Summer So Far....California!

A few weeks ago I flew to LA to see Nick. * Side note, I got my ticket from Southwest like 2 months in advance and it was only $60 total for oneway! It was so nice to spend some time in California with Nick stress-free. He just finished his FIRST YEAR of MED SCHOOL at USC!! Woohoo! I'm so proud. We made it! Only 3 years left. We had a fabulous, relaxing time and the weather was AMAZING, except too cold to go to the beach, which is my favorite thing to do in Cali. Then we drove back together and he is here to stay for the summer. Anywho, enough rambling, I'll move on to the pictures now and just show you all the fun things we did.

First fun place was the Griffith Observatory in Hollywood. It was such a neat, pretty place way up on a green hill. The inside was really cool too, with lots of Greek artwork and solar system deal-ies.

The building looks like a mosque to me. Can you find me in this picture? "Where's Waldo?"

They set up a couple really nice telescopes at sunset and we got to see Saturn. The rings were perfectly visible, it was like seeing Saturn in HD. And, the sunset was beautiful up there, we could see the whole city.

View of LA up from up there. After a few days in LA, we headed down to Dana Point in Orange County to visit my Grandparents. My Grandpa is such a crack-up. I absolutely love to hear his stories. He seems to remember so much. He says, "the trick is to tell what you remember and make up the rest to make it interesting."

We of course had to make a visit to Disneyland and California Adventure. We had a "Zippidy Doo Da" time!

SPLASH MOUNTAIN!! My FAVE!! I said, "Let's try to look like we are bored." Nick said, "Nah! Let's make the most terrified faces we can muster." Here's what we came up with. The people behind us almost peed their pants when they saw our faces.

Ps. Nick's shirt has a shroom on it and it says, "I'm a Fun Guy". This lady in line was all, "Ah ha ha! I love your shirt." Then she tapped her friend and said, "Check out this guy's shirt."

It was pretty toasty outside after Indiana Jones, so we got those delicious pineapple floats!! MMM... refreshing. I could really go for one of those in this nasty AZ heat!!

Then we headed back to LA and went to the Getty Villa in Malibu. Such a cool place. It has Ancient Greek and Aztec art. The outside architechture was really authentic, I felt like I was really in Ancient Greece.

Nick immitating the statue
Me imitating a statue.

That night we made a stop at 21 Choices, the best frozen yogurt place around. All their ingredients are fresh. They have really yummy fruit and other toppings. The people there are so nice, too. They have you taste your yogurt after they mix in the toppings to make sure you like it. =)

Here we are outside of Nick's house, just before we headed back to nasty-weather AZ.

The End

Things troubling me lately...

I'm so happy with so many things in my life right now: I'm really happy with school, I love my major and I'm so passionate about it, I'm excited to start my teaching career, I have a great group of friends in the program who are inspiring to me, I love my job at the ASU Child Development Lab -- the two-year-olds that I work with surprise me and amaze me every day, and they too inspire me and help me to look at life in a different way--, I love my relationship and where it's headed, I love the relationship I have with my sister and my other family members. BUT, there's still something ,or rather someone -- someone so vital, so special-- who is missing in all this happiness, my mom. My sweet, amazing mom. All of these wonderful things are going on in my life without my mom. I want her to be here to share in this happiness. Whenever something good in my life happens I think about how my mom is missing out on it-- she's missing out on another milestone, another accomplishment. I KNOW she would be proud of me, but I want her to be here to tell me that. I want to tell her about all of the funny things the kids said to me or did that day -- she appreciated those kinds of stories in a way that no body else does. Oh how I dream of having conversations with her again. I HATE DEATH!! I hate it so badly sometimes. I don't want it to be a part of life! I don't want anyone to tell me it's all okay because I'll see her again! I want her NOW!! It's just not fair, and I HATE it! I hate hating something, but sometimes I just can't help it. It's too hard not to sometimes. Every girl (or most girls) have such a special bond with their mom, a bond that no one else would/could understand. I had a very special bond with my mom that can never be replaced. I don't ever want it to be replaced. I will NEVER stop missing her. It's a scary feeling. But it would be scarier if I ever did stop missing her-- it's just not possible though. Every girl needs her amazing mom to share that special, personal bond. I will ALWAYS treasure the WONDERFUL, AMAZING relationship my mom and I had.

This is a picture of my mom during our last trip to California. I think she looks beautiful. Her favorite thing to do on vacation was her favorite thing to do all the time, relax in a comfy, pretty place, and READ. She absolutely loved to read, she read predominantly mystery books. She was an amazing reader. She would read 6 books at a time, and finish a 700 page book in a week or less. She loved to just escape into a great novel. If only I could get that into reading. I like reading, but not nearly the way she did. Recently my sister and I have started to become interested in mystery novels and we wish she were here to discuss the books with us-- she would really love that. The best times spent with our mom was sitting and chatting. We had such wonderful, thoughtful conversations with her. She was such a great listener and advice-giver-- never judging. Oh how I love and miss my lovely mom.

It's WAY Better Than Ice Cream

Angel Sweet Gelato is my new favorite dessert. It's so rich and yummy. I'm not really a huge fan of ice cream- I actually prefer fro-yo and gelato over ice cream. They just taste more natural, and they don't make me feel sick and full afterwards the way ice cream does. The day before Nick went back to med school in at USC, we rode our bikes to Angel Sweet Gelato at Riverview. It was a pretty warm day, perfect Gelato-eating-weather.

BEHOLD the delicious flavors of Angel Sweet. My Favs are banana and chocolate.

Look how pretty it is.

We decided to take some silly pics while we were there.

My favorite actvities are always the sweet and simple ones: a bike ride on a nice day, and some yummy gelato. That's my kind of quality time with my sweet boyfriend. =)

Holly-Days 2009

I know Christmas is LONG gone until next year, but I still wanted to post about my holidays now that I have time -- now that I should be working on homework. =) We started off our Winter Break by going to San Francisco, but I don't have my sister's pics from that yet, so I'll post more about that next time. But I will say, it was a blast, and we all want to go back-- there's so much to do there. Anyway, onto Christmas.
*Warning: lots of pictures ahead, but that's the best part of posts anyway, right?

Here is the cute lil tree that I borrowed from my sister. It was just right for my small apartment. I went with a peace them for my Christmas decor this year. The owl and this ball are my favorites.
Our other stockings were lame and out of date, so I made new ones for everyone. (I didn't have time put names on them, but I might just leave them that way.)

See that GORGEOUS purple beach crusiser!!?? That was my Christmas present from my sweet Nick. We rode from my house to Tempe Town lake on New Years Eve. It was so much fun. We have the best winter weather in AZ. I LOVE my bike! Here are our self-timer-pictures. I think they actually turned out pretty nice.

Nick LOVES this one. He likes that it's off-center with the bikes in the background. And, I wasn't even posing in this one, the wind was blowing and I was trying to get my hair out of my face before the timer went off. But it made for a nice candid shot I guess.

I really like this one with the blue sky and deep blue water. =)

DEMON DOG!! Here's our lil family photo. Bender was staring at the blinking light on my camera so he ended up looking possessed. And, that's just how is anyway-- the camera knew the real Bender.

That night we had a Par-tay at Liz and Nav's humble abode. Here is Liz and my sista from anotha motha. I love them both! Steph has always been such a sweet friend/older sister! =)

Nick grilled up some delicious buffalo wings! My baby is a good cook! =)

Happy New Year everyone!

What ever happened to that one girl....Allie was it??

Some of you may have been wondering through sleepless nights about where I've been and what I've been up to. . . Well, I was on hiatus. I had a very busy summer. I had a full-freakin-schedule, which included a class at 7am!! Am I a morning person in the least bit? HELLS NO! Anyhow, that was my boring summer. Things started to pick up at the end of the summer, though, starting with a trip to Utah. I went to my cousin Tina's wedding, and I also went to pick up my new roomie, my cousin Candice! We moved into Liz and Nav's old place (our garage apartment). We are doing fabulous together, especially considering we are sharing a king size bed in a studio apartment-- and we still can't get enough of each other. I call her my heterosexual-life-partner. I know it's weird, since we're related and all, but what can I say, I love that gal. Oh yeah! A week after we moved in, we decided to stop by the pound and we fell in love with a cute puppy, so we rescued him and called him John Bender (Breakfast Club-- he needed a strong name since he's just a little guy). We've also decorated our apartment super cute, and I'll have to post pictures of that in my next post, which won't take 10 months again. So, let's move on the pictures already.

Here are some pictures from Tina's wedding. Don't mind my ugliness (is that a word?), it was windy and I was on a plane just before.

They got cake all over each other! So funny!

This was a before-the-cake-smashing picture. =)

This is Candice's beautiful sister, Mandy with her adorable new baby, Tia! Love them both to bits and pieces!

Tia was so funny, she would smile until the red light on my camera would go off, and then she'd make her "oh" face! So cute! Doesn't Candice look so cute right here too? =)

Bender imidiately ran right under our bed and fell asleep when we brought him home. Aw... He loves just chilling in the mound of pillows.But don't mess with him when he's playing with his zebra! Isn't he a pretty dog? Oh yeah, this is my new friend, Nick. I met this guy over the summer as well. Here we are at his suprise-going-away-dinner, just before he left for med school at USC. He just started med school and he's only 23. Basically, he is the sweetest, smartest, most amazing guy ever!

Preschool kids say the darndest things...

Remember this show?

So, when working with young children you sure hear a lot of funny and awkward things come out of their mouths. They are so open and honest. They haven't learned tact yet. I remember being that way when I was younger too. Lately, the children have said awkward things about boobs. haha. Anyway, I thought I'd share some of the funny conversations I've had while working at the preschool.

Conversation with 5-year-old Josh:

Josh: "I have a Spiderman nightlight in my room."

Me: "Oh really? I need to get a nightlight for my new apartment."

Josh: (Astonished) "You need a nightlight? I didn't know grown-ups got scared."

Me: (Wait! I'm a grown-up? I forgot I was that old. Weird.) ......"uh....yeah, grown-ups get scared sometimes too." (sheesh we're not invincible)

Conversation with 2-year-old Lexi: (While on the couch reading books)

Lexi: "Hey, you have boobs." (said while cupping my boob.)

Allie: ...... "Uh... Thanks?" (Hey, if kids are always honest it must be true. I have boobs.)

Lexi: "They feel crunchy."

Allie: "Okay Lexi, let's just finish our story. What do you say?" (Crunchy?)

Conversation with 3-year-old Maddy:

Okay, first let me tell you that we had a pregnant girl working in the room for awhile.

Maddy: "Allie, do you have a baby in your tummy?"

Allie: (sad tone) "Noo...Maddy, just so you know for future reference, you shouldn't ask girls if they have a baby in their tummy. It hurts their feelings."

Maddy: "Why?"

Allie: "Because it makes them think they are fat."

Maddy: "OOh."

Conversation with 3-year-old Tyler and 4-year-old Jake:

Tyler: "Hey Jake, let's play transformers!"

Jake: "Let's get Allie. I'm going to chop off her leg." (pretends to cut my leg with a stick)

Tyler: "Let's chop off her other leg. Let's chop off her boobs! Let's get her boobs." (don't worry, I was standing up so he couldn't reach).

Allie: (Dumbfounded. Chopping? Boobs?) "Whao, whao, whao. We're not going to pretend like we're chopping anything off. And stop saying boobs, it's not appropriate." (that was awkward).

Those are just some of the daily conversations I have with the kids. I wish I could remeber some of the other crazy things I've overheard. They are hilarious. They sure know how to keep me on my toes. They can be so manipulative sometimes too. But that's what I love about my job-- there's a new surprise each day. Kids are fun and teach me a lot.

Project Time!

School's finally out! Well, it's been out for about three weeks now. It's so weird, I could not wait to finally have time to relax and be free of stinkin' school projects. But after Liz and I got back from Cali a week ago, I didn't know what to do with all my free-time-- when I got off work that is. I felt guilty just sitting around and actually relaxing. I thought, "What the? Why do I feel guilty? It's okay to just be lazy for a bit after such a rough semester." Nonetheless, I continued to feel this void. Maybe a part of it was also the fact that I hadn't had time to think about much but homework during the semester, and then when it was all over, everything hit me-- sad things like, "wow, I haven't been on a date since February?" and "Gee I could really use my wonderful, sweet mom right now-- one of our fun shopping/lunch dates maybe." So basically I began to feel pretty depressed and lonely with all this free time. However, since my sister Liz, and Brother-in-law, Navin, are moving in about a week, I decided to do some projects . First, I made them a house-warming gift.

(They loved it-- they said it went really well with their style. YAY!)

Then I decided to make some fun things for the apartment since it will soon be vacant. Last weekend I went to some antique stores on Main St. and found two way cute frames for a good price. I spray-painted them black and then decided to make my own paintings to put inside of them. I painted a chandelier and I'm almost finished with the Eiffel Tower-- all the straight lines are kinda difficult. But they were fun to make and I can't wait to hang them in the apartment.

Before:

(Both frames had ballerinas. I think I'll save the cute prints and use them in my future daughter's room-- if I have one.)

After:

Almost finished:

Okay, I finished it a couple hours after I posted. Here's the finished product:

Then, I made this headband for my sister. I have a vintage green one just like this one, that I made for myself awhile ago. And Elizabeth was always saying she wanted one, so I decided to make this one for her while I was in my fun project mode. I think it will look way cute in her new dark hair.

The projects really cheered me up.

Also, here are some pictures from our Cali trip. We had so much fun. It was great to relax and be away for a little bit, without any worries. We watched lots of movies, chilled at the beach and pool, and had fun lunches at Jonny Rockets in Laguna Beach. Their moca fudge shakes are to die for! Seriously, so refreshing!