Elia's Life

For Dad's birthday, we told him that we would do whatever he wanted (within reason, of course) and he wanted to go hiking. I know, big surprise. So, we decided that we were going to go to Goldfield, a tourist, ghost-town. It's a fun place to walk around. The town is sort of dedicated to the myth of the Lost Dutchman, who evidently was German. Kind of funny. Instead of going on a really long hike, we convinced Dad that it would be fun to take the scenic train. That was really fun, I haven't done something like that before. And the train engineer was really funny, and told history and such the whole drive. That was really cool. We also stopped at this place that used to be a film studio ranch. They filmed lost of old westerns and TV shows like "Gunsmoke". Most of the place was burned down a few years ago, but they had a fun museum and so we looked around for a while. Apparently, Elvis filmed a movie there and this chapel was a main part. So they had this big sign fo...

While we were in Arizona, we decided that it would be appropriate to have a graduation party. See, Alita got her masters (no surprise there) and I got my bachelor's degree (please, close your mouths, it's not that much of a surprise.) Mom once said that if I graduated from college, she would give me a car, instead I ended up with a digital camera. Maybe I have to get my masters for the car. Anyway, we had a rock'en party and Alita and I posed for some pictures. The torch was passed, in the form of the graduation frog. He is now in my room, where I might add, he matches wonderfully. Alita is too sophisticated to be seen with a frog. So her picture was taken with flowers. Much classier. Okay, so she's not that sophisticated. :) And to top it off, there were even presents. Granted Alita's were worth just a touch more than mine, but I got a fantastic cookbook that I am really enjoying. :)

Before and after the excitement of Christmas, we had a lot of down time. This meant that we had ample opportunity to "bond" no worries though, we came apart quite successfully. That's a joke, and now that I read it, I realize that it's not a very funny one. Oh well, all in the day of a blogger I guess. First of all, we played a lot of phase 10. It's a good thing we don't pay for money or I would owe my family more than I already do. Mom and Alita seem to be exceptionally good at cards. I wonder if that would hold over into poker, we should hit the tables sometime. :) The girls' cat JunJun has a lot of weird habits, the most irritating being that no matter what I do, he's still scared of me. I deeply resent that. Anyway, now that he can't go out into the backyard as he pleases, he now goes out on the roof of the patios downstairs. He walks around, looks over the edge (which scares me every time) and sits on the edge looking like a combination of gar...

I realize that this post is about a month late, but I thought you would all enjoy seeing pictures no matter how late they were. So here you are, a step-by-picture vacation log. First of all, we went to Arizona for Christmas. It was a long drive for Mom, Dad and me, about 12 hours I think. Fortunately for me, I slept (almost) the whole way. That makes a car ride a lot faster. Anyway, when we got to the Girls' apartment we were ready for a week of fun and games. And that's just about what we got. But true confessions, I can't remember what we did in what order, so I'm going to post at random. I hope no one is offended that I forgot our vacation that quick! So I'll start with Christmas Eve. We decided that the only proper way to celebrate Christmas Eve (after my proposal of opening all the presents was shot down) was to have a big fancy dinner. Which is exactly what we did. Annette found a recipe in a magazine for some fancy, scnancy jello salad and decided to try i...