Getting paid NOT to work? WHAT?!

I landed in Medford, Oregon at 8:30 pm yesterday.  Then, instead of getting up at some point today to fly again...I DIDNT HAVE TO FLY AT ALL!! But then I'm not getting hours you say?! Not so!  I got paid as if I worked almost 4 hours and instead, I PLAYED!!

I had a yummy discounted breakfast (flight crew discount = $3.99) and it was so big I still had a full (huge) pancake left = breakfast for tomorrow!

Then, I headed out for a hike.  The pilots wife flew out to hang out so they rented a car.  They drove us to our first hike sight which was called Upper Table Top.  It was a beautiful hike but only took us a little over an hour.

 Starting the hike...

 At the top..and excited about it!

Lots of turkey vultures flying round

Tons of yellow flowers

Can you see the mountain directly above the pond in the pic below?!  I wish the camera could have captured what it really looked liked.

The bark on the trees were amazing!

Then, we got a ride back to the hotel and picked up the golden beach cruisers.

Literally, GOLD :) awesome!!

Then, we biked to the next hike.  Well...after 4.8 miles I was DYING!! I haven't been on a bike since I was like 8!  I was WALKING my bike up the hills!  Finally, it was 2 pm.  We had breakfast (1 pancake) at 8:15 am.  And we all know, my life REVOLVES around food.  I couldn't do it.  I knew this next hike was twice as long and we werent even to it yet!

So what did I do?

I told him (the other FA) to go ahead and I was going to bike to Subway.  He laughed and didn't realize I was DEAD serious.  So, he went his way and I went mine.  Thank you to the Iphone and googlemaps!!

It took me a while to actually find but...

It was TOTALLY worth it.  And yes, that is a cookie in the picture.  Subways new chicken salad sandwich is my favorite!  And they have new raspberry cheesecake cookies that Matt got me hooked on.

Then, I biked 5 miles home and THANK GOODNESS the trail was MUCH MUCH more do-able.  Not so many hills.  It was so nice I thought to myself, "I could do this for another hour or 2" but I didn't :)

 a street of tulips on my bike ride

And then googlemaps switched me from the road to a bike/walking path that followed below the freeway and stayed along side a river for a while.  It was very pretty!

And now... I'm pooped.  Can't do my insanity because my legs are so tired from biking.  I have a 5 AM show so up at 4:30 AM I'll be!  Off to my bed I go :)

Sheboygan...HERE WE COME!

The car and truck are packed!!!!

And the car is packed on the back of the truck!  Thanks to my sweet, sweet husband.  He loaded it all up and is driving across the country by himself.  He is following 2 other friends so he has people with him if something happens but they are all driving in their own cars.  :(  BORING!

Meanwhile, I am working a few more trips and then I'll meet up with him in good 'ole Wisconsin.  I was NOT excited at first about their choice of state but I'm getting more and more excited.  Its going to be a ton of fun and a crazy adventure!  We all know I LOVE adventures.  So, here we go!!

Pack and Clean and Mice...OH MY!!

We are doing it again...we are packing up!  Its all a big project but the biggest of all was probably cleaning and organizing our storage unit.  I know, its sad that it was such a big project but when you pack up as often and as quickly as we sometimes have to...it just happens.

So, I'm sad that I don't have a picture of the before but luckily my brother in law took a video the other day while they were trying to get the couches out.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

It only took us 8 hours but holy cow...we took it from being slap full to MAYBE a 1/3 of the way full.  We then had enough room to let our friends use the rest of the space and so then after an 11 hour day, our unit finished out by looking like this...

I can not believe how much we have fit into this space now.  It was a tiring day but quite the accomplishment.

Now we just have to finish packing up the basement and loading up the cars and we will be good to go.  Matt leaves Wednesday and I leave Thursday.  Let the count down begin.

Brief history of our moves:
February '08: Out of: Single housing and into married housing
                      Into:  Small 1 bedroom apt (a SMALL house that was divided into 3 apartments)
March '08:  Into Matt's parents basement (still waiting for town home to be finished)
June '08: Into apartment in Provo just for summer (decided not going to town home and deciding where to go)
August'08: Into sisters basement (until the condo we decided to move into was vacant and ready)
October '08: Into Pleasant Grove Condo
May '09:  To Columbus, Ohio for 1st summer sales summer
August '09: To Modesto, California for 2nd half of summer
October '09: Back to PG condo
April '10: To Washington DC/Chicago for 2nd summer of summer sales/FA job
August '10: Matt to Missouri for 2nd half of summer - Heather still in Chicago
October '10: To other sisters basement until we decided where to go (then decided to stay)
April '11: To Sheboygan, Wisconsin for 3rd summer sales summer

Where does mice fit into this?! Well of course we are ALMOST done cleaning the unit.  No mice, no spiders, NOTHING that I had been worried about.  And then, it happened.  I was reaching into a bin to finish organizing and cleaning it out when the little head popped up looking at me.  I SCREAMED LIKE AND OLD LADY AND IT WAS LOUD AND IT WAS ANNOYING but it just happened!

Matt comes, gets it out, and then finishes flipping through the bin.  I must have gone to something else because then when I came back to finish it...you guessed it...ANOTHER ONE! Are you kidding me?! He went through it! AND WHY AM I THE ONE FINDING THESE THINGS!  This time Matt killed it.  He told me to look away and then handled the situation. :) Lucky me.

BUT THEN!!!! I come home and I had found chocolates where the wrappers had been nibbled away.  I told Matt I thought I heard mice in the walls and he thought I was crazy.  And then it happened, I heard something and moved a box that was sitting in the corner, and out ran a mouse!!!! I wanted to die.  What the heck was going on?? So of course, I couldn't sleep.  Who expected me to?! I was paranoid and rightfully so.  Because in the middle of the night, I heard it again.  In the same room as me, while I'm sleeping on the floor (Matt and I have been camping out lately - we love this 4 inch foam pad and have a camp out in the main sitting area).  ANYWAY, I flip.  Wake Matt up, want him to make this thing go away.  I use a flash light and see it dart across the floor but in the wrong direction! (Away from the closet door I want it to go back into and disappear!)

So we set traps, immediately in the storage unit and in the basement.  And who knows about our unit, but with in 2 hours we had a mouse at the house! I have a picture but I don't know if people really want to see it.  :)

Funny story from the airplane...

So I was flying with a friend from training this week and we had the WORST PILOTS EVER!  They didn't help, they didn't talk, they were rude and short, they were demanding, they were A HOLES!

SO, the other FA needed to let one go...if you know what I mean...so he backed it up to the cock pit door and let one rip! It smelled so bad! and we hope they smelled it and that it filled the cock pit :)

I'm laughing my butt off but I'm in front of the cabin so I kneel down in the galley to finished gathering myself when suddenly Kyles eyes go HUGE and he's like "oh crap!" and pointing behind me.  I look up to see water POURING out of a atlas (the containers that they put our supplies in).  I stand up to find it has completely SOAKED the back of my uniform.  So of course we are laughing even harder.  It was just a crazy day!

Delayed WWW...

I was in Vegas last Wednesday so you can imagine the Weight Watchers wasn't happening...

This is actually what was happening...

 and I haven't been to the gym (BIG surprise)...because instead...this is where I was and who I was with:

My sweet friend Lindsey

WE LOVED THE TIME IN THE SUN!!

 But there are some new developments!

1) The hydroxycut is amazing!  If I take it with water 30 minutes before my appetite is so much smaller (which for me is a feat!)

2) We bought the work out DVD Insanity and I am determined to do it! (So I come home determined to start it and get going and what happened??! THE DOG HAD COMPLETELY DESTROYED THE WHOLE SET OF DVDS!!!  totally sabotaged me.  So we'll buy another and start soon :)

Funny story from the airplane...

So, we make the same announcements...every flight...6 flights a day...

JUST like the passengers, sometimes we don't really listen or pay attention either!!  So I'm in the middle of my announcement when I realized I wasn't paying attention to where I was or what I was saying.  I suddenly was side tracked by the passengers sitting next to me that were talking to one another.  I was right in the part of the announcement where I announce the crew.  Usually we have a print out of the flight details but on this particular day I was working 2 different locals (there and back flights) back to back.

What does this mean?! This means that I wrote down some of the important info but I didn't have it all for my second flight.  I had written the captain and first officers names so I read them but as I came to the name of the other FA (Flight Attendant) I COULD NOT REMEMBER HIS NAME!! I went to training with this guy! I know him! That's why I didn't have to write down his name (should have!!)

Now everyone is paying attention because they realized there was suddenly silence over the PA and the other FA is awkwardly standing in front of the cabin.  I thought he would laugh, realize I'm an idiot, and mouth his name to me (while rolling his eyes - which I would be TOTALLY fine with).  NO!! He just stood there!!!
Not laughing...
Not smiling...
Not even rolling his eyes and definitely not mouthing his name to me.

I couldn't recover.  I was stuck! The guy next to me finally finished my sentence by saying "Billy Bob". So I continued and said, "That's Billy Bob up front.  My name is Heather and we are here to help you in the cabin"

As he walked down the isle to do his final safety check while I was finishing the announcement I listed names in my head and nothing stuck out.  I STILL COULD NOT THINK OF HIS NAME!! I squinted and finally saw the R and remembered.  RALPH! DUH!!!

Did he make eye contact and laugh as he walked up to me? NO.  Didn't say a word...didn't even look at me and turned and walked back down the isle to the front of the airplane.

After I finished the announcement and did the final, final safety check I walked up and was like "Oh my gosh Ralph! I totally know your name is Ralph!! That was so weird Ralph!! Can you believe that blank I pulled over the PA Ralph??" Did I over do it?! YES.  Did his demeanor change? No.  haha OH WELL!!

What's my excuse??  When you can't fall asleep at night anymore...so you get 5 hours of sleep or less and then you work a 12 hour day on the last 2 hours...its bound to happen, right?

Right or not, it did.  I felt so bad.  I felt so awkward that he was so awkward.  And then I got over it and called 3 FA friends to tell them the hilarious story and then tell them that he did not walk out with me to the bus after the flight (like we always do with our crews).  The first chance he had to bolt, he did.  No, "Nice flying with you. Gotta run.  See you later."  Just started walking even faster and never looked back.

I guess I can't blame him.

Wednesday Weight Watch

Since I have started looking at blogs (one week ago) I have noticed that a lot of people do a "Wednesday Want".  There are a lot of things I want, but since my "project"/goal right now is to lose weight I thought I'd track my progress every week as the WWW (Wednesday Weight Watch).

Out of my 3 easy steps...eat healthier, exercise/run, and take hydroxycut...all I have done is take hydroxycut.  LOL SAD!!! I KNOW!!

So, the goal this week is to take the before picture and run at least 3 times! (I figure that is do-able).  I MUST start tomorrow.  I will also start counting points with weight watchers so I stop just indulging in food...all day....every day.  :)

Lets hope next Wednesday I have more to report back on!!