Update's in my life!

Before you read this, just warning you, I'm not proof reading it because I'm too tired. So don't make fun of my grammar mistakes because I know that there will be quite a few. I'm tired, remember?
Just an update on my life. The days are pretty much just flying by, which is okay by me. I hate when summer ends. And when Ava is gone. Blah. I'm not going to school which is very strange, this is the first time in my entire life that I haven't gone to school in the fall. Not going to lie, it rocks. I start school September 13th and I'm actually excited! Me excited about school? I know, it's weird. For those of you who don't know, I'm taking an accelerated 5 week CNA course. It sounds pretty intense, but it doesn't scare me. But this means that on October 19th I will be certified with the state of Utah as a Nurse Assistant. Then I work for 6 months as a nurse assistant, then along with the classes I took freshman year in college I will be eligable next fall to apply to a nursing program and get my degree as a RN! It's been so hard getting to this point, figuring out which route to take and I finally feel like I'm on the right route.
Anyway, besides that, I'm working. Yeah, I know right? Strange. I basically do home health for an elderly lady that has Alzheimer's Diesease very severe. I work early. Far too early for me. It's wiping me out. But my sleeping schedule is just starting to adjust. So now I try and go to bed at 10:30pm. WOW I haven't gone to bed that early since I was like 7. I didn't even go to bed that early last year in college when I had 7:00am class. But the job is good, hard at times, but what job isn't hard? And I'm reading. Yes, me, reading. A book (one that doesn't have any pictures!). I know, this post just keeps getting more and more strange. Wait, it gets better. . . I'm also drinking diet soda! AH! You're thinking "is this really Amber that is writing this?" in fact, it is. I need to get off of the caffeine, who knows if that will ever really happen but I thought I should at least switch to diet. Diet drinks are gross, or so I used to think. Then Jodi got me drinking them, and here I am. Occasionally, on those really bad days, I love me some non-diet, high caffeine content, wild cherry pepsi. But for the most part, I'm doing pretty good. I'm also doing crafts, yes, crafts. Although I've always liked crafts, but now I'm actually creating all my ideas that I have stored up in that red head of mine!
Going to bed early, reading, working, wanting to go to school, crafts, diet soda. . . I've aged like 10 years in the past 2 weeks. I'm freakin' myself out. No worries, I'm still me. . . just with a book in one hand, diet soda in the other, and dark circles under my eyes (working does that to ya). Nevertheless, I'm still Amber, the same one that laughs at stupid jokes, dresses like a 12 year old, etc, etc, etc. I hope you all enjoyed summer and are ready for fall!

Park City-Bachelorette Party 2010!

August 13th & 14th was my friends and mine, annual Park City trip. Except this year it was our Park City trip/Amanda's Bachelorette party. Big week. August 11th was my birthday, Jodi moved August 14th, and I was in charge of Amanda's bachelorette party on August 13th-14th. Am I too young for bachelorette parties? I think so. I'm scarred for life, nevertheless, we had so much fun. We had 7 girls in one hotel room, need I say more? It wasn't planned that way, I only booked one room because lots of people were unable to attend.. .. .. then they worked it out so all of us close friends could attend, so we had to cram into one hotel room. Two beds. Yep. I think the one room thing made it all the more fun! I am happy to say that no one got arrested. I was almost sure that after this weekend of bachelorette fun, someone would get arrested. But no one did. Yay! We were SO LOUD all night long. No one was in either of the rooms next to us or we would've got arrested! We did everything. We went out on the town, swam/hot tub, stayed up all night long, sang in a midnight concert, dancing, played HILARIOUS games, had insane amounts of caffeine in our systems, slept for a couple of hours and the party continued. . ., we did the alpine slide and shopping.

My two absolute favorite memories of our trip:

1. After everyone had left the room Friday night to go to dinner, Caecee and I slacked behind and hurried and blew up balloons and put streamers everywhere, along with Officer Duncan standing inside the door of the hotel room. Were the girls surprised? Yep, see below at the pictures and video.

2. At about midnight Friday night Katie and I left the room with all the other girls and went to pop some popcorn. Well, our room didn't have a microwave so away we went to the hotel bar. We walked in with all of our bachelorette decor on, i.e., beads, masks, etc. and we waltzed right past the big sign that said "no one below the age 21 past this point!" and asked the bartender if she could pop our bag of popcorn. The bar was full of people so as we waited for our popcorn we just listened to every one's drunken stories. Then we got our popped pop corn and started to walk out of the bar. All the sudden I was face planted on the steps that led out of the hotel bar. Yep, me, loud crash, and my face is directly on the smelly, gross, bar floor. Ouch. All I hear is Katie laughing hysterically and in between her bursts of laughter she asks "are you okay?" and I hear the bartender asking if I am okay. And I hear a lady at the bar saying to me "oh honey, I just did that a second ago, you've had too much to drink!". I love that I blend right in with the drunks when I haven't had ANYTHING to drink except dr. pepper. No alcohol in my system and I still end up in a bar on the floor!?! I got up so fast and ran out of that bar. It was pretty embarrassing. I think I even peed a little from embarrassment. I think I might have tripped on my flip flop? Who knows. I guess the best place to trip and fall would be in a bar, because they consider it normal, still it was embarrassing. The only injury I had was a very sore back the next day! Anyway, on Saturday after we were all so loopy that we could not think straight we decided to head home late Saturday afternoon. What a fun time we had. Thank you to everyone who came, it was such a fun time!! I could go on and on about our trip. But instead, take a look at the BUNCH of pictures I took with their descriptions and I think you'll get a good idea of how crazy the trip was. . .

Enjoy!
FYI: TONS of pictures. . . you know how I am ;) The pictures are backwards, the beginning of our trip starts at the bottom of the post, and the end of our trip are the first few pictures!

Meet Officer Duncan. This is a cardboard cut-out that stands up. Am I for real? Oh yes. Best 22$ I have ever spent. No one knew about him except for Caecee and I. Did all the girls freak out when we got back from dinner and Officer Duncan was standing right inside the room door? Yes. Did everyone repeatedly freak out after I continuously put Officer Duncan in the shower all night? Of course. Did we dress Officer Duncan in various bachelorette masks & items? Yes, but those pictures are confidential!

I did not take this picture. . . but I like it.


Nor did I take this picture, but I like this one too.

Mini beer bottles filled with salt and pepper, cool? I think so.

We ate lunch on Saturday at the Loco Lizard. Fun atmosphere. This is a Elvis lizard, way cool. Food was pretty good too!

Me preparing to ride the alpine slide. . . Caecee in the background also preparing to ride the slide.

Emily being a little nervous because it was her first time to ride the alpine slide. And the worker lady who got mad at me and Katie for talking about racing. We then just told her we were going to "see who got to the bottom of the slide first", totally not racing.


My racing opponent, Katie preparing to ride down the slide. (By the way, she totally won the race. Next time I'll win, next time.)

Amanda the Bachelorette getting ready to ride!

Caecee getting ready to ride!

The pretty trees on the ski lift!

In this picture, Katie and I are the results of high elevation, too much caffeine, and no sleep!

We are soooo weird. Do we have fun? Oh yes, probably too much fun!

Feet on the ski lift!

Katie, Amber (me), and Amanda on the ski lift!

Caecee and Emily on the ski lift!

The view on the ski lift.

Katie. . . need I say more?

Someone's pants hanging up in the hotel room. . . ? Think what you want, they aren't my pants. Cough, cough, KATIE, keep your pants on ;) just kidding, she totally had other pants on. We don't go nude and if we did, i wouldn't post it on my blog.

Caecee's beautiful peace sign fingernails that I painted at 1:00 in the morning!

Me, Katie, and Caecee being ourselves.

Katie and I + the camera = way too much caffeination!

Katie, Caecee, Me, and Emily being goofs.

Katie, Caecee, Me, and Emily having a good time!

Me and Emily!

Amanda and Kim in the hot tub!

Angel!

Katie and Caecee!

Amanda opening her gifts! What's that on her head? I durst not speak of it.

Emily and Katie and dinner!

Me and Caecee at dinner!

Angel, Amanda, and Kim at dinner. And Amanda's awesome "Bachelorette" sash that we made her wear!

This is the video of us returning from dinner and walking into the hotel room. What they did not know was that cardboard Officer Duncan was waiting right inside the room. Enjoy as Amanda takes off down the hall and everyone freaking out. They totally thought it was a real policeman. Hilarious. The lighting is bad and it is hard to see, but their screams are priceless. (Scroll to the bottom of my blog and pause the music before you press play on the video!)

Monkey faces are total bliss!

I am going to complain, just warning you. Today has not been my cup of tea. Not at all. It hasn't been a bad day, it just hasn't been what I'd refer to as a "good day". After working early, early (far too early for me) in the morning getting off of work and running home, deciding I should probably put make-up on for the day and do something with the stuff hanging off of my head, in which we call hair. So, I did that (I take care of an elderly lady, she doesn't care if I have make-up on, just wanted to explain so you didn't think I was going to work at an office or something without make-up on, heavens no). After I was presentable for the day, I should've just stopped there, called it a day. But, no. Running around all day with a headache the size of Texas, car issues (I'm tellin' ya, I'm switching to a horse and buggy), feeling like everyone has forgotten about me, getting angry with myself for feeling sorry for myself, etc, etc, it's just not been the day for me. Not sure why, it's just "one of those days". And after all of that, the worst thing about today is, I am missing this girl. . . extremely bad.

I would much rather be sittin' around with my Ava, teaching her how to make monkey faces. That sounds like bliss right now. Bliss. Oh well, the day goes on, and I should be grateful for what I do have, and I am grateful. Sometimes, you just have to talk (type) your bad mood all out and when you hear yourself (or read it on paper) you discover that you're (I'm) just being a wimp and need to cowgirl up!! At least today wasn't my first day of school. . . yep, that's right. I still have a month until I have to go to school and even then, it's only a 5 week course. The sun is shining, woot, holla! And I get to see Ava in mid-September and we will goof off and make monkey faces all day long and it will be total bliss. . . life is good.

I don't really heart NY

This is my soul sister.

These are my peeps. Aren't they the cutest things you ever did see? Yes.

They decided to move to New York. You know those "I heart NY" shirts, yeah, me, not so much. It's all a long and some what personal story. But Jodi and I, we go way, way back.

See, I told you that we are soul sistas. Gotta love the 90's.

Sister MacDonald was my achievement days leader.. .. .. then my young women leader.. .. .. then my young women president.. .. .. then my friend. She played a big part in young womens in getting me active in the church. When I first started going to church, I was struggling with some things so for personal progress she offered her time in reading the scriptures with me. So most days, after school as a fifteen year old, we would read the Book Of Mormon, 10 pages a day. We finished the entire book in no time. After she got release from being young women president when I was 16 or 17, we just became friends. I know, it's kind of strange. A grown woman and a teenager are friends. Like I said, we're soul sistas. I truly believe that some people are young or old at heart. I think it's a little of both. Kindred spirits, if you will. She got more kids, I helped with them. People think I'm her nanny, nope, just friends. Kinda like sisters. In fact, I'm good friends with her youngest sister that got off of her mission not too long ago. I feel like I'm part of the family. We've been through a lot together. I have no idea how or why she put up with me in my horrid young teenage years, but she did. She taught me a lot. She taught me let the "cheesy" in myself, out. So here I am, writing a cheesy blog post, she'll be so proud.
We've had some really fun times together like Disneyland, the L.A. temple, or that time when she was laughing so hard she choked on broccoli and then piddled her pants. I could go on forever. There is much more to the story, but like I said, it's personal and I'm already uncomfortable writing this on my blog but I just keep on typing. I've basically lived at her house. We call it my half way house. Like I said, we're family. Not blood, but family. And now she lives in the "big apple" due to her husband getting an amazing job. But it's all good. You know those people that move away and you never hear from them again? This is so not the case. Out of everyone I know, Jodi (a.k.a. MacDiddy, Diddy) will never lose touch. We'll always be tight, heck, we're soul sistas. I've seen her children almost everyday since they've been born. They're my homies, I sure love those kids. I miss them. But it's all good because we've worked out a plan and I'm going to visit A LOT. And she'll visit a lot too, her family lives here so we're good.
I think I'm actually going to miss Jodi's 7:00am wake up calls, her advice about boys, her "tough love", always getting me to do the right thing, and I'm even going to miss picking up tiny little lego pieces that her children would throw all around the house. I hated those lego pieces and those dang barny matching cards. But now I kinda miss them. I will miss playing nertz and drinking dr. pepper (you've never heard of the card game, "nertz" have you? It's a good one).
For those of you wondering, she is doing well. They are staying in a hotel room until all of her stuff gets from Utah to NY. The people below them in the hotel keep complaining about how loud her kids are. . . typical. She calls me a lot, and we text. Although she keeps calling me when she's driving, and that's illegal in New York.... typical again. I miss her but like I said, all is well, because we are soul sista's. But I still don't "heart NY".


She's going to kill me when she sees these pictures that I posted. . . oh well, she's in New York, what can she do?

Good ole temple tour in young womens

Ha, girls camp, many years ago.

A picture taken this summer of me, Caecee, and Diddy.