Dreaming of Warmer Weather

Last weekend my friend Anna and I took a little road trip over to WI for a quick visit due to Lisa's baby shower that her family threw for her. I also got to see Emili and her new baby Jonah, what a cutie! It was so nice to have all my girls together again - I miss them all so much! Lisa was a beautiful mother to be and hardly looked 7 months pregnant! Her family was so welcoming and a lot of fun to hang out with over the weekend! It felt just like college days when Anna, Lisa, and I spent the night at her parents' house and we stayed up until 2:30 AM (MI time, only 1:30 WI time) talking. It was so good to catch up. I've decided that I need to be better about calling and staying in touch more regularly so when we do get together it's less catching up and more heart-to-heart stuff, which I so dearly miss.



Cam and I have been talking about taking a trip to Europe for a while, but keep putting it off because my job has always been up in the air. After our trip to Australia and signing up for some credit card offers, we had enough miles for free flights for both of us to either Europe or South America. Last year I had just started at Amway and wanted to wait until I'd been there a year and had vacation time. But I left before that. And then I started at booking.com and wanted to wait until I had a permanent position or at least had an idea of when that might happen. But I'm not sure when either of those will happen. I recently got approval for a week and a half unpaid time off since temps don't have vacation time in June to take a trip, only to find out last week that flights booked with award miles book up way far in advance and there were literally no flights to anywhere in Europe for this summer. I was pretty bummed, but we decided that instead of waiting for next summer that we just had to go for it and work around it if we had to.

So we booked flights to Buenos Aires, Argentina over the week of Thanksgiving! Man, they sure do not make it very easy to book award flights either. Since we both have separate award mile accounts, the only way we could book our flights was to book them separately, but since there were only 3 flights left I was scared that we'd only get one booked, or we'd end up on different flights. So we had to call and reserve on the phone, but they try and tell you that there are no flights available when I'm looking right at them online. Basically you have to feed them all the flight numbers and it takes them forever and they charge you $25 to book over the phone, but we got our flights!

So the plan is to fly into Buenos Aires and stay there 4 nights. Then we're going to take a domestic fight over to Puerto Iguazu, which is where the Iguazu Falls are and stay there for 2 nights. They're right on the border of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay and are bigger than Niagara, and in the middle of the jungle! I'm so geeked; if you know me you would know that I kind of have a thing for waterfalls. I've seen Niagara Falls, and those were pretty amazing. But to be in the middle of the jungle without so much touristy traps in a place that is so much more remote just sounds so thrilling. After that we'll return to Buenos Aires for the last night before leaving.

My work has the Rosetta Stone software that we can use for free, so I've been relearning my Spanish a bit, but having this trip booked will definitely give me motivation to study up before then! We'd be fine in Buenos Aires, but Iguazu is little bit more remote, and I've read reviews that say there aren't very many English speaking people. I can't wait to use my Spanish skills! Oh, but 8 months is so long to wait for a vacation, especially since we haven't gone anywhere since Vegas last April.

There a lots of deals in Ireland right now though, and if we come across a good last minute package deal for 4-5 nights, we still might do that this summer. Otherwise we're planning on visiting Lisa and Ivan in Philly after they have the baby sometime. And there's always the new and cheap direct flights from Grand Rapids to Myrtle Beach that we could try out. After having to work basically every weekend last summer at the hotel, I'm excited to have my weekends off again this year and actually be able to go to the beach. And not miss out on holiday family get-togethers.

I've been craving a good concert too. David Gray is on tour, but he's not coming to MI, despite making 3 stops in Ohio for some reason. But we might make his Columbus stop since it's the Saturday after my birthday next month and stay overnight for my birthday present. Seeing David Gray would be amazing - hint hint Cameron...

Holiday Activities

Friday night my mom sang in a big production at Central Wesleyan Church in Holland called "Noel". Whintly Phipps, a very famous singer, was the featured performer for the event and my mom sang in a quartet of women with him on several songs. Look up his performance of Amazing Grace performed for the Obamas on YouTube.

Afterward the whole family went to Fricano's for some delicious pizza. Everyone must have been at Christmas parties, because the place was nearly empty. I have never gone there without having to wait a good half hour or more for a table, and then nearly an hour for the pizza. Always worth it, but it was so nice to get right in, because it was 8:30 and we were hungry.

Saturday I got my nails done in the morning. I've never had acrylics before, so this post is taking longer to type than normal as I'm still getting used to them. But I love how they look. I've wanted to for a while, and now that I have a job that actually pays decently more than minimum wage I figure why not? I have them painted a deep sparkly red for Christmas.

Saturday night Cam and I went out with our good friends Anna and Mike. We met up at JD Reardons for a delicious dinner despite the fact that they forgot to put chicken in Anna's Asian dish and put mushrooms in my pasta even though I asked them not to. Oh well. After that we went downtown to the civic theatre for a performance of Cinderella. It was a very good performance. It was extremely reminicent of the 1965 version of Cinderella that my my parents had on VHS which I watched countless times. Even her dress that she wore to the ball was a near replica of the one in this version of Cinderella. I found myself wanting to sing along to all the songs I used to know by heart. Cam did catch me humming the song "Impossible" in the car on the way home. I want to buy the movie on Amazon now, but apparently it's a collectible item and really expensive.


Oh dear, Cam just called me from at a bachelor party at Firekeeper's Casino in Battle Creek. He wanted to know if he should keep going in blackjack. He had started with $20 and is currently at $60. I told him I wasn't making that decision for him. (I think he was a little buzzed, apparently he "shotgunned" a beer). Whatever that means, something about cutting a hole or something in the bottom and drinking the whole thing in like 10 seconds; I didn't really get it. Cameron buzzed=even more silly than normal. He'll be back around 1; I'll be sleeping.

Looking forward to Christmas. I only work until 2 on Christmas Eve and we'll be going to the Hurds that night. Christmas will be with my family. I haven't finalized when Cam and I will open our presents to each other. I'm leaning toward Christmas Eve after Cam's family so we can relax and make it a romantic evening over a bottle of hard cider we've been saving.

Hope everyone has a wonderful, family-filled, busy, crazy Christmas while somehow finding time for the quiet, peaceful moments!

This Time of Year Makes Me Happy and Sad

I love the holidays. I love Christmas shopping and decorating and good food. I love parties and celebrations. This weekend Cam and I were driving along Chicago Drive going from his parents house in Hudsonville to mine in Zeeland. There's this tree farm along the road. Every year for Christmas they decorate just one tree with white lights. But when you think of decorating a tree, this takes that up by about 10 levels. It literally looks like every single branch and twig has been outlined in lights. In contrast with the bare fields around it, it just looks heavenly.

Seeing this tree always reminds me of the winter we were engaged. Cam had bought and was already living by himself in our condo in Hudsonville. I was living by myself in my grandma's house in Zeeland. But school was 10 minutes in one direction from the condo, and work was 10 minutes in the other. So no matter which day it was, a school day or a work day, it made it very easy to go to the condo afterwards. Needless to say, there were many, many evenings driving home along Chicago Drive, and seeing that one tree lit up all by itself against the black night always made my drive a little more pleasant (even when it was blizzardy and I was afraid my poor little car with bad tires and weighted down with cement blocks just wasn't going to make it through).

But the holidays always makes me miss people who aren't here. My friend Emili who just had her second little boy in WI. My friend Ali in Chicago. And my friend Lisa in Philadelphia (and pregnant with her first). And my grandparents in Florida among others. I miss the days of getting together with all the extended family and having a blast with all the cousins. I miss college and seeing my friends all the time and all our crazy adventures. This time of year makes me more aware of all that.

Which is part of the reason why I'm starting this blog. A couple of my friends have a blog, and having my own will make me more diligent about checking theirs and keeping in touch. At least until a trip in person can be made!

Until then, I love and miss you all!