How do I love thee Nevada? Let me count the ways!

Well it's been about four months since my last visit to Las Vegas Nevada so I figured, "hey, they must be missing me by now!" There was talk about a month ago about a possible spring break trip out, but an opportunity arose a week in a half earlier that I just couldn't say no to!
A couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with one of my favorite people in Vegas, Mr. Andrew Smith, AKA Smitty, a long time family friend who I'm sure I made mud pies with way back in the days when we were practically neighbors in Arizona, and he asked if I was still planning a visit soon. I pondered this for about a second and asked if he was up for entertaining me haha! "Course!" he answered, and "hey, I'll do you one better! 311 Day is next Thursday and we are getting tickets if you're interested!" I don't even think I paused to think it over! Prettty much immediately I signed up for what was sure to be an AMAZING concert experience, not to mention a break from what has become a crazy busy life full of work and school. Within about a day we had bought our concert tickets and I had my flight booked! That's right, fly out Thursday afternoon after work and stay for fun until Sunday! (has anyone counted my exclamation points yet?? ;) Just reliving my trip makes me all happy and smiley!

Needless to say the 311 Day concert was SICK!! Sick as in wicked cool and pretty much awesome! For those who don't know who 311 is...they play a variety of music, mostly with a reggae backbeat and a few harder songs, but all in all great performers! The band played close to 60 songs over a 5 hour period. IT. WAS. AWESOME. Well worth the money and spent with good people.

The smiley guy in the center is Andrew, the fella in the DC shirt is his roommate Craig, and the other guys are buddies from out of town, and of course there is the coolest out of town friend...ME!! hopping in the background;)

our seats were so close!

The 311 concert was only the start of the fun times to be had! I got to meet up with my good friend Alicia and meet her new boyfriend over some coffee smoothies on Friday, which is always a fun time! Alicia is off to Reno in a few weeks for the remainder of her Americore time, so I may need to visit Reno as well. Friday night was spent enjoying a UNLV basketball game over chicken wings, beer and friends. I'm happy to say that we celebrated a win!

Saturday was one of my favorite days:) Woke up early to head out to pretty much my heaven...the baseball field. Andrew is kind of a big deal when it comes to playing ball and thus gets invited to join teams and they often win and thus play in tournaments. He had two games, both near his parents house. We went over early to say hey to the folks, eat some breakfast and catch up. His parents are great! I love chatting with both of them. His mom, Ruth, and I took his dogs, Libby and Baby, for a walk around the block after which I headed out to the field for game one! Such a beautiful day for baseball!!! Other than a bit of unnecessary wind and some angry ump drama haha, the first game was not too shabby. We met Ruth and Dennis back at the house for some delicious pastrami sandwiches and of course spring training baseball!!! We were off to game two around 2:00 and this game was crazy windy!!! However, Andrew played pretty darn awesome so it was worth the chilly wind:)

Saturday night was fight night!! I'm not a huge boxing fan, but turns out getting a bunch of folks together to watch boxing is super fun! Kind of a crappy fight, but the company, food, drinks and entertainment well made up for it! All in all a fabulous trip to Vegas! I'm sure I'll be back in another 3-4 months haha!!

Leading Lady

Lately I've been lucky to catch some wonderful classic movies on tv. The other day I was watching The Holiday and realization hit me. For those of you who have seen this movie, it occured to me during the scene where Iris is having dinner with Arthur and discussing her reasons for spending Christmas alone and in a strange place. 
Arthur-"One thing I don't understand Iris, in the movies we have leading ladies and we have the best friend. You, I can tell, are a leading lady, but for some reason you are behaving like the best friend. Why?"
How profound IS that?? In your own life why would you NOT act like the leading lady?? I'll be the first to admit that I tend to fill the best friend role much much too often, but that's only because I find it such an easy fit. I'm a natural care giver and would do pretty much anything for those in my life that matter most. Until a few years ago, I was even pretty shy around the opposite sex and naturally the easier route was to be friends. It doesn't hurt that I love sports and beer- an "easy in" with any guy, but there is more to me. 

The older I get the more I understand that I deserve to be treated like a leading lady instead of the best friend. The best friend will be there no matter what, through thick and thin she will have your back. A leading lady expects more. She expects to be pursued, she wants to be a priority, she wants you to willingly make time for her and tell her you care about her and all that she is. I want all these things and so I have decided that I shall have them! So look out world...there's a new leading lady in town;>

What's your tune?

For those of you that enjoy singing kareoke as much as I do I'd like to pose a question...What is your kareoke song? I think the songs you choose to sing say a lot about your personality.

Myself personally, I like to go for sappy boy band jams like Backstreet Boys or rocker chick songs including Pat Benatar. Of course, there always has to be a little bit of Journey! Wonder what that says about my personality?? HAHA! Here's to having fun, no fear and singing out loud in front of strangers!! Oh and to possibly adding the Dixie Chicks to my repertoire:)

Thanks Sunny!

One in a million

Best friend

Loved and valued

Makes the heart smile

Stable and dependable all through life

Worth fighting for
Always stand by you

Never hesitate to call for no reason at all

Thought I would share the following as an Ode to my bestest friends ♥

ABC...easy as 1,2,3!

A. accept you as you are

B. believe in having fun

C. cherish time together

D. dream big dreams

E. enrich, comfort and delight

F. follow up and follow through

G. grow forever memories

H. honor each other's feelings

I. invite you into their hearts

J. just call to say "how are you"

K. know when something is up

L. love you, no matter what

M. multiply joys and divide sorrows

N. nurture each other's souls

O. overcome diversity together

P. pick you up when you are down

Q. quickly forgive and make up

R. remind you of your greatness

S. smile when they think of you

T. thrive on shared trust

U. understand when to just listen

V. value time together

W. walk with you, side by side

X. xperience UPS and downs

Y. yearn to stay connected

Z. zest to live, laugh and love!

Go Blazers!!!

Top 5 reasons I love the Portland Trail Blazers...

5. coach Nate McMillan

4. their positive community involvement

3. strong sense of family within the team

2. confident, not arrogant players

1. big ♥

Here's to building a great team full of athletes that make watching pro basketball fun once more!

Fun with Falcon!

My rabbit sure is growing fast!! It did not even take a month for her to feel like part of the family:)

Here are the latest pictures of Falcon!

Can't sleep...

So it's about 10:50 p.m. on Tuesday night, I've been lying in bed for over an hour now and yet, I am still awake. You better believe that during the Blazer game at 8:00 p.m. I could barely keep my eyes open (not for lack of wanting to watch of course), but my head hits the pillow and my mind starts reeling. This is becoming a regular occurence for me. Oh how I wish it would stop!

I have a bad case of the butterflies...
(a wonderful feeling;), but torment when you need to be sleeping! Thought that maybe if I tried to write I could get some of the things off of my mind and into my blog. "Get outta my dreams, dododododoooo and into my blog!" haha awesome:) So...here goes: Can you be too pushy? Too forward? Too honest? Why do I keep putting myself in these situations? What am I really worried about? Where did I put my teacher's union papers that I'm supposed to turn in this week? What goal do I have that aligns with the school improvement plan? What on Earth am I going to say during my parent meeting tomorrow? Feeew! I already feel a bit better just writing down some of those pesky questions that keep me awake nightly!

In parting, I will leave you with this, "What is uttered from the heart alone will win the hearts of others to your own." Johann Wolfgang
I think that I agree whole-heartedly with this one.