More, More!

So the first half our of trip was amazing. Right now we're sitting at the airport (with free internet from Google) waiting to go to Utah. Its kind of fun to have a split vacation because just when you think all the fun is over, bam...Part II.

Pictures to come.

P.S. I love Christmas, my family is awesome, and having Rob there made it even better.

Cat Nap

Sleeping in, movies, yummy food, family, shopping. Am I missing anything?

Orders of business

1. Rob and I are both finished with school, thank heavens. Although, we both agreed that around finals time we are so efficient and productive, what a shame to give all that up for reading non-text books, napping, and drinking all the raspberry gingerale (or in Rob's case, Eggnog, and lots of it) that we can stand.

2. I have been busy at work with my little amateur jewelry making (with the addition of headbands) and I love it. If nursing doesn't work out I think I'll become a full-time headband-maker. (Pictures to come)

3. Hot & Spicy Cheez-Its are where its at. Seriously.

4. We have been invaded by fruit flies. I can't figure out why they won't leave. Everything has been bleached multiple times, there is no trash, and everything that we eat has now been moved to the refrigerator. Lately I spend a great deal of my day walking around with my Windex in one hand, pointed like a 9mm, and in the other, a paper towel to squash the little suckers while they squish around in the bubbly blue liquid of death. The body count is above 50 but I can't figure out where they keep coming from. Tips?

5. My GPS broke, Rob's XBOX broke, my phone charger broke, and our internet has been broken. Electronics aren't really our thing.

6. I got pulled over the other night for "rolling" through a stop sign. Apparently 1 mississippi isn't long enough to stop. $200. The facts: 21 year old female, college student, newly married (she knew this because of the two different last names on the license vs. insurance), 2 weeks before Christmas, rolling through a stop sign...the only explanation is that she is angry and bitter and MUST hate Christmas. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Merry Christmas City of Pflugerille.

7. I did my Christmas shopping the other day and left the mall with lots of big bags in either hand with Christmas music in the background. It was so exciting.

8. I introduced my mom to Anthropology when she was visiting. Needless to say it resulted in a medley of unfinished sentences: "Oh my gosh did you see the..." "But look over at..." "Stop it, did you see..." "No, no, too, too cute, I mean..."
That's fairly accurate, don't ya think?

9. And finally, I'm so excited to go home and see everyone I can't even stand it.

ACC

Anyone
Can
Come

The kind of morning we all wish for

I woke up the other day, and had the kind of morning that LITERALLY included ALL of my favorite things.

1. 2 whole hours to get ready before I had to leave
2. Carnation Instant breakfast
3. Having time to straighten my hair, while:
4. Listening to Lady Gaga
5. Then listening to Queen (air guitaring so hard I injured my arm)
6. Talking to Stephanie about listening to Lady Gaga, "Doesn't she make you want to crawl around and go crazy...you know...like bark at something" "Exactly!" (You're the only one who really understands me, ya Ginga Couga, you!)
7. Talking to Kristen about clothes, lady Gaga, and other various excitements. (It's like you were my roomie again for a brief 60 minutes)
8. Talking to Rob about my shoulder injury because I couldn't get enough of Freddy Mercury...and knowing he has a crazy wife but still managing to say, "yes, that is funny."
9. Laptop on my sink so I have instant access to...everything...while straightening hair
10. Painting my nails wintery (AKA Merry Midnight by OPI)
11. Wearing leggings with boots and not even feeling bad about it
12. Resiting the various oral hypoglycemic meds without even looking at my notes
(take THAT Glucophage!)
13. And finally, getting a letter from Ferry in the mail

I have no excuse for not being happy when all it takes are one of the above criteria.

Blogging PRN for venting/accusatory posts

If you're thinking about calling someone a name, you should always substitute it into this phrase: "Mayor of ____ville"

For example:
[After JOE** publicly used the phrase, "so there's that," followed by my so very cherished, "OH really?"]


Kasey:
YOU!
you little theif!
thief!

Joe:
hahahahaha
Turns out, I'm not a thief.

Kasey:
king of thiefs
mayor of thiefville


Much more effective, see?


**This name has been changed to protect the Accused of acute embarrassment related to unoriginal phraseology

And, if you're name is Jalaine, you will think the above statement is really funny -OR- if you've spent more than 40 hours studying for a nursing exam

Cute

as a stinking button

:(

Health? Are you there? Somewhere?

Nonsense

In an hour I have to go get my laundry, switch it to the dryers. What am I going to eat tonight? I wonder if Rob will eat at school or if he'll be hungry when he gets home. I have to finish studying that one chapter. I'm glad I went to that study session today. After school is over I can just do whatever. I think I'll craft. I wonder how long before I should be running with the whole bronchitis thing. Is there a Kohls in Tyler? Anywhere to spend Black Friday? I can't wait for the stuffing, I hope there is good stuffing. I wish I'd stop coughing. I forgot there was macaroni in the fridge. Guess I could eat that. It has a weird texture. Whatever, weird textured macaroni it is.

Breathing is hard

Last week it was the flu. Just got home from the doctor and it looks like this week it'll be bronchitis and strep...secondary to the flu.

Thanks a lot Influenza A.

Bring on the antibiotics and inhaler because I'm still going to see New Moon tomorrow at 10am. Maybe. Hopefully.

Ta da!

School has taken over.

Solutions: Signed up for dance class, looking into book club (at Book People) and...crafts?

I've never been really crafty. I can draw, I love calligraphy and crap like that but never crafts. Glue guns? Buttons? I've just never been interested. Then I went to visit my sister-in-law, Emilee, and realized, I need to learn how to make stuff. I just do. Anyway, so this are my first sad attempts. But I'm hopeful and actually really excited about making other stuff. I figure, even if it doesn't turn out the way I want it to, I still made it, and its still something to do that isn't school.

Sniffle, sniffle?

Is it wrong that I tried to convince Rob to stay home from class because I was sent home from class for getting all green in the face when someone decided to heat up a bean burrito? Did I mention it was a cafeteria bean burrito? Are you nodding your head in understanding now?

I mean, this is the third day of spending 13+ hours sleeping and the remainder of the time sitting on the couch, occasionally reading my Med-Surg textbook (woo, pleural effusion!). Is it so bad that I think Rob's time is better spent making jokes about my illness and watching movies like, Short Circuit in 20 minutes. Did you know the Indian guy in that movie, is actually a white guy, with a really terrible accent? Anyway, one of my classmates told me she was going to make me Hen soup and that it would cure me in one day. One day? I don't care what derivative of poultry I have to eat, I'll do it (except those really gross chicken feet they sell at HEB).

Well, all this typing and I'm ready for another nap...after I call Rob and send out another attempt to convince him that while he may be learning about the law at school, here at home he can learn about the Flu and how to manage symptoms for his poor, pathetic wife.

He'll be back.

Hopefully with Gingerale.

Dear Santa...

Eh? Eh?

Ahh

So, lately Rob has been trying to encourage me to take a dance class because I really haven't taken a real dance class in years. I've danced my whole life and even taught classes...so why am I scared to death to go into this class?! Its a moderately professional studio (actually its through Ballet Austin which is a professional company, but I don't know the level of difficulty for the classes they offer)and I feel like I am going to literally explode with anxiety. I keep envisioning scenarios of the teacher yelling, "What do you mean you're a DANCER, you suck! Leave! Its embarrassing!" I think I'll pray that doesn't happen. Maybe if its really terrible in the middle I can just sprint out without anyone getting a good look at my face.

This post should be dedicated to the anxiety-prone VanBlargan side of my family...

Buzz buzz...can i have a free burrito?

Honey and the Bee. Aren't we clever? OR aren't we poor and have very limited creativity?



There were lots of Bee's out that night searching for fellow bees...



And then of course there was Pooh. I think his honey pot may have been spiked (or maybe completed substituted with Jack Daniels), but the reunion between him and Rob was met with a beautiful hug and a "I've been looking for you ALL night!" Although in this picture he looks more like a serpent Pooh ready to suck your blood...but it's Halloween, so whatever.



And finally there was the, If-you-wear-anything-that-resembles-foil-or-even-silver-something-get-a-free-burrito-at-Chipotle.
99 cent silver wrapping paper? Don't mind if I do! Thanks Chipotle! Free burrito=happy husband.

Fire!!

Meet Olivia, my cousin Aaron's 2 year old little girl. She is HILarious. And this is her amazing Halloween costume crafted by her very talented father.

A quick story about dear Liv..

Aaron: Liv, what do you say to a man that is trying to grab you?

Liv: No answer

Aaron: Liv! What are you supposed to say when a man grabs you?

Liv: No answer

Aaron: LIV! What do you say!?

Liv: (Exacerbated) Dad. I had a french fry in my mouth!!!

Pause

FIRE!!!!!

I'm glowing...it's HAPPENING!

This past weekend Rob and I flew to Chicago to visit his favorite city, and his favorite little girls. Best weekend ever.

Rob convinced me to pack all of my stuff for 4 days in one backpack.

You can see how well that went over.

We wandered around Chicago a little bit until we met up with the party van. We headed over to the Museum of Science and Industry. Eye spy, trains, baby chicks...and as Mimi would say, "So much fweakin fun!"




Then it was time for Chicago's stuffed crust pizza (which was incredible). It took about an hour for our pizza to come and in the mean time we had quite the group. It came down to the girls licking seasonings off their plates with a little bit of parmesean, pizza sauce, and the occasional crushed cracker. Mimi decided she was concoting a potion, when I asked what kind of potion she said it was a Pineapple potion that apparently turned you into a princess. A few seconds later she says, "I'm glowing...it's HAPPENING!" SO classic.

Over in her highchair, Bella was determined to reach satiation. She was going to take matters into her own hands, literally, and just lick every last morsel from her plate. And it's not like we're going to stop her, it was fweaking hilarious.

Mimi and Livi were withering away with their lack of food asking over and over, "are we going to get our food OR WHAT?!" "Or what" was the phrase of the weekend, as it was tacked onto every sentence where it would fit. "Are we going to watch a movie, or what?" "Aunt Kasey, you been wearing dose eawings (earrings) all week, do you have any oder eawings or what?!" And my personal favorite, "Can we have some more orange pumpkin head, OR WHAT!?" (Rob bought a rice crispy treat covered in melted candy corn).




And it was cold and rainy the whole weekend, but what is a little rain amongst munchkins?



...and who's to say rain and mud would stop us from apple picking?






And to celebrate John's Birthday, and a little early Halloween fun...a party. Complete with ghost bowling, pin the nose on the Jack-O-Lantern, and John dressed as a Shaman. Awesome.





I would say that you can't tell how much fun we were having by the pictures...but I think they did the weekend justice.

Swine Flu

Rob joined a paid swine flu study. They give him a swine flu vaccine and a regular flu vaccine. I tried to discourage it...but his iphone got stolen and had to be replaced...so I decided it was worth the risk of his health.

Just kidding. I was mad and told him he would die. He just didn't listen.

Picturrrres

Finally! Wedding pictures...

This is the website and the password is rkanderson. Enjoy! Oh and you can order prints from here or you can wait until we come to visit (if that is in the near future) and I can bring the CD so you can print them off yourself!

This about sums it up

Girls, girls, and more girls

Really fashion, really?

Today I saw a girl wearing stirrup leggings with little bootie heals and a big, loose sweater. This was at Cache...not the drag. What is going on? Stirrup leggings? Again? How did we not learn something from doing that the first time?

The little nut

Rob and I have a new little niece-Hazel!



For more pictures you can visit their blog :)

Yay, babies!

RN...here we come!

So, level one nursing students are kind of worthless. We don't know what we're doing. We thought we knew how to use "critical thinking" and "handle ourselves with poise" but really, when we walk in the room to do an assessment we're pretty much stabbing our way through the proverbial dark (in this case, our knife is a stethoscope and the dark is some patient who has been victimized and subject to student-nursing-care). It's kind of like this:

Walk into the room
Me: Hi Mrs. So-and-So, my name is Kasey, I'm an ACC Student nurse and I'm going to be helping out your nurse today. How are you feeling? Whew, okay, first step, introduce yourself, check. Okay...why is she just staring...can i stop smiling? Should I move closer? Does she hate me?

Mrs. So-and-So: I'm Ulna and I like beans.

Me: Okay, um. Well, she's sitting up, so that's good, and well she knows her name...or rather a name...it says here her name is Betty...but Ulna is close so I guess that's okay. And lets see, she likes beans, so...Okay. (Writes down, Alert and Oriented X3) Perfect, okay whats next.

***Assessment continues like this for the next 20 minutes, listening to what you think is her heart (wait, that is on the left right?) and what might be breath sounds...or maybe those were bowel sounds...it's unclear***

By the time you leave the room the nurse asks you what you've found and all you can really come up with is that she worked at the Post Office in Dripping Springs, TX since 1927 and "the mail system has really changed."

Your nursing diagnosis: Patient at risk for death related to being really old.
Nursing Intervention: Monitor patient for breathing and staying a good, safe distance from the light she often refers to.

Well, maybe this isn't so bad, I feel like a real nurse already!

bam

They dropped the balance.

Yess.

A Little Rant

Okay, so maybe a BIG rant.

I got a phone call today from the collection's agency (a.k.a. the worst job ever next to parking-ticket-guy) saying that my bill from our storage unit had been sent in. Isn't that just a little gem of news! I have had several (3) late payment notices from the storage unit sent to my apt and every time the phone call ends with an apology "for the misunderstanding"...for their mistake. Anyway, so I could barely get through the call from the collection agency before spinning my car around and heading to Public Storage myself. I planned on using my angry voice and piercing angry eyes to get my point across. I also planned on mentioning that one of the times I called to sort things out was on my HONEYMOON (I would raise my voice when I said that) and I was informed of the notices I was getting at home.

So I show up, barge in, and of course, lose all my angry confidence and start out very slow and calm. The gentleman helping me was in his fifties and some little dude next to him with his ear plugs in was probably in his early twenties (and also probably listening to Nickelback or something sensitive posing as angry. I don't know...). Anyway I start explaining what has happened and immediately I knew what this conversation would be like. He looked at me and thought, well, she's about my daughter's age, she probably has no idea what's going on...probably doesn't even know how money works! Well that's only partially true, I absolutely knew what was going on, but the money thing was pretty much on target...however, that is not the point! After I got through explaining everything he looked at me and just sighed and said, "and what's the problem again?" Seriously? So he looks it up in the computer and prints out my records and says, "maybe it'll help if you can look at this."

At this point I'm thinking, don't I somewhat resemble an adult? Even a little? Or are we working under the assumption that I'm going to go home and brush my Barbie's hair after this? Or maybe go grab the Leapfrog out of the car and learn my Spanish ABC's! If that's how this is, why aren't I talking to you in sentences that exclusively end in question marks, because it's probable that you're just going to go home and watch Jeopardy...or Wheel of Fortune...or whatever you watch! The point is I'm getting really frustrated and when I try to explain what he is not understanding, again, he stops and says, "well why don't you take a breath..." in the most condescending...stupid...annoying way...ever! Finally, the little dude steps in and explains to him what's going on and actually mans up to being the guy that helped me and made a few mistakes causing this "mishap" or whatever you want to call it. Being the rude, incouragable man he was, he then proceeded to look for something else that might be wrong so that he didn't look as incompetent as he did. When he couldn't find anything, he gave me some exacerbated response about what he was going to do and when he could get back to me on it.

After writing it down it doesn't sound as bad as it was. But, it was TOTALLY lame, I can assure you.

Really the point is (on top of the many other poignant points I've made) something that Rob has mentioned when I have had confrontations with a few people...the less important your job...the more power you want/try to enforce. It's true. And it's annoying. Sorry Public Storage, you have now been officially boycotted.

Ode to the babies

Typically I get a picture every other day from my brothers and sisters of my nieces; and every other day I think, oh my gosh it doesn't get any cuter than this...and then it does.

Matching mommy

The cowgirl hat I bought on my last trip home proudly displayed on her bald little head

"Contemplation"

Long night after the wedding, winding down with some Martinelli's

Cousin Love

A cardigan that is cute enough that I would wear it if they made it 20X larger

Partying at Trader Joe's

Grocery Shopping with dad (strapped securely in cart)

Hitchhiking?

And if Panda's weren't cute enough on their own...

Houston

This weekend Rob and I were in Houston for Candace and Josiah's wedding. We went down on Thursday to be at the rehearsal dinner, then Friday morning was the sealing and Friday evening, the reception and ring ceremony.

The rehearsal dinner was in a beautiful neighborhood right on the lake, so naturally, after 5 minutes or so of introducing and mingling, Rob took off in a canoe.







Then the brides father took off in a canoe after Rob, but we tried to ignore all that.



The sealing the next morning was beautiful. The bride was still happy as ever even when the rain came shortly after exiting the temple. (By the time I got the camera everyone decided to pretty much give up on pictures which is why I am lacking a happy-couple-exiting-the-temple photo.

But I do have a cute picture of them at the reception that evening, and also a close-up of Rob standing dutifully next to the other groomsmen (of course Rob was begging all evening, "Kasey, don't forget to take some pictures of me up there...I really want to capture these moments..." So I did what I could).





Oh and in between the sealing and reception we went and got delicious Fish Taco's from a place called Berryhill...which seems weird to me because there was no pie...and then we went and saw Julie & Juilia. I'm sorry to say it was terrible. Rob abandoned me at the end because I don't think he could listen to Julia's voice any longer, and I was left alone with the middle aged women laughing and crying...not actually knowing which was the appropriate option.

Either way, we had a really good time and I have to say, after that movie all I really want is to try and poach an egg.