Planning planning planning!

We are going to Califonia!

We have a wedding coming up. For a friend I have known all my life. (No really, Our parents were friends before we were born, and we have been friends ever since) She's having a destination wedding in California! Since I am a bridesmaid in the wedding obviously we were going.

The way Dave's work schedule works, he is flown to and from work, but only on his scheduled days. If he needs extra time off, he can take the entire 2 weeks off or pay for his own flight back up to work. So, he has his scheduled week off, his 2 weeks of work off, then another scheduled week off. So, 4 weeks off.

The wedding fell in the middle of his work weeks, so we just figured, hey, if we have 4 weeks off we may as well do Disneyland while we are right there. (the wedding is just outside San Diego) So...... We are making the trip a big huge shebang. Our current plan is to be gone for 19 days. 19 days on the road. Yes, we might be insane.

There is a lot of planning involved in pretty much taking 3 vacations and putting them into 1. I mean, if we have to drive right through Las Vegas, Why not spend a few days there, right? So we have our Vegas vacation, our Wedding Vacation, and our Disney vacation. I mean, where do you even start?

Well, you have to start with somewhere to stay. The bride rented a vacation house near the wedding. Asked us if we wanted to stay there as well. One thing down. Then, I looked into Vegas hotels. Holy smokes. So many options and places! I found a cheap price on one hotel. I booked it, and yay!!! But then I heard from many many people that the hotel has gone downhill and it wouldn't be a very good idea. So, we cancelled it. back to the drawing board. Found another one, stalled on booking, prices went up, I kicked myself. lol. But, it's been booked. Finally we have Disney. In Walt Disney World there are all sorts of hotel choices on the resort. I grew up with Disneyworld being the place to go. I knew nothing about Disneyland. They have 3 hotel options. And yeah, they're pretty expensive. But they have good neighbour hotels there. So we booked into a good neighbour hotel with a pretty cool water park attached.

So yay for somewhere to stay. Then we also had to look at airfare. Yeah, it's expensive. Plus, we're being super awesome and bringing our babysitter to watch the kids during the wedding, the bachelor/bachelorette parties, any other wedding activities, etc. So by the time we bought 4 full priced air fares... it gets expensive. So we're driving. If we drive straight through, it only takes 29 hours. So we needed a few more places to stay. We had to figure out how much we were going to drive each day, where we were going to stay.

It has been a long planning process but we are now in the home stretch. We are driving for 2 days, doing 2 days in vegas, 6 days in the vacation house, a random night we still have no idea where we are staying, then 6 days at Disneyland and drive back home. Stay tuned for a trip recap, because I'm sure there will be quite a few of them and they are going to be awesome.

Alberta drivers part 2

Not sure if anyone remembers my last post about alberta drivers, but here is post number 2. Again, I will apologize to those Albertans who don't drive like douchebags, but this is what I notice on a whole.

First, the parking is Starting to not get on my nerves.... AS MUCH. Lol. Some people still amaze me. I am a crazy anal straight Parker. It will annoy me the whole time I am out of the car if I'm parked crooked. It boggles my mind that people can park so crooked and be fine with it.

Then there is the speed thing. Out of 100% I would say 25% of the drivers are speedy demons who zoom in and out of traffic. ( apparently they aren't afraid of photo radar tickets) 25% of people go the speed limit or a smidgen over. Then there's the other 50%. They dont even come close to doing the speed limit. The speed limit on hwy 16 is 110. I do 100 or 105 and I am passing people like I am speeding! I just don't get it! In Ontario if you aren't doing at least 105 onthe 401 people are riding your bumper and flipping you the bird. Crazy.

Then, there is the writing. This is actually a funny because cars here get really dirty. Salt isn't used on the roads to prevent slipping. Dirt and rocks are. So cars it seems are always dirty. Today while driving to our dr appt I saw a car with f$&* u written in the dirt. The driver obviously tried to make it seem like it wasn't written there, but you could still tell. Not going to lie, it made me giggle. The other night driving home I saw written onthe back of a dirty pick up truck "I wish my wife were this dirty" I really wish I got a picture of that, it definitely made my night. Haha. Oh haha. I keep giggling to myself here. I wonder if the guys wife ever saw that. Lol

Now, learning to drive it was drilled into my head, if you are onthe highway and coming up to an on-ramp with a car trying to get on, move into the next lane so they can get on. To those who started driving in Alberta, were you not told this??? I can't even begin to tell you how many times jerk drivers have stayed in the lane despite no one being beside them. And the on-ramps here seem to be much shorter in dome areas. I hate those drivers. Ugh. Hate.

I'm sure I will have way more vents about drivers in the future, but for now I'm good. Haha.

Take a deep deep breath

And drive.

I need to vent. And I will start with an apology to everyone I could possibly offend with this vent. I am going to generally sweep all people, and those who don't fall under my venting judging umbrella I apologize.

But... PEOPLE IN ALBERTA CAN NOT PARK! Omg. At first I was like, oh wow, somone doesn't know how to park. Then I was like, really, more people who don't park properly?

Tonight however.... Holy Hell. We went to Walmart. There was someone parked across the aisle from us. He was parked well over a foot over his parking spot. He was parked 2 spots away from the cart Corral. He unloaded his purchases into the passenger side of his truck, walked his cart to the BACK OF HIS TRUCK, then walked around to the driver side of the car, hit the car squished into the spot beside him with his door, then drove away. REALLY?!?!?! REALLY?!?! How much of a douchebag to do you have to be?!?!?!

I went to the Tri Centre today and no freaking word of a lie over half of the cars in the parking lot were not parked straight or in one spot. Walmart was the same. Parking in your parking spot is one driving thing that irritates me way more then it should. I try to let it go but I just can't do it. Once the snow starts I think I am going to go even more crazy about it. We will see what happens. I think I might need a bit more happy in my happy pills. Sigh.

Day 2 of the trip (a little late)

We were all checked out of the hotel and on the road by 8am. Hit up tim horton’s, then we were on our way. Set the GPS and drove… until we realized the gps was trying to take us over into the US. Not going to lie, there was a bit of my husband not listening to what I have to say (because he never does and yet 99% of the time I’m the right one.) and being stubborn. Eventually we got out way back to Hwy 17 and got moving.

I would say 20 minutes out of Sault Ste Marie we lost connection on our cell phones. (rogers) thankfully dave has a Bell phone for work because he can’t get service while at work with his rogers phone so we had bell service for a short time. I kept trying to get online with the internet stick, but it was either very little or no service. A lot of rock cliffs lining the roads so there isn’t much for signal.

There are a lot of beware of moose signs. I’ve yet to see one. I don’t know if I should be afraid to come across one or excited. Haha! In the very high moose risk areas they have sensors set up on the side of the road and if a moose triggers it then the yellow light they have on some of the signs start to flash. I think that’s kind of cool. So, here we are, in a high moose area and of course I have to get a picture of the magnet on the sign (well, me holding it on the sign since the sign is aluminum) Dave pulls off to the side and I walk back to the sign. Halfway to the sign the thought hits me that this may not have been the smartest idea I’ve ever had. If a moose were to come out of the bush I might have shit my pants. However, I survived without a moose encounter. Yay!

So 9:33 this morning is when we hit the wet gross snow. Yuck. Although at some points made a really nice view of the trees with snow on them. Thankfully it wasn’t sticking to the ground and the road was just a little wet. There were lots of hills up and down so it would have really sucked had the roads turned bad.

Hwy 17 went through Lake superior Provincial Park so we stopped at the scenic lookout they had there. However due to the crappy snow there wasn’t much of scene to look at but I got a pic of us anyways…. Dave peed on a rock. Haha! I almost left before remembering the support for Ashley magnet. I stuck it on the side of the garbage pail since it was the only metal I could find there. I wonder how long it will stay for. Hmmmm..

Saw a lot of little lakes and creeks. Sadly we didn’t stop at old woman’s bay like planned. The sign said closed so we didn’t bother slowing down then it was open after all. Really sad, but oh well, I’m sure we’ll do this drive again sometime.Our next stop was for gas just as we got into Wawa, ON. I had to pee something fierce. Lol. Since then we’ve been driving….

My husband has his blue jays tape on again. In case you didn’t notice on my Twitter last night we were listening to the blue jays music tape his dad found and sent with us (we have a tape player in the truck) This is the most ridiculous tape ever. It cracks my shit up. It’s all remakes of songs with words that pertain to the blue jays (circa 1991-1993) Right now we’re listening to Help us Mookie, the remake of Help me Rhonda by the beach boys. Can’t forget the blue jay rap. To which my husband sings along to. We’ve had the when the moon hits your eye (like a pizza pie) song with Blue Jays lyrics, Boy named Sue (johnny Cash) remake, a song that pretty much just lists all the teams in one breath….and who can forget Jay-o, the remake of Day-O. Apparently this was Dave and his sibling’s favorite tape ever and used to fight over it. The excitement he has on his face when he sings the songs is funny, and even better when he plays air banjo along with it. That’s it’s own kind of awesomeness there!

The day has come

Good morning blog readers. I am up bright and early. Wanted to say goodbye to my step dad before he heads off to work, and well, I'm still up. Plus, I spend the last few hours... ok, I've spent all the hours since attempting to go to bed tossing and turning. At least I can sleep in the car.

Today is the big day, all our stuff is packed and ready to go. Truck is in tip top shape and the In Laws car is cleaned out and ready to be returned. For the past few months, I've had this song stuck in my head.




The song is for a different reason then mine, but still. I'm Alberta Bound. Crazy. Every time I think about it I sing this song (maybe because it's the only song I know with Alberta in it?? haha!)

Still, I wonder what it will be like. Will I freeze this winter? I went all last winter without a coat because I'm always hot, but this might be a whole different winter for me. Ok, I know it will be a whole different winter for me. lol.

I've been trying not to think about this whole thing too much. I've been packing up boxes to store things to make our house look uncluttered, packing to get ready to move, packing all of the house to move in with my mom..... The packing hasn't fazed me. The fact that I've packed everything up at my mom's and loaded the truck doesn't faze me. We will see how I do this morning.

I'm not going to lie, I'm nervous about our trip. This may be the ultimate test of marriage here. haha! Forget the fact that we've lived apart for most of the past year and a half. It was trying and so very difficult at times, but I have a feeling this trip might be the major test. To say it mildly, my husband can be stubborn. In his mind he knows what he's going to do. Forget if he's wrong or you want to veer off that course. So, he's done this drive before. I can guarantee he's already gotten his stops planned, and the nights planned. (and he's planned it's going to take 3 days...) I can guarantee that I'm going to disrupt that plan. haha! I want to see this country (and will try to stay awake as long as possible) and I want to make some stops. Plus, I have a ridiculously small bladder, so I would say I'm going to be getting familiar with quite a few of the bathrooms across Canada. We're also going to be alone. No kid, no other people. I can't remember the last time we've been alone, just the 2 of us, in an enclosed space for multiple days. This should be fun. lol. I will however be posting from the road and updating my twitter through text message. I just figured out how to add pictures to my tweets so I will make sure to document well on my way!!

I also have the magnets I made for Ashley, with the Violet Ribbon that say "Be strong, be brave, we are fighting with you" I've decided to get pics and randomly put the magnets places, and documenting where in Canada the support for Ashley is. (FYI, if you randomly end up with a magnet on your car.... sorry. hahaha!!!)

As you can tell i'm trying to make this trip as fun as possible to avoid tears. Like I said I will be updating quite a bit, and for now I'm signing off, I've been working on this for a few hours now.