My New Niece

Teela Katarina Abel

was born Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 3:18 p.m. She was 7 pounds, 6 ounces and 21 inches.

Alaska Cruise part 2

Our second stop was Hubbard Glacier. As we traveled through Yakutat Bay, we saw a couple of humpback whales. I could never get the timing right to get a picture-my camera was too slow to catch them when they surfaced. Hubbard Glacier is the largest tidewater glacier in Alaska-I took a lot of pictures of it and all the ice in the water. We couldn't get super close to it since the ship was so big, and we were cold being outside on the deck, so we didn't stay out there too long.

The next day, we docked in Sitka. We hiked up Castle Hill, which gave us a nice view of the town and the harbor-we could also see Mt. Edgecumbe in the distance, which is a dormant volcano. A Russian castle used to be at the top of Castle Hill, until it was burned down in 1894. Next, we went to St. Michael's Cathedral, which is a Russian Orthodox cathedral. Cameras weren't allowed inside, but there were a lot of interesting antique religious relics and icons. This cathedral was actually rebuilt after it burned down in a fire in 1966-before then, it was the oldest religious structure from the Russian era in Alaska. We also visited Sitka National Historical Park, which has 28 hand-carved totem poles. As we walked back, we came across a hatchery run by the college there that also had a little tidepool exhibit inside where I touched some starfish and other ocean creatures.

link to pictures of Hubbard Glacier:
http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/HubbardGlacierAndIce

link to pictures of Sitka:
http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/Sitka

Alaska Cruise part 1

I'm finally getting around to doing a post about our cruise. I guess it seemed a little daunting because there's a lot to say, but I think I will break it up into segments.....Anyway, David and I went on a cruise to Alaska June 9-16. It was the first cruise either of us had been on and we had a great time. We were able to get our ocean view cabin upgraded to a balcony, which was really nice and also gave us a little more space.

We spent the first afternoon/evening getting situated and finding our way around the ship. I was excited about the food and being able to dress up and go to dinners in the formal dining room. I had escargot one night (which David found somewhat disgusting and wouldn't try) and we both had filet mignon and lobster tail on another night-it was nice to have fancy meals and try some things that I've never tried before. They also had entertainment on the ship most of the nights-we saw the magician and a comedian that were pretty good. Every day when our room was cleaned, they would make an towel animal-I got pictures of a few of them, but there was also a scorpion and an elephant.

The cruise was round trip from Seattle, WA and our first dock was in Juneau, AK. Juneau is Alaska's capitol and although I lived in Alaska until I was 12, I had never been there before. I actually hadn't been to any of the places in Alaska that the cruise docked, so it was nice going to new places. It was raining in Juneau for pretty much the whole time we were there, but we still had a good time. We walked around and looked in a few shops and then stopped at St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox church which is a historic church there. I also took pictures of the Capitol building and the Governor's mansion. In our exploring we came across a very pretty river and it was so green-it made me sad that I live in the desert now. After walking around and exploring, we decided to get out of the rain for a while and went to the Alaska State Museum. They had some very interesting exhibits about various tribes native to the area and other interesting history. After the museum, we rode a tram up the side of Mt. Roberts. The view was a little foggy from the rain, but we still could see the city and out into the ocean. We saw a rehabilitated bald eagle and saw a presentation by the Tlingit (klin-kit) tribe that operates the tram. We hiked a little trail while we were on the mountain, but it got windy and the umbrella blew inside out. So, after that we were pretty cold and wet and decided to head back to the ship.

link to Juneau pics:
http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/Juneau

link to pics taken from our cabin balcony: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/ViewFromCabinBalcony

link to pics of our cabin:
http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/TowelAnimalsAndCabin

more to come soon...

San Diego Trip

Ok, I'm pretty late in posting this, but we went to San Diego in April for Michael's (David's brother) wedding. Since our 1 year anniversary was the day after Michael's wedding, David and I extended our stay to celebrate. The wedding was lovely, although I did get sunburned during all the picture-taking outside of the temple.

Link to Wedding pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/MichaelSWedding?authkey=UAgMme0araI

We also went to Sea World with David's family, which was a lot of fun. The only downside was that we went on one of those white water rapids rides toward the end of the day when it was getting cooler and got completely soaked. I was expecting it to be like the one at Lagoon where you can make it through only getting somewhat wet, but we were basically drenched. So, we were pretty cold and wanted to leave after that.

Link to Sea World pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/SeaWorld

We were staying at a vacation rental in La Jolla and we went to La Jolla cove which was pretty close by and saw all the harbor seals that beach there. I enjoyed watching them-you could actually walk out on the beach pretty close to them, they just had the area where they were roped off.

Link to La Jolla Cove pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/LaJollaCoveHarborSeals

We also went to Balboa Park and Seaport village with David's family and then drove over the big bridge to Coronado Island where I took some pictures of the skyline from across the water.

Link to Balboa Park pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/BalboaPark

Link to Seaport Village and skyline pics:
http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/Sandiegotrip

After the family left, we stayed a couple more days. We went to the San Diego Zoo and saw lots of animals and we also walked around and ate dinner in the historic Gaslamp District of San Diego.

Link to San Diego Zoo pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/SanDiegoZoo

When we left San Diego, I surprised David with a trip to Big Bear Lake in the mountains of Southern California where we stayed at a bed and breakfast for a night. The next day we went hiking and walked around the lake for a bit before heading back home. It was a great trip and it was nice to get away for a while.

Link to Big Bear Lake pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/BigBearLake

New Updates

Ok, so it's been quite a while since I've put a new post on here, so I should probably update everyone. I stopped working as an attendant and started only doing massage on March 12. I'm working part time and the extra days off are really nice. Even though I'm working part time I'm making more money now than when I worked full time as an attendant, so that has definitely been a good thing. I attended a 3 day training that the spa provided on Hawaiian Lomi Lomi massage a couple of weeks ago. I really enjoyed learning it and it will be nice to have a new type of massage in my repertoire.

David and I also just moved on March 9 to a townhome that we will be renting for the next 12 months. It's about 3 miles from where we were before-it's in a gated community and has a 1 car garage. It's been quieter than the apartment also-we only share one wall with another unit and we're above the garages. The only thing we've been having problems with is that the garbage disposal doesn't work, but they should be fixing that soon. I'll probably put some more pictures up in a little while, but here's a quick one of the exterior.

Some delays....

Looks like it will be a little longer before I switch over to massage at work. They have to hire 3 new girls as attendants and they have to finish their orientation and training before I can switch. So it might not be for a couple more weeks. There's also a possibility that they might need me to pick up a few shifts as an attendant even after they switch me over to massage. It's a little annoying since my boss gave me the impression that I would be starting at the beginning of February, but I guess I just need to be patient.
On Saturday they had a scheduling problem/emergency and asked me very last minute to give a guest a massage. I was a little nervous because they hadn't really gone over the specifics with me on how they set the massage table, where to get the lotions, how to incorporate the hot towels into the massage, etc. I was given like a 2 minute rush instruction on all that, so I forgot one or two little things, but it was the lady's first massage, so she probably didn't notice anything. I also had to do the massage in a couples room because all the other massage rooms were in use. Even though I was nervous at first, it was a good thing because it kinda threw me in there and now I won't really be so nervous when I do actually start. And hey, I made an extra $62 that day for doing that massage. Not bad.

p.s. if anyone wants to see the website of the spa that I work at, here it is...
http://www.harrahs.com/qua/our-spa-overview.html

Finally!

On Monday I finally got my massage therapist work card after waiting about 2 1/2 months for the special investigations section of the police department to finish my big background check. Since the spa attendants are still a little understaffed I will keep working there for the rest of the month and then I will be starting as a massage therapist on February 1st. I will probably be doing some training for different treatments until then and hopefully get passed off on some of them before I start working so I can have more things to do besides just swedish and deep tissue massage. I'm a little nervous because it's been like 5 or 6 months since I've been massaging regularly, but I'm excited too. Wish me luck!

Merry Christmas!

As some of you know, I have to work on Christmas from 11-7, although I did have today (Christmas Eve) off, which was nice. David and I went to church today and our ward had a nice Christmas sacrament meeting with several speakers who told stories about their favorite Christmas memories. David and I were able to have a nice dinner together, which doesn't happen that much since I usually work until 9pm every night. David's brother Michael was here on Friday night and we went and saw the Christmas lights at the cactus garden by our house-there were a lot of lights. I forgot to bring my camera with me though, unfortunately. I did take a picture of our simple little Christmas tree though. Even though David didn't really want a tree I insisted that we get one, so I got a real one at a tree lot. I didn't have any ornaments, but I just bought some lights for it and made a little star to go on top. So it's a very simple tree but I like it. It's nice to have the pine tree smell too.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and gets everything they wanted! :)

New car

Ok, so we've actually had the car for about 3 weeks now, but I've been bad about doing regular posts. Anyway, we bought a new car after David sold his old car to his sister. It's a 2003 Toyota Corolla and we were able to get it for a pretty good deal. And when you buy a car from a private owner in Nevada, you don't have to pay taxes on it, so that was nice. I've been liking the keyless entry because I've never had a car before that has had that. Here are a couple of pictures of it (the guy we bought it from took these).

New job adventures

I started working in the new spa at Caesar's Palace last week. It officially opened to the public on Tuesday the 14th. It's been kinda crazy and there have been quite a few kinks to smooth out-everyone's still learning all the new things and how everything is going to work. The spa is very pretty and big. It's 50,000 square feet and has 51 treatment rooms, not including the other parts of the spa like the sauna, roman baths, steam room, etc. I got the closing shift since I was the last one hired and I'm at the bottom of the totem pole. I've been staying about 30 min later than my scheduled shift every night though, because there's been so much to do and I'm the only one there (for the women's side) to close. I think they are trying to hire more people though, so hopefully that and some other things will get better with time.
One thing that I like is that my hour lunch break is paid and they also have an employee dining room which is like a smallish buffet and the food there is all free for employees. I still need to find out about what sort of perks or discounts I get in the spa so I can start pampering myself a little bit occasionally. Someone said they thought we could get a free massage or spa treatment every so often, so I'll have to check on that.

Yay friends!

We had the pleasure of having our friends Nate Lowe and Dadoo and Mandy come to visit us last weekend. It was good to see them and we had fun watching Lowe gamble and lose hundreds of dollars (he did win most of it back though I think). On Friday night we went to the MGM buffet for dinner and it was very good. After dinner, Lowe wanted to gamble at the Stratosphere.
On Saturday we had a lovely breakfast and then went to Green Valley Ranch which is a hotel/casino that is off the strip and closer to our apartment. Mandy and I took a little tour of their spa, which was really nice. We went to downtown Las Vegas on Saturday night and ate at the Main Street Station's buffet and then went to Fremont Street to see the light show there. We saw a few interesting things while we were there also-there was a man who was extremely inebriated, and his friend (who was also a bit intoxicated) decided to carry him and proceeded to throw him across his back. They didn't make it very far though-they tumbled to the ground a couple minutes later. Ah, the joys of Vegas......

Some good news and Lake Las Vegas

I just found out that I got the job at Caesar's Palace! I will be working in their brand new spa that is opening in a few weeks. I'm pretty excited because I'll have the opportunity to (eventually) be trained on a lot of new treatments while I work there. It should be fun. I'll be starting my orientation and training soon.
On Saturday, we went with some friends who were visiting to an arts festival at the Lake Las Vegas resort. We had never been there before, but it is really pretty. They have a bunch of shops outside and it feels like you're in an Italian village. They also have a big man-made lake where they have gondola rides, etc. Here are some pictures....

Bellaggio exhibit and fountains

A couple of weeks ago we went to the Bellaggio to see the fountains and the exhibit they had in the conservatory. In the exhibit, they had small scale buildings, etc. done in great detail using only natural plant material. I thought some of them were really neat, so I took some pictures.

The Bellaggio

Capitol Building

Rapunzel's Tower

Westminster Abey

Lincoln Memorial

More apartment pictures

Well, we got our kitchen table and chairs put together last weekend (with the help of David's dad) and we also went couch shopping while David's parents were visiting. The couch that we bought just got delivered today, so I took a couple pictures of our living room and dining room now that they are presentable. I still have some boxes I have to unpack and go through-for some reason I have about 3 times as much stuff as David does. I also need to hang up more pictures, which seems like a daunting task. I have a couple of interviews on Tuesday for spa and massage positions at Caesar's Palace and Bally's, so hopefully those will go well and I will be employed soon.

More wedding photos

Here is another photo album I just made of all the candid photos I have from the wedding that weren't taken by the photographer.

http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/CandidWeddingPhotos?authkey=XLYHMb09GoM

Wedding pictures

Here is a link to our wedding and reception pictures for those of you who have not seen them yet.
http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/DavidAndMelodyWeddingPictures?authkey=4CEzzEDiyFs

Pictures of our apartment

Here are some pictures of our apartment. I didn't take one of the living room because I want to wait until we have a couch and it looks a little nicer, but these kinda give you an idea.


Kitchen

computer office/guest room

Bathroom

Updates

The pest control guy came on Monday to take care of our little "friends". Apparently we also had a little bit of a cricket colony living in the walls of our patio. So, since Monday we've had quite a number of additions to the roach and cricket graveyard outside. Today, I had the wonderful task of sweeping them all out of our outside closets and the patio-maybe I should have taken a picture before I swept them out to show how many there were, but that would have been gross. No more roaches in the house though, and the black widow is dead, so I'm happy about that. Our dishwasher is working properly now thanks to a replaced part, and we have a microwave. Now we just need a couch and to get enough motivation to finish putting together our dining table and chairs. So far I put together one chair, but it's fairly wobbly so I'm afraid to do more in case they all turn out crooked.

The move to Nevada

Well, with the current trend in blogging recently, I thought I'd try my hand at it and let you all know what's been going on with David and I recently. As most of you know, we moved to Henderson, Nevada on Monday the 21st. Needless to say, it's not very much fun moving and unloading boxes in 105 degree heat. We've had a couple little problems with the apartment like one of the toilets not flushing correctly and the brand new dishwasher not working properly(Sears is supposed to come fix it on Monday). I've encountered a lot of new bugs that I'm not used to. There is a black widow spider currently living in our outside storage closet (but they only spray for bugs on mondays, so we're waiting on that), and many lovely cockroaches and crickets all over outside. We had a couple of roaches in the apartment that caused some freaking out, but we bought some raid spray that we sprayed all around the doors and windows and that seems to be doing the trick. All in all though, the apartment is very nice. It is a condo conversion so it has brand new everything-paint, carpet, granite countertops, light fixtures, stainless steel appliances, etc. We finally got our cable modem in the mail today, so we now have internet (it was hard being without it for a few days). I've also realized my dependence on having a microwave-we still need to get one because they didn't have one included in the unit. Anyway, I will try to post some pictures of the apartment once it's a little more organized.