Tuesday, July 01, 2008

My Sweet Aunt Joy and Vacation Memories!




The first pic is of my mom and Aunt Joy. Second pic is my dad and I and third pic is of me and my Aunt Joy together. :D


The other day I got to go to Cracker Barrel to meet up with my Aunt and Uncle along with my parents. I got there too early and sat at the table for 45 minutes! I didn't mind though. I was just soaking in the opportunity to watch people around me. I usually don't do that because I'm talking with my own family. I was by myself this time waiting for them. I told my dad not to worry. "I'm holding down the fort." Ha ha. I even ate a salad all by myself and didn't say a word. Of course I wouldn't. I was by myself. That would look odd. But it was kind of neat. This is my very favorite aunt, my great Aunt Joy. I have to mention though that I truly love and feel blessed for my Uncle Lloyd too. So when I was sixteen years old I wanted to go on vacation to see them by myself to California. I decided to bring along a friend who was going through some hard times at that point in her life. I thought it would be good for her and I to spend some fun time there. So after staying at the beautiful house in California, we traveled along the coast up to Oregon in their huge and awesome RV. We spent lots of time at the beach, camped in the Redwood forests and visited the Oregon Caves. It was just so wonderful! Jessica and I came back with a tan and LOTS of fun stories.

1. My friend Jessica and I would stay up really, really late and then sleep late into the morning. Since we were supposed to be in bed, we would have to sneak out to get some food out of the kitchen. One night, while the house was really dark, my friend and I snuck into the kitchen to make some toast. All of a sudden the hallway light came on and my friend and I fell to the floor, behind the island in the kitchen, in order to not be seen. It turned out to be my very old grandmother who scuffled into the kitchen to get a glass of water. Every where she moved, my friend and I would crawl on the floor around the island to stay out sight. We kept moving really fast back and forth so we wouldn't get caught. It was so funny and we had the major giggles the entire time so it didn't help. Finally my great-grandmother went back to bed and shut the hallway light off so we could finish making our toast. You had to see it. It was so funny.
2. For some reason while up there, my friend and I had a major appetite for iced tea and toast. We didn't want to seem like major pigs so her and I devised a plan to get some more toast (I think it was cinnamon). She was to go into the living room (you can easily see into kitchen from it) and distract Lloyd by talking about anything she can come up with. I was to prepare the toast. She did such a good job at it. I had to cough or something to disguise the sound of the toast popping up when it was finished. Ha ha! It was hilarious. Looking back now I'm sure they wouldn't of minded that we were eating them out of house and home but we were shy about it at the time. My poor Aunt Joy went through so much iced tea she could've supplied an army I'm sure. She was constantly making another pitcher.

3. This is my favorite story but not in a mocking way. I think it is adorably cute and I get the giggles whenever I tell it. Jessica and I fell asleep and later we woke up pretty cold in the middle of the night. I think I might have been hogging the blankets a little. Jessica was trying to find something to warm her up and was feeling around for whatever part of a blanket she could get. Well, real early in the morning we woke up to major sun coming through the window. It was just right in our eyes. Finally Jessica says, "Jenny, go close the curtains, it's so bright!" In my drunken-like state, because I was so tired, I stumbled over and tried to pull them together. It would close so I gave up. Later in the morning we finally woke up and took a look at the window. We realized that I had been trying to shut the outer part of the curtains that just frame the window. The curtain itself was ripped out of the wall! The pole and everything! We were like, "What happened to the curtains?" Then it slowly dawned on us. Jessica says, "I'm laying in them!" Sure enough she was! She was wrapped like a burrito and was laying directly on the pole! She said, "Well, no wonder something was so hard underneath me!" We figured it out. In the middle of the night when she got so cold, she reached for the curtains in her semi-sleep and ripped them right off the wall. She then wrapped herself in it and that's why we couldn't "shut the curtains"! Ha ha! We just laughed and laughed for a long time. For awhile there we couldn't even tell the story without tears coming out in laughter.

4. Just the night before we had watched a scary movie. Night of The Living Dead. So we were a little jumpy. Her and I were out on the patio like at 2 in the morning. All of a sudden we heard footsteps walking straight towards us. Who in the world could it be?? We didn't want to find out. We just screamed and ran for the house. When we got to the patio door (which is glass) we screamed even louder when we saw our reflections. We thought it was someone else! We ran inside as fast as we could and back to our rooms. In the morning we found out that deer come up all the time to their patio at night. We thought it was a weirdo coming to get us. That is just so funny.

Anyhow, I had to write this down for memories sake. It's just so funny. We had such a great time. Aunt Joy misses my old friend and would love to get a chance to say hello to her again. She wanted me to pass on a message that she loves and misses her. I don't see my friend anymore, two different and busy lives, but I'll never forget that fun and crazy trip. You can guess what happened when we went to the beach after just having watched the movies "Jaws" the night before. We screamed every time a seaweed wrapped around our legs. We were pretty sure it was a sea creature coming to pull us under. LOL!

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