Ladies Night Out, Ladies Night In

What a crazy weekend!

Friday night us girls (Amber, Brigitte and Kristine) decided to go out and get our groove on. We got all dolled up and headed over to Barcode.



We were a little nervous because it was 18 and up night, but it turned out to be a total blast! We got in for free because these guys out front gave us free passes. The drinks were awesome (yeah for Blue Hawaiians and rum!). We met some very nice boys from New York who danced with us for part of the night. Kristine then decided to trade her dancing services for mine and Brigitte's shots of tequila and rum. It was hilarious - this guy offered to buy the drinks if she danced with him... not a bad deal! :) We stayed until they closed and as we were leaving we took the most hilarious pictures. The first one was with a security guard that we actually thought was a cop (at this point Brig, Kris and I were a little tipsy - thanks for driving us around Amber!).



The second was this dude who stuck his head in our car and told us about his band, Indulgence. Kristine proceeded to give him a lecture on being humble once he made it big. I proceeded to tell him that his drummer was driving away without him.



Needless to say, drunk Brigitte takes some pretty hilarious pictures (some of which will never see the internet...). We goofed off pretty much the whole ride back:



We went to Mel's at about 3am to eat breakfast (because for some reason we were STARVING). Brigitte and I proceeded to sing into anything we could get our hands onto (gee, that doesn't sound familiar, does it?). For me, it was a fork of hash browns. For Brig, it was a piece of bacon.



Yesterday we headed out to Folsom Lake for the afternoon. The water was beautiful and the weather was great! After that we decided that we needed a girls night in. Alyse brought over some movies and Brigitte and I bought like ten pounds of candy.



Yeah, it was great.

Today we all headed out to Kara and Jeremy's for a BBQ/pool party. It was a blast! Their new apartment is so cute and the two of them put together a yummy little feast! I also scored us tickets to the Kelly Clarkson concert next Friday. I'm so excited! Amy and her friend were supposed to go, but can't, so Brig and I pounced on the tickets! My summer of concerts continues! :)

Ok, off to relax and unwind!

Worst.Day.Ever.

Ok, maybe not ever, but in a long while.

First and definitely the worst part of the day: Adam and Eva had to put their dog Highway (aka "Snoops") to sleep. He had some pretty severe arthritis and was having problems walking. A very sad thing, as he was one of the most loving dogs I've ever met. My favorite thing about him was his big fuzzy ears. They had the vet come to their house so that he could be comfortable and not be scared. I think that's such an amazing thing to do and I'm glad he went in the beauty of their backyard garden. Rest in Peace Snoops!

Secondly, work was completely and utterly overwhelming. Not the good-make-you-a-better-worker kind of overwhelming, but the near-tears-at-your-desk kind. Not good in any way, shape or form. It was just one of those days that I felt totally frustrated and helpless. I hate that.

Those two things coupled with the fact that part of my arm won't stop itching, and well, there you have it. Worst day in a while.

I'm off to bed.

Welts

Hi all - so sorry I went dark for a few days. Just getting things figured out and getting lots of rest. Between the heat and the blood donation I was pretty exhausted!

I officially hate summer. I take back anything nice I ever said about it. San Diego definitely turned me into a wimp! This over 100 degrees (and when I say over, I mean well over, like 110 and above) with any kind of humidity for more than 10 days stuff has to stop. For real!

In other exciting news (I know most of you are bored with this), Brigitte and I have been waging our campaign against spiders and all things creepy crawly.

Anna & Brigitte - 5 (Brig, I got a MASSIVE daddy long legs today)

Spiders - 0

I'm getting better with dealing with them by leaps and bounds, however, I still panic when I see them. Gonna have to work on that...

Today was allergy skin test day. Fun times. You go in and they draw all these little hash marks on your skin with permanent marker. Then they drop little eyedroppers full of everything you could possibly be allergic to onto each of the little hash marks (I had 60 - 30 on each arm). Once that's done, the doctor comes in and scratches you in the middle of the little puddles. Then comes the fun part where you get to sit and itch for 45 minutes. You can't scratch because that would spread the allergens to other areas of your arm and give you a false reading. So you scratch AROUND the outside and you blow on it. In the end, the entire grass side of my arm swelled up pretty badly (like we're talking 10 spots the size of a dime) as well as the dust and weeds. The good news is that I'm fine with dogs and cats! :)

Nothing else super exciting. Work has been crazy, so again, I can't wait to go and play on the weekend! :)

Operation Squish 'Em

I've officially begun my campaign against the bugs. No, I'm not on some sort of drug that's making me see things. Apparently since it's hot outside (The local newspaper today described the weather in one word: "sticky". I'm not kidding. It's that hot.) the bugs have all decided to join me inside. No idea what's attracting them to me and no one else (although I told Tim the other day that I think the spiders can smell my fear). Thus, I've decided to launch "Operation Squish 'Em". I've had a series of events that have lead me to become more brave regarding the extermination of unwanted bugs:

• Sunday night when I got home from the movies I was forced to take action against an attack spider. This action involved not only the squish method, but also resulted in the use of hair spray as an incapacitating agent.
• Wednesday night I was reading a magazine in bed before I went to sleep. I put the magazine on my night stand and rolled over to turn off the light. There, standing on the headboard was this weird black grasshopper looking thing. He looked at me and I looked at him. I busted out the hairspray but the sucker was fast and flew off the headboard and crawled under the bed. I spent the next 20 minutes using various covert techniques to finally squish him (thank goodness for skinny heeled shoes that reach behind there).
• Thursday morning I walked out to my car, tossed my purse on the front seat and situated my laptop bag in the back seat (usual process). I went to move my purse so I could sit down and lo and behold, there was a gigantic brown spider just hanging out on it. I grabbed my purse by the handle and shook it outside the car until the spider fell off. Then I got in the car and sped away.

I've decided I will take no more from the attack bugs. Starting today I wage my war. I will squish swiftly and with decisiveness. Hopefully. :)

I am so excited it's the weekend. Tonight I finally had a night to myself. I did some girly stuff (painted my toe nails, etc), surfed the net, read a little. It's been awesome. I can't wait to sleep in tomorrow. Sure, it will probably only be until 8am (darn internal alarm clock), but it's sleep. I have some day time errands to run, but I'm hoping to get some serious relaxing done. We'll see if it actually happens... :) Tomorrow night is karaoke night with Tim and the girls. I can't wait!

I Survived!

I survived the blood drive! Such a cool feeling to know you're saving a life. I had my little reaction, but the phlebotomist explained to me that it's not an anxiety or flight or flight thing - it's actually your body thinking it's going into shock because it's losing blood. Some people get it, some don't. He said he'd donated 25 times and had it only 3 of the times. I proudly wore my little blue armband and the sticker that said "Be nice to me, I gave blood today". :)

I'm exhausted and heading off to bed... hopefully I can get a good night's sleep and finally not feel sleepy tomorrow!

Good night!

Music Survey

There are some days that I just thank God for music. Today was definitely one of those. I worked a really long day and things had started piling up the minute I walked in (that would be 7am). By about 2-3pm, I needed a little break. I set my IM to "do not disturb", my phone to SAC (send all calls to voicemail), busted out the iPod and rocked out to Rascal Flatts while I answered the emails that had piled up and completed what seemed like 1,000 excel spreadsheets (gotta love being a business analyst sometimes - thank goodness I'm great with numbers!). I'm not kidding you, it totally helped.

I thought I'd take a little informal survey to see what music y'all (that's for you Kati!) listen to and what it does for ya. Cut and paste the little survey below into the comments section and fill it in for yourself (mine will be the first one).

Happy Wednesday! It's almost the weekend (ok, sort of)!

1. Name your favorite band.
2. Who are your favorite male and female solo singers?
3. What song do you listen to when you're angry and why?
4. What song do you listen to when you're sad and why?
5. What's your favorite love song and why?
6. Best road trip song of all time and why?
7. What song can you put on and instantly be happy?
8. What song do you dance to in your room when no one is looking?
9. Best breakup song and why:
10. If you own an iPod, what song is your most played song?
11. What song do you like to work out to (I know it's hard to pick one!)?

Allergies

Not sure if all of you remember my fantastic bout of bronchitis back in February (that would be three weeks of hell and two weeks of daily breathing treatments), but it was determined that I probably picked it up from a sinus infection caused by none other than ALLERGIES. To the smoke in Reno, to be specific. Now, I've known forever that I've had allergies and I've known that I had bad ones. But I decided that I wanted to have the skin testing stuff done again so that I knew exactly what I was allergic to. I had this done when I was really little and I remember that I was allergic to pretty much everything, but I still want confirmation. And that way I can avoid whatever it is that I'm allergic to (can I have a bubble please). So after a couple months and referral I finally made it into the allergist.

I had expected to walk in today, have them scratch my skin with every allergen under the sun, sit and itch for a while and then go home. No. Apparently there is much more to allergy testing nowadays. Now it involves blood work, heavy breathing and leg compliments.

That caught your attention, didn't it? :)

First things first, the nurse takes me into the room to do a lung test. I would expect to have fairly good lungs (hello, classical singer and runner). As I'm doing the test (breathe really hard into this little tube three times) the nurse looks at me and says "You're a runner, aren't you?" I said yes and something about how I had better have good lungs. She goes, "No you have runners legs". What does that mean?! Short and muscular?! When I think runner, I think long and lean. I'm anything but.

After that she leads me back into the room and the doctor comes in. He asks me 1,001 questions and tells me to stop taking my allergy medicine. I immediately ask for how long. He says until next Tuesday, which is when I have my skin testing. Apparently I WANT reactions to happen. Hopefully I'm ok until then... The following conversation then ensued:

Doctor Chang: "You need to go have bloodwork done."
Me: "Bloodwork?"
Doctor Chang: "Yes, today."
Me: "Today?"
Doctor Chang: "Yes, go now."

So off I went to have some blood drawn. Apparently, they can do some major allergy testing with your blood now, so while the skin tests help, this blood stuff is the best. I was so proud of myself... I didn't get all queasy! For those of you who don't know, I LOVE to give blood (Seriously) because I think it's a really special gift to give. However, I get a little queasy sometimes and the Red Cross has threatened to "flag my file" if it happens again. Now, mind you, I'm totally aware of this reaction, I know it's going to happen, and I'm ok with it. I always tell the phlebotomist! (isn't that the coolest word ever?) that I'm ok, that I just need to lay there and they panic. In high school they told me it was because I was near the 120 pound weight cut off. I'm thinking that's not really the case now, but either way, I'm totally ok! So this Thursday work is having a blood drive and I signed up. I used today as a practice run. There's only one problem. They did it on my right arm, which is generally the side they draw from. So now the Red Cross is going to think one of several things:

1. I am a drug addict.
2. I have some sort of disease that I am being treated for.
3. I just get weird bruises on my arm.

I'm hoping they don't turn me away... I'm seriously not sick at all and definitely am not a drug addict! Here's to hoping I get a leftie phlebotomist!
Tonight I had the book club over. It was my turn to host and to choose the book. We read "Honeymoon with my Brother" which was a really great book. This guy gets dumped like three days before his wedding and decides to still go on the honeymoon, but with his brother. It turns into a three year world travel. They both quit their jobs and sell their houses. It's a really neat story! It was so nice to have all the girls from work over. Most of the time we don't end up talking about the book the whole time, but it's really cool to hang out and just talk. Tonight it was about 98 degress (with a slight breeze), so we sat outside and munched on veggies and fruit. It was amazing!
On that note, I'm off to bed. Good night!

Weekend Wrapup

This weekend was CRAZY busy!

Friday I drove up to the Bay Area to hang out with Adam and Eva. We had a fantastic dinner at Aqui (I'm on a cheese kick right now). We went back to their house and Eva showed me all of her cool Jazzercise stuff. Check out the rolly cart thingy!
Eva taught her first class as a Jazzercise instructor on Saturday morning. I can't believe how amazing she was! Everyone in the class said that they couldn't believe it was actually her first - she looked like a pro! Here's her doing some stretches:


And here she is leading the class:


Adam and I were so proud! There were 30-40 people there and she didn't miss a beat! WOO HOO! After that we went to breakfast and did what everyone who completes an hour of intense activity does - we ate the most gigantic cinnamon roll we could find:
Ladies and gentlemen, repeat after me: "I exercise so I can eat". Very good.
After breakfast I drove home and met up with Tim to see Pirates of the Caribbean. Very good movie (see the movie review section). ---------------------->

After the movie we all went out to watch Tim's karaoke show. He did an amazing job and we had a blast! :)

Today was my "be lazy, clean your fish tank and nap" day. After church I met up with Brig, Amb, Kris and Tim to see "You Me and Dupree" (see the movie review section). We had an awesome time.

However, things turned dark when I returned home. I sat down to check my email and watched a huge (ok, the size of a quarter) spider crawl up my wall. I called Brigitte and she talked me through the extermination process. The problem was that he was above my head, so when I smacked him he fell onto the floor and ran under my dresser. So I did what any normal person would do and sprayed with hairspray like mad. Brigitte assured me that he was completely gone and Tim asked me if I regretted not getting the bug guy's card (see post from July 12th). I sat back down at my desk and that's when it happened. The spider attacked. He came running (full force, mind you) at me from behind the dresser. I think he probably didn't like the hairspray part. So I had to resort to some serious measures... the use of hairspray and the shoe. This comes from the Revised Four Step Approach (http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=11082959&postID=112734800293432598). Thank God, it worked.

I'm sleepy and going to bed. Good night!

The Bug Guy

Most hilarious story... so the bug guy shows up at our front door and is trying to sell his exterminating services. It was about dinner time (of course). The guy was fairly young and when my mom answered the door he dove right into his sales pitch. The whole thing was about getting rid of our spiders. So my mom says "What if I like the spiders? They get rid of the bugs!". The guy looked kind of shocked and said, "Well, we can get rid of your spiders and your bugs." Classic. She then proceeded to talk to him about the squirrels that live in our trees. Poor guy never knew what hit him...

The rest of today was kind of plain. Lots of work, but I'm learning to be a little more mellow. I'm also finding that I've been super productive, even with the new job. So that's good. Went to the gym with the girls to swim. It's been a while, but it was nice to be back in the water. We'll see how my body feels about it tomorrow!

I'm off to watch "So You Think You Can Dance"... my guilty pleasure. :)

X-rays

Wow, so yesterday's post generated some very interesting responses. People either agreed (generally those within the age bracket discussed) or talked to/emailed me to see if I was ok. lol. I promise, I'm totally fine. I'm on this new little mindset since vacation that I'm trying to be a little more relaxed and a little less uptight. That little article (I did not write it) caught my eye when a friend from college forwarded it to me.

I went to the doctor today to figure out what's going on with my hip. My humble medical opinion was that I was still compensating for/favoring the foot that I broke a couple of years ago. The podiatrist seems to think it's soft tissue or something actually going on with the hip. He suggested that I get x-rays and was surprised when I replied with "thank God!". For those of you who don't know the saga, I broke a small bone in my foot answering the phone (yeah, I know) and it was mis-diagnosed for a year. I went through doctor after doctor, telling them that something just wasn't right and finally doctor number three thought to take an x-ray. I had walked, run and jumped on a broken foot for almost an entire year. So I'm pretty stoked that this guy wants to run a quick x-ray right off the bat to make sure nothing is going wrong. Better safe than sorry!

Brig and I went to the gym today. I'm so proud of us! It's really hard to get back into the swing of things after vacation (and being lazy before that)...

In other news, our local Ross burned to the ground today. It was crazy - I saw smoke when I left the doctor and when I got home I had IMs from people at work telling me to turn the TV on. It was a 4+ alarm fire and the place was destroyed. I drove past it today on the way home from the gym (I know, I'm a looky-loo) and they were still spraying it with water from the big ladders. The entire roof had collapsed in and when you looked through what used to be the front door there was nothing in the building but walls. So sad because it turns out that the building had no fire sprinklers because it was one of the first buildings in Roseville.

I'm sleepy and heading off to bed.

Contemplating

I'm warning you now, I'm not feeling the humorous post tonight, so you're going to get something a little more contemplative from me today. A friend emailed this to me the other day and it hits surprisingly close to home. Maybe I'm having my quarter life crisis...

Being a 20something... They call it the "Quarter-life Crisis." It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now. YOU START REALIZING THAT PEOPLE ARE SELFISH AND THAT, MAYBE, THOSE FRIENDS THAT YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE SO CLOSE TO AREN'T EXACTLY THE GREATEST PEOPLE YOU HAVE EVER MET, AND THE PEOPLE YOU HAVE LOST TOUCH WITH ARE SOME OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ONES. What you don't recognize is that they are realizing that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you. You look at your job... and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you. Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't. One minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure. You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward. You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better. Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person. One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic. You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself..... and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender! What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.

Very interesting. I'll have to think some more on that one.

Houseboating!

Wow, what a weekend! I went up to Lake Oroville with Brigitte's family to use their houseboat. Now, I've never been on a houseboat before, so I wasn't sure what to expect. For some reason I thought it would be more like camping and less like a house. Boy, was I wrong! It had everything you could want in a house, but on water! Electricity, running faucets, showers, toilets, etc. It was so much fun! We basically spent two days jetskiing, floating on fun little rafts and playing games. The Mitchells (Brig's family) had some friends that came out in their own boat, so they tied up next to us - there were like 20 people in all!

Friday night we got up there fairly late (But early enough for dinner - when Brig told me they don't eat until it gets dark, I got nervous. You know me with food. But it turns out that you lose all track of time and by the time it gets dark it's almost 9pm!), so we didn't get to play in the water. We all hung out that night and played board games with Brigitte's sisters, Amber and Kristine. Tons of fun! I kicked butt at liars dice!

Saturday began with this:

I know, it's a tough life I lead. We floated around on the rafts for a good four or five hours. We were almost attacked by a flock of wild geese (probably because we floated a little too close to their island) and had the best time. Brigitte and her mom made yummy Bahama Mama's, so later in the day we floated with a few of those! I am proud to say that I was the sunscreen Nazi and that I was the only one who didn't end up with a 3rd degree sun burn. I'm a little crispy, but nothing too serious.

After a few hours of floating Brigitte says "Let's take the jet ski out!". Sounded like a good idea. There were four of us, so we decided to go in twos. Amber and Kristine went out first while Brig and I paddled our little rafts out to the five mile an hour buoy to wait for the jet ski hand off. When they came back and we switched off, Brigitte asked if I minded if she drove first. I thought, "Ok, this is my best friend who generally isn't too wild or too crazy. Sure, why not let her drive?" Boy, was I wrong. I thought I was going to die pretty much the whole time we were out there. Amber had let it slip that she and Kristine had the jet ski up to 41 miles per hour on open water. Brigitte had that thing FLYING! We took turns driving and I too drove fast. I figured out that it just seemed a little more scary on the back because you had no control and every time you hit a wave (by the way, we were not dumb enough to hit waves that fast - Brig slowed down for those, thank God) you flew up just a little bit. We had the time of our lives! Here's Brig and I coming back in:
We took the jet ski out again a little later - this time with Brigitte, Amber and I on it. When we came back in the boys on the other houseboat had blown up tons of water balloons and were waiting with a sling shot. So we played about 1/2 an hour of "dodge the water balloons" all the while, collecting the ones that missed us so we could throw them back. It was so much fun!

Here's us post jet ski and post combating:
Now, one funny little story (of many from the weekend): while Brig and I were out floating, waiting for Amber and Kris to come back this boat comes hauling into the 5 mph zone and dumps their skier about 20 feet from us (you'd better believe we glared...). We paddled away only to hear the skiier say this: "Could you open that front locker and hand me my shampoo and conditioner"? She then proceeded to sit on the back of the boat and shampoo her hair. Never in my 12 years of boating have I seen this happen. First things first. I don't think you should really be getting shampoo and conditioner in the lake. I have a feeling the fish don't like it. Secondly, I'm not sure that it really gets your hair clean. Yes, the houseboat used lake water in the shower, but it just seemed really weird for this girl to do this in the middle of the lake. I actually looked over at Brigitte and asked if the girl was going to shave next.

Saturday night we had a feast: BBQ ribs, steak, noodles, rice, Texas toast all followed by Oreos. I fell asleep reading a magazine and when I woke up I had a tiny headache. I had figured that I had too much sun (or stress from fearing for my life) and got ready for bed. About 3am I woke up with a killer migrane. Not a fun way to end the trip. Eventually I went downstairs, took some Tylenol and fell asleep inside with a fan on me (we all slept outside on top of the boat because it was so beautiful out). I was feeling a little better this morning, but not much.

Anyways, the trip was a blast and I had the most fantastic time! Yeah for the Mitchells and their houseboat! Now I'm off to bed to combat this little headache of mine!

Wanted: Sock Roller

Help Wanted/Laundry

Do you love doing laundry?

Do you have an uncanny knack for folding socks into those perfect little balls?

If so, this job is for you! Young woman seeking experienced sock roller to complete the most tedious part of laundry. Please inquire within.

Can you guess what I was doing tonight? You've got it - laundry! I know, fun and exciting, but it has to be done. In all seriousness, I really hate folding my socks. I always leave it for last because it's the worst part! First of all, I hate matching my socks up. Because somehow, within that 30 foot walk from the dryer to my room, socks magically go missing. I have no idea where they end up - maybe the dog eats them or something, but they're definitely gone. I have this mini-graveyard of loner socks in my sock drawer... it's really very sad. Once you have them all matched up you have to then fold one over the other and tuck it. Generally it's about this time that one of several things happen:

1. I learn that my matching skills suck (or maybe it's my eyesight) and I've matched up the wrong socks.
2. I learn that the socks aren't quite dry. At this point it's decision time. Do I drag out the process by tossing the semi-wet socks back in the dryer or do I fold them and hope they don't mold? These are the serious choices young people of America face...
3. I learn that I have one of Mom or Dad's missing in action socks. This is very rare, but quite a surprise as I have small feet and Daddy's sock pretty much eats mine up.

Well, that's about all the excitement in my day. I know, try to contain yourself.

And, dang it, comment people! It's very easy... click the little comment button, leave a little message and we'll all get a good giggle. And that way I know I'm talking to people other than myself, Eva and Matt. Not that we're not great people to talk to, but I like to think more than three people (gosh, two if I don't include myself) are interested in my little life...

Happy 4th of July!

Hi all!

Sorry for the late post - there was just too much fun being had!

First off, HAPPY 4TH OF JULY! I hope you've all had a very fun and very safe day! We had a little get together at my house today - a group of family friends. It was such a blast! Mom and Dad cooked up an amazing meal (BBQ chicken, BBQ corn, fresh fruit, baked potatoes and salad). We sat around and sang, did some swimming and just had an all around good time. After that I went out with Tim and his parents to watch a fireworks show in Lincoln. Honestly, it was probably the best show I've ever seen. It was around 50 minutes long and had three fake outs - where you thought they were going into the finale, but they didn't. The weather was perfect - it was warm and breezy. Couldn't have asked for a better night!

I'm sad to report that tomorrow is my first day back to work. Don't get me wrong, I love my job, it's just that it's so hard to go back after 10 days of vacation (yes Tim, I know, I lead a rough life...). I checked my email the other day and was up to 957... we'll see what it's at tomorrow morning. However, I do like the concept of a 3 day work week...

On that happy note, I'm off to bed!

Happy Birthday Mom and Dad!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM AND DAD!
Yes, my parents were born on the same day. Kinda neat, huh? Makes present buying super easy for Kati and I! :)

Today we went to the Bay Area to celebrate their birthdays as well as my Grandma's 80th (it was on June 17th but she was traveling...). We had such a blast. First we went to Grandma's house and hung out for a while. It was so good to see her again and just sit and talk. She told us stories of how she and Grandpa met and about when they got married (they snuck off to Reno!). Here's a pic of Kati and I with her:
After that we picked Oma up and headed over to Adam and Eva's for our traditional family feast. Basically, any time we all get together we eat enough to feed a small army. Today it was South Carolina pulled pork sandwiches with Eva's "bean salad for people who don't like bean salad". It's that good. We had a blast. Eva just got certified as a Jazzercize instructor, so we made her lead the family in a mini class. She's AMAZING!


And finally, here's the family after getting our grub on...
Now I'm sad because Kati is packing all of her stuff up to leave tomorrow morning. It was so nice to have her back home and even to share a bathroom with her again! I'll definitely miss her when she leaves!

Tomorrow I have the day off (Tuesday as well... I love my work!) and I think we're taking the boat out. Woo hoo for more skiing on Folsom! :)

Oh, and by the way, I have blisters ON THE BALLS OF MY FEET from ballroom dancing. It's not so glamorous the next day!

I'm out.

Week of Bliss

Ahhhh....

So, to answer everyone's dying question, yes, I was off "doing stuff". We went on vacation to Lake Almanor for a week. :) No computers, hardly any TV, and no phones unless you were in the middle of the lake. It was wonderful! I didn't realize how completely uptight I had been until I got there and started relaxing! Here's a basic day at the lake:

5:00am - Wake up and get ready to go fishing.
5:30am - 9am ish - Fish/watch the sun rise
9:00am - one of Daddy's fantastic breakfast
10:00am - Nap
noon/1:00 ish - wake up and go skiing or tubing
2:00ish - read/nap/play Yahtzee
5:00 - dinner
7:00ish - head back out to go fishing / watch the sun set

Of course, the schedule varied from time to time. Sometimes I took my nap in the afternoon, sometimes I just couldn't make it that long after breakfast. We had a fantastic week as far as fishing went - the Smithson family pulled in a family record of 31 fish in 7 days! I had 14 of those 31 and am darn proud of it! Seriously, we were very lucky this week and had a wonderful time fishing. Kati kept one that she caught for her and Mom to eat, and we let the rest go.
Here's one of my fish:

The waterskiing was awesome this week - I'm finally doing a lot better outside the wake! About halfway through the week these beautiful thunderstorms rolled in in the afternoon. Now, I'm like a little kid when it comes to rain and thunder (honestly, I have a hard time sleeping because I'm fascinated by them - not because I'm scared), so I couldn't do much of anything besides listen to the thunder roll through the valley. Said thunder storms started a fire, so for a couple days we had some heavy smoke, but it led to one of the most amazing sunsets I've seen (and we all know how I feel about sunsets...):
All in all, it was one of the best weeks in a long time. I definitely needed a break from things and some down time!

Tonight Kati took us out to ballroom dancing. She took the advanced lesson and Mom, Dad and I took the beginning. We learned to Cha Cha and East Coast Swing. It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be! Mom and Dad are dang good dancers!

On that happy note, I'm off to bed. It's been a long day, I'm a little sunburned and a lot tired. Night!