Amazing!!!!!

Good Morning Company Girls! At Last....able to do a blogger post....

The picture above is the first view from the lobby of the Silver Cloud Inn in Mukilteo, Washington....a little further down is a pic (I got them out of order, sorry) of a little bit of the lobby...very quaint and nautical....of course the picture above is of one of the many ferries that go back and forth from the mainland to the various islands nearby. Hubby and I actually took one the next day to go over to Port Gamble. We had tea at this cute little tea shop....they have hats there...fancy ladies hats that you can wear while having your tea...we declined but there were two young girls...about 12 years old...who were there,....all by themselves, having tea and wearing these fancy hats....very cute. Then we drove around some more and found a quilt shop!!!! I was so excited.....of course I would have loved to buy out the store but since it was the beginning of our trip I restrained myself....I was thrilled to find some things that I've been looking at online...some things to use in appliqueing ....some special glue and some heat resistant plastic called Templar that you make templates with.....so exciting...it's the little things ladies really!

This is a wee little lighthouse close to our hotel in Mukilteo....cute eh?
On to Hawaii...to the Queen's palace...you couldn't take pictures inside but it was very nice...a lot of beautiful wood...and a very old quilt, kept under glass that the queen and her companion worked on while she was imprisoned in one of the rooms there...(it's a long story).....I have to tell you about getting to Hawaii though....you'll be quite impressed with my hubby....you see hubby knows quite well that the extent of my flying, hours wise, is about four hours...maybe four and a half...well, flying to Hawaii from Washington is six... record for me...wasn't sure how I'd do it but I really wanted to go to Hawaii so I was willing to try.....ya, I know...overseas flights are much longer...maybe I wont get it there..but then again...maybe I'll just have to get my courage up to use the onboard washrooms......that's my greatest fear...flushing those toilets on a plane ...they scare the bejeebers out of me...so I'll do anything to avoid using them...including dehydrating myself...which I did...foolish yes, but these are desperate measures! Well when we arrived at Seatac airport for our flight, there were a lot of people standing around waiting to get their bags checked and hubby says...'I'm not waiting for this'...and proceeded to go down the aisle for first class...I'm following, protesting...'Don, Donald...we can't go here..this is first class...we're going to get in trouble'....but he kept going.....I was sure when he handed the baggage handler our tickets that the guy would say...'sorry,...wrong line'...but he didn't....I was surprised...then we were directed to the faster lane for first class to go through security....I was still quite dense and thought..'someone is going to stop us anytime now'.....as we were standing there I looked at my ticket to see where our seats were situated and it said 3C...that puzzled me because I always have the middle seat and Don has the aisle or window...well 'C' would not be the middle (??)...so I says to hubby...'what is your seat number...he said...3A....I said ..well, I'm C...does this mean we're not sitting together?...who's in between us....he just grinned and said 'ya, we're sitting together'....well, I stood there, waiting my turn to take my shoes and jacket off...empty all my stuff into those little bins....mulling this over.....and I looked at hubby...'Don, are we going first class?'...he grinned and said we were.....'How can we do that...we can't afford that...oh my goodness, what the pete are you doing?' I said...he just grinned...you see...we were flying on airmiles....he found out that by using more air miles and a little bit of money to make up the difference that we could go first class...he decided that he'd do that to surprise me, to make the 6 hour flight a little easier....insert 'aw' here....ya, he's a pretty good guy..think I'll keep him....First Class is soooooo cool...all the times I've flown and I've never realized just how the other quarter of the plane was living way up there at the front of the plane! My Goodness!
This is the view...sorry evening view so it's a little dark, from the balcony of our room on the 22nd floor .....of our hotel room in Honolulu, Hawaii....very nice...except I have a very strong fear of heights...I could force myself to go out about a foot on the balcony and that's it.....but a lovely view....
This is the pic that's out of order but it's part of the lobby in Mukilteo....
One day we went driving up the North shore in Oahu and saw these humongous sea turtles...this pic doesn't do it justice because it doesn't look as large as it really is.....
A view from a lookout where some battle with the king of Hawaii took place.....breathtaking view really....
This is a shot back in Washington....this is when we returned from Hawaii...we drove up the peninsula to the rain forest and stayed at a lodge in Lake Quinalt......very nice and peaceful after the busyness of Honolulu......
...before we left the area we went further up the coast to say we saw the Pacific Ocean...so there it is.....
Sorry...another pic out of order (I'm really not good at posting pics..)....this is hubby back in Hawaii trying to get a pic of the sea turtles in the water...when he gets the pics off his camera, which are much better than mine, I'll have to show you some.....

So, anyways...we had twelve glorious days of freedom...it was wonderful..we've never been away for that long and certainly not been away from the kids for that long...it went well at home...Emma stayed with eldest daughter Leslie...she wasn't happy but she cooked her goose and this was the consequence.....the other three stayed at home and Paul's girlfriend stayed with them...she survived, which was wonderful....it was the first vacation that I didn't have one bit of concern about what was going on at home....it was wonderful! Hubby planned our time away so very well...as he always does......Two days in Mukilteo, Washington, eight days in Hawaii, two days in the rain forest back in Washington and our final night in a lovely room overlooking Commencement Bay in Tacoma, Washington...the check in girl even upgraded us to a jacuzzi suite with no extra charge....a lovely treat situated right under the window looking out over the bay!

We had a long day of flying on Tuesday, (not first class :0) ).....from Washington to Chicago and then on a tiny little claustrophobic plane from Chicago to Buffalo and then the drive home...leaving our hotel, in Tacoma at 6:30am and arriving at home that evening at 9:30pm.....poor hubby had to get up the next morning and get off to work right away...which he wasn't looking forward to...after our holiday he was dreaming of retirement!....

It was a dream trip of a lifetime to be sure......we enjoyed every minute....I can safely say there wasn't one thing that went wrong...on our trip or at home.....it was worth the wait that we've been waiting for , for over a year....we were blessed...yes, we were blessed indeed and might thankful to the Lord for giving us this amazing opportunity.

Have a wonderful weekend!