This year, my grandparents on my dad's side turned 80 and celebrated their 60th anniversary. To celebrate, they planned a cruise to Alaska and invited to fam along.
This is day 0 because it was primarily a travel day, and the final destination was Seattle, not yet Alaska. I spent time in four states: Texas, Arizona, Nevada and Washington. We had a cheap, 2 stop flight where we wouldn't have to switch planes. Except when we got to our first stop, Phoenix, and there was a faulty door seal.

Luckily, (and I use that semi-ironically) we were at a Southwest hub so there were other planes for us. Everyone got reseated and our luggage transferred, only to prepare for takeoff and find out there was something wrong with the emergency lights and we'd have to switch planes again. What were the odds of all our luggage making it again? And we ended up switching planes twice anyway. Our stop in Reno was much smoother.
After a tiring game of musical airplanes, we finally made it to Seattle (with every suitcase).

We were exhausted and starving, but we only hesitated for a second in our upgarded hotel room at the Seattle Public Market before searching out the best clam chowder breadbowls we could find. We also had crumpets and tea! We explored for a little bit after that, but it wasn't too long before the exhaustion was back and we called it a day.
I was going to try to update everyday but right now I'm on a boat to Canada so I won't be able to use my phone for a few days. I'll also update every post after I get home with photos from my camera. Today it's whale watching, gardens, and afternoon tea!

Sorry for the crappy pictures, I had to do all that from my phone.

And it's not because of Harry Potter. Well, not just because of the last movie...


It's not because of that either.

It's because I get to see John again and say this!:

Looks like North Dakota wasn't paying attention when the state's constitution was written, but that's okay because when the US admitted it as a state, the US wasn't paying attention either. Luckily, half of California wants to secede from itself to rid themselves of the crazy spenders in San Francisco and LA. It is highly unlikely that "South California" will succeed at seceding, and North Dakota's constitution will probably line up with the United States' soon. Either way, we won't have to change the stars on our flag.Unless there's supposed to be 52, like this kid thinks. I probably don't know that much about UK history, but it's still funny.