It's been forever since I made a blog post, but since it's such a special occasion I decided I should probably let you guys know that I'm still alive and driving buses. As opposed to dead and driving buses. On 2nd thought, maybe I'd make better tips if I was an undead driver... ;) I wonder if I'd leave more or less people at the glacier that way. Speaking of which...
I had to leave a lady at the glacier. I had a group of 8. Time was fast approaching our time to leave because these people had a whale watch as the next segment on their tour. I only had 5 of the 8 and the three that were missing were from a party of 4. I waited while the party member looked for the others. He found 2 of them. I waited an extra 15 minutes through these proceedings and finally explained that we had to leave without her to make the whale watch. She called them (why they didn't call her when they couldn't find her in the first place I have no idea) and we ended up giving her my phone number so I could get her in contact with her company that she booked through. Haven't heard anything since. I felt horrible, and I'm pretty sure there's some disgruntled Asians somewhere in the world who don't like me very much. But I was just trying to do my job.
I've also been meeting a lot of new people while here in Juneau. I met a guy named Ted who works in the State Museum Gift Shop. He's from Juneau and was telling me a lot of stories, Mostly about fishing and bears. And when I picked up my first float trip I got to meet some of the people who work there. In fact, I played hackysack with them! Or at least tried to. :) I only know the names of a couple of them. There's Kian (sp?) who's here from Ireland and the one I know best is Scout. He's the one who takes pictures of everyone in the rafts at a particular spot on the Mendenhall River. I did end up going on a date with the guy from Glacier Gardens. We went up flume trail, had lunch at Bullwinkle's Pizza, and then went to the Alaska Fudge Co. for some Huckleberry ice cream. It was fun, but not really worth more than a sentence or two on the blog.
But last Friday night I got to go out for my friend Whitney's B-day! :) She drives for HAP (Holland America/Princess) and a bunch of the HAP driver's I've met were there. We went out to Asian Gardens for Dinner and then went to see Man of Steel. I had more fun that night than I had in a while. :)
I've actually been going out to quite a few different things lately. I've been to the Island Pub and grill for the past couple Tuesday nights. The first time was when Don (my trainer) and his wife were visiting in Juneau, and the second one was for Ryan. He's been one of our Mechanics but recently moved to go work for Caterpillar. I've been to Institute every week so far, and we just saw President Olsen off at the Ferry because he's moving. We'll miss him and Sister Olsen a lot!
The weather's still been crazy, mostly for the fact that We've had way too much sun this summer. I'm not trying to sound ungrateful, but I feel like this is out of place when I know it's supposed to rain! All the time! It even got up up to 86˚ last week! Our poor Mechanics heard no end about the A/C for quite a while last week. Luckily no one died, except one almost did. My co-worker Dylan had someone have a heart attack on his bus! They got him help and life-flighted him out. No one's heard anything, but I give props to Dylan, Jake, Nigel, and everyone else at Allen Marine who helped out. There were definitely some "angels on Earth" in Juneau that day.
Speaking of angels, last Sunday I received my first pamphlet from a lady on my bus. She handed it to me with her tip inside of it. She told me that it was to help me find the way to Christ. Little did she know that I already believe in Him, but I was touched by her willingness to reach out like that. Wish I could have swapped a pass-along card with her...
Today was Summer Solstice! That means we had approximately 18 1/2 hours of sunlight today! How did I celebrate? By taking a ride up to the Mendenhall Glacier, what else? I got to go on a comp helicopter tour with Temsco today. Erik and I both were able to go today. I got a lot of pictures while I was up there and it was so cool! Later on I went with Rachel and Jed (Rachel's Boyfriend) to False Outer so I could get some pics of the sunset. Being out there reminded me a lot of being on Afognak. I absolutely loved it except for the Noseeums. You know those little bugs that you can never see but bite you really hard. Well, everything's bigger in Alaska, so these Noseeums were dubbed Seeums. I might have to invest in some bug spray if I want to start going out to things like that (provided the weather decides to stay the way it's been for most of the summer.
Once I was asked what I do in my spare time.Mostly I read and cook. I finished reading the first Mistborn book on the 11th and I'm currently making my way through number two. I highly recommend the book series to anyone! :) I also read lds.org talks and the Ensign on Sundays to help remind me whose day it is.
I'm trying to think of any other stories I'd like to share with you. I bought some new work shoes recently. They're a boy's size 3 basic George church-style shoes from Walmart. Yeah, I have "fairy feet" still. ;) Oh, there was one day I was staged out at Era when a little boy came up with his Dad to ask me if he could come take a look at my bus. He couldn't have been more than 3 and he was so adorable! I let him climb up in the seat and honk the horn. I seriously think that was the best thing that happened to me that day. :) And I definitely can't forget to tell you about Jenny's new earring display case. You see, I was walking home from work when I saw this commercial Earring display stand on the sidewalk with a "FREE" sign on it. I knew Jenny liked to make earrings so I thought I'd get it for her. Only thing is, I couldn't carry it and I didn't have a car. Luckily I got a hold of Steve and Jess and they helped me to get the whole thing up to our apartment. It was bigger than what Jenny thought it would be. She thought it was one of the large counter-top size ones. But his one is the kind that stands on the floor and is taller than I am. Needless to say, we're still trying to figure out what to do with it now that it's here. But it's still pretty cool. :)
I think that's just about it for now. I'll make a post with just pictures soon so you can "see" what I've been up to. I love and miss you all!
[Insert fun signature sign-off phrase],
Shawni
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