Cute videos from Vegas (Roxy's Diner)

Last week, at the start of a new treatment regime (intense antibiotics, among other things).  I took a trip with a friend.  I did well with the meds but was not as spunky as I've been for other recent travels (the week before that I flew out of state to see a lyme doctor). About a week and a half before that we took our family vacation (the sea lion photos a couple of posts ago).

Anyhow, these singers (at Roxy's Diner at the Stratosphere) were so great I had to film them.

Stand by me

Oh Darlin (duet)

Tremendous timing! Serendipitous seal sighting on Kauai

As Katie and I came back to our beach and snorkeling spot, having treked to bathrooms on the developed portion of the beach, a monk seal was settling in on shore.  Katie stayed to watch and I ran up to the car for my camera.  I got back as other tourists were heading over to see, but not all that many gathered and virtually all kept a respectful distance.  The boys came and joined us for a bit, too.

A very nice girl asked if I could help her with her camera, which had firmly decided to remain on a timer setting no matter what she tried.  Our cameras were just similar enough that I was able to fix it for her and felt quite proud and knowledgeable for a moment.  We chatted about sea turtles and states we'd both lived in and she hollared helpfully at the folks who stepped right over the seal.  One in particular was a complete turd, stopping right next to the seal to glare at her with an intimidating and arrogant sneer.  Another looked at her and went right up to it to take pictures.   People stink but seals are neat and if we'd tried to find one we'd have failed, so the timing was great.

8:48 pm, October 22....my third recovery

Me dancing at Cheryl and Miguel's reception,
photographed by my daughter

At that moment, a wave of certainty washed over me.  One big, invigorating, epiphany-style, see clearly through the CFS-fog wave.

I have little moments like this from time to time, but three moments so far (including this one, at a random moment during Cheryl's wedding reception) have brought monumental waves of certainty that I will be okay.

The first was watching the sea turtles the day we first saw them this June in Waikiki and the second was watching them roll in the waves at the same spot in September.  These moments are gripping, like the rays coming down from the top of a fancy cathedral and falling into the hands or onto the faces of statues of angels and saints when you are a twelve year old being raised catholic, or focusing on a rare species you are dying to see and having it cross your path just then.

Kids in Vegas Part 2 (video, photos, Christopher's hat, lion king tickets, and 3 mile goal)



Katie doing math by the pool



Monday was our first full day, and we sat through the time share gig, as planned, to earn 3 free lion king tickets.  It was still worth it, but of course it went long.  The kids were awesome for the first hour and a half of what was supposed to be a half hour (not that we ever thought it would be that short).  I did get a bit agitated with this one becasue my patience with subjective math is pretty short.  But its comical to watch them turn to Greg, as if he'd be more likely to accept their creative reaoning.  Trust me people, if I'm not buying what you're saying, you lost my husband a long time ago.

Our goal was to get to the Mandalay bay to book our seats and see as much as we could along the way.  It was a lot of fun zig zagging through the crowd and looking up at everything.  Christopher's hat disappeared in the Mandalay and he was pretty distraught until we (very luckily) found it.  The kids didn't know we where we were headed or why, and Katie couldn't stop trying to get me to spill the beans.  The video below shows her face when I finally told her.  They were pretty excited to have tickets to the Lion King for Christopher's birthday (Tuesday).

We're here.....Kids in Vegas Part 1 (video)

Sunday night we made it to Vegas.  The craziest part is how crazy it wasn't to get there.  We left our front porch at 11 am and were checking into our hotel by 5 pm.  Christopher cried when we landed because I mentioned that Vegas was in the desert and he didn't want to be in a desert for his birthday.  But now that he's seen the pool he is completely over it and back to being excited.

We packed what food we could and checked a regular sized suitcase and one of our carry ons instead of taking just carry ons.  In addition to saving money on food, it was nice to have less with us from plane to plane and it was nice to be able to protect my bridesmaids dress, which made it nicely to Vegas.

We signed up for a 30 minute time share schpiel in order to get 3 free lion king tickets and free breakfast.  It will save us at least $160 and let us see a show, which we would definitely not be able to do otherwise.

If you're reading this, I'm in Vegas

So, I'm "scheduling" to post this, knowing (hoping) I will soon be on planes to warm places.  So, if you are reading this, we are on our way or we are there.  First, we are scheduled to use timeshare points in Vegas, traveling for free with Greg's standby benefits (my husband works seasonally for an airline so we can travel).

We would love to be heading to Hawaii or somewhere a little more amazing, but I haven't been earning a paycheck (though I would sure like to be) so we have no money.  In Vegas we can take a free shuttle to the strip and see fun stuff and spend lots of time together at the pool.  We are even bringing food to save money.  Then to Cheryl's wedding!  But Cheryl, if you happen to read this, wedding expenses are covered...we pre-planned and covered that by alternate means months ago.  So any fretting about money in any blog post is an entirely seperate matter!

At the moment I have a huge pile of laundry to fold for packing.  And instead of brushing his teeth, Christopher (who will be six next week) is standing with his tooth brush in hand explaining that he only has bad dreams here, but never in hotels.  The house smells like sugar cookies that Greg is helping him cook to share at school, since we will be gone for his birthday.  Katie is spraweled amongst the laundray reading "American History Revisted," a giant bathroom reader of Greg's.

Update Sunday closer to departure....

I'm updating from the Kalispell airport with a few pictures, as our first flight looks pretty good.

Oahu underwater photos

These are what came of the underwater disposable camera my friend Jenni gave me in Oahu as part of my birthday gift.  I posted about the trip in this post, this post, this post, this post, *this post, this post, *this post, and this post.  This is Jenni snorkeling followed by fish we saw followed by the couple that helped me try to get my sunglasses back, followed by turtles.

On my way home after two more days of turtles

I'm in Salt Lake City, so my internet connection may not last long.  I have been up since 6 am Hawaii time Thursday morning.  Flight delays and full planes are making my return trip long.  I am hoping to get on to the late flight tonight (that is still six hours away) so I'm not stuck here overnight.

Another Montanan, Rose, got bumped with me for the first flight we tried off of Honolulu last night and we have been making and missing the same flights since then.  She's a fellow "non-rev" standby (her daughter works for Delta).  But she just departed for Helena, as she couldn't make it to Butte.  I had gotten out of traveling-by-myself mode.  She was neat and her daughter was born the same day as me. 

After Tuesday's awesomeness in regards to turtles, I was pretty happy, but even happier to get to hang out with them again on Wednesday.  I have pictures to put up that I am pretty excited about.

THEN, hanging out Thursday before my flight, the turtles were feeding by the pink hotel (where I saw them on my last Honolulu trip).  I still haven't met any locals who have seen them there.  I can't believe it happened again.  It was once again incredible.  But that'll be another post, too, starting with my sunglasses being at the bottom of the ocean and ending with me being at the bottom of the ocean.  There was a valiant but fruitless group effort toward recovery of the sunglasses and an Australian ready to save me from the Ocean but I was able to save myself.

If this post has no pictures, I had to run or lost internet, but I'm trying to put at least a couple up real quick.  I can't believe the last few days really happened.  I am very ready to see my kids.

There is a man at another computer table tapping his pen with tremendous force and constantly changing rythms.  It's too ridiculously aggravating to really be aggravated by....if a sitcom character were that annoying it would be too exaggerated to be believable.  I want to know what kind of pen he has that it can withstand that kind of force. 

Oh yay, now he's playing with the clicker thingy.  I think its time for me to go.

Turtle Doctor!

First of all, I made the check-in/welcome girl cry.  She asked lots and lots of questions I made a brief comment about seeing turtles.  She said she LOVED turtles, then teared up as she started to tell me about her baby tortoise.  Then she teared up more and more as she told about it getting attacked by a dog and having its shell cracked.  She called the Humane Society, who referred her to a turtle doctor across the island.  She rushed her turtle a very long way to see him, but there was nothing that could be done.  This was years ago but she was still very sad about her little turtle.

It's not likely I'll end up in that town, but I think if I do I am meant to at least look for the turtle doctor.  Maybe that's meant for another trip.  And maybe I'm just silly.  But it was interesting to learn there is 'turtle doctor' on the island.  He's got to have fascinating stories.

But here's the restaurant the baby toroise girl suggested, where you grill your own steak while watching waves and the sunset (this happens to be the restaurant we cut through before running into the turtles on our last trip).  We actually ate here on our first trip for breakfast.

More Turtles? We're in Waikiki!

We made it!

The standby passenger numbers for a flight from Seattle to Honolulu looked pretty good when we got to our gate, so I was brave enough to ask if Jenni and I could sit together if we got on.  They assured us we would definitely get on the flight, which was awesome to know in advance. Usually, flying standby we have to sit with white knuckles waiting until the last second to see for sure whether or not we'll make it onto a given flight.

So, not only did we get to sit together, but we were in FIRST CLASS!  First class to Salt Lake was fun, but first class to Honolulu was amazing!!! The seats were huge and the offered water and drinks and snacks constantly.  I didn't have time to finish my mai tai before they had to come and get the glass, but that was OK.  I ate a million biscoti (no dairy!) and it was such a fun flight.

This is the view from our room (later we'll be moving to a hotel closer to the "turtle" part of the beach).

So far, we swam and sat in the sun.  The best way to get as much sand in your suit and shorts as will possibly fit is to sit in the sand right at the edge of the waves and get hit by a few really big ones.  My shorts were so full I could barely stand up.  It was amazingly relaxing.

More turtles? Update

Made to Salt Lake unscathed.  Should make Seattle flight, too. 

Honolulu numbers:  42 seats unsold, I am number 3, Jenni is number 10

Talked too much about work with my cool seat mate.  He is active with the 4 wheeling community on my forest but on a different district.  I don't know his name and I'm not worried about it....I'm not working on any projects in that area and I can talk to people if I dang well please, and they are not paying me right now anyway (this little side rant has to do with my work situation with the Forest Service).

I do miss my job.  And I DO NEED (another) break from thinking about my work situation.  I don't think I've mentioned here that it sometimes hurts to look at the beautiful mountain view from my living room, because every place I can see is connected to something awesome I would be doing this time of year, or something I would be trying to find out during field season.  So traveling really helps me cope with both being sick and (sadly and unfairly) losing my job.

Feeling pretty good so far.  Have that CFIDS "flu" feeling, but I think it was worse than this by this time of day when I traveled in June.   I should probably caffienate soon.  No problems with my ears on the flight (even on the Bell's palsy side).

As a side note, I think non-drowsy dramamine helps with my CFIDS symptoms, which is something I noticed last fall when traveling before even being fully diagnosed.  I wonder why that would be, but it has been pretty (maybe entirely) consistent for me.

More Turtles? More Hawaii? PLEASE CROSS YOUR FINGERS FOR ME TODAY!!!!

First of all, sitting in an airport with a laptop makes me feel pretty sophisticated.  My clothes, not so much.  Though for me, they're more so than usual. I could be wearing my nicer shoes, but they're not as comfortable, so they're packed.

Anyway,  I'm headed to Seattle to spend some time with my  very, very good friend Jenni.  She's in thesis-writing mode, so I'm sooo happy to be catching her in break mode.  And happy that she has a husband who nudged her into break mode.  That makes me smile.

I'm about to start the first leg of my flight (hopefully) from Kalispell to Salt Lake to Seattle.  I fly standby through my husband's summer airport job (he's also a firefighter/paramedic full time year-round), so I never know for sure until a plane leaves whether or not I'll be getting on each plane. 

Jenni and I are listed on a flight tonight from Seattle to Honolulu.  This is our first time using a "buddy pass".  I am 2nd in line for 42 unsold seats and she is 9th in line.  If we don't make our first try, we won't be going, since she has time constraints and we don't want to get stuck anywhere.  Things can change minutes before a flight, so 42 seats can change very quickly.  We won't know until the last second whether or not we will get on.

When we get there, we have help from a friend/acquaintance in scrambling for a hotel room.  Then we have a condo for 2 nights!  Although if we don't make it, we lose the condo nights (paid for a long time ago, no knowing I would lose my job).  Jenny also loses the transfer fee she will have to pay to change her return ticket.

I love having a friend adventurous enough to try this with me. 

PLEASE KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED FOR US!!!!

They are starting to make announcements for my flight, so I'm done for now....if I don't get on this first leg I'm sunk, but I'm 2nd in line for 4 seats, so I should be OK.  I had to come in with Greg at 4:30 when his (last for the year) shift started, and its now almost 7 am.  Hope he can come in and say hi, or maybe a goodbye kiss plane side....he's so cute in his uniform.

It's so weird not traveling with the kids!