As is usually the case, the last day of my school was suppose to be simple but it was very much so, not simple! The long awaited travel arrangements that I have been checking up on every week since January were still not completed and there was no ETA. The admin staff in base suggested that I just stay and wait it out, and that it would only be a few days until they were finished...That was not an option as far as I was concerned because we had travel arrangements that started that same day. After a very eventful morning of arguing with several different people, I departed the base with nothing but high hopes that these arrangements would get made with out any hitches along the way.
Brad and I set out for sunny Arizona to spend some time with my family,
take in a Mariners spring training game and I was getting a little ink done! As usual we had plenty of fun playing games and hanging out at home. We did quite a bit of driving while we were in AZ; from Phoenix to my parents house, from Heber to Flagstaff for my first tattoo session, back to Phoenix for the Mariners game, from Phoenix to Tombstone and back in one day, from Phoenix back to my parents house, from my parents house back to Phoenix and back again to take my sister to the airport,
1 more trip to Flagstaff to finish up my tattoo, and then once more to the Airport leaving AZ in the rearview! The grad total for that crazy little trip was 1,880 miles! Give or take a shorter trip or two to town and church! MAN was that a lot of driving!
As always the visit wasn't long enough, but we did our best to jam pack it with Fun, Food, and Family! Mission accomplished!!
Our next Stop on this mega trip was sunny San Diego, CA. We dropped in and stayed with our good friends Lee and Chelsey Vanderpool who treated us to wine tasting, lots of laughs and some good old fashioned California fun.
We also made a quick trip down to West Hollywood to take in the sites and visit my old high school friend Sean Parnell! It was awesome to see all that Hollywood had to offer, the beautiful parks, cool sights and great restaurants.
Well, we don't stay still long so we were off to WA for our last two weeks!! We were ready to slow it down a little but that didn't really pan out. Our first day in WA was ST. PATTIE'S and in fine navy tradition we did it up right!
It took a day or so but we finally recovered from our St. Patty's Day debauchery and we took it easy for a few days; then we were off to Portland for an awesome day with Aunt Gege and Uncle Mark.
We got back from Portland, and finally got to use our 4 year old gift certificates to the Space Needle, and it was fabulous! The light was great for snapping some pictures of the gorgeous Seattle sky line.
After an awesome lunch at the needle, we got to accompany John and Rebecca Hurley to the 2010 opening day match for the Sounders! It rained like hell and we were all frozen to the bone, but it was one hell of a game!
On our last weekend in WA we attended the WABL(Washington Beer Lovers Association) Cask Brewers Festival. 4 hours, a 4 oz glass and all the micro brew you can drink! The forecast was definitely drunk with a chance of wobbly! We all had great fun and no one ended up passed out on the street.
We packed in a lot of good byes in the last few days of our visit, and it was a great end to epic trip!
We made it back to VA after a crazy 6 hour long delay in Chicago, and even though it was 1:30 in the morning Tim was still there to ferry us home to his place for our last night in Norfolk, or so we thought! We spent the next day running around to get all the final paperwork done for our travel to Spain, amazingly we got everything done and still had time for one more margarita at Mi Hogar before we headed off to the MAC terminal. We got there just in time to wait in line for almost 2 hours with no air conditioning! It would have been horrible if it weren't for Tim and Mattie. 
They waited with us through that horrible line and then decided to hang out just until we boarded the plane. Unfortunately for us and them, the plan never took off that night! We waited until midnight before they told us that they wouldn't be taking off that night. It was horribly disappointing after the crazy paper chasing day that we had, but luckily Tim put us up again and brought us back to the airport the next day when we were finally able to board the plane and make our way to SPAIN! We got in at 3 a.m. on April first and its been nothing but excitement since!
