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!

Hello!

Hey! Not much to write about this weekend really. Friday night Ivan went out his friends in Ventura and I went to my friend's place for drinks and game night :) Saturday we did some shopping, oh and test drove the Lexus that I am in love with. And I'm even more in love now. Then last night we went out to this place called Twins Club right here in Rancho Cucamonga- its' the only club within like 30 miles really. And it was a really good time. We had a birthday pass thing for Ivan from a friend-- so we all got in free, free round of drinks, and a free pizza. So it was a cheap night too, which is always nice. I was hurting a little this morning...but I had so much fun last night!

Today Ivan had to work and it was gorgeous outside so I just went out by the pool and read my book. It was about 80 and sunny. Oh, and the book I'm reading is called
"A Million Little Pieces." You might have seen Oprah talking about it, it's really good. It's a detailed description of this guy's experience going through drug rehab.

I'm debating now on going to a movie-- I wanna see "Elizabethtown." I haven't heard good reviews about it but I still wanna see it.

Alrighty, have a good week!

What I Live With...

This is a glimpse of what I am living with out here :) Spooky huh?

I'm in Love, Again...

Ok, I'm in love again. This time with a car. It's the 2006 Lexus IS250. Isn't it sweet? Ok, so the plan is to save a ton and get it next summer. So anyone interested in an awesome little car that will be for sale next summer, let me know! (A '96 Toyota Corolla, good condition, no problems ever, awesome gas mileage, love the car and will miss it dearly, but I think a Lexus would help me get over it :)

Hey

Well we didn't do anything too thrilling this weekend. Friday night we rented those movies-- The Longest Yard (the remake, it's pretty good), and The Amityville Horror--which we tried again during the daylight and wasn't as bad. But I know if we had tried to watch it again at night, we would have had heart attacks or something. Saturday we got manicures...yes both of us :) What's not to enjoy about that though? Next time I think he might even get a pedicure, I got one too yesterday, love those. Last night we went to Dave & Busters. For those who may not know-- it's a restaurant/bar/arcade. It was a lot of fun. Came home, hit the hot tub for awhile and crashed.

This whole past month at work for Ivan has been orientation/training stuff, so his hours have been different all the time. This week his regular hours of 2-10 p.m. start. I will miss him because I have been used to him being at home in the evenings the past 2 weeks, but I think it will help me to not be so lazy :) When he's here we just hang together-- eat crappy food and don't work out! So I'm hoping when he's at work I will eat better and use the time to work out a little more! We'll see :)

The Amityville Horror

Have you seen it? The new one? Ivan & I rented it last night, and for the first time since I was like 12, I had to turn a movie off. We were in agreement that we'd have to try to watch it again in the daylight. And even this morning I mentioned the movie and Ivan was like "Please don't talk about it!" So we'll try again later today or tomorrow, early in the day so we have plenty of time to get it out of our heads before it gets dark. So if you want a really freaky movie-- atleast the 15-20 minutes I saw, go rent the new Amityville Horror. Afer we took it out we put in an Adam Sandler movie and it took me like 15 minutes before I was completely un-tense. It was bad...

We were thinking about going to this place called "Knotts Scary Farm" tonight-- it's a theme park all done up for Halloween. I guess it's pretty spooky. It's open from 7p.m.- 2a.m. We're still thinking, I don't know if I can handle an entire scary park for an entire evening. It's bad enough walking through one haunted house and you know it's over when you walk out...let alone walking out of a haunted house into a haunted park you know? There's no time to recover! We'll see...

House Hunters

Does anyone watch House Hunters on HGTV? Well you should. I just discovered this show and am obsessed. I'm a little upset right now because an episode just got over and I want another one to be on...and it's not. Anyway, it just goes with people while they are house hunting. So you get to see all these cool houses. Makes me want to buy a house! Oh, but that won't happen for a long time.

If you have HGTV you need to watch this show!

Coming Home!

I finally bought my tickets to come home for Christmas. It was a really tough decision-- deciding how long to stay, and what not. So I will be flying into Bloomington on Thursday, December 22nd and leaving on Monday January 2nd. Ivan and I won't be able to travel together because he can't get off the same times from his job. He'll be flying into St. Louis on Thursday morning and has to leave the 26th. So it will suck a little bit that we can't spend Christmas or New Years together...but I figure that I do live with him, won't be home long, and it's Jyll's 30th birthday, so I'm staying home for New Year's. And since I don't have to work, my only obligation while in Illinois is to visit & have fun... I expect to be completely entertained the entire time I am home :) Just kidding...I think that might be impossible.

Anyway, life's good out this way. No news really...it has cooled down a bit, mid 70's. It's nice...the other day it was raining though and it really was cold out. Like 50 or 60 with rain is pretty cold. No big plans for this weekend, thinking about heading back to Santa Monica, because I love it there! You know I'll keep you posted.

Later!

Pasadena

Hey! First of all, it was awesome to talk to you guys at the boys' party last night. I wish I could have been there, it sounded like a lot of fun!! Oh, and those of you "voting" about the purses...there was a tragic accident last night with the brown one...it got stuck on some gum. I think that everything is going to be ok, but it was pretty traumatic :)

So last night we went out in Pasadena for Ivan's birthday. (His birthday was the 11th). It was me, Ivan, his friend Rome from work, Rome's girlfriend and her friend, and then the girls I work with-- Ashley, Eliza, Breigh & Brook. I'm going to put up some pictures too-- there aren't many, and they're not that great, but you can at least get idea of what the people look like that we are always with.

So we went to this place called Q's. It's pretty much a one stop shop-- you can eat, which we did, and there's pool tables, and downstairs there is a dance floor too. So we stayed there all night. The food was good, drinks were too :) We got a private room...I'm not sure why, Rome knows the owner, and Rome's the guy who used to play pro-football...so maybe he feels we needed a private room, I don't know, regardless, it was cool. We just had a pool table, couches, and a couple of tables. And we could look out at the rest of the place but nobody could come back in our room. That was kinda cool. So anyway, we just hung out & played pool all night. The funny thing is that we had been talking about setting Rome & Brook up and then Rome walks in and introduces his girlfriend...oops... I guess they had broken up & were just getting back together to try it out. I think Brook's still got a shot :) Fast forward a few hours and Brook is so drunk, it was really bad. Luckily the bars in Pasadena close at 1:30 because she was in no shape to really be out much longer. So that was a fun ride home...I won't go into more detail than that! And Ivan paid too :)

So anyway, that was that. Today it's actually a little gloomy out, which is a nice change. It's been in the 90's and sunny of course, but today it's only in the 70's and rainy.

Here's a link to the pics, if it doesn't work when you click on it, copy & paste it to see them... share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=9IZMWbVw5YZM