My gift!

So I finally did it. I'm tired of wanting one and talking about it so today I went to the Nissan dealership and bought myself a truck. A Nissan Frontier to be exact. Even in the color I wanted! And no, its not black, but close. Here it is! Say goodbye to the family car and awesome gas mileage!

Still Remembering

Toward the end of July, I was talked into bumming a ride back to Montana with 3 little kids and a newborn. A few hours into the ride I was able to take a nap, but a few hours later, I vowed to never again bum a ride from a growing little family! It wasn't all bad, and it was nice not having to drive by myself, plus sometimes the kids would say some pretty funny things.

When we got home, I requested to sleep in the suburban instead of the couch or on the floor in the basement. At first I think mom and dad were a little worried about me not wanting to sleep around the family, but after the first couple of nights in the suburban, family members were begging to trade me spots so they could get a good nights rest. Lucky me! It was also refreshing to be able to wake up in the middle of the night and see the big starry Montana sky. You know you're in Montana when you can see the shape of the Milky Way.

My best memory of being at home for the family reunion was either playing with matches and lighting off all the illegal Wyoming fireworks and scaring the kids to death, or fishing with grandpa Heagy on the Diversion Dam Reservoir. Being able to be in grandpas canoe, trolling with the little electric motor and catching little trout him was one I'll always remember and want more of. The water was so calm. The fish were jumping everywhere. A few drops of rain would hit the calm water. It was so quiet you could hear the canoe cutting through the water. I always started smiling when grandpa would hook a little trout and then started to do his excited laugh and giggle. I hope we get to do that again sometime soon!

About a week later, I hopped on a red-eye flight to New York City. I wasn't feeling well when I left and I probably felt worse when I arrived. I may have had the swine flu, and then added on air sickness when Brooke and Jared picked me up. They were living on Long Island, so I thought it would be a quick ten minute drive to their apartment. After 15 minutes I asked how much longer it would be. To my suprise, Jared responded with, "a good 40 minutes!" Little did I know that Long Island was so BIG. I thought it was only about 7 or 8 miles long and a few miles wide. Nope! Near 118 miles long and almost 23 miles wide.

After I recooperated a while, Brooke and I hit the Yankee game and enjoyed the professional baseball atmosphere. However, we didn't want to miss the train and have to deal with the thousands of fans so we left a little early. I think that's what the Yankees wanted, because as soon as we left they hit a huge homer and also scored a few more runs.

Brooke and I hung out for a few days on Long Island, and even went to the beach on a cold day! It was cold almost the whole week but I thought it was a good time to be in a city of solid asphalt. A couple days later we made it back to the city and took a tour bus to see all the popular sites, even the "Soup Nazi" restaurant from Seinfeld. There is so much to see, but so many people, its claustrophia city! An artist in the park offered to draw Brooke and I in a cartoon picture so here it is. Look at those pointy ears!

The final day I was in New York, the weather finally turned warm and Brooke and I went to the beach. I had never been to an ocean beach where the water was actually warm enough to actually jump in. Yes, the water was borderline filthy and you came out with a sticky, smelly, coating on, but it was fun playing in the waves and trying to pick up sea shells with your toes. Plus, the thousands of people on the beach was interesting!

Re-Cap

This last summer was an awesome one! During my 4th quarter health class last year, I was having the students decide on goals they wanted to work on and eventually accomplish during the 9 week quarter. After all the students had decided on a goal, they also encouraged me to make a goal as well. I couldn't come up with one that I could accomplish during the quarter but I told the students I would travel to the 4 corners of the United States; Washington, California, New York, Florida.


My Journey started as I left Montana and headed to the old mission stomping grounds. I spent a few days there seeing a few favorite sites as well as a few families I've kept in contact with. From there I went south to Darcy and Perry's. This was a new experience for me as I had never been to Oregon before. Darcy enjoyed showing me all the fun things to do and see in Newport including a few coveted beaches, a shopping mall, and her massive back yard and shelter.
It was fun to see her little ones running around, playing outside and begging to be fed all the time! lol

I think my favorite parts of Oregon were the cold misty nights out on the trampoline and crabbing ith Perry. It was a litte creepy at times on the trampoline with so many trees and the fog but I kept reminding myself that all the wolves were back in Montana and Wyoming! My other favorite part was crabbing on the 4th of July with the whole family. Perry and I got started with baiting the nets up with turkey and chicken legs. I have to say that we were the only ones who were pulling up tons and tons of crab. Lots of keepers too. Turkey legs are the key to a successful day of crabbing!

After we lit off fireworks and scared all the kids to death, I headed south on the west coast highway. Highway 1! Just a little ways south of Newport is the Sea Lion Cave. There were quite a few sea lions but what amazed me was how rough the water was and how big the waves were crashing on the surrounding cliffs. During the drive the only thing I remember was how curvy and slow going the road was! It took me almost all day to go a couple hundred miles south to the Giant Redwood forest in California. All I have to say about that is.... the trees are GINORMOUS!! So there I was in the northern part of California. Two locations done on my goal sheet, two to go.

I spent the night in Susanville, CA about 80 miles west of Reno in some crappy hotel for a ridiculous price. When I left in the morning and reached Reno, I saw signs boasting cheap hotel rooms at a fancy resort, so I decided to stay. It was well worth it!

As soon as I unpacked my things I came down to the casino and put $100 on black! Winner! So I decided to walk away and down to the pool area. It was an amazing pool with lots of great scenery just like the Giant Redwoods, GINORMOUS! haha because I had won a little money that day, I got a big discount on the Prime Rib Buffet, $7.49. After I pigged out I didn't have a whole lot to do, so I walked around the casino and found an open Texas Hold em tournament with a 50 dollar entry fee. I thought it would be a good way to spend a couple hours having fun and not losing a whole bunch of money. Little did I know, that my table nickname was going to be the eliminator! At the first table of ten I eliminated all 5 of the 10. At the second table I eliminated 4 more. At the final table, I eliminated 2 others and took 5th place out of 40 contestants. Too bad it didn't pay, but that's pretty good for a first timer! The bad thing was everyone at the tables could tell it was my first time! Thanks grandma and grandpa for teaching me to play cards at such a young age!