Vacation, All I Ever Wanted...

I never traveled tons when I was a kid. Our "big trips" were always to Mount Airy, North Carolina (the real-life Mayberry) at Christmas with our dad, and to Mount Airy/North Myrtle Beach in the summers. They were always big family reunions on my dad's side. I have tons of cousins on that side and each visit was a blast.

I went to Disney World when I was about seven or eight, too. That was the only major vacation I've ever taken with my mom. However, since that was all we knew and since we made so much out of every trip we did take, I'd never really ached to go gallivanting around the globe.

Now I am married to a man who went to Europe when he was six and has also been to Africa, Mexico, Canada, and most of the United States (and back to Europe). Since we got together, I've been to Mexico three times and gone on more trips around the US. Most recently, we went with his parents to Vegas. All of these little vacas have been eye-opening and wonderful, and I totally blame Ryan and his parents for the fact that...I now have a major case of travelin' fever.

It seems that lately, I very often find myself thinking about trips on which I'd like to embark. My imagination is wild and stubborn and, therefore, refuses to think about trivial things that others would call "practicality," "money," and other such pish-posh. So, without the restraint of likelihood, here are some adventures I would love to have:

1) Europe. For MONTHS. Maybe even a year or more. I'm reading Little Women right now and I'm surprised that the pages detailing Amy's and Laurie's prolonged European adventures aren't marked with drool. I would float about from place to place, getting a feel for each city in each country I visited. I would go beyond seeing the touristy sites. I would get to know the quirks and secrets and beauty of every piece.

2) Prince Edward Island. I am a huge Anne of Green Gables fan, and I long to tour the island on which Anne's adventures were based. This trip would also include a visit to Concord, Massachusetts to visit Louisa May Alcott's house (the basis for the Marches' house in Little Women).

3) A long, long road trip down historic Route 66 to California, stopping as many times as we liked along the way (and DEFINITELY staying in one of those wigwam motels). I've never been to California and, as grateful as I would be for any opportunity to go, I think my heart would ache just a little bit if I didn't get to go by car the first time. The days of anticipation would, I think, give me a retro feel for the excitement felt by travelers before air travel was all the rage. (But don't get me wrong; if I were offered a flight out there, I would deal with it quite nicely.)

4) Greece. Coastal Greece. A la Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Mamma Mia! The architecture, the sun, the sparkling sea...'nuff said. (I hate that phrase, but I find it infuriatingly necessary here.)

5) Back to Mount Airy and Myrtle Beach. Ryan has been able to show me so much, and I have a deep longing to show him the Carolinas for the first time. We would drive along the same route that my dad always took when I was a kid. Even as an impatient child, the beauty of the mountains always captivated me and I cannot wait until the day when I get to share it with him. (He's seen mountains, of course, but not these mountains, and I just know it would be special.) Besides, I haven't been in years and would love so much to revisit all of those happy childhood memories.

Have any of you been on adventures similar to these, or any other exciting journeys? I would love to hear about them.

One More Night.

I sit here at work thinking about tonight. It'll be my last shift at my very first "real world" job.



This is a big step, but it's one that I need to take. See, aside from a few months in which I went insane from dealing with the chaos that is day shift, I have worked nights ever since I got married. On a personal note, this has cost my marriage a great deal. We've gotten pretty used to hasty dinners followed immediately by me rushing out the door to work. Ryan goes to bed alone, then I come home in the mornings and go to bed alone.

I'm so over it.


I've been asked many times - scratch that; many, many, MANY times - where I'll be working next. I don't have the answer right now. No, it's not the smartest idea to leave a job without having another one already lined up. Some things are hard to explain; I can't even really explain it to myself - but it is time for me to wrap up my time at this hospital and turn to the next chapter. I have felt and continue to feel right about it.

Every so often I think to myself, I guess I should be reflecting on the time I've spent here. Then I realize that I don't really want to. Yes, it has definitely been a MAJOR learning experience, and working at a hospital seems to be a sort of necessary evil for new nursing graduates, but I've made a couple of promises to myself that I intend to keep unless I am absolutely desperate: never again will I sign a contract that enslaves me to a company for a certain amount of time, and (a much broader and more "shocking" promise) never again will I work in a hospital. Now, there are some specialty hospitals that could offer me "normal people hours" and not obligate me to work evenings, nights, weekends or holidays. That would be fine. But I feel that I owe it to my husband AND myself to put myself on a schedule that coordinates better with his - as in, is not the EXACT OPPOSITE of his.

I've made some amazing, amazing friends and I'll absolutely die if those friendships don't continue, but the time has come to say bye-bye to this job. On to...well, I don't know about bigger, but hopefully better things. And I don't say that spitefully - who doesn't want the next step in their lives to be better than the last?

Much Ado About a Keanu Reeves Dream

Have any of you read Much Ado About Nothing or seen the movie? It is in my top three movies of all time. I absolutely love it.

Anyway, this is a voicemail I got from one of my best friends recently. I got a huge kick out of it, so I thought I'd post it for you to enjoy.

"Hey, I have a question for you really quick - what is the movie...I thought it was Shakespeare...but it's a movie where Keanu Reeves plays the bad guy and it's, like, the girl is gonna get married to the guy and Keanu Reeves arranges basically to frame her to make it look like she's having sex with another guy the night before the wedding, and so the guy stands her up at the wedding, and so she fakes like she's dead...umm, I can't remember, I thought it was A Midsummer Night's Dream but (my boyfriend) says no, that has fairies and stuff. Anyway, if you have any idea what I'm talking about, give me a call back."

Haha! Hopefully that was half as funny to some of you as it was to me. Now go watch the movie! There's way more to it than that. :)

Bald is Beautiful.

Late last Thursday night, Yemma was released from the hospital following her second infusion of chemo. Her hair had been falling out all day, so we had Josey completely shave it off after we got home.


We think she looks so cute! Yemma gets hot a lot so she LOVES being kept a bit cooler by not having any hair. Of course, she doesn't plan on being bald forever ;)

Here is a better picture of all three of us:

Independence Day!

Ryan and I decided to have a cookout for the 4th of July this year. We got started planning it sort of late, so we didn't expect too many people to be able to come. However, this was evidently one of those times when we were given something we didn't know we needed - a house FULL of friends. Our lives have been kind of stressful lately, and this huge turnout reminded us how blessed we are to have a "family" of wonderful people around us.

So many people were there! The house was bustling with conversations, laughter, and adorable children running around. It started off kind of small around 2 in the afternoon, and by the early evening, tons of our friends had shown up. We ended the night by watching fireworks in our front yard and eating popsicles. It was perfect. People didn't leave until around midnight. It was a full day and night of awesomeness.

Here are some pictures!

The table:

My first attempt at pulled pork was a success! I used this recipe in my slow cooker (which I really should bust out more often. It is a working girl's best friend).
I made an American Flag fruit pizza using this easy recipe. So it's not "symbolically correct," but I did my best with the room I had ;)

I, uh, also made this...er...watermelon cake. First of all, it ended up being a strawberry-flavored watermelon cake. I scoured greater Tulsa for watermelon Jell-O. No one had it. NO ONE. They had APRICOT Jell-O, but no watermelon. Of course, the next morning, multiple people from other towns/states told me they'd seen it in their grocery stores. How very ironic. Anyway, it would have been a lot cuter if I had had room in my fridge for the icing. Instead, it sat on the counter and got runny. This is the salvaged version. But I still think it's kind of cute. Kind of.
This is what it looked like when I cut into it - much more watermelony!
A house full of people!

Cute children!
Sparklers and popsicles!
We found this amazing bug on our garage door late at night. We think it's some kind of beetle. Cool, huh?
And that's all! I think I posted a sufficient amount of pictures...hope the rest of you had a great 4th as well!

Meet Me in St. Louie, Louie

This post is long overdue! A couple of weekends ago, Ryan and I headed up to St. Louis for the wedding of two friends. The groom, Justin, is a friend from college; the bride, Katie, is another story...rather, few stories. I met her through Justin at another wedding during college, but she also knew Josey's brother Gabe through high school theatre, Josey's sister Summer through college, AND my sister's friend Tracey through college. I'm tied to this girl in quite a few random ways.

Joining us were our dear college friends, two of them married couples. It was like a mini TU reunion, only in my wonderful hometown!

We had the time of our lives. Five of us stayed at Pi and Gra's house. On Friday night, we went to the City Museum. If you've never been, I can't really describe it other than to say that it is like a quirky, indoor playground that adults enjoy as well. It also has art and oddities of all sorts. We bought passes to go up onto the newly finished roof, on which there is a ferris wheel and a giant slide, among other attractions.
We were told "NO REFUNDS" when we paid the 5 bucks for the roof passes. We got up there, looked around for approximately ten seconds, and heard, "The roof is closing!" A storm was coming. Nooooooo!

I felt incredibly stupid and guilty for "causing" everyone to waste $5, but we still had a good time inside. We explored caves, walked through a hall of mirrors, climbed a ridiculous number of flights of stairs to slide down a huuuuuuge slide, and enjoyed chatting/laughing with one another.

Then we came back and went to sleep.

On Saturday morning, Ryan and I joined Yemma, Pi, my Aunt Lisa and my cousin Jordan for a special pre-Father's Day breakfast. Great family time was had by all. Great banana crunch pancakes were had by me.

Aunt Lisa is so pretty!

The wonderful honoree.

:)

My cousin Jordan and me!

My maaaan!

Ladies :)

(Gra took our friends out for brunch to keep them entertained. She's hospitable like that.)

That afternoon, it was time for the wedding. I think this was the first wedding I've ever been to where it was difficult at first to decide which side to sit on - however, since all of my friends knew Justin better than Katie, we all sat on his side. My cutie filmed the wedding.

It was a beautiful ceremony. I wish I'd been able to get better pictures, but we were sitting kind of far back. The priest told funny, cute stories about the couple. It was intimate and sweet.

There was a gap of a few hours between the ceremony and reception, so what were we to do? It was a hot day in St. Louis...not really a lot of head-scratching going on for ideas.

Although Ted Drewes is DELICIOUS, a few of our group were needing some "real" food. Next we made our way to St. Louis Bread Co. (I love that I can still call it that up there...) for a late lunch. We sat and talked for awhile, then headed to the art museum for a bit.

I LOVE our art museum. I love that it was around for the historic 1904 World's Fair and I love that it's free. (So is the zoo - the only bad thing about that is that now I think it's preposterous to have to pay to get into a zoo or an art museum.)

Cookieface and I hug a tree.

After we closed the place down at 5, we journeyed to a magical place I'd never been but had been wanting to experience for quite awhile...Bailey's Chocolate Bar.

I knew that it had...well, chocolate...but I didn't realize that it had a full page dedicated to chocolate martinis/other classy drinks and a menu full of tempting desserts and appetizers like fancy cheeses. The atmosphere was so fun! Wow, we ate a LOT that day, but the best food was still to come.

Reception time! Katie and Justin's dinner and dancing reception was at Rose of The Hill. FYI for St. Louis novices - if you hear the words "the hill," that's your cue to salivate. Like Pavlov's dogs. It's a historic Italian part of town in which I could eat every meal every day for the rest of my life and never want for anything else. The food was exquisite, and our group of eight were all seated at the same table, so the day-long fun continued into the night. There was also an open bar that served the best amaretto sour I've ever had in my life. (Wow, this post is making me sound like a drunk...just throwing this out there; I drink MAYBE once or twice a month and rarely ever have more than one drink at a time. I had ONE chocolate-covered cherry martini and ONE amaretto sour that day. So there.) ;)

First dance!

Father/daughter dance :)
Check out the hilarious garter!
This is the single picture of me at the wedding/reception. Have a look at that humidity hair!

Not my best picture. Anyway, Justin, Katie and their families threw a great party. We were fortunate to get to catch up with the bride and groom at our table for awhile! (Now they're on their European adventure honeymoon!) We closed the joint down, then headed back for some sleep.

On Sunday, the five of us who were staying at Pi and Gra's enjoyed a breakfast with Pi, Gra, and Yemma. Then it was off to tour the Anheuser-Busch Brewery, something I'd never done before. I'm not a beer fan, but it was really interesting to see and hear about the whole process.

Horsie!
Inside the stables where the Clydesdales are kept :)This room was FREEEEEEEEZING.
Learning about the process
This room was soooo cool.
I loved the light fixture!
So wait...some people need signs? ;)This reminded me of the room where Veruca Salt's dad is paying all those girls to go through boxes and boxes of chocolate to find a golden ticket.
At the end of the tour, they serve free beer. I had a Mountain Dew ;) and Ryan had a beer just to try it, but didn't like it. I took a sip and it gave me the same feeling as when I drink Emergen-C: like my head was swimming and about to explode. Not for me. But we had a fun time of chatting :)

Shannon had to catch a flight later that afternoon, so we decided to go to Fitz's for a late lunch and to spend some more time together before she had to leave. Unfortunately, we all sat at the bar for time's sake and it was horrible for photos, so we didn't get any.

All in all, we had a FANTASTIC weekend of St. Louis fun!