No Blood for Me

This is the second time I have been rejected from giving blood. I guess I should stop sharing needles with transvestites. No actually, both times it is due to my travels to foreign lands. About 4 months after returning from Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Japan I tried to give blood and was denied. Well that was 3 years ago and I had received a notice a year after my return saying that I was clear. I traveled to Costa Rica this past summer but thought I would be okay seeing that it is one of the cleaner/safer countries in Central America. Evidently not. Actually the first 3 areas we stayed in were clear, it was that last town of Arenal we went to for 3 days that was in the red zone and caused me to be rejected again. So looks like I won't be giving blood for another year.

Young Ambassadors

Saturday night my mom had about 100 tickets, it was only 12 but still, to see BYU's Young Ambassadors at the Riverside Municipal Auditorium. I thought the first half was just okay with some of the singing not the strongest, but after the intermission things got better. Especially when they sang 3 numbers from Wicked, my favorite musical.

Sister Emily Ginn

My dear Nauvoo friend, Sister Emily Ginn, returned from her mission in Taiwan. She had a 3 hour layover at LAX so I stopped by to see her and keep her company, while anxiously awaiting that last flight home. I learned all about her mission and the fun times she had and it was fun to watch her struggle for certain words in English:)
I know she was a great missionary who worked hard and loved the people of Taiwan.

Dumont Dunes

Many of you asked, nay begged, to see pictures of Kyle. So, without further ado.....

Don't think that I have been ignoring your requests or dismissing them, its just that I haven't had the time or access to internet. Friday I took off early from work and we headed north on the 15 to an unknown place to me called Dumont Dunes, it is 30 minutes NW of Baker. Just think of Glamis, but much smaller and fewer white trash people. After settling in a bit we were off where I got my lessons in riding. It was more of a refresher course seeing that I have riden quads in Costa Rica and Hawaii, and even took a motorcyle class while at BYU, but never have I riden on sand. I will have you know that I did quite well, and Kyle was tremendously impressed. We were there until Monday just before noon and I had a great time.

Heart Day

After getting a call from the Infiniti dealership that my car was finally working and not going to cost me anymore, I jetted over, paid the $1500 and rushed back to my apartment where I speed changed my clothes in 5 minutes. Then I was off to Kyle's house where he had beautiful pink roses and dinner waiting.


We then watched I Am Legend which was pretty good. The rest of the evening we spent out back by the fire enjoying the stars.

Boot Camp

I decided to spice up my workout routine and have an adventure doing it as well. So, that is why I signed up to do a women's only Boot Camp and it started this morning, at 5:30 AM!!! And I didn't even have work today, talk about dedication. My mother signed up for the 3-day a week month long program as well, but she was a slacker today and did not show up for the first day of class. No, she was actually in Texas visiting my adorable nephew and does not get back until tonight.

This program takes place Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings from 5:30-6:30 am at the top of the parking structure at Victoria Gardens, an outdoor shopping mall about 1 mile from my apartment. Good thing it is close otherwise I don't know about the early morning.

Well, they split the 40+ group of women into two groups: those who have done their boot camp before and those who have not. My newbie class started out by running down to the lowest level and then halfway back up where we did high steps and then butt-kicks, and grapevines. Then back up to the top where we grabbed our weights before heading to the front of the Cultural Center/Library. Once there we used the benches to do dips and squats, a ledge to do push-ups and our weights to do bicep curls and other things I can't remember at the moment.

The last 20 minutes were spent doing ladders. This consisted of starting off by doing 10 lunges, followed by 10 bicycle crunches, and 10 mountain climbers. We then had to run about 3/4 the length of the parking structure and back. We then did 9 squats, 9 crunches and 9 push-ups before running 3/4 down and back. 8 lunges, 8 bicycle crunches and 8 mountain climbers, then run.....and so on all the way down to 1. I must brag here by saying that I was usually one of the top 8-12 to finish each time, beating many of the return boot campers.

So far I'm a little sore but I'll have to let you know how I feel tomorrow morning and then again after Wednesday class.

Update Time

So I finally have some time and decided that I should sit myself down and get my blog updated with everything that has happened in the past 2-3 weeks.

• Saturday, 26 January 2008, I went on a date with Kyle, a friend of a friend, where he took me to the Melting Pot. We then attempted to go ice skating, bowling and then to GameWorks, but due to not knowing the exact location of the rink, the alleys being packed and the entertainment center being closed for a private event, we were left out in the rain.
  
  


• Sunday, 27 January 2008- President Gordon Bitner Hinckley passed away at the age of 97. While having family Sunday dinner, my sister's boyfriend got a text message from a cousin informing us of the news. I knew it was coming sooner or later, but it was still a shock that it had really happened. I KNOW Pres. Hinckely was a prophet!

• Tuesday, 29 January 2008- I took my car into the dealership to be serviced. For the past month or two my car had been making funny noises and not running quite right. Also there were a couple of times where it would turn off has soon as I turned it on, or after driving for awhile and then parking it would just shut off. A week prior I had taken it to my dad's mechanic and he said the intake manifold gasket needed to be replaced. We called around and the Infiniti dealership was cheapest amazingly enough, (but not for long). So the dealership checked it out, confirmed it was the intake manifold gasket, but also concluded that it needed 3 new engine mounts. After three days and $1800 later, I had my car back. Only to drive it home from the dealership, park it and have the 'Service Engine Soon' light come on.



• Thursday, 31 January 2008- Kyle took me to a Thai restaurant for dinner and then we went over to the Riverside Stake Center for volleyball.



• Saturday, 2 Feb 2008- attended a wedding reception for Megan McDowell. The food was tasty and non-traditional with an In-N-Out truck pulling up and pumping out hamburgers. After the reception Kyle beat me big time at Lazer Quest.

• Tuesday, 5 Feb 2008- Kyle surprised me by taking me to dinner at the Jolly Roger restaurant in Dana Point. We then drove through the Doheny State Beach campsites seeing that we had both grown up camping at them with out families. A short drive south and we ended up at the San Clemente pier where we walked to the end and then got hot chocolate.


• 


• Wednesday, 6 Feb 2008- I took my car back into the Infiniti dealership to have the service engine light looked at and see what more damage had been done. Now the ECM- electronic control module was not functioning correctly, which would set me back another $850.



• Thursday, 7 Feb 2008- Went in to get my car and the new ECM was not working correctly because the throttle body was not registering and would probably need to be replaced. So pretty much everything in my car is breaking one by one. I left the dealership and cried. I don't usually cry, it's just not natural to me, not that I'm opposed to it but it's not a common occurance for me. I cried because I was tired of spending money that I don't have, I cried because I felt betrayed by my car. It is only a 2001 Infiniti I30. Granted it has 130,0oo miles (I did a lot of driving to and from Utah) but it has always been dependable and I have always been good to it, so I felt like it was turning its back on me. If more things continue to go wrong I will just give up on my car, trade it in and get myself the beautiful Infiniti M35.

I needed to get out of the IE and escape this mess so I asked Kyle to go to Disneyland with me only to find out that it closed 10 minutes before we got there. I already posted about this so I won't continue about how I barely lost miniture golf. We're both positive I won the first game but I messed up on the score card so ...

• Saturday, 9 Feb 2008- Finally got my hair cut which I love, and got myself a HUGE tv, for FREE. My co-worker just bought a new 50-something inch DLP tv and so he offered me his old 65 inch. Kyle and and his brother moved it into my apartment and I am amazed at how big it is.
  

Misinformed

I don't want to say that I lied to you yesterday about blogging right after work, because I had every intention of coming home and doing just that, but then life happened. This is the second time in 2 weeks that my car has been into the dealership to be serviced, one thing leading to another and frankly I'm all out of money. So after having a little cry in my loaner car, must be the menstual hormones because I usually never cry, I decided I needed a distraction by going to Disneyland. We got down there around 8:10 and to complete my luck for the day it closed at 8pm. So onto Plan B. We had passed Camelot, a mini amusemant center, on the drive down so that is where we played two rounds of miniture golf and I lost by 2 strokes. Seeing that I lost the bet I now have to buy Kyle a CD.

I'm Sorry...

I became one of those bloggers that I detest, you know, the ones who don't update in close to a month or longer. No real excuse to offer but I promise to update later today when I get home from work.