Lots To Catch Up On

Ok, I have a lot of stuff to say today, and not a lot of time to say it in. First I was stung by a bee last Saturday at about 1pm while I was mowing my lawn for the first time this summer. I must have been mowing too near it for my own good, because it came right at me and stung me in my left cheek. I caught it and "took care of " it, but the damage had already been done. Luckily Ammon was over by the blueberries and not anywhere near me at the time. He has not been stung yet, and I am not ready for that to happen yet. Anyway, I went in and looked to take out the stinger, but I couldn't find one, so I assumed that the bee had not left it there. In fact I could not even see the exact location of the sting, so I didn't know exactly where to look. And the pain subsided rather quickly so I forgot about it until it started swelling up at about 10:30pm that night. Kind of a delayed reaction. It didn't stop swelling until Monday morning, so I didn't go to church or work Sunday or Monday, because I sort of looked like the Elephant Man and I think I would have scared the little kids and grossed out my customers. In addition to the swelling, a large water blister the size of a quarter formed right on top of the sting site and that stuck out of my face at least another half inch on top of the swelling. It didn't help appearances any when it got so full that it started oozing clear liquid. No I did not get pictures of it. Tuesday, most of the swelling was gone though, thanks to massive amounts of anti-histamine and the blister had fully popped, so I went back to work. Ok, so thats the first thing.
The second thing is I am now in the second day of my mandatory "vacation" from work. I was suspended for 60 days for allegedly running a red light in Seattle and getting caught by a traffic camera. I will not admit to anything in writing, but I think that being suspended for 60 days without pay is an awful long time and a pretty stupid policy. What am I supposed to do for all that time? Is the policy to give me sufficent time to think about my actions? I don't know, but it seems like a pretty harsh punishment for something that only counts as a parking ticket. On the bright side, I now have most of the summer off and will now be able to do all of those things that I have written down that I never seem to have time to do, like getting the house ready to sell, plant a garden, spend time with my family, or blogging for that matter. I guess every cloud has its silver lining.

The End of My Vacation

Today was the last day of our vacation. We had to be out of our room by noon, so we just figured that we would just get out early and go do something, since there really wouldn't be any point in coming back later. We decided to go to Cannon Beach which is about 10 minutes south of Seaside, and for any of you that have seen the movie Goonies, cannon beach is where the triple stones are located, except in the movie they are backwards for some reason. That was the big draw for us to go there, but it is a really nice little town. USBank is huge there on the west coast of Oregon, for those of us that have accounts there. You can rest assured that you will have a branch close by. But I digress... Great town, awesome sandy beaches, nice place. We didn't spend much time there though because it was on the way to TILLAMOOK! We went to the Tillamook cheese factory. Now, I only buy Tillamook cheese and sour cream, so it was kind of a big deal to go there for us. We got a few pictures ate some ice cream bought some cheese and then started on our way home. It was a good trip overall, and a good first trip for our entire family to take together. I'd probably do it again next year.