NP celebration dinner!

So, I think most of you know that I finally have a job as a Women's Health Nurse Practitioner. I start on Sept 26th, and am so excited! To celebrate, John & his girlfriend Marisel, and Brad & his fiancee Brea took me out to dinner. Now, yes, it could have been a little awkward riding solo on this outing, and granted, there was a moment or two, but basically, I love these people, and dinner was incredible. We went to the Arrogant Butcher, which is a fox restaurant (all of these are awesome and I have almost eaten at every one of them- but I had never been here). I only have one picture of all of us with our food. But to sum it up. I had an incredible Ribeye. John had Pork & Beans (which was like super-tender pork shank and beans), Marisel had Bolognse (and she's from Panama so she said it all beautiful-like), Brad had this sweet potato pasta which was basically insane, and Brea had salmon, which was actually kind of lame. (But it was ok and she liked it). It was just so good to sit and talk and enjoy everyone. It kind of felt like old times. And they were good times. Love you guys, and thank you!

Spa Day

Some of you may remember my pimp 30th birthday at the Valley Ho. If not, see here.  So I'd experienced the hotel, but not their amazing spa. Luckily, travelzoo had a special for a massage and a facial and you could use their pool, steam room, and fitness center the same day. Done.
So, basically, I love this spa. I'm also a little obsessed with turquoise at the moment, so there's that, too. When I first arrived, they took me to this beautiful locker room where I could put on my slippers and robe.

I love those slippers. And then I sat down in the lounge to drink my lemon water, read about Greece, and wait for my massage therapist. And because I was the only one there, I asked one of the girls who works there to take my picture. Even though I felt silly, I kind of had to. Luis was my massage therapist. Luis is from El Paso, is quite good-looking, has Mayan hieroglyphics tatooed on his forearms, and is basically the most amazing massage therapist in the world. I was in heaven, even though he made me focus on my breathing the whole time. Apparently I'm not the most relaxed breather. :-) The whole experience was so fun. You know how usually the MT leaves the room while you get undressed. Not here! Here Luis just holds up the sheet above his head so he can't see you, you hang your robe on the door, and lay down, and then he covers you up. With like 800 thread count silky smooth sheets. It's basically heaven. And then at some point when you're not paying attention, they put your robe in the warmer so that it's all toasty when you're done with your massage. Then Luis stands behind you and puts your robe on for you while you sit on the table all wrapped up. Then you jump off the table and let the sheets fall to the floor. It's not sexy at all. :-)

So, after the massage, it was back to the lounge for an apple, more lemon water, and to wait for my facial. Now, I've only had one facial ever before and it was far to long, and really, I didn't care for it. But  this one had warm towels, like five different cleansers, a clearsonic scrubber, and, again, a toasty robe waiting for me when I was done. And Jonmark randomly told me my skin looked great for like a week. Win. Win. Win.

Afterwards, I put on my workout clothes and went to the fitness center and yoga room, which had basically the best exercise equipment I had ever seen. I ended up not going to the pool 'cause it was already so late and I was feeling very lazy, but it was an awesome day and I love the Valley Ho spa. (And the next week was nurse's week. So I went back for another massage. Yay!)

The cute pool and view from the fitness center balcony

Grass is a rarity here. I walked around just 'cause I could. 

A pretty fountain. 

Loving Josh Groban.

Now, it's not like anyone has to do a lot of convincing to make someone believe that Josh Groban has an incredible voice. We all love him; how can you not? Jonmark just happens to know him much better than I do. Which is why these tickets were a gift to him. As I mentioned in my paraplegic list (which by the way, almost none of you told me was awesome. And, well, it IS, and if you'd like to, you're more than welcome to 'cause I kind of love it.), so anyways, as mentioned in the list, sometimes you get amazing deals on floor seats because they are wheelchair accessible. Especially if you buy them 6 months early. We were on the 12th row. It was AWESOME.  :-) But I'm getting ahead of myself....
So, Jonmark arranged for us to be picked up by a driver in this fancy Yukon. He bought me a beautiful yellow rose, and it was so fun and fancy. The drive there was pretty uneventful. We got dropped off at one of our favorite restaurants (Jessica, you and I ate here!), and had an awesome dinner. It was kind of like the most relaxed prom ever. :-)

oohhh..... look who's coming to pick me up!

They actually took this away from me at the concert- they thought it was for Josh Groban! um, nope!

FUN!

We were dropped off first at this restaurant nearby called Hanny's. Love this place.
So romantic and so delicious. (And it was close enough to walk to the concert.)

(Somebody bronzed her legs for this....)

Salad- first course

This guy built the restaurant. He came over to talk to us while we told him how amazing it was and
how we love this place. He and his wife went to Groban, too. They were about 5 rows in front of us. 

Second course- Pizza. Yum. But we really needed chocolate. 

One of Two Desserts. The next was a cannoli. This thing was incredible. 

Ok, so sometimes I just take pictures of him when I think he's looking particularly hot. 

Then we walked over to Josh Groban. We ran into some people from my old ward, and my new friend Mandy was there with her sister, too. She was sitting right above the tunnel we came out of. The opener's name was Eric Lewis, or elew. You should YouTube him. He's amazing, even though he makes the craziest faces ever. :-)

And then, it was Josh's turn. He was so charming and so funny and everybody just loved him. And seriously, that voice. What do you do? One member of the audience got to sing a duet with him, and she actually did decent. And, I got the playlist from the security guard when it was over, which was cool. :-) Basically, we just had a blast. I couldn't stop talking about how close we were (I mean, I touched his shoulder!) and Jonmark was just thrilled. At the end of the night, we jumped in our Lincoln Continental and drove home. Absolutely perfect. :-

The secret tunnel that led us to Groban. 

SO AMAZING

Waiting to escort us home.....

Shopping for Josh Groban

Back in February, I bought Jonmark Josh Groban tickets. Despite our on-again, off-again relationship, we decided that no matter what, we were "on" for Josh Groban. We went shopping a few days before. First, Nordstrom Rack, where Jonmark got some sexy Seven jeans, a great white shirt, and silver tie. I went shopping a few days later.

Now, I knew I wanted a white or gray dress. And sometimes it's hard to find a dress that's both long enough-sleevy enough and still sexy and fancy. I was all alone, so I dropped by Neimann Marcus. Now, I have not been in Neimann Marcus in years and years. Certainly not recently enough to realize you can actually buy Versace off the rack there. Seriously? I went in, looked around, tried on an $1800 Pucci dress just 'cause no one was paying attention to me, and headed out the door. On the way out, I looked at a $300 white Theory dress and got "caught." One of the sales people asked what I was looking for, found me about 12 dresses, and set me up in a room. She then brought me fancy schmancy Neimann Marcus water and $900 Valentino shoes to try on with my dresses. Of course.
And some spanx. And I fell in love with a dress. Luckily, it was on clearance. And I'm hoping that I will find many places to wear a $200 Diane von Furstenberg, but basically, it fits awesome (And it barely, but totally covers my G's). And I went to like 6 other stores before I bought it, and quickly realized there would be no other dress that came close. Here's the link to a model wearing it. It's so fun to walk in!

And these are the shoes. From Zappos.

p.s. Do you know they don't take Visa at Neimann Marcus? Apparently that's for common people. Nope, only AmEx, Neimann Marcus cards, and cash. Awesome. and ridiculous.

I moved!!!

So, I think you all know by now that I basically loathed my last place of residence. At some point, I think I finally stopped complaining out loud, but everyday when I inevitably knocked something off my bathroom counter, I cussed inside my head and looked forward to moving. And finally, we endured our lease and MOVED! Vanie and I now live together, just the 2 of us, and it's lovely. We only live about a half a mile from where we did, but now it's in a beautiful apartment instead of that icky house. We have a fitness center and a beautiful pool and I remember how much I love the office holding my packages for me so I don't have to coordinate my schedule with UPS. So, here's the new place. (It took a while to get it all together and even a little longer to get it all clean and put together).

But first off, did you know you can rent a truck for $20 from Home Depot? This comes in handy when all your friends are at work and your work schedule/vacation schedule prevented you from being home to collect your massive entertainment center. This is me (post-gym, which happens to be next door to Home Depot, driving my cool truck)

The sweet new humungous TV. And the entertainment center from Amazon (that I love). That only took me & Jonmark 2hr and 45 minutes to put together (that's 15 minutes less than most of the people who wrote reviews on it). 

Where the dining room table will go when I either a) make it or b) it goes on sale at World Market
 (I meant to take the recycling out before I took this picture)

The Cute Kitchen

I love my Cuisinart toaster. It toasts perfectly. 

Do you see it? All that counter space? In my very own bathroom? whoo-hoo!

I absolutely love this picture. World Market+50% off the grey wooden frame at Michael's.
It adds just the ambience I was looking for (and it matches my towels to a T!)

Grey clock- IKEA. So nice. 

My huge bedroom! Happy Dance Happy Dance. I can do yoga in here!

Bed Bath & Beyond Clearance. It's beautiful, even if those branches are a little scratchy. 

The other cabinet I put together.  Another World Market purchase that I love.
And I love that it matches my dresser like a dream.
(Do you like my green frame? Someday I'm actually going to put a picture in it.) 

I turned this little closet into a linen closet by installing these sweet little shelves. So proud. 

Closet

Inside my closet

The rest of the closet

Cute sign from Sedona

And you can come visit me.....!