Ubud/Lombok

Be prepared...this post is going to be long!  We've been busy, busy, busy!

Yesterday we arrived in Ubud around 10:30am.  We checked into our hotel, Taman Harum (see my FB album of Indonesia to see a picture of it - or google it because it is way cool looking) then hopped on the complimentary hotel shuttle to the center of Ubud.  We hit the famous Ubud market first thing and I left with some great souvenirs although I think I paid too much for a couple things.  Bargaining takes some getting used to.  After the  market we walked up and down the main street like a million times looking for something cheap to eat.  The problem with being in these touristy cities is that all the tourists want a nice restaraunt to sit and eat while we want the food stalls on the side of the road where a meal is like $1.  So sometimes we have a hard time.  We settled for a restaraunt that charged like $3 a meal which still is way cheap compared to America but still more than we budgeted for!  We shared banana juice (which is like thicker than juice but not quite as thick as a smoothie).  It was delish!  Tom had pork sate and I had chicken sate.  I wasn't a huge fan of the chicken sate they served me - the chicken sate Tom had in Kuta was much better.  Anyway, after lunch we wanted to go to Goa Gajah (Elephant Cave) but we weren't sure how we wanted to get there.  Tom didn't want to pay for a taxi (they wanted to charge us like $9 to take us there and back and it was only a few miles away) and we couldn't find a bemo (mini bus thing) which would have been cheaper.  So we started walking.  Tom had mapped it and it was supposed to take 50 minutes walking but he only knew the general direction.  I didn't really like the idea of walking there but we didn't have much to fill our day anyway so we set out.  As we were walking we came across a procession - we weren't sure at first what the procession was for but then after like a million people passed us it was a mini parade! So we stopped to watch it - it was totally random and was just two huge float type things being carried by a bunch of men and then a ton of people walking in front, behind, and alongside.  Traffic was totally jammed up behind the parade and as we were walking by all of it there was a bemo!  The man called out to us to give us a ride and was only going to charge us $5 so we hopped in...thank goodness.  We had only walked about 20 minutes and it was SO hot.

The elephant cave was so beautiful!  It's another place where you have to wear a sarong out of respect to the Hindu religion.  There are a lot of really old statues and then of course the actual cave which is an elephant on the outside and then...a cave.  With some offerings for their gods.  There is also a fountain of "holy water" with these gods that water shoots out of.  The whole thing is hundreds of years old and so cool.  We somehow got stuck with a self-appointed tour guide when we walked into the elephant cave area.  He came and asked us where we were from (and people are fascinated when we say we are from America) and then he just started telling us all about the fountain of holy water then told us to go down so he could take our picture and then he made us wash our faces and hands with the holy water.  After that I thought he would be done showing us around but he took us to all the statues and the cave and was telling us tons of information...which could have been cool if we could have understood half of what he was saying.  We think he might have made up a lot of the information he was giving us (he's just another one of those guys who wants you to give him money) but we just went along nodding our heads and laughing when it seemed appropriate.  There is this really beautiful jungle at the elephant cave with waterfalls and a small rice terrace and so many beautiful trees and plants.  He walked us through and then up to an altar type thing where this old man wanted us to bow at his statue god.  It's pretty rude to tell people no so we just do it to go along and be polite.  After the journey through the elephant forest the old man told us we were done (meaning "give me my money now") so Tom was going to give him 2,000 rp which is equivalent to about 25 cents and the man just looked at it in his hand then looked back up at Tom seeming confused.  Both of us thought he was refusing the money but then he said "that is less than one American dollar."  Tom is thinking "uh yeah that's why I'm giving it to you" but instead he said "you want a dollar? I can give you a dollar."  And then the man said "Do you have $5?" and Tom said "no, this is all I have" handing him 10,000 rp which is a little over a dollar.  The man again just looked at it and said "that is all? that is not enough."  Tom gave him that anyway and we left.  What an ungrateful man!  We didn't ask for his tour of made-up knowledge and we didn't have to give him a dime!  We were both so shocked that he would tell us we weren't giving him enough money.  He wanted us to pay him as much as we were paying the guy who drove us to the elephant cave and back and more than we paid to get into the cave! We were both pretty mad at him but we didn't give him what he wanted so oh well.

After the elephant cave our driver took us back to the market where we walked through once more.  There were a few more things I wanted that I had now decided what price I wanted to pay for them.  So I bought a few more things and then we called our complimentary shuttle who took us back to our hotel.  We arrived back at Taman Harum around 5:00 and we took a dip in their gorgeous swimming pool.  It was so quiet outside and the pool was so incredibly blue and the water was the perfect temperature!

This post is going to be so totally random because I have so much to say but I'm not sure how to order it all.  So bear with me.  I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you about our hotel in Ubud.  Taman Harum is like a mini jungle.  There are trees, flowers, & plants everywhere!  They have lots of mini waterfalls and there are birds chirping through the whole area!  This is a motel-type place where all the doors to the rooms are outdoors.  There are a few cottages where people have their own whole little house with a balcony but we just had a regular room (if you can call it regular).  The doors were these intricately carved pieces of wood and they had these metal ring doorhandles.  You locked the doorhandles together with a padlock - who has even seen such a thing on a hotel!?  It was so different!  I have a picture that I will post here when I get home so you can see.  Anyway obviously you can't lock the padlock on the outside when you are inside the room so they just have a piece of wood that slides between the handles on the inside to secure the doors.  The room was really cool looking with the walls all made of different material (stone, brick, etc).  The service at Taman Harum was fantastic but our complaints would be that the bed was as hard as a rock (Tom didn't sleep after 4am and I've had a huge knot in my shoulder all day...ugh), there were a few mosquitos in the room (malaria!!) and the breakfast was not that great.  At our first hotel the breakfast was buffet-style and delicious.  At this hotel you placed your order from three options and it wasn't a whole lot of food and it wasn't all that great tasting...

Anyway - after swimming we went back to the room where we fell asleep for awhile (at like 6pm - go us) but then Tom woke me up around 8 because he wanted dinner.  We walked down to a warung where he had fried chicken and rice (and I had nothing - I'm not so in love with Indonesian food yet...I don't like meat or spicy things and they have a lot of both!)  I was also still full from lunch.  Anyway after that we went back to the hotel and slept.  Hahah - at 9pm.  Walking around all day exhausts you!

This morning we were up about 630am, packed up, had that not-so-delicious breakfast and caught a taxi to the airport for our 11:40am flight to Lombok.  We arrived at the airport around 9:30am and hung out for awhile.  it was so interesting because the Bali airport is so small and almost everyone boards their plane through the same gate.  While we were waiting to board our flight we must have seen people board for like 5 or 6 different flights through the same gate we were going to board through!  When it was our turn we went through the gate but then outside and then took a bus to the airplane where we just walked straight up the steps into the plane.  I thought it was pretty cool because I've never gotten on a plane before without walking through those connectors at the terminal.  It was pretty cool to just walk right up onto the plane.  It reminded me of "It Takes Two" where one of the twins walks right off the plane, down the plane steps.

Anyway, the flight to Lombok was about the scariest (and also the shortest, thank goodness) flight I have ever taken in my life.  It is only a 25 minute flight (yes, so short!) and there was turbulence the whole way!  Usually I don't mind turbulence (and in fact I kind of like it - it makes the plane ride more fun and more interesting) but 25 straight minutes of turbulence just was not my cup of tea.  Especially on such a little, tiny plane.  I was so afraid we were going down.  I tried to read the whole way to keep my mind off of it but when you are constantly dipping and swaying it's hard to keep your mind on anything else!

Once in Lombok we caught a taxi to our hotel, Sheraton Senggigi.  One word: BEAUTIFUL.  The hotel is luxurious and the grounds are lovely!!  The ocean is even closer to this hotel than our hotel in Nusa Dua.  You can see it SO clearly from our balcony and it is so beautiful!  It's about thirty steps from the outside of the building to the edge of the ocean.  Amazing.  As soon as we arrived we donned our swimsuits and headed right to the ocean where we enjoyed the warm, tropical weather and the gorgeous view of the ocean.  For lunch we walked down the road until we found another warung where we had fried chicken, tofu, and rice with sauce.  Tom liked it (he likes all Indonesian food, pretty much) but I thought the fried chicken smelled like the pig ears we feed our dogs which made it difficult to eat.  I didn't like the tofu and the sauce on the rice was too spicy for me.  But I have a small stomach and just a few bites filled me.  After lunch we hit some shops on the way back to the hotel and I found some lovely souvenirs (yay!).  Again I think I ended up paying too much for something but what's done is done.  You know you've offered too much when they accept it after a little bit of thinking.  It's when you really have to work them to get them to accept your price that you know you've done a good job of haggling.  Once they accept your named price though you are pretty much under obligation to buy it.  Darn.  Still a good price but not as good as I could have gotten, maybe.  After shopping we headed back to the hotel where we hopped in the pool for a swim.  The pool is like 8 feet away from the ocean (literally) and it's really cool because it is full all the way to overflowing and when you are far back it looks like the pool just runs into the ocean.  This pool at Senggigi is HUGE.  And I mean really huge!  Like you can't even imagine.  It's not any certain shape just this super large area of water (most of it is about 3.5 feet deep) and there are random islands in the middle with trees growing from them.  It's about the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life.  Plus there is a slide that is made from stone that is shaped like a giant face.  The slide comes out through the open mouth and the actual slide is the "tongue."  Again, I will post pictures later.  After swimming we lounged on beach chairs right by the ocean for awhile then watched the beautiful sunset.  Back to our hotel room we showered and relaxed for a few minutes then headed out to find another warung for dinner.  We found one that was SO PACKED which probably means such good food!  Tom had...I forgot..some chicken omelette and rice thing and I had fried noodles which we DELICIOUS.  Yay!  An Indonesian food I found that I like!  I asked for it with no meat (well Tom asked for it for me...in Indonesian) but somehow I still got meat in it.  It would have been even better without the meat but still it was very good!  We also shared avacado juice which Tom has been raving about for years.  It was good but I think it's an acquired taste.  I couldn't really decide how much I liked it.  It's another one of those juice/shake things and they mix in some chocolate syrup with the avacado.  I think it sounds weirder than it tastes but it is a totally different taste.

Anyway now we are back at the hotel and are going to watch a movie together before retiring for the night.  This hotel has American channels so we'll see if we can find something even though it's 8 in the morning in California.

Okay so there are a lot of random things I want to post about but they don't fit in anywhere really so I'm just going to type them randomly with bullet points.  I've been typing for awhile already and Tom is waiting for me to watch the movie so I might save some for tomorrow's post:

• Stray dogs - they are EVERYWHERE and it makes me so sad.  They are just these skinny little things who all look so sad and wander the streets with their tails between their legs.  They are so used to the crazy busy life of Bali that they just will walk right in between all the tourists and will just stroll across the street with the crazy traffic.  People also let their domesticated dogs just roam the streets but you can tell the difference because a) the owned dogs have like bandanas tied around their necks to show ownership and b) the owned dogs are fatter and usually are trotting along with tails wagging.  So to give you an idea of how many strays there are, I counted one day while driving somewhere.  I counted for about 45 minutes and counted 15 strays.  This does not include any of the dogs who were roaming with the bandanas tied around their necks.  And this is only looking on one side of the road.  So sad!  I wish I could take them all home.  Today I wanted to take a picture of one so I could post it later so after we walked by one I turned around and snapped a picture but it saw me and apparently it thought that meant it should follow me so he started trotting alongside us.  You never know who has rabies so I shoo'd him and then I felt so horrible because he left with his head down and tail between his legs.  I didn't know he would think he should follow me!  I felt so bad!  Poor dog.  He was an especially cute one, too.
• Everybody wants our money!  Seriously everywhere you go in these tourist towns people beg you to buy their stuff, take their taxi, etc.  This is what it always sounds like "Hello!  Hello, transportation? Hello! Where are you going?!" "Yes, lady, just looking.  Just looking.  What you want to buy? You want this dress?" - it's funny that they always say "just looking."  I don't think they know what it means.  I think a lot of people tell them "I'm just looking" and so they just repeat that.  They tell you to just look.  Hahahha.  And they always suggest what you should buy.  Sometimes they follow you begging you to buy something or take their taxi or book snorkeling through them, etc.  It gets annoying after awhile because they ignore the word "no."  They only stop when you have walked too far from their stand that they have to go back to man it.
• Everybody loves Obama because he went to school here.  Almost every time we tell someone we are from America they say "Obama!"  Hahahha - and we just nod and say "yes."  We're counting how many say it and I think we are up to 5 in three days.  It's the first thing they think of.  Today we talked to some guys and we saw them a few times afterward on the street or on the beach (Lombok is small) and everytime we passed they would say "Hello! America! Barack Obama! Hello, America!"  I'm not sure why they call us America.  But it's comical.

Okay there are more things but I've been typing too long.  More tomorrow.  This is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime journey.  We are loving our "holiday" as everyone here calls it!

Tomorrow we catch a flight back to Bali, wait in the airport for 5 hours (that's a story for tomorrow), and then hop on a flight to Jakarta where we will get a ride to Bogor where we will stay with a family from Tom's mission.  I'm tired just thinking about it...

Bali, Indonesia

Wow, I'm finally back to the blogging world.  Probably only for the next two weeks though.  Don't get used to it :]  I haven't updated in...what?...seven months or so? Mostly because I feel like I never really have anything to say.  But being in Bali has given me LOTS to say.  Also I don't want to forget anything about this trip and my journal just does not have enough lines to fit everything.  So enjoy the next two weeks of blogs about Indonesia!

Our flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong departed at 1am Monday morning.  We waited in the airport for awhile with mostly Asian people and one large group of students studying abroad in HK.  The flight was fabulous .  I thought a 14 hour flight would seem much longer than it did.  I slept about 7 hours, waking up at 3am HK time (1pm California time).  I never did sleep after that...probably a mistake but I just wasn't tired.  There were SO many movie and TV options on the plane.  Of course with all the stuff to choose from I settled on Friends, season 6.  I watched that pretty much the whole time with one 48 hours mystery and half of Tangled mixed in.  You'd think with all the options I'd watch something I don't watch every other second of my life but it was just too tempting!  The food was OK (nothing to rave about but not disgusting either).  T & I played some word games (with a word puzzle workbook I bought before the trip) and also watched some soccer.  T only slept about 4 or 5 hours and watched movies/TV the rest of the time.

We arrived in HK at 6am.  It is HUMID there.  At 6am it was 80 degrees and very hot!  The airport was very empty when we arrived so we hopped on the free computers (which had cool chinese symbols on the keyboards) and checked emails and FB.  Of course.  Then we played Sorry! card game and did some word puzzles.  At 10:20am our flight left HK and headed to Bali.  Almost everybody on the plane was from Hong Kong.  Very few were from our last flight and I think there were only a handful of white people.  Bali is a popular place to vacation (or take a holiday, as they say) for people who live in HK.

Our flight arrived in Bali at 3pm Tuesday, Bali time (1am Tuesday, California time).  We bought our 30-day visas and went through customs then went for our baggage.  Before either of us knew what was happening, two porters grabbed our luggage and started walking us to the exit.  Tom said they just wanted money (I would soon come to learn just about everybody in Indonesia wants your money).  They waited while we exchanged our USD for rupiah and wanted T to give them $10 each! Yeah right! He gave them $2 each.  That's better but still too much for them rolling our luggage about 100 feet!  Next time we will not be caught off guard and will say no.  Our driver that we hired through Bali Car Rentals was supposed to be waiting for us at the airport.  After searching all the signs people were holding (looking for our name) - twice! - we could not find our driver.  We went to the information desk and called Bali Car Rentals and gave them our confirmation number and they said they would send someone in 30 min!  Yeah right! - we had already been in the airport for at least 45 minutes getting our visas and going through customs.  And they were supposed to have been waiting for us when we landed!  Tom said OK for them to come but then another man approached us wanting to be our driver.  At first he wanted about $60 (I'm just going to do everything in USD so I don't have to constantly write what the USD equivalent is after writing rupiah) but after some hard bargaining Tom got him down to $35 for the rest of the night.  We were going to pay Bali Car Rentals $40 - way to go, T!

Our driver took us to a temple at Ulu Watu.  It was beautiful!  We had to rent some sarongs to wear while looking around.  It's a great place to see the sunset and well-known so it was veryyy crowded.  Apparently the wild monkeys also love to see the sunset from there because they were EVERYWHERE.  At first I thought they were so cute.  And then about two seconds later one of them grabbed a fistful of my hair and started tugging.  I screamed and the first thing that went through my head was "I didn't get a rabies shot!"  Tom made him let go (thanks, love!).  After that I put my hair up in a pony to avoid being latched onto by any other crazy wild monkeys.  I did not think they were so cute after that.  We walked all around the temple area and got great views of the ocean (and saw a dolphin!) and the sunset.  We saw quite a few itty bitty baby monkeys (some with hardly any hair yet!).  Those ones were still cute.  I was attacked by an adult monkey, after all.  We bought tickets to see a Balinese dance at the temple.  It was super crowded and a little bit longer than I would have liked but still interesting.  It was the story that Sara tells on A Little Princess with Ramah and the white monkey.  I would not have understood the story at all had they not given us a sheet with each Act's summary.  It's not that they were speaking Indonesian - they don't talk at all - just that it looked more like a whole bunch of random dancing than a story!  The costumes they wore were very intricate and really beautiful.

After leaving the temple our driver took us to a warung (food stall) where we had nasi goreng (fried rice).  My first authentic bowl of fried rice.  Delicious.  Much better than the kind I make with the IndoFood seasoning packet.  Oh and the best part is it was like $1 each.  Awesome.

We were SO tired by the end of the night (by now it was 8pm Bali time and 6am California time - remember, I hadn't slept since 1pm California time the day before).  Talk about being exhausted!  Our driver took us to our hotel which is BEAUTIFUL.  When booking, we upgraded to a romantic suite and it's lovely!  There is a queen bed with a really cool drape that goes around it (I think to keep mosquitos out but it looks pretty too!) and a really cute couch and nice table.  Neither of which I doubt we'll use but still they're cute.  We have a door leading out to a balcony that overlooks the back of the hotel with the pool and water features.  The ocean is just a stone's throw away and you can hear it with the balcony doors open.  I just love being beach front!  Even though we were exhausted we took showers then a walk along the beach.  It was totally empty (I guess most of the people who come to Bali are probably young adults who party at the night clubs and old, retired people who are in bed at dark).  It was nice to have the beach to ourselves.  We walked out on a dock and sat and watched the ocean for awhile and the weather was perfect.  Very warm with an ocean breeze to keep us from being overly warm.  Perfect and romantic.  I was in love with Bali right there.  Finally we went to bed - I think we were both asleep within seconds.

This morning we woke up at 8am, got ready, and headed down to our free hotel breakfast.  It's in the hotel but the hotel is totally open to the outside so you are practically eating outside too.  It's actually a really weird concept.  The whole hotel has like places where walls just don't exist so it just leads to right outside to the beach.  But it isn't at all like a motel.  It's definitely a hotel with a few missing walls.  I love it!  The place who was supposed to pick us up from the airport yesterday was also supposed to drive us around today but we were not about to call them to have them drive us after they stood us up yesterday.  And after we stood them up after they stood us up.  We think they're probably mad about that.  But we don't care because we were pretty mad that they stood us up first.  Anyway, Tom hired a guy who is a chauffer through the hotel.  Or supposedly through the hotel.  You're supposed to book him through the hotel but he agreed to let us book him at a lower price (I guess under the table or whatever you would call it).  We ended up paying him $50 for  the day (it was supposed to be 10 hours but we used him only for 8) which is $5 more than we were going to spend to pay the Bali Car Rentals guy but we paid $5 less last night so it works.

Bagi (the driver) spoke very good English and told me he learned it just from the customers he drove around.  I was very impressed.  He took us to Katu first because I wanted to do some shopping.  He told us that a lot of the crafts were imitations or things bought in Ubud (who has high-quality crafts) and then sold in Kuta at a higher price.  He said to do a lot of bargaining since several of the crafts would be low-quality and far over-priced.  Tom was great and did a lot of hard bargaining and got me some fantastic deals!  I've picked up a few souvenirs but am waiting mostly to shop until tomorrow when we'll be in Ubud because I expect to find better things.  The Indonesian shop owners are VERY persistent!  They'll follow you down the street begging you to buy something.  Lots of times they send their little kids to follow you to try to get you to buy something.  At one point a little 3 or 4 year old girl was following us trying to get us to buy pencils.  They train them young!  Tom got some chicken satay at a warung which I had like 2 pieces of.  It was just so hot outside that it was hard to eat hot food!  After shopping, Bagi took us to see a famous temple called Tanah Lot.  It's also right on the ocean and just gorgeous!  We walked down to the ocean and walked along the beach for awhile and looked at all the shops on the grounds.  We bought some ice cream which was overpriced just because we're white.  After Tanah Lot, Tom asked Bagi to take us somewhere cheap to eat.  He asked to go to a warung and Bagi said he knew one close to the hotel.  When we got there the restaurant was called "warung" but it was not really a warung.  It was a restaurant instead of a stall.  Tom didn't want to tell him to take us somewhere else after he had already parked (since that would be kind of rude) so we just ate there even though everything was overpriced.  We ended up spending $12 which is 6 times as much as we budgeted to spend on any meal.  Good thing we brought extra money!

After eating Bagi took us back to our hotel - it was only 5:45pm but I was totally exhausted!  I sat on the balcony for awhile to warm up (I was actually cold here in Bali after being in the air conditioned car for an hour) and then showered and readied for bed.  I decided I should try to stay up at least a little later so I didn't wake up at 3am.  Jet lag.  Ugh.  Anyway, Bali has been wonderful so far and we are looking forward to Ubud tomorrow!

I've finally updated my blog!

Ha, fooled you - I didn't update this blog...yet.  But I did update my business/giveaway/craft blog! And I spent pretty much all day doing it.  It seems like a waste of time now that I look back but still I'm so excited about all I learned and accomplished! I created a button for people to add to their blogs that links to my blog, I created a signature for the end of my blog posts, and got a new background, updated my font, yadda yadda yadda. But don't let me bore you with the details - click over to my freshly updated blog using my brand-spanking-new button to the right of this post!

And PS I do promise I will update this blog too.  That's next.


[if this was my other blog my signature would appear here!]...coming soon for this blog!

Etsy Love

So...I spend a lot of time on Etsy (etsy.com).  Way more than I should.  Way more than any person should.  And almost none of the time is spent updating my own site...maybe if I spent more time there than on other people's I would have more sales :]  But I just love looking at all the craftiness of others!  Some days, like today, I feel my Etsy surf time was totally worth it...because of great finds.  Today I stumbled across Jane Joss - the cutest Etsy site!  Look at the amazing things she makes!

How cute, right?

You can visit her at janejoss.etsy.com.

I definitely want some of these cute decorations for my house when I have one!

Sometimes after looking through Etsy I feel down on myself for not being quite so crafty.  Most of the time I do nothing about it.  Tonight I decided to brighten my spirits by being crafty myself.  And I came up with this:

I feel a little less down on myself.  Maybe not quite so creative as Jane Joss but I love it nonetheless!  The best part?  $4 necklace find at a second-hand store + 2 handmade flowers = about $6.  What a deal!

My Secret Pleasures

I like to look at the bright side of things.  While I really miss Thomas I have been able to come up with a few things that I'm loving about being home alone.  Then I realized that most (or all) of them have a downside.  But the bright side is what keeps me happy until he returns.  And so I give you...

My Secret Pleasures (while Thomas is away)

• Not shaving my legs.
• Downside: It did bother me today when my leg hair was sticking out of my nylons. SICK!
• Eating In N Out while watching Friends.
• Downside: My burger was cold by the time I got home and started the DVD.
• A whole weekend of "girl time" with my sister.
• Downside: Sleeping on a couch and helping to clean up Emma's vomit.
• Not having to pick up Thomas from class late at night.
• Downside: This means he never comes home...which, in turn, means I'm lonely.
• Wearing ragged, old pajamas to bed (so NOT cute but SO comfy!)
• Downside: When I look in the mirror, I think my self-esteem drops about 10 bars.
• Not being told to clean up my messes.
• Downside: The house is a DISASTER.  And I will still have to clean it all up...it will just be all at once and will take me a couple hours instead of a few minutes each night.  Go me.
• Not having sports on 24/7.
• Downside: I don't know if there is one...
• Making SUPER easy dinners.  Salad, Cereal, Pasta, In N Out.  I have not made anything else in 5 days.
• Downside: again...there may not be one for this.  i LOVE it!
• No video games.
• Downside: that means there is nobody here to play them.

With that said...I think I could do without the video games, sports, and fancy (if you can call it that) dinners but I would rather have Thomas here and have to shave my legs, clean up my messes, wear cute pajamas, eat In N Out @ In N Out, pick Thomas up late from class, and have a "husband" (instead of girls) weekend than be without him for a week.

It's a...

...PACKAGE! (i wish i was saying boy or girl but tom says no...blame him if you are disappointed!)

when this appeared on my doorstep i was sooooo excited. because i've been waiting for like 6 days for it to come!...and i've been waiting even longer to buy this.

my very first sewing machine!!! yes, it's tiny. yes, it was cheap. yes, it works. just like a real one. it's the singer pixie plus and it's so cute and i LOVE it. i've never used a sewing machine before in my LIFE and am so confused looking at all the thread and little buttons but i think there are directions included...(hopefully)

my hair accessories are going to take so much less time when i don't have to hand-sew every little stitch! and i have so many projects saved in my favorites on google chrome that i've just been dying to make when i finally got a sewing machine. it is going to be one fun crafting week without thomas here! perfect time for my new toy to arrive :]

Recently :]

...and by recently i mean like the last 5 months...or since the last time i blogged. usually i try to go back and blog by date but that always really overwhelms me and i end up not blogging at all. proof: look at the last date i blogged. so i decided to finally just sit down and do everything at once. it might (probably will) be all out of order but here it is.

most importantly, thomas has been offered 3 second interviews for internships with three of the big 4! EY in sacramento, PwC in sacramento, and KPMG in san francisco.  we are so excited and i'm so proud of him! all the hard work is paying off.  he flies to sacramento on tuesday (november 2) for all his interviews. and i'm so jealous because he gets to stay for a whole week! we should find out shortly after who offers him an internship. and then (if he is offered more than one) we'll choose where to go.  BIG DECISION. but very exciting!

T also had a birthday -- 25! Pictures at end.  This was the day he found out about the second interviews so it was a very happy birthday! my family was in town because my brother got home from his mission the day before and they came to utah so the girls here could see him! we took family pictures then went to dinner at cafe rio and then had cake and ice cream. i gave T a jacket, an xbox football game and a sweater. i'm pretty sure the football game was his favorite. i have to say that was my least favorite. :]

as said...my brother came home from his mission in Chicago!...and he already has a GIRLFRIEND. i don't know if it's a secret or anything but he doesn't read this so he'll never know i blogged it. in fact, they went on a date the night he came to utah (the DAY AFTER he got home). yes, they met on the mission. her name is rachel and we like her :] ryan spent a week with us in utah (no pictures for proof...except for family pictures below). we had fun and are looking forward to our family vacation to disneyland in early december.

oh. i got a job. oh wait. first of all...i don't nanny anymore. first grader started school. i did not want to be their maid during the day as was their idea of my new responsibilities so i found a new job. oh but not before i told them i was going to look for other opportunities and then they let me go with only 24-hours notice. and so i applied for unemployment insurance and qualified. and was on that for 2 weeks before i found a new job. oh and then they appealed that decision and i had to do a phone-appeal hearing and the judge determined i deserved the unemployment insurance. because DUH i did! you can't just let an employee go for no reason just because they say they are going to start looking for a new job. and then not even pay them for at least 2 weeks. i think people with a lot of money forget that some people need their weekly paycheck to survive. anyway it's finally ALL over and i don't have to pay back the unemployment insurance and i have a job. the only sad part of it all is the parents hate me now and have cut off all connection i had with their kids. they even took their daughter off my soccer team. it's sad.

anyway my new job is as a secretary at a christmas light installation company. it's...well, boring. but it pays the bills. it's temporary through february 2011 and then i have to find something else. not looking forward to job-hunting again. i hate starting new jobs.

halloween! we didn't do much. went to the woodland's to pass out candy while they took emma trick-or-treating. watched max for a little bit. hung out for a little bit. went to our ward party.

oh kelli and i went to idaho to see our cousin, jenna, who goes to BYU-i! we had so much fun! we went to the byu-i gardens, the temple, bear world (where you see bears up close and personal--cool!), sammys (a cute little diner!), craigos (delicious pizza buffet). oh and we stayed up all night talking. it was a really great girls' weekend. we can't wait until jenna transfers to BYU!!

oh i also reupholstered a rocking chair. proof below. looks good, don't you think? i tried to sell it (we don't have room) but i couldn't get what it was worth. probably because it isn't worth what it's worth to me. i invested too much money and time to get enough from it. so i think i'll keep it. for a nursery...one day!

okay if i think of more i will add in a later blog post...PICTURES (you will have to guess what is from what):