We're Home

After a great day of Sunday services my hubby and I headed out at midnight to catch our 2:30 am flight to Seattle and then on to Orange County, Anaheim CA to see my college girl friends that I caught up with after 25 years through facebook. Let me just say, I've never been afraid to fly. I USE to love to fly but it's so hard on me physically that I don't care for anything more than a couple of hours. BUT the flight from Anchorage to Seattle was the most horrible ever. We ran in to turbulence towards the end of the flight. I was actually in the bathroom. It was a little bumpy when I when I got up. By the time I got in there...I was being thrown everywhere. I couldn't stand up. I tried to open the door and the flight attendant slammed it shut and told me to stay in there until she said. It probably was the safest place to be, but kind of eerie. After about 5 minutes they told me to hurry back to my seat. The flight from Seattle to Orange County was better but not much. We got in and it was pouring out. This is what it did all week but you know what we had a great time. Susan got us a beautiful room at the Marriott Fairfield Inn (Disneyland hotel fell through the last minute). The Marriott is across from Disneyland and in the midst of downtown Disney. It had one of the most comfortable beds ever. Susan dropped us off leaving us her friends car. We slept for a couple of hours and then the rain stopped and I went for a walk. Susan and her husband picked us up at 6 pm and we went to out to dinner at a Korean BBQ (Susan is Korean so perfect). I was leery as I'm not one for different food. But I LOVED it! There wasn't any of it that I didn't like. It's where you take the raw food back to your table and grill it right at your table. I wish I could remember what any of it was called but I don't. We will definitely be looking to see if there is a Korean BBQ here in Anchorage.

We got to shop downtown Disney. Store after store of Disney paraphernalia but other stores and restaurants too. My favorite was the Anne Geddes store. They had her dolls, her books, her maternity clothes, and baby clothes. After putting 3 books back I came out with some of the darlingest cards and that was it. I was a good girl.

Remember it's still pouring down rain...as we head to Newport Beach to the next hotel Susan set up for us. It was at the Newport Channel Inn. We took the Coast Hwy as be able to see the view. The view we saw was palm trees bending in the wind. All different kinds of palm trees. It was so windy and rainy so hard...when we got to the Inn; it was quaint, nothing fancy but very comfortable. We decided to stay in and relax versus getting drenched (as I forgot to say, we got soaked on Tuesday). We asked at the Inn where we could order some pizza. We ordered from a place that I can't pronounce Big Cheese Pizza and it was great pizza. Then we got to meet Susan's beautiful daughter Elizabeth as she brought us some more gift certificates, this time for Marie Callandear's restaurant. We noticed it stopped raining so we took a drive in the DARK to Balboa Island. The winds were still strong as we found palm tree branches on the roads. We saw the huge waves on the ocean beaches but couldn't go down to them due to them being closed cuz of the storms. We went back to the Inn for the night.

Thursday we had breakfast at Scappy's Cafe and then headed to Susan's house. An awesome historical, Victorian house. It is absolutely gorgeous. Her yard, all of it. It has toilets that you have to pull a chain to flush. Pretty cool. Two sets of stairs going upstairs one steeper then the other but both steep. Cool but I wouldn't want to climb them all the time. The master bedroom has a sitting room off it with a fire place, sofa etc. The house is full of glass bookcases (built in) and her husband collect antique books such as Emerson, and old books on the reformation. I just loved it. We visited with Susan for a couple of hours then went to Marie Callandars for lunch, picked her darling two sons and daughters from school and came back and visited some more. Then her and I decided to do quick stroll down Orange Circle, which is Antique land as I want a Victorian Teapot but no success. We came back to wait for Mary. When Mary got there the four of us (Susan's husband had to work) headed to an upscale Chinese restaurant PF Chang (another set of gift cards) which was in the Garden Walk of Anaheim. This is basically an outdoor, open air mall. Different and cool. Now I see the crazy Susan and Mary coming out. We had such a great visit. Jody just added his quirkiness, keeping it fun. He learned how to use chopsticks (Susan and Mary are great teachers) and was rubbing it in that he succeeded before me. He also was bragging about being a gentleman and opening the car door for me (Susan has an Odyssey van that she pushes a button and the doors slide open ~ smile). These two ladies were bridesmaids in our wedding, so they weren't strangers to Jody or Jody to them. It was so good to be with my dear friends again. Yes, years have aged us as has life but Susan put it best "time didn't cause much distance of the heart". I'm grateful for the short time we had with them and I'm just praying that they'll be able to come to Alaska some day before we leave here (no we're not leaving any day soon that we're aware of, but we never know what God has in mind).

We were thankful for the time away, as always though, it's good to be home. We left behind wind, rain, palm trees, flowers and green grass BUT we were welcomed by sunshine to our winter wonderland.