Recent Life Happenings

Life in grad school is always busy (as demonstrated by the fact that I started this blog over two weeks ago and am just now getting back to it), but I do find time here and there to have a little fun.

The weekend after Valentine's Day, Tad and I joined the Mission Nazarene college group to make the communion elements for the week. We hung out and had Pat & Oscars for dinner, and then set to work making grape juice and bread. Yes, that's right, we made grape juice. We squished up the grapes, added sugar, boiled them, and then strained out the skins. I certainly wouldn't drink a whole glass of it, but it wasn't bad. It was also nice getting to know some of the others a little bit better.

The following weekend I spent at home, partially to celebrate Dave's birthday, and partially to go to Elizabeth's bridal shower. It was a beautiful shower, at the Grand Del Mar hotel. I got to meet and chat with friends I hadn't met as well as some of her family and family to be. We had a wonderful lunch, played a couple fun shower games, and watched her open gifts. I can't wait for the wedding next month! :)

the beautiful bride-to-be

After the weekend, Tad moved from the room he'd been renting to his own apartment. It's a one bedroom in a gated community several blocks from SDSU. It isn't the area he'd wanted, but it's affordable rent, and I can walk there from my building. We've spent quite a bit of time over the last few weeks gathering furnishings for the apartment. I've spent enought ime there that I'm starting to feel like I'm moving in, which makes it hard not to take over ont he decorating! haha

I went home again this past weekend, and did NO homework, whatsoever. It was glorious. I spent time in our now complete jacuzzi in the backyard, cooked with my mom, and went out to lunch with Raelene. I love my weekends at home with my family.

And now I'm home sick. On one hand it stinks being sick, on the other, I don't really enjoy Tues night's class, and being sick now will hopefully mean I'll break my streak of getting sick in April :o)

First Valentine's Together

This year was the fourth Valentine's Day since Tad and I have been together, yet it was the first we were able to actually spend together, which made it very special :)

Neither of us have very much money right now, so we agreed it wouldn't be anything formal or very pricey, but we wanted to do something more than just hang out and eat mac n cheese. Last weekend, in talking about some friends' plans, Tad said "hey, just so you know, we do have plans for next Sunday." "Great!" I said, "What are we doing?" and in what are becoming famous words of his, he said "It's a surprise." That was really fun, because I got to look forward to another surprise date, for the whole week.

I had just enough money to buy him a really cute card, and I told him not to worry about getting me a gift. I was thrilled to just to get to spend the day with him. But he has this tendency to not listen to me on things like that :)

Saturday night I called him and he said he was at Gamestop running an errand. I asked what he was getting, and his response was "I may be picking up your Valentine's present." I thought this was a bit strange, wasn't quite sure what he'd be getting me from Gamestop, but I went with it. Later that evening he said "oh, by the way, your Valentine's gift is Guitar Hero World Tour." "Oh, ok," I thought, "A gift for both of us to enjoy, I can handle that."

Well, as I said, he's a sneaky one and likes surprising me. When we arrived at church the next morning, I moved to get out of the car, and he grabbed my wrist. "hey," he said, pulling something out of his pocket, "Did you really think I'd get you a video game for Valentine's Day?" and put a beautiful silver bracelet of little, interlocked hearts around my wrist. (Side not, he did actually buy the game, it was just a convenient cover for him, haha)

After church, we stopped by his place to get a few things, and then came back to the condo for lunch. We made a frozen pizza, and then baked a "Cherry chip" Betty Crocker cake that Tad had bought special for the day. We enjoyed our food while watching a Star Wars spoof with Anja and James. That finished just in time for us to head off for our surprise plans. Tad announced that we were going to Boomers for mini golf and other activities. Mini golf was our first actual "date", we went to Boondocks the first weekend we saw each other after we became official. That made it special to me.

We had fun. Boomers has two mini golf courses: a Western themed one, and a "Story book" themed one. Tad beat me 63 to 77 (par 53, lol) on the Western one, and played one handed on the story book course as a handicap for me. I beat him 57 to 69 (again, par 53). We turned in our clubs and went for a ride on the ferris wheel, followed by two rounds on the go carts (on which we pretended we were playing real life Mario Kart, hehe).

Opting to not get wet on the bumper boats, we left Boomers just in time to catch the start of half price appetizers at Applebee's. Being a special occasion, I got a strawberry lemonade, and we shared honey bbq wings and mozzerella sticks.

I was bushed by the time I got home and to bed, but I had such a wonderful day. I'm so blessed to finally have him here with me. We had a great "first" Valentine's Day.

On the ferris wheel with my Valentine

My God is with Me

The Sermon on the Mount, but particularly Matthew 5:10-12, is my hope and my comfort right now.

"Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousnesfor theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you"

It's been a rough few days, but God is always with me, and I praise Him that more than any time before when faced with suffering, I am clinging to Him. All things have a purpose for God's bigger plan. Not all things are pleasant, some hurt us quite a bit, but the outcome is all for good.

I am blessed to have one roommate who shares in my convictions and stands with me on this. I am blessed to have a family who loves and supports me and comforts me when I find hard times. I am blessed to have a loving boyfriend who cares for me and does everything humanly possible to make me feel better when I feel hopeless.

We think we have come up with a compromise that will last us until our lease ends. After that, hopefully we can find someone else with similar values.

Continued Prayers Appreciated

Did not go as planned. I feel about as low as I can get, and I don't know where the resolution is going to come from.

Right now, I just want to be far far away, curled in a ball.

Prayers Appreciated

I'm having trouble with one of my roommates. She's been seeing a guy about a month and had a guy sleep over Wednesday night. I am completely not ok with this (which I thought was clear), but when I confronted her about it, she wasn't very receptive. My other roommate and I need to talk to her about it again and be more firm that she can either not have him over, or find other living arrangements.

I HATE conflict, so this is really hard on me. I would appreciate prayers of strength (emotionally and spiritually) for me and my roommate as we confront her and deal with this, and that her heart would be open to changing her behavior to respect our boundaries as roommates.

Wait, He's Still Here?

It's been just over a month since Tad moved down here to San Diego, and I think we may be starting to feel a sense of normalcy about it.

This is a whole new experience for us, largely (at least in my opinion) in part due to the fact that we see each other for a few hours, and then separate. Obviously this is much healthier than spending every waking second together (like we had to on visits), but it felt weird at first. Any time he'd leave to go home, I'd start feeling like he was leaving town...and then he'd come back the next day, weird! lol

Making his new life down here has definitely been a stretch for him. He found a job several weeks ago (praise the Lord!) as a game tester for Sony (can you think of anything more perfect for him?) and has since been trying to find a different place to live. Living with two 60 year old men, as a 23 year old, he's found, is like living with your parents, except you don't know these people who are telling you what to do. The house hunt is still on, but he's had some good leads, so hopefully something will turn up soon.

In the meantime, we've been quite enjoying each other's company. He's spent quite a bit of time hanging out with my family here at home, we had a game night with Raelene and Nate, dessert night over at his aunt and uncle's, dinner out at Fudrucker's to celebrate the new job, surprise date night to Applebee's for half price appetizers, and fun hanging out at the free "Aztec Night" events on campus for the start of the semester.

I'm thoroughly enjoying having him in town, and look forward to our relationship getting more "normal" as we learn to relax a little, knowing that neither of us is going anywhere :)

Caribbean Getaway

What a wonderful trip, I'm pretty sure it helped me regain my sanity! hahaha I'm going to attempt to keep this at a "not too long" length, but I tend to be pretty windy in my blogging, so we'll see.

1/2/10 Travel to Puerto Rico
Our trip started at 5:00 on a Saturday morning. The trip through the San Diego airport went without any hitches as did our flight to Atlanta. We entertained ourselves with the onboard trivia game for a good portion of the flight. Atlanta gave us a special treat in that it was 32 degrees farenheit when we arrived. We had lunch, and somehow convinced airport officials to let me relieve Valencia out on the tarmack...something that has not been allowed since 9/11. Go figure. From Atlanta we finished our flying and arrived in much warmer and much more humid,, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

My parents had planned for us to stay the night in San Juan and have Sunday morning and afternoon to explore the city before boarding the ship. We stayed at the Isla Verde Marriott. (Isla Verde is a part of San Juan). The hotel was still decorated quite festively for the Christmas season (all Hispanic countries have a major celebration on Jan 6 for Epiphany, or "3 King's Day" as they call it). There was a live band playing in one of the hotel's bars and there were people dacning EVERYWHERE, including the main lobby, haha It was quite the party!

Upon checking in we were given coupons for free drinks from one of the bars, so we dropped off our luggage in our rooms and went to go get dinner and our drinks. My mom and I both enjoyed a mojito, pretty good and not too much alcohol. The atlantic ocean serenaded us as we ate our dinner out on one of the patios. By the time we finished eating, we were all plenty ready for bed.

1/3/10 San Juan and the Caribbean Princess
Sunday morning la familia arose at a decent hour, ate breakfast at the hotel buffet, and set off for our adventure around the city. Our cab driver Eric took us through the districts in New San Juan and dropped us off at El Morro fort. El Morro dates back to the 16th/17th centuries when Puerto Rico was a part of Spain. It is also where some of the Die Another Day James Bond movie was filmed. After leaving El Morro, we had a thorough walking exploration of Old San Juan before meeting up again with Eric and heading to the ship.

Our check in time before boarding was expedited thanks to having Valencia and in no time we were up eating lunch at the buffet.

Our fabulous room steward Ariel helped us get setted, and sent us in the right direction to find Valencia's potty station for the trip. That's seriously been the most frequent question I've been asked "how did she go potty on the ship". They had several small wood boxes with woodchips int hem, basicay like a giant litter box.

And then it was time to get ready for dinner. We had first seating in the Palm Dining Room. Our table was right by a window, which gave us great views on a couple of the evenings. Our servers were wonderful, Anya (from Ukraine) and Borche (from Macedonia). Highlight from dinner #1: prime rib. Following dinner I went with my parents to a flamenco and classical guitar show by Juan Carlos and then to the Sail Away party with my dad and Steve.

1/4/10 St Thomas
The ship docked bright and early Monday morning in St Thomas, thus we arose bright and early to eat breakfast in the Coral dining room, change into our swim gear, and head ashore for our "Champagne Cruise". The tour company bused us across the island in an open air bus, to the dock where we met our crew for the excursion: Johnny, Eric, and Joe of The Adventurer (who informed us they weren't classy enough to call their trip a "champagne cruise" but instead a "booze cruise" lol).

This catamaran ride was I think Valencia's favorite part of the entire trip. We let her sit on deck with us and watch the water go by. She was in doggy heaven. Our guides took us from St. Thomas to St. John's, another of the US Virgin Islands, where we had time to snorkel, swim, or hang out ont he beach. I did a little of all 3, but mostly hung out on the beach.

On our trip back to St. Thomas is when the party really started. Our crew broke out the fruit platters, mimosas, and rum punch, and we rocked out to classic rock and Bob Marley all the way back to shore.

Before getting back on the ship, my mom and I did a bit of shopping. We bought a pair of sterling and larimar (a local stone) earrings from a native lady named Mandla. Once back aboard we grabbed some pizza from the pool deck, and had a nap.

Monday was the first of our formal nights, so all of us got snazzed up and headed down for night #2 of amazing food. Highlight of dinner #2: nutella icecream. We took a family portrait in the Mezzanine, watched the champagne fountain get kicked off, and went to a comedian show. After the show, my dad and I played Jeopardy trivia with several Canadian ladies on our team.

1/5/10 Dominica
Another delicious breakfast was made more fun by our server with the sweets tray "Sugar, for my honey?" (directed to Dave, lol). The island of Dominica gave us our sudden Caribbean rain shower experience, as we dashed to the shoppping warehouse by the dock. I bought a woven straw hot pad type mat and several kinds of spices.

I had a nap back on ship, then lunch with the family in the dining room. After gazpacho, half a cheeseburger, and some delicious Italian icecream, we set off for snorkeling trip #2. This was also a champagne snorkel, but champagne in this case referred to bubbles int he water due to volcanic activity. It was pretty neat, plus we got to see the site of some of the Pirates of the Caribbean filming.

Highlight of dinner #3: key lime pie

We opted for the hypnotist show Tuesday evening and then did some shopping out int he mezzanine.

1/6/10 Grenada
Unfortunately, by the time we got to Grenada, it was evident I had caught a cold and an ear infection. I seem to have this habit of getting sick on family vacations now. I still enjoyed the day, but was a little sleepier throughout it.

Our tour for the day was a driving tour of the island. Our tour guide Luther took us to Fort Frederick, a volcanic crater lake, to see a local lady who is very knowledgeable about spices, and to a beautiful waterfall. Grenada has a very old timey Dutch look and feel to it, which makes it a very cute place, and very very green.

The ship was in port shorter Wednesday because we had quite a ways to go to get to our next port. We were back aboard for lunch (pizza again) and icecream from the pool deck, and then (you guessed it) nap time.

Wednesday was Italian night for dinner, including proscuto, nippy peach soup (favorite soup of the trip), veel scalopini, and tiramisu.

1/7/10 Bonaire
Bonaire is another Dutch West Indies island. We explored some shops in the town nearest the dock and then took a taxi over to the best snorkeling beach I have ever seen. The water was so incredibly clear I couldn't believe it. If you waded out to about waist deep, and looked down, there were your feet, and TONS of fish. We had lunch on the beach before returning to the ship for a nap.

Highlights of dinner #5: lemon strawberry sorbet, and I tried ratatouille

The show Thursday was my favorite of the comedians on this trip. Afterwards we watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding in our stateroom.

1/8/10 Aruba
The fifth and final port on our cruise was Aruba. Aruba and Bonaire were my favorites of the ports. We took a bus from Oranjstad to Palm Beach. Palm Beach is along where mos tof the main resorts in Aruba are. After we'd had our fill of beach time for the day, we explored one of the nearby resorts, and went back to the ship to shower, change, and have lunch

I went back into town with my parents to do some shopping. While there, my dad and I picked up soem phrases in Papmiento (the language of the island, a mix of French, Dutch, Spanish, and a few others). My mom and I got matching necklaces from a jewelry shop on the way back to ship.

Friday was our second formal night. Highlight of dinner #6: feasant with challots.

We took a second family portrait, and had a Lindsey/Valencia photoshoot, which made a lot of people in line very happy.
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In lieu of a show, my parents and I went to the "newlywed/Not so Newlywed" game, amusing, but slightly awkward at times.1

1/9/10 At sea
The finald ay of our voyage was spent entirely at sea (making our way back across the Caribbean from Aruba to San Juan). We arose a bit late and got breakfast from the buffet. Down in one of the dining rooms was an "outlet sale". Basically they put on sale stuff that has been in inventory for a looong time, lol. I did get a cute shirt from it though.

Then came an activity I'd never done on a cruise before. I went to the ship doctor (for my ear). They gave me some antibiotics and ear drops fo the infection.

I then joined my dad and Steve for morning trivia, which we won! We went to the Crown Dining Room for the "Pub Lunch" I got cottage pie, basically like shepherd's pie. After lunch it was time for a nap, and then more trivia, which was a lot harder, but still fun.

My mom, Dave, and I went for afternoon tea. I love afternoon tea, my favorite part is the scones with jam and cream. Mmm

Our final dinner was "American Night". I had a Caesar salad and New York strip steak. Teh highlight of the evening was the "Baked Alaska Parade" and then of course, eating the baked Alaska, yum! And our final show of the trip was a variety show. Two different comedians and a hypnotist, lots of fun :)

It was a great trip, very relaxing. Plus, we met some great people. Like the deaf couple who also have a service dog (but didn't bring it) and the Romanian waitress at the table next to us in the dining room.

Can't wait for our next family adventure :D