Pipe Dreams.

I wish I could do more awesome stuff for Kasin, like taking him to Disney World or to Sea World or even just a regular trip to see my parents in the real world (LOWER 48) and go to cool places and keep in touch with family members… or introduce him to all my grandparents, or visit Ross’ sister and their family in Hawaii.. I know he’d love to go to HI, all the kids in his class seem to have been and they always talked about it. We don’t even have a proper museum, here…

ANYWAYS, we’re hoping to somehow, magically, make it to the Sealife Center in Seward at the end of the year. It’s about a 9 hour drive from here, and that part will be hell with Milo.. but I don’t really know that we’ll be able to afford the trip, anyways… There’s also a big state fair (we have a smaller fair that is pretty crappy which comes to town in mid-August, before school starts) in Palmer, outside of Anchorage, that is pretty close by Seward. I was thinking that maybe we could find a way to make a 4 or 5 day weekend out of and take a trip to Palmer for the fair and then Seward the next day for the Sealife Center. It would be pretty amazing, and while it’s no amusement/ theme park, it would still be pretty fun 🙂 I haven’t been to Seward/The Sealife Center since I was about Kasin’s age, and I really don’t remember much about it. I know there’s floor-to-ceiling tanks inside that you can walk along the wall of and see the sea lions and seals swimming around in their enclosures, and they often times will come up to you and say hello. there’s also puffins, sea otters, and octopi and star fish and urchins and such.. there’s a touch-n-feel tank, too! 

It would be pretty awesome, but just getting in the door at the Sealife Center would cost 50$ for all of us, and driving 9 hours would cost us like 200$ in gas. Plus, we’d probably camp some place, so we’d need groceries to bring and money for campgrounds. Then there’s souveniers, and the fair would probably be very easy to spend a few hundred dollars on. We get in the door of the small one here in town for about 30$ for all of us, and I’m sure we’d go out to eat a couple of times while in Anchorage, because we don’t have nice/good restaurants here in town.. and fair food and goodies, rides and tickets.. if I could save up 800$ we could do it. 

Summer just started here for us, and I just started working FT, too. I got one half FT and half PT paycheck so far, so my next check will be my first FT check, and Im PRAYING for 600$. We really need to catch up on rent, I need to pay Julie back for Kasin’s soccer registration, and I need to start paying Bill & Christine back for bailing out all my parking ticket problems at UAF, and removing the boot from my vehicle. That was like 265$, and I told them I’d give them 50$ out of each paycheck starting with this next one on Friday. 

So, anyways. I don’t know that we can make it happen, but I have hopes. I feel like all my paychecks are already owed to other people, and I’m stressed about it. I’ve been having a lot of trouble with my back recently, and I have so many other things going on in my life that I don’t always stay for my full shift at work if they don’t need me, and I know that’s not ideal, but I can only do so much… 

Kasin started Soccer on Thursday, first game was a win, 1-0. Our buddy Niko is on Kasin’s team again, he was on our team last summer and he has a baby sister, Melina, who is about the same age as Milo. I can’t remember which of them is just a few weeks older than the other. I think they met when they were like 7 and 9 weeks, or something. They’re both so big now!! It was fun to see them at the game 🙂 Practice will be on Tuesdays at 6:30, and games are on Thursdays at 6. That’s a problem for me, because I don’t get off work till 6. I’m not sure what to do about that, yet. Jamie works 930-530 and I’m hoping she will switch shifts with me on Thursdays so that I can get off at 5:30 and make it to the fields on time for Kasin’s games, and then she could close for me those days… it’s only an extra half hour, so I’m hoping it’s okay with her… but I know she already hates working till 5:30 as it is, and when I asked her about it via text last week, she never answered me. Even though Im POSITIVE that she saw the message, as we were having a convo when I asked and she had been replying to me up until I asked that, and we’ve spoken via text and in person since then, as well, and she hasn’t said anything about it. I know she doesn’t want to do it, but Im hoping she’ll just bite the bullet for me. It’s only for a few months. 12 days of her summer.

Half of her issue is that Jesse (her boyfriend, Ross’ brother) gets off work at 4pm and they hate not being together, EVER. They’re insane, they’re ALWAYS attached at the hip, and they hardly ever do anything without each other (mega annoying for the rest of us) so I know she will NOT want to do this for me. Ugh. I’m hoping, though. It’s only for the summer, and the schedule changes after 6 weeks, so it’s 6 weeks of Thursday night games and then 6 weeks of Tuesday night games (with practice on Thurs at 630) … ugh, idk. no one else works till 530 and can switch me, but Linda might be willing to swap me for her morning shift, which is from 7 to 3. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind working mornings, in general. Linda practically runs the joint, though, and things generally fall apart without her. lol. I’d have to open and make breakfast for everyone if I switched with her, but that’s alright with me. 

Anywho. I got a new book, it’s a Janet Evanovich / Stephanie Plum book, one of the numbers books. I just got 18 cuz I saw it on the paperback rack at Fred Meyers and it was like 6$, so I grabbed it. I didn’t realize I hadn’t read 16 or 17 yet. I knew I hadn’t read 17, but I thouht for sure the last one I read was 16. NOPE! So I got it today when we were browsing at Barnes & Noble. Milo got a sweet little board book called "A Book of Sleep" with gorgeous illustrations, it’s about an owl 🙂 There were tons of sweet little touch and feel board books he wanted, but we didn’t have tons of money to spend and all of them were like 8$ each, even though they’re tiny! I may go into Once Upon a Child and look for some more of those. I also need to go through all our toys and take some stuff in there, so maybe I’ll do it all in one shot 🙂

Alright.. nothing left to go on about, I suppose. 😛 

  somehow I deleted Milo’s ticker on this entry. Oops. lol