Ocean Warriors

So of all the things we did on vacation, I was most excited to go ocean kayaking.
I think it's safe to say it was the thing my mom was least excited about.
More than once she said, "Now, if we run out of time and can't go kayaking, that's ok."
No mom, that is not ok. That is the ADVENTURE part of the trip. And there always has to be an adventure part.
Friday morning was cold and overcast. We were a little nervous about freezing to death on our kayaks. We called ahead, wondering what to wear. The nice lady on the phone said she would give us wetsuits this morning because it was so cold. Much better than the swimsuits and sweatshirts we considered wearing.
A shuttle picked us up right across from our hotel and drove us down. The shop was total chaos, but luckily, there were a lot of different types of tours, so only 14 of those 100 people were in our group. My mom and I got in our wetsuits, and we headed down to the beach. (Just a side note, my mom and I weigh within 2 pounds of each other. She just lost some weight to get to this point, or she would never have let me take these pictures. It is fun to have someone else's body be so exactly the same as mine. Fascinating, actually.)

We watched 2 of the 3 kayaks ahead of us flip right over in the surf getting in the ocean. And then it was our turn. And we actually did great. It was so fun going over the big wave. And it was crazy feeling like we were in the middle of the ocean. I had never been so far out and the big swells under us were just crazy.
And then a little tiny swell flipped us over. For no apparent reason. Our tour guide held our kayak while we jumped back in. The rest of the tour was really calm and fun. We went in a little cave, saw some cool orange fish, and paddled next to sea lions. Our tour guides were really fun, and they made the whole thing.
We were warned that going back in might be the toughest part, but we did great for the first two waves. And then a huge wave knocked us out of the boat and threw our paddles from us. And then we got hammered by a few more waves. And we both agreed that was the funnest part. We couldn't stop laughing even as we were coughing up salt water. We looked like drowned rats, but we still felt like rockstars. I mean, if you can kayak in the ocean, what CAN'T you do?

La Jolla calls....

As nice as the condo and Imperial Beach was, I kept having flashbacks of Spring Break 2009 and La Jolla was calling. The beach there is beautiful and the place just screams vacation. And, well, this girl needed a vacation. We cleaned up the condo (really, my mom did most of that. I really can't take that credit. That's one of the many pluses of taking a mom on vacation), locked it up, and drove 20 minutes to La Jolla. First stop...the temple.
The San Diego temple is simply one of the most gorgeous ever. That's just the way it is. It is getting cleaned right now, so some of the windows are taped up, but my mom and I did a session there, and it was just beautiful. We also did family names for two sisters, which made it even better.


Next, Burger Lounge. We went there last year also, and, basically, they are the best hamburgers in the world. And they didn't disappoint.

And then. We went to our hotel. Now, finding a hotel in San Diego requires a lot of searching. There are gaslamp district hotels, which are cool, but mostly if you want to go clubbing. There are beautiful resort hotels, but they are miles away from La Jolla and everything else. So finding the perfect hotel in La Jolla can be rough. We stayed at La Valencia. It was built in 1926, it's in the middle of La Jolla, it's kinda fancy, and it looks out directly over the ocean. We decided that if two nights were free for vacation, one $300 night was okay. Especially if the hotel upgraded us to the $500 room, which they did. The view was incredible. The bed was incredible. And the whirlpool tub was incredible. Whoo-hoo!!

The Mormon Battalion, The Island, and, of course, cupcakes.

The rest of Thursday was spent doing random things, trusting the GPS and yelp to get us everywhere we needed to go, and hoping we didn't die while I learned to merge California-style. (Truth be told, it's kind of an adrenalin-rush, but I really don't mind driving there at all. )
We first went to the Mormon Battalion visitors center in Old Town. In 1847, the US Army asked for 500 volunteers to go west for the army for the war with Mexico. Brigham Young prophesied that if they were faithful, they would never have to fight, but that it would be a great way financially to get their families out west. It turned out just like that. It was a rough rough march, but they learned irrigation techniques, brick-laying techniques, and provided a great trail out west. The visitors' center has just been re-done and is really cute. The little movies were so fun, and the little sister missionaries were cute, too.


Next stop was Coronado Island. I'm sure there are things we missed here. It was quaint, but mostly we just drove across the bridge (very cool) and went and ate. Brigantine got great yelp reviews, but it was really just another "ok" restaurant on this trip. It was during this meal that I wondered if I've had too much great food in my life because I wasn't so awesomely impressed. Our service was great. Our Spinach Brig salads were perfection, and I even had two oysters, just for the novelty. They were great, too. My mom had blackened sea bass and I had mahi mahi, both of which were just ok.

So then. We got cupcakes.
The GPS led us through the San Diego jungle until we dropped in downtown to BabyCakes. Really, I was full, but you just can't ignore a store called BabyCakes. I ordered the pistachio and the signature babycake. I think I got a strawberry, which was not good. But the signature one, which was chocolate with cheesecake on the bottom with cream cheese frosting was stinkin' AMAZING. I ate half that night and the other half for breakfast. :-)

Shades of Blue

NO I'M NOT ENGAGED. (And no John and I aren't dating, either. I just realized what putting a tiffany's box might do to the hearts of my dear readers.) The real story is....I haven't written too much about my clinicals (which is really kind of sad). I have been working with a great NP who does only gynecology and she is absolutely fabulous. Really, I couldn't have asked for a better experience. She has taught me so much, and the preceptors who help us out at ASU do not get paid. Last week was our last day together, and to thank her, I put together the coolest gift basket I have maybe ever (and I really really can't believe I didn't take a picture). It included a massage at a great spa, some earrings, some cute little juice glasses with her initials on them, some other little random things, and a gift certificate to Tiffany's. All her jewelry is from there, and even though the gift certificate really could only buy half of anything, it was so fun to buy a little blue box from there. It felt so so fun.
When I gave it to her, she thanked me, and then handed me the keys to her condo in San Diego. I was in shock. That was not what I had expected. But...it was appreciated. There are so many cool places to stay in San Diego, and I knew so little about the town, that I hadn't even booked our hotels yet. So this was awesome.
We rented us a cute little red Nissan Sentra, I got a smoothie (carbs reserved for vacation), and we headed out.

We didn't get in until about 9pm, but we slept like rocks. The condo was very beachy and very blue (she loves dolphins and all that stuff). The master bathroom felt so so gloriously spacious, and the bed was wonderful. We slept with the windows open every night while the ocean breeze (about 40 degrees cooler than AZ) made everything perfect.




The condo was on Imperial Beach, which is about 3 seconds from Mexico, which is crazy. The beach was nice, and we had a great lunch of halibut tacos on the pier. I managed to get a little sunburn in about an hour and a half....proof that I need to get outside more often!

Mom Comes to Town.....VACATION!!!

Tuesday night (the 10th), my mom came into town. A few months ago, we decided to take a vacation together during this school break. I was feeling like I never take vacations since school is in, and she decided she would love to come hang out, so it was on. San Diego here we come!!

My mom loves sushi, so that first night before we left we went to Sushi Roku, after getting their groupon, at the W hotel. We brought John with us, since we were going to abandon him here for the next few days. Sushi Roku was fun. The ambience was great, the eggplant miso was delicious, and the yellowtail appetizer was fabulous, but the sushi itself was actually pretty lame.

If I didn't even bother taking a picture, you know it wasn't all that. We did, however, take pictures of ourselves.

My mom and I also went to Scottsdale Fashion Square in search of some great shoes. Sometimes it takes someone visiting from out of town to realize what you have in your own backyard. Like, "the best Banana Republic store in the world."

WHAT???

Guess what!!?! I'm blogging! Which can only mean one thing...the semester is over!! One more to go until I am officially a nurse practitioner. Whoo-hoo!

On to more important things:

Like my car battery. Because, midnight though it might be, I promised Jessica I would blog tonight. Promised.

So. On Wednesday, my car wouldn't start to take me to work. Nothing. Nada. Nothing. Not a thing. My car gave absolutely no response to the necessity of taking me to work. The roommates and I tried to jump it. It started to click, but that was it. No Altima driving that day.

Vanie (roommate) took me to work, and I got a ride home the next, confused about why on earth my battery would be dead.

When I woke up on Thursday, Vanie and I tried again, letting her truck run for about 5 solid minutes before attempting to jump my car. Again. No dice. The battery was gone.

Now, I am not one to save receipts. I have been known to hand them back to cashiers to throw away simply so they won't accumulate in my car. But for some reason I held on to this one. Deep in my glove box was a receipt from May 2005, faded and barely legible, from AutoZone. For this car battery. With a SEVEN year warranty. Oh I was so happy.

So I threw the battery in Vanie's truck and away we drove to AutoZone. When I brought my battery in and set it on the counter and announced that my battery only lasted 5 years, the guy at the counter said, "Um, WHAT?"

This echoed Vanie's response when I had told her that I thought my battery was 5 years old. "um, WHAT? Batteries don't last that long. They last 1 year out here. Maybe MAYBE 3. They do not last 5 years."

Well, MY cool little DuraLast lasted 5 years. All this being impressed kind of took away the anger I had about it dying in the first place.

The little worker guy was shocked. "What kind of car do you drive?"

"A '99 Altima."

"WHAT?"

"Yeah, dude, an altima. It's amazing."

I got $15 for my used battery (apparently it's only a full warranty for the first 2 years). And, also, since I had my receipt I got the 2005 price for the battery which was $49.99 instead of $79.99.

Which means I paid $35.00 for my brand new battery. Of which I will never buy a different brand.

Nor will I ever throw away my receipt.

Later on, Vanie watched in awe as I installed my new battery with my little pink pliers.

Ahhh....the things that make me happy.

New House

Let me be clear:

I did not pick out my new house.

It is gray. GRAY on the outside. There is no grass in sight. It has rocks for a front yard and dead dirt in the back.

There are pretty small closets.

There are tinier bathrooms. Two of them.

There is no garage and no carport.

And there is weird air circulation and weird built-on rooms.

However.

There is a great kitchen.

Cool tile.

Decent carpet.

Decent-size bedrooms.

And it's coming together. I bought some shelves. The last roommate (Gina) just got here from Utah this morning. And instantly went on a jamba juice hunt. (Definitely from up north. I did the same thing when I got here.) I initiated Vanie into late nights talking until 5am (unfortunately, she didn't sleep in the next day. I felt so bad! No more late nights for her). Between work and school and clinicals, it has taken me over a week to have the house look close to put-together. I almost killed Cox communications this week (really? you left the house instead of calling me like I told you to? I have to wait 3 more days now?). It took about 6 days to find the garbage can (in the alley; there are big garbage cans for all the neighbors. Odd, but I like it.)

Anyways, pictures coming soon. Promise. Meanwhile, here's one of Vanie being handy.

Did I mention I bought an electric screwdriver? I love it. It's my first power tool. I bought it right after I swore I was never ever buying any more stuff.

Good-bye, House

So last week I finally moved. It was crazy, as it always is. It's only when I move that I realize just how much stuff I have. I don't have clutter. I wouldn't say my house feels crowded when things are put away, but when you start to pull everything off the shelves you start to realize just how much is there. See, being 30 and single is kind of a weird situation when it comes to stuff. It's like if I had a husband to go with all this stuff it would make more sense. Or actually, even if I just had a house and a garage. That would help. As it is, having all this stuff just seems a little crazy now. But I like to go on adventures, and I've kind of been the mom of whatever house I've lived in for quite a few years. So that means when someone says, "Christin, do you have....
a pasta machine? yes
a raft? yes
hydrogen peroxide, band-aids, a thermometer? yes

a desk? yes
some pictures? yes
a snow cone maker? yes
a grill? yes
a tent? yes
an exercise step? yes
The answer, essentially, is always yes.
Which is nice for living and terrible for moving. Especially when it's just me and John, who, thankfully, was sweet enough to take off two days of work just to help me move. Over two days, probably 24 full hours were spent moving. We rented my Penske and started loading up. Over and over again. Now, the other day, I had asked my co-workers exactly what caused their arguments with their significant others, thinking how lucky I was that John and I pretty much never argue. And then I found out what makes us argue:
112 degree weather
11 hours of moving
Me buying stupid couches at an estate sale that don't fit in Brad's storage unit.
John telling me what to do too much.
A little house.
A 200 pound dresser that the drawers don't come out.
It wasn't like we were truly mad at each other, but we were definitely ready for the day to be over. It was long and crappy and exhausting.
And then while I went to clinicals the next day for 9 hours, John did the rest of it. I will never ever be able to pay him back for all of this.
Saturday I cleaned the old house. I thought of all the fun memories of that house.
Our first (terrible) reaction to it.
My first living-by-myself experience.
Becoming a nurse.
Watching The Office in Brad's room.
All the Dinner Parties.
Ariana's "walk of shame"
Summer with Bridget
Cupcakes
Blue Bell
Meeting John
The Guest Book
Yes, the house was a little dark. And more than a little brown. But there's a lot of good memories in those walls. And I'll miss it. Good-bye little house.

Inside My Dreaming Brain

There are lots of mornings I wake up and want to tell someone about my dreams. Simply because, they. are. so. weird.
Last night was maybe a little crazier than most.
It started with dream that John called me and said, "You'd better hurry and come pick me up because I think I'm...." and then the phone hung up. I thought gangsters were getting him, and it actually scared me enough to wake me up out of a dead sleep.
When I went back to sleep (three whole minutes later), a wooly mouse was running through our hospital and it was very important for some reason to catch it (and save it or kill it, I'm not sure). All I know is I followed it outside amidst some security guards and a person wearing "LDS people are Hispanics too" with the letters made out of those kiddie magnets on refrigerators.
This was, of course, followed by a family vacation of all of us riding flying jet skis over Phoenix. Dreamland Phoenix looked a lot like a cross between Disneyland and the Candy Land board game. Brad was upset that we couldn't fly a little lower and go exploring more, and I kind of wanted to, too, but my dad really wanted to get wherever we were going. I think Brad and I took a little detour anyways.
When I woke up, I was exhausted, even 8 hours of sleep. At least it was an adventurous night.

Hip de Dip

So I've been wanting a new comforter for awhile. Not that I want to permanently get rid of the one I have, but I needed a change. Unfortunately, this is the kind of change that is usually expensive and has to be just perfect, you know? And most of the ones I've looked at are too much of an investment, and I only kind of like them. Yesterday I was at Marshall's and found this one!!!

For $90, it came with the bedskirt, the comforter, two pillows, the sheets, and two shams. I threw the sheets away. I think they were like 50 thread count. Seriously. But I had expected that. Luckily, the nice sheets I had already matched great. The comforter is also a tiny bit scratchy, but I washed it in the washing machine (and it survived) and put fabric softener in it, and now it's fabulous, too. So now my bedroom looks a little more modern, and my comforter for the summer months doesn't weigh 100 pounds. Yay!

Geriatric Love

Last Friday night, I was looking through etsy when I came across vintage jewelry. Vintage jewelry that was listed as "Vintage Estate" jewelry. At which point my little brain put two and two together and I thought, "How is it possible that live so close to Scottsdale and I've never been to an estate sale?" and "Tomorrow is Saturday!!"
So I googled estate sales and was even more pleased to discover that an estate sale featuring Danish furniture was taking place in Sun City just the next morning. Now, Sun City is a remarkable little place. Twenty-five miles northwest of Tempe sits this town of 38,000 entirely created for retired grandmas and grandpas. Literally. The entire town. This is a town where signs like this are on nearly every street:

The lawns are perfectly manicured, and all the trash cans are underground in the yard so you can just throw your garbage bags in without hurting your back. It's lovely, really.
And there are a lot of estate sales.
For those of you not familiar with estate sales, they generally go like this: Someone dies, and their relatives let you go through their house and buy their old stuff. In some situations (like in North Scottsdale or Paradise Valley), this amounts to great art collections and vast amounts of jewelry. It was somewhat different in Sun City.
First, at the first one I went to, it was the third day of the sale, and it was $2 for anything you could fit in a plastic bag. It was all well and good except I didn't want mozart LP's or her old books. So I went into her closet. At which point I realized maybe nurses shouldn't go to estate sales. Because we are much too AWARE of things. Like the arm sling hanging next to her dresses. Did she fall and break her arm? Was it the beginning of her unfortunate demise? Of course, I still got two cute little vintage dresses that I realized yesterday are much too small for me, but I still think of her closet whenever I look at them.
I ended up driving around the neighborhoods and finding three estate sales (apparently, not so hard to find here). And seriously people. DON'T TRY TO SELL THEIR BATHROOM STUFF. Throw away the tweezers and the hemorrhoid cream and the nail clippers. People who don't know each other shouldn't share this stuff. I know what old people nails look like and this is gross. Aren't there rules for this somewhere?!?! It's tacky and it's gross and I really wanted to tell someone, but then I felt bad because maybe they were grieving and obviously not thinking straight. I almost slipped it all into a garbage can for the sake of everyone's sanity. Maybe next time.
Because there will be a next time. Because despite the obvious lack of tact, there were some excellent moments.
I got a great little tablecloth, some cute little vintage handkerchiefs, and at the last one, I hit the jackpot.
This again, is where being a nurse made things too real. I picture too much the cute little old guy that lived there and his shoe size and what he ate for breakfast and I kind of feel I'm trespassing. And then I bought two of his shirts, his suit, a fabulous leather suitcase, two chairs, and two retro couches. All for $33. Now, the chairs are great wood and need to be recovered. The couches and the suitcase are for Brad. And the couch, despite it's amazing yellow velour-ness, really needs to be recovered.

But Brad is really good at that kind of stuff. And I think the cute old guy would be glad his stuff lives on with someone as cool as us. (Even though John was not thrilled at driving back up to Sun City with our friend Phil's truck to go back and get all these treasures. Luckily we got bungee cords from the 99 cents store...)
I gave Lena one of the shirts last night because it's super sweet. I get to borrow it at will.
I went through the suitcase and found two vitamins and a glipizide. It was a low dose, so I guess he was a newly diagnosed diabetic. Really. Maybe nurses who love old people shouldn't do this sort of thing.

(The suitcase says "free & easy" which also happens to be one of Brad's favorite country songs.)

The Dailey Method

So I was a pretty good cross-trainer in the month of May. I swam, I did yoga, I did Zumba, I lifted, and I did the Dailey Method. The Dailey Method is a fancy-schmancy Scottsdale class that also happens to be in Paris. It's loosely based on ballet and is a lot of moving your body 1 inch at a time. Supposedly it gives you very long lean muscles.
It is true that I couldn't walk for about 2 hours afterwards.
But I wasn't sore the next day.
And I totally looked like a football player next to those girls.
And I was reminded that North Scottsdale is its own special place full of lots of money and lots of plastic.
And I had to buy 3 classes to go so I have two more of these magical experiences. Whoo-hoo!

Self Workout

So the other day I was thinking I would like to use the cable machine more but I wasn't sure how. And then this workout was in SELF this month! Perfect!

I've done it twice, and it's fabulous!

Phoenix's Camelback

On my list of 100 things in 1001 days is hiking Boise's camelback and Phoenix's. So far I've done Boise's twice, but until Friday morning I hadn't done Phoenix's. Mostly because I didn't want to hike it alone, and schedules always seemed to conflict. But John took me on Friday morning. Because it's already 100 here (110 today to be exact), we had to get started early. He came over at 7 and we got already with our sunscreen and our 6 bottles of water and our energy bars and headed out. It's only a little over a mile long, but its 1200 feet up. There's a lot of bouldering, which is very different from any hike I've ever been on (and it's in the middle of a huge city, which is crazy). There were a ton of people hiking it; some in terrible clothes, some in terrible shoes, some running it like it was a track. We had a blast, though, and the scenery was fabulous. Here's some pics!






The last picture that looks like just a bunch of rocks is actually the "trail" down!

The Deeper Things in Life

Ok, so really, not deep at all. But very fun. First, I got grey nail polish, and I love it. I think it looks very classy.
The color is "You Don't Know Jacques!" and it's everything I thought grey nail polish should be. (I blurred out my bathroom stuff as to not be distracting....)


Secondly, I am about to move in with roommates, one of whom I went shopping with the other day. Here is what she talked me into buying. I still don't know quite how, but I do know I'm wearing them to church today!!

AND... Banana Republic is having a deal this summer (until August 31st) that if you buy ANYTHING in the store (even a $3 chapstick), you get a $20 giftcard if you shop on Tuesday. And even with this deal, it's taken me a month to be able to get there on a Tuesday. I thought I was going to get a pink shirt I had seen earlier, but it was a little blah, and I still always feel the need to spice up my wardrobe from what I usually wear. Hence, the zebra tank. I love it.

Two more things: Nordstrom was having a sale, and I almost never ever shop there. But they have fabulous shirts that are at least as great as SHADE shirts called STEM that were on sale for $17, so I bought one in purple and one in yellow. They are basic and similarly boring as much of my wardrobe, but also very soft and organic cotton and therefore cooler. I also got this crazy shirt there that I really think is great for dinner dates and maybe for occasional church with a black shirt under it and a black skirt. This is just me trying it on in the store:

And I finally got adorable flats. See, we have this friend we lovingly call Polly, as in Polly Pocket. She's the tiniest girl I know. And she is very fashionable and can wear a lot of things that would look very awkward on me, although I always always dream of having her sense of style. I think these shoes are the one thing that we could both wear, and I think of her every time I do.

And they were on sale and are so comfortable. And now I don't have to wear converse tennis shoes with my gray cardigan anymore. Whew!