Thursdays Thirteen: My favorite memories/moments

Today's edition of Thursdays Thirteen is a throwback to my word of the year. When I talked about my word of the year, "challenge", I talked about how I love adventure. It made me think about my best memories- the things I think about when I think about what my favorite moments have been in my life. What I realized is that most of them have been adventures and things that have been on my 'list' I made when I was a kid of things I wanted to do in my lifetime. I decided then that I wanted to do a post about these favorite moments.

1. Of course I have to include the birth of my baby. The day Abi was born was the best day.. and really every day and joyful moment with her is an extension of this. This is one of those bucket list items.. I always wanted to be a mom.

2. The day Doug and I got married. It was a great day. I was so happy to be marrying such a great guy and in the temple.

The rest will be in no particular order....
3. Sailing a ship around Prince Edward Island. The first time my mom and I visited P.E.I we chartered a sailboat from Charlottetown. No one else signed up for this particular day so we ended up having to spend a little more but it was worth it because once we got out in the open water, since we were the only ones on board, our sailor Kurt let us each take a turn at the wheel... not just for this photo op but really sailing the thing. It was AMAZING. I cannot describe the feeling of sailing around let alone being the one in charge of it. This checked off an item on both mine and my mom's list.

4. Visiting Lucy Maud Montgomery's grave and making an etching of her tombstone. I don't just love Anne of Green Gables. I love ALL of her books. I have all of them. I have been reading them since I was 8 years old. Also, since I was 8 I have wanted to visit the island and I had been telling everyone since then that someday I would go there and do this. Check.

5. Remember this picture from the orange tag a few days ago? This was taken on the beach next to West Point lighthouse on PEI. This has a really great haunted ship legend attached to it.

We stayed IN the lighthouse on our last trip out there (2002 ). My parents and I were on a month long road trip across the US and Canada and as you will see most of my moments came from that trip. This was an amazing night. It was so cool to stay in a lighthouse and amazing to have unlimited access to the top of a working lighthouse. I loved going up by the light and looking out- and yes I went up in the middle of the night to look for the Phantom ship but did not see it.

6. Later on that same trip we were in the Canadian Rockies, first in Banff and then Jasper National Parks. This is some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. The 'moment' that happened here is this.. growing up we had a book full of wildlife pictures and information that I used to look at on an almost daily basis. I even played a game of it that I can't remember exactly but it consisted in choosing page numbers and ending up with those animals as pets. At the front of the book there were pictures of habitats. This picture was one of them...

I decided I wanted to live on that island and I used to daydream about it for hours. I had NO idea where it was. Turns out it was Maligne Lake in Jasper National Forest and we got to visit it. It's back in that fog.

7. At 8 years old I got to ride on an elephant at The Wild Animal Park in San Diego right before we moved away. I remember it stunk really bad but I was so thrilled. And yes, I am wearing purple pants and a purple swirly sweater vest. This was the mid eighties folks.

8. Being at Green Gables. This includes both the first and second times.......
the first time was like a dream. I couldn't believe we were there. We even got to come back at night for a bonfire and hot cocoa in the yard while people told and acted out the Emily books. It was awesome!

This picture was the second visit when my dad was there too. It was so great to be back.

Of course, a trip to Green Gables includes walking the grounds and area around it. Here is my mom acting goofy in the 'Haunted Wood'.

Me on the bridge going into Lovers Lane... oh man was that cool. I gathered little twigs and rocks that I included in my scrapbook.

9. On that road trip my car broke down and stranded us in Hershey PA. At first that was an annoyance but it actually ended up being a great thing since we spent more time at the PA attractions (more on an even better reason I'm glad we broke down in a moment) One of these sites was Gettysburg. We had never been there before and it was so amazing to be there. The feeling was like nothing I have felt before.

10. Swimming with dolphins in Puerto vallerta Mexico... another bucket list thing from when I was a kid. unfortunately I have no picture of me in the water.. but I was in charge of holding the reward fish and I was in the water with the dolphins for about 45 minutes. It was life changing. REally.

11. The black bear moment. On that same road trip I was really hoping to see a bear. I have always wanted to see one up close in the wild and had heard that there are a lot of sightings in Banff. We did not see any in Banff... but a few days before that in Marathon, Ontario. We weren't planning on staying in Marathon. Because of the car incident our entire trip was postponed a few days so we ended up everywhere a few days late. Because of this we ended up having to take a little bit longer to get through Ontario. So we stopped in Marathon because of the name (for mom) and the next morning as we were leaving in the dark early am I look over and see a dark shape on the side of the row. Is it a black bear? YES!!! So what did I do? I stopped the car and got out. All the while my dad is freaking out and telling me to get back in the car. It was a few feet away from my mom's door on the passenger side. I stood on my ledge of my seat and took pictures of it over the car. Then it went behind my car and came over to my side of the car. Did I get back in? NO. I kept taking pictures as it walked past me about 4 feet away.... it looked at me but didn't care and kept going crossing the road. NONE of my pictures turned out. That was when I decided to get a digital camera would be a good thing. This is what it looked like...

12. Remember this little guy? This is White Tip. He hangs out right by the Dalvay by the Sea Inn (White Sands) We met him and his buddies on our first trip to PEI and on the second one as we are telling my dad about them... they they are. We stopped and the foxes all gathered around the car sniffing and trying to come with us. We rolled down the window and talked to them for awhile. They were so cute.

13. Remember this teaser? Nope, not sky diving. Whale watching.

We were in a little zodiac raft. We didn't think we would see anything. The day we would have gone if the car hadn't broken down they didn't see anything making this the number one reason that I am glad my car broke down... at first it was just porpoises and a minke whale and then we came across a pod of killer whales. We watched them from a far and Sam our guide said "Let's go up ahead of them to see if we can see them pass again." Yay! So we did. Then he said it again even though our time was up. We were the only boat to do so. So, they changed course a little this time and came right for us. Then this happened...

Then this... yes that is the side of the boat and I am leaning away from it for the picture. That's how close it was.

Then it jumped a little over the front of the raft RIGHT in front of us.

I have no words.