Wednesday, June 18, 2014

A Journey Out West

The past week-ish has been very busy for me. Why, you ask? Because (most of) my family and I flew out West for our summer vacation! :D

No, not the cowboys-and-ranches type of West. Noo, I'm talking about the right-next-to-Canada type West. Like, the North-West, not the South-West... maybe? You get what I'm saying. ;)

To put it simply, I'm in Washington {state} currently. And this is where I shall be for the next 2 months of the summer! :)

The view from my room of the lake in our backyard. (:
I must be honest with you -- I'm not 100% completely thrilled to leave behind my Southern life for 2 months. But I'm also not stupid enough to wallow in homesickness and self-pity for the entire time and miss an opportunity to do some neat stuff and enjoy a very neat place.

So, here we go -- "I think I'm quite ready for another adventure!" ;)  Allow me to tell ya 'bout the place.

A loooong time ago, we used to live up here, actually, due to my dad's job. (He works for Delta Airlines, btw, which is how we can afford to fly -- we get free flights, basically. xD) We ended up keeping the house we had bought, and rent it out during the times we're gone. But we still come up here every so often. This was actually where I made the mock-ups for my Tauriel cosplay last year! :D

We live on a lake (which connects to a river that we like to take our rowboat down), and are across the street from the ocean. Literally:

Panorama from our 2nd floor porch.
Now, about the travelling...

The flight out here was actually pretty decent. We were able to get on without too much stress because of over-sold flights or anything, so that was great. "We" being my mom, my little sister Danielle, and moi. Our dad would join us the next day due to work. My two older sisters, Alissa and Crystal, are staying in the South most of the summer because of teaching and an internship -- in case you wondered. ;)

The flight to WA is 5 hours, so to keep busy I listened to music while I re-read Soul Surfer for the third time -- yes, it's that good. ;) (The movie adaption of Bethany Hamilton's story is amazing as well!! She is so awesome and inspirational:)

P.S. that funny looking square electronic is my phone, btw. ;D I think it's adorable. xD
Now, don't get me started on the plane's archaic entertainment system, but they happened to show Muppets: Most Wanted as the in-flight movie, so Danielle and I ended up watching.  I had two reason for doing so:

1) Tom Hiddleston's cameo. Which ended up being a total of 5 seconds. *face palm.* ;D
2) And the fact that 5 hour flights get long. ;D


Oh. And one last thing. Selfies courtesy of Danielle's ipod. xD

Aren't we precious? ;)
So attractive. Be jealous.
So, Saturday was the plane trip... Sunday we decided to skip church and try to recuperate and sleep off the jet lag a bit. My mom went to pick up my dad at the airport... Monday I did some major unpacking, and we went grocery shopping and to get le wi-fi set up... Tuesday we got our holds in from the amazing library here. Hehe. :D

Check out my book selections. ;D
While the library here is quite small, it's in a huge system with other libraries, so we can basically order any book or movie we want rom the other libraries and get it within a week.

Needless to say, it. is. HEAVEN. xD

So far, I've finished The Selection, and I'm now reading Left Behind, which is seriously so intriguing! I had read the teen versions a few years ago and liked them, so now I wanted to read the "adult" versions, of course. It is definitely what I call good Christian fiction. :D

Any book recommendations?? I'd love to get some from ya'll. Let me know in le comments! :D

And that's what's been going on lately! :D I had better end this blog post before it gets too incredibly long... but you can expect some more updates soon about my life out here in Washington! (:

OH -- and also the low-down on my cosplay plans for The Battle of the Five Armies. It's coming. :D

16 comments:

  1. You're in Washington?! Where in Washington? (I live here!) Hope you enjoy your vacation! and soooo jealous of free flights :P Douglas Bond's books are awesome too, btw. Best wishes!

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    1. Oh my goodness really??? I'm in the farthest north-west tip, right next to Canada and the ocean. How about you?????

      Hehe. ;) Thanks for the recommendation! I will definitely look him up. :D

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  2. I love that your stack of books has two series that I recommended. :D Happy reading!

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    1. Oh, of course. You're always getting me into weird things. ;D XD

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  3. What a beautiful lake view the books have very interesting titles - free flights that is just AWESOME!!!. I've been on a plane only 4 times I don't do well in planes -blood pressure goes down -dizzy nausea fuzziness- lol :( Hope you have a wonderful vacation. :D

    Blessings,

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    1. Hehe! Yesss! It is awesome. :D Ooooh dear -- that's no fun. :P I've never been a huge fan of flying either, but I like where it can take me. ;) Thanks! I'm hoping I will. (:

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  4. Coolio Blog post . . . Gotta write some on mine too (une jour. . ) <3 YA

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  5. Sweet! Love hearing about your vac a :D I'm actually working on a post about mine this summer as well :)

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    1. :D Awesome!! Can't wait to read it. I've missed reading your posts lately! :)

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  6. Ooh, Washington state! I've never been there, but I love places near oceans. That's a nice view you have there! :)

    Your "selfies" are great - and the captions are hilarious! ;)

    It's funny... when I read your plea for book recommendations I though to myself, "she would probably like some of Douglas Bond's books" - then looked down, saw the first comment, and thought "better think of something else to suggest!" ;) To that end, I will recommend ---- oops, no I won't, I should finish reading it myself before endorsing it. :]

    Your post title for some reason reminded me of a particular song, "Into the West" by name; I was expecting to see a picture of the Grey Havens or something! ;]

    Have a lovely vacation!

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    1. Yes! I love the ocean view. :)

      Hahah really! That's great. xD I just ordered "Duncan's War" from our library, so I'm looking forward to reading that, especially since both of you recommended the author! :) Hahah! Well, whenever you finish whatever book you were going to recommend, let me know what you thought of it!

      Ooohh yes! Now that you say it, it reminds me of that as well... Speaking of which - well, LOTR end-credit songs - have you ever heard of Peter Hollens on YouTube? He makes these awesome covers of songs with just his voice (occasionally featuring other musicians as well), and his latest was of "May It Be"... it is a gorgeous rendition, and you might enjoy hearing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YnEMw3c_RQ :)

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    2. The book was Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, written by Jules Verne. It was good. It was one of those books that I had heard a bit about here and there, knowing that it is considered a classic, but that I had very little actual knowledge about, then finally took off the shelf and read over the course of three days. :)
      What did I think about it? Well - the short answer is, it was really good! Somewhat dry in a few places (which is ironic, if you think about it...); but on the whole, it was well-written, interesting, and exciting. It was a bit tense in places (for me), but there was nothing actually scary or disturbing. :] The storyline was much different than I had expected at the beginning of the book - consequently, it was much better than I had expected it to be. :)
      This was one of the few things I've read that I actually took notes on! The author's vocabulary is far more extensive than mine - or, at any rate, his writing vocabulary is larger than my "common use" vocabulary - so I wrote down an incredible quantity of words to look up and begin using as I went through. :) Also, there were several lines (and even whole paragraphs) that make excellent quotes, which I copied out to replenish my limited stock.
      Sorry that this is rather lacking in detail... but, assuming you have not yet read it, I don't want to give away any of the story! So, the short answer would have been... it was great, go read it! :)

      No, I had not seen any of Peter Hollens' music videos - thanks for the recommendation! I especially liked his rendition of Pippin's Song.

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    3. Ooooh awesome! Yes, definitely a classic... but you never know with the classics wether they'll be good in the "good" sense, or just good in the "literary" sense. If that makes any sense at all... ;) But cool! I might have to try reading it some time. Another classic I want to read is "To Kill a Mockingbird." I've heard it's good. :)

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  7. Yes, good point. I don't think this book would be enjoyed by all people - but I liked it, at any rate. :)

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    1. Het Beth like your blog I wrote another note don't know if I am getting it to you. Love Daddy see you sunday Lord willing!!!!!!!!!

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