Cassie Day!!

So of course yesterday was Cassie Day - it was packed full of action and celebration! Carl came in to the SLU and woke me up around 9:15 which was sweet :) and then I got ready for the day, signed us out and waited in the parking lot for him (he was preparing a secret...).

We drove into Ely where we had some errands to do - I mailed Ariana Bell-Streety's baby shower present (the blanket I'd been making which came out a little messed up...), stopped at Subay (for lunch), Wells Fargo for money and got gas. We drove on through parts of the little town and ended up at a park/beach nearby. (I don't remember the name of it ... it starts with an "s"). We had a picnic lunch on that rock there :) it was cute and romantical. Then we spent some time walking around the little islands by the beach and just enjoying the nice day and a little dip of our feet in the water (which felt VERY nice on the bug bites on my ankles).

After lunching and laying around in the sun and the little foot soak in the water, we took off back on the road headed toward Virginia (because that's the nearest city of decent size...). We were on a quest to find an ATM that wouldn't charge a fee for me to deposit my pay check and that was ... an adventure. We drove 15 miles south of Virginia but it took much longer than it should have because of a fantastic thing called construction... after we found that, we were just in time to see the movie we were headed to. We saw Land of the Lost at a quaint little theater - the movie was okay; not as funny as I thought it would be though. After the movie, we drove around a little bit before dinner - Mom said Virginia is home of the world's largest decoy loon... we went to go find it but it wasn't there -they were preparing it for the parade (?) that is on Saturday... Then we headed to dinner and passed a Target (which means that Virginia is officially a legit city). We ate at a little place called the Whistling Bird - it was a Jamaican restaurant. We had some stuffed mushrooms and for entrees, Carl had steak and I had some shrimp linguine (it was supposed to have lobster too but they didn't have lobster...). Then it was into the car again for the drive "home".

Once back on base, Carl kept finding things to make us stay busy until "time" - we stopped by his cabin to find that he had been moved out of it during the day (so that had added a little bit of a delay on our part...). Then we headed over to the SLU because I assumed we'd just do presents there ... and all (most) my new friends (and REALLY new acquaintences) surprised me :) Then there was presents and delicious cake (from my roomies who work in the kitchen!!) and some general merriment. It was some great fun :) So here are some pictures of those happenings (these were taken by the lovely Sarah Berg herself...)

(<- exept Carl took this one) (Top L to R: Katie Berg, Sarah Berg, Danielle (she got here yesterday and shares my birthday/major!), Me, Erin Beaton Bottom: Millie Axness, Cait and Scott)

(Yeah you know I'm

attractive...Millie too...)

(Carl presents - White Olieander
and froggy umbrella :) )