First Meal...

Ok, you all know me, you know that I don't cook anything at all...never have, besides like pizza, mac & cheese...anything microwaveable...things like that :) Well anyway, I'm trying to eat better so tonight I made me first meal ever. Well Ivan really had to tell me what to do every step of the way but I did it... so I had chicken tenderloins and threw some cut up red potato on there and covered it in lemon paper-- very delish I must say. So anyway, here's a pic of it! And I swear it's better & more filling than it looks!

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

Home soon...

Guess what! We felt our first earthquake!!! We were sitting here watching T.V.-- I was in the chair, Ivan was on the couch and all of a sudden I felt my legs like shaking a little and I heard something-- kinda like if the apartment above us slammed their door or whatever, and I looked at Ivan and he looked at me and he had felt the shaking too. There's really nothing else it could have been...so I looked it up on the internet and there was little one (1.4 on the richter scale) not too far from here & we were in the radius that would have felt it. So that was exciting, finally getting to feel one- cuz I guess they happen all the time you know.

So I will be home on Thursday!! Woo hoo!

Less Than 2 Weeks!

I'll be home in less than 2 weeks!! So all of this snowing that's going on will have to stop...maybe it's just getting it all out of it's system before I come home, ha! It'll be weird; cold weather is just an inconvenience really. You have to be cold for one, 2- you have to wait for things to warm up, 3- you have to think more about what you're going to wear, 4- it's messy if it's snowy, 5-the bottoms of your pants get all dirty & wet-- I was thinking about all of this today as I was shopping-in my jeans & t-shirt. It's still holding steady in the high 60's & 70's. I had read that December was supposed to be the coldest month here but it's usually more like in the 50's so either I'm lucky or we're in for an awakening in January...I dunno! I'm super psyched to come home though.

Not much else to say really. Oh, Ivan gave me my Christmas present-- a diamond bracelet and a diamond pinkie ring. If anyone's ever noticed Oprah's pinkie ring, that's where he got the idea. It's really pretty. I tried to take pictures but they didn't turn out so you can just see it when I get home. I got his present today-- a PSP (portable play station) and a game to go with it. That's all he really needs though-- one more place he can play video games! But it's what he wanted.

Alrighty, have a good week!! See you soon!

Howdy

Hey, what's up? Not much here at all. Friday night we did nothing at all. Saturday I went to Knotts Berry Farm with Brook & Eliza. It was so much fun. It's an amusement park-- 2 of the best rides I've ever ridden in my life. Ivan spent the day watching the USC-UCLA game (USC won by the way). And watching some fight. He also found time to surprise me by hanging up stuff I had bought from Pottery Barn. It looks really good. Seriously that's it. Ivan wants to go to Knotts so we might go again next weekend-- they are having a "special" until Christmas where you get in free if you bring a toy for "Toys for Tots." It's a pretty sweet deal.

Anyway, not much new out here. Weather is still nice-- mid 60's. I'll be home in less than 3 weeks! Woo hoo!

So Excited!

Ok, today we, the world, just found out that the next Real World is in Key West!!!!! I'm so flippin' excited!! Just to know the stuff they are living around, and you know I have a special place in my heart for the Keys! I cannot wait! Just thought I'd share that :)

Christmas Tree

Ok, I didn't want to get any kind of Christmas tree or decoration, purely out of laziness. Ivan wanted one...I was accused of being a scrooge!! So anyway I was at Pier 1 this morning and saw this little thing already decorated. So here is our Christmas tree! No hassle, cut the tags off and set it on a table!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! What are ya thankful for?? Honestly, at this moment I am most thankful to have Thursday & Friday off of work! Ahh, to sleep in will be fabulous. I'm pretty thankful to live an hour from the ocean, and thankful for 80 degree weather in November...oh yeah, and for healthy friends & family :) haha, of course that is actually first in line :)

Anyway, so tomorrow will be my first non-family Thanksgiving. Kinda weird, but it will also be my first Thanksgiving where I actually get to see Ivan I think. We are going to my friend Brook's apartment-- she's a traveling speech therapist from Missouri, and Eliza will be there-- traveling speech therapist from Pennsylvania, and Ashley-- traveling occupational therapist from North Dakota and her boyfriend Mike who is a helicopter pilot for the news. He lives in Burbank but is from Michigan. I told the girls-- I don't cook, so give me something to bring that I can buy easily!! I'll buy anything you want, just to don't make me make something! Lucky me I get the relish tray (which you can buy already put together, haha, and I did) and some wine. And I made Scotch-A-Roos... so those of you who know that I generally eat 90% of the scotch-a-roos at family functions, have no fear, I will still do it this year! And they turned out alright I think for my first time ever making them. I realize it's not a hard thing to make, but yes, I am that retarded in the kitchen that I could screw them up. It's funny because I used to watch shows like "Friends" and think-- don't these people have families?? Because it was always just them having dinner together-- I get it now! It had just never occurred to me that people wouldn't travel to be together...but stinkin' Christmas & Thanksgiving have to be so close together...kinda hard to do.

Anyway, hope everyone has a great dinner! I will miss you & your food. I'm sure ours will be fine...but it won't be the same as home cookin' and stuffing myself several times throughout the day, laying around looking at sale flyers...and eating again :)

Love ya!

Ants Ants Everywhere!!!!

We have ants people. It's freakin' me out. First it was an occasional ant here & there. Whatever. Yesterday morning we saw a few ya know...by the time we went to bed last night there was a full blown outbreak. They are teeny tiny and stay to the baseboards but it's making me all itchy you know? So Ivan went to the office today and told them. Apparently it's not just us and there is an exterminator coming tomorrow. In the mean time I think I'm losing my mind. I'm like spraying them off the counter with water and vacuuming like a madwoman. Not to mention flipping out because I think there is something crawling on me every second. I'll probably make a trip to get some ant killer (duh) but at the moment I thought hosing them down would be a good idea...don't know if it was really...I mean I killed a few, but there's just too many of them! You'd think someone was stalking me cuz I'm like looking behind me and around me ever 10 seconds...ok, gotta go!

Santa Monica

Hola! How's everyone doing? Good here. Friday night we went & saw "Walk the Line," that Johnny Cash movie with Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. It was pretty good. I thought they both did great--and I learned that I really like his music, I had no idea!

Saturday we went to Santa Monica. We took the long way and just drove through downtown L.A., just to see what it was like. One street looked just like Mexico-- with tons of little shops and stuff out on the streets and everything, and then 1 block over it was tall buildings and a lot "classier." We were driving down Wilshire Blvd, and suddenly the street was blocked off with signs saying "FILMING IN PROGRESS." We didn't stop to see what was being filmed but that was pretty neat. It must have been some cop show or movie because there was like rubble in the streets and then an NY police car & fire truck. From there we headed towards Beverly Hills...I wanted to see Rodeo Drive, and I saw a sign saying "Rodeo Drive this way" but then we never saw it, probably needed to turn somewhere...oh well. We'll try again some other time.

From there we just kept driving until we ran into Santa Monica, my love :) We went and got some hot dogs on a stick...which are awesome...and just went & sat on the beach for a few hours. It was beautiful, warm & sunny. The waves were huge yesterday. Some people were surfing. I absolutely love that city. I tried to go take a tour of this apartment building that I am infatuated with, but the office was closed. This place is called the Seacastle, and you walk out the front door across a sidewalk and onto the beach. I want to live there so badly! I keep talking to my company about how much I want to live/work in Santa Monica, they say "yes we know" but so far nobody has said anything more to me about. And I know that the Santa Monica school district is hiring. Today I was looking at any therapy jobs in L.A. County-- there are quite a few. I'll be letting my company know! I want to be closer to the water if not on it, in Santa Monica!

Oh we also went to this little aquarium on the pier. It was neat, they had volunteers there to tell us about the fish we were seeing, and we got to touch some. Did you know that a Starfish (actually called a Sea Star) actually takes it's stomach out of it's body, has it digest the food, and then pulls it back in? And this other thing...I think it was the sea cucumber, actually shoots its intestines at the predator to get away and then grows new ones?? It does... :) Oh and another fish, a flat fish, starts out like a regular fish with it's eyes on either side of it's head, and after awhile it grows flat and the eye moves to on top of it's head.

Anyway, it was cool. I'm so excited to only work 3 days this week. Looking forward to another long weekend. Here's some pictures from the aquarium & the beach-- the one sunset picture with less people in it, that's Ivan out there in the water...

share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=9IZMWbVw5YbE

Dolphin Human Therapy

Hey-- ok you call remember Dolphin Human Therapy where I did my internship last summer? Well we all just got official word that they will be closing. I had heard this here & there for about 8 months now and now it's true for sure. The place they rent the dolphins & space from was trying to increase the price, and this stuff was already expensive enough as it was. Dr. Dave, the man behind it all, has been doing some research with "animotronic dolphins" (a.k.a. robot dolphins) to see if they have the same effect on kids-- sure enough in 33 out of 35 kids, the results were the same if not better. So he is working on opening up a new facility in 2-3 years I think, that will be using these robot dolphins. And in addition to the dolphins, they're doing horse therapy, music, art & maybe some more stuff. They'll also being moving the facility out of the Keys to more central Florida to escape some hurricane threats.

Anyway, just thought I'd pass that along...I will try & post pictures of the robot dolphins sometime, you can't really tell the difference :)

San Diego

Hey!! So I had Friday off of work for Veteran's Day so we decided to head to San Diego to hang there for a couple of days. Thursday night I got out of a meeting a little late so then we had to hang around here to wait out the traffic. We got to San Diego about 10:00 and just checked into the hotel.

Friday morning we headed to La Jolla (northern San Diego I believe) and we had some lunch there at this place called "Cafe At the Top of the Cove." The food was alright, the view was great! We sat on the balcony overlooking over the coast, beautiful!! I took lots of pictures of that. After lunch we started to head down to the beach and saw this store that my friend Celeeste had told me about- "The Cave Store." So we went in there. It's just a store, but you can pay to walk down into this cave that was tunneled out in like the early 1900's. So you go down 145 steep steps, which aren't very well lit, and they're wet. It's a little creepy, we were thinking about how bad it would suck if there was an earthquake at that moment. Anyway, you get to the bottom and you're standing inside this cave and you can look out the opening at the ocean. It's cool...creepy too though. There's a bunch of pigeons inside and you can hear some seals barking... :) After that you have to go back up those 145 stairs, which really sucked. So then we went over to the beach and just sat there for awhile. It was really pretty. The water was super cold but it was warm in the sun and just really beautiful. We spent most of Friday just walking around the beach & La Jolla doing some shopping. That evening we had a couples massage-- that was great! I think massages could be a regular occasion now!!
From there we went to downtown San Diego to eat dinner & go to the mall.

Saturday we slept in and then went to the Wild Animal Park. Which was cool. It's like the sister to the San Diego Zoo. The animals are more in a natural environment and you ride a little train type thing through the park to see them-- rhinos, zebras, giraffes, and tons of antelope/gazelle/deer type animals. After that we went back to downtown and got tattoos!! I got the Taurus symbol and Ivan got his fraternity letters on the inside of our wrists. We both agree this was the most painful spot (we both have one our back, our ring finger, and now this one.) But I think you always forget what it feels like anyway until you get a new one. So after that we went out to eat and then decided to go ahead & come on home.

It was a fun weekend. It's weird because San Diego is only like an hour and a half from us but it really felt like we were in a whole different place. Anyway, I'm putting the link for the pictures below here... enjoy! (You'll have to copy & paste into browser)

Ivan's got to back to work today, and it's supposed to be like 84 out so I think I'm going to lay by the pool and read :) Oh and go shopping for some thick bracelets to cover the tattoo during meetings!

Pics: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=9IZMWbVw5YaA

FYI

Hola! Just an FYI-- I've discovered the cheapest way to fly to me is to fly out of Indianapolis. There were tickets on there for only $161!! Keep it in mind!

I have the Travelocity link to the right :)

Hey

Hey everyone! Not much new to write...Friday night me & Ivan went to see "Jarhead." For those who don't know-- it's about this one Marine and his life in Desert Storm basically. It was pretty good...not a typical war movie I think, and yes, you do get to see him in very little clothing...:) Many have asked about that! Saturday we went miniature golfing with Breigh & her boyfriend. (I work with Breigh, she's a traveler too, from Iowa. Her boyfriend flies out frequently to visit.) That was a lot of fun. I actually had the second best score. Maybe I'll take up golfing now! Then last night we went out to that club we went to last weekend-- Twins. It was fun, but not as fun as last weekend.

Today I have been planning a little trip for next weekend. I have Friday off (Thank God for those Veterans, huh?!) So we threw around some ideas-- L.A. all weekend, San Francisco, Las Vegas... and we settled on San Diego. There is a lot to do there...so I'm calling & making reservations and getting prices-- we're thinking about surf lessons, kayaking, massages, tattoos (yes tattoos), the zoo, Seaworld, hot air balloon...too much to choose from! So hopefully next weekend I'll have something fun to read & some pictures to look at.

Weather's nice, 75 & sunny. Love it!