As usual, my last post said that I would update in a day or 2, and its now well over 2 weeks later. Lots of stuff is starting to happen so I'll make this update quick and just include some pictures instead of long stories...
I left off with Easter last. Since then I've managed to have a lot of fun here in Washington. A few days after Easter I went to Seattle with my friends Mrs. M and Miss S (who was soon to be Mrs. S). I shopped at the Pike Place Market for the first time and realized that even though we have been here since August of last year, I've never actually been to Seattle, except to drive through it or fly out of it. We went looking for jewelry for Miss S' bridesmaids and I managed to find some jewelry for myself along with some random funny cat art (and we also did manage to find jewelry for her bridesmaids). We also made a visit to the very first Starbucks which is right across the street from the market. Here's a picture of us there. Its hard to see but we are in front of a sign that says this is the very first Starbucks.
The market was interesting. I'm a big fan of flea markets, farmer's markets, garage sales, etc...so this was fun for me. I especially liked some of the random weirdness that we ran into...like this guy...
The market was followed by a trip to the mall in Bellevue. Miss S had to get ready for her wedding that upcoming weekend so we headed off to the Clinique counter to have a trial run done of her makeup...doesn't she look pretty? :-) (please ignore my ugly face behind her.)
The end of that week ended kind of bittersweet. My birthday was on Saturday, April 25th. Mr. V's squadron's Dining Out was also that day - not really my idea of a fun birthday, especially with a deployment coming up soon. I would have loved to spend the day just with my husband, but alas, the Dining Out it was! I can honestly say that I really didn't have a good time. This was probably attributed to my lousy attitude that night though. If it hadn't been my birthday, and if it hadn't been right before a deployment, I may have been able to convince myself to have some fun.
Earlier that day, Mr. V and I decided to check out some small town fun. Oak Harbor was having its annual Holland Happenings festival so we headed downtown to watch the parade and check out the booths. The parade was interesting. I have to admit that I was VERY surprised that it lasted more than 2 hours. I expected a parade in a town this small to last 45 minutes at most. We actually started walking towards the booths before it was even over because it was starting to get a little boring (overall it was interesting though).
During our rounds at the craft booths, we ran into the $3 an hour babysitting lady!! I am happy to say that I am convinced that she hates me now. She looked right at me, then looked away without saying a single word to me. I suppose I could have said hi, but I really didn't feel like it, and honestly, I'm a little happy that she seems to hate me now because that means that she will never ask me to babysit for her again!
In between Holland Happenings and Dining Out we made a stop at Dairy Queen for my birthday cake. I am not very particular about anything on my birthday except for one thing. I MUST have an ice cream cake. Preferably a Carvel ice cream cake, but since that can't always happen, Dairy Queen is the next best thing. When we stopped to get a cake, I asked Mr. V to go in without me and pick one out on his own. He asked me if I wanted anything specific on it and I said I didn't care - as long as it was an ice cream cake. So just to be funny, he went inside and came back outside with a cheesy, little girl, princess cake. When I laughed and asked why he picked out this particular cake he said "you just said you wanted an ice cream cake." So here is a picture of me (after Dining Out) with my birthday cake. Some 5 year old somewhere is probably very upset that she wasn't able to get her princess birthday cake.
The weekend before Dining Out (I know I am updating things out of order) we went to see the annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival! I have to admit that out of everything I have seen and done in Washington so far, this was by far the most beautiful thing ever. The tulips are beautiful and I was very surprised to see just how many people come out to this event. In my mind, its not really a festival. Its more of a driving tour of the local tulip and daffodil farms. There are some random art shows going on and there are a few places that you can stop and park and walk around, but overall, its not really a "festival". It was fun though and I highly recommend it to anyone who is ever in this area during tulip season. We stopped at a local nursery called Roosengarde (I may be spelling that wrong) so here are some pictures from there and also some of the local fields in the area. These pictures don't really do it justice though. We took tons of pictures so when I get around to it, I will upload them all into one large online photo album.
This past week has been interesting, but that will be for another time and another blog :-).
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