grrr...

i dispise people who have no other life than to steal other people's debit/bank account information and make crazy transactions to your account. this makes twice in about 4 months that we have had this happen. first with nick's card, now with mine. the first time our bank caught it. this time, not so much. over $350 racked up on the statement when i checked today.... for some place in europe...
sigh.

in happier news, i'm uploading a boatload of pictures right now. just have to edit and order! and we're scheduled to see the nightmare before christmas in 3d tomorrow. rescheduled last week because nick's mom was crazy sick. and today was halloween! got to see all the cute kidlets dressed up! and what the heck is with mom's driving kids from house to house? seriously. it's not like we are miles apart!

dressed up for work today too. christmas theme. the planning started last year! jokingly called my boss a grinch. it stuck. hence, our theme. next year is pirates. gotta think ahead for discount costumes! ;o)
would share pictures, but blogger is being a meanie.

pumpkin king.

nick and i got our pumpkins carved today. my parents were nice enough to share the pumpkins they grew with us! just wish they were a little plumper. kinda limited our designs. but beggars can't be choosers!
the two pumpkins right after they were created.

nick's rockin cyclops!

my pumpkin king. supposed to look like jack from the nightmare before christmas. eh, turned out alright!
had a costume snafu. for work, we are all supposed to be something christmas related. long story.. but my boss is the grinch! ;o) i was to be the sugar plum fairy. tried on the costume today. had it for a week or so... look like a fairy street walker! made a mad dash to the costume stores after nick's cpr recert. at brandee's! found an angel costume... thank goodness! but now, nick wants to be the fairy. boys!
and for brandee. darn her and that little bambino jade. she's so stinking cute. got to play with her while nick did the cpr stuff. thankfully, he has agreed no babies til after the new house!
speaking of homes, the builder showed us our tentative home. way cool. he has built it twice now, the following is a picture of the one that is completed.
kinda crummy picture. we drove back after being shown the home... they were outside raking leaves! had to pretend we were private investigators or something and be all secretive about it! have a few adjustments but not many. really getting excited about it all. think we have our lot. really need to get a realtor out here to give us an idea of what we could put the house on the market for. to really figure out finances. ah, fun stuff...
also stumbled across this rocking street.
we were really hoping it intersected with a nicholas street because that would have just been too freaking cool. settled for ryan. which is nick's middle name. hmmm, might have to put that intersection into our gps guy and see where i need to go on a roadtrip! ;o)

i'm addicted...

to this silly little game!



the skeleton's comments just crack me up!

college years...

lately, when i have thought back on the past three and a half years of my life... i have really been wanting to call them my college years. weird, i know.
i never went away to school. i stayed at home and did the local campus of a major state school. thought it was best financially and i just wanted to be closer to my nicholas. lame, i know.
when nick and i moved in together, i had never lived without my parents. it was liberating. and a huge change. had a lot of things to get used to. i mean, i actually had to do my own dishes! okay, so nick does them. ;o)
i feel like i'm settling into more of a routine. that i'm ready to become more of an adult. yeah, whatever that means. i dunno. maybe that we just don't have ramen and frozen burritos for dinner. that i've actually cooked almost regularly for the past year!
maybe it's just this crazy, huge, financial, grown up decision we have ahead of us. yes, we have made large decisions, but for some reason this one just feels like a doozy! or maybe that i'm just conscious of the repurcussions. whatever they may be.
i honestly haven't a clue. but it feels like a transition period. maybe one i sorta missed right after college or even by not going away.
who knows. maybe it's just me being the deep overthinker that i am! and maybe it doesn't even make sense! ;o)

'sup.

here it is. your vacation update. can i just say, what is the deal with me getting sick after these vacations? i swear, my sinuses hate me traveling!

wednesday october 11: our flight. early. 8 am-ish. had to be up at 4am. nice flight considering... not too many people and was way cheap!
landed around 1030am. their time. got to the hotel around noon. i passed out. traveling wipes me out. that and we were up late the night before! lots going on...
just kinda hung out there for the day. room service. lots of nothingness! good times!
thursday october 12: headed to the san diego zoo. turned out to be a nice day. probably the best besides the day we left! totally nice zoo. glad we ventured out that way. saw some turtles getting their groove on, two seperate groups of meerkats. yes, i do watch meerkat manor! and they are totally so cute in person. the pups... adorable. nick and i totally want us a meerkat family! saw some baby giraffes. love giraffes. they have the best eyelashes!
went to old towne for a bit after the zoo. the headed back to the hotel to meet up with our friends.
all the pics are uploaded to flickr. but i won't make you dig thru all of them... and they are backwards. out of order. how the heck am i managing that?!
some highlights from the zoo:
check the turtles in the background. there are three on the otherside of the fence. bunch of freaks!

me diggin the giraffes!

meerkats. seriously we have like 25 pictures of just meerkats. yeah, we have a problem!

thursday evening we spent the evening with tom and yogurt. okay, his real name is brian. but no one calls him that. and i'm proud to say that tom and i were the ones who made the nickname stick... ;o)
hung out at the hotel for a while. they had free appetizers and drink specials from 5-7. can't beat that. but the hotel did charge $10 a day parking. the heck? and no notice from the travel agent... nice.
afterwards, we walked around downtown disney. about a 10 minute walk from our hotel. not too bad. then tried to walk our stupid selves to jack in the box. those boys, tom, and their ultimate burgers. i think they had it every night!
our little gps guy totally helped us out. that and the big sheraton beacon across from our hotel. just had to look for it to figure out where we were headed when george, the gps, wasn't with us!
friday october 13: disneyland day!
tom, doug, yogurt, yogurt's cousin alicia, nick and myself went. had a blast. well, doug and tom left early. thought they were too grown up or something... got drunk with an old guy in a hot tub. totally sounds like more fun that disney, right?
were able to ride the nightmare before christmas ride! the new pirates of the caribbean was pretty neat. did an excellent job making the jack sparrow. totally looks like johnny depp!
got a picture from splash mountain....
yeah, tom's asleep. alicia is loving it. yogurt is scared to death! i'm screaming. i just can't help it! nick's loving it! and doug, well, he's hiding! ;o)
tom totally thought about his pose all morning! cracks me up!
ate like a pig! turkey legs, pickles, pineapple ice cream, pineapple floats, french fries, pluots {plum/apricot hybrids!}, pretzels, hot chocolate. soooo good.
had to try on some mouse ears...
watched the fireworks show over the castle. way cool. love fireworks. well, worth the wait in the cold and the rain! headed to downtown disney to meet up with rob, chie, and ryan. none of us had met rob's fiancee before... kinda strange. lots of weirdness behind it, but oh well.
saturday october 14: wedding day. nick and i slept in. headed to the nearby fruitstand when we finally dragged ourselves out of bed! yum. and cheap. wish we had a decent farmer's market or fruit stand near us... must investigate.
drove to the wedding. which was at the disneyland resort. in the rose garden. very pretty. chie even was brought out by horse and carriage... cinderella style. pretty cool!
don't have the best pictures. nick was my photographer. and there are heads in every picture. quite funny. but you can check out the photographer's website, if you are interested. not all the pictures are up, but the ones that are are phenomenal. joey ikemoto. if you like to search for the pics... go to weddings. groom's last name = longfellow. select the date of 10-14-2006. it will give you a movie of the one's posted.
the boys looking handsome...
nick and i... totally have our christmas card photo too. everyone will have to wait for their cards to see it!
where's yogurt? were you all paying attention?
not pictured because he was loaded. tom and doug left him after he put a giant construction cone on his head and proclaimed he was the wizard of oz... then proceeded to fall into the bushes. totally thought he would have been arrested. so hoping he wouldn't show up to the wedding and ruin it.
he did make it. after the ceremony thankfully. still drunk. not good. we ditched him again.. i know. so nice of us. his so called friends. walked around downtown disney to pass the time between the ceremony and reception. had a nummy drink from rainforest cafe. tequilla and orange sherbert. sounds freaky... but tastey!
went to the reception... yogurt found us. ended up leaving early. which was probably a good thing for everyone.
called it a night early. rob and chie were flying to japan way early. tom, doug, and yogurt all had 8 am flights.
sunday october 15: decided to treck back to san diego. went to the miramar air show. neither of us had been to an airshow so thought we should check it out. the weather sucked! cold, cloudy, windy. we froze our asses off. way crowded too. but neat. glad we went. saw a plane and a semi truck race. bad ass. from our angle it looked like the semi won. the blue angels were freaking crazy. flying at 300mph only 18 inches apart. seriously, what if someone sneezes. not good.
had the darndest time trying to nab some pictures. ended up taking a few videos. this is the best i could do...
we left early because we were cold and crabby and hungry!
drove to beverly hills to eat at the stinking rose. saw it on foodnetwork. good eats or something like that. great food. favorite of the night. garlic ice cream with chocolate mole sauce. a weird good. and no, i'm not pregnant.... thanks tho!
monday october 16: went back to the parks. hit california adventure land this time.
loved the candy corn a's. yeah, i'm weird. had this fascination with pumpkins and palm trees. they just don't mesh for this midwesterner!
not very big. no lines either. decent rides tho! loved the tower of terror. yeah, i screamed on that one too. nick got to ride a rollercoaster. he loves them! rode a funky ass ferris wheel. look closely at the picture. the carts don't stay around the edge of the ferris wheel. they have inside tracks.
way nauseating. so not what you expect on a nice ferris wheel ride!
monday night we hung out at the bar in our hotel. remember? free appetizers? drink specials? stuffed ourselves silly with junk and drank for cheap while watching the bears game. was that not the craziest game ever? so happy the bears ended up winning, although i still can't believe it!
tuesday october 17: our final day. weren't totally sure what we were going to do. our flight didn't leave lax until after 5 pm. the weather ended up cooperating so we drove to the santa monica pier.
had a blast. we were total fools. set the camera in the sand and played with the timer. you should have seen us running back and forth. okay, nick was running and maybe i shouldn't have admitted our silly little antics. got some decent pics tho!
and my pants were soaked after jumping around in the ocean. nothing like saltwater legs for a four hour flight!
a few of us being dorks...


seriously. have a ton of beach pics. maybe 100 or so! and they are all in the flickr set.
nick also found this neat workout area on the beach. was insanely jealous. so wants to move there just for that. told him we probably wouldn't appreciate it then!
then drove to lax and caught our flight....

sad to be gone. but good to be home at the same time. exhausted. glad our full time doc is in syria. have a little breather workwise before monday! nick not so lucky. tons going on at work. feel bad for the poor guy.
also have lots of extracirricular activities the next few days! totally wishing i could just hibernate for a bit!

on the road again.

it's that time again. we leave for los angeles tomorrow morning. kinda traveled out. wish that all of our vacations weren't back to back to back. don't get me wrong. i'm glad that we have the opportunity but i wish we could have spread them out!

so excited for this. i love the nightmare before christmas. cannot wait! thanks to my disney guru for all of her help! nick's super excited about dinner at the bayou! and thanks to monica for all the other help. you girls have been great!

i'm excited for our friend's wedding too. should be beautiful. get to hang out with some friends that i don't always get to see. good times.
heading to san diego for the day. nick's all about the zoo. should be neat. not sure if it will compare with brookfield. totally hoping they have meerkats.

gonna be running around like crazy this evening. meet with a builder about possibly building in the near future, he is also going to check out our water damage, have bills to pay, packing to do. yeah, i'm a procrastinator....

be back in week with plenty of stories, i'm sure. ;o)

pictures.

just gonna try and upload some stuff with flickr. we will see how technologically advanced i am! but i'm totally diggin everyone's pictures being on the sidebars of their blogs. so i'm copying! ;o)

gauley pictures by appalachian wildwaters.

keep an eye out for a link on the right hand side for future photos... if you are interested!

thank you.

i have a thing with thank yous. i probably tend to send them more than i should.
not sure why. i don't remember my mom being big on them. i mean, for the big events: graduation, weddings. but never for the little things like birthdays and christmas.

got a thank you from a wedding we attending recently. kinda put off by it. all pre written. typed. like it came in the package with their invitations. no handwriting. well, our address on the envelope. it would have been nice to have at least a little personalization on the inside. say maybe their signatures...
as much as i hated writing our wedding thank yous, we did it. now, don't get me wrong. i'm glad that we got a thank you. i mean, i've sent gifts and never received any acknowledgment that they were received... until i had the guts to ask quite some time later... but i digress. i thought that if someone took the time to buy a gift or write a check, i could take a few moments of time to thank you. even if it meant having a terrible hand cramp!

yeah, i'm weird. but aren't we all?

and thanks for the kind words. unfortunately, i don't think we will get any answers until after we return from los angeles. frustrating. but i'm going to try and not worry about something i have no control over. yeah, easier said than done.

always something.

yup. that's life. the ups and downs of adulthood. {is that even a word? ah, another one for the shabster dictionary...} and yes, this might seem like an over reaction or something. maybe even like it shouldn't even be a big deal. and i do know that there are worse things in life, but it is frustrating nonetheless. so warning. vent ahead. crabby shan. just gonna get it out and over with.. here i go. ;o)
had another doozie of a storm roll through here yesterday evening.
noticed some lovely water damage today. sucks. our house is not even 4 years old and we have water damage. what the?!
the even better part. our builders. they stink. had problems with them from the get go. just found out earlier this year that we are paying taxes for a time period when we weren't even in the house. {yeah, indiana is a year or two behind on the taxes. but we are catching up.} we moved in the first week of june. we are paying for the entire year. tried to get it remedied but can't. the builders are no longer together. the company no longer exists. so who is responsible... us. a cracked bathtub. thankfully, we were able to track down the plumbers!
now this. water damage. i know that roofs are supposed to be good for 5 or 10 years. i forget. but if that's the case. or if it's something structural. we should be covered. but by who?
now the lovely process starts of calling the insurance company, our relator, the better business bureau, city hall for building codes, the board of relators if our relator won't help, possibly lawyers. anyone got any other ideas?
sometimes it doesn't seem worth it. like we go through all the trouble and then get stuck. that it would just be easier to do it ourselves and say forget it. but that's what the man wants. the squeakiest wheel gets the oil. gosh, i do hate that. i usually am the ones complaining about those people. but this is a bit different.
nick just says that this will be the driving force in us moving. to find a reputible builder and start from scratch. not just buy new construction and hope for the best. yeah, i know things can happen. no one is perfect. that even if we have the best builder in the whole wide world things can go wrong. but maybe, they will be around to help us!
hopefully, our home owner's insurance will cover it. it should, shouldn't it?
heck i don't know. they never taught you this stuff in school. and honestly, i'm not sure if i would have paid attention!