Hector and I

So I thought I would post some pictures of Hector and I from our last trip in Idaho and Wyoming! 16 people went and we all had an amazing time!! Were were in Alpine Wyoming for 4 days, where we had the chance to visit Jackson Hole Wyoming as well! it was so beautiful! We stayed in little Cabins and were able to ride our snowmobile straight from our cabin to the mountains!




Our Second Stop was Island Park Idaho for 3 days! While in Island Park, we drove to West Yellowstone for the evening and did a little shopping! the town was pretty quite!

We rode to a place called Mesa Falls which was absolutely beautiful!!

2009 review

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before? Took a 3 week trip with my mom from Chicago to Florida. Having both reservations and no reservations at certin spots! Found new favorite places to visit :)

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I don't make New Year resolutions

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? no

4. Did anyone close to you die? Thankfully no! 2009 was a good year in that department

5. What countries did you visit? Canada (on my 3 week trip) saw Niagara Falls

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009? My own space again! I love living with mom, but i miss my own space too

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory and why? August 2nd of every year will forever be etched in my mind

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? buying a new car (that i have wanted for a long long time) going an entire year with out having a Credit Card and loved it!!

9. What was your biggest failure? I am not perfect and make lots of mistakes, but i wouldn't call them failures

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Influenza A for the first time in my life (and i thought i was going to die)

11. What was the best thing you bought? my 2009 Toyota highlander

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? My niece who just turned 2 in November is 100% potty trained!! :) YEAH LEAH! Ethan James who has become such a good big brother and boy!


13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? oh someone i'm not going to talk about cause she isn't worth it!

14. Where did most of your money go? My car and all my Vacations i took!! What a heck of a fun year!

15. What did you really, really, really get excited about? all my Vacations! 3 weeks in June, Banks Lake in July, Seattle twice in August, California in September and random weekend trips here and there!

16. What song will always remind you of 2009? None particularly

17. Compared to this time last year are you: Happier?: YES! Thinner?: no Richer?: In less debt so yes

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? working out/ paddling

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? not sure! had a pretty amazing year

20. How did you spend Christmas? With my family and Hector's Family

21. How did you be spend new years? in the mountains snowmobiling, with fireworks, drinks and awesome friends

22. Did you fall in love in 2009? YES!

23. How many one-night stands? None

24. What was your favorite TV program? American Idol

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? yep although Hate is a strong work, i really really dislike someone

26. What was the best book you read? the Shack

27. What was your biggest musical discovery? MP3 player.... LOL i just got one for my birthday because i love listening to it in my car!!

28. What did you want and you got? my amazing man and a wonderfull year!

29. What did you want and not get? ??? can't think of anything other then not being able to see my Dad

30. What was your favorite film of this year? By far the best "The Blind Side"

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old did you turn? I turned 27 in November and had an amazing birthday with my family! Then Hector surprised me with Bonefish with all of his family and my family there! It was so awesome! He did a great job....and he loves to surprise me (which is not something i enjoy much)

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? saving more money- but instead i just had lots and lots of fun

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009? comfortable as possiable!
34. What kept you sane? my friends and family!

35. Which celebrity did you fancy the most? none

36. What political issue stirred you the most? President elections!! Health care, War,

37. Who did you miss? My dad

38. Who was the best new person you met? Hector!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009: Be happy every day! You never know what tomorrow will bring!

40. Quote or Song Lyric that sums up your year: EVERYTHING HAPPENDS FOR A REASON!!

some people are in your life for a resason, a season or forever! Make the people you love the most be there forever!!

What I learned

Well, While on Vacation I learned some new things both about me and my mom. I will just tell you what I learned about Me.


*I didn't know they still made 2008 cars without automatic windows and doors
*I enjoy driving much better then being a passenger
*I HATE humidity!!
*I LOVE Savannah Georgia
*I talk in my sleep (pretty funny!)
*I can be gone for 3 weeks and still not be home sick
*The older I get, the more I become like my Father
*I am a hotel snob and only like to stay in ones that are not 75 years old
*While on Vacation, I don't enjoy being on my Cell Phone
*I never knew a vacation could be so relaxing
*I only like to stop at bathrooms that i think are nice, and don't care how long the other person (my mom) has had to pee for. (I really wanted to see Niagara Falls!!) :)
*When renting a car from now on, i will ALWAYS make sure it has cruise control! Over 3000 miles and no cruise control....pretty crappy!
*Police men are very serious in N. Carolina
*The guards at the Canadian border don't think we are very funny!
*Having two different license plates from two different States on your rental car gets a lot of attention. (We were asked if its even legal, I have no idea. Is it?)
*I don't care much for flying, but after having several beers, you don't seem to care if the plane is dropping, life is great :)
*The food in the East is fantastic!!
*Tri-Cities is lacking serious restaurants!!
*They do yoga in the middle of the streets in NY...Only in NY is that okay!
*When it comes to killing bugs, Mom is apparently the one :)
*I will only drive 7-10 mph over the speed limit regardless if the semi truck is passing me going 20 over the speed limit, unlike mom who just wants to keep up with traffic
*When parking at any HUGE parking lot, ALWAYS remember the row number!
*When leaving the highway in NY, you have to pay a Toll. No matter what road your getting on
*The best part of Vacation is the random things you decide to do!
*You don't need a GPS to travel in unknown places, all you need is a laptop, cellphone with data cable, computer plug in into your lighter and map quest! 3000 miles and never got lost! :) And i'm even a blond!


I think the list could go on but I will stop there! What a fun experience!

Orlando International Airport June 2nd

Ok, we are sitting in the Orlando International Airport, we can start boarding in about 20 minutes. We went to the Kennedy Space Center this morning for a few hours and even saw a 3D movie we watched about outer space. I think we both had a completely wonderful time on this vacation but now that we are at the airport we can't wait to get home. I can't speak for Amy but I sure miss everyone!!! As we were walking through the airport Amy realizes she has lost her boarding pass! We decided to stop and ask someone what to do about it and he happens to have the darn thing in his hand, can you believe that! We thought this was a good time to stop and have a drink which tasted so good we decided to have another one. Ok, I guess we better get going so we don't miss our flight. See you all soon and thanks for following along with us on this awesome adventure!

Florida, July 1st

Well, for our last full day here in Orlando, we woke up late and had a relaxing morning. We decided that the weather was not going to be good enough to go to any water parks, so we decided on Disney's Animal Kingdom. Today was so much fun, we walked around and saw many animals from Asia and Africa, but we also got to go on a safari ride. You actually felt like you were in the jungle walking around, so it was only appropriate that for lunch we ate at the Rainforest's Cafe. We had some outstanding Mai Tai's, food and fun. I rode on the Mount Everest ride, which took us up a steep mountain, we came to a halting stop, rode backwards in pitch black, then went straight down the front of the hill and around several circles, some of the time in pitch black. It was one heck of a ride! Mom stood and watched...Chicken! :)

We made it back to our condo where we got all of our suitcases figured out for our trip home tomorrow and just relaxing. Tomorrow we will spend our last day and the Kennedy Space Center before hoping on the plane to head home.

Florida June 30

We knew it was supposed to be 60% chance of thundershowers today but we still wanted to go to Universal Studios and City Walk. It was still hot and muggy so we put on our shorts and tank tops and left for the 15 minute drive. It wasn't long after we were there that the ugly black clouds that had appeared opened up and started dumping on us. Oh my gosh, you would not believe the amount of rain that we got here today. It went on all day long. After coming out of the ride "twister" where we were to experience the rain and high winds like being in a tornado we saw what the real weather was like and it was definitely wetter outside. We decided to buy the classic poncho that all the other tourist were running around in so we could keep on going. Since it was about lunch time and it was still raining so hard there were puddles everywhere we decided to go to Margaritaville for a break and have some lunch. After lunch we went back to Universal to see how they did the make-up in horror movies. That was funny and gory all at the same time. We left Universal about 2:00 and we were both so tired we came back to the condo to take a quick power nap and clean up a little. We then went to a place called Wonder Works, where the house is upside down and has a bunch of imaginary exhibits inside. It was so crowded that we couldn't hardly get close to any of them, we left being disappointed in it. We found some cute shops close by to walk to. One of the little restaurants there was an old time place that served Shakes and Malts. We thought that would be the perfect thing for the rainy day blues. They were really good!! It was starting to get late but we weren't really ready to come back to the room since we had the nap earlier. We found a place called "Old Town" that had a bunch of little cute shops. In the parking lot of this place they had a couple of really scary rides. The one was like bungee jumping but they catapult you into the sky by some kind of elastic rope after being strapped to your seat. It went so high in the sky you looked like a dot up there. The other ride is where you are raised way the hell up there by some kind of rope and you drop and swing across the entire parking lot. We are hoping for better weather tomorrow for our last full day before going home.

Flordia June 29th

Well we woke up this morning to another hot muggy day with condensation all over our windows! We could not even see out our living room! I knew we were going to be in trouble. We headed to Epcot first thing and spent the first couple hours riding some of the rides and walking around. We did the space ride (in the big globe as you enter Epcot) which was pretty crazy. At the end of the ride, it opened you up to where you felt like you were floating in space. Pretty amazing. The second part of our day was spend walking around the different Countries. Some of the Countries had rides in them, and others were just stores and food from that Country. We ate some lunch in Japan, where we sat at a table with the grill in front of you, and got a performance as we ate! The food was outstanding! After lunch we decided we needed dessert, so we wondered into France and got some amazing food. Mom got the chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, and i got something i don't know how to say, but its a sugar coated pastry filled with vanilla cream!! It was so yummy!

After leaving Epcot, I had found in a pamphlet an Air boat ride. So we drove to Cypress Lake (about an hour from our hotel) and got on an Air boat for an Hour long ride. It took us all over Cypress Lake, but we went through all the weeds and swamps. The boat goes in just inches of water. At some points i thought we were going to hit dry land, but there was always just enough water there to keep us going. We saw several Alligators (one up close that was about 6 feet) and some others that were swimming near by with one being around 12 feet! We saw many bald eagles, cows, and birds catching there fish for dinner. It was such a fun and beautiful ride!!

After a long day, we decided we both needed pedicures. So on our way back towards our condo, we stopped and got a deluxe pedicure (which we both desperately needed!) As we were getting pedicures, we watched a really nice thunderstorm pass overhead, thankfully the rain/hail had stopped before we left. On our way home we hit Ihop for dinner and had some breakfast! Another fun filled exciting day in Florida with only 2 1/2 days to go!