It wasn't from me!

If you received a random email in your inbox from my hotmail account - it was not really from me. Sometime this morning, an email was sent from my hotmail to EVERYONE in my contacts list talking about some website with good deals. When I got an email from Ben saying "how do you know these are good deals when everything is in euros?" - I knew there was a big problem. I went into my hotmail to see what was going on, there was dozens of undeliverable messages and ALL of my contacts were deleted! Please don't open the email or go to the website. I'm still not sure how it happened, but it's a little disturbing. And as a side note - I probably don't have your email address any longer. Hopefully no real damage was done.

Michael & Lisa get Married!

Our last stop on vacation was Bend, Oregon where we stayed the weekend at the Inn at Seventh Mountain with the Gellners. It was a weekend wedding extravaganza for our friends, and fellow Disney fanatics, Michael & Lisa. The weather was GORGEOUS and Michael and Lisa looked so happy with one another. We're so very happy for you guys and hope you're enjoying the honeymoon in Disneyworld!! (Well, you're probably back by now since I'm so late in posting this)

Vacation Part V - Hello Hotlanta!

My good friend Misty took us to all the touristy spots in Atlanta and we had such a fun time hanging out together. We toured CNN Center, World of Coke, and walked Olympic park. We hit the Hard Rock Cafe for Ben (because he NEEDS another t-shirt). The other sites I wanted to see were a little more retail related. There's lots of stores there that they don't have in Portland so I came home with a few things. Just a few. Here's some pics of our last couple of days of vacation.

We love you Misty! Thanks for being such a great hostess. We hope we can visit Lionsgate again one day.

Vacation Part IV - Go Bears!

Exciting game today! We thought the Bears were going to win it in the last few seconds but it just didn't happen. In the end it was still worth it. Ben said the Falcon fans were WAY friendlier than the Seahawks fans he has encountered at the games in Seattle. They harrassed us, but in a friendly joking way - not the totally rude, spit on your car kind of way. Fun day!

Vacation - Part III Layover turned Destination

Did I say we were on our way to Atlanta? Somehow we ended up staying the night in Chicago. There's a long story behind that - the moral of the story is that American Airlines is lame. So, we called upon a former Chicago local for some tips on how to make the most of our unexpected stay here. We braved the train and found our way to Giordano's for some world famous deep-dish stuffed crust pizza.

We're back at O'hare waiting for our re-scheduled flight to Atlanta. From the Atlanta airport we will be going almost directly to my first NFL football game to watch the Bears play the Atlanta Falcons. Ben will be in heaven.

Vacation Part II - Welcome to Louisville

We arrived in Louisville around 1:30 am on Thursday morning. Ben's mom and the kids were waiting there to greet us. The kids were pretty happy that they got to stay home from school because they were out so late. We were all pretty wiped so we mostly hung out around the house. Guess we were preparing for Friday where we packed as much in as we possibly could. We started with a big pancake breakfast in the morning. Then we all went to the cemetery to visit Candi's grave (Ben's sister). Afterwards, we headed to Kart Kountry for some amusement. They rode go-karts, played video games, and a round of miniature golf. They had a great time. In the afternoon we took them to see Beverly Hills Chihuahua. The adults all agreed it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. The kids thought it was hilarious. Friday evening the kids had a soccer game, and the day was done.

This morning we got to surprise the kids with early Christmas presents from Grandma and Grandpa Whitaker. We took them to the Super Walmart pretending that we needed to do some shopping for ourselves. When we got there we told them each that Christmas arrived early and they could spend $100. Before the words were out of our mouths those kids were literally running down the aisles to the toy department. It was really fun.

As I type this we are already back at the airport on our way to Atlanta to visit my good friend Misty for a few days. Yahoo! Pray for no more delays!



From left to Right: Brianna, Edie (Ben's mom), Dimitri (Michi), and Creed.

Vacation Part I - Getting There

We left Wednesday morning bright and early to make our way to Louisville, KY. We're visiting Ben's mom, neice and nephews for a few days. Traveling was a LONG day. We left Portland at 8:30 and had a 3 hour layover in Seattle. We went from Seattle to Chicago where we had a 4 hour layover before going onto Louisville. Then our final leg was delayed more than an hour on the taxi way waiting in line to take off. It took us more than 12 hours to get there, but at least we got a really good deal on the tickets (and now we know why). Here's some photos of our traveling day. We got a good one of Mt. Ranier from the plane, Ben doing home work in the Seattle airport, and a photo of us in the Chicago airport. Sadly, there was not much Bears merchandise in the airport.