Public Service Announcement

This just in...American Airlines is having SUPER DUPER good deals right now from SLC to Belize. I just bought a round trip ticket from Salt Lake City to Belize City, Belize for.............................................................$151! Okay, okay, if you add the taxes and fees it came out to $224.10 but hey, you can't even fly to Milwaukee to see your grandma for that much. Isn't it amazing that even in these times of economic turmoil and trial there are good things like this happening in our world? See, I can see the positive in life and in losing my retirement fund. So, I offer this blog post as a public service announcement to all of you who may want to be getting out of the cold SLC weather this winter. I have NEVER, EVER, EVER seen flights from SLC to anywhere in Central America for this cheap. NEVER. If you want to get tickets I would recommend doing so SOON (like this weekend). I'm sure Monday morning somebody at American Airlines is going to wake up and realize that they sold 1000 tickets from SLC to Belize for 151 dollars and be in A LOT of trouble. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh plane tickets are my drug of choice. I was having the worst day at work on Friday until an email came through to me telling me of this great deal. Immediately my attitude and outlook on life changed as I began to plan yet another adventure. Yay for American Airlines! I hope to see you all soon in Belize!

I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaack!

To my concerned friends (okay only Rachel seems to be concerned) I made it back!!! Sorry I didn't post sooner. I just haven't had a second until now. But I am alive and well. We had quite an adventure getting into and out of Monteverde...including a nearly 4 hour traffic jam waiting for them to clear up HUGE mudslides with cars under them (not our car luckily), but we made it safely. And we only got delayed by about a half a day (due to waiting for them to clear out the mudslides). We made it down to Manuel Antonio for a couple of gorgeous days at the beach and then LUCKILY I made it back to the US to be back at work by Tuesday morning. I would have hated to have missed an extra day of work. I'm going to wait to actually post my pictures and details on the trip until I get the pictures that Christa and Kate took too, since they had some great pictures on their cameras. However I will end this post with a few things I'm grateful for. 1) I'm grateful that my Gma Fern is feeling better and is on the mend (she had a heart attack while I was in Costa Rica). So unfair that my tiny little grandma who probably weighs a buck 5, exercises regularly, and eats healthy has a heart attack. 2) I'm grateful for my great Costa Rican adventure. Especially including the torrential rains and mudslides. I'm glad that none of us died or anything like that. Also I'm glad that Christa, Kate and I were all able to enjoy even the unexpected parts of the trip and have fun no matter what!

3) I'm so grateful for my Nano Titanium Babyliss Pro flat iron which I did not take with me (due to the fact that my luggage always seems to get lost anyway). I however am glad to be back with my good flat iron. My self esteem goes up about 100 points when this thing is with me. Next time I'm going to just put it in my carry-on.

4) I'm grateful for South and Central American OREOs which for some weird reason are about 1000 times better than USA OREOs. I'm not sure quite why but I promise they are better. I NEVER buy OREOs in the US but they are always a snack of choice for me in other countries. They must put some illegal addictive substance in them in other countries. I even got Kate and Christa hooked on them.

5) And last but not least I'm glad that they did get my luggage to me. This time after only one and a half days without it. And they even drove it 3 hours through muddy roads to get it to me. My lost luggage did mean that I had to go repelling through waterfalls in borrowed shoes and levi shorts but overall it wasn't that bad. I'm just starting to assume that my luggage is going to get lost. Then I'm not even mad or disappointed when it does.

Okay folks, that's all for now. I'll write up more and post more pics later on. Until then if you want to see more details on our trip you can read Christa's post or Kate's post on life lessons learned in Costa Rica.

Trapped in Paradise

Well, I´m trapped in paradise it seems. Costa Rica is having major storms right now (actually three tropical storms have all converged on Costa Rica)...I´ve never seen so much rain in my life. We are in Monteverde right now and every road out of this place is flooded, washed away or has mud slides covering it. Supposedly they are supposed to be digging out one of the roads tonight. We´ll see. Anyway, we are having fun so far even with the tropical storm...it is just a whole different kind of experience. We went zip lining today in the rain. It was super fun...probably extra fun because it was super wet so you move REALLY fast on the zip lines. Definitely something everyone should do in life. We are making friends with lots of other people at our hotel who are also stuck here in Monteverde. I´m glad my parents taught me to not be afraid to talk to strangers because today my friends and I hung out all day with an older couple from Israel who drove us all around exploring in their rental car. It was great since we would have otherwise been stuck in the hotel. So we are having fun and making lots of friends. I´ll post pictures that I´ve taken when I get back. Until then just pray that we will get back and that we won´t run out of food here in Monteverde! Oh, and to my work friends...don´t count on me being back on Tuesday! Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Third Time is the Charm?????

Unbelievable. For the third time this year and the third time in a row my luggage is lost. First it was the Portugal/Spain/Morocco trip in March, then it was my Paraguay/Brazil trip in July and August, and now I can add Costa Rica to my list of lost luggage adventures. I´m starting to think that either 1) the third time is the charm and because my luggage has been lost three times in a row it gives me lifetime immunity to ever losing my luggage again or 2) my red Ricardo Big Sur luggage that has served me so well for the last six years is permanently cursed and there is nothing to do other then buy that cute bluish/green Samsonite luggage I´ve been eyeing these past few months. I´m leaning towards the justification to buy that new luggage I have been wanting. Oh well at least I have turned into a total luggage actually being there when you get there pessimist and now I plan for failure. It is still a pain though!

Tagged by Tallie

I'm it again. I guess I don't mind being tagged every once in awhile. It gives me an easy subject for a post. So, here you go. In no particular order...

8 Shows I Love to Watch...

1. The Office (Love it and highly recommend it)
2. Arrested Development (hilarious, but cannot recommend this one)

Sorry, but I only have two for this category. I don't have cable or DVR and I HONESTLY hardly ever watch TV. I know I'm lame and can't relate to people due to my lack of television watching.

8 Favorite Restaurants...

1. Cuccina Toscana (Amazing Gnocchis and Molten Lava Chocolate Cake)
2. Pie Pizzeria
3. Paradise Bakery
4. Yoshi's
5. Rubio's (yummy chicken street tacos with no onion)
6. Cafe Rio (of course...I love CR...I'm Mormon. It is the closest thing to a drug addiction we get to have.)
7. Desert Edge Brewery (the food, not the beer)
8. Millhollow (I'm addicted to white chocolate almond and pistachio frozen yogurt with cookie dough blended in...you have to try it to believe it.)

8 Things That Happened Yesterday...

1. I was late to work (so normal I don't even consider it late anymore)
2. We got Starbucks Caramel Apple Ciders at Work...YUM!
3. 10 hours at a job I can barely tolerate anymore
4. Total fits of depression approximately hourly as I checked my etrade stock account...the economy is going to turn me bipolar...up and down, up and down, but more down then up right now.
5. Watched the Office...wished that I worked for Michael Scott.
6. Laser hair removal treatment...OUCH. I guess it is the price I have to pay to not look like Bigfoot's wife or an Italian woman.
7. I found out that Delta is going to start flying directly from Atlanta to Fortaleza, Brazil in December...MIRACLE! The only direct flight from the USA to Fortaleza gets added soon after my parents move there and on my favorite airline...Lucky me!
8. I, for the first time in weeks, went to bed before 1 A.M.

8 Things I'm Looking Forward To...

1. Going to Costa Rica this week!
2. Coldplay concert in November
3. Tax Refunds
4. The November elections being over...other than the great SNL skits I am TOTALLY sick of this election.
5. The day I finally get the guts to quit my job
6. Spending Christmas in Brazil with my family
7. Planting some tulip and daffodil bulbs at my new place
8. Retirement

8 Things On My Wish List...

1. Find a career I LOVE
2. Become independently wealthy
3. Go to Antarctica in 2010
4. New luggage
5. Live in a Spanish-speaking country again
6. A tapeworm (where's Creed when I need him?)
7. Having my dad build me a beautiful house in Idaho in 2 years and 9 months
8. Starting good habits like: going to bed early, more exercise, cooking food, cutting down the times of day I say "I hate my job," etc.

8 People I Tag...

1. My pregnant, bedridden, blogleech cousin Kim (you'll need to start a blog first though I guess)
2. My blogfriend Becky in Ohio
3. Jerry and Melissa...because you guys REALLY need to update your blog
4. Cousin Cassie Coleman
5. Noj and Socks
6. Christa
7. Kate and Mark
8. Candace and Skippy

JKJKJKJKJKJK!

Okay, okay...SORRY everyone but I was just kidding about the prize for guessing my car's new name. I don't have an Etsy store or even know what Etsy is. I have never seen nor smelled a Scentsy candle. And of course I don't have a CLUE about diaper bags. Sorry for the false alarm. I guess I just wanted people to get excited about naming my car and make it a fun contest. And since tons of mom blogs I read have giveaways I thought I'd pretend to have one too. Now I feel bad for leading you all on so maybe I will have a REAL giveaway sometime soon. Or, maybe I'll really give a prize to the "name my Japanese import" winner. We'll see.

Free at Last!

Yay!!!!!!!!!!! After two weeks of being in the bondage of the UTA bus system I AM FREE...FREE AT LAST! Last night I picked up my new Honda Civic. Now I know that this isn't a new Audi, or Saab, Beemer, or Volvo but it is my first brand new car and I am excited...perhaps even more so then I normally would be due to the fact that I have been without a car for two LONG weeks. Carlessness for two weeks just makes me appreciate my new car even more...it is like candy on Fast Sunday. It only had 7.5 miles on it when I bought it! This picture shows it at 8 miles due to the fact that I was embarrassed to be taking a picture of the odometer so I had to leave the car dealership first. Overall the car buying experience wasn't that bad...I didn't even cry once. And spending large amounts of money (or losing large amounts of money) usually makes me cry. I think I cried several times when I bought my house...but then again I was all alone, 25 years old, and hadn't yet taken on my "apathy is the best policy" attitude about life. So for now goodbye UTA. I may see you again when I either 1)get sick of driving in the snow 2)gas prices go up again or 3)need some new blog material as public transport could be a blogging gold mine. And to all Americans everywhere I say "You're Welcome" because I am single-handedly trying to stimulate our economy (or Japan's) by buying a new car while the stock market crashes and everything goes to pot in our nation. I also spend money on a lot of other unnecessary things, so I'm doing my best to help America out but I just can't do it alone. Good thing they passed that 700 billion dollar bailout huh? Ha! So now I just need to name my new car. It's hard to name a nice new car that has no personality. But it is a pain not to have a name for your car because then when you want to say to your friends that you can drive you have to say, "Hey guys, we can take my car," rather than just being able to say, "Hey guys, we can take Phyllis(or something)." It just has such a better ring to it. So what should I name this new car? I'm thinking something Japanese since this car is, as my cousin-in-law Lane would say, "Fresh off the boat." But when you Americanize Japanese girl names they always end up being something like, "Flower," or "Sunshine." So then I started thinking of places in Japan but the only ones that I could think of immediately had to do with WW II and huge nuclear explosions and I thought to myself, 'those can't be good names for my car if I don't want to have car trouble.' So let me know if you have any suggestions. I promise that I probably won't publicly trash your suggestions. I already sort of have a name in mind but I just want to see what you suggest. Oh, and whoever suggests the winning name will win 20 dollars to be used in my Etsy shop, or 2 free Scentsy candles, or one of those new AMAZING diaper bags (you know the ones I'm talking about). So suggest away. And P.S. to my Madre...sadly I realized today that by the time you and dad get home my new car won't even smell new, it will have 36,000 plus miles on it, and I won't even be excited about it anymore. SAD. It just made me realize how long three years really is. Oh well though...maybe when you get home we can go shopping for a new car for you to make us feel better.