Trip to Forks

And Port Angeles... and First Beach in La Push.

That's right. I'm one of those people that totally LOVES the Twilight series. Now, if you've only ever seen the movies I can understand why you don't get the craze. The first movie totally sucked. The second didn't totally suck, but it still wasn't that great. The third is better, but could be MUCH better.

But the books are awesome!

To give you the general idea, in case you haven't read the books or seen the movies. The Twilight series is about a seventeen year old girl, Bella, who moves from Phoenix Arizona to Forks WA to give her mom some space with her new husband. Bella doesn't like Forks, (she prefers sunny weather) but things get really interesting when she meets the Cullen family.

Edward Cullen, Bella's lab partner in her biology class, is beautiful, pale, and mysterious. Bella is quickly fascinated by him. One day when a van careens out of control on course to smash into Bella Edward amazingly saves her by stopping it with his bare hands.

Eventually a Quileute (local Native American) boy, Jacob Black, reveals to her that the Cullens are, according to their legends, cold ones, also known as vampires.

This knowledge doesn't stop Bella from falling in love with Edward. And eventually, after saving her life again from a gang of drunken men in a dark alley, Edward learns that she has figured out the truth about what he is. What follows is a long, intriguing story about Bella who desperately wants to become a vampire so she can be with Edward forever and Edward, also in love with Bella, believing that she should remain human and the greatest danger for her is to be involved in his world in any way.

So, when I went up to Washington I took a day trip to see the areas in which this story takes place. Here are some pictures from that trip!

When Edward takes Bella home from their first "date" he drives, at outrageous speeds, back to Forks down the 101. Here are some views of Lake Crescent from the 101 taken from the side of the road on my way to Forks.

When entering the town you are greeted by this sign:

When Bella graduates from high school her dad, Charlie, takes her to The Lodge for dinner before she goes to her graduation party at the Cullen's. Elijah and I had lunch at the candy shop right across the street.

Forks was getting ready to celebrate Quileute Days, as you might be able to read on this banner.

Elijah and I headed out to First Beach. This is where Bella learns from Jacob that Edward is a vampire. First beach is in La Push, the Quileute reservation.

On the way into La Push there is a sign warning the vampires to stay out. Long story short: the Quileutes turn into werewolves when vampires are around to kick vampire butt. But they made a treaty with the Cullens that if their coven stayed away they could coexist with the wolves without fighting. Hence the treaty line:

Some lovely views from First Beach.

Elijah playing on the beach.
 

Here's a good shot of the rocks on First Beach. They're all multi-colored but look gray from a distance.

 There is a lot of driftwood on the beach. In the story Bella and Jacob go for a walk and she sits on a large driftwood tree while he tells her stories about the cold ones.

After the beach Elijah and I visited the Forks chamber of commerce. There, we saw Bella's truck. The old, red, rusted Chevy her dad bought for her when she first moved to Forks.

In the chamber of commerce there's a note from Stephenie Meyer, the author of the books, to the people of Forks.

From there we visited the Swan residence. (Bella and Charlie Swan's house)

 

And then Forks High School, where Bella and Edward meet.

They're actually tearing down the school building, I'm not sure why, but there wasn't that much left of it when I got there.

It was starting to get kinda late in the day so we headed back to Port Angeles to have dinner at Bella Italia. This is the restaurant that Edward takes Bella to after he rescues her in the dark alley. She has mushroom ravioli and Coca Cola. So that's what I had.

The ravioli was very good! I only wish I could make it at home.

On the way out of town I got a snapshot of the Port Angeles movie theater. Throughout the stories Bella ends up at this theater a few times, once on an accidental "date" with both Jacob Black and Mike Newton, a boy from school who very much wants to be her boyfriend.

That about sums up our trip. I hope you enjoy!

Trip to Washington

The Davenport family reunion is held bi-annually over the fourth of July weekend. This year it was held in Seattle, so that meant a trip up to Washington with the little man. Traveling alone with a one-year-old on an airplane is a little tougher than you might think. I did manage to survive somehow.

We rented a car at the Sea-Tac airport and stayed with my in-laws. They have a nice place in the north of Poulsbo. Western WA is much nicer this time of year than 29 Palms, I have to say. When we left it was 110, when we landed it was about 65! Such a relief!

The family picnic was great. Elijah was a great hit and it was really nice to see folks I haven't seen in a really long time.

The next day we went on the Seattle Duck Boat tour. Our driver was really funny, we got crazy quacker whistles, and Elijah fell asleep halfway through the tour while we were floating around the lake.



While we were there Elijah and his grandpa Davenport went for walks in their yard every day.



Elijah got to see his first ever fireworks show. (We didn't see one last year)



Grandpa Davenport took Elijah "fishing" for the first time. Really it was more just a boat ride. But it was really cute.

We visited my mom and stepfather and went to the Point Defiance zoo. I don't have any pictures of that, my mom was the camera wielder there. We also went shopping and Elijah got to ride in one of those car-shaped strollers for the first time. He loved it!

When we got home Alice kitty gave us a very warm welcome. She didn't even mind it when Elijah body-slammed her. She's purring like crazy and kneading her paws in this picture:

A Really Good Phone Call

  I normally don't like answering the telephone if I don't recognize the number of the person calling. I'm always afraid it will be some awkward situation, like a wrong number or someone who knows me but who I can't remember at all. Or it could be an annoying caller, like a telemarketer, or someone begging for donations for one of the thousands of noble causes out there, or the census bureau. But, since I am supposed to be a responsible adult, I force myself to answer calls from random phone numbers, no matter how suspicious the area code might be. Sometimes I'm glad I do. A few days ago I got a call from a strange out-of-state number. When I returned the call I was pleasantly surprised that the person responded "Oh, hey Natalie! It's me, Leslee." Being in the military you never know what "state" your friends might be calling from. Or at least what state they were in when they got their cell phone numbers.
  Today I got a call from a really bizarre phone number. I was pretty sure that no one from the area code "808" would be calling me. I took a deep breath and answered, hesitantly...
 "Hello...?"
  There was a pause and I wondered if I was about to hear some automated message start playing.
  "Hey babe, it's me!"
  It was my husband! I hadn't heard from him in almost a week! He was calling from a satellite phone in some remote area of Afghanistan. Oh, it was so good to hear his voice. And Elijah hadn't gone down for his nap yet, so he got to hear daddy's voice, too. Not that he really understood what it all meant. We chatted a bit and he told me that they got the popcorn popper already. I put enough insurance on it that they must have put it high on their priority list. I asked him if they'd used it yet and he said they haven't. They're looking for a good place to put it before getting it all unpacked and set up. So the 3rd CEB guys have a popcorn popper now!
  We weren't able to get much of a conversation in. Satellite phones are notoriously unreliable. But it was a great relief to hear his voice and know that he was safe. The last thing he was telling me before the phone cut out was that he sent a late birthday card for Elijah and some sand from the desert over there.

A Walking Boy!

I'm sure most of you have already heard by now. Elijah has decided to start walking! I was a little shocked at how quickly it happened. One day he was cruising along and would take one or two steps. The next day he would take five or six steps before plopping down on his tushie. The day after that he was walking across the room! Is it really supposed to happen so fast? He still doesn't know how to pick himself up off of the floor when he falls. He crawls to the nearest object  to pull up to a stand.
 


Some update on toilet training the cat, too. We had a little backsliding, I believe I mentioned this in a previous post, but when I took her in for surgery and she came back all nauseated and loopy she had an accident in her cat bed which was on the carpet. The cat bed was not waterproof and I think some of the scent must have lingered in that spot. Since then she has periodically gone there instead of in the toilet. I deodorized the carpet and have a squirt bottle at the ready. But this morning when she started sniffing that spot and got "The Look" from me she ran off (knowing that a squirt was on the way) but didn't go to the toilet. She went to the baby's room! I gave her a proper scolding when I saw what she was doing. But that convinced me that it was time to take a few steps back in the training process. She was going in the toilet before, but with a thin training device that had some kitty litter around the edge. I'm adding more to that so the toilet is more like a litter box with a small hole in the center open to the water. Now I'll gradually make that hole bigger. Much slower than last time. Maybe I'll wait a week between each change to be positive she's accepting it. Pottying anywhere else is not acceptable.

That's all for now!

Manic Monday

Last Friday was the big Movie Night for all of us ladies for 3rd Combat Engineering Battalion. We watched Julie and Julia and tried out the giant popcorn machine.

The machine worked great and the popcorn was just like you get at the movie theater. I was almost ready to invite more friends over the weekend to try it out again (just to be really sure it works...) but when I went to clean the thing... I decided it would be best to just pack it up and ship it out. The main body of it isn't too hard to wipe down, but combine that with the kettle and the tools and the seed-collecting tray it's a bit of a chore.

Last night Elijah came down with something. He developed a fever and puked all over his sheets, all over his carpet, all over himself, all over me. Neither of us slept well last night. In fact it's hard to believe it was only last night that it started. It feels more like several days ago.

So I was exhausted and emotionally strained when I got up this morning and started packing up the popcorn popper to take to the post office. That took several hours to do. Elijah was still not feeling well and was being quite clingy. He wouldn't go down for a long nap like he usually does so I'm sure he was tired on top of feeling icky. So I worked in short little spurts whenever I got a minute or two reprieve from him.

It was about three in the afternoon when we finally got to the post office. I had a sick baby in a stroller, a very large 50 lb box, and a smaller but still heavy 20 lb. box of popcorn packets. I wasn't sure how I was going to get it all into the post office from my car at the same time but I was sure going to try.

Fortunately for us a very kind First Lieutenant saw me struggling with it all by my car and carried the big box in for me.

Everyone in the post office was in awe at the size of my box.

"Wow! Is that really a popcorn machine?" The lady in front of me asked. (There's a picture of it on the side of the box.)

"Yeah, I'm shipping it to my husband in Afghanistan. He's going to use it to make popcorn for all the guys for movie nights."

"Wow, that's awesome! I'm just sending my husband a toaster oven."

Meanwhile the postal worker behind the counter eyed me critically when I mentioned Afghanistan.
When I got the chance to request some customs forms he eyed the box and told me that there were size restrictions for sending things overseas via airmail and my box was too big.

My heart sank. I was crushed. After all that... After finding the perfect popper, spending an enormous amount of money on it, buying popcorn for it, waiting for it to arrive, arranging a movie night with all the ladies, cleaning and re-packing it, hauling it all the way to the post office with my sick baby, and now they weren't going to be able to send it!

"Really? I mean, isn't there some way? There has to be some way to send it, right?"

"Well, miss. It could possibly go via ground shipping. But that could take months to get it there and it would be very expensive."

"Really? How much are we talking about here?"

"We're talking about a lot of money. I can't imagine you would be willing to spend that much to send it."

I think he was underestimating how much I really didn't want to walk back out those doors with that box. At that point I was seriously thinking that I would spend a thousand dollars if it would just get that darn machine to Afghanistan.

He seemed to see the resolve in my expression and we started filling out paperwork and taking measurements. In the end it wasn't so bad. Yes it will take a couple months (possibly longer) for the popcorn popper to make it to my husband. But that's not much different than half the boxes that I've sent him so far. I sent him a care package a month ago via Priority Mail and that still hasn't gotten to him. It actually cost significantly less than the postal worker was expecting because for FPO APO addresses there is a discount. I don't remember exactly how much it was now, but I think it was around $60.

The packets of popcorn seeds and oil I'm going to re-package in free flat-rate boxes. It will be much cheaper to send them that way. Possibly free if I get them packed up quickly enough and send them tomorrow through our community Care Package Day event.

So that's (hopefully) the end of the popcorn machine story. I hope that I can soon report that it made it safely to the troops and is providing them with loads of tasty popcorn to munch on while they watch their manly movies.

Another great thing that happened today, the previews of Elijah's first birthday photo shoot are up on the photographer's website! They're wonderful and I can't wait to see them all!

Here's the site. Just scroll down to see some of Elijah's pictures.
Shannon Velloza Photography Blog

Birthday Party, Pictures, and More

Elijah's birthday party was on the 8th. It went pretty well, all things considered. I'm not really the best at being in charge of events. But the party got pulled together and the kids (and even the adults) seemed to have a good time. I ordered the decorations from a website and our local grocery store was able to draw an approximation of one of the cartoon characters from his decorations on his birthday cake. There were bubbles for the little guests to play with outside, there were snacks and drinks. The grown ups got to sit on the couch and chat. The cake was delicious. It had fresh strawberries and Bavarian cream in the middle. (I'd asked for bananas, but I'm not complaining. It was tasty.)

I made a Banana Split Brownie Pizza (Pampered Chef recipe) and that was a real hit. Almost as much as the helium-filled balloons were with the kids.

It was all so hectic, and I'm so unused to being in charge of things, that I completely forgot to serve the cheese/meat/cracker tray I bought and the homemade ice cream I'd been working on all that week. So some of our guests who stayed to help clean up got to take home a couple cartons of Natalie's Signature mint chocolate ice cream. I'm stuck with a bunch of crackers pepperonis, salamis, and cheese.

As you can see in the picture above of the cake there is a significant amount of blue frosting. It was very cute as decoration, and made for some really cute pictures like this one:

But we soon realized that the blue was not so easy to get off of the skin. Really, when you order a cake from a bakery shouldn't they courteously ask, "Would you prefer the dying or the non-dying frosting?" I seriously thought Elijah was going to look like a smurf for a week! And he was supposed to have his first year portraits taken the next day!

Fortunately most of the blue came out in the bath. And the rest seemed to rub off easily as he played. One of our guests gave me a call a couple days later and asked if it all had come out, her daughters hands were still blue.

As luck would have it, the day after his party was so windy we had to reschedule his portrait session. Around these parts the wind isn't blocked by trees or hills, it just runs free carrying anything and everything with it; bushes, lawn furniture, small dogs... So when it looked like I was about to see Dorothy Gale or the Wicked Witch sailing past my window I wasn't surprised to get an email from the photographer asking if I would rather hold off on our outdoor session for less inclement weather.

Elijah was supposed to have his one year doctor's appointment yesterday. But yesterday was significantly less windy and it seemed like the only time in the near future that we could reschedule his photo shoot. Normally I would never back out of a doctor's appointment here on base. If you do you aren't likely to get a new appointment anywhere near the date of your original. But the timing was just too close and I didn't want him feeling all grouchy from his shots while trying to get a smile out of him.

The photo shoot went pretty well. The photographer, Shannon Velloza, Shannon's Website went with me out to the park and we got a lot of pictures of Elijah among the rocks and wild desert foliage. Her husband is deployed, too, so she brought her kids along. They all kind of went wild among the boulders, about giving their mom a heart attack when they climbed up to the tops of the rocks. I just chuckled to myself, knowing that if they were our kids and my husband were here he'd be egging them on.

Now I know some of you are wondering about how Elijah is doing in the walking department. Well, he isn't walking on his own yet. He still prefers "four wheel drive" so to speak. But I will get a video of him taking a few steps if/when I can.

Alice is progressing in her potty training. We had a minor setback when she got spayed cut open. She was so loopy from the meds, I think, that she couldn't make it up to the toilet so she went in her bed. It was just once but I'm taking it slow just in case. Still, I think that in a couple weeks we'll be done and I can post a pic of our dear little Alice using the toilet!

I still have not shipped out the extremely large popcorn popper. I'm hosting a movie night at our place this Friday so we can "make sure it works" before I send it. Also, we get paid again this Friday and I'm sure I'll need the extra funds to actually get the machine over there. It's really big and quite heavy. Not to mention that for the movie night I needed to buy a TV and a Blu-Ray player. The TV is a surprise to my husband and I'm hoping he won't find out about it until he gets home. So, please, everyone try to keep it hush hush. I got a 46" Sony Bravia LED LCD TV. It's very thin, fairly large, and has excellent resolution. A friend came and helped me mount it on the wall last night. When it was done, even though it was a little late, I couldn't help but put in Avatar on Blu-Ray just to see how it looked. It was AWESOME! I think Bryan will be thoroughly impressed when he sees it.

Our Poor Expensive Kitty

One of the requirements from the shelter when we adopted Alice was that she must be spayed within thirty days. They gave me a voucher for $30 off the spay at a local vet's office and attached to that was a certificate that the vet would send them confirming that he had performed the surgery. They spoke rather threateningly of coming to steal her away if they didn't receive that confirmation within the allotted time.

So, shortly after we brought Alice home I took her for a check up at the local animal hospital. At that check up they found that she had ear mites an ear infection from the mites and gingivitis. The vet prescribed some medicine to get rid of the mites and some antibiotic drops for her ears. He said he wanted to do a dental cleaning soon to help combat the gingivitis and see if she needed any teeth pulled. I decided to hold off on that and see if her gums got better being at home with us.

So that was a pretty expensive trip to the vet, and I hadn't even gotten her spayed yet. I decided to postpone the spay until she was no longer being treated for her ear infection.

While we were waiting for her ears to get better a thought occurred to me. What if she had already been spayed in her "past life"? It would be silly to shave down and cut open this poor animal for no reason. So I called and asked them. "What happens if she's already spayed?"

They said the only way the Dr. could be sure would be to open her up and see if there's nothing in there to take out. But they would gladly wait if I wanted to see if she would go into heat or not. I remembered the threats of the shelter saying they would come take her away if she wasn't altered on time and decided not to chance it.

So I took her in. With the voucher the shelter gave me the surgery would not be very expensive. I also had high hopes that her gums were doing better. They didn't look nearly as red or swollen as they had when I first got her.

A couple hours after I dropped her off one of the vet-techs called me: "You were wondering about whether or not she was spayed already. Well, we have her sedated and shaved and there is a scar there. We can't be positive that it's not from some other surgery, though."

I sighed. It would be better to be positive and have the certificate than to back out and violate the contract. I told them to go ahead and check.

A little while later I got another call. It turns out Alice was already spayed. They'd shaved her down and cut her open just so I could have a piece of paper.

Sigh... okay.

But there was more. As the vet-tech was extubating her she noticed that Alice had a pretty nasty cavity on one tooth. She touched it and it obviously caused Alice pain. Did I want them to go ahead with the dental cleaning and pull that tooth? She quoted me a total price that was about four times as expensive as the spay alone.

Sigh... okay.

A while later I got another call. The same vet-tech explained that they had done the dental cleaning and the vet examined all Alice's teeth. There were six teeth that he recommended be pulled, one of which was already cracked in half and all of them had cavities all the way to the root. She explained that I could turn down the procedure but that eventually the pain could cause her to become aggressive or, if they got infected, to die. I asked if any of these teeth weren't really necessary to be pulled. She checked with the vet and answered that he recommended they ALL be taken out.

Sigh... okay. (Can you tell I'm a pushover, yet?)

So, in the end, she didn't really need to be spayed, but she had six teeth pulled. I won't quote prices here, I'm not sure if any of you have heart problems and I don't want to put you at risk of a heart attack. But, in the end I spent about SIXTEEN TIMES what I was planning to spend on her spay alone. For what I spent that day I could have driven to Los Angeles and bought a fancy purebred cat from a breeder and still had money left over to get it's shots and spayed or neutered it.

She is a very sweet kitty and I think she deserves to be taken care of. I just wish it wasn't so darn expensive.