Happy Birthday, Happy Fall, Happy Sun

Another year, another birthday. 35 isn't exactly my favorite birthday to have, but I figure that I'm getting better with age so I say bring it on!

This year a few friends and I chose to NOT go to the mid-singles Halloween party (I HATE Halloween with a passion and adding a dance with a bunch of 30+ year old singles who I've been living near or around for 6 years does not sweeten the deal at all). Luckily a few of us have the same opinion about these Halloween parties and we all had a good excuse to not attend.....my birthday!

We decided to go to the Cheesecake Factory and a movie. I have to admit that if there is a night to go to the Cheesecake Factory and have NO wait it is Halloween (or the night Halloween is celebrated in Utah). We got there on Saturday night at 6:15 and were promptly seated. After a eating (alot!) and chatting for 2 hours we went to see a movie called "My Girlfriend's Boyfriend." It was a locally produced film, but not a "mormon" movie (another thing I hate). It could have been so much better than it actually was. The storyline was decent, but not developed like it should have been. I mean it did have Alyssa Milano in it and Who's the Boss was my all-time favorite TV show growing up, but she didn't have the chemistry I needed her to have with the guys in this movie. Also even though it wasn't a "mormon" film it was a little too cliche "utah." By this I mean they got engaged at Ensign Peak and stuff like that. Overall it was okay, but could have been so much better.

Here is a picture of all of us at the Cheesecake Factory. I love these girls!

(Elisa, Kristan, Me, Kathy)

As an added bonus Nicole's work flew her into town on the day after my birthday (31st) and she stayed and played (I mean worked) with us for 3 days. It reminded me how much I miss her. It was fun to have her here.

Also I just needed to post this beautiful picture (sadly taken from my iphone) of BYU campus on Friday during the drive home from the football game. Campus was just beautiful on Saturday. It was a GREAT day for a football game. 65 degrees on Nov 6th, shorts and a t-shirt at the game, BYU scored 55 point and WON! Such a great day.

Then on Sunday I got to Phoenix early for my conference and was able to get in a little pool time. The sun wasn't too close (4 UV index) and I only got a tiny bit of color, but it felt wonderful to just lay by the pool and relax in the middle of November!

Creativity

Right now I am in a creating new ventures class at BYU. I really have enjoyed my classes thus far and I really want to do something on my own, but I have lacked the strength cause I'm "not the creative type"

Tonight our professor showed this video and I really enjoyed it and thought I would share it with everyone else. It gave me hope that I can be creative!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhLlnq5yY7k

Sorry...I tried to embed, but my template doesn't do YouTube widescreen very well.

Sisters Trip....Vegas style

Last weekend Stacy, Amber and I went to Las Vegas for our first Sisters Trip. We were sad Lara wasn't with us....maybe next time, but we had a great time nonetheless! The plan for the long weekend was to sleep in, go to the pool, eat a lot and shop alot. I'm happy to say that based on this criteria the trip was a HUGE success.

Stacy and I drove down to Vegas while Amber took a direct flight from Seattle. Stacy and I arrived in Vegas about 45 minutes before Amber's flight landed. We decided to use our trusty GPS (aka....the Australian man named "Thunder".....completely appropriate for Las Vegas) to guide us to Costco to get some gas. After a lot of "recalculating" we learned that the GPS did not give the right directions or enough warning. After taking a tour through the "gated communities" of Las Vegas (if you consider a gated community one that includes bars on the windows and a homeless man pushing a shopping cart) we found Costco, filled up with gas and used the restroom (even though Costco was closed at 5pm!). After that little field trip we did a couple circles around the Vegas airport and we picked up Amber.

First stop on the agenda was Amber's request of a real Vegas original.......Cafe Rio! I can't complain cause I love that place and since they don't have one in Seattle it was a top priority for Amber. After Cafe Rio we took a little detour to Winchells (Stacy's request) and then it was off to the strip to see the latest and greatest of the fountains at the Bellagio.


By the look on Amber's face below it appears the fountains are scarier than they used to be. Must be the Halloween theme they had going to "I'm proud to be an American."

The next morning we went to church and saw a good friend of Stacy and mine that lives in Las Vegas. It was great to see her and actually meet her little girl who was born after she moved. Stacy didn't not actually try her clothes on before she came to Vegas and as a pregnant woman she found out that is a big problem. After nearly fainting at church several times she decided to strip off the now super tight tank top under her clothes and pretend her shirt didn't need anything under it (even though it did!). It was quite funny.

After church the plan was to be lazy and lay out at the pool. Well as you can see by the photo below the sun was not exactly going to be out for a very long time.


Not to worry because Amber was determined to teach me to swim (she even brought me goggles). With no sun we thought it would be an excellent time to teach me how to swim. So we jumped in and got all wet and ready to start swim lessons.......and then it started thundering and lightening and they closed the pool for the rest of the day.....so, so sad.

(We look stunning and I can't believe I'm posting this picture on my own blog, but it was so funny)

So back the hotel room we went to eat our donuts and tag-a-longs and cadbury mini-eggs. We then realized that Stacy had no shirts to wear under all her slutty tops because she was too pregnant so we decided to go shopping. While we shopped it poured and poured and poured rain, but we were indoors so we were good to go. After eating dinner we then went back to the hotel room and watch "Dan in Real Life" on the DVD player in the room and then went sleepy.

The next morning we were hoping to wake up to clear skies and we DID! It was a beautiful day and the sun was shining. After a quick breakfast at Denny's we were off to the pool. We spent a lot of time at the pool. It was about 75 degrees so perfect laying out weather and the pool was heated so swimming was getting in the pool was also nice.

Amber tried to teach me to swim......


Look at that form.....

After laying out for a few hours we decided to go and try out the lazy river. While we were there we had the crazy idea to walk backwards against the current. It was quite the leg work out and since we had eaten a lot of junk food it was definitely needed! There weren't a lot of people in the lazy river so we just walked a full mile (4 laps) around the lazy river. We were bit of trend setters as other people saw what we were doing and decided to copy us. It was a lot of fun and here is a picture. It was definitely harder for Stacy being pregnant!


After our day at the pool we got ready and went shopping again. We bought a lot of stuff and had a lot of fun trying stuff on. Then it was time to go the Beatles LOVE show from Cirque de Soleil. We were excited to see this show and had heard that it was a great show and the #1 show you should see while in Vegas. So with high expectations we were definitely disappointed. We grew up with the Beatles and love the Beatles, but apparently we love the 1964 Beatles and not the late 60's/70's Beatles that were hippies and high on drugs. The show was very disappointing and there were not nearly enough "cool" Cirque de Soleil" tricks going on. The whole point of Cirque de Soleil is to see humans do amazing things with their bodies while holding onto a rope and the LOVE show had about 2 times that you saw that. It wasn't a dirty show, just a boring show. I mean, they didn't even play 8 days a week, Can't buy me love, or any of their goods songs.

We did take some pictures though to document the drug induced coma from the 70's that we had just been through.


The next day was another pool day and then we went to Cafe Rio again and dropped Amber off at the airport. Stacy and I then made the drive home (leaving Vegas at 6pm!). Good thing we had an excellent sing-a-long to Whitney Houston to keep us awake. It was a really fun trip and something we will definitely do again!!

Brad Paisley!

A couple of weekends ago I went with a group of friends to see Brad Paisley in concert a Usana in West Valley. It was a great concert and great weather for a concert. With the ambiance of beer, country songs, fat people showing way too much skin who could ask for anything more? It is only fitting that Usana is way, way, way out in West Valley!

We had a great time people watching and listening to Brad Paisley. He gives a great concert with great special effects and I would definitely recommend it. Here are some pictures of the night.

Angela, Kathy, Kim, Me, Suzanne, and Suzi waiting for the show to start (about 2 hours before Brad actually sang!)

Still waiting.....Angela, Suzanne, Suzi, Me, Kathy


Kathy, Me and Suzanne mid-concert (must have been that "drink all the beer, eat all the fish" song :) You can see that we had prime seats about 5,000 miles away and close to the back where the puking took place :)


A picture of Brad on the HUGE screen he brings with him. See how small his band is in front of that screen??

All in all I great night with great friends!!!

Seattle!!

The weekend of Sept 10th I went to visit Amber and Scott in their new home in Seattle (actually North Bend, WA). I've been to Seattle before, but I was excited to go again and also to see them. They always take such good care of me and feed me so well. Here is the trip in pictures......

I took the train from the airport into Scott's work. As my train pulled up I saw this cute little scene....SO CUTE!

As we walked from the train into Scott's work it was evident that the kids were happy to see me. Note how I'm dragging my luggage still, but Andrew is trying to hold my hand at the same time.

We dropped my stuff off at Scott's office and went across the street to eat a hot dog and then walked through the waterfalls. Andrew didn't like it too much....


Needless to say we were a bit soaked after that. Luckily I had a change of clothes in my suitcase. Not so lucky for Scott though....

We then headed over to a famous view point to view the city. I had been here before, but not at night. We were able to get some great shots!


The next morning we took a hike to Twin Falls. It was a pretty decent hike (3 miles round trip) for little Ashley, but she made it. Here are some pictures from the hike (sorry there are a lot!)


Note the fear on Ashley's face....a dog was coming. We saw this look along with a scream many, many times on the trail. By the end though we at least had her saying "hello" to the dogs as they passed...

Andrew's just enjoying his lunch here.....

Andrew following Ashley's lead....

Ashley throwing rocks (while looking like a ballerina).....

And my all time favorite picture of both kids (not necessarily me and my unshowered look....)


After the hike Ashley, Amber and I went for a run, showered, ate dinner and then headed into Seattle. Our plan was to go to Pike's Place, but it closed earlier than we thought. We did get to sit on a big piggy bank though.....

We then decided to go and see the famous troll under the bridge. Amber asked the brilliant question of "why would they put a troll under a bridge?" Apparently she is not up-to-date on her nursery rhymes. It was a kind of creepy troll....


After seeing the troll we decided we were hungry again and tried to find Dick's drive-inn for some quick hamburgers. Let's just say the GPS is not always accurate. We eventually found it and stood in line with the rest of the Washington Huskies fans cause the game had just got out. We were the only people with kids. I thought about mentioning BYU and how awesome it was to beat the Huskies the previous week, but I decided I had better not!!

After a long day we were tired......


On Sunday we went to church and then for Scott's birthday he made me an excellent dinner of BBQ chicken and yummy potatoes. In the meantime Amber & I helped to make the kids gifts for Scott's birthday to Scott and then they took me to the airport.

All in all it was a fantastic weekend! Amber & Scott live in a gorgeous place and I can't wait to go back. As Ashley said "You sure didn't stay long!"

Top 10 things I've learned living alone

So some of you may or may not know that Nicole moved to Omaha and I've been living alone for the past 3 months. Overall I actually enjoy it, but I have learned a few interesting things along the way that I thought I'd share:

1. I only run the dishwasher once a week tops
2. 4 bedrooms is a lot of space for a single person.
3. Water in un-used toilets evaporates and leaves a ring in the toliet. It is hard to remember to "use" each one
4. The A/C bill is very, very low since I don't get home until 9pm. I also don't have to worry about freezing Nicole out!
5. I can walk around naked. Please note I said CAN, not DO!
6. I have to get rid of the mice and spiders myself :(
7. Making sure the front door is actually closed is important. I have come down to an open door later in the night several times which is not fun checking the house for intruders with my baseball bat!
8. I wonder if I should rotate using my 3 showers to make sure they keep running properly
9. Moving furniture for the carpet cleaners is not as easy as it may seem!
10. I still miss Nicole......especially at dinner time when we would normally chat!

Adult EFY aka Lake Powell

Last weekend I have the opportunity to go to Lake Powell. I love Lake Powell mostly because I love the sun, boats and not wearing make-up. This trip, however, was one of the oddest that I have ever been on. I went with 60 "mid-singles" of which I didn't know 57 of them.

Let's just say we had 1 houseboat and I didn't know that they made houseboats this small. It literally was sinking on many occasions (due to too many people on the boat). It only had a toliet....no shower and there were no "cabins." The "beds" were futons that doubled as couches during the day. My friend Janie and I had paid to have a bed in the houseboat, but I didn't really feel like sleeping on the same couch that everyone in their wet suits sat on throughout the day. I also didn't want to try and sleep in the major walkway of the cabin that everyone had to go through to get to the top of the houseboat or out to the shore. So Janie and I slept in a girl's tent who had extra room, but I had no mat to sleep on and let's just say the sandy shores of Lake Powell were not enough. I think I slept about 45 minutes the first night. I was on the boat at 6:30am....

With so many older adults you would think it would be a great opportunity to meet people, but it felt like a really long networking activity instead of a bunch of singles flirting. Sometimes it felt like adult EFY, but with no leaders to make you sit on everyone's lap in a circle (LOL!). Maybe I was just left out of the loop, but looking around it didn't seem like there was much flirting going on at all. Everyone seemed indifferent to the whole trip. I felt that if I had to tell one more person I worked at Monavie and was getting my MBA that I was going to die! I once had a conversation about SEO for over 45 minutes with one person! Seriously I'm on vacation can we not talk about work??? On Friday night they had a dance, yes a dance. Last time I danced outside of Zumba was at least 7 years ago (and it still is since I just watched while others danced). I must be old cause I was happy when the park ranger showed up and told us to turn it off. I was so sleepy, but my tent was not far enough away from the dance party :(

Overall I loved the ride down and back as well as all the time on the boat (which I had a lot of). I just work way better in smaller groups. I have come to accept that I am not the life of the party and that I don't enjoy this big of groups. It would have been nicer to have been with 20 people so you could actually get to know people on a little bit more of a personal level.

On a better note a lot of people didn't go out on the ski boats which was odd....why go to Lake Powell and not get on the boat? Anyways, it meant that I got lots of time to wakeboard which I really love. Overall I met a few cool people, but with 60 people it was just too big of a group. But I came home tan and sore which means that I definitely got some fun in.

Here are some pictures. I didn't really take very many on the trip, but Janie took some of me on the wakeboard so that is mostly the pictures I had.