Valentine's Day

I usually try to ignore Valentine's Day every year, even if I am dating someone. Of course this is completely futile especially in a workplace where everyone is dating but me. We've been busy all week and working late but the upside to the holiday is that even with the work load we all got out 'early'. So I spent my Valentine's Day at work and sleeping in a hammock which was completely awesome by my reckoning.

The only thing I really missed was getting flowers from my dad like when I was a little girl. They always made me feel special. My family did send me a card in the mail!

Speaking of which, a very happy anniversary to my parents!

It seems my single friends state side also had some fun :) Incidentally it was also his birthday.

Monday

Case of the monday:


My scooter tyre is flat and since it's a holiday all stores are closed. After pushing my scooter to the air pump do I: 


a) ride it home, closer but have to bring tyre back or 
b) the further- may-not-make-it-to- closed motorcycle shop to get a tyre in the am? 


Correct answer is c. Tyer is so slashed by drunk peoples broken bottles scooter can't make it out of parking lot

Recognize this guy?

Anyone remember him??

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this cracked me up! Any case you can see more stuff about NCIS at the address below :)

http://tv.yahoo.com/slideshow/840/photos/1

Gypsy Faire

Gypsy Faire came into town again this year with a lot of the same stuff as last year. As always the food was good and the caravans were awesome.

$5 pony rides for kids

awesome wooden caravans

really cool doors

caravan dogs snuggling chew toys sleeping

First week back

It's my first week back in New Zealand and it's been a rough one. My plane landed in Auckland on Sunday and I managed to get thru customs fairly quickly which was nice since I had yet another plane to catch. What didn't help my time table was that my luggage didn't make it to New Zealand. Lost Luggage said that it had been left in LAX but they would ship it to me and since I had a plane to catch I didn't argue much. On the upside when transferring from American Airlines to Air New Zealand there would have been an baggage fee (international vs domestic rates) so I wasn't going to be charged that and I didn't have to lug my gear across to the other terminal which involved co-ordinating a 3 min bus ride.

I was also hoping to score a free ride home by texting friends however my phone was not having it. I ran a lot of updates on my computers while in the US because of data caps in New Zealand and apparently one of them screwed up my phones ability to work in New Zealand. One stupidly over priced taxi ride later I'm finally back to my now dusty apartment with no food or phone but hey my bed still looks comfy. A fun little scooter ride later in the cold (because it was warmer in Alabama than here) I've settled in with food and get some sleep. Jet lag is a incurable hangover that has lasted me a few days.

Monday back at work was nice just to see everyone. Rachel and I got almost nothing done as we spent most of the day catching up. I went to her house afterwards to continue our talk so that we could actually get something done on Tuesday. It was nice to enjoy her new house (which she just built with her family) and hang out with her son Evan who didn't seem to miss me all too much ;)

Tues afternoon my luggage could be picked up from the airport so Rachel was kind enough to take me after work but unfortunately on the way we were hit by another car on the rear passenger side. Foolish driver tried to cross two lanes of traffic at 5:05 instead of just going out where the light was.  We were all ok but it was just one more thing for the hectic week at work. Stress was piling on.

By Wendsday my phone still doesn't work and continues to mock my efforts to use it. We all have back to back meetings which end up giving us more work which is good but no time to do it in. Wed night I noticed my kindle doesn't want to turn on. The button at the bottom wont click on. I can turn on my kindle with my computer but the power switch is non functioning. >sigh<

Now it's Thursday and I feel just as behind as yesterday. Poor Todd and Rachel had a 3 hour meeting. Rachel had two before that and one with me after. Phone still doesn't work and kindle is glitchy. So I decided to update my blog with all the posts I wrote on my phone until I realized that 15 posts have been erased. Super.

Come on Friday

Backup

Well I've managed to get majorly backed up over the christmas holidays so I'm going to post things on the day they happened. Be prepared to skip all the way back to Dec 22 and hold on. You are in for a wild ride!

Surprise

For most of November I told my parents and all my family that I would be arriving on the 26th of December like last year as flights before Christmas were expensive and hard to come by. In truth I had booked December 22 in June and had been planing this surprise a long time.

In preparation I looked up a complete phony itinerary for the day I was suppose to fly out and made sure all the details for my fake departure were taken care of as well as for my real arrival. A special shout out to two of my friends (you know who you are!) for helping me pull of this feat.

Surprising the folks was awesome but of course uncertain and sure enough the one night I come home no one is there. I call around using skype so if folks check caller id it wont show my sim card that I've been using since LA (I also had to limit internet usage so people didn't see I was in the country). I didn't have to wait too long before my dad rolled into the lot which was great but it took him a few seconds to get over the shock of it I think. I really wanted some Mexican but we couldn't convince my mom ( or say my dad couldn't as I wasn't 'there') to meet us but we went anyway. Dad called her again to say he left his wallet and so spitting lightning my mom shows up to pay his bill. All rainy tears by the end of it.

It was good to see the family :D

Even with the jet lagg Matt convinced me to go out and party hard at Oasis that night with my b'ham friends including my bestie Sophia. Great times.

Awesome

Don't know what who more awesome. This kid, or this kid's parents.

Christmas Tree at work

Day Uno

Today!

Very excited to open some presents tomorrow :D although I have been officially banned from touching presents under the tree until said time ;)

Kung Fu

As most of you know I am in a Kung Fu class here in Palmy. If you don't know I train about 3 nights a week for 2 plus hours. On Saturday the 10th of December we had our belt grading which was super exciting. It's the first time I got to grade due to other circumstances and I'm super excited to say that I passed and am now a yellow belt! This is even a bigger accomplishment because I graded in front of Ta Si Gung who is the Grand Master (internationally) of our organization. I was lucky enough to train with him for a week and a half as well doing everything from kicking to knife fighting and it was a blast and a fantastic learning experience. I hope to get pictures soon!

Helping Rachel Decorate

Helped Rachel and Evan decorate the tree. Christmas trees are a lot smaller here and they don't do all the crazy amount of lights or ornaments like we do in the states. I like that. I like the idea that I can assemble and decorate a tree in under 2 hours. :)

Best Cake Ever

Becks made us a cake. In the shape of Catan. 

Equal Awesomeness

My work today

It's that time of year again that the clients panic and send us massive amounts of work to be done that they have known about for months to be compressed into one weeks worth of work. This means 50 hour weeks of design chaos, gallons of Dr. Pepper and occasional chocolate cake. All in all not that bad, no worse than finals that's for sure. In fact I'm going to say it's 10xs better but it is still a bit crazy. Below is one magazine. One.

Itenterary

Depart Auckland Monday Dec.26

AA 7315 3:05pm AKL to LAX. arrive LAX 6:30am

AA 2430 LAX 9:05am to DFW arrive 2:15pm

AA2030 DFW 3:10pm to BHM 4:40pm :D

Christmas Card!

Got my first Christmas card of the year from Auntie Barbara and Uncle Buddy and a nifty new hoodie :D