Thursday February 14th

The saga continues......

Thursday morning we got up at the butt-crack of dawn and made our way to LAX. Derrick was flying in from Vegas that morning, so he was meeting us there. He made the connection to our flight just in the nick of time. Literally. We hop on the plane, and with every minute I start to get more and more excited. The landing was beautiful, and walking off the plane I was instantly warm, and excited to learn the entire airport is outdoors. How amazing is that?

We get our car and head to our hotel for that night, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel on Waikiki Beach. This hotel was created just for me: everything was PINK! Pink hotel, pink sheets, pink towels, pink everything. When we walked up to the lobby, we got lei'd--girls with orchid leis, guys with kukui nut necklaces. The leis smelled and looked gorgeous, and the fresh beautiful flowers everywhere were so awesome.



The lobby opens right up to the beach, with a great view of Diamond Head. We immediately changed and hit the sand.


We had a Valentine's Dinner at the hotel restaurant, which was really good, then walked the shops up and down the main street in Waikiki.

By this point, it's like 2 am Milwaukee time, and we were wiped out. So we went to bed, since we had a busy day ahead of us!

Must see

This movie contains some of my most favoritest things:

• Jim Sturgess, aka Jude from Across the Universe
• Las Vegas
• Cards
• Kevin Spacey
• Jim Sturgess
  

March 28th, baby!

Rundown

Because I don't know any other way to do this, and to help break up some of my droning, I'll break down our trip day by day. I know, that sounds horrible. But hopefully it will be shorter overall, and more readable.

Wednesday, Feb 13: Fly to Los Angeles

What should have been a simple trip to LA via Cincinnati, arriving at a reasonable time of 3pm, with plenty of time to meet up with cyber-turned-real friends, wound up to be an all day nightmare of reroutings and delays. My flight out of MKE was delayed and I would have had a mere 12 minutes to throw old ladies aside and run like the wind to make my connection. So instead I get rerouted to Dallas. No big deal. I grab some lunch, watch some O.C., and head onto my next stop, Salt Lake. Back in the familiar land of Zion, I wait for my connection, planning on arriving at 5, not too terrible a delay. Enter snowstorm. Another late flight, and then another 45 minutes or so on the tarmac waiting for a de-icing. Mr. Pilot sitting next to me is on his blackberry the whole time, and the one random second I decide to switch my phone on and send an update text the stewardess, yes I said stewardess, decides to walk down the aisle and yells at me. Hater. So I finally get to LA around 730. Get the rental and get on the road around 830. Head to Huntington Beach and meet up with Silvs and The Reids. Apparently the Dark Side was working on them too, throwing car problems at them left and right. But we had the Force on our side, and overcame the evils that were trying to keep us down. We enjoyed delicious BBQ, including deep fried pickles, and had an overall smashing time.


Finally made it back to 3800 (Derrick's house), checked email, perused the house for new wedding announcements and such, and finally hit the sack around 2am. That would be 4 am Milwaukee time, and a whopping 22 hours awake.

Airlines suck, but little did I know my flight out west would be cake compared to the trip home....

Where???

This little gem comes to us courtesy of my brother in law and his son, my nephew Chase. Chase is quite the ball of energy and personality. He is the one videotaping, and dare I say Stephen Spielberg better watch out before his job is stolen by a 7 year old.

I'm back!!!

Finally! The trip was amazing. Perfect weather. Lots of pictures. Nice tan.

Less than stellar flights to and from, but you can't have it all, eh?

Pictures and overly lengthy synopsis blog to come.

A teaser:

Standing on the north shore of Oahu, at Pipeline, checking out the surfers hangin' ten and wiping out.

Pictures, finally!

So, my birthday Thursday was one of the best in a long time, thanks in part to all of my wonderful friends who remembered. I slept in, then went to lunch with Lindsey and then hit the mall. Then we went to Sam's Club and I got some snorkel gear for Derrick and I to use while we're in Hawaii. We tried it out that night:

Sexy, huh? I, of course, could not refuse the pink set. They called to me.

Derrick made me a birthday cake. Funfetti, of course. With Rainbow Chip frosting. Yummmmm
He got my Across the Universe on DVD, which obviously I loved.
And then he surprised me with a piece of Calphalon cookware, which I love! It's tri-ply stainless steel, and completely gorgeous and shiny. We're going to christen it today by searing and broiling two filet mignons. Delicious.
Today we are experiencing -40 wind chills. Today I will be experiencing a full day in my pj's on the couch.

27?!

I can't believe I'm 27 today. That sounds soooo old! But I guess you're only as old as you feel, and I still feel pretty young.



My inbox was flooded with birthday emails this morning, even one from my Allstate agent. Wow, those guys are on the ball! And thanks to everyone else for the emails, e-cards, texts, and phone calls! Now it's off to lunch with Lindsey, then dinner tonite with Derrick at Cheesecake. Yummmmm

We're currently in the middle of a blizzard. Getting 18" of misery and pain. Just when God says, "Oh, hey, I DO love you...here, have some rain...it'll melt all the snow," he says, "HAHA! Just kidding! Have some snow, suckas!!!!" Not cool. We've had so much snow this winter that the city has used up all of its allotment of salt for this year and half of next. Honestly, what am I doing in this place?

So unless you've been living underground, you know Super Tuesday was yesterday. But only for 24 states. Apparently, the geniuses here in Wisconsin thought they were included in that 24 and lined up in the early morning to vote. Um....come back in two weeks, kids!

This just in:

I PASSED!!!

No news is good news. Or no news is no news?

No results yet. I checked every hour, sometimes more often, while at work today. Guess I won't get them until tomorrow. Boo.

Yesterday was an all-around bona fide craptastic day. Let me count the ways:

1) The test, obviously
2) I banged my knee really hard and it hurt really bad
3) I burned dinner--chili
4) I broke a nail.
5) Only junk mail came
6) This one is ongoing, but still. All this stress is wreaking havoc on my skin. You can play connect-the-dots on my face. Gross, ew. Try not to stare at them when you see me.

It reminded me of a book I used to read when I was little--Alexander's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Although I wish the worst I had to deal with was kissing on TV, my teacher not liking my picture of an invisible castle, and getting gum stuck in my hair.

I gotta find out by tomorrow before lunch of I'm just gonna snap.

Oh, and we're supposed to get a FOOT of snow tonite. Isn't that just dandy. 8 more days until sunshine and warmth. 8 more days...

Meltdown

Last night I had a meltdown. I've never felt so unprepared for something in my life. I started panicking when I realized I didn't study at all yesterday, thinking relaxing watching the game would be best. Uh....no. When I got home from the party I fa-REAKED out. Then I couldn't fall asleep because 1) I cried so much my nose was stuffed up and I couldn't breath and 2) I couldn't stop thinking about this bloody test.

So I get up this morning and get dressed and eat breakfast and leave for the testing office. I feel mildly sick to my stomach the whole time. They take my picture and get my fingerprints and tell me to empty my pockets, INCLUDING MY CHAPSTICK. The security of my chapstick must remain in the locker, and I start to freak out that my lips will be dry and cracked and I won't be able to focus on the test. So I slather on like 8 layers and put it in the locker with a withering gaze.

I sit down at the computer and write down all the lab values and formulas I can remember. Turns out I don't even need them. I start answering questions, and I start holding back tears as I realize each questions is like latin to me. I get a million of those mutliple answers, which I loathe. I trudge on, taking my best guess. And that's exactly what they are, guesses. I feel zero confidence with each answer.

The computer shuts off automatically when it determines if you've answered enough questions correctly, or incorrectly for that matter. The minimum you can get is 75, maximum 265. My test quit at 75 questions. So I either did really good, or really badly.

I walk back into the lobby, where the proctor, an older gentleman tells me he can tell I'm going to be a great nurse. I ask him how he knows that, and he says he can tell b/c of my personality and blah blah blah, and I get my stuff out of the locker. The receptionist asks me how it went, and I said "Awful!" She said everyone says that, and that people come out sobbing all the time. I tell her I'm at least waiting until I get outside to start crying. She said not to cry, and just wait and see how I did. Yeah, right. Well, I didn't start crying when I got outside, I started as soon as I walked out of the office and into the hallway.

Now I'm on the sofa, watching TiVo from two weeks ago. I have a lot to catch up on, and that's all I have planned for today.

Now I just have to wait for the results! Hopefully by tomorrow sometime. Until then, I'll try to ignore the butterflies in my stomach...

Nervous wreck

How do you study for a test that can test you on anything and everything you've ever learned, as well as anything and everything you might not have learned??

I'm totally freaking out right now. Pray for me!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my friend Maria! Seven years ago her birthday was on a Sunday, like it is today. And, like today, it was Superbowl Sunday. I remember this day very vividly, as I'm sure she does also. We kept getting crank calls all day long. At this point there were problems with peeping toms in our apartment building. We also had had some problems with crank callers in the recent past. So we were kind of creeped out, and we decided to call in the 5-0. They came by and questioned us, and I think in the midst of the questioning, our Pizza Pipeline delivery showed up. Tricky Stix....yum......

Anyway, we find out later, our mystery caller was none other than the mischievous Skyler Nelson himself, who apparently was short on missionary work to do in Dallas, TX, and obviously jonesing for some sweet Maria voice. Too bad all he got was me, yelling into the phone to say something or I would kill his unborn children. He never did, and I guess technically I should off Tannner, but he's so darn adorable I'll let it slide.

Anyway, happy birthday to one of my best friends! Hope your day is great! And don't hate me for posting this picture--I love it!

Over it

I'm so over this weather. OVER IT. I was especially over it last week when my drive home took an hour, and I spun out on the freeway and wound up perpendicular to the flow of traffic. Luckily there weren't many cars around me and they could sense I was about to lose it and slowed down for me.

My life has been so boring lately, I can't even stand it. All I do is practice questions for my stupid boards exam.

I have seen some movies lately, though, which as helped to keep me sane. Last weekend I finally saw Juno, which I liked. We laughed a lot--espeically Whitney and I--and I always think if I laugh outloud a lot it's a pretty funny movie. I did think there were some parts where they tried too hard, but still good. We also saw Casino Royale finally. I had forgotton how much I like Bond movies. And I especially like Daniel Craig as the new Bond. He's a hot piece, that one.


Derrick has been asking for a list for my birthday. I hate giving lists. He knows this. I especially hate giving them b/c I feel like I give enough hints and ideas that he shouldn't need one. I bet all my readers could list 2 or 3 things that they think I would like, just by reading this blog. Let's try it out. Maybe YOU can give him the list!

We're watching President Hinckley's funeral on TV. The funeral was really good, especially the biography afterwards. Those montage memorial slideshows always do me in tho...I was a wreck watching it.

My brain is fried. I feel like there was so much more I was going to blog about, but I forgot it all.

Hopefully I'll be back to my regular scheduled programming soon! Hang in there!