Kenneth Graduates!

I didn’t sleep much between 2:30 and 4:00, thinking too much about what I was leaving the next day, but the morning came nonetheless, my bags were hauled to the airport, and we checked in. We were taking a budget flight, Easy Jet, from Geneva to London and then London to the States, since it is usually cheaper to fly out of London. Let me restate, usually. That is, when you aren’t 64 kilograms overweight and Easy Jet charges you 20 some francs for every kilogram over 20. She cut us a deal, but that’s right, I paid about 800 francs in overweight luggage. And then when I checked in with Delta I had to pay another 350. Oh how happy we were. I was doing fairly well emotionally until I got on that first flight. I was walking through the little tunnel to get to the plane, and I just burst into tears. We didn’t sleep much on our flights, so by the time we flew from Geneva to London, London to Cincinnati, Cincinnati to Salt Lake City, SLC to Portland, and had to recheck our bags at about 4 of those airports, we had been awake since about Wednesday night Portland time and arrived Friday night, were greeted by our entire family who was there for Kenneth’s graduation. It was a deliriously tiring end to a wonderful and unforgettable week and year.

The rest of the family (my uncle and aunt and Jo’s brother Jamie and his daughter) had flown in earlier that day and had been hanging out in Portland waiting for our arrival, so along with them, my parents, Kenneth, Adam, and Candice, Jo and I were greeted by quite a crowd upon our arrival on northwestern soil. And we weren’t even done travelling yet. We then piled in the car and drove three and a half hours to Walla Walla, where we would spend the next two nights for graduation weekend. I got to spend the night with Abby, one of my best friends from Walla Walla who I hadn’t seen in a year, so we stayed up till about 3:00 talking and catching up. She then went to bed, and I stayed up till about 4:30 since I couldn’t sleep, and woke up at around 6:30 or 7:00.

The next day we attended Kenneth’s nurses pinning ceremony, where we were met with some family friends from Idaho. We then all migrated to one of the many Walla Walla parks where we had a nice picnic. Afterwards, I had a late night until about 2:00 with Candice and Thulani, an old friend from Idaho because I wasn’t quite sleep-deprived enough and wanted to see how long I could go without sleep. Not really, I just wanted to spend time with them and didn’t think I would get to the next day, so it was definitely worth it; although, I was feeling a bit sluggish the next morning when I had to get up at 6:00 to be at graduation by 7:00 to save seats for 16 people by myself. How did I, the person with the least amount of sleep, get elected for this job?? Last year at graduation it was blistering hot, this year, rain. I’m not sure which is worse. Other than the rain, it was a nice ceremony, not too drug out. Jo and I found Kenneth in the graduation line and chased him down to get a picture before settling into our soggy seats. After lunch, we made another three and a half hour car trek; I was finally going to see my house after a year. Though we were there too for only a short time, as the next morning we got up, packed our bags once again and piled in the car, this time a good four or four and a half hours to Depoe Bay, a little city on the Oregon Coast where we had rented a condo for two nights.

It was a beautiful place. Six of them were sharing a huge condo, and Jo and Kenneth and I had a gorgeous one to ourselves. Two huge bedrooms, two gigantic bathrooms with whirlpool tubs, two balconies with ocean views, a living room, a study, and a kitchen; it was lovely. We settled in that night, and the next morning the boys got up at the crack of dawn for a fishing trip while the girls slept in a little before going to the nearby outlet mall for some shopping, because I hadn’t spent quite enough money yet. But it was a good morning, and in the afternoon we all met up to go whale watching. Although we glimpsed many pieces of whales, the pictures don’t really show a whole lot. We kept hoping for a tail shot, but alas, no such luck. Though we were tempted to stay another day, the following morning we were forced to pack everything up and head to the airport to drop off the family, and Kenneth back in Portland where he would stay to for a little while to study for his nursing boards. Thus the three of us, mom, dad, and I, quietly made our way back to Central Oregon. It is there that I now sit, in my pjs at 10:24 AM (7:24 PM Geneva time), waiting to hear back on a job, working on 12 credits of online classes, and getting ready to go look for my first car. Though this officially and sadly brings an end to my year of paradise, the adventures will never end and the travelling will hopefully be resumed with all possible haste.