A quick trip to Walla Walla............

On March 7, after leaving work early, Jim and I headed off to Walla Walla, WA. Jim's best friend, Casper, (He was our best man at our wedding) and his family were throwing an 80th Birthday Party (open house) for his mom. Ellie was like a 2nd mom to Jim while he was growing up so of course we had to go. I was up for a little vacation. At least until the morning we were supposed to leave! I felt fine at first but by 10:00 I felt like I had bad heart burn which turned to queasiness... and at 2 when I left work I was told I looked greenish and I felt achy! OH NO!!! I had so looked forward to going to Boise and out to dinner with Jim somewhere nice!
Anyway, I slept all the way to Boise curled up in a fetal position in the direct sunlight on the passenger side of the car, fighting chills and nausea! Finally we made it to the Motel in the nick of time if ya know what I mean! I went straight to bed, and Jim ate at the restaurant in the motel by himself, only to come back an hour later to tell me it was the BEST burger he had ever eaten!! Oh man!! being sick on a vaction is noooo fun at all!

I took photos of myself and sent to Sarah and Andrew so someone would feel sorry for me! hahaha! We slept good all night and then in the morning got up and I felt ALOT better.... Walla Walla here we come!

 We were on our way after a nice breakfast at IHOP. I dozed off and on all that day feeling much better than I did the night before. We got to Virginia's house around 5 ish. We just visited that day, and ate homemade enchilada's and Mexican rice for dinner. We were couch potatoes all the rest of the evening.
Friday we got up and got ready for the day. The day was ours to do whatever we wanted. First we met J.D. (Jim's brother) for lunch at a little taco place that was delish! Wish we had one here!! They were like El Viquero's tacos, only it was a fast food place ! YUM! Then we wandered the downtown area in Walla Walla a bit.. that always makes me want to open a little Bakery shop of my own there! There are lots of Winery's in Walla Walla and downtown has tasting shops, and it attracts ALOT of tourists! Plus Whitman College is there, so there are lots of young kids... I think a little bake shop would do great! only if I had the money!
Anyway, we shopped and got birthday cards for Ellie. We went to Walmart to help Virginia invest in a big flat screen T.V. She's been looking for one for a few years but could never make up her mind on just what one she wanted. With our help she finally picked one out! it was on sale and everything.... but alass it was out of stock! So we thought , 'Hey let's drive to Pendleton, OR (only about a 45 minute drive) and get it at the Walmart there (no one thought to call first) so we were off! I played Tetrus on Jim's phone in the back seat! I was so happy to see green hills that I snapped a pic.....

 And I bet you can guess what happened??? Once we arrived and looked at the TV's again, she changed her mind and wanted a different T.V. which they were out of too! as well as the first one! Shazam!! no T.V. night for us!
So we drove back to Walla Walla, and ate at the Teriyaki Grill where they have wonderful fish tacos! YUM! As you can tell I was feeling back to my old self! Then we relaxed and went to bed.
Saturday we got up and I made my Symphony brownies to take to JD and Cari's BBQ later in the day (did I mention Walla Walla is always about a month ahead of us here in seasons, so it was warm and sunny) Virginia made a pasta salad. And then we were off to walk around downtown Walla Walla again. We ate lunch at "Sweet Basil's Pizzeria" yummy! Awesome little Pizza place where you can buy pizza by the slice, I got a Pesto pizza that had artichokes and olives on it! Delish!

           (I wouldn't mind opening one of those here too if I knew it would make it!)
Then we went to Ellies party, after driving through the countryside looking at houses. Ellie has diabetes and has lost most of her vision, she can see shapes, so Jim had to lean in really close and give her a hug and tell her he was there! She was sooooo surprised that he came, she almost cried which in turn made me tear up! Goodnesss.... I was glad we went. Then we visited with Casper for 2 hours! I must say, it's amazing how much Casper looks like my old high school boyfriend.. isn't it funny... no matter where you go , there are always people who remind you of people you know, or they are the same people but a different person... does that make sense?  do you know what I mean?? it's weird.....

It was a nice visit and party, meeting people I had heard about before but never met.... then we headed over to JD and Cari's for grilled Burgers, pasta salad, baked Broccoli (of which I need to get the recipe.. it was Yummo) a raspberry walnut salad, and brownies... YUM! We visited rather late with JD, Cari, Breanna and Breann's friend that came with her for the weekend. FUN! After we were all exchanging yawns, we knew we were all tired, and went back to Virginia's for the night. It was daylight savings time too so we had to move our clock ahead an hour... which was bad because on our trip home we would lose another hour... yeesh.!

Sunday morning came too soon! We got up and packed, ate breakfast with Virginia, and then we were off again!! It was raining, but at least we were glad it wasn't snow..... at least until we got to the blue mountains... then we hit a snow storm worse than we'd seen all winter!! It was soooo bad that we couldn't see the tracks of the car in front of us at one point!

After we got over Dead man's pass, and down the mountains it turned to rain again. Then we had clouds and bad wind!

Tumble weeds were blowing across the road and dust was bad... there was one time that tumble weeds blue up and into the air and over the road that Jim looked at me and said "Dorothy, we're not in kansas anymore!" Goodness, I think we had every kind of weather you could imagine (well I guess we could have actually been in a hurrican or tornado) but we made it home safe after a long day of driving.
We got unpacked and relaxed for a bit... then it was time to go to bed so we could both get up for another day of work.....
It was a good little vacation... but too short.