Monday, September 29, 2008

Forks Day 2

On Friday we woke up bright and early (Not my idea, at all. I am as far from a morning person as you can get!). We had to get ready to meet Carey and Aimee, who were in our group, but staying at their own hotel. I rode with Meg, Rae, AmyO, and then Carey & Aimee joined our car once we met up with them at the cafe in Forks.



That morning we woke up to real Forks weather. It was overcast and drizzling. It was awesome! And actually that was our only real experience with normal Forks weather. The rest of our trip and that afternoon even, it was sunny! Not at all what we wanted or was expecting. But that's okay, we at least got that small amount of bad weather. It's funny, on most people's vacations, they want sunshine. But for us it was the exact opposite. LOL


Meg and I


We decorated our car while we waited (this is a shot of our lovely artwork, when we were at the beach)


This one was for Rae. Being the Jacob lover that she is (She's so misled *hee hee*)

All of us drove to the HOH (pronounced ho) Rain Forest after meeting up at the cafe. This place was gorgeous. Exactly as described in the books. Green, dense trees, covered in moss.





Even the phone boothes grow moss


We took a hike on one of the trails. Got in tune with nature, and vampire nature. ;) And just enjoyed the beauties that surrounded us.




Yoga Amy doing what else?!...yoga :)

I hiked for the most part with Rae, and Chelle. We got a bit goofy on the trail. Pretending to be Cullen's, and even talking to squirrels.


L-R: myself, Chelle, and Rae




Yes, we were complete and utter dorks! ;p




We decided to have a snack before lunch LOL

When we were out of the forest, we waited and sun bathed (the sun was already out by that afternoon), for the rest of our party. We visited, and ate Cheetos while everyone else was wandering in to join us.





All 27 of us

After our frolic in the woods, we drove to La Push, to have a picnic on First Beach! :) The beach was amazing! Gorgeous beyond imagination. You can totally picture Bella and Jacob walking along the beach together.






The cafe we stopped at that morning, made all of us sack lunches for our picnic. I got a turkey sandwich, chips, an apple, candybar, and a brownie.




A cute picture of some of the girls, sporting our fun rainboots, that we bought for the trip


Look, Jacob really was here!!

When the girls in my car, and I were finished eating, we hurried off to go to the Forks Outfitters and Thriftway. They had some Twilight merchandise there that we wanted to possibly buy, before the mad rush happened on Saturday and perhaps not being able to get what we really liked.



At the stores, we all found cute stuff. I bought a beanie cap that reads, "Love at first bite. Forks, Washington". And a shirt that looks like the "Survivor" logo, and reads, "What happens in Forks, Stays in Forks". With the words, "Road Trip", through the middle of the circle and a cute bat silhouette over the words.


Modeling my new beanie

After the Thriftway we went to a couple other stores. We checked out the flower shop, which had a ton of unique Twilight merchandise. Some cute tops and bracelets, book marks, magnets, scrapbooking papers and supplies. I got a couple cute magnets for the fridge. One that reads, "Forks, Wa. Where Vampires Rain", and it has raindrops coming down with a big red one in the middle. And the other one looks like a usp code and has a heart in the middle. At the bottom are the numbers 11 21 98331 08 (the date the movie comes out, with the Forks zip code in the middle) and then I LOVE EDWARD.


The florist's window. Lots of fun stuff there, including a pair of Jacob's shredded shoes

We left all the rest of the stores for the next days excursions. And headed back to our cabin to just relax and chat until dinner time.

For dinner we ordered pizza from a local pizza joint. And I have to say I was impressed, the pizza was really tasty. That night was our Ya Ya headdress and gift exchange night. We all piled into Cabin 1's living room for the festivities.



I enjoyed listening to everyone's explanations on why they made the headdresses, scrapbook pages, and gift that they gave to everyone else in the group. The gifts were great. I enjoyed all of them. Everyone seemed to really like my playlist gift I gave them. I was pleasantly surprised that it went over so well with everyone. :)



Laurie wearing the lamp shade


Jessica as cute as ever, in her sunflowers

We also made a pile of presents and scrapbook pages to send to Stephenie Meyer herself. A couple of the girls in our group know her personally (lucky girls). So I know for sure that she will get the gifts. It's kind of cool knowing that she will be looking at something I made!



Rhonda sharing her scrapbook page

After all the fun, Meg and I decided to head back to our cabin. We were both exhausted. I only got a couple hours sleep the past two nights, so I was ready to turn in. And Rae, being the sweetie she is (you know you are Rae), let me have her bed spot that night, so I wouldn't be kept up by everyone else in the cabin (Jessica and I had the sleeper sofa bed in the living room).

Meg and I actually ended up chatting a little bit longer than we intended to that night in bed, but I still got more sleep than the last couple nights combined.

It was a very good day!

*Just wanted to give credit where credit is due, to all the lovely TMs that shared pictures with me. They are responsible for many of the pictures I have posted and will add in my future trip posts. Especially the scenery shots. So thank you girls, with your awesome camera taking abilities. Because my camera sucks! LOL*

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

My Forks Trip Day 1

I was determined to make this short and sweet, so I could fit the whole trip in one post. Well, that ain't going to happen. Y'all know me, I ramble way too much to keep my posts that concise. So I'm breaking it up into 4 days. I promise to share about each day asap (I do realize I still haven't finished my Disneyland posts, but seriously I will eventually finish them. ;p )

I left for the airport, early Thursday morning to take the plane to Seattle. I was on the same flight as two other gorgeous Twilight Moms, who also happened to be in my group. Britten and Kirsten, will knock your socks off the minute you get to know them.


Waiting for our flight

We arrived safely in Seattle, and then proceeded to wait for everyone else in our group (we had 27 girls, including myself).


L-R: Amy, Amy, Andie, Meg (only the top of her head), and Donna


Once everyone else had arrived in Seattle we set off for the pier and ferry area of Seattle. We had lunch reservations at Ivar's, on the pier. We got cozy waiting for people to arrive, in where else, but Starbucks (how appropriate!).


I'm checking out some behind the scenes movie pictures, that Mary took while on the set.

I was so hungry by the time we finally had lunch, I hadn't eaten really since 4 AM that morning. So I was to the point of being prepared to eat the table if I had to. Thankfully though, they gave us real food there at Ivar's. The sour dough rolls were delish, but unfortunately I wasn't too happy with the prawns and fries I got. They were OK, but not nearly as good as I thought they were going to be. I heard from others that the clam chowder was really tasty though.



After lunch we hopped the ferry across the Sound. This was my first experience on a ferry (at least that I know of), and it was really fun.



L-R: Kathy, Jessica, Donna, Lisa (the founder of TMs), Mary Ann, Myself, and I think her name was Theresa (she is a TM we met on the ferry, but she wasn't in our group.



Our group on the ferry, with a few other TMs from the other groups

I rode in a car with Britten, Kirsten, and a lovely lady from Florida, Andie.


Once across the Sound, we drove the rest of the way to Port Angeles. For our dinner at the real La Bella Italia. Our reservations weren't until 7 ish that evening, so we had a lot of time to explore the town and walk the shops just like Bella did.



We saw the department store the girls went in to buy their dresses for the dance (It is Gottschalks BTW). The girls and I went in to try to find some dresses to try on, but unfortunately it isn't the right season. So no trying on prom dresses for us. We did find some super cool door mats while we were there. They say "Welcome Bloodsuckers". How completely awesome is that?! All four of us had to buy a mat. Mine is now proudly displayed at our sliding glass door that leads to the backyard.



We checked out some of the other stores, and walked down to the pier. We found "the alley", and got pictures with Edward's silver volvo. Which was conveniently rented by some of our lovely ladies.





The Alley!

Dinner at La Bella Italia was fabulous. The food was amazing. They don't normally serve mushroom ravioli there, but they made it just for the occasion.




The restaurant manager. He was very nice.



Everyone at our tables


We practically took up the whole restaurant! lol

And they made cute little menus for the Twilight Moms. We had a choice of a three course menu. I got a spring greens salad, and of course the mushroom ravioli, and for desert chocolate mousse. It was all so good!



We were done with dinner and drove the rest of the way to Forks. The drive there was amazing. It was exactly as described in the book. Curvy road through the trees, at night, watching the stars in the clear black sky. I could perfectly imagine Edward and Bella driving home from dinner on this road. Edward driving too fast around the curves, and Bella freaking out.

We arrived at our cabins about an hour later. (Unlike Edward, we didn't drive crazy fast.) lol

The cabins were very nice. We were in two of them, with the owners home in between the two. All the girls in my cabin, were so cool. Amy, Deb, Rachelle, Meg, Rae, Erica, Jessica, Kel, Kim, Laurie, and I. We had such fun.


The Sol Duc river ran along the back of the cabins. Just like at the Cullens' home! The views were gorgeous.