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!

Painting, remodelling, work and shingles...

So… Today I have the day off! Last night, I pinky swore with Lisa (figuratively, not actually since, sadly, we are in two different states) that I would do two things today… 1) update my blog since I haven’t for… 2 ½ months? And 2) Not go to work today. Not going to work sounds easier than it is… Especially if you know my family… We all tend to be workaholics, whether we want to be or not… But I’ll tell you more about work later.

As you may or may not have known, at the end of October, I had a few days off of work and was planning on repainting my room. I moved most of the stuff out of my room, then before I moved the rest, I decided I needed to pick a paint color before I started moving the rest of the stuff out. Picking out a paint color is a lot harder than it sounds. Looking at a color chip is always a lot different than what the color looks like on the wall… Also, any color I put on the wall looked especially yellow or green and just not right… Come to find out, testing colors on lavender/purple walls is harder than it sounds. Apparently purple is one of the colors that will bleed through other colors on the wall… So finally, after consulting TJ, painter extraordinaire, I got a color-block primer, and started testing colors, again, but by then, my weekend of time off was over and that was as much painting as I was able to get done… I was hoping to post a picture of it, but forgot to upload it when I had Amanda’s laptop… So… I’ll put up some pictures of that when I finish, I’ll put pictures of the whole process. Back to my room, Dad said he’d paint it for me, I just have to finish getting my room ready to paint. I’m hoping that if Monday through Thursday (Thanksgiving) of next week I do a little bit everyday, I’ll be done by Thanksgiving… Then maybe, hopefully, while I have some long days at work for Black Friday and Saturday, Dad can paint my room for me… We’ll see what happens! I’ve actually picked the color I want… Hopefully I’ll get it all together and completed soon and be able to post some pictures of the whole process and my hopefully soon to be newly painted and rearranged room…

I’m not sure why I decided to redecorate my room while the house was being remodeled, but I did… The main floor and my bathroom are starting to come back together again… Finally… The wood floors are all laid on the main floor, the cabinets are in, the appliances have been delivered. We’re waiting on the granite counter tops now for the kitchen, and a bunch of other stuff I’m sure… The tile has gone down in my bathroom… Hopefully soon, that bathroom will be back in use. I’m hearing it’ll be done about the first weekend in December… I guess we’ll see! I’m not so much looking forward to having to move out of the house for three or four days while the floors are being sanded and stained. I can’t wait to finally have a kitchen again… Be able to make some scrambled eggs in the morning when I want! I know, it sounds silly… How weird is it hat I really just want to make scrambled eggs and toast in my kitchen? I’m not really sure why scrambled eggs are what come to mind, but for some reason that’s the first thing I want to make in the kitchen…

Moving on… The bulk of my life right now is all things work. So I’ll tell you a bit about everything that’s been going on there… Thursday we had a huge corporate visitor come and walk our store. Dave Eske, a Kohl’s vice president/territorial manager, as well as our regional manager. Our store has been really busy the last few weeks preparing for this visit, and especially this last week… This past week we have been down to the wire, so I got a bunch of overtime… From Monday to last night, Friday, I’m guessing I have somewhere around 57 hours… A good bunch of that coming from an overnight I did on Wednesday night… Going into the store at 3:30pm, and finally heading home Thursday morning around 7am.

I don’t know how much I’ve told you about my job, my responsibilities and all of that, but part of my job is getting associates exited about credit and decorating the break room… Believe it or not, this is one of my favorite parts about my job… Every month I get to think of a new credit thing to decorate the break room with… It’s something that I get to think outside of the box, be creative, decorate, do something different than the everyday norm. Okay, I admit sometimes it’s hard thinking of new and creative things to do every month, but there are other months that I come up with something that I think is really good and just hit it out of the park. This is one of those months! Below are some of the pictures I tool of this month’s break room… I took some inspiration from Amanda… She loves fall, and I wasn’t ready for Christmas, so I took fall and ran with it! I love my tree this month! This is the part of my job I love… Being creative and having some fun.



So… My final update for today is a story about my leg… Yes, my leg. A week or so ago, on the inside of my calf, I started having this weird/painful sensation. I kept feeling pain, varying from a punch of pin pricks to a cutting/stabbing sensation. I kept looking at my leg where it hurt, but there was nothing there. So I kept ignoring it, then would look there before I went to bed and see if there was anything there, or if I was just going crazy and imagining things… After a couple of days of that, I had a red, bumpy rash appear where I had been having the sensations. I kept having the sensations, but there was so much going on at work that I just kept ignoring it… I’d look at it at night, take some ibuprofen for the pain, and just kept working. Finally, Thursday morning after my over-night, I was finally able to see mom for the first time this week. The rash was getting worse, was still painful, and I was afraid I was going to be right about what it was… but I wanted to get another opinion before I went to the doctor if I was wrong and it was just something like hives. So, I showed it to her, and she, unfortunately, confirmed what I was thinking, as did Amanda… Shingles… So, while I really wanted to sleep, I called the doctor and made an immediate appointment… He confirmed what we were thinking and immediately put me on a steroid, an antiviral medication, and gave me lidocaine patches to help with the pain. He asked if I was under any stress… Apparently that’s often a trigger of shingles…

I don’t want to whine… it’s no fun though! I still have a while before it’ll go away, and I don’t know how long the pain will last… So I’ll just keep doing my best and going along… It just couldn’t have come at a worse time! I’m just gearing up for my 2 busiest months, especially now that I’m a manager… I’ll make it through though. :o)

As I always say… I’ll try to update more often! And just know, if you try and call me, and I don’t answer, don’t be offended… It’s just a crazy time for me! I’ll try and call you back, or send a text at the very least. Lots of love!

Summer Nightastic

Okay… So I didn’t do so well with keeping up with the blog the last couple of weeks… Last week I actually had some fun! I was able to get my work schedule to have two days off in a row, so I decided to take advantage of the time and take 1 last trip to Disney as a Cast Member. (For those of you who don’t know, I am no longer a campus rep. When I went full time at Kohl’s, I had to make a decision on what to take off of my plate. Taking some school, working full time, being a campus rep and trying to have a life was just too much to take on. So, something had to go, and that was the easiest one to drop.) I was going to go by myself, then I found out that a friend of mine was going with 100 other EFY counselors, so I was going to meet up with them for a while… Then I found out that a friend from work had never been to Disneyland! Shocking, I know… I was actually able to convince her to come down for the first day! I was really excited. Laura, my friend from work, and I took the early JetBlue flight into Long Beach Tuesday morning. We had quite the interesting take off… Apparently we were having a medical emergency, but the people didn’t know how to communicate it correctly. When the flight attendant went to check on them, they just asked for water, not explaining what had happened. They just kept ringing the flight attendant button. I’m not going to lie; I laughed when the frustrated flight attendant finally came over the speaker and said, “If you are bleeding, if you are having a heart attack, if you cannot breathe, push your flight attendant button again. Otherwise, you must wait until we are in the air and it is safe for us to move about the cabin.” I’m evil; I was happy that they didn’t push the button and make all sorts of delays to our flight since the clock was ticking on our first day of Disneyland. So, after all of the drama, we landed in Long Beach. We found out near the end of flight, the medical emergency was a kid passed out. An ambulance met our plane and took him out on a backboard.

So, we were finally on our way to Disneyland! I took Laura to Disney’s California Adventure first. The very first ride I took her on was Soarin’ Over California. I made sure that we were sitting on the very top row of the hang glider. I was so happy that I had talked Laura into coming when I looked over on Soarin’ and Laura was tearing up and turned to me and said, “Thank you!” That was probably one of my favoring moments of the trip. After spending a couple of hours in DCA doing different attractions, walking around, taking lots of character pictures, of Laura, not me believe it or not, we headed over to Disneyland!First, I want to tell everyone that they are working on bringing back the Disney Gallery! I’m so excited! Russell and I have both missed it so… It’s going to be on Main Street now, next to Moments with Mr. Lincoln, which is also working on its return. We got some fast passes for Indiana Jones, looked in some stores for some Shag art I was trying to find for Russell, and then headed to lunch. Okay, if you’ve ever been to Disneyland with me, you know where I took Laura to lunch, Pizza Port of course! For some reason, that darn pasta is my absolute favorite! We had a great lunch, and headed to some nice relaxing/classic rides… It’s a Small World! I absolutely love this ride. I know everyone thinks I’m crazy for it, but I love that ride. I am so happy that they put the Disney movie characters in as well… After that, we went on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. :o) What can I say? It’s an original and always fun! We also did something that was MY first time to do in Disneyland… The castle walk through has re-opened. I really enjoyed it. It was fun to go through the story of Sleeping Beauty again. Then I took her on some more of the classics… We got some Dole Whips and enjoyed the Tiki Room, followed by Pirates of the Caribbean, and Haunted Mansion.

After those, we headed to the monorail to take us to Downtown Disney. We looked through some stores, and then headed to Goofy’s Kitchen for dinner. Laura loved taking pictures with the characters, so I decided to book us at Goofy’s Kitchen for dinner. I admit, I like breakfast better there, but then again, I’m a breakfast person. We still had some great food, and got some fun pictures with the characters, as well as had quite a show from a few! Goofy started a sword fight with Prince Phillip. It was quite hilarious. We also got to do the twist with Goofy and Phillip. Chip was HILARIOUS when he came to visit us… I love the ‘munks. After a little more shopping at Downtown Disney, we headed back to the hotel to crash for the night.
The next morning, I woke up early to take Laura back to the airport. After that, I came back to the hotel to crash and get a little more sleep… I was on vacation! I was going to live it up. After I finally woke up and got ready, I headed to Company D to check out what they had. I got a few things and headed to In-n-Out. I have to get it once on each trip! It’s such a happy memory for the family. After that, I went and picked up Michael and took him to Company D to share my discount. We both got a couple of good things. After that, we headed to Disneyland together. We got fast passes for later that night, walked around a bit… We also got some popcorn, which is always fun! We did a little more shopping, I had to get some Nightmare Before Christmas baby stuff for Amanda, and I got Michael a NBC shirt with my discount. After that, we headed back to Michael’s hotel to meet up with all of the other EFY counselors for pizza dinner. It was really fun. We were by their hotel pool… so you can imagine how much fun is there. Michael and I got out just in time before people started to get thrown in the pool.

He and I headed to catch a couple of rides at DCA that I hadn’t done yet before we were going to meet up with the group for the Monster’s Inc ride and fireworks. We went to another one of my absolute favorite areas, the animation studio! I could just sit in there for hours… I hadn’t done Toy Story Mania yet, so I had to hit that one. I had so much fun! I, of course, won. After that, we got fast passes for Tower of Terror, and went to meet up with everyone for Monster’s Inc. It was really fun! There was like 12 of us who went on it. Edna is hilarious at the end. I love that she interacts with the people. After that, we went to hit Dad’s favorite ride, Tower of Terror. After that, we headed back to Disneyland for the fireworks! I had to stop and buy a blanket, of course… We just hung out as a big group and waited for the fireworks to start… If you’ve ever been to EFY, you can imagine the energy that the group bought. We were there early to make sure that we could get a good place to see the fireworks from, so while we were waiting for them to start, we were singing Disney songs and just having a great time.

This summer, Disneyland had Summer Nightastic going, so there were new fireworks, as well as some extra fireworks and blasts during Fantasmic! At first, I was a little sad that I wasn’t going to be able to see Remember… Dreams Come True, it’s been one of my favorite firework shows for a long time… But I was surprised and absolutely LOVED Imagine! I just about cried when Dumbo came out and started flying!! I was also incredibly happy when they announced that they were adding another Fantasmic! show! I wanted to see it, but I wanted to see the fireworks a little more. After the fireworks, we went to hit some of my favorites before we had to head to catch Fantasmic. We started with Star Tours, then headed so I could do Small World again. Yup! I had to do it another time before I left. After Small World, we used our fast passes for Indiana Jones that we had gotten earlier in the day. After Indiana Jones, we went to get our place for Fantasmic! I love Fantasmic! I’ve loved it since when I first saw it. It’s such a fun show. Michael was laughing at me because I knew all of the movements, the music, everything for the show. After we finished watching that, we turned around and ran into Pirates to catch one last ride before the park closed. Pirates was a wonderful way to finish the night. After that, I went back to the hotel and pack and all of that blah blah blah… headed back to the real world and work the next morning… and that was the end of my whirlwind fun trip. It was a great way to finish out my life as a campus rep. This week, work was crazy! We did inventory, and last night I did an overnight at wok, which is my lesser favorite thing. So, that’s the end of my catch up blog… again… Hopefully next week I’ll be able to keep up a little better!

Am I alone?

So... Last night I had a dream I was getting married. (granted it was to Lance Sweets from Bones, but I guess that's what I get for falling asleep while watching Bones...) I was so happy in my dream, I had finally found my husband. Then, I woke up and was disappointed to realize that I was all alone.
I started to think... Am I really all alone? I'm not. While my close circle of friends is smaller than it once was, everyone in that circle is amazing. I have friends who would do anything for me. Friends who would climb under my feather bed with me, curl up and watch Doogie Howser, MD for hours just to help me escape from the world for a while. A friend who would wake up really early to take a hike so they would have the right light to take a picture of the mountains because they know I miss my mountains back home. Friends who are willing and excited when I ask if I can come crash their place because I want to get away from Utah for a while. Or are willing to take a trip with me to a random place just for fun and to go somewhere new. Friends who know something is wrong when I'm lying to them and saying everything is alright, because sometimes they know me better than I know myself. Friends who call or text me just to say hi.
I'm amazingly lucky because I don't just have friends who care about me, but I also have a family who cares. I have 5 great siblings. While when we were younger, life was more fighting about who gets to control the remote or who has to drive me somewhere because I wasn't old enough to drive myself etc, we are now actually happy to spend time together instead of dreading it. We get excited when we get to plan an event or a time when we can all get together and just be silly. My siblings care about me and my future. They truly want me to be happy and enjoy my life and all that it has to offer. Not only do I have wonderful siblings, but they are all married to incredible people. I don't consider them in-laws, but 5 new siblings that I've gotten as I've gotten older. They care about me just as much as my siblings. I enjoy spending time with them and talking to them. They let me come and visit them, spend time with them, even though having in-laws visit can be stressful and obnoxious. Not only have they shared their lives with me, but they share their fantastic children. I have seven, soon to be eight, cute and loving nieces and nephews. They will always give me hugs or kisses... or say something funny to make me smile and laugh, whether they mean to or not.
I also have incredible parents. My parents are amazing. They are wonderful examples to me of how to live. They are two of the most open, loving, caring, hard working people I've ever met, and I'm not just biased. They take people in, help people out, and never ask or expect anything in return. I hope someday just to be 1/4 as amazing as they are.
Not only do I have a close and amazing immediate family, but I have a loving and caring extended family. I have aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents who love me, no matter what. I get texts and calls all the time from my aunt, just checking in on me and wanting to say hello and that she loves me. I have cousins who I am so close to, that they are more like siblings than cousins.

So, am I alone? Definitely not.