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

A Trip to New England - Day Two

My second, and last, full day in Rhode Island was lovely - and white!

When we woke up in the morning, the world was covered in an inch or two of glorious snow!! It all melted away by the end of the day, but was so pretty while it lasted. :)
The big highlight of this final day, though, was having lobsters for dinner. ;D

This was the first experience my sisters and I had with lobsters, and it was just great! ;D After going to an extremely authentic shack and buying our lobsters, we brought them home and had "lobster fights." Ok, not really - but we did hold them! They kept flinging their [rubber-banded] claws around and snapping their tails back and forth, which enticed a couple shrieks from us girls... ;D

And the big question: how did they taste? Due to my diet (the SCD one that I've mentioned before), I couldn't eat them, (which I was silently thankful for xD) but according to my three sisters, they were pretty nasty. I think I would have agreed.. :P

The next day we headed off to the airport and flew home, concluding our visit to Rhode Island! It was short but sweet. I had so much fun; hopefully I'll be able to go again someday -- I would definitely like to! (:

A Trip to New England - Day One

So after a long day of driving, two flights, and more driving, we (my parents, three sisters and I) made it to our final destination last night: Rhode Island!

I've never been to this state before, so it was a neat opportunity. We have family that lives up there that we haven't seen in ages, so it was great to get up here and see them finally! :)

The highlight of our first [full] day there was visiting a huge mansion, the "summer cottage" of the Vanderbilt family, called "The Breakers." It was incredible!! Our tour guide said it was over 100,000 square feet in all... O_O

They didn't let us take pictures of the inside, but we could take pics of the outside... (These are courtesy of my sister, Crystal. ;)

So, our first day here was super neat. We also drove around a bit afterward, and looked at all the other big houses in the area. After seeing them all, I was *seriously* feeling the need for a mansion... xD

The day ended with watching the sunset on the snow-covered beach.