'Merica

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July yesterday!

My day? Glorious.

Since I had the day off of work I celebrated by staying up late watching The Life of Pi with my roommate and then sleeping in! Dillon didn't enjoy me sleeping in, however, since he sent me this text:

"You must not love America since you're sleeping through it's birthday."

Isn't he sweet?

I started out my morning with a Tone it Up work out!

I have been semi consistently keeping up with their weekly work out schedules for the past week, and I have to say I am really loving it! And if I can look even half as good as those girls, then yes please.

My main motivation for working out right now is because I will be seeing D in just two days!!! I am beyond excited, and although I know that a week's worth of working out isn't going to give me the body I want, I am feeling more confident and that definitely counts for something! Now we will see if I can continue with it afterwards...

If you aren't signed up for their free weekly fitness schedules, you need to be!

After working up a sweat my roommate and I decided to get patriotic! We made pancakes from scratch and, to make them patriotic, added red and blue food coloring to some of them!

 You cannot tell me that these aren't the coolest most patriotic pancakes ever!

Then we hopped on over to the mall for some shopping!

I'm not going to lie, one of the reasons I had to go is because I don't have anything remotely 4th of July worthy. The only red shirts I have are my UA shirts. And then I admit, I ended up spending way too much money. Darn credit cards. I felt silly buying red white and blue clothing on the 4th of July, but oh well. Here's what I came up with!

When I saw this little "recipe" I knew I had to make it for the fourth!

And oh my yumminess was it delicious. All it is: angel food cake, strawberries, blueberries, Cool Whip, and at the very top I put peanut butter frosting. Best. Dessert. Ever. I will definitely make this again, even without a holiday!

We went to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner and had to eat extremely fast because they closed in 30 minutes. Totally ate my money's worth, though! Then we went home and had some fun with sparklers in our front yard!

 First attempt with the self-timer.

 There we go. :)

 
 Overall it was an amazing day. It was so nice to have the day off and spend it all with my best friend. Since moving in together I feel like we have actually seen each other less with our busy schedules, and me going home every weekend.
Also, we never did go out and actually see any fireworks. You may call me unAmerican, but I'm sorry...I can't hear you over the sound of my freedom. ;)

And now, yay for the weekend and me flying up to Colorado in the am!

That Time I (Swam With Dolphins)

Part Three of That Time I (Went on a Cruise)

See Part Two here!

Our second destination on the cruise was Curaçao, which is an island in the southern Caribbean!

This island was gorgeous. My favorite part about it being the colorful buildings.

I wish we had such colorful cities in America! 

Our excursion on this island was...wait for it...swimming with dolphins!

After getting off the ship we drove to the Caracao Sea Aquarium where we took part in the Dolphin Academy! I am not going to lie, I was really scared! I think I have mentioned before that I really don't like the ocean, and I greatly dislike almost everything that swims around in it. I was really hesitant to do much, but towards the end I was actually diving in and swimming below the surface with them! It was a really great experience.

Dolphin kisses!

When you waved two fingers the dolphins would sing!

You can see how we were still in ocean water, it was just an enclosed area, which was really cool.

Before swimming with the dolphins we walked around the rest of the aquarium. There was a shark feeding where you could "pet" the sharks and then feed them! I decided to not take part in that activity...I'm such a baby.

After swimming with dolphins we watched a dolphin show!

And then the rest of the evening looked a little like this:

This was the only night that was had on an island, so Dillon and I decided to take advantage of it! We ended up going out to dinner just us two and then going to a casino (where we actually won some money!). I was scared the entire some of the time though because I didn't want the ship to leave us! Overall it was a gorgeous island on a gorgeous day/evening!

I hope this was well worth the wait! I'll try my best not to leave you hanging like that again. :)

Alex @ Let Life Be Like Music...check her out, you know you want to!

Another Weekend Report

As I type this I am listening to James Taylor on vinyl and sipping on some Watermelon Smirnoff w/ Sierra Mist; and outside a thunder storm is rolling in! I love monsoon season in Arizona. It is actually my favorite "season" - watching the rain pour and hearing the thunder roll...just amazing! If my computer wasn't about to die I would totally relocate myself outside to write this post.

The view from my front porch - a lot prettier in person, but you get the idea!

Anyways, I had yet another wonderful weekend! I have gone home every weekend this summer which, even though it is a lot of driving, has been really nice. Since I'm "stuck" in Tucson working Monday-Friday I think it is really good for me to go home and hang out with my friends and family.

Saturday

As soon as I got home me and my sister ran a few errands. It was the first time this summer I realized just how incredibly hot it is in Arizona right now. Since we were in and out of the car I could not cool down! I love Arizona, but only when I don't have to go out in this summer heat.

As a late birthday present Sarah bought me a capo so we rushed home, ate some Chick-fil-A (I have mentioned before that it is one of my happy foods, right??), and then played some guitar together! I now "know" three songs!

I really need to start using my camera instead of my iPhone...such crap quality!

Saturday night I hung out with this beautiful girl. I know you have probably heard enough about her, but I can't help but mention her in almost every post because I'm just so sad she's leaving me next weekend. :(

We ended up going to the casino with her wonderful mama! It was her first time going to the casino and my first time since turning 21 (Dillon and I went to a casino while on the cruise). I have to say that one time actually helped me a lot because instead of losing money I won about $70! I know, high roller here. ;)

Afterwards we went back to my house, had a couple drinks and "watched" Gangster Squad with my sister and her friend Klay. I say "watched" because we ended up just talking the entire time. But it was a really awesome night just hanging out.

All I have to say to this is "hahaha!"

Sunday

A lazy day spent watching movies and TV shows, playing the guitar, eating Papa Johns Pizza, and redesigning my blog! I hope you like it - it's just a little more crisp, if that makes any sense.

This week should be a good one! Today was one of the best days my participant has had at work in a long time! Then we get July 4th off of work, which will be nice especially because it's just a random day in the middle of the week, which makes having a day off seem even better. Hopefully I'll do something exciting on the 4th so I can tell you all about it! :)

Link Up: Mingle Monday

Ahhh Yeeeah

It is Friday once again!

And this is how I feel:

Such a glorious day, Friday.

I figured I would share with you a few things that even made the week pretty sweet. And since I never filled you in about my weekend, I decided to throw some stuff in here about that, too!

Went out with these two beautiful ladies on Saturday night. We had an amazing night, too. We met up with Beca's brothers at this place called Rula Bula which is an Irish pub on Mill. They had a live band doing covers which was really cool, and one guy in the band played an electric violin which is automatically awesome.

We stayed out until closing time, went to a place called Slices to get pizza, witnessed a massive fight, had to quickly get out of the way so we wouldn't get maced, and then headed back to Beca's house. 

Exciting, right?

Then we ended up staying up all night talking. It was seriously so nice to just have some girl time and talk about everything and anything. I think I mentioned before that Beca and I have known each other since high school and we were roommates our freshman year of college. It has been great to catch up! I seriously miss this girl.

I honestly don't know what I'm going to do without this girl. She is moving to Texas in a week and I think I might die. We are the kind of friends that can go weeks without talking and even months without seeing each other but still consider each other best friends, so I know that will never change. But it's going to definitely be weird to be states apart instead of a mere hour and a half drive. I'm not-so-secretly hoping she stays for a month or two, realizes she misses me just too damn much, and then comes home.

Sunday was spent with my sister. It was her 19th birthday on Monday but since I would be in Tucson that day I told her that we could do anything she wanted on Sunday! We ended up going out to eat at Panda Express and then to the movies to see This Is The End. 

What?? You haven't seen this movie yet??

Go. It's hilarious. I don't go to the movies often because I'm way too cheap for that,

but this movie was totally worth it!

Then I took my sister shopping at Forever 21. Sometimes you can go there and never find anything worth buying, but this was not one of those times. I may or may not have bought a few things for myself. Whoops.

Then we went back home and watched Breaking Dawn Part II and laughed our heads off at how ridiculous it is. I apologize if you are a Twilight fan but...no. The movie was hilariously awful. The only time I even remotely cared was when Jasper *died*. Him and Charlie are the only great things about the movies.

For work we recently went on two field trips. One was to the Tucson Children's Museum. She had an absolute blast!

This was her favorite, and we actually spent the majority of the time in this room. It's just a series of tubes and there is air rushing through it. The kids can put fluffy balls and scarves through it and flip switches to determine which way the air will flow and where the things will come out! She loved just watching it and actually fell on the floor because she was giggling so hard. It was precious. I especially love this picture because it's actually two moms playing with it while the kids just had to stand there and watch. I guess it's fun for all ages! :)

Yesterday we went to Pump It Up which is a facility with a bunch of bounce houses such as slides and obstacle courses. She really enjoyed this trip, too! Unfortunately I can't post any pictures because I feel it's against her privacy as a camper. But I really wish you could see her laughing all the way down the slide!

Just got this in the mail today from Dillon! He brought this all the way back from Germany! It is peach liquor, homemade by German farmers. This is probably the best gift he could have gotten me from Germany. And it was a semi-surprise! I knew he was sending it to me but I was completely surprised to see the package at my door today because when it didn't come at it's scheduled day yesterday, D realized he sent it to the wrong address! We were thinking they would have to send it back to him and then he would have to resend it but thankfully they figured out the mix-up and got it delivered! It was really warm when I first unwrapped it so I put it in the fridge and I will try it tomorrow! 

Speaking of D, he officially booked my flight up to Colorado in just nine days! I am feeling really blessed to have this upcoming weekend. Things have been pretty rough lately since he was in Germany for three weeks (nine hour time difference...no thank you) and he also doesn't get to come home for summer leave. It is going to be really nice to have some time together to reconnect and refresh our relationship.

And that is all my lovin's for the week! I'm looking forward to a nice weekend, and I hope you are, too!