Mt. Baldy Hiking

Hola! Well we had a kinda fun weekend. Friday night Breigh & Joe & Eliza came over and grilled out & drank. Good times. Saturday morning Breigh made breakfast, yummy, and then we all went hiking at Mt. Baldy-- it's about a half hour drive to get up there and everything. It was cool, beautiful, and definitely makes you feel like you're out of shape. That night we went to Dave & Buster's for dinner & games.

Sunday Megan & I went to see Brokeback Mountain (yes I've already seen it.) It was just as good the second time around. And then we went & ate at Johnny Rockets-- my fave, it's just like Steak-N-Shake (we don't have those here!)

Here's some pictures: share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=9IZMWbVw5Yk0

Megan's Here

Some of you knew that my friend Megan was coming to stay on my couch for an undetermined amount of time-- well she's here! She left her friend's house in St. Louis on Monday afternoon, drove for awhile and stayed in a hotel around Oklahoma City. Tuesday she drove until she got to just around Barstow (which is only a bit over an hour from here)and she slept at a truck stop for awhile...spooky, in the desert especially! Anyway, she got here around 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning. So far so good :) I think she's a little like "Oh God, what the hell did I do." Which I'm not gonna lie, I felt that way when I first got here for a few days to a week...ya know? I think it'll get better for her once she adjusts to here and finds a job. Plus she has to adjust to me & Ivan-- we're not the type of people she's used to being around a lot-- not drinking ourselves stupid and going out every night and doing drugs ya know? Oh well :) I guess we're a little boring, she'll adjust. But anyway, it's pretty fun right now to have someone here!

Hey

Hey! Not much going on out here. Let's see...Friday night was pretty low key, I was knocked out on the couch at like 8:30...Saturday we slept in late and then went to work out. We got these 8 week free passes to Bally's so we're tyring to get all healthy. We have a deal that you have to work out at least 4 days a week and if you don't have to put $5 in the pot for each day that you miss. One week down and neither of us had to pay. I'm trying to do my Nutri-System more regularly. We'll see!! Last night we went out to this place called Club Vegas in Costa Mesa. It was fun, Breigh who I work with went with us and we met Ashley (who I work with) and some other therapists from other schools. It was a good time.

Anyway, that's about it, just thought I'd say hola! Hopefully soon we'll do something interesting, but it's pretty much just life as usual out here now-- just a little bit warmer :) It's been around 70 lately, and really windy.

Our First Visitors

Hey! Well we just had our first visitors...oh wait, I forgot that Ivan's cousin came, so I guess it's our second visitors-- my first friend out here though. Anyway, my friend Johnathan & his girlfriend Jill came out last week. They got here on Wednesday and just left today. It was a lot of fun to have them here & just really nice. Wednesday we just went out to eat & stuff. Thursday Ivan took them to Laguna Beach during the day while I was at work. That night we went to eat & went to the mall. Friday we all went to Santa Monica- my favorite place as you know. It was so nice & sunny out, but then like 10 minutes before we got to the beach the sun went behind some clouds and the temperature dropped drastically. That kinda sucked. It was like downright cold! We went to the Pier and walked around, went to the little aquarium there...and then walked up to 3rd street to the shops and things like that. Unfortunately we were ready to leave at 6:00 (RUSH HOUR) and it took us 2.5 hours to get back home...it's only like 50 miles away ok! So that night we order pizza and played some games. Saturday we were going to go to Tijuana but we all slept in! By the time we got up & would have been ready to go, we wouldn't be there very long because I don't really want to be in Tijuana after dark :) Who knows what could happen. So we hung around here, grilled out, had some friends over, and pretty much drank ourselves stupid. It was a good time! I paid majorly for it on Sunday morning... :( So yesterday me, Jill & Johnathan got manicures, and pedicures-- Johnathan wouldn't get a pedicure, it took hours of fighting with Jill & I to even get him to get a manicure, but I think he ended up liking it. Then last night after Ivan got off of work, we went to see the movie "Hostel." Wow...it's pretty crazy. Stop reading right here if you don't want to really know what it's about-- so anyway, these 2 guys are backpacking through Europe, end up at this hostel, and get drugged and kidnapped basically. Well it turns out that this happens to a lot of people and it's because they are running this like human hunting service! So once the people are kidnapped, other people are paying obscene amounts of money to experience torturing/killing people. It's was crazy!

So it's back to work tomorrow. Thank God for Dr. King! Love these random days off work. It makes the rest of the week that much better :)

Also, it looks like I will be coming home sooner than I thought. My cousin Samantha is getting married on February 18th and I happen to have Monday the 20th off of work so I thought, well, if I have 3 days, why not! And Ivan happened to already be going home that weekend for his fraternity's hell week (so he'll be in Jacksonville torturing young guys and will hopefully make it up to the wedding at some point). And it's Clayton's birthday around that time. So I'll probably be there!

I've been thinking about getting a pet...I'm totally not ready for a dog but I think I could handle a cat pretty well. That way even if we want to go away for a weekend a cat would be ok by itself. I'm looking into some shelters...I'll keep you posted. They have to come do some home visit, which is kind of a pain in the ass, and I don't get what needs to be special for a cat, but oh well...we'll see.

Later!

This Week...

Well this week was pretty uneventful! I got back on Monday night and have done pretty much nothing since then. I don't even remember Tuesday and Wednesday...pretty sad! Thursday I went to see Brokeback Mountain-- yeah the gay cowboy movie. It was pretty good, it started a little disturbing, then you got past that & it was kinda sweet & sad. Definitely some good acting there. Rented some movies- Four Brothers, The Devil's Rejects, Wedding Crashers, and House of D. All were pretty good....Four Brothers was good, The Devil's Rejects was just as messed up as the first part of it (House of 1000 Corpses), Wedding Crashers is super funny, and House of D...it was alright, about this guy growing up, nothing major there. That night Ivan went out with his cousins (one is visiting, one lives here), they got home at like 3 and got in the hot tub, I for some reason couldn't sleep, I was up watching TV & movies until 5 in the morning!!! Which lead to sleeping most of Friday, and watching more movies...we ended up not getting up until like 6:30 that night! Again, kinda sad really. Saturday we just hung out around here. I went & saw Rumor Has It-- it was ok. Kinda predictable, but I enjoyed it I guess. And today wasn't much of anything either...cleaning, and preparing myself to go back to work tomorrow, which I am not looking forward to at all. Luckily, my friend Johnathan & his girlfriend Jill are coming to visit on Wednesday, so that gives me something to look forward to!

Truth is, I'm bored with this job now...I had a feeling this would happen. Once I get used to something I immediately get bored & want a change. Same with Rancho Cucamonga...I'm ready to go somewhere else now. But I know I will be here at least until mid June, probably until the end of July if I do summer school, which would be easy so I probably will. I could work for companies that put you in jobs for 3 months at a time and then you go somewhere else, which I think would be right up my alley, but that wouldn't be fair to Ivan...so I can't really do that. I don't know! Ivan & I have talked about it and as of right now, I will probably do another year somewhere in California (hopefully closer to the coast) and then head back east...we're thinking about Chicago...who knows!

It's A Boy!

Hola! As you probably already know, Heidi & Jason had a baby boy at 11:41 on December 27th-- he was 7 pounds even, 18.5 inches long, named Connor Gabriel Spaulding. He looks just like Braydon did as a baby only with dark hair. Everyone's doing well. Heidi wasn't due until January 18th, but she worked hard to have that baby while I was home visiting!

Back in Cali!

Hey everyone! Finally got back to California last night after a long day of traveling & waiting--- I left Bloomington yesterday around 10:30 to Detroit, that went fine--actually it was pretty bumpy. I don't mind turbulence (Actually like it) and there was a couple of times I thought whoah, this is a bit too much. Anyway, I had about an hour in Detroit, got on the plane and then there was a problem with the plane, so we all sat there for 45 minutes before we took off. Finally landed in Minneapolis, settled in for my 5 HOUR layover!!!! Even though we were 45 minutes late taking off, we only got to Minneapolis 3 minutes late! So, I hopped on the metro to go to the Mall of America to pass some time. That was ok. I've never been there and wasn't there to do any serious shopping so it was kinda boring-- I got something to eat, and walked around a bit, got a new book (My Friend Leonard by James Frey- the same guy who wroted "Million Little Pieces", very good so far) Headed back to the airport where I laid on the floor and dozed for 2 hours. Finally get on the plane for the last & longest leg of the trip-- we were supposed to land in Ontario at 11:04-- about 10:30 I thought I was going to absolutely lose it. I couldn't get comfortable, I was tired and sick to death of planes & people, I just about wanted to cry. Then I'm thinking ok, when is the seatbelt sign going to come on & they're going to tell us it's time to descend...that time came & went- we landed 45 minutes late!!!!!!! Even though we left on time, and nobody ever said anything about why we're late- they just acted like we weren't. So anyway, by the time I got my luggage it was about 1:00 when we got back to the apartment. Tired! Just got done unpacking & all that fun stuff.

Anyway though, the time home was good. I had a lot of fun going out & seeing everyone. Got to see just about everyone I wanted to see. And I'm happy I have the rest of this week off of work-- still not ready/looking forward to going back to work. But Spring Break is only 3 months away! ha. At the moment I think I'll be back home then-- the first week of April...

Here's some pictures from my time at home:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=9IZMWbVw5Yjo