Worst Road Trip Ever!!

Our plan was to leave early Tuesday morning to head for Disneyland. Our first problem came Monday night. We were headed to my mom's house to get the last of our laundry done and drop Jinx off. On our way out a whole bunch of lights lit up on the dashboard. We think there is something going on with the electric assist but haven't heard from the mechanic yet. Well my parents graciously offered us the use of their Prius. So, Tuesday morning I had to run up to campus and drop off an assignment. This is what it looked like.

  

All I could think was "Hooray! I'm so glad to be going to California right now!" Well we dropped off the Insight and ran back to pick up Nolan's police car so we could leave it in Brigham City while we were gone. For those of you who are locals, you know that we have to drive through Sardine Canyon to hookup with the freeway. On really snowy days they'll close the canyon because it's just too dangerous. Well as we headed up the canyon  the sign said it was open but that you needed snow tires or chains so we headed on in. The canyon should not have been open. Nolan was following me so that if something happened to me, he wouldn't have to turn around to help me. Well, I ended up having to drive through white-outs. I have never in my life driven through a white out and it is officially the scariest thing ever. White out is a perfect description for the situation. You can't see anything but white. But we did make it through the canyon and after that the roads were just fine. We continued on through St. George and Vegas and stopped for some really yummy In-N-Out Burger.

 

We were finally within about an hour of our hotel when the worst possible thing happened. We were coming down the canyon into the San Bernadino valley when we blew a tire. Somehow my amazing husband kept complete control of the car and got us onto the shoulder, the problem was that there was only about six feet of shoulder to be had. There we were at 10:00 at night on the freeway with a blown tire, cars and semi trucks screaming by at 75 MPH and only about a foot and a half between the blown tire and the traffic lane. Nolan made me get out of the car and wait about 10 feet away while he tried to change the tire without getting run over. He got it changed in record time and we headed on our way. It wasn't until we were back on the road that he told me what happened when he was changing the tire. I guess he was so amped up about getting the tire changed before someone hit us that he forgot to loosen the lug nuts before jacking up the car. It took him so long to get the car up that he didn't want to take the time to bring it back down, loosen the lug nuts and then raise it back up. Instead he held on to the tire with one hand and loosened the lug nuts with the other! I didn't think that was humanly possible! 

It turns out that my husband does have the super-human Harper strength! I still can't believe that he did that. He is amazing! The next morning we found a tire place just down the street from our hotel and bought a new tire. After that we started the fun part of our vacation!

I did something stupid...

In honor of Friday the 13th I decided to re-watch some of the scariest episodes of the X-Files and Supernatural. Keep in mind that Nolan is working graves this month so I brilliantly decided to do this alone. I'm a genius, right? Needless to say after 4 terrifying episodes I had to put Lilo & Stitch on so I wouldn't fall asleep freaked out. I know that's the whole point of scary movies and Friday the 13th, but somehow I managed to forget that I'm a big old wuss when it comes to scary movies. But if you have the urge to follow in my footsteps, here are some highly recommended freaky episodes.

X-Files:

Detour

Home

Supernatural:

Asylum

Scarecrow

Warning: The viewing of the aforementioned shows has been know to cause rapid heartbeat, sleeplessness, paranoia, fear of the dark and fear of things being under your bed.

  

I am woman, hear me roar!

Since the water and mold wrecked our old bed I got to order a new one! I spent some time looking around town and online and in the end decided to go with one I found on Overstock.com. The only down side to this choice is that the bed comes in pieces.

Some assembly required.

Now let me tell you a little story. When Nolan and I were dating he received a little TV stand for Christmas to go in his room and happened to be trying to put together when I went over to see him. He was getting frustrated trying to put the doors on but wouldn't take the time to read the directions or even let me try to read them for him. In the end the doors ended opening inwards instead of outwards and Nolan has never been allowed to assemble anything since then. (He says it was on purpose so he'd never have to put stuff together again). Thus the situation with the bed. We ended up dragging our mattress into the living room again and Nolan went to bed while I threw a DVD on in the bedroom and went to work. 

I wasn't in too big of a hurry so I took my time, paid close attention to the directions and got the bed put together in about three hours. The sad part was that Overstock didn't ship any of the hardware for the headboard so I had to wait another 2 weeks for all the pieces to get here and then I got to finish the headboard.

Since I had a new bed I decided to splurge and get a new bed set too. Here is the final finished product!

The picture doesn't really do it justice. I love the bed because there are three drawers on each side which rocks! because we don't have very much storage space in our apartment. The headboard also has some shelves so I can stack books that I'm reading right next to the bed! Not that I need anymore book space. I recently purchased another bookshelf that I also had to assemble which makes 3 bookshelves, a bed and a headboard that I've assembled in this apartment. So ya, I'm awesome! 

On this, the day of my birth...

Well, I'm officially 25 years old. That being said I have no idea what to say about such a momentous occasion. I don't feel like I'm 25; then again, when I sit in my classes with a bunch of 20-year-old kids I feel really old. If there were memorable moments in the past year I can't remember them right now. I was finally allowed back on campus so I'm taking a lot more classes this semester. I made two wedding cakes since my last birthday. I got laid off. I met Stephenie Meyer at The Host book signing. I had to go on steroids for a week because of a pinched nerve and I had a treadmill console brain board named after me. I'm sure there are other things but I just can't think of them.

Now lets look to the future and what I'd like to do before I'm 26. I would like to graduate, run a marathon, have our own house, get a job in a library, lose some weight, and hopefully get pregnant. I know, the last two don't really work well together but I still want both. 

As for the actual birthday, it was a pretty uneventful day. I 

went to school, Nolan and I went and talked to the people about manufactured homes, went to Chilies for some awesome Molten Chocolate birthday cake, went swimming with Hallie, Sydney, Shawna and Nolan, and now I'm sitting at home by myself blogging while Nolan's playing Cops and Robbers. 

Nolan bought me a sweet blue iPod shuffle, armband and some awesome Skull Candy headphones. I'm really excited about it because when I try to run with my big iPod it feels like my arm is going to break, now I've got my cute tiny iPod that I'll hardly notice! 

All in all, it's been a pretty good day and hopefully it'll be a good year. Peace!

Oh Ya!!

I know this will probably put me on a few hit lists in Nolan's family but oh well. Go Steelers! I love this team and it's been so much fun to see them win 2 Super Bowls in the past few years!

My Poor Pink Car!

I think that it might be over for my awesome pink Geo. Last night we were showing our friends how to get from the Stadium 8 theater over to the highway so they could go back to Brigham. We got to the stop sign to turn onto the highway and they headed for the left turn lane and we took the right lane to head home well Idiot (yes it is capitalized) in the straight lane decided that he was going to turn right and almost took off our bumper. Normally I'd feel a little bit of sympathy for an Idiot who hits a police officer, in front of another police officer, but not this guy. When the Logan officer showed up Idiot tried to tell him that he thought he was far enough into the right lane. Lie. We were in the right lane with at least a foot and a half between us and the curb. At this point Tony (Nolan's corporal) pointed out that Idiot was right next to him, not even slanted towards the right, but facing dead ahead (Facing dead ahead with no blinker on is usually a sign that the driver intends to go straight, right?) Then Idiot tried to play the "I couldn't see them, they were in my blind-spot" card, which might have worked if he hadn't followed it up with "I thought it was a pile of snow"...   ...   ...   Seriously? Well Idiot ended up getting sited which will help our claim but the night wasn't over. It turns out that Idiot left his hazard lights on but turned off his car. That's right, his battery died!! To end the evening Tony ended up facing the wrong way in traffic to jump start Idiot's car.  It was really quit an entertaining evening if you don't count the part where our car is probably totaled. 

Confessions Tag

Well I read Lisa's blog so apparently I'm tagged. I doubt I have the courage or honesty to post 19 but I'll try.

1. I hate having to give away the last cookie, piece of cake, can of Coke, etc. I know, I'm selfish. Of course I want the last piece!

2. I have crushes on movie/TV characters. Forget the actual actors, give me Dean Winchester (Supernatural), Ronon Dex (Stargate Atlantis) and Eliot Spencer (Leverage).

3. I get offended if I check my phone and no has called or texted me. People should always want to talk to me.

4. If I'm home alone I have to have all of the lights on and the TV. I think that a robber/attacker will be deterred by the lights and noise. Hopefully they don't know it's a bluff.

5. I hate doing dishes. I put them off until Nolan's days off. If he does them then awesome! If not then I'll finally cave and do them. I hate not having a dishwasher.

6. This one is one of Lisa's but it's mine too. I love the smell of books! There's just something about it that makes me a little silly in the head. 

7.On the subject of books, I imagine heaven to be a giant Borders where they always have the book I'm looking for.

8. I firmly believe that chocolate is a required food group.

9. I like Nolan's pillow more than mine. If I could, I'd find a way to steal it from him while he sleeps. For now I have to settle with stealing it after he leaves for work.

10. If I'm at the store by myself I will spend a good ten minutes wandering through the baby department.

11. I don't like checking books out from the Library. I need to own my books. It's like a security blanket. I need to know that I can read it whenever I want to.

12. I'm sick and tired of the process of getting ready in the morning. Shower, shave my legs, wash and condition hair. Lotion up, apply makeup, blow dry hair, style hair, clothes and jewelry. I like the end result, I just get so sick and tired of having to do it every day!

13. I have recently had to cut myself off from online shopping as it has been causing problems with available cash. I can't just hide the credit card because I have the numbers memorized from entering them so often. I just can't let myself go to Amazon or Overstock or Whiskey Militia. I hope they're not mad at me.

14. It drives me absolutely bonkers when Nolan doesn't put his shoes in the closet, but it doesn't bother me if I leave my shoes out. Go figure.

15. My in-laws might disown me for this but I hate cashews. They're just gross.

16. I'm very sad to admit that it has been over a year since I have played a video game. It's a horrible thing but I just don't have the time anymore. When I do have time all I want to do is read a book.

17. I write stories in my head. Lots of them. I can only think of one that has made it onto paper. The rest are all still rolling around in my brain.

18. I'm slightly obsessed with numbers. I have to find patterns in phone numbers, do math in my head when someone is talking about numbers, figure out averages or speeds. I can't help from doing it. It just happens.

19. I pick out inconsistencies in commercials and video games, TV shows and movies. Like how are there plants growing in the cave? There's no sunlight.

Well, there are my 19. I tag Leslie, Heidi, Michelle, Traci, Kendra and Kelli