Road Trippin'

A random post today, I am still un-decided on if this blog will stay around but for now it's here so if anyone besides James is reading this enjoy! We took an injury and turned it into a long weekend road trip! James hurt his hand and couldn't work so we figured mineswell spend some money!

We took the ferry from Sidney to Anacortes. Not a very exciting ferry, definitely bring food with you and books to entertain you! But it got us where we needed without hours of driving so that was great! First we headed down to the Seattle Premium Outlets. There were lots of high end stores as well as ones we could afford. It was an outdoor mall which was nice. Even though it was getting hot it was nice to see the sun and not be overwhelmed by a/c. I bought a bunch of shirts and some jeans that were made for short people like me! Yay! I hope I don't have to hem them! I also was able to return the Vans I got in Las Vegas that I thought fit in a fury of angry shopping... don't shop angry cuz you usually will buy something you regret or doesn't fit. James got some size 15 shoes instead, they are crazy huge!!

I also looked at some expensive Kate Spade wallets that were perfect and 50% off! Except they were like $175 to start with.... so even with the savings it really is too much to spend on a wallet... oh well.

We also spent a bunch of money at the kitchen store. We could have filled our car with

stuff from that store as we are suckers for gadgets. But luckily we restrained ourselves and instead bought like 5 packs of coffee for our machine that you can't get at home. It's justified. And a lemon squeezer... we needed that. Oh yes and the metal tumbler, it was only $3! James is apparently going to become a bartender in his spare time so I look forward to the concoctions he will create with this!

I also got some Roxy shoes... yes I am still 15. But I can use them for work! And throw out my old disgusting ones! It's hard to let go of shoes when you have no replacement!

They were pretty nasty though, the kind of shoes I'm sure people judged me on when I wore them. Well they are gone now people don't worry. Well actually they are still on the shoe rack... but I will throw them out... after a little good bye...

After that we headed to Target (aka Tar-jay as James likes to think he is the first to say :) and spent $100 with just one basket!! Target you are just as evil as Walmart, but I think I like you a little more. Your dog logo is cute and I found you to be neat, clean and organized. I bought things I had needed to buy at Walmart but wasn't able to after I almost had a panic attack while checking out the new Uptown store. So I needed these things... it's justified! I threw away that receipt, customs doesn't need to know! James got an awesome bag for his netbook too!

Then we checked into our huge hotel room @ the Best Western Cottentree. This is one of the few times we took pictures.

I am obsessed with taking pictures of hotel rooms. I don't know why because they aren't that exciting to look at unless the are extra cool, but usually they are just standard hotel room fare. This one did come with a L. Ron Hubbard book to read during our stay. Very random. I believed it was Scientologist trying to get to us.

I don't really know how to get the photos where I want yet so sorry for the crappy layout!

So ya the book was a Western... but still suspicious I say!

That night we went out to the always amazing Olive Garden!

How can you not love this place? Yes it may not be the most amazing food ever but I am always left happy and satisfied with my meal. We started with the always favourite huge salad bowl. Even though it is just iceberg lettuce with Italian dressing I love that they put in olives and peppericini peppers and as much shredded parm as you like! And I like a lot! I finally stopped the waiter just because I felt embarrassed by the amount of cheese, not because I was done. I hardly was able to try a breadstick before our meals arrived. The breadsticks were good, real good, though I thought I remembered them being a little better. For my main I had this weird Lasagna rollup thing. It was thick pasta rolled in lots of cheeses then topped with breadcrumbs and more cheese and baked then put on top of a cheesy tomato sauce. Then I had the waiter put more cheese on top of that. It was very good, the sauce was amazing and great with the breadsticks! The pasta was awesome but believe it or not eventually all that cheese got a bit too much so I wasn't able to finish. Oh and we had delicious Bellini peach ice teas!! Free refills, and boy did we take advantage of that! James had some pork schnitzel thing with tortellini. I tried the tortellini and it was amazing... apparently the pork was good too! Yay Olive Garden for not letting us down, giving us lots of great food and being cheap! We left just as a group of 35 were being seated beside us at 9pm... who does that?

The next morning we decided to check out USA Costco... it ended up being the same as Canada Costco except the sold lots of cheap wine! We didn't buy any though.

Then we headed down to Alderwood mall and had lunch at P.F. Changs.

We both had the lunch bowls which came with a bowl of soup to start. I had the egg drop soup which was pretty good. I always get scared there is meat hidden in it though... somtimes those egg drops look suspicious! The broth was chicken but I ignored that fact. We also ordered the vegetarian lettuce wraps which was super exciting! I used to love lettuce wraps when I ate meat and haven't been able to find a veggie version until now! I really appreciated the fact that they had this option and luckily they were just as amazing as I hoped! I would come back just for these! My lunch bowl was the Buddha's Feast which always means a stir fry of tofu and veg on rice. The tofu has coated in five spice but I didn't get much flavour from that. The brown rice was cooked perfect and the veg was nice and crisp! I also really appreciated the fact that they mixed up the veg. Usually stir fries are the same old mix of veg, but this one had asparagus, sugar snap peas, broccoli, carrots and I think thats it. Even though my pee stinks after I eat it I looooooove asparagus. I think it's my favourite veg... I also love broccoli and zucchini... and cauliflower. I don't like peppers I realized and was glad there weren't any in this bowl!

We wandered the mall after which was half outdoors and half indoors. Almost bought a cheese grater and some over priced cookie mix at William Sonoma but resisted. Didn't do that at the Godiva store, but it was 3 chocolate bars for $10, that's a steal! Also tried some creme brule chocolates and while super yummy didn't really taste like them.

We checked out the Bath and Body Works store and ended up getting some plug in diffusers as they were buy one get one free. I felt like I should have bought more because people go so crazy for this store, but I really don't need more candles or lotions.

Then we went to Hot Topic and James got a shirt and I was rude to the girl named Candace that worked there. I was grumpy and tired at this point and she called herself Candy, I said I hated the name and then realized I had just insulted her. She said she hated the name Candice. It got awkward... I back tracked but it was too late, and time to leave!

Oh and James also bought a bunch of awesome t shirts earlier in the day at Kohl's! No pics but trust me they are awesome. I also got some stuff at Old Navy cuz, well I have a problem with that store. We also found some treasures at Ross Dress for Less:

It was only $4.99 and look how cute Wolverine looks! This is the one toy James was allowed.

I got the globe as it was the same price and awesome. It moves any way you want it! I may take it to work to put on my desk. People need something to fidget with so this should keep them happy!

Anyways that was earlier in the day... at this point in the story we are leaving the mall and heading to Best Buy so James can buy some must have dvd set. That's so James!

After that Maggie the gps got us lost and told us to take a ferry we couldn't figure out how to get on or what was going on. It would have saved us hours of stressful driving, but that's not the way we roll so instead we went the longest route possible to get to our next hotel in Silverdale.

We finally got there then met James' friend Dan and Lauren at Azteca for dinner. The waitress was so friendly and the food was yummy! America really has the best Mexican food, it's a must when you are down there. But so much food you want to eat but just can't finish. I should have gotten the flan for dessert though, Dan and Lauren were right. If it's made right I found out it tastes just like creme brule without the hard sugar crust. Next time....

We had a lazy morning the next day before starting the drive up to Port Angeles... we stopped at another mall of course and had a Philly Veggie sandwich yum! And checked out Bath and Body Works again incase I had missed a hidden must have.

I think this was the first mall we didn't spend money in... saw some 'Hanging with my Gnomies' t shirts that were awesome but not my size :( Oh wait James bought some video games.

We were going to stop in Port Townsend because my parents always go on and on about how cute a town it is but we wanted to go to the Olympic Game Farm so we ran out of time. It was good we didn't stop because we ended up being stopped forever because of a scary looking accident. I don't think I've ever seen a car upside down and another one totally smashed in like those in real life. I hope everyone is ok but it looked pretty bad.

We finally made it to the Olympic Game Farm which I haven't been to since I was little. Beside the sneeze fit it gave me and all the seagulls it was awesome!! The bears were pretty much the cutest things we'd ever seen! If I wasn't afraid they were going to jump over the tiny fence we could have stopped there forever! The one was rolling on its back totally posing for us! Then another after we gave it bread sat up on it's back feet. We gave him more bread and he did it again! I wondered if it was a trick he was taught... maybe he is rescued from a circus.

There were tons of peacocks and llamas and deer and deer like things with antlers. They totally attacked a car behind us. I was scared of them coming to our car so we didn't stop there.

We also saw some cute lions and tigers, cougars and wolves... but they were in cages that made me sad. We had fun and enjoyed it but at the same time felt guilty for enjoying it. At least they had tons of room to roam around and it was a lot more natural then a zoo, but they sell loaves of bread to feed them and I don't think that is part of any of these animals normal diet.

There are so many cute pictures but it's too hard to add them to the blog and I can't choose one so if you are my friend on fb you'll see them there one day.

After that we headed to Port Angeles but stopped at Safeway one last time to get our random-can't-find-at-home food.

Cuz it's just too much work to get out two jars to make pb&j right? I find this kinda gross, but James will love it! Maybe I'll buy him to bread for it today... and some milk to go with the variety pack of cereal we bought that I am craving now.

Luckily we reserved the ferry as it was sold out. It turned out to be really rocky and I was afraid I would get sick but I didn't. I did get a $1 2 minute massage from one of those chairs they always have. I deserved it after all that driving... it was awkward and hurt...

So now I've written way more then anyone wants to read as all I've had today was an Activia yogurt and a caramel latte (the new kind we just bought!) and I am hyper on caffeine. Now I'm starting to feel sick as I need some substance... and I need to finish the laundry.

If you've made it to the end of this thanks for reading!!