Memories from the Forgetful

Warning! It's a long one. I need to filter some info probably. I will get the hang of this.

My parents rock. (Although I might not have always known this) It is so true. Growing up I know for sure we went on vacation every year, well, at least as far as I can remember we went on vacation every year. It didn't matter if Dad was still in school or we were poor and lived in North Fairmount, I'm pretty sure we still went.

When I was 15 I so did not appreciate the fact that my parents did this. I had just finished my freshmen year @ Colerain, Allison had just graduated, and Allayna would have been 6 almost 7. We were on our way to California for 2 weeks. Now to any normal kid this would have been awesome, but this was the summer of bummer for me. I had lots of new friends at home and had been hanging out with them since school had let out. Now, poor pathetic me had to go to California. Whaa whaa whaa!

The trip started out with us having to make 3 connecting flights and one was through a super big airport (which I can't remember right now.) We knew we'd have a tight squeeze at one point but we were being optimistic about it all. (Ok, I want to say it was O'hare, but I may have to correct it later.) So we land in "O'hare" and realize we have about 15 minutes to get on our connecting flight and if I recall correctly it was over a mile to get there. We had to take a shuttle to the concourse and after that we had to run. It looked like it was straight out of a sitcom. My mom took off her shoes and was sprinting and my dad booked way ahead of us. We were running on the moving sidewalks trying to catch our flight. I am sure you are trying to picture us dragging poor little 6 year old Allayna behind us to get there. Now this is sad, I can't remember if we made it after all that drama, but I'm gonna say we did. We deserved it after that long run!

Our first stop was in San Francisco and we stayed in the Adelaide Inn now known as the Adelaide Hostel. It was in a dark creepy alley and pretty difficult to find, and kind of.... old and stinky. Allison and I shared a room together and Allayna stayed with my parents. I called my friends every night and Allison wrote love letters to Ryan or something like that. We went to China town where Allayna got a bright red kimono and we skipped around holding hands, once again like a sitcom family. We saw lots of jade objects and after a while we said we should start a collection. Dad would say every time the jade was for his "correction" and we would all laugh (every time). We walked down to the pier where we saw sea otters breaking things over their bellies and got some really cool pics of me in orange pants and a pokemon shirt. I hope they do not surface.

This is getting long, but I must remember more than I thought. I will recap the rest in tidbits. Like flashes of memories.
*flash* Allayna would do this creepy surprised face where she would look at something in amazement rub her eyes and then look again in amazement, this made us laugh everytime.
*flash*We went to Big Sur where we talked about lighting farts, played the "HAHA" game and got whipped in the face by sand. It was beautiful. We laughed.
*flash* Dad wore his sunglasses without one of the lenses for a long time without noticing, we laughed.
*flash* Allison made fun of me when I was on the phone with my friends and I punched her, we didn't laugh.
*flash* We did our morning exercises in our underwear, we laughed.
*flash* When we got home, my luggage was missing, with all of my new clothes, I didn't laugh.

This was before teenagers had cell phones and text messaging. I'm glad. I wouldn't have such great memories, blurred or not, if I would have had one in my hand at all times.

Mom and Dad, I don't know if I ever thanked you for that trip, but I want to say it now. Thank you for always making me laugh even when I am a big, teenage, brat.