Oregon Trip

I went to go visit my parents and my older sister and her family in Oregon at the end of August. It was the first time I got to see my new niece, Teela, who was born in April. She is definitely a cutie and she was very calm and good-natured. Look how adorable she is...

While I was visiting at my parents' house, we got to pick wild blackberries. They grow all along the side of the road right across the street from their house. We made blackberry crepes for breakfast one morning, which was yummy.


















We went to Newport one of the days to go to the coast. The boys (my nephews) had a lot of fun at the beach and played in the water for a long time. Unfortunately, this made them totally soaking wet for the drive home, but they still had a blast.


















We saw Sea Lions by the harbor sunning themselves on wooden docks and also on a little rocky island a little further in the water. Anytime any of them would move or get any of the others wet, they would all start honking and complaining. Such a lazy life...


















Here's a link to more pictures from the trip... http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/OregonFamilyVisit?authkey=N9LHB1QVpx4#

Attempting to Organize

David has always been frustrated with my "piles"-I have a big one on the floor in our bedroom (mostly papers) and one has recently taken residence on the third cushion of our couch (books about Grave's Disease and commission reports and tip envelopes from work, etc.) This has been the way I've "organized" things for quite a number of years, and I at least think that I always know where everything is. However, David recently started threatening that he would just start throwing away things if I didn't find some better way to organize everything and get it off the floor, so he took me to some stores to look at options. His initial idea was to just buy a trunk or storage bench and throw everything in it, which of course didn't work with me. So, since I was only given one day to decide on something, this is what I ended up with-part bookshelf, part cubbies with fabric drawers/boxes to put stuff in. I put it together myself, and I think it looks fairly decent for being $40 (about $65 with the drawers). It's a start...I cleaned the closet out a while back too and it's looking much more organized. Wish me luck in my continuing efforts to de-clutter!

Sister Visit

Over this past Easter weekend, my sister Jennifer came to visit. We hung out at the spa and relaxed for a while the day she got here and then went over to the Belaggio to see the conservatory exhibit there. It was a garden theme with poppies and other flowers and there was also an area with lots of butterflies in a building that was like a gardening shed.

Jennifer was a culinary arts major and loves food (as do I). A lot of the pictures she took ended up being of the food we ate. At her request we went to a gourmet restaurant for lunch one day, at David's request we went to Metro Pizza where we got his favorite stuffed pizza, and at my request we went to a Thai restaurant one night. Here is a picture of David enjoying his pizza:

Jennifer and I also took a trip out to Primm, NV where she rode on the big rollercoaster and we went shopping at the outlet mall.

We stopped at a couple of pet stores while she was here also to look at the puppies because we both love dogs. At one of the stores, there was an adorable apricot cockapoo that I really wanted, but she was way too expensive. I did get to hold her and play with her a little though.

On Easter Sunday, we had a great dinner of brown sugar glazed ham, cheesy potatoes, pineapple casserole and fresh green beans.

The day her flight left we went to Lake Las Vegas and walked around for a little while. I like it when Jennifer visits because I have a girl to shop with and eat the types of food that David won't eat like Thai food. It was fun to see her and hang out for a few days.

Here's a link to more pictures of the trip: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/JenniferVegasVisit?authkey=WrhCEBbt6UM

Alaska Cruise part 3

Ok, this is the final installment of our Alaska cruise adventure, which you might all be very bored of by now...

Our next stop was Ketchikan. This was probably my favorite of the towns we visited. We decided to go on one of the 2 hour tours that was offered. The guy giving the tour was pretty entertaining and told us all about various things in the town. The main stop was Saxman Native Village. We saw the clan house, the carving shed with several totem poles in progress, and all the totems around the village. Our tour guide also took us on a short walk through the woods and pointed out evidence of bears like where they rubbed their backs against trees to scratch themselves. Then we saw an eagle's nest in one of the nearby trees with the parents and two "babies" (they were big already) who were practicing flying around the nest. I wasn't able to get a picture of the eagle's nest because my batteries had died and the Village store didn't sell any.

Next we went to the Creek Street Historic District, which was formerly Alaska's notorious red light district. Creek Street itself was very cool, because most of the street is over the creek and built like a pier on pilings. There were some cute shops along the street, along with Dolly's house which is now a museum about a famous Madam who operated her house their in the red light district. We walked along the creek until we got to the Fish Ladder, which is where you can see salmon fighting their way upstream during the hatching season.

After that, we just walked around some more and explored more of the town. We walked to the Deer Mountain Tribal Hatchery and Eagle Center, where salmon are hatched and eagles are rehabilitated. We saw St. John's Church, which is the town's oldest church, and then I dragged David into various shops where I found more Matryoshka (Russian nesting) dolls for my little collection. When we got back to the ship, there was a Great Alaskan Cookout on the lido deck, with lots of salmon and other seafood.

Link to pictures of Ketchikan: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/Ketchikan

Our next and last stop before arriving back in Seattle was Victoria, B.C. We had wanted to visit Craigdarroch castle and Butchart Gardens, but since we were docking there at 6pm and they were both a ways out of town, it was too late to go unless we had been part of the pre-planned excursion. So, we walked from the dock to Beacon Hill Park and then on to the main part of town. We stopped in Chinatown and took a picture at the Gates of Harmonious Interest and looked around in some of the shops there. I bought some sesame seed candy in one.

After Chinatown, we encountered a guy dressed as Darth Vader playing the violin on an island in the middle of the street. He was quite entertaining-I should have tried to do video with my camera, but I didn't think about it at the time. We walked by the Empress Hotel and I took pictures of the Parliament buildings. Next to the harbor, there was a street performer who was very entertaining. He juggled lit torches and also escaped from a straight jacket and chains. Our last stop before a lot of things closed was Miniature World. It had all sorts of miniature displays of towns and different scenes in history. I liked the miniature circus that had moving rides and there was also a miniature sawmill that made wooden boards out of small logs. Apparently, it had been deemed a little too dangerous to keep running (even though it was behind glass), but they had a video of it operating and it was pretty cool.

It was pretty late after all that and we were tired and getting cold, so instead of walking all the way back to the ship, we got a pedicab. The guy operating the pedicab was informative too and told us some interesting facts about the area and buildings that we passed.

Link to pictures of Victoria: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/VictoriaBC

When we got back to Seattle, I was sad the cruise was over, but we got to visit with my parents and my older sister and her family for a few days, so that was nice. My parents took us to a cool place that had a bunch of bonsai trees, we saw a family of deer by my sister's house, and David and I went to the Space needle before we left. It was a great vacation and I was quite sad to be heading back to the desert when it was all over.

Link to pictures of bonsai trees: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/BonsaiGarden

Link to pictures of deer: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/Deer

Link to pictures of Space Needle: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/SpaceNeedle

And for fun, here are some pictures of David playing with my parents' dogs: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/DavidWithDogs?authkey=PiqHCDMJQmI

P.S. You can also make comments on individual pictures in the web albums-just click on the "add a comment" link to the right of the picture. I always enjoy comments!

Washington, D.C.

Last August (2007), I went on a trip to visit my old roommate and good friend Melissa in Washington, D.C. She had recently moved to Arlington, VA. It was only a 4 day trip, so we tried to pack in as much as we could while I was there. We visited the D.C. temple in the evening, and there were a bunch of bats flying around the spires in the lights. Apparently that's a usual occurrence at night.

The next day, we wandered all around the National Mall and saw the Washington Monument, the WWII Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. We saw the Jefferson Memorial from across the Potomac, but by that point our feet were pretty tired and it was still pretty far away.

Link to pictures of memorials/monuments: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/WashingtonDC

Melissa had some connections, so we were able to go on a tour of the White House and also the Capitol Building. We weren't allowed to take pictures in the White House, but I did take some of the exterior. The building wasn't as big as I thought it would be, and of course some areas were off limits for the tour, so it wasn't a very long tour. We went on the Capitol Building tour the next day, and it was cool to see where the House and the Senate meet.

Link to pictures of the Capitol Building: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/CapitolBuilding

After the Capitol tour, we visited the National Botanical Garden which was very pretty and had lots of beautiful flowers. We ate lunch and looked around at the Museum of American History and then headed to the National Gallery of Art. We literally spent hours walking around and looking at everything, but it was so big that we didn't get to everything. I got in trouble at one point because I was showing Melissa something in a painting and pointed at it a little too close, so the security guy reprimanded me. We also looked at the sculpture garden outside and then rested for a while by a big fountain.

Link to National Botanical Garden pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/NationalBotanicalGarden

The next day, we went to the National Zoo and looked at all the animals. We went to Old Town Alexandria, VA that night and saw Jamey Turner perform by the waterfront. He is a glass harp musician and plays songs on wine glasses. It was really amazing. We got some food at a Thai restaurant after that, and I thoroughly enjoyed the mangoes and sticky rice. mmmmm....

Link to National Zoo pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmelode/NationalZoo
Link to a YouTube video of Jamey Turner: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuBqg-AwetY

It was a great trip and I had a lot of fun visiting Melissa and seeing all the sights of our Nation's Capitol.

Trying to catch up

Ok, so I'm finally going to try to post about old stuff that I never got around to writing about. The next few posts will probably be out of order time-wise, so just bear with me.

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.