I'm Leavin' On a Jet Plane....

I'm sure plenty of you know of the excursion my family is planning on taking this Christmas. But for those of you who don't, we are planning quite the trip and vacation to Germany. Most of you know that my mother is German and we have family in that country that I haven't seen in years. Not to mention, none of them have met my brand new husband, who I'm quite anxious to show off.

At any rate, this trip has a lot of planning still that needs to be done, and I wanted to share the process. Mostly, to get ideas if I'm missing anything or of things I could do. To begin with, I'll start with our flight itinerary.

On Tuesday, December 23rd:

We'll be flying British Airways













Depart: Seattle, WA @ 6:30 PM
Arrive: London-Heathrow, GB @ 12:00 PM (the 24th)

Depart: London-Heathrow, GB @1:50 PM
Arrive: Stuttgart, DE @ 4:30 PM, where our family will pick us up.

We'll be returning on January 6th in Seattle @ about 3:50 PM. Yup, that's right. TWO WEEKS in Germany!!!! But here's the kicker: there will be 15 of us going! That includes all the children (even the 2 yr. olds).

Because of work schedules, Ty and I will be the last to get there and flying without the rest of the family. The plan, as of right now, is that Ty will work from home that day until about Noon, which is when we plan on getting our little rear ends out of Moses Lake. Since the flight leaves at 6:30, and according to airline regulations for international flights, we need to be at the airport 2 hours before the flight. We don't want to spend a horrific amount of money parking our car at the airport ($260.00), so we are driving to the apartment complex my brother and sister-in-law manage. Now, our dilemma lies with what is the best solution to getting from the apartments to the airport.

These are our options:

Option #1














There is a Sound Transit Metro Bus stop about five seconds from the apartments. This would definitely be the cheapest of all the options available. The total cost of fare per person is about $2.50, one way. We would start our journey at 3:12 and arrive at 4:20. Now the drawback. Not really the most comfortable way to travel, especially with baggage. Not to mention the there would be at least one transfer in between.


Option #2










If you go to the Sea-Tac Airport's website and look under "Parking and Transportation", they will give you a list of options. The only one serving the area that we will be in (Kirkland) was the Go Shuttle Express. They offer a Share Ride service. They pick you up at you requested destination and drop you off at the airport. There would be a window between 3:00 and 3:20 when they would pick us up and drop us off at the airport at 4:20. Being as there are two of us, and it would need to be a round trip, there's a few discounts. However, the total would still come out to $92.50. Uhhh....remember how I'm trying to save money? This is more than likely going to be either the same or better than getting a taxi, so I'm not even going to look into that.

Option #3



















Last of all options is to beg and plead any family or friends living on that side of the mountains to help us out and take us to and from the airport. We would, of course, pay for gas. This is probably going to be the most comfortable (and compared to the Shuttle Express most cost-efficient), however we don't want to inconvienence anyone. That is, afterall, the day before Christmas Eve. People have better things they could be doing on that particular day.


So here we are. Undecided. Help me out people. What advice can you give? Are there other options that I haven't looked into that might be better?

Next up will be the luggage.....

Salsa Off!!!!

I know...I'm totally throwing you all off with posting so soon after my last one, but I actually have pictures for this one and I didn't want to wait.

May I proudly present Basin Family Chiropractic's 3rd annual Salsa Off!!! All of us girls in the office and Doc, individually, make a salsa and our patients come in throughout the day, try them, and vote.

My Avocado, Mango Salsa.

Deanna's Salsa, it was a general flavored salsa.
Daniele's Nectarine Salsa.
Doc's Super-Spicy Salsa.

And the winner is Doc with his Super-Spicy Salsa with 19 votes!!!! It was a lot of fun. Last year when we did this I totally bombed (I only got like 2 votes). But in my defense it was the first salsa I ever made and actually Ty's favorite. This year though, I did much better getting 3rd place with 14 votes.

Fair Fun!!!!

So, this post is exceedingly overdue, but I'm adopting the philosophy "Better Late Than Never".

While eating our utterly delicious soft-serve ice cream, we enjoyed some music from a local band.

My niece, Sammy, and nephew, Jaden came to visit and my parents brought them to the Fair....

Where we, naturally, fed them unhealthy Fair food such as: Corn Dogs, Fries, Otter Pops, and my favorite Soft-serve ice cream.

Then we went to see the aminals.....

A few of them got a little fresh with Dad.....They started with two......Birdies!!!!And of course, Ty and I ended the night with more Ice Cream....I was so excited I couldn't hold the camera still!!! J/K
That week was a crazy one for me. I was working in the office, doing massages (until they could find someone else...which I'm happy to announce that they did and I'm no longer doing massage), and working at the office Fair booth. But I met some pretty cool people out there.

AVON ladies...."AVON calling". So many ladies took shifts between them all, that I never saw the same ones twice. And normally they came in twos, so they had a buddy. I'm pretty sure this lady's buddy ran to get some food.
My Costco peeps. I felt really bad for these guys. Just to clear it up....Costco bought land in ML about 13 years ago, but nothing has happened with it. For now, they have no plans on coming to ML. They got asked that a lot!!! (I admit, I asked too!)
Tupperware DIVAS!!! These ladies are truly amazing! From the second the Fair started to the second it ended, they were there. I think they did pretty dang good too.
This was my last day at the fair, so I wanted a picture of me and Doc (my boss). That man is so cheesy!
Doc greeting people trying to flock them all in.

I ended my Fair week by meeting Dino Rossi. My uncle was like you're going to meet him...come with me. Grabs my arm and pulls me to him and then introduces me and says something about me being a small business with Massage.....David did you get that memo about me not doing massage anymore? Oh well. Mr. Rossi was a very nice guy and I think he'll do well.

Hooray for FAIR!!! This was the first time I'd been to the fair in about 12 years. Other than the working part, I enjoyed myself. Good times.
Side note: Someone needs to explain to me the excitement about Spaceburgers. And none of that it's Fair tradition crap. This was also my first year for that and it was okay, but nothing I'd be waiting all year for. ??????