why hello there.

Alright, alright, I realize that it has been 19 days (nineteen days! Wow.) since my last post. My apologies.

I made it home to Provo, huzzah! What a wonderful, wonderful thing it was to see my brother to pick me up, and to spend three nights with my sister Julie. I realized that the Vancouver trip was the longest I'd ever been away from ANY of my family. And now I have real empathy for home-sickness. :)

Flying home was quite a feat; I had to decide what was worthy to bring home from the assorted possessions that hadn't made the first cut going back to CO when my mom helped me move out of my apartment. One particularly funny moment was when Julie was helping me weigh my suitcase (Southwest flies two checked bags for free, up to 50 lbs each. Of course that's the way I'm going to go.) and I had to heave the bag off the scale fast enough for her to be able to see the weight before it quickly disappeared. She was kneeling on the ground and with a great heave and "ugggh" I hoisted the bag off the floor, and she yelled (because why would you speak softly in such an intense situation?) "SIXTY-SEVEN!" and then we both crumpled into laughter because my bag was 17 lbs too heavy and the whole situation was indeed rather humorous, with her on the floor and me hefting my bag around.

But I finally made it! I'm FINALLY home. In my home town. We've lived in this house for 13 years, which is amazing. I get to share our unfinished basement with my parents for the time being, as my brother-in-law, sister, and their two sons are living with us while he does an internship for his MBA. It's great to have such a full house! And who doesn't love waking up to the inquiry of a 2.5 year old, "Is Carrie waking up?"

So, with what have I been filling my days, you ask? I will tell you.

I am lucky enough, blessed enough, whatever you want to call it, to have gotten summer employment. But not just any job. Pretty much a dream job. A treasured teacher from high school hired me on to paint murals in his kids' bedrooms. I know, right? The hours are totally up to me, as long as I'm getting the work done, and I'm doing something that I LOVE (I usually don't even notice that I've skipped lunch until it is almost time to leave), I get to hang out/get entertained by his lively kids, and I have wonderful employers. It really is the experience and opportunity of a lifetime, thus far. It is so ironic because I usually tell people I don't like painting, but I guess that's usually a lie. Because I've found that I do.

Besides painting, I get to play with my nephews. Today we celebrated my nephew JJ's half-birthday, because his birthday falls on the day after Christmas. He's getting rather smart, pushing every possible button (he opens the garage door for Grandpa every day when he gets home from work) and stringing together quite intelligent phrases. Here's a conversation I had with him today.

(I was laying outside on a blanket in the shade, reading a book, and look over to see JJ smiling at me through the screen door.)

"Hi JJ!"

"Hi Carrie..."

"How are you doing?"

"I am doing well. Carrie doesn't have her shoes on."

(awkward pause) "Well, I don't need my shoes since I'm on the blanket."

(he opens the door) "I want to sit with Carrie on the blanket."

"Go get your shoes then."

"Does Carrie want to go get my shoes for me?"

"I don't know where your shoes are."

So he comes out regardless of his shoes, and we sit on the blanket together and laugh and have a grand little time. I love that little guy.

Indeed, I was outside reading a book. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, to be exact. I decided that I wanted to read all 7 before I go to Florida for a family reunion, so I've been hammering them out this last week. I don't care what anyone says, I still love reading Harry Potter. Maybe that's because I grew up with him. But I'm cramming them in so I can have a remainder of a summer to read other works of literature (To Kill a Mockingbird, summertime classic) as well as do those things all return-students need to do, like go through all their stuff and watch movies and other summertime things.

One crazy thing we did was paint our dining room and living room in one night. We started at about 7 PM and wrapped up around 2 AM. It was actually a lot of fun, despite being hot, sweaty work (our AC conveniently broke the same day).

My family and I (partly out of joke) started the "James and Taryn's Wedding is Only Eight Weeks Away!" Fitness Challenge today. Everyone sets their own parameters, but has to do it 6x a week, and the winner at the end gets a book paid for by the losers. Whether it sticks or not, who cares, our treadmill is getting his exercise. :)

I know this was a massive blog post, but hey, I like to ramble, especially at night when I know I'm supposed to be sleeping.

I'm in love with my summer. It is going wonderfully.

Until the next late-night urge to blog, may you eat lots of ice cream, enjoy the summer breeze, and wiggle your toes in the grass.

Word of the Day: yen \YEN\ , noun; 1. A desire or craving; yearn.

Miss Oula, Montana.

Hannah Montana's got nothing on Missoula.

Well, that's a really biased opinion, because quite frankly, what does Hannah Montana have on anyone?

Missoula is not too shabby. But the real gem is simply Montana. I loved driving through it!

We stopped at some little city in Idaho that I can't remember the name, and kept driving. I kinda passed out afterwards so I don't have much commentary on the day.

But I have decided that I need to live somewhere mountainous and with lush forests within an hour drive. I love the mountains. End of story.

Tomorrow we hit the road at 6 AM and head into Yellowstone! We've heard rumors that it is snowing there right now, so our two-night trip might get cut into one night camping, one night hotel. It'll be an adventure either way.

But that means that my next blog post could be from the comforts of Provo, UT. It is sad to see the end, indeed. I've made some great friends. But oh how I praise the day where I can do laundry for free, eat good, healthy, free food, and sleep in my own bed. :)

This is our little place in Ucluelet, BC. The owners were really generous and fun people, and apparently the entire town knew them and approved of where we were staying. The girls stayed in this house and the rest of the group stayed in cabins down a little ways.

The drive from Ucluelet to Vancouver was magical, I thought. I half expected a velociraptor to jump out at attack our vans.

We stopped at a grove of redwoods in between Vancouver and the US border for a little road-trip break. That has been the nicest thing about this trip; everyone appreciates an opportunity to get out and investigate cool nature formations or take some photographs. If you look closely, I'm in both photos.

As I said before, I loved Washington country. It was stunning! And so much like home for me. I was happily taking shots of the scenery and then looked at my camera, and I completely did not see this giant gnome until it was in my camera. I laughed out loud with surprise and woke some people up, but man. What a great, giant gnome.

Welcome to Vancouver!

This is Priscilla's project, where she blends into the environment. We spend some time doing this the first day, and it was actually a lot of fun seeing what we could pull off.

The market was awesome, I wish I could have spent more time there. I wish there was something like that closer to home, because it is such a fun atmosphere.

This old man was pretty funny with his accordion, and the other old man had just ripped off a giant piece of his hot dog and thrown it to that sea gull.

More photos to come, I've got to go to a class meeting right now.

Word of the Day: ambuscade \AM-buh--skayd\, noun; 1. A trap where concealed persons lie in wait to attack by surprise. also: the persons so concealed or their position.

When? At Chee. Duh.

Right now, I'm sitting on the most glorious carpeted floor in the lovely Motel 8 of Wenatchee, WA. Sure, some of you crinkle your nose at the sound of "motel", but let me tell you. It is NOTHING compared to where we were staying in Vancouver. And this motel feels pretty new, so I have no complaints whatsoever. :)

We left Vancouver this morning at 8 AM, made one last pit-stop in a Petro-Canada gas station and spent all our Canadian money on canadian candy bars. I saved a toony for memento sake, because those are actually pretty cool coins. But then we headed toward the US border. Woo!

We had wondered if we were going to get in trouble for our various fruits throughout the 4, 12-passenger vans, but decided to see what happened. Well, we got to the border, and we all had to pile out of the vans, leave all our possessions, and wait out the inspection. We took up the entire processing queue, so after a while one of the attendants asked us to stand against the wall so the other travelers could get processed. As usual, such a large group attracts the attention of everyone around us, so we made some small talk with the (safer-looking) people waiting for their inspection as well. One family had been there for an hour, so ... we were kind of worried.

But alas, we only had to wait about 15 minutes. They gave us a little public schpeal about which fruits and vegetables are not allowed across the border, gave us a wave, and we were on our way. Back into the country!

It was an interesting feeling, to be back on homeland soil. Canada doesn't look any different, and the people don't really act different (except I did notice they are WAY more pedestrian friendly. They have huge street signs signaling a public crosswalk, and if you get within two feet of that crosswalk, all the cars stop well in advance. It was pretty impressive, I have to say. New Yorkers (or Utah drivers, for that matter) could learn a thing or two in that department.), but there is something about being home that is so satisfying. It is nice to know I belong somewhere.

We drove Highway 2 through beautiful Washington forests and countryside. I actually fell in love with the drive, because it was very similar to the I-70 drive through the Rocky Mountains, but more lush and closer to the road. The forest just towers over the road and you feel so minute in these majestic forests ... absolutely beautiful. I could live in there.

We didn't stop in Leavenworth, which I kind of regret now, because it was the craziest little place I've ever passed through. The entire place is a Bavarian village, and all the buildings, font, and colors were the same germanesque theme. Even the Safeway sign was in the same font as the town. It was crazy.

Wenatchee feels like a smaller version of Aurora, so it has been nice to be here for the afternoon. I think we all were pretty tired of the clothes we have been wearing for the last month, because as soon as we dropped our luggage, a good chunk of us headed to the Target just across the street. I got myself a cheap bathing suit and some shorts to go with, and courtesy $6 from Target for a mistake they made 3 Christmases ago, it was even cheaper. Hooray!

A quick jump into the pool, a discounted meal at the Denny's because we were staying at the hotel, and a relaxing evening collaging has made a wonderful stay here in the supposed Apple Capital of the Nation. Or something like that. :)

and you would think that because I have great internet, I'd be able to upload pictures. But, yet again... no cigar. I promise, a huge upload will happen as soon as I can stand it.

Word of the day: ruth \ROOTH\, noun; 1. Compassion or pity for another. 2. Sorrow or misgivings about one's own mideeds or flaws.