Natalie's over it so Ben's blogging.

Since Natalie is "over it" and I have a bit more time on my hands this weekend, I am guest-posting about our summer. There's much to cover so I'm going to proceed in three parts. First, this post will cover the New York/Boston/Providence trip. Part II will be Ben's 2-day Utah trip and 2-month San Francisco stay, and part III will cover Jake and Stephanie's recent visit to Colorado.

Ok, so... we went to NY. After finals in May, my brain was fried so Natalie thought it best to remove me from my immediate environment and took me on a 10-day excursion to the northeast. Free lodging at my siblings' places of residence made it all possible. Thanks guys. We started out at my sister Emily's flashy new apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan. Since Emily and her husband Zaur were just moving in to their new place, we gave them amateur advice and assistance on furniture arrangement and Zaur expertly cooked for us once his new kitchen was workable. Below is the view from Em's ritzy apartment.



By coincidence, our friends Dan & Andrea Hatch and Chris & Makelle Francis were enjoying a NY trip of their own. Along with my friend Cameron, who lives in Brooklyn, the guys went to a Mets game one day, saw the new stadium, and experienced 'Jackie Robinson Rotunda'. It was nice but it's ridiculous that the Mets are trying to claim Jackie Robinson's history. Get over it, Mets, you have no history; quit syphoning of the Dodgers. Anyway, after the game we did some quality sight-seeing while the girls went on some ridiculous quest for the 'Friends' apartment. They should be embarrassed. Natalie claims she didn't want to do it but her 'Friends' season 6 DVD tells me a different story. We did lots of stuff in NY over the next few days: Walked across the Brooklyn Bridge,

did the Little Italy thing,


did the Chinatown thing, very briefly did the Times Square thing because crowds piss me off. We also went to a street fair in Brooklyn. Natalie went to "Wicked" on Broadway with my sisters, it was great.

After a few days of NY we took an early train to Boston (Natalie was not pleased at how early). I took a couple shots of the city from the Custom House Tower in Boston.



We saw the all the sights we could in one day and met my sister Becky for her office hours that evening. Her husband Tad drove us around while Becky showed us Harvard and Cambridge. Then, they took us to their home in Providence, RI. Tad kindly gave us a comprehensive "Tad driving tour of Providence." We saw downtown, Brown University, the mob hangouts, and all things Roger Williams. It was great and we capped it all off with a "Spikes's Junkyard Dog". Tremendous.

Then it was back to NY for more of the same only this time we were running out of energy, my dad was there, and we stayed with my brother Jake and his wife Stephanie at their dorm/apartment. Jake and his wife Stephanie graduated from Columbia just after we left NY, but I was there for the cap and gown purchase. Congrats to them both.



The whole trip was great; I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Thank you, Natalie, for convincing me that we had the resources to do it and thank you to my sisters for being patient with me. I know it took forever for us to get out there.

Vacation Here We Come

So we are off to NEW YORK CITY tomorrow night and we couldn't be more excited. Hopefully I will actually remember to take pictures so that I have something exciting to post about. ha ha Well, stay tuned for our exciting trip details but you will have to wait because we will be in NYC/NEW ENGLAND area for TEN DAYS! Hooray for us

On another note, Ben finished finals! Hooray & I have my husband back for a little bit. Great job Ben. I couldn't be more proud of how hard you worked. :)

Poor Pooch

So Odie had a little accident at the dog park a weekend or two ago. Ben had his dad in town so they decided to take Odie out for a little adventure and he LOVES the dog park. When Ben was putting him into the car he noticed that his shorts were all bloody but he wasn't sure if it was from himself or from Odie. After putting Odie on the passenger seat and noticing more blood he obviously new it is was coming from the pooch. He called me at work and asked me to call the pet hospital inside Petsmart to get Odie in ASAP. It seems like Odie had broken his deux claw (I think that is what they call it) in half and blood was coming out of it like crazy. When Ben dropped him off they said that they would be putting him under anaesthesia to be able to go in and fix his claw. Since it would be a few hours Ben and his dad headed back to the apartment and I got to pick him up after I got off work. I went in to pick him up and he was so out of it and had this cute little cast thing on. It was so adorable but made me feel so badly for him. He had to wear this cast for about a week and he was also on pain medicine and antibiotics. He is all better now, which is nice, and running around like a mad man. How cute are these pics?

WOW!

WOW and it is only 4:30 PM. So I will try to post some pics later but we had the worst snow storm today. It was so bad that they actually closed down the majority of the businesses in the area & Highway 36 that leads to Boulder. Last time I checked it was SPRING BREAK and the END OF MARCH. Now I guess we were really spoiled this winter because we only really got 2-3 snow storms that didn't really amount to much but today made up for all of that. We have received almost 18 inches SO FAR and it is still expected to keep coming through the night. To give you an idea of how bad it was/is: I left work today at just after noon (they were closing the bank to allow people to get home safely) and didn't get home until about 3:20 PM. Along the way I got stuck 3-4 times and had to be helped out each time by some very nice gentlemen. They also closed the highway that I take home and I had to try to come up with an alternate route which was pretty scary. I am so appreciative of those VERY nice guys that helped me.

After I FINALLY got home Ben & I decided to take a walk to the mailbox and we ended up helping an SUV that was in 4-wheel drive get "un-stuck". Ben was pretty much The Hulk helping this car out and almost pushed it out himself. It is a complete disaster here and this storm wasn't a surprise either. They have been talking about this storm for the past 2 days so where were the plows when we needed them. I will never understand the lovely snow plowing industry. I will post some pics as soon as I warm up a bit and relax.

P.S. Here are the pics from just a few minutes ago (7:30 PM) and still coming down.




And here is my poor car trapped in the snow. :(

Bachelor = Disappointment

So I wasn't going to do a "bachelor" post but I went against my better judgement. So I was so disappointed in Jason. I don't mind that he has "changed" his mind and fell out of love (totally hate that saying and think it is a cop out) but for him to break another girl's heart on national television is a shame. I think that he should have had enough tact to do something like that in an intimate setting but I must be wrong. Every season I start watching the bachelor, I expect to be let down and disappointed but somehow I get sucked in to watching people fall in love. Everything seems to be so real but then you get let down.... or just me for that matter. I liked Melissa from the start and I hope she finds someone that will respect her enough to not embarrass her on national television. I guess all I can say at this point is that I am yet again disappointed.

Ok so I have another confession.... I kinda knew what was going to happen before tonight's finale but I wanted to see how Jason was going to go about making the "switch" happen. I guess I can't believe that he was pretty much making out with Molly shortly after breaking up with Melissa. Also, how could Melissa not know that Jason was "falling out of love" with her? I guess either Jason is a FAKE or a really good liar or bipolar. I guess those are the solutions I came up with to explain his behavior tonight. Thanks for letting me vent to all my blogging buddies about a stupid reality show. Why do I let myself get into these shows? Who knows but I probably won't change. ha ha Let me know your opinions. :)


BOO JASON & THE BACHELOR!!!!

M.I.A.

So I know that I have totally sucked at blogging lately but I truly feel like I have nothing exciting to say. I have working at my new job now for 3 weeks and it has been a little bit of an adjustment to get back into whole 9 hour days. I do enjoy what I do so I know things should pick up once I am done with training. See, when you switch banks you have to go through ALL of their training all over again. I will not be done with training until the middle of March. Ben has started his new semester and will be super busy with his class load. It is nice to know that he is more than half way done but it still seems like he has so much more to go. (Don't tell him that I said that though)

We do have some fun things planned for this summer so I can't wait. We will be heading to NYC in May to see Ben's sisters and brother out there. Ben has not been back east so I am so excited to show him around and I have not been back since I left in 2002. We also want to see if we can hit up Boston and catch a Redsox game.

As for the weather out here in Colorado it is still a mess. Last week we had beautiful weather and actually hit 75 degrees one day. The very next day it dropped to 20 degrees and got colder over the weekend. I don't get it and I am thinking that I never will. :) We are having a beautiful day today so since I have the day off I better get out and enjoy it.

I never really blogged about our Christmas vacation because I didn't take any pictures. How lame is that? I enjoyed seeing old friends and catching up and getting to see most of my family. The weather didn't really cooperate with my sister and her family coming up from Lehi, so that was a bummer but everything else was pretty nice. I am pretty sure that we will not be able to be in Utah this coming Christmas so it was nice to be able to get there and enjoy the time that we did have.

I hope that my upcoming posts will come more frequently and be a whole lot more interesting. Thanks for still checking in and making sure that I am still around. :)

And We Are Off!!!

So we are off to Utah for Christmas. We are excited to get to see family and friends while we are in town for just a short time since we were not planning on traveling this Christmas. We found a great deal and couldn't pass it up so Utah here we come. It will be a pretty jam packed trip with no time to relax and rest but it should be fun.

Onto some other good news.... I finally got a job. Hooray!! I am pretty excited and I will start the first week of January. Originally they were going to have me start on the day we flew back, which would have been a little crazy. I am going to be working for US Bank as a branch manager. I am pretty excited to have a paycheck coming in again although I have enjoyed my time off for the past few months. It is going to be a bit of a shock for me to have to get up early and work all day long but I am ready for the challenge. :)

Happy Holidays to everyone & we hope that you all enjoy this wonderful season with family and friends!!!