Now let’s see how long it takes before anyone notices I even posted anything …

So last night Matthew says to me, Ok, I have an idea, but hear me out and don’t interrupt. (LOL!) With flights and travel being so very cheap (the one upside to a recession?) we’re never going to have a cheaper time to go somewhere and travel, do a cool trip we’ve always wanted to do, than right now! So, how about it?

We’re now thinking May 15-24, and on the short list are:

• Brazil (Rio)
• Italy (Tuscany, Venice and Milan)
• Morocco
• Puerto Rico
• Costa Rica
• Florida Keys
• Iceland (on Matthew’s shortlist, not mine)

So - any other ideas? We want it to be somewhere really cool that we may never do otherwise, not a regular trip. We did have some other places on the list (e.g. Russia) but figured we can do those when we’re old people. Brazil is at the top of the list cos it seems like a party place - so best to go while you’re young!

Ok so just landed in Utah and I had a revelation … Frozen stuff is just better than non-frozen stuff!

Water > snow.

Milk > ice cream.

See, frozen stuff is just way awesomer!

So this weekend I went to BodyJam instructor training in Arizona. Ohmigod so I can barely walk now, and my brain is so ridiculously full of information and it was very tough and technical and exhausting, but …

I PASSED!!!!!

So I know I should update, only I have nothing to say.

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Yes, pick up your shocked jaws from the floor.

I’ve been sick for a week so didn’t do anything except watch ridiculous hours of TV. So what do I have to say?!

He recommended the Pandora internet radio app to me and it’s fabulous! I am getting so sick of the music on my iPod (and sick of trying to figure out what playlist to listen to - if I randomly shuffle all I hear way too much Les Mills music) and voila, Pandora means I can just enter an artist I feel like listening to and it will stream music by artists like them. So it’s like the best of both worlds - I want to listen to, say, Coldplay, but I’m totally sick of their actual music, so I get all their style without the boredom!

My god, it’s snowing in the Irvine foothills:

http://www.ocregister.com/photos/county-storm-officials-2257908-three-drains/pid2257929

Supposed to be 36F overnight tonight …

In other news …

Vegas was awesome.
Work Christmas party tonight.
Christmas soon - yay!

Later!

So for those of you not in the US, this past weekend was a long weekend on account of it being Thanksgiving. I finished work up early on Wednesday, then got Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday off to relax. It was awesome, and I just wish it had lasted longer …

Thursday we drove to Bakersfield for Thanksgiving at Abe and Julie’s house (Matthew’s brother and his wife) with Matthew’s parents as well. The drive was okay - about three hours to get there. Bit freaky on the way there though. There was so much fog going over the grapevine (huge bunch of mountains you have to drive over, you get to a pretty damn high elevation, like 5,000 feet maybe?) you couldn’t actually see the side of the road. So my poor Matthew was a little stressed at the whole driving with almost zero visibility thing. We had an awesome Thanksgiving meal (turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy … you name it) but best of all, pumpkin cookies! I had them the first Thanksgiving I ever had in the US and they are the highlight of Thanksgiving, in my opinion. (And about a thousand times better than pumpkin pie, in my not-so-humble opinion.) We hung out, played The Office DVD board game, just generally chatted, then headed back home in the early evening. Astoundingly - I stayed awake the whole way home!! GO TEAM ME!

Friday was mine and Matthew’s two year wedding anniversary. We didn’t do too much during the day, just lounged around a lot which was nice, then went out to Mastro’s Steakhouse for a nice dinner. I love having something to celebrate - they give you free cake! Yum!

Saturday Nat and I taught Combat then I taught Pump. I then ran a lot of errands (Christmas shopping and the like) and bought the book “Twilight”. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about … and then proceeded to read the entire (500 page) book between the hours of 4pm and 10-something pm on Saturday … and mixed in there somewhere was cooking dinner, watching some TV … ! I know I have the tastes of a 13-year-old girl, but I really enjoyed the book. I’m now onto the second one and managed only 400 pages yesterday. I know, I need to step it up. Matthew went up to LA to hang out with Jon, Danielle, Montez, etc, and had a great time.

Part of the whole reading thing was also that on Saturday Matthew and I bought me a super-cute papadam (http://www.worldmarket.com/lev/4/productId/8835/mybuyscid/2177823538/index.pro - FYI, ours is an olive green) to sit in and read my books. Our little den is now so cute - reading chair for me, a new stereo. I swear, I’ll take pics of the new apartment soon … it just has all our pictures sitting around (not yet hung) and looks messy so I’ve avoided it till now. Maybe we can hang our pictures soon so I can take pictures! LOL

In super-old news, my hair is now red, but everyone knows that. The colour is now a little less Alias-red (I actually prefer it now, looks just a little more natural.) I got my first double take of someone looking at my license this weekend though! The “Huh? You’re a blonde?” I figure that’s a good thing right, means my hair can’t look COMPLETELY fake right?

And in future news, this weekend Matthew and I (and Natalie, but in a separate mission) are headed off to Vegas. Matthew and I are staying with Michael Jung (sidenote: does anyone but me ever notice that when you use Mike’s last name, you have to say “Michael Jung” and not “Mike Jung”? Matthew says “Mike Jung” but it seems odd to me to say it. For some reason “Michael Jung” flows more nicely at least when a girl says it) and Natalie is staying on the strip. We are going for the Les Mills Quarterly (on Saturday) and then just general enjoyment. I’m really looking forward to it and to seeing Mike’s new house (sidenote: see, it’s fine to say Mike so long as it’s not followed by Jung. Perhaps I should turn this into a rule …) We are going on Friday night and not coming back till Monday. On Sunday we are going to go see La Rev (one of the Cirque-type shows, but I have it on good authority (aka Ryan) that La Rev is actually the best out of all of them, including all the Cirque de Soleil shows.)

Anyway … I think I wrote a huge essay, so really, this should make up for my crapness in updating, at least a little … Plus really, no one reads this anyway except people who already knew everything that I wrote about!

So I am doing a write-in ballot for the next president. Drumroll … Ikea! Today Ikea had a sale on a table and four chairs for $59. Advertised in all the papers, radio, etc, there were a lot of people there when I got to Ikea. 400 tables, not sure how many people, but they had several lines. Well, let me tell ya something, twenty-five minutes and a very smooth transaction later, I was waltzing out the door with my super cheap table. Line up. Line moves quickly. Get to front of line. Table is waiting for me on a cart. Wheel straight to check out. Breeze through. Done and done.

Of course … setting the f*($#!%$#!%$ing thing up is an entirely different story. Needless to say I threw a tantrum and gave up.

The new apartment is great  - very fluffy carpet, very nice bright walls, lots of natural light, brand new everything. I might have almost gassed myself trying to figure out how to use the oven (this story ended with me deciding not to use the oven, and I still don’t know how it works.)

Bella however is not so convinced. She spent the first few hours hiding in her litterbox, then graduated to hiding under the dresser, and now is going for her masters in hiding under the bed.

I’ll post pics once the place looks decent. It’s pretty good but there are still boxes lying around, not to mention some abandoned Ikea furniture …