover since we'd already reserved tickets to Amarillo for the next morning.  After a good night's sleep,  but still feeling like I was on AK time, we left for the airport before 7 AM.  Elle wanted to ride along and we chatted all the way.  She was telling me that we needed to get a big ladder so she could see Alaska.  But then she realized "if you are way up high, everything will look too small to see."  I was amazed that she could figure that out at age 4.  We promised her we'd take her to see "Brave" when we come back to Dallas in a few weeks.  Love, love, love this family of four!  Next stop, Amarillo, where we get to see Bonnie, David and Emery and meet new baby Luke!

Catching up from the Land of the Fast Internet

I've been MIA for a little while--lots going on! On the 3rd, it was my turn to host Bunco and, as always, a big night of fun. These gals are a blast!

Lou Anne and Andrea

Erin, Lori and Sonia

Alyssa, Juliette, Tammy and DJ

Lovely shortcake trios by Rich

Hilary and Melanie

I can't even remember everything that's been occupying our time. We did make some more jam--this time salmonberry-pomegranate and salmonberry-citrus-rose. So good! Remember those scones I made a few weeks ago? Well...there were some in the freezer, so guess what we've been doing? I think we've both gained a few pounds back. But it may be worth it. :)

We've both been really busy at work. I know I keep saying that lately! I worked feverishly all day on Wednesday and then flew out on the 7:30 PM plane to Anchorage. It was a little windy and I was very nervous about flying. I sure have had my flying issues lately. I started to think we would not go at all but we left about 8 PM with no problems whatsoever--guess I need to relax about the whole thing. I'm in Anchorage for a development conference with people from many of the other public radio stations in Alaska. It's been very informative, especially for someone who does not come from a sales and marketing background. I've enjoyed meeting my colleagues from around the state and networking with them. The conference ends tomorrow at noon and then I will be hanging around waiting for my 1 AM (Sunday) flight to Seattle and on to Dallas. Can't wait to see the kids and grandkids!