Beautiful, wonderful, magical DISNEYLAND!

This is long over due. Justin and I took a trip with our friends the Dixons at the end of April over to Las Vegas, Primm, Nevada, the beach (Newport, maybe? don't remember- Joe just drove us there), and of course, the most magical place on earth, DISNEYLAND! It was incredible and here are some picture highlights!

Us at the beach. It was pretty chilly and the water was freezing, so needless to say, we didn't use the bogey boards we had brought with us...


This is Liz and I just getting to the beach. It was really pretty. And we were really pretty : )



This is Justin chucking me into the waves. He is a very kind soul.


Justin skipping rocks like a pro.


It was such a pretty sunset- a beautiful night.


We were MADE for baywatch. I mean, just look at Justin's chiseled calf muscle! WOWZERS!


We found a jellyfish washed up on the shore. It was pretty gross.
Me at the beach.


Primm, Nevada. I think the Dixons took this before I woke up. We got McDonalds for breakfast this morning (mmmmm....) and it was the worst. McDonalds. EVER. It took them like a half hour to get our food (we were in the drive through too!) and then they didn't even give us the right number of hash browns. But there were some sweet outlets here and I got an awesome pair of shoes for $10. Also, that hotel room you can see only cost us about $17 for the night. Yes, awesome.


YAY! Magical wonderful disneyland! We finally made it!


California Adventures. Home of my second favorite ride, Screamin' California.



This is us on Screamin' California. Be it hereby known that I kept my arms in the air the entire ride! I look so happy! And Justin looks like there's a good chance he might squeeze my hand straight off my arm.


This is how we felt pretty much the entire trip. SOOO TIRED. This was one night between dinner and when we decided we should go back to the park to get our money's worth.


Us at the Blue Bayou- it's the restaurant that's in the middle of the Pirates of the Carribbean ride. It was totally delicious, though I'm pretty sure that Weight Watchers wouldn't have let me eat it even if that was all I ate all week.... Oh well! that is what vacations are for.

All in all, it was an awesome trip. I'll probably add a couple pictures later of our favorite ride: ASTRO BLASTERS!!!!! Justin got a high score for the park while we were there. Made the entire trip worth it : )

Pretty bird, pretty bird...

So this morning, our apartment was feeling a little warm (thanks, third floor), so we had the patio door open to get some cooler air inside. I was just grabbing some food and Justin was in the living room when suddenly, a bird flew in our apartment!!!! Yes, a robin flew in and was going nuts flying all over around the apartment because it couldn't find where it came in! Seriously, what do you do in a situation like that? You can't catch the bird, obviously. Even if you could, with like a butterfly net or something, I'd be afraid to let it out of the net, because this thing was literally flying around like a psycho. Eventually, it flew back out the door (thanks to Justin who bravely just inched closer and closer to it so it would keep flying closer and closer to the door.), so our apartment is bird-free, but I must say, it was quite the experience. And I would have paid big bucks for my camera to have magically appeared in my hands and taken a picture. Man oh man.

Seriously, what is it with all this nature trying to come in our apartment lately? Sheesh!

Other choices

I've been playing around all night with how to make my blog look it's best and I've come up with a few other themes and headers, two of which I actually tried out (so if you saw one of them live, you are amazingly lucky). I'll probably leave it be for a while, but here are some of the other choices...







I'll probably have done a couple more before the night is over....
However, before I finish this post, I want everyone to know that if you are looking to start a spider collection, our house is the place to be. Today, Justin found one in the little lens in the door that you look through to see who's knocking. YEAH. A big mommy spider with an awful large abdomen full of baby spiders waiting to get laid in THE PEEP HOLE IN OUR DOOR!!!!! If there is anything more disgusting, please let me know.

For those of you who are wondering, the hairspray trick worked again just like a charm.

YEEEEEAH. I did that.

For those of you frequent readers, you may have noticed that I changed the look of my blog. Quite drastically. I feel it might be a little hard on the eyes, so I'm coming up with some alternatives as well. For those of you who were wondering, or, for just a taste of the good 'ole days, here's what it looked like before.


Ahhhh.... goodbye old blog!

Good news

Good news, people. Tonight, when I came home from work, the spider, as I suspected was nowhere to be seen. I was cautiously stepping around, being careful what I touched and double checking all the ceilings before entering a room. I knew the spider was waiting to catch me off guard. When Justin got home, I had dinner ready, which I had managed to cook spider-free, and was telling Justin my tale over dinner (delicious dinner conversation!) when, in a complete spell of absolute irony, I saw the spider, just past Justin's head about 3 feet away crawling across our front door! Well, my friends, I didn't take time to hesitate. Being the faithful blog-checker that I am, I had already read both my aunt Robin's and my cousin Jennifer's comments about how I should always spray spiders with hair spray. I ran to the bathroom and grabbed my trusty dove spray. Just like predicted, one quick spray and that spider was on the ground. I kind of hoped to freeze it in its tracks, and it being the first time I had ever used hair care products in animal destruction, I was a little oblivious to any repercussions that might occur as a result of using as much hairspray as I ended up dousing the poor sucker with. Once I felt that I had sprayed enough, Justin smacked it with my flip flop and the beast was no more. It was incredible. The house smelled like hairspray the rest of the night (it's not that big a place. A little hairspray goes a LONG way), but it was totally worth it. And I just can't get over the fact that the spider appeared out of nowhere right where I could see him most easily as I was telling Justin about it! What are the chances, I ask?! I am calling it an act of God. And tonight, I can rest in peace knowing that furry beast is no long crawling about creepily in our otherwise cozy home.

heebie jeebies

I am currently very uneasy. I am at work, however, I spent the last 10 minutes I had before I had to leave for work at my house trying to throw things at this giant spider that is on my wall. It is brownish-greyish and about the size of the first joint of my thumb. Big and fuzzy. Disgusting. I couldn't hit it with anything to try and knock it off the wall and then step on it and smash it. I couldn't even stomach the idea of trying to just smash it with a paper towel either. So I got a plastic cup and an envelope and was going to try to put the cup over the spider, then put the envelope underneath it, scrape it off onto our balcony and then smash it. This, it seemed, was my best option if I couldn't knock it off the wall with anything. Well, I got up on a chair (it's hanging out by the vent over our coat closet) with my cup and envelope ready and I swear to you, the thing reared up on its back 4 legs and looked straight at me. I might have heard it hiss, I'm not entirely sure. This thing is a beast, and it totally defeated me. I jumped off the chair like the girl that I am and ran across the room. And by that time, I had to go to work. So it's still on the wall. I shut all the doors to the other rooms in the house, so it's pretty much confined to the living room. But man, I know when I get home tonight, it's not going to be in the same spot, which means it's probably going to be waiting to jump out at me or crawl on me when I'm least expecting it....... grossssssssss.... Maybe I'll just get Justin to come over here tonight and we can spend the night at work.

Hmmmm....

There are so many days where I want to write on my blog, but really have nothing to write about. Those of you who are frequent readers are probably already all too aware of this fact, seeing as half my posts are pretty much useless. Today is no different. Nothing happened. But here's a report of all that nothing anyway, plus some random other musings I thought up to take up space.
- Justin's new computer came earlier this week and it is stellar if I do say so myself.
-We are still trying to find an apartment in Logan with pretty much no luck. We might go up there not this weekend, but the next one to look for a place (without cinderblock walls- I'm hoping for something in an actual house, but we'll see). The Madsens seem to think that we'll be pretty successful if we come up and that we'll probably find something within a day.
-We only have 1 more day of bowling class and I am more sad about being done with that class than I have been about finishing any other class in my entire life (maybe I should have majored in bowling? Yes, probably).
-I still hate my BIO 100 class. BOO.
-I've maintained my 20lb weight loss for 3 months now without really keeping track of everything I eat. Go me!
-Our neighbors moved and gave us a free digital camera before they left. It is pretty nice, but currently only takes 12 pictures without a memory card in it.
-I still am in love with our 1860s newspapers (it turns out we have 5! we thought there were only 4 until one of our neighbors came over to look at them and we pulled them all out and there were 2 more... twas awesome. That means that each paper was $2 each. Quite the deal.)
-I've been really wanting to see Lars and the Real Girl ever since Rachel mentioned it on her blog, but, not surprisingly, can't bring myself to spend $4 to rent it anywhere.
- I found out that my coworker is both L. Tom Perry's grandson and also the author of the 38th best selling instrumental album of 2007.
- I have a really nice desk at work. Which they are taking away to give to someone more important and I am getting a cubicle. A large cubicle, but still... a cubicle... boo.
- Tonight is the ward campout and we are going to be grilling hot dogs and smores over an open fire. yessssssss.
- I had this awesome fathers day present lined up and had the chance to go get it on Wednesday night, but I decided to wait til this morning so I wouldn't have to hide it from Justin for so long. But of course, when I went to go do it this morning, the store's machine that was to construct my present was broken and won't be fixed til the end of next week. I hate my stupid bad luck. FRIDAY THE 13th IS EVIL AFTER ALL!!!!

Aaaaaaaannnnddd....... that's pretty much it.

Vengance is mine!

I probably shouldn't feel in any way pleased about this, so I feel kind of guilty saying it at all, but I've just got to. It's another dream I had and I know I've done tons of those already, but this one is good.
Rachel Brown and her sister Bekah and me and Lauren all went away for a weekend on a girls retreat to some beach house on the east coast. There were also two other girls there, who I knew were the daughters of my cooperating teacher from when I student taught (though in real life, he only has one daughter who is about 2 years old). Anyway, my cooperating teacher was also there for some bizarre reason and he really had this nasty habit of interrupting our juicy girl talk with his scriptural musings (think trying to start a fireside with us about every 20 minutes). Anyway, at one point during this gloriously fun getaway, we (the girls) had just finished constructing a 3D model of our town outside on the porch (I know, what a fun girls trip activity!!!) when we could see a storm blowing in. We went back inside, but left the screen door that opened to the porch open because we wanted fresh air. Anyway, the waves started getting pretty bad, so we closed it, and just as we did, this huge wave crashed up over the porch, thoroughly soaking our beautiful 3D model. So, my cooperating teacher ran out onto the porch, even though we told him it was a bad idea, to try to defend our 3D model and just then, an enormous, literally tsunami size wave crashed up over the porch and over, therefore, my cooperating teacher. The wave created a giant 7 ft swimming pool on the porch and I could see my cooperating teacher just bobbing around out there. He was ok, so I'm not a terrible person- I didn't dream he died or anything. I think that dream is somehow the release of all the incredible stress he caused me during my student teaching. Now I can move on with my life with my cooperating teacher drifting around in the waves behind me. I know-- that's pretty poetic, huh?

Take that

So it happened again today. Out of curiosity, I went to Chevron to see if they were still experiencing gas price confusion and yes, they were. So I wrote Chevron a letter. See if I buy my gas there again. Those sly dogs.

My friendly local Chevron!

TRICKED YOU. The Chevron by my house is immoral and horrible and no one should ever by their gas there EVER!

What I did to you by enticing you to read this post with a lovely title that is actually a lie is exactly what the evil Chevron by my house does every day.

I have recently discovered that the aforementioned evil Chevron advertises its gas at $0.06 cheaper than it actually is once you get our of your car and start pumping (the sign says 3.93 and it's actually 3.99 at the pump). This is not a one time occurrence either and I am relatively positive that although gas prices are increasing quite rapidly, they are not yet increasing by 6 cents every 30 seconds (roughly the amount of time it takes from when I see the sign driving in and when I'm out of my car getting ready to pump). I feel tricked whenever I get gas there, even though by now, I'm well aware of what they're doing and I already automatically add the 6 cents to their advertised price in my head before I pull in. I feel like what they're doing is wrong--like they are just preying upon unsuspecting drivers. I'm sure they figure that once you're out of your car about to pump and you notice that it's actually 3.99 on the pump, you probably won't get back in your car and drive away to search for cheaper gas. Because most of us are too lazy. So basically, every time I drive in, I can see the fat old attendant chuckling at me with his greasy toothless grin thinking that I'm a typical lazy American and they can trick me into giving them money. And that just gets under my skin. Justin even asked them about it once and they said they "just hadn't gotten a chance to change the sign yet." What else is Billy-Jo the gas station attendant doing in there? There isn't even a convenience store in this gas station, so he's pretty much just waiting for people to come in and buy tobacco or cigarettes. Which I'm guessing probably isn't too common in PROVO! This whole situation makes me INSANE, however, it is the only place that is on the way to my workplace, so when, like today, I get in the car and am below the "E" on the fuel gauge, it is my only choice. I would almost rather run out of gas. I loathe them. I want so badly in my rage to write their manager a letter of disgruntlement, but usually, I just sit stewing about it, and much like the typical lazy American that they assume I am, just sit here and do nothing besides vent on my blog. Which makes me even more mad because that makes those evil scumbags right.

Update on our newspapers

I did a little research and I found a New York Herald that has the Emancipation Proclamation in it, basically the Herald version of our NYTimes. The headlines were almost word for word the same as ours, and it was selling for [drumroll...] $635. Soooooo... maybe they're not entirely worthless after all...?

Garage sales=awesome

So today, Justin and I had a little time to kill before the Parade of Homes opened and after we watched his sister's softball game. We were driving towards our first parade of homes home when we saw a sign for a garage sale and decided to stop by. They had the typical stuff-old tvs, random nasty old clothes, some weird old board games, ugly floral house decorations and framed watercolor paintings in skinny gold frames, you know, the like. However, as we were looking around, we stumbled upon some newspapers. The first few we saw were cool- there were some from a space shuttle mission in 1995 and just some other random papers. It looked a little like some stuff from a time capsule. As the owner saw us looking at the papers, he said that his neighbor had just bought one from him that was from the day that Kennedy's assassination was reported. Justin and I thought that would be kind of an awesome thing to have, but we hardly had time to feel sorry that we didn't get it before Justin unearthed a stack of newspapers from the 1860s!!!!! Yes, my friends, we are now the proud owners of original newspapers from several important dates regarding the Civil War! We have the paper from the day the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, A paper from the day that Fort Sumter was surrendered, the say that the Civil War ended and General Lee surrendered and the day that Lincoln was assassinated! They are New York Times newspapers and they aren't fakes. It turns out that even originals aren't worth that much- maybe $15 each, but still, I think they're freaking awesome. If you want come over and see them, we're more than happy to have visitors (no, this isn't an elaborate plan for us to get people to come visit us). They're currently just in a plastic sleeve, but we're going to get them framed. I'll post some pictures later... if I can determine if the flash would damage our precious antiques : )

FISH!

Justin and I went fishing on Monday with the Dixon's. We caught 11 fish total distributed as following:

Joe: 1

Me: ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (it's only the second fish I've ever caught in my life! However, it's only my 3rd or 4th time fishing AND I caught it on my 3rd cast, so i'm pretty excited.)

Justin: 9 (show off)


Sometimes I get pretty excited about catching/ eating fish, as shown above. But honestly, I was so proud of myself. For anyone who cares, white bass are hot on the Provo.

Raindrops keep falling on my head

Today it rained. Inside my workplace. I guess the A/C unit froze, and they turned it off to fix it, and the beautifully warm weather just melted all the ice. And through the roof it came. The picture's not the greatest, but I do love the look on the face of the guy coming through the door, "Wait... I'm inside right now..."
Also, I love that the water was dripping through a light fixture. I'm sure, with all the wiring in there, that was extremely safe...