In the big, blue world...

I thought this title was pretty fitting, especially since I'm going to start with the blue dress story from (now 3) blogs ago, and some Finding Nemo later on. So I was at the Magic Kingdom waiting to see Wishes! before it left for the summer. (Wishes! is the firework show) Since it was just me, while I was waiting, I was looking around and realized how blue the sky was behind the castly. My camera has a stetting where you can select a color and the camera will just show that color then everything else shows in black and white. This is the picture I took.
Honestly, not the greatest picture ever... Kind of blurry, but I'm not going to lie, I was mostly just playing with my camera and killing time. While waiting for the fireworks, I got bored with my camera (let's be honest, I often have a short attention span.) and started texting some people that I love oh so far away... I turned off my camera and unknowingly left my camera in the manual color selection screen. (I have an on/off switch instead of turning the dial from manual to off.) The next night, our complex had a pool party that Stitce was at, so we decided to get a roommate picture with Stitch. The character attendant had made a comment about how cool my camera was, but I didn't think anything of it until later that night when my roommate and I looked at the picture-it was still set to pick up the blue from the sky behind the castle, which happened to be a very similar shade of blue to what I happened to be wearing. (Once again, let's' be honest, I wear a LOT of blue.) My roommate, Brianna, claims I set my camera to do that on purpose... What do you think?

Occasionally on my day off, I do all of my boring adult stuff and still have some time to go out into the park and play. A week or two ago (or now closer to a month...) my roommate, Bri, and I along with Kristina, a girl I work with, went to Animal Kingdom. We walked onto Dinosaur, which will ALWAYS remind me of Dennis. :) After Dinosaur, we got in line for Finding Nemo: the Musical. I was able to take some fun pictures... Here are a few of my favorites:

P.S. Dory will forever make me think of you Mom. **delay fish**

As promised, I walked around and took some pictures of my apartment, the complex etc.

This is my fantastic security station/whatever. I live in a gated community. To get into the complex, you have to go through here. All of us have housing ID's that we have to show to get into the complex or on any of the buses. The bus system that I use is ONLY for college program students. It's just like a normal bus system, different buses go to different locations. Back to the security... You MUST show your ID to get in. If you dont' live in the complex, you can't get in without someone who lives in the comples signing you in. Even if you are signed in, 2-7am is considered quiet hours and ONLY people who live in the comples are allowed in. So, don't worry, I'm being safe.

This is my fantastic apartment.... Okay, so it's really not so fantastic, but it could be lots worse. :) It's just your pretty typical college apartment. There's one bed/bath suite off of the kitchen and two more off of the living room. I know it's not particularly clean, but it's how it looks by the end of all of our work weeks, then we clean it really well and the cycle starts all over again.

This is my bedroom... Notice my pillow stack compared to my roommates. YUP! Even down here, I have a bunch of pillows. Once again, pretty mediocre, but it definitely covers what I need. Next to where I'm standing there's a bureau with a mirror with drawers and a walk-in closet... I didn't take a picture of those because, well, they just aren't that interesting to me.

Okay, this is my last picture for this post... I took it really just because I thought it was fun. This picture shows really how much we all are immersed in Disney. This was written in some cement that I walk everyday on the way to and from my bus. I'm not going to lie, it just makes me smile. I thought I'd post it just for the heck of it.

I hope you all enjoyed! Let me know what you think. :)

I made a GUEST cry at work...

Before I go into anything, I'll just start out with making this guest cry was a good thing, so it's not sad like my last post.

Tuesday, I was starting to get sick, but I just wanting to finish my shift so I could have my next two days off.

I had a guest that came to me asking about a beach towel that she had seen. Her and her daughter had looked at it at a kiosk outside of Pirates called the Crow's Nest. Because it's a little kiosk, they close earlier than the regular stores. They had looked in the Pirates store, but they didn't have it, so OF COURSE they came to us. (Regardless if we have something or not, people from everywhere else in the park send guests to our store and tell them that we'll have it.)

I got the description of the towel from her, and went to do a little research. I came back and told her that I was working on it, but it was going to take me a little bit of time. The family had a reservation at Crystal Palace (a restaurant) that they were just heading to. I told her that would be perfect, they could go enjoy their meal, then gave her my name and told her to come find me after. I told her if it was at all possible to get it here, I would have it for them when they got back from the restaurant, then sent them on their way. This seems like a large promise, but as long as another store in the Kingdom has it, then we can send a runner to pick it up and bring it back to our store for the guest to buy it with us.

I started working on my task at hand. Calling from one store to another, especially at 6pm isn't always as easy as it sounds. Often, that's our really busy time that everyone is distracted during and so they don't answer the phone. After trying and trying, I finally got someone at the Pirates shop. I finally got them to understand what I was trying to have them do, and the guy said that he would go check it out and let me know. A half hour later, I was in the office and still hadn't heard from him, so I decided I needed to do a new approach. I started talking to one of my managers who used to work in that area and explained the situation. She started taking some manager control, and found out who their MOD was for the evening. She gave her a call, explained what we were looking for, and we started to wait again. It only took 5-10 minutes this time and Debra, my manager, got a message saying they had found the towel. We got a runner who was going to go pick it up for us. Debra also gave her a No-Strings Attached coupon to get it for the guest. No-Strings are really the golden tickets. A manager writes them out and can write them out for whatever they think is appropriate. I was so grateful my manager was going to do this, and take it the next step up.

So, our runner got back from Pirates and had the towel in a bag. My manager gave it to me and told me that I got this rolling, so she was going to pass it to me and I was going to take care of the rest. I love when managers trust us like this, let us take the reigns and have some fun. One of the "basics" at Disney is to stay in character and play the part. For example, in the Emporium, since we're a turn of the century, Main Street themed location, we don't go on break, we go on tea. We don't get our bump out to go home, our carriage arrives. We don't say we're going to the bathroom, we go to visit the mayor, or for girl's, the mayor's wife. These are the little things that keep the magic going.

I didn't want to just tell my guest that we got it from the crow's nest for her and my manager comp'ed it for her, that just doesn't really sound, well, magical. So I thought up my story for her.

Two hours later, I was a little nervous they weren't going to come back... More than once we've tracked something down for a guest and they didn't come back. After the fireworks, I made sure I was working in the right area so if the guest came back, they'd see me. I was checking out another guest, and looked up, and there was the mom and daughter who had been looking for the towel. They were both smiling at me and the mom was giving me a "thumbs up? thumbs down?" signal. I gave her the signal to wait while I was finishing with my current guest, then pulled them aside. I told them I had the towel, and to wait there for me. Then, I went in the back to grab the towel.

When we got the towel from Pirates, I had also gotten a little bag and filled it with pixie dust. Pixie dust is little mickey-shaped shiney confetti, we use it for special occasions, magical moments, just those little things we want to make a litte extra special. I grabbed the towel and baggie of pixie dust and headed out. I got to the family, pulled out the towel and made sure that it was the right towel, which it was, thankfully. I put the towel back in the bag and told them I had a little help from Tinkerbell and Mickey to get it for them. I started telling them my story that Tinkerbell had flown to the Crow's Nest, snuck in and searched around for it. She found the towel and brought it back to me. She wanted to stay and say hello, but she had to go get ready for the parade, so she left some pixie dust to know that she was there. I also said that I had been talking to Mickey. I had told him the whole story of what happened and all the stuff that we had gone through to get it for the family, and that he told me that he wanted to pay for it to make their trip a little more magical.

When I told them that, the mom got huge eyes and was looking at me, and asked me if I was serious. I told her that I was. She asked again, and I told her that I was very serious, we just wanted to make her trip a little more magical. She started crying and thanked me profusely.

I love that this is my job. I know handing out stuff for free doesn't happen often, but it's wonderful when the little things can make someone's vacation that much more special. She would have been over the moon that I had found the towel her daughter wanted, but I love that my managers and my company let us take it to the next level and I got to make the magic for this family.

This is why I love Disney.

I cried at work tonight....

Alright, so I know this isn't the blog I was planning on following up the last one with, but this happened tonight, and I wanted to write about it tonight. I'll continue the stories with the blue dress etc on the next blog. I should also preface this by saying this is a story about a guest interaction. If you don't want to hear any guest interaction stories, I'm going to go ahead and skip this update and wait for the next. This guest interaction was also a sad one, I'm not going to lie, I cried when it happened, I've cried everytime since. I might just be a baby, but don't say I didn't warn you.

First, I need to give you some background on WDW, the Magic Kingdom, and specifically the Emporium. Obviously, WDW is a very expensive vacation so many people save up for a very long time to come, and this may be the only time that they'll ever get to come. The Magic Kingdom is very often the first and the last park guests visit, or if they aren't going to be there for multiple days, it's the only park that they visit. Not only is the Magic Kingdom the last park they visit, but the Emporium is the last place that guests go before they leave. I can't count the number of times that I've been checking out guests and found out that they are leaving the park right after they're done with me and going straight to the airport, the car to drive home, etc.

WDW has a lot of guests that are with the Make-A-Wish Foundation or Give Kids the World. Everyone knows that these organizations are for children who have faced extreme health challenges or are terminally ill. During training, we often talk about these families and the little things that we do differently for them. Obviously, every guest is special, but GKtW families or MaW get taken to the front of character interactions etc. When you are talking to one of these families, you don't ask something like, "What are you here to celebrate?" because it's often not a happy thing, so instead you would ask questions about their favorite thing they've done so far, what their favorite character is, etc. I've gotten pretty good at looking for the buttons, or if they're with a child in a wheel chair, then just asking 'safe' questions.

I'm sure you can see where this story is going. I was checking out a daughter and her mom. I didn't see any of the GKtW or MaW buttons so I don't know if they were there with them, or if they just came together. The daughter was in a wheelchair and though I'm not sure if she had heart problems, cancer, what but she was pretty obviously ill. She was somewhere between 10 & 15, which sounds like a pretty big gap, but I've learned that it's hard to judge age when a child is ill. I was talking to the mom while I was checking them out and bagging their merchandise. While I was running her card, I noticed it was a Disney Chase Visa card, and more specifically a charter member card. (They started back in 2003 I've found out from google.) If you're a Disney Chase Visa holder, and more specifically a charter member, it means you like Disney. I remarked to the mom how cool it was that they had been with us since the beginning and thanked her for coming to visit.

We paused while I was bagging their merchandise. She looked at me, and told me that she didn't want to leave the park. She said that when she left the park, she pointed to her daughter (who was luckily facing the other direction during this whole interaction) and said that it was going to be her last time, and that once they walked out, she wouldn't be walking back in again. My heart sank. I said I was sorry and gave her what I hope was a sympathetic look, and concluded her transaction. As I was giving her the receipt and her bag, she started crying and looked me in the eye and asked, "Do I have to leave?" I must have had a slightly puzzled look on my face because she responded with, "If I don't leave, then she won't die. We can just stay here forever, right? I don't want her to die." My heart just completely broke. I didn't know what to say. I had a mother in front of me, soon she was going to lose her daughter and have to say good bye. I can't even fathom that, and there's nothing I could say to make her feel better. I just apologized, pulled out our tissues from under the register, let her take as many as she needed. She got herself composed and left with her daughter. Thankfully, I had held myself together.

I turned and looked at the guy who was next to me who had heard most of the end of the conversation, and said I had to go to the back. I was barely able to make it to the back before the composure that I had on stage completely melted away and I was crying. I got to the back and was crying, so I had to tell why I was crying, which made me cry more. After the third or so person to ask me why I was crying and me telling them and starting to cry all over again/harder, I finally had a co-worker who told them to stop asking me or I wasn't going to be able to stop crying.

I know this may not sound big, and maybe you had to be there to have it touch you like it did me, but it was easily the hardest conversation I've had with a guest, and will stick with me forever.

Finally... An update!

Okay... So I'm sure I should post about Mom's graduation party, the family trip to her graduation, the trip to California with the family, going to Ohio to visit Dieter, Brenda and family then go to Emily and Alex's wedding... But, I'm proud that I'm even updating, so I'm just going to stick with a little bit from down here. There's still bunches and bunches of stories and pictures to update from here, but I'm just going to do a quick update and some pictures, then I'll put some more up later.

So, I'm down in Orlando for the summer working at Walt Disney World. I was placed in the Emporium on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom. This is the busiest store in any of the theme parks, and the second busiest store on property- World of Disney is the only store busier, and it's 3 times the size we are.

I love working in the Magic Kingdom. Granted, the hours are less than fantastic most of the time, but it's amazing to be there, to be able to walk outside and see the castle, have parades go by throughout the day and evening (there's the 3 o'clock parade, 3 Move It, Shake It, Celebrate It mini-parades during the day, then 1-2 evening parades, which for the rest of the summer is Disney's Electrical Parade.) You can also hear/see the fireworks at night... All sorts of things throughout the day.

So, since I'm working at Disney, I obviously wear a costume. As far as Disney costumes go, it's really not a bad costume. Here's a description of some of my roommate's costumes... Two of them have khaki shorts and different colored shirts. One roommate wears teal shorts, and a teal and white strip shirt, the last wears black shorts, a blue shirt, yellow suspenders and a hat. Then, here's my costume.

Here's a picture of me and some of my roommates... I'll tell you more about them in the next post. I'm not going to lie, I'm going to head to bed in mjust a minute, but I promised myself I'd get an update posted before I went to bed... I didn't say it had to be a long one! :o)

Me in the blue sticking out does have a story... but I'll tell that next time. :)

Random memories

So… Last night after taking my antibiotic- I have to take it at night, but ironically makes me antsy and sleepless for a bit- I went looking for some postcards I had gotten in San Francisco to frame, I found something else instead. I found pictures from all different times in my life- some fun and crazy experiences.

I found pictures of when I was little: pictures with my leg in my cast, (poor Mom having to deal with a 12-month old in a full leg cast for 8 weeks…) pictures from birthday parties over the years, (do you remember the spanking machine?!?) I found formal family pictures (Wow! There’s always jokes about Don King’s hair, sorry Dad, but you could have definitely given him a run for his money way back when…) I found random family pictures of getting together and just having fun and being silly (it’s amazing how you appreciate siblings a lot more as you grow up…) Putting ceiling fans up using our heads- quite literally! Trips across all over, including cross country where we stopped in St. Louis and went to the arch as well as saw the major floods, going to Ohio to visit Oma and Opa… Taking a day trip to Niagara Falls-before you needed a passport to cross the border- and telling Opa to not say a thing! J I found and lots and lots of pictures of the family at Disneyland- imagine that!

So- that’s all I was going to say about Disneyland as a family, but I started thinking about the memories and started laughing- so I decided to share some of my favorite family Disneyland memories. My first ride on the newly opened Splash Mountain-I was sitting in the second to last seat and was holing on to my mom *SO* tightly that it just looked like she had long blonde hair in the picture… My brothers proceeded to take me back on the ride and made me sit in the very front seat. Waiting in line for the Rocket Rods (REALLY lame ride! I miss the People Movers!) And Tyler (who is now happily married) discussing his dates, the hot tub and the size of their swimsuits as the number of dates grew. (I’m sure he’d kill me if he read that I posted that store, but it made me laugh and I know he doesn’t read this, so I feel safe.) Kristin, knowing what parking spot she wanted, and threatening to run over the parking attendant to get it. (She was successful in getting her parking spot.) Breaking two toes the day we left for California-which meant Disneyland in a wheel chair, which wasn’t as fun as I always had imagined it would be… Though that may have been from the crayon blue foot and extremely sore foot. (People don’t pay much attention to wheelchairs, so I got quite a few bumps, quite painful with newly broken toes.) Going to Disneyland with the boys (Dad, Tom, Von and Matt) before going to the BYU-UCLA game. Disneyland with just me, Tom and Lisa, which was the trip that I got my “Mom” Mickey ears. Taking Ashley O on her first trip to Disneyland, the lots of attempts to get a picture with Goofy before finally succeeding, and Miss Ashley O being more interested on the ties on Mom’s sweatshirt hood than anything else. Getting stuck on Space Mountain and finishing the ride with the lights on, which is much scarier than riding it in the dark. Seeing Dad’s face anytime we would go to Billy Hill and the Hillbillies, and even better when we got the change to meet and take pictures with them! When California Adventure was, well, a parking lot- driving through the parking log, looking at all of the license plates to see how many states we could find. Lisa telling ME that I take too many pictures! The first time we took Hans on Soarin’ Over California, getting the top, center row, and watching him push back as far as he could when the attraction starting while Dad was leaning over in the Superman pose. Going to Club 33!! A real highlight of my Disney life- making many of my cast member friends jealous! J Captain EO! Taking pictures of how many 3-D glasses the boys could fit on- it just wasn’t the same for Honey I shrunk the Audience. (I can’t wait to see Captain EO again this spring! “See you later trashcans!”) Kristin, Tyler, Amanda, Lisa and myself nearly sinking a Small World boat. (Okay, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration- but there was a good 4 or 5 inches of water in the bottom of the boat.) Hans being so excited for the Storybook Canals. (Apparently this attraction is very exciting in the world of gardening.) This one’s just for Lisa (though it happened when we were there with friends, she’s sill my family.) “1-0-1! Indiana Jones is 1-0-1 people!”

As you can tell, I could go on, and on, and ON about family memories at Disneyland- and why it really is the Happiest Place on Earth!

I found pictures from junior high and high school… All of those times we’d “never forget” and those people who “you’ll be friends with forever!” While I’m not the closest with most of the people from high school, I still remember all of the wonderful times we have together and will always have a special place in my heart for them. There’s so many memories that made me laugh, sigh, and just be all nostalgic. Building sets for junior high plays (I got a drama award though I never was actually in a drama class or a play, just back stage. J ) Dances and all kinds of school functions. Deciding at the last minute to go to prom my senior year… and instead of going out to dinner, we got dressed up, ate pizza and watched Emperor’s New Groove; instead of going and taking formal pictures, going to the park and taking pictures on the slide and swings, just being silly, formal dress, slippers and all! (Yes, I wore pink fuzzy slippers to Prom.) Pictures of the night I had my first kiss, pictures of old boyfriends and crushes… I’m glad I dated MOST of them… but I still look back on them with a smile. Playing in mud and getting covered from head to toe while in Lake Powell just because it sounded like fun. Late night chat sessions and sleepovers with chips and salsa, Little Caesar’s pizza and crazy bread, painting nails, and laughing until our sides hurt. Watching all kinds of movies from Emperor’s New Groove (we really liked that one.) and That Thing You Do, to the Lord of the Rings (which I’ve still never actually stayed awake during.) We made sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies, cakes, all sorts of fun things. We spent summers in the pool, swimming in the sunshine and occasionally rain! We even spent some New Year’s in the warm pool with snow all around us. These were incredibly special time in my life- and while I wouldn’t go back and unfortunately I’m not close with so many of the special people I once spent most of waking hours with or talking to on the phone- they all make my smile and have a special place in my heart.

I found lots and lots of pictures from my College Program. Though it was only five months long, it has definitely changed my life. I got out on my own for the first time 0 I learned and grew. I met friends who once again have come in and out of my life – and many who will I will truly be friends will for a long, long time. I found pictures of some crazy fun times, most I haven’t thought about in a LONG time! The Tinks, signing underneath our counter before we left, our random wall full of pictures, phrases and words that were just too funny and brought back all kinds of other memories! I found pictures from the night of Mexican food and lots of Chinese fire drills all over I-Drive and Downtown Disney. Stuffing into Frances’ car- and I do mean stuffing- on more than one occasion. Drew in the trunk on the way home from P.I. though he had his ID all ready, and Erika running away from security while the rest of us waited for Ray and Drew… Dressing up and going to Olive Garden as a big group for Valentine’s Day. Oscar night and eating the chocolate Oscar Amanda’s parents sent. Random pictures of me in all of my crazy costumes I wore for random extra hour shifts I would pick up- Casey’s corner, emptying mini-bars, Parade and Audience control in Fantasyland costumes, Tomorrowland costumes, Main street costumes… Pictures of dying my red hair- Oh my red hair! Meeting new people - saying hello and goodbye. I had never cried when having to say goodbye until then… and I’ve had to say goodbye and cried many times since then.

I found pictures from so many other times of my life. Weddings, both family and friends- the wedding cakes I’ve made… (Seriously?!? How did I get into making wedding cakes… and how did I get talked into making them over and over again?!?) Trips with friends to California, Florida, Boston and everywhere in between! Random pictures of just hanging out, pictures of my puppy that I miss so much, and now pictures of the crazy kitties that live in the basement… Nieces and nephews – oh how much they’ve grown!!

While obviously pictures haven’t made my life- the experiences as a whole have made me who I am today. The pictures just remind me of those crazy, fun and special experiences. I still have lots of growing and learning still to come – but I am grateful for all of my friends and family who have been there for the ups and downs of this crazy thing called life.

I’ll hopefully get some of the pictures who inspired this post scanned and posted on here or on Facebook someday soon.

Ghosts, candy and hockey!

This past weekend I went to Denver for a few days… It was a great weekend, and as usual, a much needed break.

We started on Friday, by going to the Stanley Hotel.

If you don’t know what that is, it is the hotel that Stephen King was staying at and inspired him to write The Shining. It is said to be haunted, the Ghost Hunters have even done a couple of episodes there, full of ‘experiences’.

We started our Friday out by taking the Ghost Tour. This was led by our guide, a family of four, and two of the most obnoxious girls I’ve met in a long time. I went into the tour with a very open mind, and even maybe wanted to have some paranormal experiences… But I’m not going to lie; the whole thing was really funny. It was amazing how the people wanted paranormal experiences so much that all sense of reason went right out the window. Aaron and I had a hard time not bursting into laughter at some points of the tour. Here’s an example:

We were standing in the ‘vortex’ that is outside of the room Stephen King was staying in. Apparently while standing in the vortex, you are supposed to feel light-headed, and weird and according to the tour-guide, his ears ring. The father of the family said his ears were ringing as well… The tour guide said to take lots of pictures, because you might have some crazy things come up. So the dad started looking up in the vortex to take some pictures, and was thrilled because he got some blue lines on his screen… The tour guide was excited to see the lines, saying that was the floor the kids were on, so it was probably them… but they somehow couldn’t get it to stay when they actually took the picture… That has to mean there’s something paranormal there, right? Aaron and I walked through our tour again after, and it’s amazing! The blue lines came up on my camera too!! … oh wait, that’s just how the light comes across on the preview screen…
Now… We did get a picture of a ghost… Here she is:

Okay, so really, it’s an Iphone App. :o) And I'm not really sure why she doesn't have any eyes...

Aaron and I didn't have any supernatural experiences while we were there, though we did capture photos with orbs, aka dust. I know I didn't tell any stories about the obnoxious chicks, so here's something that might help you just imagine them... When we were getting ready to leave the next morning, we saw them in the bar at 10:30am... Way to get started early!

Here's my favorite orb... I named him Matthew. :o)

So, Saturday morning we went through Estes Park, it’s the small town that the Stanley Hotel is in. On their Main Street, they have a lot of tourist stores, candy shops, things like that. There’s one store I was especially excited for…

I would LOVE to own a store like that… Can you imagine me having a store like that?

Saturday night, we went to the Avalanche game with Aaron’s friend Henry, his sister Kristen and Kristen’s boyfriend. We had incredible seats- 15 rows off the ice! Lisa, you’re going to love their mascot- Bernie the St. Bernard. The game was great, the Avs shut out Edmonton.

Good times! Lots of changes coming soon… So keep checking back for some new updates!

Shredding, cute boys and spa days!

Time for another blog! I’m already doing better than last year… It may not be every week, but at least I’m getting more consistent!

So… As usual, I’ll start off with a work story…

After the return rush ended, I was finally able to get our cash office all cleaned out and organized. One of the things I’m over is the cash office, so I need to make sure everything is organized so I can find what I need to, especially when there’s an audit or when corporate contacts me to find something. Also, I need to keep it clean because it helps keep our overage/shortages down.

At the end of the year, I got to shred a bunch of paperwork from last year. I thought I had to keep it and get rid of it at the end of the year, but you always learn stuff! I was able to learn some stuff about my job, and keeping things organized. I wish I could have taken a picture of the office after I finished, but I believe for security, I’m not supposed to take pictures in there. So… Instead, I took a picture of MOST of the bags of shredding I did.

So, now to stuff about me, that may not be completely interesting to you, but it’s all I could think of, and it's not about work!

I’m starting to get big into head bands… My hair is getting LONG, so it’s fun to have something different to do than just a pony tail. Here’s a picture of one of my favorite headbands. It’s surprisingly difficult to take a good picture of your own hair/top of your head.

As promised, here are some pictures of the boys. It was so much fun to get to go and see Russell and Jodee, and of course Calvin and Wesley. They have two, very distinct personalities.

Wesley is much more laid back than Calvin, which isn’t a good thing or a bad thing; it’s just one of those things that make them very different. Calvin loves mush, and Wesley still loves his bottle. When eating mush, Calvin is all business, Wesley likes to play and make a mess of his face.

Here’s a picture of them eating. :o)

Calvin LOVES his plug (his soothie/pacifier/binky, whatever you call it.) Wesley does not… I don’t think I ever even saw him play with the soothie. To make Welsey laugh, you just have to look at him... Calvin loves Peek-a-Boo, and will laugh. Both of their giggles are contagious. You just want to laugh and smile along with them. When Wesley wants attention, he “goes bananas” He shakes his head around. It is SO cute! . I wish I could have gotten a video of it, but it’s hard to capture since he’ll never do it on cue. Both babies love to put anything and everything in their mouths. Wesley loves to move it around on his teeth. Calvin loves to twist his tongue around in his mouth, if you look closely in the pictures, you can see it. They enjoy sitting in their high chairs at the counter, making a mess with cheerios, Gerber puffs, all of that. They also think banging on the counter is fun and it makes them laugh, especially when you join in with them. Here are a couple of my favorite pictures of the boys.

Just after I got back from Arizona, I had the chance for a spa day. For Christmas, a very good friend got me a spa day… Apparently I work too much. I had such an amazing time. I could not have asked for a better gift. It was so nice to sit and relax for a while. I got my very first facial, a fantastic massage, and then a wonderful pedicure. It was so much fun, relaxing, and completely made my day. Here’s a picture of my toes after my pedicure!

Well, I think that’s all for today! It’s my day off, so I should probably do something productive, though let’s be honest, I’ll probably relax and take a nap. :o)

I miss you all, I know who reads this, and I miss you so much. I can’t wait until the next time we get to see each other, hug, smile, and laugh and have a silly time.

Lots of love to you all!

The holidays!

As I am constantly reminded, I don’t update my blog enough… Though, I would like to point out that a month and a half is sooner than the two and a half months that last time took! So… I’m getting better! Slowly, but surely. Right now, I just don’t think I have anything interesting to say, but I’ll give it a shot!

The holidays are finally winding down, and it can’t come soon enough for me! My holiday craziness this year really started on Black Friday. Before that, we were mostly just prepping for the insanity that was to come – and Black Friday was just that, INSANE! I got into work at 2am to make sure everything was set up and working for the 4am opening. There were already people there waiting in line! Some had been waiting overnight! Okay, my family is all about bargain shopping. In fact, the girls’ philosophy of shopping is, “Friends don’t let friends buy retail.” But it is SO not worth staying out overnight in freezing temperatures to go shopping.

I’ll even let you in on a little retail secret… **most** of the Black Friday items will be on almost the same sale price at some point during the holiday season- you just have to watch the ads. Black Friday was all that it was built up to be, and more! By the time we opened the doors at 4, the line was wrapped around Gold’s Gym. For those of you who haven’t seen where my store is located in relation to Gold’s gym, it’s a block or so. We had 10 registers in the front of the store running, along with the 3 at customer service, and ALL of them were running until 3 or so. We had 2 lines going for the registers, and it wrapped around the inside of the store where it met up again. Though, I must admit, according to most of our customers I talked to as they walked out, the wait wasn’t too bad at all, not nearly the wait time they had expected and we were also amazingly organized. That was really nice to hear after all of the work that went into making sure it flowed as easily as possible.

Black Friday was definitely the earliest morning of the season- though there were many days of being in at work by 4am or getting out at 1am or later… Can I just say I hate holiday hours?

So, everything is starting to wind down and be back to normal soon… At least that’s what they keep telling me… Just a few more days of return hell and we’re done! When I say return hell, I mean return hell. I was talking to one of my customer service associates last night, and he made a comment about my Facebook status from last week. I put that Christmas was good, and return hell was starting. He didn’t realize how serious I was. Most days we have 3-4 return registers running at customer service… This translates to a lot of stuff coming back in! Saying it’s a mess is horribly understating it… Here’s a picture I took last night of just the front part of customer service…

This doesn’t include the 25 z-rails of clothes in the back, 10 denim carts, and multiple shopping baskets that are in the back. I had Kyle stand in so you could kind of get an idea of the height of this stack… I wish I had taken another picture from the other side so you could see how wide it was… There’s probably another good 3-4 feet of stuff stacked behind him at that same height… That was as far back as he could get. Thankfully, tomorrow morning we have 25 people scheduled just to work on getting all of this stuff hung, sorted and put back onto the floor.

So, onto something not work related… I had a good break. On the 23^rd we had the extended family over for a dessert buffet. It was really fun to get to see everyone. I haven’t gotten to see much of the extended family and the grandparents lately-especially since we didn’t have Thanksgiving at our place this year. It was so much fun! I have really missed talking to everyone, especially my grandparents. Howard and Mary Sue (believe…) found an old picture of Grandma about the time that she married Grandpa. They had it restored, colorized and framed. Grandpa is usually a very serious and gruff person. It was a very sweet and tender moment when he pulled out the picture and told everyone that none of them had a more beautiful wife than he, and how lucky that he was to get her and love her for all these years. He even started tearing up, though he wasn’t the only one. It was wonderful to see the love that they still have for each other… I hope someday I can have a wonderful and loving marriage like they do.

Christmas Eve was another night of family fun, though this one was more the immediate family. I opened Christmas Eve so I was able to be with the family for ALL of the Christmas Eve fun. We’ve started a new tradition of having soup in bread bowls for dinner, read the Christmas story out of the bible, watching some form of a Christmas movie- last year it was A Christmas Story, this year it was A Muppet Christmas Carol- and finishes with the kids all decorating sugar cookies and opening their Christmas pj’s. It was a wonderful night, though I have to admit, the sugar cookies weren’t nearly as amusing as last year. Last year, Tanner and Ashley stacked 2 inches of frosting and sprinkles on the cookies-and even funnier with they wanted Hans to eat the cookie! J This year, we were also treated to Amanda and Lisa’s choreographed version of the “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas/Pinecones and Holly Berries” duet. Quite the treat. They were even nice enough to do it twice so Russell and Jodee could see it over Ichat. Technology is wonderful! It was so fun to get to talk to Russell and Jodee for a bit, get to see the boys and include them in some of the holiday fun even though they are so far away.

Quite possibly the funniest moment of the night was Tanner when he was opening his present… Okay, not quite possibly, it was DEFINITELY the funniest moment of the night. Tanner didn’t realize that the present he was opening was the pajamas that Tasha gets for the kids every year, he was thinking it was a **real** present. I missed the actual opening, but got to see Hans’ re-enactment that was apparently right on. He started tearing through the packaging and throwing around tissue paper because he was so excited!! … And pulled out pajamas…. Saying he was disappointed is an understatement. “Pajamas! Aww…” and threw them to the ground. Oh how I wish I had taped Hans’ re-enactment! This will definitely go down in Hortin tradition, along with the, “Is that all?!?” of Russell’s youth.

So that’s my entry for today! Apparently I can think of a lot to ramble on about… though I’m not sure how interesting it all is to whoever actually reads this… In just over a week I’m going to see Russell, Jodee, Calvin and Wesley, so hopefully I’ll have some fun stories to tell from there!