British Columbia

Maybe you knew, and maybe you didn't, but I was on Spring Break the last week of March. 

Because I didn't have school, I got a lot of homework done (I really didn't think I would! I'm proud of myself) and some projects accomplished around the house. 

We also had some fun. 

Carson had Friday off, so we decided to take a day trip to Canada. He picked a town that's about three hours north of where we live (we're about two hours from the Canadian border) and we decided to head up there just because. Plus, I got my new passport in the mail just a few weeks ago, so we realized that it was in our best interest to put it to use! 

We started off with breakfast in town, at Shari's. Carson had stuffed hash browns, scrambled eggs, chicken fried steak and french toast. 

I had pancakes, hash browns, a scrambled egg and bacon. I gave everything else on my plate to Carson. It was a HUGE meal and I decided that having breakfast for dinner tastes better. 

Then we pulled the atlas out. To show you where we went, I put an "A" for Spokane and a "B" for Nelson. 

Driving.

I think we were stopped at a stop sign. 

They don't let you smile in passport pictures anymore. Carson looks like a serial killer and I appear to have two black eyes.

We stopped at this dam on the way...

We couldn't both fit...

Yay Canada! 

I didn't take a picture at the border because I'm not sure how they feel about that. They asked us lots of questions about why we were there and what we were doing. Even though we had nothing to hide, I felt SO nervous. 

As soon as we drove into Canada, our car's speedometer decided to work. For some reason, it works on occasion. Our car was made in Canada and so the speedometer is in kilometers, not miles per hour... anyway, the whole time we were there, the speedometer worked. We kept talking about how happy it was to be "home" :) 

I'm sorry that it's so ugly.

Kidding, of course...Carson was in complete awe at the mountains everywhere. 

Almost there!

We drove past a really neat bridge, so we turned around and decided to walk on it. This sign was at the entrance:  

As soon as we got back to our car, it started pouring rain. I was tired anyway, so I fell asleep. When we arrived in Nelson, I was very tired from my half-nap. So I kept sleeping. I slept for about an hour while Carson explored the town. When he returned, I woke up and we walked around for just a little bit. It was rainy and windy - just the sort of weather that makes you want to curl up and sleep. So while the town itself was very cute and looked like fun, the weather made our time there really short. 

We did see this, which we found HILARIOUS. A liquor delivery truck! 

And even though it was freezing, we stopped and got ice cream. The nice thing about it was that it made me almost numb, so it didn't feel as cold. We didn't eat lunch because breakfast was so filling, so I guess that the ice cream in Nelson was our lunch. 

We walked back to the car, and I had Carson take our picture (twice... the other picture was really bad). As we walked, he guided me around a puddle and then opened the car door for me (he always does). After he'd closed the door behind me, I noticed the two men walking behind us stop and say something to him. When he got into the car, he told me that they'd commended him on being such a gentleman. (it's true)

This was the weather as we left Nelson. It's hard to see, but it's snowing. 

Behind this building were trees and a mountain... you can't tell because there was so much SNOW!

Fairly soon after, the tricky weather turned into sunshine. Carson has a thing for large rocks, so he stopped the car just to stand on this one. 

The American Border Patrol asked us lots more questions and looked in our trunk, which is basically full of items to go to Goodwill, random books, and several pairs of Carson's shoes. Through the lines of questioning (he asked us our occupations, and when I said that mine was "student", he drilled me on where and what and why), we discovered that the guy doing border patrol graduated from Moody-Spokane in 2006. Small world? 

--

Anyway, we decided to pick up Thai for dinner since our meal budget for the day was pretty open. 

Funny story... We have quite a few Thai places here, so I texted Google for the number of a specific one. There happen to be two locations, and I gave Carson the number for the North Division location. This story isn't exactly funny, because we went there and they had no evidence of our order. I checked my phone against his and realized that we'd called the order in to the location on E 29th. It wasn't that far away, but I still felt bad because we were late to pick it up and it was out of our way. I guess next time I'll pay better attention. 

Anyway, we had Crab Rangoon (Carson calls them butterflies)

And Pad Thai. Mine was "no spicy" and Carson's was "as spicy as you can get it". Those are technical terms. 

He was pretty hungry by this point and taking a superfluous picture wasn't on his priority list, but he was a good sport. 

So that was our Canadian-American adventure. The best part was the driving, because we got to talk. That's really the reason we even went - we find that if we're home at the same time, our books and such distract us, but time in the car is usually quality time. 

Deck the Halls...?

I'm looking online for decorating ideas. 

Here are some things (several of them clearance) that I've been thinking about:

Actually, I'd just like lamps. We have one right now and it's great. One on the bookshelves (or a side table if we get one) and one next to our bed would be super. 

[from Bed, Bath and Beyond]

I have a similar lamp at my parent's. I love it, and I'd love to find a way to get it over here. Probably not gonna happen though. 

[World Market]

Nothing special... but I'd love to have a wall with black and whites of places we've been - scenery and that kind of thing. Probably various sizes of black frames for that. 

[Bed Bath and Beyond]

While I'm not a coffee lover (tea drinker), I absolutely LOVE this. With a black frame. Love the stenciled look and design of it. Would be easy to make?

[on Etsy]

I think I love this. I'd have to see it in person. I do like the colors. Both Carson and I like warm color tones.

[via World Market]

[World Market]

Okay, maybe not quite this distressed. I do like the trend of signs all over the house though. 

I'd probably attempt to make something similar.

[World Market]

Furniture... well we're still sitting on the floor to eat dinner, which doesn't bug us.

 We've been searching Craigslist for couches and are hoping to score something soon. 

Then we'll be searching for a pal with truck. 

Thankful

Things that I am thankful for this week:

Spring Break. No school till next Wednesday! (I only have class Wednesday-Friday anyway)

A sunshine-y Sunday. We spent the afternoon on the lawn wearing shorts and short sleeved shirts. All of Spokane was dressed for summer. The funny thing? It was 59 degrees. Ah, Washington!

Cups of tea on rainy days. With the exception of Sunday, the weather has been copying Seattle's. So I'm thankful for cozy mornings and afternoons.

Long drives. Carson and I drove to Couer d'Alene for dinner one night last week just because. We had yummy pizza and found a tiny mall that we walked around, laughing and talking. And you probably already knew that I like to talk on long drives....

Great friends. On Saturday evening I joined several friends for a girly movie night and chocolate pie. On Monday, the same lovely ladies and I braved the rain to search for formal dresses. We didn't have much luck with that but the company was great (and I found a dress for graduation).

Impending Graduation. School only has eight weeks left. I graduate in 58 days! And then five days after that, I go on my internship! I'm looking forward to the summer.

The Bus Stop.

And there it is... through the window screen.

Outside our window is a bus stop.

When we moved into this apartment, I thought of it as a normal bus stop. I could not have been more mistaken.

Now I'm not sure why, but this seems to be the place to hang out, catch up (loudly) with friends, break up (loudly) with significant others [a note on this: WHY would you end your relationship there? I feel so bad for these people], have an argument (loudly) about something and (loudly) try to hit on someone.

In other words, it is loud. But what else is it?

It is a source of entertainment: One night, we were drifting into a peaceful sleep when we heard the following conversation, shared by two unsuspecting teenage boys:
*whirr of skateboards*
"Hey, dude"
"Yeah?"
"have you ever wondered what would happen if a big, fat (here, we started to worry about the next words to come out of his mouth) NUCLEAR BOMB were headed straight for that street sign?"
"Woah dude"
There's no way it sounds as funny reading it as it did to us that night. Neither of us knew the other was listening until we cracked up. We laughed for a good 15 minutes, repeating it and discussing the absurdity of a nuclear bomb actually heading for the street sign... eh, you probably still don't find it funny. Oh well. We'll repeat it to one another randomly just for a laugh... you should have heard the way it was said.

It keeps us up on pop culture: One night last summer, I was finishing a paper at 2am and heard a rather intoxicated gentleman singing Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" at the top of his lungs.

We get to learn fun new words: I won't elaborate on this, except to say that I had no idea there were so many vocabulary options in a heated argument.

It's a bit scary. Not really frightening, but it is weird when you hear a loud disagreement and look out to find that there's just one guy out there, talking to himself in different voices.

This bus stop is one facet of the place we live that definitely makes it unique. I'm not sure that I'll look back and think about it with fond memories, but it has brought some interest to our days (and nights, come to think of it).

Straight No Chaser

I never posted about what I got for my birthday, and that's mostly because I didn't take pictures of my gifts. I got a lot of fun things: some clothes, a notebook, kitchen things, funny owl washcloths the only owl things I got, so maybe that whole themed thing is dying out). 

But Carson got me something else that I really loved... tickets! 

A few years ago, I watched this widely spread video on YouTube (watch it all the way through) and from there watched more. Really found myself enjoying this a capella group, Straight No Chaser.

So Carson read in the Inlander that they were coming to Spokane and purchased tickets a couple of months ago. We went on March 18th (Scott's birthday!). 

The concert was at the Bing Crosby Theater. I'd never been there before but it's beautiful inside. He got us seats in the balcony because he thought we'd be able to see better up there (I'm really short). We ended up sitting in the very last row, but that was just fine. Our view was still great, as the theater isn't huge (744 seats according to the website). The acoustics were great and the performance was terrific! We both loved it. It was well done and very entertaining. 

Here's a few videos I took:

A Green Dinner

This isn't the most exciting post in the world, but I wanted to give an update on what we actually did on St. Patrick's Day. 

During the day Carson worked (he wore green of course) and I stayed home and did homework (this is midterms week and there's a LOT due). Later that afternoon, we went over to a friend's house for a surprise engagement party. The info isn't quite up on Facebook so I won't say who, but two friends got engaged on Saturday and we had a little celebration in their honor. 

When we got home, we had this green meal:

This was the only green drink we could think of... and Mountain Dew itself is yellow. Somehow I didn't know that... the bottle is at least green.

Along with that, we had baked potatoes (because potatoes are Irish). This was the first time I've ever made them. The potatoes were HUGE and we totally could have shared just one. We each ate half. 

We had green salads also. Regular-colored dressing.

For dessert (we ate this the next day because we were that stuffed), we had green jello. I used the "quick set" method with ice cubes from the back of the box, which is why there are those funny indents. 

We topped those with whipped cream and green sugar sprinkles. 

And that was our St. Patrick's Day dinner! It was fun to plan a themed dinner, so I am now scheming of other holiday meals. If you're wondering, Carson isn't as excited about this as I am, but you expected that, didn't you? He appreciates the efforts and laughs at me for getting into things like this. And I don't actually take it very seriously either; it's just fun to make obscure little holidays special. 

Spring Fever

Facebook is a terrible thing. I keep seeing pictures of beach days, swimsuits, tan people and statuses that say things like "Wow, summer is here already!"

And why is this terrible? I've included a picture to illustrate. This was today's forecast on Wunderground: 

Now do you understand? Call me wimp, but I'm from the South... this is terrible weather!

I love Washington in the summer and in the fall, but those are the two shortest seasons! Yesterday was the first day of spring, but this rainy, overcast, 90% chance of snow weather is just not very springlike. 

I don't remember what spring fever is supposed to indicate, but I'm using it to mean that I really really want the warm weather to come to Spokane and stay! We've only got a few more months here; we'd like to look back on this place with fond memories! 

Comments on the warmth of the temperature wherever you live are unacceptable. I don't want to know.

 (disclaimer: though I really do want the warm weather to come and for the sun to shine, I'm not actually angry about it; bitter at those who rub their awesome sunshine in my face? yes. :) )