Yesterday we drove to Phoenix (I was reading from the paper journal I brought to Europe in 2006, and Jo thought it was HILARIOUS I kept writing things like "heck yeahhh maaaan!" LOL) and had lunch, then I was dropped off at a used bookstore while the others went to a kitchen type store. I wish it had been more organized, but they had cool books there, especially the vintage books! I bought way too many lol, but mom's going back to Payson after everyone else leaves (she's going to help Aunt Cindy after she has surgery in a couple weeks), so I'll just leave some of them in Payson for next time lol. After that we got cookies and took Christi to the airport..it was fun hanging out with her, and she enjoyed herself too!

Then we started the drive to Yuma..it was lateish, so there was lots of traffic in Phoenix, so that made the drive even longer. It was also REALLY windy, so there was lots of sand and dust in the air..it made the sun look eerie lol. It was dark a lot of the way, so we played 21 Questions for something to do..it did make the time go by fast! We found the AirB&B pretty easily, and we were all impressed by how nice it was inside! There's a pool outside, but it's filled with sand from the crazy wind last night. I couldn't wait to sleep in my bed, I kept telling everyone "I've always wanted to sleep in a four-poster bed!!" LOL. We ate at Chick-fil-A for dinner because Jo LOVES their chicken nuggets..they're ok, but their milkshakes are much better. Then we went back to the B&B..I tried staying up, but I was SO tired I went to bed before 11! And sleeping in a four-poster bed? OMG I LOVED IT. The top of the posts are connected to form a square (hard to explain! You'll see in my picture), and it made me feel..protected and secure somehow. It was awesome and I WANT ONE!! It might be hard to fit one in my apartment, but maybe I can find a small one somewhere?? I must have one!! Haha

Today Dana visited from California, yay! Jo was at the dentist in Mexico, so mom made us breakfast and then went downtown to look in a couple shops and the visitor center before Jo called to say he was finished. It's realllly desolate looking (except for the Colorado River) at the border. The wind was much calmer, but there was still a lot of dust in the air. After we got back to the B&B mom made milkshakes (yummm) and then we played Betrayal at House on the Hill. It was Dana's first time, and she really enjoyed it! It finished just as it was time for Dana to leave (she didn't want to drive back in the dark in the desolate desert..yeah that would be creepy lol). It was awesome seeing her again!! She's so happy and fun lol. After she left we had dinner at Olive Garden (yummm again :P), and now we're relaxing. Though I'm sad I've said "post" multiple times successfully since I've been here and no one's noticed LOL..I still felt accomplished though :P

( a few pics )

11. Do you still take hot showers when it’s hot out? Nooo, too much heat!! D:

12. Do you like the picture on your ID? It's alright..my passport pic is TERRIBLE though, they made me take off my glasses and I look very uncomfortable in it LOL

1. Are you looking forward to Autumn (or Spring, if you are in the other hemisphere)? It's fall here already lol, the leaves are pretty!
2. What is one thing that marks this season for you more than anything else? The changing leaves, for one
3. If the months are indicative of your age, with January being your birth and December being the end of the line), what month are you in? Uhhhh..April?? I don't know LOL
4. Do you welcome the cooler/warmer days or mourn their loss? I'm always sad when summer is over, though the cooler nights are better for sleeping lol
5. What is absolutely one thing you have to do in the Autumn/Spring? Celebrate Thanksgiving?

Earlier in the week there was an earthquake..I had headphones on so I couldn't hear anything (besides music anyway :P), but my chair was shaking weirdly. Abby likes to rub against the chair sometimes, so I was confused when I didn't see her there. Soon after that mom called and said "did you feel the earthquake??" (Jo texted her and said it woke Sid up!) I was like "ahh, that's what that was" lol. Donna was pretty close to the epicenter (it was a 4.9), so her house got a huge jolt. Earthquakes are weird, but fascinating lol

I recently got WhatsApp, to video chat with mom when she's away, and I saw that Dana had one too, so I video chatted with her as well, and she got to meet Jo! Being on video is kinda weird, but it's nice to see faces too! We shall have to do it again!

Covid is going crazy in Alaska right now..there were 1,095 cases on Tuesday! I feel bad for everyone swamped at the hospital. D: The bookstore is doing great though, we regularly are doing $600 and $700 days! $300 used to be awesome, now we're just like "meh" haha. So cool!

( sept. 14-17 )

I finally remembered to get a pic of Elias's smile whenever he sees me..it makes me feel warm and fuzzy hehe. He's pretty much the happiest, most easygoing baby I've ever met lol

A couple days ago I was trying to use my phone, but it was really bright out, and it's super hard trying to see the screen with transition lenses (taking off my glasses doesn't help either, then I really can't see lol :P), and somehow I called Dana! We both thought it was hilarious, and it's always nice to hear her cheerful voice :D

( pics for aug. 27 and 30 )

Today's trivia: When you eat figs, technically you're also eating wasps. Figs are pollinated by female wasps, who lose their wings in the process of pollination. The wasp has no way to get out of the fig and so they die inside, and then the fig's enzymes break down and dissolve the wasp (O__O)

One thing I've learned when going through stuff in the garage: we never threw ANYTHING away..I've found price tags, empty boxes, and we still have our baby clothes and toys! Wow lol. It's interesting to see my old journals and schoolwork and stuff, but it's also..strange. A lot of projects I don't even remember doing. When I was bored in class I wrote out entire scenes from Lord of the Rings from memory. I must have driven my teachers crazy with my obsessions with Scotland, LOTR, Viggo Mortensen, etc..I constantly mentioned them. I found one of my swords though, which was pretty awesome. It's just WEIRD seeing all this stuff again lol

I get to see Dana tomorrow, yay! It's also supposed to snow..not fairrr lol

I'm loving the LJ Revival!! I'm always worried it'll shut down and I'll lose all the memories from here, so I'm glad people are rediscovering it!

( a couple pics, and the pokemon update! )

So Saturday was Dana and Matt's wedding! Before the wedding, mom and I were determined to find more than one or two geocaches, or looking for one and not finding it (caching in such a busy place is hard! Especially when you have to figure out where to park). We ended up finding ELEVEN!! Heck yeahh. I think that's my third best day of caching (my second is 16 I think and my best is 20). That was satisfying lol. After that we got ready for the wedding. It was pretty much the best wedding ever..Dana looked perfect and gorgeous and just bursting with happiness. When the officiator was reading his notes both of them stood there looking at each other bursting with love and happiness. It was so awesome when they were finally pronounced man and wife!! They were made for each other. <3 After that was happy hour or something, or "standing around eating and talking" lol. Mom and I snuck up to our room to get a book since that's neither of our fortes lol. After that was dinner..I met Matt's mom and stepdad, the ones that live in Payson. None of us can get over how dad bought a house in the same town Matt's parents live haha. There was also a photobooth (fun! I'm gonna hang those pics on my fridge :D) and dancing. Mom and I hung back at first (we're the worst dancers ever, and shy lol) but when Uptown Funk came on (a great dancing song!) we decided to go up there. Might as well let loose and have fun! We might have been flailing more than dancing LOL, but whatever. Poor Dana was getting tired though (it was fun dancing with her too! She saw the rare side of me lol). Mom and I left around 11 and Dana said the party wound down around midnight. The Best Man and Maid of Honor made great speeches too, which were 100% true. It was a great night!! So happy they're finally married :D

( the rest, and pics under here! )

I'll update more extensively about Dana's wedding when I'm not tired lol, but here are a couple pics!


I could totally feel the excitement and love coming from them. They are so perfect for each other <3


This is definitely one of the best pics of us together. <3 Yay!

Yesterday mom and I arrived in San Diego. Our flight to Seattle was supposed to depart at 1:30 AM, but the flight with the crew were delayed in Anchorage because of a mechanical problem. A flight from Seattle was coming with crew that could go on our airplane though..by the time we left it was around 2:30 AM and the sun was just coming up haha! The agents at the counter rebooked everyone with connecting flights before 7 AM (we were one of them). Alaska Airlines is AWESOME, seriously..they handled the situation well and we didn't have to wait ages for them to rebook us (and they weren't like "oh well, you'll just have to figure it out when you get to Seattle"). I was afraid they'd lose our luggage, but it got through just fine. The weather was mostly cloudy, but I did see the top of Mt. Hayes, Hess and Deborah. I kept falling asleep at the window haha, but I doubt I missed much. I did see a little glacier though (it was hard to tell between clouds and glaciers, but this was definitely a glacier cause I could see crevasses). Unfortunately on the rebooked flight mom and I both had middle seats..I was a little worried since last time I had a middle seat I had a huge panic attack and cried and yelled at my brother. D: I was determined not to freak out this time (and I had Xanax with me, just in case), and it worked! Sure sitting by two strangers was uncomfortable, but I got through it fine. I kept falling asleep and kept worrying that my head would fall on one of their shoulders LOL. When I woke up enough I watched some of The Finest Hours..I'll have to finish it on the flight home (I have the book too, though I haven't read it yet)

After we got our rental car and stuff, we drove to the hotel..it was too early for a room to be ready, so we had lunch and found a couple geocaches, yay! (There's one like 400 some feet from the hotel lol.) The first one we looked for was HARD..we were looking for something tiny (a nano, in caching speak lol). This family saw us poking around and were like "wtf are you doing?? You look silly crawling around down there" haha. We told them we were caching and one of the kids was like "oh yeah, I found one once!" They actually helped us look for it, and one of the kids actually found it! Awesome, considering how tiny that thing was lol. And uh..I kinda downloaded Pokemon Go LOL..I've never been into Pokemon, but that game sounded like too much fun to pass up (it reminded me of geocaching haha). It is definitely addictive lol. We were so happy when our room was available..it was so nice to take a nap and just hang out

Today we had breakfast and decided to pamper ourselves at the hotel's spa..mom got a pedicure and a manicure and I just got a manicure (my first one! I feel like my feet are weird and don't really like showing them to people lol). The nail technician (yep, that was her actual title lol) was born and raised in California and loved seeing pics from Alaska and hearing moose stories and stuff (and weirdly enough, the waiting room had a picture of a glacier hanging up! Weird how glaciers follow me, even to places like Hawaii lol). After that we went to the store to get snacks and stuff and then met up with Dana for dinner, yay! We met at her house..I saw her cat Remy and started petting him but he was like "wtf who are you" and walked away (I forget that not all cats aren't like Abby and need time to get used to strangers lol). After a few minutes he came around and purred and was loving our attention..he even let me pick him up, which Dana said he doesn't usually do..he knows cat lovers when he sees them. ;) Her other cat Indra doesn't like strangers at all, so we just had to admire her from a distance haha. We had a lovely dinner at a Mexican restaurant..Dana's been busy with wedding stuff, so she was very happy to have down time. We're gonna see her on Friday for her rehearsal dinner too, so that'll be cool. After that we drove back to the hotel (weird driving in the dark!) and now we're relaxing. Tomorrow we have to shop for clothes and shoes for the wedding..ugh. D: I hope I find something I like, it's hard to shop for clothes nowadays..

I know I keep mentioning this, but I keep realizing how much I was struggling to function before I started taking Prozac. Before when I would see Dana I couldn't look her in the face for whatever reason, but this time I was able to without feeling super anxious. I feel like I can talk and joke around with ease and not sit there and just like..retreat into myself? It's hard to explain..like I just felt dead inside or something. I'm pretty sure last year was the worst year of my life. Prozac has literally given me my life back, and it's AMAZING. To everyone struggling with depression, don't give up! You WILL find something that helps you <3

Today mom and I met up with Dana and met her fiance Matt for the first time..he's very nice and easygoing. It was great seeing her again, it had been a few years since we'd seen each other in person. We showed her around the house and decided to go to Montezuma Castle, with a stop at Tonto Natural Bridge along the way (mom and I went there in January too). The hike back up the hill from the bridge is a killer, especially since the altitude is above 5000 feet (I'd die trying to climb Mt. Everest D:). We also taught them to geocache, which was fun..Dana found the second one we looked for all on her own, nice! Montezuma Castle was cool (more exciting than the ruins we saw yesterday lol). Building the dwellings into the side of the cliff must have been hard work! After that we were hungry and saw that Sedona wasn't that far from where we were, so we decided to have dinner there, yay! Sedona is so beautiful. Unplanned adventures are the best lol. We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant, yum. I liked seeing all the Christmas lights as we drove back to Payson. I'm sooo happy I got to see Dana again..definitely one of the best days this year! They're getting married next July, so I'm glad I won't have to wait years to see her again lol. Yay <3 (Dana was mentioning how cool it was that we've been to so many states together..Texas, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, California, Alaska, Arizona..nice!)

( here are some pics! )

1. What dehydrated foods (meant to be consumed that way) do you enjoy? Not sure..
2. What’s your favorite dish made by stuffing one food with another? Turkey and stuffing
3. What’s your favorite dish made by rolling something up? Burritos, etc
4. What’s a meal you frequently consume primarily because the cleanup is quick? Microwavable pasta and stuff
5. What’s a food that’s made much better because of what you sprinkle on it? Oatmeal

Next month mom and I are going to Payson for a couple weeks! Dana and her fiance Matt are going in December too, so she invited us to come if we wanted to (it's still so crazy to me that we bought a house in the town Matt's family lives in haha!). I haven't seen Dana in person in a few years, so it'll be cool to see her again and finally meet Matt. Yay!

( An album you hate by an artist you love )

1. What item in your house is pleasantly useless? Cat figurines and stuff like that haha
2. What item in your house was used exactly once and will probably never be used for its intended purpose again? Maybe a blender thing haha
3. What situation do you continue to attempt repairing though your efforts appear to be useless? *shrugs*
4. What are your thoughts on belly buttons? They're kinda weird haha
5. What food item at your grocery store keeps calling out to you, though you have no idea what you’d do with it? *shrugs*

I got the rest of Dana's presents today! I got a Glacier National Park hoodie with a moose on it and piney scented candle that smells soooo good..yay!

( Day 31 → your day in great detail )