Iceland, Norway, and New York

My trip is done, and I'm left exhausted and full of great / interesting memories. Iceland and Norway were beautiful surprises. New York lived up to my expectations, huge, busy, and a lot of fun. All in all it was a great trip with two close friends.

It will forever be an interesting mix of memories. Jenny's husband (Britt) is deployed on operation Iraqi Freedom. He left Feb. 1st and I left a few days later, and thus this trip was born = we both needed something to look forward to. Summer had the plan to go to Norway to visit her brother and sister-in-law. Lucky for us - prices were ridiculously low.

Jenny and I tried our best to have fun without our husbands, but were reminded of how empty even amazingly fun things can be without them. This is not to say that we didn't have fun. We enjoyed every last minute of it - but homesickness (for husbands - and especially for Utah [for me] will forever be a memory of this trip). Summer is a good friend of mine from cycle camp, and a fellow triathlete. She is single, and therefore brought an interesting mix to my feelings of missing Jaren.

Here are some of the pics I took, I didn't want to make this post so long that people don't want to read it. So enjoy! (They are Picasa albums... so just click on them, and you will get to see a lot more)

Iceland

Norway

New York

Random Alabama... and a new journey!

Just stop reading now if all you want is a the tour of the house put together. Sorry... it's gonna take me a bit longer to get that together for all of you! :)

Good news - we didn't die yesterday in the Alabama shootings. We were nearby (kind of), and I didn't hear about it, until my friend called from Utah to make sure that I was alive.

I did get to take a few more random pictures for you, and hope that you get to see a bit more of what I see each day here in Alabama. This is the front gate of Fort Rucker (the gate from Ozark).

This is the Huey off to the right as you go in the front gate. I know that it's a Huey all on my own now. Jaren has been testing me. He took me to the museum, and taught me the different helicopters (and their associated numbers). Now I get drilled every time we hear a chopper over head. Huey = UH-1.

OH THE JOY!!!Here's a picture on our way to church in Ozark. It was a cloudy day, but temperatures were still in the 70's. Not too shabby. Keep in mind that it is winter, and that the green will only get greener in the spring/summer. Yeah!

Here's one of the airfields. Exciting right? :)

This was too good to pass up. We turned our car around to snap this "Beaut".

I got invited to go to the local Bunco night with some of the Army wives. It was such a blast. I had never played - and I loved it. My slightly (ha!) competitive nature helped me to get into it. Now that I know what's going on, I'm moving towards global domination. It will be at my house next month - so that should be fun! This is Jenny - she is one of my new friends here in Alabama. She's super funny - and stole Big Bunco from me in the last few minutes of the game. She bares and uncanny resemblance to Tina Fey don't ya think?

The humidity has turned up the last few days, as well as the heat. It hit 80 (or so I was told), and I could feel it. Kind of like getting out of a shower... and never being able to open the door to get the cool fresh air. Also turned up - Allergies! Yes!!!

I leave for Iceland, Norway, and New York tomorrow. It should be really exciting. I'm happy to be able to see Jenny and Summer. I have had a bit more homesickness this week... but overall - I'm still doing good. Keeping busy, lots of new friends, and plenty of work to do. Looking for a job - but that's gonna take a while. Who knows how long. I've heard horror stories of waiting 5 months to get a $7.00/hr job. Crazy!