Serendipity and Celine

At the end of March I took a road trip to Las Vegas with a friend and her friend. (aka. there were three of us girls). The event?...Celine Dion in concert at Caesar's Palace. I am not a huge Celine fan, but the other two are and they invited me and I thought, why not?

The day of the concert we had pecidures at a very fancy salon. It was very nice until the guy about burned the bottom of my foot off with a river rock...whoever came up with the hot rock idea was clearly not in their right mind. In the end our toes looked nice and we felt pampered. It was a great way to start our "girly" day.

In the evening we made our way to the madness of The Strip. We ate dinner at Serendipity 3 outside of Caesar's Palace. They are known for their frozen hot chocolate and it was amazing! We sat on a balcony overlooking The Strip as we ate, tried not to freeze to death, watched people and the craziness of Las Vegas pass by, and indulged in frozen hot chocolate.


We headed back inside the hotel to The Colosseum for the show. Our tickets were quite pricey so I was hoping we would be quite close to get our money's worth and I wasn't disappointed. We were off on the side, back about 15 rows and I could reach out and touch the stage. The show was fantastic. Celine is such a great singer; it is awe inspiring at times. My favorite part was when she was singing "All by Myself" and in one section all of the band and track and everything dropped out and it was just her. Beautiful.


Prior to the trip I actually laughed a little when I would tell people what I was going to Vegas for; now I say proudly I went to a Celine Dion concert and I would go to another in a heart beat. Thanks Rindy for being such a huge Celine fan and inviting me to the concert.

December - No Judging

Last Sunday I had a great lesson in Relief Society (the part of church where the sisters meet together for a lesson) taught by one of my awesome counselors, Laura. The lesson was about being happy with who we are, striving to be our best selves, having confidence, and not judging ourselves or others. It is a good topic to be reminded of, especially for girls.

As was discussed in the lesson on Sunday, we, are often judging ourselves. Why? Because we tend to judge others. So the easy solution is to stop judging other people and we won't be so inclined to judge ourselves or feel a lack of confidence. Definitely easier said then done.

It got me thinking about myself and how often I judge others. Too often. I have been trying to be better in this area for quite some time and I think I am making progress. Small progress, but progress none the less.

It also got me thinking about my blog. I have been procrastinating posting about Christmas and Beth and my (Chris, notice I didn't say me and Beth's) birthday. Now it is February and I had decided not to do a post about it anymore, because I was worried about what will people think. Seriously? That is lame of me. So, I am moving forward with confidence and the feeling that no one is judging me.

Beth, Chris, Caitlin and Ashlee as well as Katie and Ryan came a few days before Christmas. It is always fun when family comes, and more so at Christmas. We jumped in right away with fun busyness; eating, wrapping presents, making yummy treats, sewing pajamas, going to the temple, playing games and dress-up.

On Christmas Eve Dan, Erica, & Alyana and the Allen's over for dinner and a fun filled evening of activities. We pulled crackers (a type of Scottish present) before dinner, played chimes, sang carols, acted the nativity, had a $1.00 gift exchange, ate peppermint ice cream dessert and performed a ravishing rendition of "Christmas is Upon Us".

This is a song that we, the Bishop Family, have been performing (singing really) for years. We used to sing it every year with our cousins in Rawlins and it has been ingrained in our heads ever since. I think, judging from the pictures, the Stevens, Allen's and the brothers-in-law had fun learning and participating in the song that we love.

The performance included:

Santa and Snowmen

Reindeer

Trees

Elves

Dolls

Christmas Day is always an exciting time when little kids are around. We took our time opening presents and enjoying the time together. Below Ashlee is sporting one of my new pairs of shoes from myself. Yep, that's right, there was a present wrapped under the tree to myself from myself - two pair of shoes. It was awesome; I think I'll keep that tradition up. Caitlin and Ashlee are beauties in their princess gowns.

After Christmas we continued to busy ourselves with all kinds of fun. A birthday party for Ryan in Sierra Vista, football bowl games, another trip to the temple, the park, and a sleep over with Caitlin and Ashlee at my house.

At the park we played a game of horse shoes, girls vs. boys. It was a very close game, but in the end the girls pulled it out with a ringer (by me!). We were pretty excited to get the W.

The boys were not too excited to get the L, but they tried to be good sports.

On New's Years Eve...Beth and my birthday, we celebrated in true birthday fashion. We made an awesome pork burrito dish for dinner and had banana royales for our birthday treat. Brenda came from the valley with three of her kids and Erica & Alayna came over to help us celebrate our 30th birthday and ring in the new year.

We spent the evening playing games and eating and we all made it to way past midnight...1:00 does count as way past in my opinion.

Hopefully 2011 brings some new challenges and exciting adventures.

Fall Travels

This fall I have taken advantage of my vacation time. I love traveling and it was proven this fall with my many, many, many many trips. My excursions took me all over the country.

1. Texas
At the end of August I went to see David, Julie and Bailey. The end of August is not the ideal time to visit Houston, aka. hot and humid, and it did not leave me disappointed. One morning Julie and I took a long, fast walk with Bailey. I don't know about Julie, but I was soaking wet afterward! Despite the hotness/humidness, it was a great trip (and honestly, it was kind of cloudy the first too days so not too hot or humid). We went to the zoo, a Rice volleyball game, shopped at Hobby Lobby, played games and ate plenty of Blue Bell ice cream.

At the zoo we saw long horn cattle (a must see in Texas in my opinion)
and Bailey rode the carousel. She was quite a pro at naming all of the animals.

2. Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
This trip was for work. A week long, all expenses paid trip to Florida...I'm not complaining. I went with 4 other people from my company for a training. The training was pretty good and boring at times, as all trainings are. It took up the large majority of our days, but we did manage to get to the beach on Friday before flying back home. There was a storm out over the ocean which us land-locked people thought looked awesome.
The most memorable part of the trip was probably the flight to Florida, which warranted a blog story, but there were lots of other great times and many laughs. One night we went to dinner in downtown Ft. Lauderdale. After dinner we decided to walk to the beach, which was, in our opinion, at this sky rise that we could see in the distance. Once we had walked about 1 mile we realized the the sky rise was actually just a turn in the road and not the beach. It was getting dark and everyone was tired of walking so we gave up on the beach and walked back to the cars. Turns out the beach was about 6 or so miles away...ha ha ha. We would have been walking most of the night to get there and back.

3. New York City

In the summer of 2009 one of the ladies that I worked with moved to Amsterdam. It was decided that we would take annual girls' trip starting in 2010 so we could keep in contact better (there were five girls in the mix).

As we moved closer to September, 2010 it looked like myself, Veronica and Joni (the one in Amsterdam) would be the only ones making the trip to New York City. In the end, one of Joni's friends also joined us for a long weekend in the big apple.

On the first day we walked, and walked and walked. We went past the Manhattan Temple, which was only about 10 blocks from our hotel, very beautiful. Then we walked up and down Park Avenue and checked out every store. OK, not every store, but a ton of stores. Needless to say, Veronica and I were not really too enthused about shopping so much. I enjoyed the walking and the people seeing though.

For the next few days Joni and her friend shopped -seriously that's all they did, I can hardly fathom it - while Veronica and I were tourists. We saw Battery Park, ground zero, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Grand Central Station, and Central Park among other things. After being to New York several times and taking in the sites, I am of the opinion that Ellis Island is one of the best kept secrets. It was so interesting to see, learn the history, and ready people's stories. I highly recommend it.

We did hook up with the other two for meals...we ate at some awesome restaurants. To walk across the Brooklyn Bridge; another really fun thing that is not too common. And to see In the Heights on Friday, I mean Saturday night. We had planned to see it Friday night, but as we were about to go in Veronica looked at her ticket and realized it was for Saturday night; she had bought the tickets for the wrong night, ha ha. Luckily we were still there Saturday night so no harm done. The musical was great (on Saturday) and Times Square was crowded (on both nights).

Through the walking, waiting for the subway, eating, talking, etc. we did manage to snap a few photos. However, somehow I didn't get any of Joni or her friend. Oh well, next trip I guess I'll have to do better. These are from the Brooklyn Bridge, Battery Park and the Statue of Liberty.

4. Phoenix, Arizona
This wasn't really a huge trip since I do go to the valley several times every year, but in October my mom and I went specifically for Time Out for Women. We attended our second annual TOFW and were not disappointed. The speakers and musical numbers were amazing. We left with our spirits lifted.

5. Southern California
In June my mom and I got great plane tickets to fly to Southern California in October to visit Katie and Ryan (this was my only trip that was planned so far in advance). We flew out for a long weekend and managed to fit in tons of fun. We went to Disneyland using our "give a day, get a day" free tickets. It was fun to see Disneyland decorated to the nines for fall and Halloween.

We also went to Joann's, Gap Outlet (always great deals to be found here), I made a skirt with the help of Katie's friend, had a Pampered Chef party, ate yummy food, played Lego Harry Potter (on the play station I think...I am not too good at it) and played games. It was also fun to see Katie and Ryan's new house.

6. Wyoming
In November I flew up to spend a long weekend with Beth, Chris, Caitlin and Ashlee. When Beth was driving to pick me up, Caitlin was tired of the drive and wanted my plane to drop me off in Coalville. I guess the pilot didn't get her memo so they still had to come all the way to Salt Lake.

It was cold while I was there, although not nearly as bad as last year, and not too snowy. Still, I no longer have my Wyoming skin so I was freezing. Luckily I can borrow Beth's coats, slippers, sweaters, shoes...it's quite easy to pack when you are going to visit your twin :)

We had a lot of fun while I was visiting. Zumba, swimming (in an awesome pool), swimming lessons, a tea party, princess Yahtzee and hop scotch, workbooks, playing house, watching Oklahoma, a Thai restaurant, shopping at the mall (yea for Vanity) and local stores, babysitting, cooking, waking up early and making a Christmas decoration filled up much of our time.

At the tea party Caitlin loved to pour water for everyone in their enough-for-one-small-swallow-sized cups. Ashlee thoroughly enjoyed using her "cut" (knife) at the tea party and at any meal for that matter. She is really grateful if a "cut" is part of her place setting at meal time.

It is always fun to play with Caitlin and Ashlee with their huge imaginations and to have them sometimes confuse me for their mom. It is also fun to spend time with Beth and Chris; luckily Chris doesn't confuse me for Beth :)

No more vacations this year, I am saving my remaining days for Christmas time. The 2010 travel log was sure good though. I'm excited to see what kind of travel 2011 will bring.

Farewell

On Monday it was farewell to my gall bladder. For years I have been plagued with upper stomach pain. It was kind of sporatic, thank goodness it wasn't constant, but it was painful and annoying. The problem was, I couldn't pin point the on-set of the pain based on what I ate. If I ate greasy food it would probably cause pain, but not always. If I ate a banana it would probably not cause the pain, but not always. If I ate a sandwich it would probably not cause the pain, but not always. See my dilema here?

After some tests last year which determined that my gall bladder only functioned at 30%, but was a non-clonclusive test based on statistics, I decided to live with it unless:

1. more painful
2. more often

This summer both criteria were met. Although it was still unknown if the problems could actually be atributed to my gall bladder, the doctor said that my symptoms suggested gall bladder. So, on Monday I had the surgery. My gall bladder ended up being scarred, which would have happened from inflammation. Great news! I think that means that the gall bladder was indeed the problem.

Now, one week later, I am feeling quite good. This is a major improvement to how I was feeling throughout the week. The great thing about othroscopic surgery is I have only 4 small incessions which hardly hurt at all (unless I over stretch or touch them). I can't say yet if the pain if gone for good, as there is some internal pain from the surgery, but I have high hopes.

An out-of-the-norm flight

This week I am in Florida for work attending a class. Yep, about 2 miles from the beach and I am in class all day. Bummer. Being in Florida hasn't brought too much to talk about; the flight on the other hand...that was quite the adventure.

We (me and four other people from work that I traveled with) boarded the plane in Phoenix for an 8:50 am take-off. The plane took off, but didn't climb to altitude. We had just started circling the Phoenix area when the pilot came over the intercom. (Note - all of the quotes are going to be my best recollection of what was said).

"There is an error message with the door to the landing gear. We are going to open the landing gear and close it, which should take care of the error. In the meantime, we need to circle Phoenix because we can't continue with the error."

Okay, no problem. It got loud as the landing gear opened and closed. We continued circling. The landing gear opened once again, with the wing extensions open (that's the official term I'm sure).

Pilot on intercom again. "The message is still showing. We are in communication with the mechanics on the ground to see if we can fix the error. In the meantime we will continue circling. However, with all this circling we no longer have enough fuel to get us to Ft. Lauderdale so we'll have to return to the airport at some point."

In a few more minutes. "We are going to have to land so they can look on the error on the ground. It is nothing that can endanger the aircraft, but we need to fix it for the most safe flight. We need to circle for a while longer to burn off more fuel before we land."

About 20 minutes later. "We are getting ready to land. Right now the landing gear is locked. All indications show the wheels are down, however we want to make sure since it is locked. We are going to first do a fly by of the airport. We will fly low to the ground crew can make sure the wheels are down. Then, if everything is fine, we will come back around to land. Again, we think it is out but we want double check for safety. Also, when we do land, there are going to be emergency vehicles on the runway. This is just a precautionary measure."

Until this point it was kind of humorous, but now we are getting the seriousness of the situation. Emergency vehicles = pretty serious...right? The pilots were being very good about calmly giving us as much information as we needed so everyone on the plane was staying calm. We did still kind of joke because it eliminated any tension that could surface.

We circled around and came in for the fly by. From my window seat I watched as we got closer and closer to the ground. Near the runway we went down low...really low. People who couldn't see out the windows thought we were actually going to land. Really we just flew over the runway, <100 feet above the ground I think. Then we went up again.

After a few minutes the pilot again, "Everything looks good with the landing gear so we are going to circle back around and land. With the landing gear locked we can not manually steer the plane, so when we land we will sit on the runway until a tow comes to get us." Pause, pause, pause. "Oh, and remember that there will be emergency vehicles on the ground...as a precautionary measure".

Hmm, we didn't know about the lack of steering before. Interesting. But, people on the plane were still joking. Had the wheels not been down the atmosphere would have turned to scared and panicky quickly, but luckily that wasn't the case. I don't know what they do if the wheels don't come down; I can however imagine that it would be a bumpy landing probably filled with skidding, tipping, turning, breaking, burning, screaming and other not good things.

We finally landed. The emergency vehicles were there...right on the side of the runway...lights blaring...about 7 or 8 of them. We thankfully didn't need them. We sat on the runway. We were towed to a terminal. We de-boarded the plane. We sat in the airport for 1.5 hours. We boarded a different plane and had an non eventful flight to Florida, 4.5 hours late but in one piece and not complaining.

Ending of an Era

It all began in the fall of 2005. At work I was on the team that was getting ready to open the Central Lab and a new chemist came on board, Veronica. She was quiet and I was busy and through the fall we didn't get to know each other too well. We worked with the nicest 70 something year old man, Dick, and he assigned the desks in our new office. He said that he felt sure that Veronica and I needed to have desks right across from each other. And it turned out that he was so right.

For the past 5 years, this has been Veronica and my desks. We have not only became great work colleagues, but great friends as well. We have been through many ups and downs, solved numerous lab problems, dealt with complaints, enjoyed triumphs and endured the stresses...together. It has been so great to be able to sit across from her and talk about anything and everything.

Great things, however sometimes end and situations in life change, as was the case on July 30. This was Veronica's last day of work at the lab; she has transferred to a new job within the company. She is working at a mine and will be one of the labs customers, so I'll still work with her often, but in a different capacity. Luckily she isn't moving (that would be awful) so we can still get together outside of work and catch up on things.

The era of the desks is over. I am glad that we had 5 great years of being "neighbors" and will cherish all of the memories made and lessons I have learned from Veronica.

One of those losing my mind moments

That's what happened to me today at work.

I was at my desk and needed to take a bag of samples into the lab to pack them in a box. Lab coat, check. Pen and marker in the pocket of the lab coat, check. (And by pocket I mean the upper left pocket, hooked to the pocket, just like a nerd but without the pocket protector. ha ha). Packing tape gun, check. Paperwork for shipping the samples, check. Safety glasses...hum.

My safety glasses were no where to be found. This was very strange. They are always either on my desk or on my face because I have to wear them into the lab. I searched everywhere; my desk, the pockets of my labcoat, my head, the rest of the office, the lunchroom. No where. This bugs me because I hate losing stuff.

I go up front to get a new pair from the secretary. There are two other people up front who I explain my dilema to as she gets the new pair. She hands me the new pair and I put down the tape gun and my safety glasses to open the new package....wait a minute. There they were. In my hand with the tape gun the entire time!

Instead of just going back to my desk I tell the secretary and two other people that I found my glasses, they were in my hand the whole time. They laugh at me and say I shouldn't have confessed to them. Oh well, at least I was being honest. But I felt like I had completely lost my mind. It happens.