Home alone part 2

At first, the idea of being home alone sounded liberating; I can eat cereal and gummy bears literally three meals a day, with the occasional trip to taco bell mixed in! Then when I'm not eating I can watch TV all day and play with my friends! It will be like Lord of the Flies (before all the boys revert to their carnal, savage instincts and try to kill each other)

Three days later, I'm a total wreck! The cereal is gone, we're right in between basketball and football seasons, we don't have cable, and I've already seen every episode of Two and Half Men and Seinfeld! Not to mention, I don't even have any friends. What was I thinking when I let Darci go on vacation without me? I guess it's true what they say, "you don't know what you have until it's gone."

Darci please come home; I miss you!

taking over blog responsibilities...

Darci left for a week to visit her family in WA, which means things are going to be a little bit different around here. One of the worst things about being alone is that you can't blame anyone else for anything. I learned early on in life (from watching the Simpsons) to admit nothing, deny everything, and make counter accusations, but that is difficult when one is living by themself.

At least for a week I'll only have myself to blame for empty milk cartons in the fridge, doors left open, lights left on, lost mailbox keys, and missing socks.

A few other unsolved mysteries to be uncovered:

• Who has been kicking the covers off the bed at night?
• Who has been eating all the ice cream? (ok, not really a mystery)
• Who's responsible for us being late to church every Sunday???

This should be a very in revealing week!

Schtuff

Here are some things that have been going on in our life over the last week...

*Niel purchased tetris for his I-phone. This is his new hobby. He set a new record today of 108 lines.

*Went to see 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince' with Niel's cousin Sheryl and our friend Amber.

*I got my second pedicure of my lifetime...I shouldn't have ever got a first one. My life was just fine without them before I knew what they were like.

*Had my appointment with my rheumatologist. My X-rays somehow improved from my last X-rays so I can't complain.

*Went to Barnes and Noble on Friday night and picked out a new book by Sophie Kinsella.

*Frozen yogurt at Nubi's. Delicious. I got the raspberry pomegranate with fresh raspberries mixed in.

*I got stuck in traffic on my way home from work on Friday night...nothing like a record breaking two hour ride home in 100 degree weather.

*Got a haircut. Kept it the same...decided against bangs and growing it out.

*I have been anxiously awaiting the bachelorette finale. If Kiptyn is the next bachelor, the show will get ten times awesomer...if that is even possible. Yes, I am a huge bachelorette fan. I figured it was time for me to come out of the closet.

*Niel is studying for boards. I am trying not to bug him while he attempts studying.

Lake Arrowhead

Niel and I had a bright idea to take our bikes to arrowhead last weekend when it was 104 degrees in the Inland Empire. We figured it would be much cooler at Arrowhead. Turns out it was still 92 degrees there. After we unloaded our bikes from the bike rack and rode around for a little bit, we realized that there weren't any bike paths in the area. We road our bikes along the main roads for a little while but that was kinda scary since there wasn't a shoulder or a bike lane. Not to mention the roads are curvy, one lane, mountain roads. After riding around for about 45 minutes I was beat. We walked around the shops afterward and had pizza for lunch. My face was bright red from the bike ride and the employee at Coach took one look at me and said, "You must be hot!" Good observation miss.

Lake Arrowhead is really beautiful. It reminds me of Lake Chelan in Washington. Seeing all of the boats and watching people boating made me want to go boating so bad. I am looking forward to my first boating trip of the summer later this week.

Wipeout

ABC's Wipeout is hilarious. We've only seen it several times, but we laugh so hard each time we see it. Nothing like watching people voluntarily get dominated in a crazy obstacle course. You should watch it...I promise it will be entertaining.

"I swore I'd never..."

As I looked down at my cheetah-printed flats yesterday I thought to myself, "what inspired you to buy shoes that are cheetah print?" I have always hated animals prints and swore I would never purchase anything with animal print. Oddly enough a couple months ago I found myself drawn to a zebra printed shirt and purchased it. As if that wasn't weird enough, I bought cheetah printed shoes last week! I still am not an animal print fan, but these two articles of clothing were somehow the exception. This got me thinking about things I said I'd never do. I swore I'd never want to live in California, swore I'd never buy skinny jeans, swore I'd marry a dark-haired man, swore I'd never wear leggings, and swore I'd never start a blog! And yet, here I am a borderline blog-a-holic married to a blond haired, blue-eyed babe. I guess you shouldn't ever say never?

What are your "I swore I'd never" stories?

The Weekend

This past weekend was very productive. I cleaned our condo, went grocery shopping, taught a lesson at church, and had company for dinner. We also washed and vacuumed the cars. Besides being productive, we squeezed in some fun activities.
1. Went to Coldstone for our usual


2. Went on an evening bike ride to grab Subway.


3. Went to our pool


Is it Friday yet? I don't know about you, but I am ready for the weekend again.

My Dad

This is my Dad's profile picture on facebook. This is awesome for two reasons: 1. The fact that my dad has facebook 2. He is wearing a sombrero. I hadn't seen this picture until I saw it on facebook. I decided to steal it and post it on my blog just because I liked it so much. I have a great dad who I look up to a lot. He is the best and I can't wait to see him in a few weeks!

Married chicks cutting loose

Thursday night Veronica, Nikki, and I had a girls' night out. We started the night out strong by eating at In-N-Out and then we went to see 'The Proposal'. The first thing Niel said when he saw this picture was, "You are all wearing red. Did you guys plan that?" The answer is no, we didn't plan to dress alike and secondly Nikki and I are wearing coral, not red.

We laughed so much during the movie. It has a good plot, good romance, good acting, and lots of good laughs. Overall a great movie except for a couple scenes...taking kids or your mother-in-law wouldn't be a good idea.

Sleepy head

Niel has been working 80+ hrs/week the last two weeks doing his orthopedic surgery rotation. Luckily, he is really enjoying the rotation besides the long hours. He has been able to assist in several surgeries including an ankle fusion, plating broken legs, and tendon and nerve repairs. Most of the time he has been in the ER doing fracture reductions and splinting. Taking orthopedic consults in the ER has been his favorite rotation. On the rare occasion he is home, he is either studying or sleeping. Poor guy...I came the other night and found him crashed on our luv sac while watching Seinfield. He looked so cute in his scrubs sound asleep so I had to take a picture...but then I got scolded for waking him up...whoopsies!

A Man's famous words

"Don't cut your hair"

"You should grow your hair out"

Have you ever heard this from a man? If you haven't, then that is just out of the norm. So why do women cut their hair if the general consensus from men is that they like long hair? Good question. Everyone has their own reasons but my reason was that I wanted change. My hair had been long for years and I wanted to try something new; a fresh new style. It has been over a year now since I cut it and surprisingly there have only been a few occasions when I wished I had my long hair back. Niel on the other hand said yesterday out of the blue, "You should grow your hair out." Yep, the famous words.

One of my co-workers volunteered to put some highlights in my hair, which may have been a not so sublte hint to jazz things up a bit. Either way, I have been thinking about what I might do next with my hair. Currently, my hair is cut in an a-line (long in front shorter in back). I like my cut and I might even keep it how it is, but on the other hand it might be fun to make a little change.


1. cut (not color) 2. cut (not color) 3. (side bangs-not color) 4.color only(adding highlights)

5. Niel's idea: grow out my hair

Honestly, I am a little scared to do all of the above in fear that it might look bad. But at the same time change is fun. OR...I could take Niel's advice and grow it out (low probability). What do you think? Stay the same or change it up?

Sweet Land of Liberty

Niel had to work a 24 hour shift on the fourth of July so I had to come up with my own plans. I couldn't think of a better way to spend the 4th of July than at the beach. Amber and I enjoyed the craziness of Huntington beach on the 4th of July. I think the massive crowds and craziness makes it an interesting experience. Luckily, we went early enough to get a decent parking spot.

We found ourselves a less crowded area on the beach about a mile away from the pier. Don't worry, somehow we decided that walking to the pier would be fun. After walking for 45 minutes to the pier we were hungry and decided to devour corn dogs and french fries...mmm. So American.

After spending the afternoon at the beach we went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant (not so American) because it was the only place open. Later we met up with some other people for the firework show at University of Redlands. We had great seats and the show was awesome.

Girls' Camp awesomeness

Girls' camp was a great week filled with the following: crafts, hikes, certification, skit night, singing on the rocks, stargazing, the lake, pranks, snipe hunting, and spiritual upliftment. The theme was believing in Christ and was centered around the six Bees. The food was amazing and I came home a few pounds heavier. We had a couple drama incidents (which should be expected with 100+girls and leaders) but overall camp was a great success!

We spent one day on Swim Beach at Big Bear Lake. We barbequed and then the girls swam, played volleyball, and relaxed.

They had this trampoline in the water at Swim Beach. It was pretty funny watching the girls try to run out on the finger thing sticking out. There were many face plants into the water with their attempts.

Our ward photo of the girls who attended camp

Staff girls from our ward: Candi, Brittany, Bernice, Alex, and Tishnae

Taking a break on our hike

Craft time! One of the three crafts we made: Magnet boards

The Wonder Bees! They made awesome capes for everyone in their unit.

The camp director Lindy Bowler, and assistant camp director me! We both had boas for our opening performance at the camp kick-off. I led everyone in a song and dance of "A rig-of-bamboo."

Craft time! Georgette and I with the journals we made

Camp participants looking cute in their camp t-shirts

There were times in preparation for camp when I felt completely overwhelmed and wondered why I was asked to be the assistant camp director when I have a full time job and serve as the first counselor in the Young Women's program. There were even times during the week at camp when I felt ready to go home. But at the end of the week when you can see the impact that camp has had on the girls, it makes it all worth it. I loved getting to know all of the girls. They are all sweet, fun, and unique girls who I truly love and care about.

Transformers

Niel played with the transformer toys when he was a kid. Consequently, he really likes the Transformer movies. We went to the see the movie opening weekend...the day I got back from girls camp. I was struggling to keep my eyes open.

Darci's Review: The movie was way too long. There was excessive and repetitive robot fighting and the plot was pretty lame. Not to mention that Megan Fox is a horrible actress. Shia Labeouf makes up for her poor performance. He is an excellent actor and he did a great job in this movie. I liked the first one better.
Niel's Review: I was excited for this movie; Michael Bay is one of only a handful of directors to get a $ 200 million budget, so I was looking forward to see how the robot animation could be improved. Now that I've seen the movie, I think they did a remarkable job with the CGI. The lighting, color, and attention to detail were all unquestionably better than the first transformers installment. In this movie there are also a lot more close-ups of the transformers, giving the audience an opportunity to see their faces and connect with their characters on a more personal level. As a whole, I really enjoyed the first half of the movie, right up until Optimus dies and the rest of the crew goes on a wild goose chase into the Egyptian desert. It felt like the whole second half of the movie was rushed; as if they just threw together incongruent plot lines in order to meet a deadline. I guess I'm a little bit disappointed that with all the great animation they weren't able to put together a more cohesive storyline. Overall I think it was an entertaining film, with action and explosions that one would expect from a summer blockbuster.

Life of a sweet tooth

Niel and I have started an unintentional tradition. We live only a block away from the grocery store and I love it because I hate grocery shopping. Therefore, the closer the grocery store is, the less time it takes me to grocery shop {side note unrelated}. Anyways, there is also a RedBox at the grocery store next to our condo. For those of you who don't know what a RedBox is, it is basically a vending machine with DVDs that you can rent for $1/night. Sometimes we will walk to the grocery store on warm summer nights to pick up a movie. We just recently discovered a yummy and cheap ice cream shop next door. We can't believe it has been there the last year and a half. I think it is actually a good thing we didn't find out until now since we both love sweets so much.

Over the last six months or so we have noticed the grocery store provides cookie samples at night in the bakery...especially on Friday nights. There have been many Friday nights when we show up to the grocery store in our PJs to rent our movie and stop by the bakery to freeload on some cookies. We wonder if the people in the bakery have started to notice a pattern in our behavior. Every time we stop to get cookies it makes me chuckle because it has become part of our routine; get a movie, grab a sample, head home. I decided to post about it because it is a simple detail about our life together that makes me smile.