hawaii bound: our long "layover" in washington

my brother and i were ready to leave this town! 

we had a 3 hour delay in minneapolis, so we just walked & walked to burn time.

nate even invented this contraption so my luggage was hands-free! #lazyme

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long layovers are great. especially the ones that are 4 days and in the city (seattle) you use to live in before north dakota. it was SO great to visit with friends we hadn't seen since last summer. 

bryce, sydney, me and nate

one morning we visited our old community college. we walked the halls and reminisced on past classes, teachers, and schedules. we even met up with a couple friends and ran into others by surprise! i was able to say hi to my favorite professor (from anatomy and physiology) before her next class started. she was shocked to see me, and i was shocked she still remembered me. :D

rachel and i

sydney, hannah and i

chef bryce doing what he does best!

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during my stay in washington, a couple of my friends and i were blessed beyond belief when our friend/mentor, leah, asked if we wanted to stay with her, her husband and another family from church in a huge house on lake chelan. my friend texted me the website/pictures a few weeks before, and i was down that instant. 

on google maps, the trip was only about four and a half hours, but we made it a day trip with all our random stops: getting out and taking tons of pictures, food stops and bathroom breaks... you know the drill.

i've missed this view since moving to grand forks.

once we drove over the mountains, it was pretty flat (and i was almost back home.) ;)

so many different biomes in washington... i think we drove through all of them that day!

the first major stop we took was in leavenworth, wa. it's a beautiful german town. 

ich liebe dich!

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breath-taking, wouldn't you say? the website wasn't lying.

katherine, leah (who is due next month!), alyssa, and i

it's sad we were only able to spend a little bit of time together, but i am so thankful for the time we did have!

thanksgiving break + a road trip

We left Grand Forks bright and early Thursday morning.

First stop, Starbucks. Nate had a couple gift cards and since he doesn't like coffee, I kindly asked him if I could use one. :) He said yes. #bestbrotherever

I just wanted to fill my travel mug with regular brewed coffee, nothing fancy.

The lady asks if I wanted the Thanksgiving blend. Sure...

It didn't taste like turkey and mashed potatoes fyi.

She was impressed with my Pike's Place mug from Seattle and even more impressed when I said I used to lived there. Ha.

So why did you come here, she asked. my short answer: school.

3 pounds of entertainment. 

This (plus music) kept us going.

We saw a  whole lot of nothing and farms (sometimes).

second stop: bathroom.

third stop: Subway.

A little less than 6 hours later, we made it to our grandparents' house on my mom's side.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with them and about 12 other extended family members.

One of the best parts of Thanksgiving was Skyping the family in Hawaii! They had my cousin over at their place while her mom (my aunt) was with us! 

kinda crazy, kinda cool. It was a big old Skyping reunion. 

Oh, and we even got to witness Elias eating his first food: poi! :) 

He hated it, but his facial expressions were priceless!

I should practice getting more pictures of PEOPLE...

In the morning, Nate and I headed out on the icy roads to REI then the Mall of America. Just because we could :) I wasn't out to buy anything; I just wanted to walk/explore/window shop.

Remember me talking about recognizing people everywhere I go?

Well, I saw two people I knew from school on this trip. haha! ;)

Late afternoon on Friday, we headed a little north to my Great Uncle and Aunt's. The rest of the day included relaxing, playing pool in their basement, chemistry homework, Chinese takeout and a movie! Thanks guys!

The next day we were able to meet up with some friends from Grand Forks/church, and have lunch with them.  That night, my Aunt's sister had us all over for dinner, and we were able to meet more extended family :) Surprisingly, almost half the people there were graduates of the school Nate & I are going to! small world.

This is Bob. He thinks he's more important than chemistry.

As long as you get the questions correct on my chemistry homework, Bob, I'm more than happy to let you lie right on top of my papers and laptop.

Oh, such a silly cat. :)

We were going to spend the night at my other grandparent's house in St. Cloud, but they were feeling under the weather, so we ended up just going out to lunch with them on Sunday. Better than nothing :) They aren't exactly the most tech savvy people, so we were able to help them "fix" their new digital camera while we were there. Oh, they're so cute! :) I only had to push a button twice, and it was fixed!

I'd have to say the trip down to Minnesota was successful.

We're blessed with so much, and I'm so thankful to God for all of it!

On the road again.

The movers packed up everything except Nate's and my stuff. So our whole house was empty (for the most part) for a couple days. My room was messy and unorganized and cluttered with junk, but the rest of the house had one or two things in each room. 

On a Wednesday morning, we hit the road and headed east.

Every 2-3 hours, we traded drivers.

Elias even had his turn. ;)

Bright and early and ready to go.

 Kai is a great ipod DJ. :)

There's the path we took.

Washington --> Idaho --> Montana --> North Dakota

I don't remember what state we were in when Nate used his long arms to take this picture, 

but I'm thinking it was Montana.

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Glacier National Park was our one and only major stop along the way.

Our U-Haul truck was too long by a foot. 12 INCHES. oh goodness... so we weren't able to drive through the park. We could only drive about 5 minutes into the park and then turn around. We didn't even see glaciers. 

It's alright though. The views we did see were amazing!

I think their gift shop should have had shirt that said, "I went to Glacier National Park... 

and didn't see any glaciers." 

I would have bought it... 

Huckleberry smoothie- it hits the spot.

I could gaze at this view all day long.

I think this was taken in Montana too.

My first attempt at the gaga bow. :)

The start to Josiah's Chaco tan. He's so proud! :)

It's 103 degrees. No big deal.

We're so cool. 

And we're now pros when it comes to road tripping.

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About 5 days after leaving Washington, we make it to Grand Forks, North Dakota.

My dad flew to GF a few weeks before we got there to look at apartments, so when we got there, we were able to move in the next day! 

And so the unpacking begins! It was extremely hot outside, so bringing boxes and boxes and boxes and more boxes up to the third level of an apartment complex wasn't exactly glamorous...

Thankfully, we had an elevator! :D

It took awhile to gain enough courage to bring the couch up... Ha!

This is why it takes me so long to unpack... ;) 

I block it ALL out with a mattress.