merry everything and happy always!

ahhh, we are in the home stretch now. christmas is just a day away:) i can't believe it's been almost a week since i last blogged. seriously, time flew by. let's see, where to start...i went to my first ever festivus party. you know, like on seinfeld. it was pretty fun. we aired grievances, attempted to out-do each other in feats of strength, paid tribute to the aluminum pole, and successfully ended the holiday when the head of the household was pinned!

earlier this week, i went to an all male, all acapella christmas concert. so fun! had a date with my sister and we ate at biaggi's in the gateway. so yummy! and then saw voicemale. we went last year and loved it so much we had to go back. i'd definitely recommend it.

unfortunately work was less than fulfilling this week. i think more people cancelled or didn't show up than those that did. ugh, i hate weeks like this. when am i going to learn to just take the holidays off. seems like when people get busy, therapy is the first thing they "forget" or just plain blow-off. i get it. just would be nice to be courteous enough to let your therapist know in advance!

anyways, i'm hanging out with my lil sis tomorrow (we're going to see black swan!) and then it's on to brandon's super extended family christmas party/family reunion thing. the after party is at our house with brandon's parents. christmas day we will be making the trek to st. george...hopefully we don't get washed away from all the rain! yeah, it's finally here!! hope ya'll have a wonderful time with your loved ones:)

so tired, so busy, so excited!

i absolutely love this time of year. everything about it is festive...except traffic and long lines at stores! but, i'm in such a good spirit that those things rarely bother me:) anyways, tonight we had some friends of ours over for dinner and games. i was all domestic diva and made honey spiral ham and creamy potato soup. i get so nervous when i make things for people. i so desperately want them to like it. but, i think it turned out well. i thought it tasted good and there weren't many leftovers, so i think that's a good sign. i took a pic of the pretty table but i'm too lazy to go get the camera to load the pics. sorry! either way it was a great time.

tomorrow i've got plans to continue the domestic divaship by doing some holiday baking. i'll be making fudge (white chocolate and regular chocolate with walnuts), scotcheroos (a rice krispy type with a chocolate/butterscotch frosting), puppy chow (amazingness, melt in your mouth, i can't explain what it is you just have to try it, goodness!), white chocolate covered pretzels, and caramels. this will be my first time making caramels so i'm hoping they turn out. the recipe doesn't seem too hard but we'll see. what's even better is my lil sis is stopping by to help out! i think that's the best part. we can catch up on all our recent gossip while making sweet treats for our mens. ahhh, did i mention i love this time of year?!?!

update

ahhh, finally got the christmas card ordered. now i'm hoping it will look as good on paper as it does on the computer screen. i'm kinda skeptical but we'll see. i'll be stuffing envelopes and addressing them tomorrow so people will hopefully get them before christmas!!

as far as fantasy football...i won in both leagues this past week! that means i'm going to the playoffs. woot woot!!! i'll be playing against brandon in one league and some guy i don't know in the other. wish me luck!

christmas card frustrations

pretty sure i just spent the last hour trying to upload photos to the snapfish website so i can design and order our christmas card. it's a no go. i'm extremely frustrated. and christmas is getting closer so i really needed to get this done! excuse me while i go scream into a pillow now.

FFL

every year since brandon and i have been together (and even before that) he has played fantasy football. he loves it and dedicates many hours each year to perfect his team. this year, since it's the first football season that i have not been in school (crazy, huh?!) i decided to give it a whirl too. i've joined two leagues, one with a cousin of mine and his friends and another with some people we go to the dunes with. brandon is in like 7 leagues, which is actually low for him. normally he is in 10+ leagues. i wanted to join only a modest 1 or 2. anyways, it has been a lot of fun and sparked some interesting "debates" between brandon and i...especially the weeks that we've played each other. JUST FOR THE RECORD, I HAVE BEATEN HIM EVERY SINGLE TIME WE'VE BEEN MATCHED UP TOGETHER!! THAT'S FOUR WINS TOTAL!!! this is pending the win this week which i've pretty much got wrapped up. i've held the #2 spot in one league the whole season and i've gone from #2 to #5 in the other league. i'm still trying for a spot in the playoffs in the latter league. next week starts the playoffs. i'm nervous and sure that i'll get beat in the first round. but, i'll know after tonight's games if i'm in....fingers crossed!

time

time is a funny thing. it controls so many things. i find myself being ruled by the clock so often. but instead of talking about how crappy time is i want to focus on the times when time doesn't matter. it doesn't happen very often for me but when it does, WOW! i feel totally free. free from everything. free from obligations, responsibilities, pressures, etc. it's almost as if the demands of life stop when time is irrelevant. i guess you could say that my favorite time is when i don't keep track of time. when anything is possible and nothing is rushed. you can just be. it usually happens when i'm camping or vacationing. and some weekends when i've got nothing planned and just do whatever whenever. i love it. need to do more of it. ya'll should do it too!

it's mail time!!

some of you already know that i dearly love walking down to the mailbox, looking into it with much hope in my heart, and pulling out anything that might be in there. it's one of my simple life's joys. and as you can probably imagine, between thanksgiving and christmas is the most exciting time. CHRISTMAS CARDS!!! not only am i getting the usual, bills, advertisements and solicitations (which i enjoy), but i'm getting wonderful well wishes and family updates. it's truly a very exciting time for me. i'm immediately in a good mood when i grasp in my hands, a festive looking envelope hand addressed to me!...and brandon too. the feeling is indescribable.

what's even more exciting?!? brandon and i scored free tix to the judds concert tonight. woot woot! shout-out to my in-laws who desperately wanted to go but have to forfeit their tix cuz they don't feel well:(

starburst: faveREDS

seriously thinking that starburst fruit chews knows my number cuz i found a box in the store today that has just the "red" flavors. watermelon, cherry, strawberry and fruit punchy goodness! i tolerate the orange ones but absolutely despise the yellow ones (lemon?). the really good news is i don't have to pretend with this box. i don't have to fake it with this box. no, with this box i can be the real me. i think i'm in love.

re-focus

do you remember when i said that i keep a small list of personal goals?!?! well, lately i've been slacking on some really important goals i set for myself about 6 months ago. and i didn't realize how poorly i was doing until recently. i was doing really well for awhile and people were actually noticing a change and making wonderful comments, but the past few months have been a gradual descent into old ways. it makes me sad and regretful. i wasted a lot of chances to improve myself. there were times when i made the wrong choice even when i was telling myself not to. and then there were the times that i didn't realize the errors of my ways until well after the opportunity had passed. here's a quote from the movie "hope floats" that i've always really liked: "it's the worst kind of extravagance, the way you waste your chances." well, i don't want to live so extravagantly. i want to re-gain control and be all i can be. only not in the army. in my little life.

ahhh, it's 'bout christmas time

so, i've been feeling it (by it, i mean christmas) these past couple days. yesterday i put up most of the christmas decorations, except the tree which is going up on friday! today was the christmas luncheon at work and tonight i saw "white christmas" at the theater. i'm really excited for christmas now. almost all of my christmas shopping is done and by shopping i mean going around to different places to buy gift cards. i've wrapped the two presents i actually have in my custody. and i've been listening to christmas music ALMOST non-stop for a couple of weeks. woot woot. christmas is a wonderful thang! except that it was warm enough today to melt all the snow. that makes me sad, BUT i hear there is more to come in a couple of days:] anyways, just thought i'd bore you with a little of my christmas spirit.

19 wonderful, joyful, peaceful days to go!

p.s. brandon expect to be extra helpful on friday.

brian head: the finale

actually, this wasn't in brian head. it's the parowan petroglyphs. on our way home i made brandon drive out to the spot where american indians carved these diagrams into the rock walls of a gap in the mountains sooo long ago (date is apparently unknown).

didn't you just come through the line??

i was a little embarrassed when i had to go through the line again (at cafe rio, yummmm!) to take some home for brandon and one of the guys preparing the meal said, "again? didn't you just come through the line??" why yes, yes i did. and thank you for noticing.

btw, for those that don't know cafe rio salads are that good that you could eat there more than once a day. ah-mazing!

brian head, part deux

neither of us had ever been to cedar breaks national monument so we weren't sure what to expect. but this (look below) appeared out of nowhere. we had intended on hiking there but did not know of the snow and since we didn't have, like, appropriate gear, we had to settle with driving through it. nevertheless, it was quite amazing to see.












so, we went back down the canyon to do some hiking where the leaves were still changing and ended up hiking to a waterfall...after a slight detour due to the amount of wrong turns we took.




the waterfall. yes, brandon got in the water. yes, i took a pic. yes, i will spare you the image...and brandon the embarrassment.


so, a funny story about how this pic happened. i hung the camera from a log and positioned it just right. i then put the timer on pressed the button and ran over to where brandon was to pose. it was quite comical, and took a couple tries before it actually took a decent shot!


the view from our hotel room of brian head peak.

Brian Head, Utah: Part 1

brandon and i took off to brian head to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary. it was one of the best weekends we've had together. there are too many pics for one blog so i'm dividing the trip into three parts...here are the pics from part one (we did a lot of hiking that day so the pics are all from our hike):


i loved the way the yellow tree and red rock stood out against the green trees.


we found this piece of wood with the interesting pattern in it. must have been some sort of burrowing insect. the bark had fallen off in one piece next to it and had the image imprinted on it.


brandon with his walking stick. he was on a mission to find the perfect walking stick. he did end up with some pretty good ones.


this was found on the henderson hill hike near parowan, utah.


this tree had a weird smooth spot. nature is so interesting sometimes.


a view from vermillion's castle.


another view from vermillion's castle. brandon said i need to be smarter about picking places to hike and look for hikes with names like "flat meadow" instead of vermillion's castle.


me posing my a small cavey thing on the way up to vermillion's castle.


brandon hiking vermillion's castle.

that night we enjoyed a nice dinner and the steam room/hot tub to soothe our poor muscles from all that hiking. it was heavenly.

mamma bean

here's a pic of the kitty. yes, she has gone surfing down the stairs in a laundry basket. she didn't have as much fun doing it as brandon and i had watching. but, she survived. a true story that speaks to her resilience. way to hang in there mamma!

ma'am? ma'am?? ma'am!!

oh, you're talking to me? it seriously bugs me when people call me ma'am. especially when they are not much younger than me. apparently I look old enough to be a ma'am but it sounds gross and I don't like it. so stop!

another random thought i've currently got is: wow, the snow. i love it! brandon took pics of the car buried in the driveway. tasha got stuck on the street...like three times. **side note: for those of you who don't know, tasha is brandon's cousin. she's been living with us for about a month.** the roads were clear by the time i left for work so that was awesome and it just looked so pretty! oh, how i love you snow:) plus, on sunday it was snowing all day long. great for staying inside and watching football.

agh! i missed another day

seriously, this weekend was not a good weekend to choose to start my "blog every day" goal. but i'm still committed to it.

so yesterday we (my parents, my sister and brandon) spent some time with some family friends of ours. we met them the day we moved to salt lake in august of 1996. they were moving that same day into the apartment right above ours. they had one son who was about six months old at the time. i was so excited to be his babysitter the next summer! anyways, we have been in each other's lives since. so, yesterday we had a belated celebration for my mom's 50th b-day partay and let me just say, oh my, teenagers are an interesting breed! that six month old i was talking about is now 14 going on 15 (shout-out to my g-ma moen!!-inside joke...sorry, i couldn't help myself) and wow. i have really been noticing lately how awkward and weird that age is. of course it didn't feel that way when i was a teenager but now, i can't help but be weirded out sometimes.

i'm not sure what it is about that age. but, i just can't help but laugh uncomfortably at them. i see a lot of teenagers in my job too. my experience with those gangly kids has increased greatly over the past few months. almost to the point where i don't want to ever have children because they will one day become teenagers and i'm not sure i can deal. they say and do awkward things. they don't quite make sense in what they're saying. and they are awkwardly learning how to be in their "changing" bodies. ugh! that just sounds gross!

however, it was interesting to see lil "big al, rubber baby buggy bumpers...chicken...alfredo sauce" grow from a wee tot to a budding adolescent!

black friday

first off, i know what ya'll are thinking...no blog post yesterday. it's taken only 1 day to mess up my goal. i'm sorry. i promise i'll make it up to you. i just got so busy that i couldn't possibly bring myself to blog before crawling into bed at 6:30 this am. our thanksgiving was awesome. good times with family! i loved it. as for black friday, aye. walmart started early (at midnight) so we went over there at 11 pm to gather our awesome deals. it was a madhouse. so hectic. so crazy. i thought my mother-in-law might have to take someone out!! then we went back to her house til 3:30 when we headed over to penneys and the night went on from there. needless to say, i was so tired when i got home i couldn't even talk straight. but i got up to meet my parents, brandon's parents, and my sis and her main man for brunch and then back to shopping! i was able to get everything i wanted...and more. plus, i even got some things for other people:) yeah, for starting christmas shopping early! what's even better is that it's only friday! two more days without work or responsibilities!!

thanksgiving eve

i love thanksgiving. it's one of my favorite holidays. we usually host a dinner at our house and this year is no different. i'm ready! the house is clean, the turkey is thawed and i think i'll only have to make one more trip to the grocery store...i hope. i'm waking up bright and early tomorrow to go buy a newspaper since i'll be out before the sun on friday to spend some sweet cash. then i plan to watch the parade (until football starts:) and figure out which stores i need to go to. i'm looking forward to a relaxing day, filled with family and food.

so, apparently the big "salt lake blizzard of 2010" turned out to be a dud. although the commute to work this morning was about twice as long as usual because of the ice covered roads. at one point i felt like i was in a race in mario kart. you couldn't see the lanes and cars were just randomly driving anywhere. i just went slow and tried to avoid the banana peels! it was reminiscent of winter roads in north dakota.

hopefully if you are traveling, the roads will be nice to you and i hope you all enjoy your holiday weekend!

goals

currently i'm working on about a million goals to become the "person i want to be" type thing. HOWEVER, my newest goal (as of 30 seconds ago) is to blog once each day for a month. wow. i'm already a little freaked out by this commitment but i was thinking earlier today about possibly ending the blog since i never post. and then i realized that i do enjoy it from time to time and i need to make more of an effort to actually post what's going on. somewhat censored, of course.

note to self:

ALWAYS check your teeth after you have lunch at work!!

i went through 4 clients and several chats with co-workers with some huge black speck on my front tooth. i realized it was there on my way home when i glanced in the rear-view mirror. oh, how i wish someone had informed me of this blunder!

i'm taking any advice you're giving out

i'm not in a very good head space this week. a lot is going on and i just feel like i can't take time to process anything because then something else happens. my hope is that this weekend i can recuperate and figure some things out...just not sure how. any suggestions?

ensign peak hike

k, so blogger sucks and as i'm typing this i cannot see the pics. that means i'm winging it. here goes...brandon and i went on a hike to ensign peak. ensign peak is located behind the capitol building. it is the place where, within days of their arrival, the mormons mapped out the city. neither of us had been there before...apparently we are the only ones who have never been there or even heard of it until recently. (thanks, kenzi, for schooling me last fall in the interns office at ccc!) we did the hike on 9/11 and as we drove by the capitol i noticed a lot of flags up in remembrance of that day in 2001. i snapped a few pics cuz i thought looked cool and very patriotic.

it's a deer widow's weekend!!

as brandon is off to exert his masculinitity this weekend on an almost all male camp trip to tabiona, where he hopes to find and shoot a deer, i will officially be a deer widow. now, you may be thinking "awww, he's going hunting on the 6th anniversary of your wedding?!?!," but before you do that just know that i am ever so excited for a weekend at home by myself to do exactly what i want, when i want to. of course i have some plans to get together with friends and family, but what i'm most excited for is to just be me. not that i'm not me with brandon around or don't love being married and all that jazz. it just never happens that i'm at home alone for an extended period of time and my mind is spinning with the endless possiblities. what's funny about it is that i'm not thinking about doing anything that i couldn't do if my husband were here. it's just that i don't have to worry about what someone else wants or is planning while i embark on this weekend. there's something liberating in that. brandon and i spend plenty of time apart and i am not afraid to go on vacay by myself (well, with friends) but it is very rare when i am the one left home. actually, i think it's only happened when he's gone hunting. usually for one night, but i might get two this year:) ahhhh! (that's a pre-emptive sigh of relaxation.)

finally, we made it...

so, for over a year we have been trying to make it up to st. anthony, idaho to the dunes. usually we go south to little sahara but the stories of st. ann's have been so enticing. anyways, we finally got it together enough to go last month. here are some of the highlights:

brandon and mike "playing" in the water.

they are sooo curious about what their bikes can do.

brandon got slimed.

brandon at devils's dune. it's soooo massive. a picture cannot accurately show it's size. other than even my camera on zoom shows brandon as a dot.

racing up choke cherry hill. of course even with the head start mike got, brandon smoked him.

not sure where the spots came from but awww, how tender:)

love this pic of my man doing what he loves.

pretty sunset pic. love the colors.

the lake is awesome. it's not deep or anything but it's so refreshing after a day in the sand.

i love that you can just come back from a ride and just stop off at the lake to rinse/cool off.

mike on a "medium" sized bowl.

mike jumping.

brandon and mike hill climbing.

the pics look a little deceiving since i'm not in any of the riding ones. i assure you that i did ride. it was a lot easier than riding at little sahara and i was balls out for a lot of it. not much is better than going balls out from dune to dune. it's soo freeing:)

100th Post!!

yay, i've reached my 100th post. instead of actually posting anything of note. let's celebrate!!!

anyways, look alive, i've got another post coming of our trip to st. anthony's, idaho...

i've never been accused of being a clean freak

ugh, so i'm finding it very difficult to keep my house up these days. it seems like i'll go in spurts where i'm super awesome and on top of things and then other times, the majority of time, when it feels like nothing can ever stay clean for more than 15 minutes. right now things are a mess and i'm ready to pull my hair out! yes, there is a quick solution but it doesn't seem to take long before there is more work to do. the sad part is we don't even have kids. my life would be so much easier if i could just hire a housekeeper....the saying is true, "a woman's work is never done."

ima happy hooker

so, i've totally been gettin my crochet on lately. even though i'm not very good at it, i still want to post pics of some of the cool, more complicated things i've made. not to be confused with "uncool and uncomplicated" things like pot holders.

i spent about 40+ hours on this bag. insane!! especially when i can drive down to old navy or target and pick one up about the same size for maybe $10 in about 30 minutes. but it's finally finished and i'm proud:) i have a new appreciation for the craft of crochet and the amount of time and effort that goes into making something.

my beanie. it's cute and i picked really soft yarn. can't wait to sport it this winter! alas, i've decided that i'm taking a short hiatus from crocheting. to focus on other things, like finishing Anna Karenina because i've been "reading" for like six months or something and i'm only half done. oh, and studying for some licensing exams that i have to take. boo!!

cake wrecks? i think not...

i've been dabbling in cake decorating for about a year now. i just recently took a second class and thought i'd share with you my creations...

brandon couldn't wait for me to take a pic before he dug into this one.

i did this one for my birthday.

death

i went to a funeral today for brandon's great-great-aunt. i know that sounds crazy but we actually saw her at family functions about 5-10 times a year. brandon's family is pretty close, moreso than mine. it would take me a minute to think about who my great-great-aunt is, not to mention if they are still alive. anyways, i was surprised by how much the funeral affected me. when we first got there i started to feel very nervous and on the verge of tears. i cannot stand to look at dead people. not really sure why but i would rather curl up into a ball in the corner of the room than actually lay eyes on someone in a casket. i just can't take it. anyways, everything was going fine until they were about to close the casket and people were asked to say their goodbye's. i had this overwhelming feeling of sorrow and pain and hurting. not for me, but for her family. her kids, grandkids and great-grandkids. i couldn't help but cry. plus, i'm already a lightweight when it comes to crying so i had to just let it flow.

anyways, during the actual funeral i was again overwhelmed by others' pain. there was a part when people were allowed to just get up and say whatever about her. it was so touching to see some of the family get up there and share their love. i think one of the reasons i love being a therapist is that i love raw human emotion. it's hard to feel such intensity at times but i just absolutely love it. some of the words to the music were so touching as well. it made me think of my own life. my own family. how valuable family is to me. how i miss my family that lives far away. how i want to be near them but that would mean being far away from the family that is here. this is one of the hardest things because my family lives in two separate places and i am forced to choose which one i am close to. how can one make this choice? not only that but family isn't always what you want it to be. just because family means so much to me doesn't mean that it means so much to my family. i'm not saying that my family is like that, at least not all of them, so those of you reading this don't get your panties in a bunch! i'm just saying that sometimes your family isn't what you want them to be and that's not necessarily a bad thing, it just makes a relationship difficult at times.

as i listened to her family speak i thought about the strength of family. a close family has so much power. i have marveled at the wonder of a close family coming together to help each other out. it's quite wonderful. it's this sense of community. of belonging. of duty to help and protect one another. a sense that you've got the support and love of special people who got yo' back.

another thing that came to mind was the last funeral i went to. i was reminded of the intense emotions that i felt during that time and the beautiful words spoken at that service. many of the same people were at the funeral today and as i looked around i remembered their comments that day and could not help but break down. it was so sad. i was so sad.

lastly, i thought of my own grandfather. i received a phone call from my mother last night stating that he was not doing well and is basically waiting for the end to come. at today's funeral, i thought about being at my grandpa's funeral in the very near future. i thought about my family there too and the pain and grief we would feel. i thought about when i last saw him, about a month ago, that he didn't know my name and he barely looked at me. i'm not even sure he knew who i was (i cried a lot that day too:) in a lot of ways i've already lost my grandpa but there is more loss to come.

i didn't mean for this to be a debbie downer post, i just had to share my thoughts with someone/something and my blog was the first to appear.

i suck

at keeping up on my blog. but i was able to change the background since my old one expired or something. anyways, i'm waiting on pictures from other people to post some stuff....so sorry.

blah blah blah

in case you haven't noticed i have been really uninspired to post anything. i've just not been in the mood. well, now i'm in the mood i just don't have anything to say so i'm going to make this one up as i go. in less than a week, i'll have made the voyage to the motherland. north dakota, that is. my maternal grandfather's side of the family is having a reunion. my grandpa was the fifth child of seventeen so you can imagine just how many people will be there. for this reason, we only meet for a reunion every five years. people come from all around the world. what amazes me is how the family started on this itsy bitsy farm in the middle of nowhere, miles from civilization, five miles uphill both ways in 4 feet of snow, but has now grown and spread to reach many parts of the globe. wow, that sounds dramatic, but it just amazes me. anyways, i'm super duper excited to see my family. i'll definitely have some pics to post!

currently though, i'm sitting in my parents' living room. my brother is peeling potatoes and my mother is preparing what may very well be the best, most delicious meal ever as i sit in anticipation for the wonderful german food i'm about to eat. strudels. mmmmmmm.

k, so (not to be confused with queso) my brother is threatening a strike so i'd better go help him peel potatoes...

the dangers of wearing flippy floppys

one of my all-time fav songs is "fishin' in the dark" by the nitty gritty dirt band. i've loved it since the first time i heard it foreva ago. anyways, when i heard they were going to be performing at some local fair (maybe 5ish years ago??) i had to go. so, my mom, brother and i drove out to south jordan early so we could take in the fair before the concert. we were leisurely walking around admiring the people, festivities and the surroundings. (stick with this post, i swear it's getting to a point!) we then found the show animals. oh, the lovely show animals. horses, sheep, cows, etc. we strolled down the aisle between the stalls when ALL. OF. A. SUDDEN., because i wasn't looking down, i had animal caca on my foot! it must have been there for awhile because it was kinda cold. i had walked right into it and ended up somehow scooping it up on my foot. since i was wearing flip flops i had poopoo squishing in between my toes!!! my mom and brother couldn't stop laughing and i have to admit that i was embarrassed and flabbergasted. how does something like this happen?

anyways, we quickly found a water spout so i was able to rinse my foot off. we enjoyed the concert and i scrubbed my foot with lots of soap when i got home. now, i love flip flops just as much as the next person-if not more-i just walk a little more carefully when i wear them now.

every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

a thought just occurred to me. a single thought that turned into many thoughts which is now turning into this blog. i have had many endings and beginnings in my life. i'm sure you all have too. it's kind of a natural occurrence as a person grows and moves through their life. i was thinking of a particular ending when i was 15 years old and how i did not realize the significance of that event nor its ending back then. it wasn't until now that i thought about how that ending set the stage for many endings to come. it certainly wasn't the first ending in my life and not even close to most significant, but it got me thinking of how much a person must adapt to changes. things ending while others begin. it happens all the time. even without our awareness or wanting.

on this particular day, shortly after my 15th birthday, i had just boarded a greyhound bus in jamestown, nd. i was going home after a summer away. away from most things i had known. my parents, my siblings, my friends and my home. i had been staying with my aunt and uncle, working in the hotel that they were managing at the time. it was a wonderful experience and i am grateful that my parents trusted me enough to allow me to go. i learned a lot that summer but didn't realize it or even think about it until now. that summer was one of the best summers i had growing up.

anyways, as the bus drove away i started to cry. why, i wasn't sure at the time. i was excited to go home. my family was moving into a new house and i was starting high school in a few weeks. ok, so i was nervous too about all the changes that had taken place while i was gone but also very glad to be getting back to normal. but i had formed these great relationships and i didn't want to leave them behind knowing they would not stay the same. that summer i had so much freedom, with my parents being over 1,000 miles away it was difficult to keep them in the loop. i had met so many interesting people that have definitely influenced me throughout the years in different ways. i guess it was the mix of emotions that finally got to me as the bus pulled away. it was the ending of a very important event in my life and the beginning of a new adventure at home.

i hated that bus ride. the people were so weird and scary! i was terrified. i even considered getting off the bus somewhere in montana and calling my parents to come pick me up. i didn't think i could handle one more second of it. but, in the end i sucked it up and got back on the bus knowing the inconvenience it would have been for them. i was lucky to not have to sit next to someone most of the way. until we reached ogden and the bus filled up. an old, stinky, dirty, dingy guy asked if he could sit by me. he even called me "sweetie" which freaked me out even more. i remember staring out of the window the whole time trying not to smell him, see him, hear him, or touch him. i couldn't have been more happy to get to the depot in salt lake. ugh, was i glad to be back. i haven't ridden the bus since! alas, i digress.

so, here i am in the midst of a new beginning. graduation marked the ending of my life as a student. now, i've got my license and have started seeing clients helping them through their life's transitions. i truly love the work i do, although it does have its moments, it is something i have dreamt about for a long time. i just can't help but think about the summer i spent as a housekeeper in teeny, tiny jamestown.

i'm grossed out

so, today i was enjoying the morning by laying in bed, surfing the net, and waiting to get lady gaga tix when the pre-sales starts. that is until i had dr. oz on the tv (which is weird cuz i hate watching that show and i don't like him so much and always change the channel!) and he showed both a uterus and penis from a cadaver for illustrative purposes. wtf! nice start to the day.

pre-grad celebration and visit to the sunshine state

the cohort got together for a pre-graduation get together at an amazing italian pizza restaurant. here are "the girls" (minus Beta who now lives in FL and is featured later in this blog:) with sweet baby Camilla. we love being surrogate aunties!

the next day i traveled to florida to visit Beta and her lil fam. her little guy, felipe is sooo adorable and full of energy. here they are at the beach. i'm shocked felipe doesn't have sand dripping out of his mouth. he insisted on eating it. he would try to find hiding places where he could eat the sand. it was super cute. felipe and i spent the weekend learning from each other. he taught me portuguese, while i taught him english. and you know the saying "that's my name, don't wear it out"? well, i'm pretty sure he wore my name out that weekend. i can't even count how many times he said my name. check out that grin:)

i'm thinking this is a dead jelly fish. i've never seen one in the wild, dead or alive. it was kinda cool. i'm glad it was dead.

we drove to st. augustine which is like the oldest city in the US or something. the spanish conquistadors discovered it (ponce de leon to be exact) and preceeded to fight with england and portugal for dibs. i think anyways...and i'm too lazy to wikipedia it so i'm going to go with it. now, it's a wonderful tourist trap and very loverly. they even have ghost tours and hearse rides. of course they also have horse-drawn carriages if riding in a hearse creeps you out like it does me!

this old building is a modern day college. i can't believe people actually go to school at such a beautiful and historic place.

the rotunda inside the college.

beautiful stained glass. such intricate details.

the old governor's mansion.

an old catholic church. i couldn't get in because they were having mass but i'm sure it's beautiful inside.

old mill. many of the buildings are very old but it's great to see such history. america is a relatively young country, especially the west so you it's not every day that you see stuff like this.

castillo de san marcos. the spanish fort to fight the enemies off.

such an interesting place.

st. augustine houses the fountain of youth. i was super disappointed that they were closed by the time we got there. i would have liked to have had some of that water! i remember learning about ponce de leon and the fountain of youth when i was in elementary school. so amazing for me to be in the places that i once learned about as a kid. makes me want to travel more to see the places that make up history. i loved it! the rest of my trip went wonderfully and it was so nice to see my friend and catch up. although i did miss my husband. and i think he missed me.