What have I been up to?

Since I last updated, a lot of things have been going on. I will post later with some pictures of a couple things that I did last week (one was having my youngest nephew over to spend the night!)

But I thought I would let you all know that my wisdom holes have been healing well. (I actually never really had any holes because they were able to stitch me up pretty well. I'm eating normally now, but do have a little pain at times on the gum line, but that comes and goes.

I have a shoulder pain that comes and goes that I don't really know why it hurts, and that is my new gripe. I need to go to the MD about it to possibly get a physical therapy prescription, but kind of got busy my last two days off so I did not go. The pain doesn't really happen until I'm at work, and then it kills me. I don't know what I'm doing at work to hurt it, so it leads me to believe it is stress related.

We'll see.

In other news Jamaal and I will be buying a house here soon. Well, I say that, but we will be looking at the first few options on saturday. BUT we are able to put an offer in at any time. Mostly the issue is location. We would prefer to be north of our parents, kind of situated around I-5, ideally right around where we are currently. However, this area tends to be more expensive, and we've been spoiled with a big house, so it would be hard for us to downsize a ton. Obviously we would do so if we had to, but the fact is that if we lived around our parents we could have a bigger place. So we just have to figure out our priorities. We found one house that is basically gutted, which would be a ton of work. But we would be willing to do so as long as we could get a loan for a lot of extra dough to do the remodel....we'll see.

A little less wise

Warning, some disturbing content below!!

Last Thursday, I went in and had my wisdom teeth pulled. Now, 4 days later, I'm still on the mend. While the pain is getting better, it still hurts pretty bad, bad enough that I'm pretty sure I should take a vicodin before I eat anything. Here it is noon, and I'm wondering if I should eat something to fight the hunger pains, or should I just go without for a bit longer...

If you had the night I had last night, you would be having the same internal dilemma. I barely slept, and was up nearly every hour on the hour with the worlds worst gas, etc. That is all the detail you need. Fortunately I did not throw up, that would have made everything even worse!

It was interesting to have surgery, one second I was awake, and the next they were waking me up. The MD said "I just gave you a little bit of fentanyl and versed, once you're comfortable I'll give the propofol." His assistant put something in my mouth to hold it open, and then they were waking me up. Telling me to straighten my legs; teaching me how to walk again. Haha. They sat me down while they went over instructions with my mom, and I started to shake pretty badly, which is a side effect of the anesthetic. I had a warm blanket on me, and I stopped shaking. But even this part now is so hazy, I barely remember getting into the van to leave.

My mom and I went to Top Foods to pick up my prescriptions, and I was ready to join her to go shopping for some food. My mom was having none of that, however, I suppose she didn't want to babysit. :D So instead I wrote out a shopping list for her: apple juice, sprite, popsicles, a loaf of bread, and deluxe macaroni and cheese.

Fortunately for me, I only had 3 wisdom teeth, and only one of them was on the bottom. So really the pain is mostly on one side of my mouth. I feel like the pain should be gone by now, so part of me is worried that I'm infected or something. But it looks good in there...so I'm probably just a big baby.

If you get easily grossed out, don't look below!!





I asked the surgeon to save my teeth!
They were able to pull them all out whole! Most of the time they have to break the bottoms, but I was an exception...

The Honeymoon!

Jamaal and I had a really good time on our honeymoon. We were gone a total of 8 nights, which was the perfect vacation. We felt like we were gone for a month! (but it did not feel like it was dragging on and on...).

We started out at a Best Western, across the street from Disneyland. It was just a short walk from our hotel to both parks, Disneyland and California Adventure. We spent 4 days in Disneyland starting the afternoon we arrived; since we had so much time for the parks, we took our time seeing everything. We had a good time on the rides, and spent lots of money on food in Disneyland. :D

Here we are waiting in line for Space Mountain. Jamaal's first time on it.

Here is an action shot of us on the Matterhorn.

I really wanted to go to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. but since Jamaal isn't a big fan of seafood or fish, I figured we wouldn't go there. Jamaal surprised me and said we should go there because he knew I wanted to try it. We were both happy we did, because we really enjoyed the food, drinks, and even the wait staff! It was a fun experience. (And the food was amazing!) It was funny because I ordered "Bucket of boat trash" which came with shrimp, fish, and lobster claw. Well later on in the trip, Jamaal and I went to an aquarium, and there was a really huge lobster there. I said that I had eaten some of its friends, (and that I didn't like it), and Jamaal said that I hadn't. He ensured me it was crab that I had eaten. "Lobsters don't have claws, look at it," and he pointed at the huge specimen of lobster. I was pretty sure I was right, but he wore me down. Later on, we ran into another Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and the menu was posted outside. I had to check, and sure enough I was right it was Lobster Claw! I definitely rubbed that one in his face...haha.

Here he is with his special drink! Mine had blueberries in it. It was heavenly!

In the California Adventure they are coming out with a Little Mermaid ride, which I am so jealous of...I guess that means we will have to go back for that ride!!

At the ESPN Zone, Jamaal ordered a "Wipeout" inspired drink. It came with a lite up ice cube. (Which is the reason he ordered it...) But it had like Tequila and some spice in it, so that it had the worst aftertaste ever. He barely drank it.

After trying his drink...grooooosssss. :D But the food was really good.

Waiting in line for Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. It's not that wild of a ride, just in case you weren't sure.

In the California Adventure they have a Bug's Life area, and I loved this bug. We look so similar don't we??? I loved the 3-D bug show, that they have. If you haven't seen it, I would recommend it!

This picture we took while waiting for the fireworks. It was a very frustrating experience trying to see the fireworks, because there was no order. Jamaal and I wanted to watch the fireworks over the lake, not the ones over the castle, but they had some special thing going on where you needed a bracelet to watch them over the water. I don't know what the deal was. But, the coolest part was watching Tinkerbell fly over the castle!! And then later, seeing Dumbo fly!! It was soooo coool! I think it would be sooo much fun to be Tinkerbell!!

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After 4 busy days in and around Disneyland, we were ready to move on. I have to say that Disneyland was really good birth control, because of the numbers of children. They were everywhere! Screaming, running, touching me while in line, it was really annoying!! Mostly it was annoying seeing the parents just stand and watch their children invade my personal space. During one line, there was a girl of about 7 or 8 years old, and she kept kicking me, scooting up close to me, and her father asked her to stop, but she just kept doing it. That is when you physically move your child a step back...
Jamaal and I also could not believe that parents would bring 2 month olds to the park. What is the point??? You can't go on any rides, the wee babe can't either. And here you've paid good money for your ticket, only to carry the child around....looking at stuff you can't do. To each his own...my children will not be going to Disneyland until about 7 or 8 or so. Unless they have displayed their maturity at an earlier age, and they are tall enough to go on everything. :D I think that's about 48 inches...

Friday morning, we checked out of our cheap Best Western hotel room, and drove about 30 minutes to Huntington Beach. After checking in, we walked a short distance down the beach. The weather was comfortable, but not very hot. This is the bridge we took from our hotel to the beach.

Jamaal was looking at places to go in and around Huntington Beach, and found an Aquarium in Long Beach about 15-20 minutes away. We decide to go one evening. We arrived there at 5:00pm, and according to Jamaal, they closed at 9:00pm. We went to the doors and were greeted by an Aquarium worker: "We will be closing at 6, but tickets are half off." We decided to still go, since it was half the price, and it wasn't that big of an aquarium. It was fun. My favorite fish is above. He was HUGE!!

The aquarium had tons of sights to see, we saw it all in 45 minutes.

This is us during the drive to the San Diego Zoo, which is an interesting story...

Jamaal looked up directions on his phone using the google maps application, and according to the phone it would take about 30-45 minutes. Well, about 30 minutes into the drive, I noticed a sign that said "San Diego--75 miles." I didn't say anything, because I had figured it would take longer than 30-45 minutes to drive there. Just a few minutes after that, however, Jamaal said that he had missed a turn. That is when I told him that I had seen a sign that said we still had a while to go. Jamaal pulled over, and did a little research on his phone, and realized that the previous location we had been going toward was an "unverified" location. We indeed had about 1.5 hours left on our journey. Before we left the hotel I had asked Jamaal when the Zoo closed: "9 pm." He replied. We finally made it to the zoo at 4:50pm. Can you guess when the zoo really closed?? Fortunately, not 5pm. But 6pm. We had only an hour to go through the entire San Diego Zoo!! Since it was such a long drive, we knew we were not going to come back again, so we decided to still buy tickets. Unfortunately, they did not discount with only an hour left. We had a good time in the zoo, there was so much to see. We definitely did not see it all in only an hour. Most of the animals were asleep for the night. And you should have seen the line to see the pandas!! It was longer than some of the lines at Disneyland!! (We were not that desperate to see a panda...)

In front of the Zoo!!

They had a ton of monkeys/gorillas/orangutans; here is me posing with one of the fake ones!

The view from our hotel room. We lounged at the pool one warm afternoon.

Here we are again in the car. This time I think on our way back to our hotel after going to Universal Studios. We really had a good time there. The rides were a lot of fun, and we really enjoyed the shows. We bought "front of the line" passes which meant that we never went into a line, we always went straight to the front. It was so fun!!

I didn't post any pictures, but we also went bowling before catching our plane home. We played 3 games, and I won 1 of them...and that was a really close game. In my defense, though, I was worried about breaking a nail!! :D It is pretty typical of him to win. We went and saw two movies during the first half: The Hangover and Land of the Lost. Both of them were enjoyable. The Hangover was hilarious. We really enjoyed it (and I did not want to see it, but did because I knew he wanted to see it).

Overall, it was a blast!! Maybe now I've learned to check when things open myself...I'm way too trusting! :D

Wedding photos are up...

If you're my friend on Facebook, you can check out the rest of my wedding photos. There are so many, I had a hard time picking photos to put on here. I probably put more than I wanted to on here...but oh well!

June 6, 2009: Our 4 year anniversary. We were able to celebrate 4 years together by getting married!

This is a photo from the rehearsal. Dad and I walking down the aisle. (the aisle moved for the actual wedding to limit the amount of mud we had to walk through)

This is simply a photo of the centerpieces with my precious favor boxes. Stay tuned for some up close photos of the favor boxes on my crafty blog!

Jamaal getting his boutonniere on.

My ladies and I.


Our "special moment."


The bride.


My prince in the spotlight.


My groom.

My favorite.

The whole gang.

My ladies.

See our pretty flowers??

What time is it? (I love Connor Bly in this photo, my nephew and one of my ring bearers.)

My family, with the newest addition, my husband!

Our parents.

Mom and dad, I need some space!

"You were supposed to pretend kiss me mom!"

Dad and I being "us." Don't remember what was so funny, but that's okay.

Me and my new family.


I love this photo of Jamaal and his brother!!


Connor Bly playing with the Sit-to-Stand. (The chair perfect for elderly and/or people with arthritis; you push a button and it lifts up to make it easier to stand up from sitting.)


For Connor it was a ride.


Our champagne toast, my last as a single woman.

Our beautiful, gorgeous, yummy yummy cake! Made by Jamaal's cousin Tashina!


A close up of the top of the cake.


So here is where the ceremony gets interesting. We had two ring bearers. Connor, my nephew, and Sienna, Jamaal's cousin's kid. Apparently Sienna wanted to hold Connor's hand down the aisle, because she wanted to marry him. But Connor did not want to hold her hand, nor did he want to get married.

Sienna was very upset. Her heart was broken, and here she is crying/pouting down the aisle. She later said that she didn't want to marry him anymore, and that she didn't like him anymore.

Once I left the comfort of the Senior Center, I started to cry. I was trying very hard to not cry....but that effort was futile.

During our very very short ceremony.


First kiss as husband and wife.


Getting food! I was so very hungry.


Connor acting as professional photographer. He probably took 20 pictures of me and Jamaal eating.

The rings.

My Gonzaga group (the ones able to make it).

My nursing school crew.

First dance as husband and wife.


Cutting the cake.

We were nice to each other.


Speeches. Bret said he wouldn't make me cry, which was a lie. (It's very easy to make me cry...)

Kristina's speech.

Dancing with my father. He is a big baby too. From the very start he was crying.

Jamaal and his mom.

You ready for this??

She dropped it, but was the one that caught it.

Careful now!

My girls from high school.

Being silly.

Signing the marriage license.

I just like this picture.

I think she's a little young for a drink, don't you?

High school buds.

Our ride

"Are you serious?" I could not believe our ride was so big!!

Good night kiss. I feel so over dressed!