Because that last post just makes me angry

In spite of the mess referred to in the previous post, the trip was really fun.  We hit some of our favorite European countries again and of course some new ones.  The trip solidified my love of Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Poland.  Along with pretty much all Polish food.  I think it's highly underrated as far as ethnic food goes.  I really could go for some pierogis right now.  

   Stockholm

Mango sorbet in Stockholm. Worth traveling across the world for. 

 Helstinki.  No that's not a typo.  Our third visit to the city and it was still just blah.

 St. Petersburg.  All it's cracked up to be.

 Tallin, Estonia

 At the Latvia/Lithuanian border

 Castle near Gdansk Poland

 Gdansk Poland

 Feet touching the Baltic Sea

 Cute city of Ronne on the island of Bornholm

Frederiksborg Castle outside Copenhagen where we were able to see some original paintings of Carl Bloch.  It. was. amazing.

The Amazing Race

View Journey across Europe in a larger map
I tried to make a map showing all the cities mentioned so you get an idea.  I'm not sure if I did it right, but the cities are on there.

Angela and I finally did it.  The amazing race.  No, we weren't racing against other teams, for a million dollars, and Phil was not there to hug at the end.  But we were racing.  I'll try to make this as short as possible.  However, if it ends up too long and you don't want to read it, or if the details don't make enough sense, here's the bottom line that I cannot emphasize enough:  Never use orbitz.com.  And don't say I didn't warn you. 

Our cruise was leaving out of Kiel Germany.  The Hamburg Germany and Sonderborg Denmark airports were equal distances away.  We chose to fly into Sonderborg because it was cheaper.  We were scheduled to fly roundtrip.
Salt Lake City to Dulles, DC
DC to Copenhagen
Copenhagen to Sonderborg

Well, when we arrived in DC we were informed the company flying our leg from Copenhagen to Sonderborg went out of business 3 weeks ago.  WHAT!?!?!?  We had about 20 minutes to get a hold of Orbitz and see if there was anything they could do to help us.  Their response:  No, they couldn't do anything, but good luck.  They were leaving us stranded in Copenhagen.  We asked them why they hadn't told us anything in the last 3 weeks.  They said they did, it was on the last confirmation.  Uh, I have the confirmation email they sent the day before, it still said we have a flight from Copenhagen to Sonderborg.  Classic he said she said, except that I have email proof that they didn't tell us anything.  They've been horrible to deal with and will accept no responsibility in the matter.  Including the part where they told us nothing of the change.  I cannot repeat this enough, DO NOT USE ORBITZ.

We arrived in Copenhagen and began racing.  We landed at 830 and our cruise is leaving at 5, and we have 248 miles to cover... we ended up getting a train that would barely get us to Kiel in time, ironically it was routed through Hamburg.  In retrospect, where we should have just flown into had we know Cimber Sterling and Orbitz were going to leave us high and dry in Copenhagen.  Long story short, with lots of running (seriously sweating) between planes, trains, and buses we made it to our ship.  28 hours of traveling.

We had to leave our cruise a day early because now that we had to take trains back to Copenhagen to catch our flight, we wouldn't have arrived in time.  At first I was disappointed because I felt like we were losing part of our trip.  In reality, we saw so much more as we traveled across the island of Bornholm across Sweden and back to Copenhagen.  Once there we had time to do more sight seeing in one of my favorite cities. 46 hours of traveling. 

Now that we are back, I've spent many hours (over 5) on the phone with Orbitz trying to get our money back for the flight we never got to take and which caused serious amounts of stress.  In spite of this major problem we had a great trip and I'll even admit I enjoyed the challenge of it.  It's all part of the freaking adventure. 

Happy 29th Birthday!

No, not me, my mom.  And this year it was go big or go home. 
Who: All my mom's dearest friends
What: Stealthily pulled off surprise party
When: she least expected it
Where: Brandon and Lauren's
Why: Well, because quite frankly because we've slacked a little in the birthday department for mom for the past umpteen years.  But maybe that was all part of the plan for years so she wouldn't expect it this year.

I'd say it was a total success.  It's been a lot of work in the months leading up to it, but it was a lot of fun.  We had quite the spread of food, which was difficult to get it all prepared in a timely manner.  My mom is so good at that and I couldn't ask for her help or advice at all.  Kyle wasn't able to come because it was near the end of school/because he needed to be at school on Friday and Monday they wanted an absurd amount of money for him to fly to California.  He got out of a lot of work that weekend :)  At least I was able to put Brandon, Lauren, Aunt Galynn, and Lori to work.  I've always been a pretty good task master.

Adventure tourism

We like to live on the edge.  No biggie.  Scuba diving in the hotel pool. Yeah, we totally owned it.

They were doing free scuba in the pool.  Thought it was a good chance to experience it.  Plus, it really broke up the monotony of our trip to Hawaii .  Reading by the pool, relaxing in the hot tub, enjoying new hikes, finding new beaches, eating shaved ice, and lots of cuddle time with the world's cutest niece.  Okay, that last one was a joke, she is not a cuddler.  She is the cutest though, trust me. 
                  

Luck o' the Irish

Top of the morning to you.  Okay, nobody ever said that to us.  But they did say charming things like "cheerio" and "brilliant".  In delightful little accents, which were surprisingly hard to understand.  

Anyway, I LOVED IRELAND!  LOVE LOVED.  Ireland was never really on my list of places to go, but now that I've been I can't believe it was never on the list.  Seriously, it's in my top 10 places I've been, likely in the top 5.  I am currently working on ordering them.  Every day I didn't think it could get any better, and then it did!  It lived up to everything you've ever seen or heard about the place.  Green, rolling hills, rock walls, crazy cliffs, castles at every turn, and adorable sheep.  I really wish I could upload all 1487 pictures/I wish you wanted to see all 1487 pictures.  Loved it.  Ready to go back.   The first picture is the Adare manor, where we stayed.  When we told one of the locals that's where we were staying his comment was, "ah, treatin' yourselves are ya?"  We didn't want to admit it was just a good travelzoo.

Giants Causeway

Standing on the edge of the cliffs.  It made my scared of heights heart beat much faster.

Blarney Stone.  Yes, I put hand sanitizer on my lips afterward

Look familiar?  Count of Monte Cristo anyone?

1/2 Marathon

I did it. I finally did a 1/2 marathon. Now we didn't do an organized race, but the 13.1 miles were all the same. I couldn't find a race that fit my schedule so Marie, Katrina, and I just started running and didn't stop till we had run 13.1 miles. As an added bonus, do you know what you can do with $50 you don't spend on an entrance fee?
12.5 Smoothie King smoothies
5 yards of fabric
2 gallons of paint
5.07 bowls of pumpkin curry
5 flats of pretty flowers
3.33 days of indoor climbing
2.08 New 4GB memory cards

So what did we spend our money on? Pedicures, half a dozen doughnuts, and coconut water. Money well spent.

Unflattering picture: check
Awkward pose because we're sweaty: check
Handmade race bibs: check

Return of the blog

No, that's not a promise or a commitment. You know what I find to be the biggest obstacle to wanting to write a blog post? Downloading pictures. I hate doing it. I find instead of downloading my pictures so I can clear my memory cards I would rather just buy more memory cards. Silly, no?

But my fans have been asking for another blog post (read: my mother has been asking for another blog post). If nothing else because I do like to post my quilts so I can remember them. This quilt was for a friend/coworker's baby. I love how it turned out. But for the record, the quilt is not nearly as darling as Baby D.