My Golden Day...

So someone once told me you have a GOLDEN BIRTHDAY when your age falls on the day of your bday, I don't know who comes up with this stuff, but because my 26th birthday fell on the 26th day of February this year, I'll play along! Not to mention, it only happens once in your lifetime!One of my favorite things about my birthday is that my bro-in-law Daniel and I have the same birthday! It's turned out to be quite fun! We usually do something together and he's not big on birthdays so he just plays along with whatever Jamaica and I get thrilled about! THIS YEAR... I wanted to go skiing! I've been wanting to ski at Brianhead since I moved to SG NINE years ago and just haven't been up there. So this year we made it a priority and it turned out great! We rented skis in Cedar City which was $10 cheaper than at the resort, and we have Dixie Direct so we got buy one/get one free skiing! lunch was great, the snow was awesome and fresh, even if the mountain wasn't the most challenging, it was fun to do something I haven't done in years, thanks dad, for teaching me to ski, I remember the day I learned, I hated you and thought you were just torturing me, but I've come to enjoy it ever so much! Recap of my day via pics... that's the only way to do things!Jamaica and I got twinner goggles when we were waiting for our skis ...
Cody and I on the lift..


The Hansens... thanks so much for comin and makin my birthday so fun guys!


A pic just for my dad, if any of you know him, when he buys something, he leave the tag on EVERYTHING.... except his hunting gear.... odd. Anyways, sorry, I couldn't sport the tag all day, I felt weird!
The birthday kids enjoyin lunch!
I tried a couple jumps...


but i don't know if I landed any of them....
After skiing we all went back to my house and had soup and cake and ice cream and presents...
it was such a fun GOLDEN BIRTHDAY! Thanks everyone for playing!

Ode to My Stone...

Lets recap shall we?! So approximately THREE weeks ago I wake up on Friday morning and seriously can NOT move. I could have sworn someone had jabbed a knife in my back just below my lungs on my left side, the pain woke me up from sleeping at 6 am... a time which usually does NOT exist for me and nothing would help, not a hot pad, not laying down or standing or sitting... oh man, NO BUENO. So I wait until 9am and head to Insta-Care.... I wait FOREVER and in walks Mrs Nurse Practitioner. Asking me tons of questions and then saying my symptoms resemble those of a possible kidney stone. Great. I can thank my dad for that... wait, no, that is the one trait I DO NOT thank him for passing along! Mrs Nurse Practitioner offers a CAT scan and reports that there's a calcium something in there, so she's just going to treat me as if it's a stone. So basically she LOADED me up with my first ever Lortabs and 800 mg ibruprofen and sent me on my way... So I call my dad and do some research... lets just say NO one I know who has had stones are huge fans of them. So here's what I'm picturing...
My dad assures me it's gonna be painful but I'll be cool when I'm done cause I'll join a brotherhood of stone passers, which is always cool to be in a group right?! Ya, NOT WORTH IT! So I spend my whole President's Day Weekend and Valentine's day waking up in pain, laying around and doping up... lets just say ibruprofen 800 does nothing for me at this point... and if I have to see another glass of this I'm gonna puke...
On Sunday I woke up in the worst pain of my life. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to just be. I seriously felt like I was in labor... lets say, I'm in NO hurry to punch a kid out! I was puking and couldn't keep anything down, so Cody and I load up in the car and as we're getting ready to head to the ER, the pain stops.... so we go back in the house, I drink another glass of water, and pass out for a nap....
So a week goes by, I call in sick to work every morning Monday- Wed and then suck it up, dope myself up enough and work for the afternoons. I'm sorry for any tax payers that may have had to deal with me, hopefully it was entertaining!
Weekend #2 comes along and STILL in pain, and now I'm out of pain meds... so I go to Insta-care visit #2.... In walks Sports Med Dr... great, seriously.. do MD's even work at Insta-Care?! He confirms I had calcium in my kidney and a few other stones sitting in my OTHER kidney. Great. He fills me ANOTHER precription for pain and sends me on my way, telling me if it hasn't changed in a week to see a Urologist. Such hope from Insta-Care, and I still haven't gotten the bill....
SO! Now I'm studying more, hearing more horror stories and have images of this passing a tiny tube in my body...
PS... when i catch mine, I'm naming him SPIKE, it's official. (original, i know.)

So here's where my little 'jewel' has to travel...
Easy right? Ha ha ha, oh the irony. So now my dad, my friend Phil, my boss David... all of which are part of mentioned Stone Brotherhood are checking with me everyday to see if I've passed this literal pain in my back... nothing....
As you may know, my birthday is fast approaching by this time, and I've been anticipating a ski trip to Brianhead since about Christmas time, I'll be dipped if I don't get to go and have to spend my bday in bed! Anyways, my current status is wake up, eat 3 crackers, take a Lortab, sleep for 3 more hours and then I'm fine. A lovely routine... NOT. Luckily by my birthday I'm feeling better so we trudge up the mountain.... read my bday post for ski/bday details.
Anyways, back to my stone... so I wake up at 1am the day after my bday in WICKED pain. So I take a Lortab, walk around for 30 min, nothing. Take another Lortab, walk around my house for an HOUR... nothing. I'm exhausted and this just ain't right. So I wake up my roomies and we all pile in the car at 2:30 am and head to the ER. I was waiting to puke or passout.... they check me in, put me in a room, and the pain GOES AWAY. You've got to be kidding me. Not to mention this is my first time to the ER. FINALLY an actual MD walks in, bless my soul! He says, ok, so I saw your CAT scan from a couple weeks ago.... good news is.... you DON'T have a kidney stone, or any stones in your kidneys at all.... bad news is, you're still in pain. So he tested my blood, and my pee again and I he told me I'm a 'healthy speciman' in regards to my blood, but I have white blood cells in my urine. He says, you probably had a urinary tract infection and it's just gone untreated, so now it's just moved to your bladder... SERIOUSLY?! Not to mention, we get home from the ER at 6am.... our whole house took a bit of a nap!
SO, in conclusion....
1. it's official, I don't hate anything, butI HATE Insta-Care and will NOT go there again unless... no, pretty sure never.
2. Medicine works! The ER gave me some pills to numb my bladder, but also makes my pee the color of orange soda, which is kind of fun to see that it only takes about 20 minutes to kick in or cycle through or whatever you wanna call it!
3. It's been confirmed by an actual DOCTOR: I do not, nor never did have a kidney stone :( I thought I'd have something to show for my pain, shoot I probably would carry the thing around in a baggie bragging about what I'd just accomplished, or made a necklace out of it or something... but much to my dismay I will not be joining the Stone Brotherhood afterall... which is kind of a bummer, but not really.
4. I am SO grateful to my family, Cody and my 2 lovely roommates for seeing me at my worst and being so willing to help me, I REALLY couldn't have done it without you.

It's Coming!!

I'm SUCH a girl, and I'm just gonna admit it... I'm excited for this one to come out! And I love that they're not making us wait too long between flicks! NO one bug me on June 30th, unless you wanna come to the show with me! ;)

MLK jr Day!

Jamaica and I took the kids sledding on Monday, what a good way to celebrate MLK jr Day! We went just above Cedar, there was plenty of snow, actually, it WAS snowing! Mya was LESS than thrilled with her first sledding experience, I don't think she liked being confined to her snow suit and the snow and wind blowing in her face, so she and I retired early to the yukon for a bottle and watching Shrek. But we snapped a few pics before we hit the heated car! SO much fun! It made me miss home, the mountains and all the fun times we had playin outside with my parents.....

Michael loved bailing off about 1/2 way down for the dramatic effect and snow in his face! We kept telling him to... STAY ON YOUR SLED! I don't have any brothers so I have yet to understand the way boys think.... it's beyond me... But he laughed the day away until he couldn't feel his cheeks, so that's all that really matters!


Haleigh was timid until Jamaica and I made her ride with us.... then she freaked out, but still wore a smile!Thanks guys, for takin me with you, it's always a good time! :)

Viva Las Vegas!

SO! My SG bestie Carrie got me tickets to Phantom in Vegas for Christmas! BOO YEAH! SO we went this past weekend! It was nice to get out of town for the day!
We had lunch at Serendipity 3, like the movie, and the only other location is in NYC, it was delicious and SUCH a cute lil place!
It's known for it's FFFrozen hot chocolate, and Carrie was SO excited to get it.... I didn't get it, why in the heck didn't they just call it a Frosty then?! Frozen hot chocolate isn't HOT anymore is it? I just didn't get it! BUT THEN IT CAME.... and it is the most chocolately deliciousness I've had in a LONG TIME!
The new city center Aria is open just north of NY NY, and we checked it out... the architecture is so cool, but the layout is BIZARRE! It's not completely finished yet, there are condos, a shopping center, and 2 hotels from what we could see, but it was SO confusing! BUT! They have this little feature in the middle of the shopping area... they had all these tubes with TORNADOES! They were so random and super cool!
Phantom of the Opera was PHENOMINAL! It was only 90 minutes, which was perfect, and when it first started, the auctioneer was so quiet, and I thought, oh no, this is gonna be awful... and then the music started and the bass was SO loud, it gave me goosebumps! I highly recommend checkin it out!

It Officially Froze Over....

Yep, we have ICE in the desert! Dixie Igloo opened, SUPER late, but at least it's open! And $9.50 will get ya skates and loads of fun on the ice for 2 hours! The bad thing? They don't monitor those on the ice during a session, so if you feel like being dishonest, you could really skate all day and they'd never know... hence, there was a TON of people on the ice.... we still had fun! I haven't ice skated in YEARS, but it's like ridin a bike, it all comes back to ya, and it's SO FUN! Jamaica and I took Michael and Haleigh and they have NEVER skated before.... it was interesting, but they did GREAT!
Jamaica said, 'k, take a picture of us...' so I'm *click* *clicking* and then she said, 'k, FALL DOWN!' .....

So of course.... I did the same thing.....
..... and they fell for it again.... literally! And yes, we did 'help' them fall! :)
So I was reading this survey (I think it was on family feud) and it asked:
Name something people watch:
Of course in the heat of the game I wasn't thinking about THIS as an answer...
but it really is mesmerizing! And EVERYONE lined up and just watched it go in circles! (not the mention it was like 400 years old!) And come to think of it, the zamboni cleaning the ice in New York at the Ranger's game was awesome too!

WRAP IT!

So this was my second Christmas away from home :( BUT! I had so much fun hangin with the Hansens for the holidays! It was fun to be around kids who get excited about Santa!
Before the kids go to bed, Daniel sat everyone down and they set up the nativity scene and discuss the real reason we celebrate Christmas, I think Haleigh got a little confused, but it was good...
Even Mya joined the crowd after she was done throwing all the laundry off the chair...
Christmas morning was so fun! Haleigh was STOKED.... it made me remember coming out to see what Santa had left for me!
We ALL got lots of super fun things...
I don't think Mya really understood what was going on, Daniel helped her open all of her presents and after a couple puppies and babies, she was done and had all she wanted... maybe she'll be more excited next year...
Cody and I decided (or so I thought) that since we just went to NYC and spent more than we thought we would, that we would consider that our Christmas to each other... I got him a couple little things, but the darn turd got me TWO 50 minute treatments at Green Valley Spa! I've never been to a spa before! Thanks sweetie, I can't wait!