Just One Reason I Might Be a Spinster...

Because seriously, what guy wants to wake up to this in the morning? Yup, that's me. Just seconds after waking up a few days ago. Every once in awhile I somehow create these masterpieces while I sleep. I know...amazing. I don't know how I do it but it just happens occasionally. I guess my creative genius only shows itself in my sleep, but subconscious in your sleep creative genius is better than none at all. My friend Julia promised me that if I would document my crazy morning hair and blog it that she would stop being a big blog leech and would start leaving comments. See what I have to do to get leeches to comment? I have to put humiliating, no makeup, no shower, pictures on my blog. Oh well, anything for a comment. So here's a picture of the right side of my head...

and one of the left...which was even more amazing/disgusting than the right side.

So somehow in my sleep my hair formed itself into a perfect mohawk. My friends think that since my hair can form such a great mohawk that I should dye my hair black, pierce my nose and eyebrow, paint a fake tear coming out of my eye, and go goth for Halloween. I'm not so sure about that. I'd hate to stain my pillowcase. Anyway, I'm sure you're all wondering, Did you go to bed with your hair wet? Did you have more product on your hair than usual? Are you sure you didn't just form your hair into a mohawk using massive amounts of hairspray? And the answers to those questions are no, no, no. My hair was just how it normally is when I went to bed and I woke up like that. So, I remember one time a long time ago seeing an Oprah about this lady whose husband had never seen her without makeup and without her hair done and they'd been married like 20 years or something. She would just get up early in the morning and shower and get ready before he could see her in all her ugliness. So she went on Oprah and Oprah brought her husband on the show and the lady came on the show without her hair done and with no makeup and her husband didn't stop loving her and so the lady was all liberated, etc., etc. So, that's probably what I'll do. If I ever get married I'll just get up early in the morning and get ready before my husband is awake and then he'll never see how amazingly disgusting my hair is in the morning, until one day years later, I'll go on the Oprah show and she'll set me free. I'm guessing that's how things will be anyway. Unless I marry some secret unrelated to me bachelor blog leech and then he will already know and accept the truth about me. Well, we'll see how things pan out.

Dear MOM and Dad, don't read this post. Love, Becca

I miss my parents. A lot. Today I was organizing some photos and came across this one from a little over a year ago at the airport before my parents left. Seeing the picture made me kind of sad. Three years seems like a really long time. But really it has gone and will go quickly. My parents are just 2 and half months short of halfway. I think I'm going to start counting the mission time like my dad does...he rounds up. So, since they are past the one year mark, really, in his mind (and now mine) they are done with 2 years. It just seems better that way. I know that for any active LDS family, having your parents leave for awhile to go and serve is inevitable. I know I'm not the only one. I shouldn't whine. And, some people don't even have parents or have nasty mean parents that wouldn't be missed. So, I guess I should consider myself lucky that I have parents who are missed. And I know you're probably thinking, "Becca, you've been to Brazil three times since your parents left 15 months ago...the longest amount of time you've gone without seeing them is 6 months...stop being a big baby." I know, I know. But it is the little everyday things I miss.

• Being in the same time zone.
• Shopping with Mil. (I miss shopping with my mom, not shopping in general as I really don't like shopping.)
• Being home, looking in my parents' fridge, thinking they have no food, only to have my mom come home and whip up a masterpiece out of nothing and then getting to eat that masterpiece.
• Going back to my dad's office to catch him watching "Cinderella Man" on his tiny little TV for the 5th time that week while "working."
• Having it cost 40 dollars for gas to drive up to Idaho to visit the parents rather than a 1000 dollar plane ticket plus a 200 dollar visa.
• Whomping. (What my mom calls it when my dad and brothers start wrestling each other.)
• Not having it not matter where I spend the holidays.
• Seeing my dad's sheep grazing on the hill. (They are at a sheep babysitter right now.)
• Things just being normal. Or as normal as they get with my family.

I guess what got me thinking about all of this is that last week my mom almost got to come to SLC for a few days to bring a sick sister missionary home for surgery. I wouldn't have been in SLC anyway, since I was in Panama at the time, but it just got me thinking of how fun it would have been to meet her at the airport, take her to Cuccina Toscana where we'd spit an order of gnocchis with arabiatta sauce followed by a desert of molten lava cake, and then take her shopping, where she would probably go CRAZY at the prospect of being able to once again buy American clothing and food. So, secretly in my evil heart, I hope another sister gets sick. Just kidding. Okay, maybe kind of not. Well, maybe instead of someone having to get ill one of my brothers will get married and then at least my mom (but sadly not my dad) could come home for the wedding. There's always hope. Anyway, sorry for the WHINING. I'm going to stop now. But let me just promise all of you readers out there, whose parents haven't left yet...you will want to whine. So, don't judge me too harshly now, lest I judge you right back. Done.

ME = STUPID

Me. Sweaty. Humid. No shower. Don't judge.

Yes. That's a semi-permanent tattoo. And yes, it is on my face. Actually on my nose, the part of my face that sticks out for everyone to see. Yes, I might be just a little bit stupid. But before you judge me too harshly let me tell you how it happened, and neither alcohol nor roofies were involved. Just my own lack of judgement. So, last week I was in Panama (don't worry I will blog about the whole trip in DETAIL later). We were in Kuna Yala, an area of Panama where the Kuna Indians live. We were staying in the village of Irgandi, part of San Blas, for those of you who know your Panamanian geography. Oh, and I should mention that they don't speak Spanish in Irgandi. They speak Kuna or Tule or Dule or Tulegaya or Dulegaya, depending on who you ask. It is all the same language, it just has many names. And it isn't at all related to Spanish. It is a Native American language and basically sounds like "boogidy boogidy boo" over and over when they speak. I'm sure it makes sense to them though. So one day my new found friend Whitney and I were walking in the village and we passed a group of women all congregating outside one of the huts. One of the women looked at me and said, "igi be nuga?" Which I got mixed up with the word "nuedi" which means hello/goodbye, like aloha. So I waved and put on a big cheesy smile and said "igi be nuga" back. Unfortunately however, "igi be nuga" does not mean "hello" but instead means "what is your name?" So basically this lady said to me, "what is your name?" and I smiled and waved and said "what is your name?" right back to her. Oops. Well, that got the women laughing and so we stopped to "talk" using sign-language, body-language, a little Spanish, and the few Kuna words Whitney and I knew. And we found out the reason that they were congregating in front of the hut. They were painting each other's noses, as is normal to do in Kuna Yala. And they asked us if we wanted our noses painted too. I thought, can't hurt, right? I should fully immerse myself in the culture I guess. So, we said yes. I sat down and one of the ladies started painting my nose. They do lots of different designs on their noses but it usually consists of a long line down the bridge of the nose and then smaller lines crossing that line. Sometimes they paint little asterisk or star looking things that are super cute. The lady painting my nose however COULD NOT STOP LAUGHING (which I didn't understand why until later.) So she was a little shaky to say the least and so her mom came over and grabbed the brush and took over. The mom however was a little old and therefore shaky too, so the neighbor lady comes by, and disapproving of their work, grabs the brush and finishes painting my nose. I'm not sure what they were using to paint us but they had these little medicine man type bowls and were adding a black powder to the mixture. I just thought the powder was ash and thought to myself, 'Well, this isn't going to last long on my nose. Especially with how humid it is and how much I'm sweating. It will be fun for the few hours it lasts.' Well, I was WRONG because as soon as Whitney and I met up with the rest of our group, one of our group members who had been to Kuna Yala several times before informed us that what was "painted" on our noses was more like a tattoo than paint and would probably last 3 to 4 weeks. Ahhhhhhhhhhh! It would have been one thing if the ladies had done a good, non shaky job, and I had some cool little star looking thing on my nose, but instead it looked like an evil kindergartner had gotten a hold of a black sharpie and done some work on me while I was asleep. I instantly grabbed a cotton ball and some astringent and went to work on shortening the lifespan of my tattoo. And, the black did fade a bit after a good scrub with astringent. But, a few hours later, the black resurfaced, darker than ever. However, I persisted and, thanks to half a bottle of astringent, the sun, salt water from swimming in the ocean, sweat, humidity, and sunscreen, what was mean to last 3 to 4 weeks only ended up lasting 3 to 4 days. Yay! So, in conclusion, the lesson learned here is... Don't let a Kuna paint your nose, especially if they are laughing in the process. The end. But more to come soon on my adventure in Panama.

And the next Nobel Peace Prize goes to...

Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Because tomorrow I'm on my way to Panama to work to "strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

And, I'm even not taking a hairdryer. Me. Going a week without a shower or a hairdryer. That's prize worthy in and of itself.

me. saving you money.

This is a Public Service Announcement. I'm going to save you money. No, I'm not going to tell you about some great rebates or how you can cut out or print off a million different coupons and then add them all together and use them to save you tons of money which almost offsets the money you spend on paper and print cartridges to print all your coupons, the gas you burn driving to 10 different stores to do your shopping, and all the stamps you use to send in rebates. (No offense couponers. I'm actually a little jealous of your skills.) Instead, I'm just going to tell you how I've wasted money lately and try to warn you not to do the same. Money waster #1... Let me just say that if you were at all considering going to the theater to see "The Invention of Lying," DON'T. Just trust me on this one. I went to see it on opening night. It looked super funny. The previews looked funny. The idea of the story is super funny. And, I usually love Ricky Gervais. Jennifer Garner usually doesn't bother me too bad. I love Tina Fey (especially in 30 Rock). And besides those three actors who I like, there were a couple of my favorite Arrested Development actors playing small parts in the movie. So I thought 'this movie is going to be super.' But it wasn't. And it made me a little sad because it had so much potential. Great actors and a really funny idea. But it was stupid, kind of crude, and pretty sacrilegious. And I'm not just saying that because it was just Conference Weekend and I'm all spiritual right now. And the movie was kind of sad too because sometimes the truth is harsh and I think we need a few little lies to make the world a nicer place. Does that make me evil? Hopefully not. I mean, honestly, what if everybody went around all the time telling each other "you're fat and stupid"? And I'm not just talking about your brother telling you that when you're home fighting while your mom is at the grocery store on Saturday afternoon. I'm talking about people being completely blunt and mean all the time. Because really, the truth can be pretty cruel. So I'd rather live in the land of not being brutally honest all of the time. The movie made me kind of sad because I thought to myself, 'we humans are kind of jerks when we really say what we think.' Anyway, I'm just telling you, don't waste your time or money. I promise. I don't think Lee, Kim, or Ty really liked it either so there are 4 thumbs down for you to consider. Now I've saved you: 8 dollars if you are single, 16 dollars if you are married, and even more money if you live in New York, L.A., London, or Idaho Falls, ID where it costs more than 8 dollars to see a movie. And, if you are the type who has to have your popcorn and soda, well then I guess I've saved you even more. You can thank me later.

Now on to money waster #2... TURKEY SAUSAGE. So, those who know me well know that when it comes to meat I'm pretty picky. I don't like pepperoni, salami, bacon, sausage, hamburger (unless it is the SUPER lean kind and now that I've been reading book about Prion diseases I'm not sure I like hamburger at all anymore), or any other meat where you can see, feel or taste the actual fat. Even with chicken I have to trim off every bit of fat, tendons, blood vessels and other non-meat parts. It takes me FOREVER to cook anything with meat in it because of my meataphobia. But I do like the flavor of bacon and sausage at least. So my roommate had this yummy looking recipe for soup that has sausage, orzo, spinach, etc. in it. And since it is now freezing cold here I decided to make it while I was sort of listening to conference on Saturday. And I used turkey sausage. And it was sick. The sausage was a good brand, wasn't past date, and everything, but it just had a weird herb or spice flavor in it that sort of made me gag. So, after I made up this whole pot of soup and decided that it was the turkey sausage that was sick and not the soup, I pulled all of the sausage out of the soup and threw it away. And saved the soup in honor of my mother and my gma Fern who never throw food away. So now I have a big pot of sausage, spinach, orzo soup minus the sausage. It isn't half bad really. Oh, and also, you'd think turkey sausage would be all lean and nice but there were still chunks of fat and miscellaneous things that I had to pick out before cooking. So, my money saving tip is not to buy turkey sausage. It is sick. But that is just my opinion.

So, now that you've saved all this money because of my two warnings you're probably asking yourselves, 'What am I going to do with all this extra money?' Well, let me tell you.

I've started selling MaryKay cosmetics and I'd like to have a party at your house and, using social pressures, force-sell you and all your friends some makeup. Just kidding. Oh, and if any of you are MaryKay reps, no offense, eh? But please don't ever ask me to host a party. Especially if you are going to make my guests chant "MARY KAY ROCKS!" which I was honestly asked to chant once at a MaryKay party that my mom MADE me go to. It was horrible and I'm not quite sure I've forgiven my mom for that one just yet. No, no Mary Kay, Amway, or Scentsy. This opportunity is a feel good, warm, fuzzy, donation that won't benefit anyone financially. I'm gathering children's books to donate to two different causes, one in Ethiopia and the other in Panama. And I thought to myself, 'hey, I think that like 99.9% of my blog readers are married mommies. They should know a thing or two about children's books.' The books we are trying to gather can be new or nicely used (like probably if you have 16 OOC kids, your books won't be nicely used). We need Spanish or Spanish/English books for a library that is being built for the Kuna Indians in Kuna Yala, Panama. Which I guess would have to be new unless any of you have kids that hablar espanol or if you are tight with any Hispanics who you can hit up for books. (Oh, and if you click on the link to find out more about Kuna Yala, don't be afraid. These people aren't Nazis. They just happen to have a swastika on their flag. But I promise, they are nice people.) And we need the English books for the High Risk Children's Center (aka: Orphanage) at the Village of Hope in Ethiopia. So, if your kids are all grown up, or if you've finally accepted the fact that your kids are more into video games than books, you can send your old books my way and I'll make sure they get to people who need them. So, in conclusion, if you have a bunch of children's books that aren't being used, if you know of someone who does, or if you are just feeling super generous and giving during this Halloween season and want to either go online and buy some books (especially Spanish books) or donate money for us to purchase books with, then that would be much appreciated. Oh, and any donations of money will be TAX DEDUCTIBLE. Yay! Keep the $$$ out of Barack's hands. And this will be sort of be an ongoing project for the next year, so if you have books to give but just don't want to take the time to find them all right now, or have money to give but want it to be from your 2010 taxes instead, then that's A-okay. And since I'm not into using social pressures to encourage people to do good, if you want to participate in this little project, you can either: 1) Leave me a comment and I'll contact you with more details or, better yet 2) Go to the "Email me" button on the right side of my blog page and let me know that you want to help. If the button won't work for some reason, just email me at beccalasolterona @ gmail.com. Oh, and don't get worried if I don't email you right back. I'm going to Panama this weekend and won't have Internet access for a week. And then, after you are done emailing me you can go back and leave me a comment anyway. Because, as you all know, I LOVE comments. But, no pressure to participate. Only if you want to. I hate pressuring people and I hate being pressured. Remember that Mary Kay party my mom made me go to? Yeah, I hated that. I'll leave you with three final words that you can repeat out loud with me, if you'd like... MARY KAY ROCKS!

Hi, my name is Pete, Part II: Pirate Style

Today I was driving down Highland Drive in SLC when this big white suburban-type vehicle passed me. On the back of their windshield, instead of having a happy little set of "family car stickers," as I blogged about last month in the post, "Hi, my name is Pete," this family had...

SKULLS.

That's right, a set of skulls on the back of their vehicle. My picture isn't of the greatest quality as it was taken while I was driving and through my dirty windshield, but I think you can still see the nice little family of skulls. It looks like there's a daddy and mommy skull and two little kid skulls, girl kid skull and boy kid skull. (If you can't see it the mommy and daughter skull have little pink bows on their bare skull heads.) Too bad they didn't have a little skull cat and a little skull dog. That would have been cool.

I was too busy taking the picture and trying not to get in a wreck to notice what kind of family was inside this vehicle. Really, I am curious to know what kind of people have skull versions of the family car window stickers.

Are they sarcastically making fun of people with the normal family car window stickers?

Are they just really into pirates?

Are they warning others that their family is poisonous or dangerous?

Are they fascinated with death?

Are they just super cool and in style with their skulls and crossbones?

Are they weird?

Or, are the stickers representing not their family that might be riding in that car, but deceased relatives?

Who knows?

Anyway, as another update, apparently the people who sell these family car window stickers do not want people like me mocking their industry by putting a single girl sticker on my car with Spinster written underneath. I know this because Lee and Kim told me today that they tried to buy me just a single woman sticker at the Blackfoot fair last month and they were told that you can only buy the stickers as a family set.

Now why would a single person, who wants to join in the family car sticker fun, have to buy the whole set? That is so racist against single people! I hope their family car sticker business doesn't make it through the recession. Because really, when things are tight and people are choosing between stickers for their cars or a brick of cheese to feed their starving children, I'm guessing they'll buy the brick of cheese. And cheese is not cheap according to my brother Tyler. (Sorry, inside joke.)

Anyway, lest I get a million comments about it, I do realize that single is not a race. But there isn't really a good word to describe the unequal treatment of single people. We need a word...you know, like racist or sexist, but for single people. If any of you can come up with a good one I'll give you a dollar.

That's all for now.

The Beginning of the End or the End of the Beginning...which is it?

I am completely frustrated with my biostatistics homework right now. Therefore, I blog. After this post I'll be all caught up on my summer adventures and ready for more adventures or ready to blog about nothing. So here we go... You know those dates in history when people predict that the world is going to end? Like when the Aztec, Incan, or Mayan calendars end? Or, just when some crazy guy says that the world is going to end? I remember that 9/9/99 was supposed to be the end. And then it was 12/31/99. And now it is 12/21/12 or something. Lots of those days have come and gone but so far, we're all still here. 08/14/2009 was supposed to be the end for me. Not the end of my life, but the end of my single life. I remember when I was at BYU that was the date that my roommate Cindy and I decided that it would be okay for me to give up the idea of ever getting married. 30 years old. Sooooooooooooo old. Surely we'd give up if we made it to that point alone. So we made little cards with our names on them and then the date of our 30th birthdays. Underneath that was the name of a handicapped kid we went to high school with. I know, that is horrible. It wasn't meant to be. It actually should have been a compliment to the kid because the card signified that if I wasn't married by 08/14/09 that it was okay to completely give up and just plan on marrying that certain handicapped kid in the next life. Hopefully he'd want to marry me too. I'm pretty sure that we either made these little "end of our world" cards really late at night, or right after finals week or maybe after one or the other of us had just gotten dumped and we weren't really being too rational. I hope so, because it sounds kind of crazy. I actually still have that little card. I came across it a few months ago when I was going through some old boxes of junk. And I thought, 'Oh, yeah, I can give up now,' which should have brought me peace and comfort but didn't. Because, what if I'm not ready to give up? What if I scheduled the end of my world for 08/14/2009 but now I want to move that date back a bit? I never would have thought I'd be an "older" single person. I mean, who would think that or plan for that? Nobody wants to spend life alone. You don't hear "I want to be a Spinster when I grow up," very often, if ever. I don't think that any of us go into life expecting to NOT have things turn out the way we want them to or they way that we think that they should be or have been taught that they should be. Recently I was talking with a little 12 year old that I know. She's at that age when kids are just like "chatter, chatter, chatter." She was telling me all about a book she was writing and how when she's older that she either wants to be a writer or a veterinarian. But that her dad said that she shouldn't be a veterinarian, but that she should marry a veterinarian because her dad doesn't want her to have to work. I didn't tell her this (because I'm not going to tell a kid that their dad doesn't know what he's talking about), but I thought to myself, 'Honey, your dad is wrong, dead wrong. There aren't any guarantees to life. You should get all the education that you can and then if you have to give up your career to raise your family, fantastic, but PREPARE FOR A CAREER. Not just a job, but a CAREER. Something you are good at and love doing and could see yourself doing for the rest of your life. Because, just because you want to get married and be a stay at home mom, doesn't mean you will. Or you might get married but then your husband might get sick or die or lose his job. Life doesn't come with a certificate promising you that things will be perfect and as expected.' Why didn't someone tell me that when I was twelve? I wish they would have. I would if I could. And that, folks, is why I'm pretty sure I'll never be called to be a Young Women's leader. (Yay, no girls' camp!) Because, although of course I would teach all those wonderful idealistic lessons in the manual, I would also have a lesson at the end called "Plan B: Planning for the unplanned," or something like that and tell the girls the truth about how life turns out for some of us...even when we try to do everything just right. But anyway, the end of my world came and went. Just like dates that crazies predict. They come and go, and life goes on. Besides, if all of our lives turned out "perfectly" then things would be pretty boring I think. We'd all just be a bunch of skinny, tan, piano playing, married ladies with perfect kids and perfect husbands and then who would want to read our blogs? There are enough of those out there anyway. B O R I N G. So, if you haven't already guessed it, this post is about my 30th birthday. And I just have to say, lest any of you judge me as crazy, I think that turning 30 as a barren spinster is a lot different, even harder perhaps, than just turning 30 as a "normal" person. It should be less traumatic anyway for "normal" people. So, don't judge me for hating being 30. So, I was kind of stressing about what to do for my birthday. My travel plans to Sweden fell through a few days before my birthday. I was in Idaho. My brothers and Kim were all going to be out of town on my birthday. My grandma was scheduled to be working at the temple that day. So, basically I was going to be spending my 30th ALONE. So, I figured that if I had to be alone on my birthday that I at least didn't want to be alone in my grandma's basement in Idaho. So, I decided that to celebrate growing old, I'd head over to the Redwood National Forrest and see some trees that are older than me, way older. I'd always wanted to see the Redwood Forrest and somehow when I was younger we could just never squeeze it in, between going to gopher museums, gun museums, old prisons, and old brothels, on our family vacations. The day before my birthday I got up and was getting things packed up to leave when my grandma decided to forgo her responsibilities for the coming week, and, on the spur of the moment, gathered her things and came with me. I think she thought that if somebody didn't come with me that I might "Thelma and Louise it" off a cliff or something.

But, just for the record, I wouldn't have. It was still fun to take a little spontaneous trip with my grandma...even if she did forget her toothbrush and about the 9 Chinese people that we're planning on staying at her house later that week. Oops. I guess I didn't give her enough time to plan/pack!

Later that week my mom wrote me an email titled "To Thelma and Louise," which said,

"Have you even heard of the show, Thelma and Louise? That is what I have been calling you and Gma. I have never seen the whole show. It was R. I saw part of it on TV once. It is two women going on a road trip in a convertible. I think they might have been running from the law or something. Back in the day it was sort of famous."

To which I replied...

"I'm pretty sure that Thelma and Louise commit suicide at the end of the movie, so hopefully we won't be too much like them. Thanks for the birthday wish. Have a good one. Becca"

And luckily we didn't drive off any cliffs even though the road from ID to the Redwoods was long and winding.

Anyway, here's a picture of some of the beautiful redwoods. I was amazed at how amazing they were. Those huge trees are just awe inspiring. I want to go back sometime with more time and better gear for hiking. The California coast near the Redwood Forrest. I actually really like northern California.

And I got to drive my car through a living tree...a life-long dream of mine for some weird reason.

My grandma, the navigator...

and the tree-hugger. I'd better not let anyone who's on the Republican Women's Committee with my grandma see this picture.

So after the the Redwoods we headed up the coast to Seattle to visit my aunt and uncle who are on a mission there. They are institute missionaries and we just happened to stop in during a school break at U-Dub, so they had a little time off and were able to take us on a little trip.

First we went to Orcas Island, which is part of the San Juans.

Here is the view from Orcas Island.

Here are me, my Aunt Jenny, and gma. I feel like such an Amazon around my grandma, so I was a bit slouchy. Here we are on Orcas Island, in front of the Moran State Park sign. I guess that Moran is close enough to moron that we thought it picture worthy. And speaking of morons, we kind of look like some. I think my grandma is doing the chicken dance or something, my aunt is looking out for cars, and I'm a big enough moron to just be standing in the middle of the road and not looking for cars.

Okay, that's better. At least we're all looking at the camera.

Still on Orcas. So beautiful and peaceful.

And then there was this little peninsula/island that Mike, Jenny, and I thought it would be a good idea to walk out to...just as the tide was coming up of course.

Someday I want a cute little house like this. Except instead of facing the ocean it will face a potato field or a feed lot.

My grandma thought that this sign was SO funny. And I thought it was SO funny that she thought it was SO funny. She couldn't stop giggling. (It was almost the same as after the "What in the H does X stand for?" incident, for those of you who know what I'm talking about.) After Orcas Island we headed to Victoria, B.C.

So, I did get to leave the country again this summer, even if it was just to Canada.

I loved Victoria. It is the kind of place I could call home.

We stayed overnight in Victoria and the next morning went to Butchart Gardens, which was super cool and gorgeous. We, thanks to my Uncle Mike, were the first ones there in the morning, so we even had the place to ourselves for the first 30 minutes or so before the busloads of Chinese people with bright matching hats started pouring in. (I don't know why the Chinese have come up in my last like 5 posts. Weird. I don't have anything against them, really. They are just everywhere.)

Here are part of the gardens. Someday when I'm rich I'm going to have a big fancy garden too.

Proof that I was there.

We spent the afternoon wandering around Victoria and watched a kind of dumb IMAX movie and then took the ferry back to Seattle that night. We had to take a BUNCH of ferries to get to the San Juan Islands, then up to Victoria, and then back to Seattle. I swear we took like 6 different ferries but I really can't remember.

But every time before you can drive your car up onto the ferry they sort of check your car to make sure that you aren't a terrorist, etc. They asked my uncle if he had any weapons in the car, and he said, "No, I don't. I'm just going to wait until we get on board and then I'll take one of the big axes off the wall and use that to raise havoc on the ferry."

Just kidding. He didn't really say that, but he wanted to. We all thought it was pretty funny that they had these man killing axes just hanging barely attached to the walls. So much for preventing terrorism.

We got back to Seattle and had a day just to hang out there. We toured the institute building and the U-Dub (University of Washington) campus. The Dub is for W, as in Washington. It took me awhile to get that, so I just thought I'd share that little bit of information with you all.

Then I went by myself on a little self guided tour via bus and foot of the Pike Place market, Chinatown, and even accidentally took a tour of the Pioneer Park of Seattle where all the homeless people live, which I believe is also really called Pioneer Park, just like Salt Lake's homeless hub. So, lesson learned here. If you don't want lots of homeless in your town, don't name a park Pioneer Park.

I love, love, loved Seattle. It was my first time there. But even before going there I always knew I loved Seattle and at one point in my life was even planning on moving there, without even seeing the place. And if I lived in Seattle I would be at Pike Place every weekend buying fresh flowers and fruits and veggies and just people watching.

So, if anyone knows of any good microbiology/public health jobs in Seattle, let me know and I'll probably still move there because I love Seattle. With or without the homeless people.

Here we are in front of the institute building.

We had such a great time in Seattle, Victoria, and the San Juans, so thanks to Jenny and Mike for letting us stay and driving us around everywhere and taking us to eat yummy Vietnamese food, etc. It was fun.

And thanks to my grandma for road-tripping with me. I had a good time.

And, 2300 miles on my car later, when I got home from my little week long 30th birthday bash adventure, I celebrated my birthday with my brothers and Kim by eating some yummy Baskin Robbins Pralines and Cream with chocolate cake birthday cake...a family tradition. Thanks Lee and Kim for buying the cake.

Lee did his best to get as much "lard frosting," as my family calls it, on the cake because my brothers love lard frosting. (Sorry dad to even mention lard frosting because I know that you love it too.) But apparently the girl at Baskin Robbins wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed because instead of lots of lard frosting we got lots of whipped cream and nasty, hard, red roses. How did she know that red roses were my favorite? Also, even though Lee told her his name about 10 times, she still had "Lee Beck" written on the slip when he picked up the cake. Oh well.

So, happy birthday to me. Really, the worst part was just turning 30. Being 30 isn't too bad.

So far.