I'm 27-- yipes!

My birthday seemed to forever continue this year. . . but now things seem to once again be settling down a bit. Thanks to everyone for the calls, the texts,the facebook messages, and the presents. It has been a great week!

On Tuesday night, a group of girls I know through church took me to Red Robin for dinner- YUM! One of my favorite places ever!


On Wednesday, my actual birthday, Mom and Dad had cookies delivered to my school (another YUM). The kids loved it!

That night, my friend Nephi took me to dinner at PF Changs, then on Thursday, my friend Michael took me bowling and to TGI Fridays. (No pictures :(

On Saturday, for my actual present, Nephi got me tickets to the Travis Tritt concert down at Stateline.
Upon taking our first picture, he discovered that the recent scratch on his face was noticeable on the picture which he did not like, so we had to take a new one. :-P




Yeah. . he's a dork.

After the concert, we went into the casino to find something to eat, and who do we run into? Mom and Pops! They were here for the weekend (that's a whole different post!), but happened to be staying at the hotel that night that our concert was at. So we had dinner and icecream together before saying our goodbyes (once again).

It was a good and busy week, but it will be nice to have a little down time at home this upcoming week. . . :)

Do what you gotta do. . .

All while growing up, people used to constantly question me and Molly what it was like having to share a birthday with someone else. Well-- it must not have been too tragic if 27 years later, and 1846 miles apart, we still attempt it!

We do birthdays different each year. Present, no present? This year (like Christmas) it was a get yourself a present to open in front of each other over the ichat. Of course- just like every year, we couldn't wait the week to show each other what we got so we ended up telling. . . so then we didn't have to wrap them either. Ha. . . guess it kind of takes the fun out of things. Oh well!
Happy Birthday Molly!

Uh Oh!

Each morning, I pack up all my stuff for work and leave it by the door, before heading out for a little walk with the puppy. Then I can come home and just grab my stuff, change my shoes (which have also been left by the door), and head out! I'm a girl that tries to get as much sleep as possible, therefore, little morning time is wasted from my wake up, til me being out that door.

Today the puppy was antsy, or I dont know, maybe I was antsy, so we skipped pack up time, and headed out on our walk a little prior to schedule. Then when I got home, I had to run around like a crazy girl trying to get myself out the door by my usual time. About half way through my 20-25 minute trek to work I was chatting on the phone, and I looked down to my feet. And this is what I saw. . .


Totally forgot to change my shoes!! Agh!! Can I BE wearing a more unprofessional pair of shoes??

Risk it and head to walmart hoping to find a decent pair of black shoes that I could pass off for the day? Or just head home now and be a few minutes tardy to work?
I decided to head home. . . what if Walmart didn't have ANYTHING? Then I would have wasted valuable time and still had to have gone home!

Luckily, I usually try to do more of my planning stuff before school rather than after, so I am typically an early arriver. That meant that with today's little catastrophe, I was only a couple of minutes late. PHEW! Better that then be walking around in complete humiliation with pink fuzzy crocs on my feet all day long!

Can't WAIT til I am living closer to work!

It's Mine (almost!)

So for the past month or so, I have been condo shopping. Look, pick, offer, declined! So much to my surprise. . . earlier this week I went looking and found two great little places. My realtor told me that we should just put an offer on both places. . . they were both such good deals, he figured they both probably had some offers, but hopefully we would get one. Not only did we get one acceptance, but we got both! So I basically got my pick of the two. Here is what I ended up picking. . . I LOVE it!

Here is the front entrance. I have my own little gate and front porch. . . perfect for a sweet little yard swing. Too bad my decoration ideas are probably bigger than my wallet at this point, but a girl can dream!

My living room with fireplace. On the right side you can see the entrance to the staircase that leads up to the two bedrooms and two bathrooms.

Looking at the dining room from the kitchen.

The kitchen!


Papers have been signed, but of course, there is still some waiting to do. Hopefully all will go well and I will be all moved in in no time!

Loved. . .

With a random treat like this. . . who wouldn't have a great day??

Three's a Crowd??

Three day weekend, which typically means I leave town. Molly called asking me if I was going to come to Indiana and I hesitated a bit with it being Valentines and all. But she assured me that it was no big deal, her and Bryan weren't going to do anything anyway, so I needed to just come! So, the flight arrangements were made the night before, and on Friday after a long fun filled Valentine's Day at work, I hopped the 11 pm red eye flight to Indiana which got me there sometime Saturday morning about 5:30 am.
After my last post, about my "crafty" skills, I found this waiting for me in my bedroom. Of course she had to show me up!!

We caught up for a bit, I slept for a bit, then we met Bryan at Denny's for breakfast. . . yum! Sometime after that Molly got a call from the girl she worked for, telling her that her and her husband had made a reservation at a fancy hotel for that night, but couldn't use it because one of the kids were sick. She thought Molly, Bryan, and I would enjoy it for the evening (yes she did know I was in town and she offered it anyway- haha!) It had a gym and a swimming pool, so we thought hey, why not? So we packed up our bags for the night, and were off for the day, doing some errands, getting some shopping done, eating of course, then to our fancy hotel with our cheesecake factory dessert in tow . . . yum!

Molly ran in to check us in. . the man confirmed with her. . . "king size bed right?" . . . "Ummm. . can we get a room with two beds instead???" Though apparently that seemed like an odd question this Valentine's evening, the man honored the request. Bryan was pretty much humiliated and did not want to be seen walking in with the two of us. . . I guess he thought it was weird or something???

(I guess this is where I should put in a little plug for Bryan. Though I always make sure Molly checks with him before I come out to visit, I am not positive how much he always completely wants me there. He never bickers or complains though and is always such a courteous host. I know he has to put up with a lot having to have the sister tag along. . . but he is a good guy and wont complain about it either way. Thanks Bry! )

The room was pretty nice however, and we had just a dandy evening enjoying the hotel, eating our dessert, and tuning into the Olympics. Unfortunately Molly wasn't feeling well and I pretty much was exhausted so we fell asleep pretty early.




Sunday was a pretty low key day. We made a yummy Valentine's early dinner before Bryan headed off to work and Molly and I enjoyed the remainder of the night watching movies and chatting. I got on the Monday morning early flight before Molly headed to work and was home in plenty of time to unpack, rest a bit, and get ready for my upcoming work week.

Ahhhh. . . the joys of a three day weekend!

Crafty Chaos

This year Molly agreed to make my little class the Valentines for them that were going to be from me. But timing issues screwed us up and we realized she would not be able to get them mailed off and here on time for the Valentine party. So I decided that I had some crafty skills in me somewhere and I should be able to pull off something decently cute. So with plenty of time I went to Michaels and got all my supplies and had a few days to spare to get my goodies made. Well little did I know what a treat I had in store for me this week! I now have a puppy. A very rambuctious puppy at that and I didn't realize how different my crafty life would be once I had my little Doogle. Can't work upstairs at the table because he yaps and yaps at me if he knows I am home and not down playing with him. Can't work on the floor because there is way too much fun stuff for a puppy to get into. Therefore I ended up at my small dresser trying to get everything cut and glued and written on and tied. If something dropped to the floor, it was a mad dash to get it before the pups did because if he got it (which he did his fair share of the time), he was out of there as quick as a flash, taking along whatever it was I dropped. I would lay scissors down on the bed to later discover them gone, and I'm hopeful that some of the kids wont notice small teeth marks in their goody bag where me and the pups played a little tug of war.


As my night was coming to an end, an end I was most happily looking forward to. . . I discovered that somehow I had miscounted my goody bags and I was short one! I looked everywhere for that hidden bag of kisses that I could have possibly dropped, or lost behind the dresser. But nothing! Now after staying up way past my bedtime to finish these dang bags, I have to wake up early to go to the store to get another bag of treats. Oh what a day what a day!
They turned out rather cute though I'd say.