WE STAYED IN VEGAS ON THE WAY DOWN TO SAN DIEGO. Well, since we’re in Utah, a more accurate description would be, “we stayed in Vegas on the way over“ but who cares about being politically correct? I was too busy trying to figure out how to get the display on the radio to stop changing colors like a bad disco light. Took us a good half hour but we finally fixed it to just stay on one color.

Sue stayed at the hotel and had a nice hot bath while Kevin and I wandered the Strip for a few hours. Mind you, we’re both too young to gamble, drink or rent strippers (just kidding, but I do have a good story to tell about that later) so we basically just laughed at all the drunks walking around holding empty bottles of Jack Daniels people watch. We’d only been dating for a month at the time so we were both still pretty shy. Which means I didn’t beg him to go to Mandalay Bay to look at the fishies like I wanted. However, I did beg him to go to the MGM – possibly a mile walk from our hotel – so we could see the lions.

AND WE DIDN’T SEE THEM. Shoulda stuck to the fishies.

He took his camera out since I was too shy/nervous/scared to take mine so I left it at the hotel. Some scenery and photos he took:

We went in a mall and found pretty ceilings, a pretty tree

And Paul Blart!

Then we took some photos of us and wandered around for a bit. This could just be the worst, greasiest photo of us ever. Well, of me anyway.

This one is not so bad. Matter of fact, I kind of like it.

Eventually we find the M&M World Store and peruse the shelves. Kevin makes me hug this M&M who, “looks like he’s saying, ‘Mmmm chocolate’ after sniffing his finger”.

I did not make that up.

Then he decides we need some chocolate and Peanut Butter M&M’s sound quite good, so we go straight to the back to this gem.

That sweet, sweet wall of candy that would fulfill even Willy Wonka’s every dream.

And apparently I look like the devil.

Don’t mind me.

Kevin grabs a bag and fills it chock full of Peanut Butter M&M’s. I mean, STUFFED TO THE TOP THEY ARE POURING OUT EVERYWHERE type of full.

“Erm you might want to ditch some. That’s a bit much.” I advised. And rightfully so. Here is where the funniest part of the night happens. He dumps half of them out and takes them to the cashier. She weighs them and without missing a beat demands $10 for them.

TEN DOLLARS FOR A BAG OF NORMAL M&M’S.

100 DIMES.

1,000 PENNIES.

You get my drift. Kevin looks at her in confusion, looks at me and then looks down at his wallet and I lost it. I had to go walk around the corner, put my head beneath my knees and try not to cry from laughing so hard. I don’t think I’ll ever see anything funnier in my life. “I spent a lot of money on these, treasure them,” he whispers to me as I snatch the bag away from him. Now everytime we see M&M’s we laugh like idiots.

On the way back to our room we saw a fifty-ish year old man making fun of the “card flippers”. You know the type. The type that lean across you and try to hand your man a card with a photo-shopped girl and a 1-800 phone number at the top that says, “call me, will arrive in less than 20 minutes”. One of the card flippers went a bit too far when he said, “Hey! You need a woman!” to Kevin, who replied, “I’ve already got one, thanks.”

We were almost to the doors of our hotel when we hear him yell above the dingy crowd, “Why have only one? You need TWO women in your bed tonight!!”

Oh Vegas. How you never cease to amuse me.

YES. THIS IS HAPPENING. I’M BLOGGING ABOUT A VACATION I TOOK THREE MONTHS AGO. Procrastination doesn’t quite cover it. More like procrastination with a side of selfishness because I’d been saving these memories for me and reviewing them in my mind when rainy days hit. It’s not that I didn’t want to tell the stories to you, it’s that I was too lazy to upload 1,000 photos to Flickr and then this blog, and I felt if I tried to describe things with words I would taint the memory. But I’ve decided to kick myself in the pants and just post. So if the next few posts seem photo-heavy, long-winded and mushy, I ask for your forgiveness in advance.  Thank you.

Back in November Kevin’s mom Susan invited us to drive to San Diego, California with her to visit her friend named Kim (more on Kim later). We were more than happy to go with her. However, it seems like you can’t plan a vacation without at least 2,453 things go wrong and when it rains it pours. I had an English paper due right when we were supposed to leave (A seven page paper with citations that I still hadn’t written. Remember when I used to be a college student? Fun times), and two math tests along with chapter homework to turn in immediately when we got back. I was a bit stressed, and Kevin’s continual “your day is going to get much better, trust me” reminders weren’t really helping. I was in a no-good-so-sad-pity-me mood where I wanted to sit and sulk all day.

So imagine my surprise when Melissa, the secretary at my work, comes walking up to me asking my name. I grunted a “hmmm” at her without really looking. “These are for you” she said and placed an armful of flowers on my desk. It was HUGE. The biggest floral arrangement I’ve seen – let alone received – in my life. I questioned it for a moment before she told me, “you are the only Aubrey here, right?” then she laughed and walked away.

And I laughed. And blushed. And blast him, he was right. My day had gotten better against my will.

And I was perfectly okay with that.

What was funny was the reaction the flowers got for the three days they lived on my desk. With this stunt, Kevin became the most loved, popular boyfriend of any employee at my company. We have a large female population there so naturally this was hot gossip material.

And envy material.

Yes. There was lots of envy.

I had girls clear from Marketing coming to me to see my flowers. We all tried to choose a favorite part of the arrangement.

These were my favorites.

Or was it these?

No it was definitely these.

But wait, there’s a white and pink one.

I give up. It’s ALL pretty.

But my favorite part? The fact that he cared. He cared enough about my stressful day that he decided to get me flowers. And not just that, he had them hand delivered to my desk. My desk in front of all my coworkers so everyone could see that I was loved and I was cared for.

And yes.

I still have the vase and the pink ribbon.

HAVE YOU EVER seen a day that looks like this?

Cloudy.

Unclear.

Can’t focus.

We’ll that’s me today.

Better luck tomorrow.

Post edit: Whenever I’m in a sad, quiet mood, I listen to this song.

Post-Post edit: If I’m in a sad mood and want to cheer up, I listen to this song.

Which one should you listen to?

I’ll let you be the judge.

ASHLEY AND I ATTENDED A CLASS TOGETHER LAST THURSDAY. We got lost and wandered the high school campus where it was hosted for about twenty minutes, nineteen of which Ashley spent threatening to go into early labor if we didn’t find the room and stop wandering around. But being the shy gals we are we are we didn’t want to ask anyone where it was at. Can you blame us?  The only guy we saw was riding a massive floor buffer right behind us like a creeper.

Eventually we walked past a classroom where two ladies were talking and Ashley pushed me in their direction. “You go ask them, I can’t be social like our mother”. Did you know our mother is social? Well she is. And we envy her for it.

“Hey excuse me, where is the community educa—” from the corner of my eye I see Ashley diving out of the door frame in a fit of laughter. “—-tion building?”I chuckled my way through the rest of my sentence. The ladies pointed us in the direction of the front of the building, and what do you know, it’s the room we walked right past three times already.

Our class?

It was a coupon clipping class. Go ahead and laugh. I’ll wait.

Niel and Kevin sure found it funny. “It’ll probably be hosted by some old lady”, “what’re you going to learn, how to use scissors and cut paper?”, and “someone will forget the scissors and the whole thing will be called off. ” were only half of the phrases we heard from the pair of them. But we had no shame. We are girls. We craft. It’s what we do.

Frankly I didn’t know what to think of the class when we walked in. I don’t use coupons. Hell, like I need any excuse to spend even more money, but Ashley invited me so I went, skeptical and all. It turned out to be a pretty interesting class (beside Ashley mouth-breathing on me the entire time through her cold). The coupon lady told us that last year alone, she’d saved over $1,000 at one store. I didn’t believe her, but that’s probably because my other sisiter someone I know shops at discount stores and brags about how much she “saves”, while ignoring how much she spends.

I’d say don’t repeat that to her but we’re not talking anyway.

Where were we, coups? Oh yes. Coups. The lady teaching us said she lives on a budget of $300 a month which includes food and cleaning supplies. She never buys a box of cereal for more than $.50, and she only buys brand name. She taught us how to get Goldfish crackers for $.18, and razors, deodorant, and other samples for free. Now I can proudly claim to know the best time to buy condiments (hint: it’s right about now, look for the good coups because they only come around this time of year). I know that dish washing fluid goes on a really good sale about two times a year, that the beer isle has the best coupons (and you don’t have to buy beer with it) and I learned the biggest trick of the trade: Get a coupon, wait until the item goes on sale and THEN buy that item. Double wammy if you have a few coupons that you can combine, or “stack” to use on that item. Yes it’s possible for the store to wind up owing you – they credit however much they owe you towards your entire purchase.

But.

But.

This was not the highlight of my night. No, not even close. The highlight of my night was about half way through when Ashley burst out chuckling next to me. “What?” I hissed. “I can’t. I can’t,” she chocked through silent sobs of laughter. A minute later I get a text from her that states,

“The lady next to you has a MOLE on her head”.

I thought she meant a beauty spot on her upper lip or a witches wart by her nose. But oh, contrair! I found out I was wrong when Ashley elbowed me in the ribs and told me to look to my left, and staring me right in the face was this ladies raised, hair-sprouting, ugly, bumpy mole smack in the middle of where her hair parted in the back of her head.

Our attempt at silent laughter was ruined when Ashley stopped me from taking a photo of it on my phone. Coupon lady? I’m sorry for disrupting your class. Maybe I should have paid more attention to find that lady a coupon for some Compound W Wart Remover.

*I know this post sounds mean. I do. I just thought it was funny to have one of those high-school-I-can’t-stop-laughing moments. Mole lady, if you read this, I still think Rosco the Mole Rat wins the ugly award.*

CAN I TELL YOU A SECRET?

You won’t tell?

Promise?

I got off work and had plans with Ashley. When I realized I was planning on being there hours ahead of time, I decided to do something I never do and, well, I. . .I went somewhere by myself.

WITHOUT TELLING ANYBODY.

I don’t know why I have that quirk – but I always tend to tell everybody where I’m going, at all times. Maybe it’s a trait my subconscious picked up when it realized I was directionally retarded, a safe-guard to make it so people could locate me when I’m stuck at the corner of Where the Crap is This and I’m Screwed. Because I pretty much feel that way when I even think about breaking down. I think the world is going to end and thank heavens my father made me put that 72 hour kit in my car and I’m grateful I never returned mom’s tent and sleeping bag because I’m all the sudden homeless.

(Breathe, it’s okay.)

But today I did it. I went somewhere far, far away without telling a single soul. Kind of like a date with myself, I planned on where I’d go, what I’d eat and what I’d do. And I stressed for .02 of a second about what I should wear before I realized I was already wearing it and couldn’t impress myself if I tried, and thanks to lasik I didn’t have to fuss with any makeup either.

I took photos on the drive and kept wondering why my photos were more blue on the camera than what I was seeing, and then I realized I was viewing life through rose-colored lenses.

No really.

I was.

Sidenote: Kevin bought me that necklace for Christmas and I haven’t taken it off since then because I love it and it reminds me of him.

There was the most beautiful sunset going on.

So beautiful that I almost skipped eating at my favorite place just so I could pull over and watch it. But Two Jacks Pizza called (okay, okay. I called them and ordered ahead so I could take it in my car with me, so nobody would see me eating all that food by myself and think I was a pig. Happy?).

And then I just drove, speeding on back roads with my hand out the window, screaming songs at the top of my lungs and wondering why I felt like the worlds greatest criminal. You’d think I’d done something illegal with all the adrenaline I had rushing through me at that moment. It was pure bliss.

It had been way too long since I’d just watched the sky be painted.

And twilight fall.

And night descend on the mountains I call home.

I drove until I found myself at Lincoln Beach boat harbor.

Then I snarfed my food and started taking photos. The lake was completely frozen but I was too chicken to walk out on it or even leave the warmth of my car.

But I was thinking of something tonight.

I’m used to being alone. For as long as I could remember, I’d take “me” time, where I’d turn off my phone and do whatever I pleased for a night. It usually involved strawberry frappachinos, bookstores, and countless hours at my moms house. I’d go visit my sister in Nephi all the time just for the excuse to have an hour to myself during the drive. But for the first time, being alone wasn’t fun. It wasn’t liberating, exhilirating, or exciting.

It was downright lonely.

I’m spoiled. Ever since I met Kevin, we’ve never spent a day – much less more than 12 hours – apart. That means for over 100 straight days, we’ve been constant companions, partners in crime going to auto shows for him and zoos for me. We always get asked if we get sick of each other, if we fight or need time alone. Trust me, I know what that point feels like, where after the first few hours with someone you want to pull out your hair and throw frying pans at their heads, and where I start daydreaming about my next break, my next “me” time.

We’ve never, ever hit that point (although I’m not naive enough to think that it couldn’t happen, but if it does we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it). Not when we first met and stayed up on IM until the early morning, not when we went to California and I was with him for five days straight. Not when we both have to drive to see each other even though we live four towns apart. He is my boyfriend, yes. But he is so much more than that. He is my best friend, my closest friend. He’s the one I turn to when I’m sad and the one who takes care of me when I’m sick. He does everything he can for me and still keeps trying to find a way to do more. He’s the only one I’ve ever believed when he tells me that I’m beautiful. He opens my door for me, texts me goodnight and surprises me by sending flowers to my work.

Essentially he is the epitome of what every girl dreams of dating when they’re little, and I’m lucky enough to have him.

And then I noticed something else.

A light.

A bright gold speck of dust on the other side of the lake that reminded me that’s where he’s at right now. A lake away from me, and I missed him. It’s not that I’ve lost the need for independence, it’s that I realized I don’t have to be completely alone to achieve that. He completes me, and I need him.

So I threw what was left of my food away, and drove back home where I belonged.

And true to form, he made time to see me late at night and bought me a donut.

A pink, heart-shaped donut.

LASIK HAS ALWAYS BEEN SOMETHING I’VE WANTED. I’ve worn contacts since I was in the beginning of eighth grade. So eight years ago.

EIGHT YEARS AGO.

Moment of silence please for my first, “I’m getting old” moment.

Thank you.

I finally looked into getting lasik last December. After staring into all these funky, high-tech machines they decided I was a good candidate and we set a date to get it done – January 28th. I was excited, and nervous as all get up. I mean, dude, it’s a laser. A beam of light, cutting into my eye, magically fixing it with all it’s beam of lightness and I have get to stay awake for the entire thing.

Let’s do this.

First I had to get my eyes dilated. They have to do that to enlarge my pupils to make sure there is still a brain in there making conscious decisions – or something. But getting your eyes dilated also means you wind up with super crazy Night Vision/Cat Eyes so you have to wear special shades all day.

The kind that come with a complimentary unibrow.

And kind of cool dark eyes.

You don’t think those photos are impressive until I tell you that I couldn’t actually see the camera. And my eyes stayed dilated for two days.

Night Vision/Cat Eyes have their trade-offs I suppose.

Surgery day came and Kevin went with me to document the event and be my chauffeur home. I was pretty excited.

They gave me a personalized name tag! (When are they ever non-personalized?)

And someone came in and scrubbed my eyes for me and gave me this fantastic bonnet.

They gave me a sedative and waited patiently for me to pipe down and shut up. Then the doctor came in, talked about how I’d see bubbles during the surgery – this appealed to me greatly – talked a little bit more about random things – something about a suction? Yea that’ll be important later – and then told me we’re good to go back to surgery.

Now. Here is where I type in bold.

IF YOU DO NOT LIKE CREEPY PHOTOS OF EYEBALLS THAT WILL MAKE YOUR EYES HURT, STOP HERE, CHECK BACK IN A FEW DAYS FOR A POST ABOUT DOGS OR SOMETHING. THE FOLLOWING PHOTOS DEPICT MY EYE SURGERY AND SUBSEQUENT BLOODSHOT EYES AND ARE NOT FOR WUSSES. BASICALLY IF YOU’VE NEVER SEEN AN EPISODE OF DR. G, GREY’S ANATOMY, OR ANY OTHER CREEPTASTIC HEALTH RELATED SHOW, LEAVE.

And make sure you come back on happier post days.

You’ve been warned.

Kevin was led to a two seat alcove where he could watch the entire surgery from a screen, while I was led back to a freezing room full of nice lady assistants. They gave me a blanket and a squishy star shaped stress toy. By now I could tell the sedative was working. I was still worried, but mostly just curious. They laid me down and told me they had to put the suction on my eye. Apparently the suction holds my eye in place so the laser can make a perfect flap. Then they flip this flap up, and shoot a different laser in my eye which corrects my vision. Then they push the flap back down and viola! Insta-eyes.

I was excited/nervous about the laser, but they kept saying stuff about this suction-thing.

Suction, shmucksion.

I’m tough as nails. I’ve had my tonsils out.

I was just wondering where the camera was. I wanted to give Kevin a big thumbs up, a look at me! I’m so tough. No big deal, I handle things like a champ type of a grin. I didn’t find out until after that the camera was in the machines they use, so the only thing he could see the entire time was my eye. MY FLINCHING, ITCHING, WATERING, FLESHY, SENSITIVE, PRECIOUS EYE BALL.

Sorry. I get a little teary when I think about my vision.

Back to the real story. They positioned the suction above my eye and lowered it on.

After an insane amount of pressure (but no pain due to numbing eye drops) they got the suction on, and well, suctioned. My vision went dark and that’s when Dr. Lady decided to say, “take the suction off”.

Um.

No.

No. No. No. You don’t do that to me and take it off. You do that and get it over with. She explained that while they had it perfect, they needed to reposition it because the machine didn’t like it.

Well you know what machine? Neither did I.

Then they decided they needed to stretch my eyelids open further, so they put a little metal device up under my eyelids and slowly pulled it open. It only looks painful. That part didn’t hurt.

The suction? Well. It sucked. A ton.

(HUZZAH that’s my second good joke of this post).

The photos below is the laser cutting the flap in my eye. The bubbles is where oxygen is getting under the flap.

Okay. Here’s my second disclaimer.

If you have a weak stomach or if you’re disturbed easily, don’t scroll further. I’m okay viewing it because I am weird…and because I know it’s my eye. If I’d have been shown this photo below prior to surgery, I probably would have yelled eff that or the mormon appropriate freak no and ran away screaming, cradling my boxes of contacts and cherishing them for life.

That’s the metal eye stretcher thingy. My eye is upside down because I’m laying down. The foggy part of my eye is the flap that’s just been created, and it’s 100% normal.

And 100% freaky.

This next photo is a little freakier, because the doctor is putting a sharp object under the flap of my eye to lift it. Looks bad, but it didn’t hurt one bit.

This is the laser locking in on my eye to fix it. My eye appears grainy because that’s how your eye looks underneath I guess.

After staring at a blinking light (the laser) for twenty seconds, they pushed the flap back down, rinsed my eyes out, stood me up, walked me out and handed me to Kevin.

“I don’t know how in the hell you just did that,” was the first thing he said to me. To be quite honest, I don’t know how I did either. All I knew is I couldn’t see worth a darn, it looked like I was looking through a foggy window pane, or a used milk cup. When before I’d dreamed about reading and blogging when I got home, my thoughts changed to sleeping or clawing my eyes out with rusted nails. They hurt.

They hurt real bad.

(Enough of the bad jokes. But my lips are chapped right now and they do hurt real bad. But I’m scared of the dark. I’ll just stick to blogging).

Now you’d hope this has a happy ending, that I’d wake up and exclaim, “I can see!!!” for the whole world to hear. And you’re right, I can see. I can see so darn good. I can see the alarm clock in the morning like I’ve always wanted, I can see cars at night. I can see Kevin when he’s sitting across the room from me, I can see everything.

Do you wanna see something?

Really?

Okay. I’ll show you.

That’s my left eye post-op.

And this is my right.

Is that a wrinkle I spy?! Just kidding. I had to tug on my cheek pretty darned hard to get that shot, since my eyes were sensitive and I still couldn’t see very well. The blood is normal, apparently the suction sucks so bad (man, does it ever) that it breaks the blood vessels on your eye.

It rocks.

It’s just too bad I didn’t do this around Halloween, those red eyes would have made the perfect zombie get-up.

I HAVE A QUESTION.

Is it too late to blog about Christmas? I mean, it’s been almost a month, but I have a video to share with you.

Yes it’s of my niece, and the times that it’s not her, it’s of my dog. The one video I did of me turned out so weird that I can’t bear to watch it – it’s like hearing myself on a tape recording, or watching videos of me when I was five. Just awkward.

Scratch that last part about the videos of me when I was five. We actually don’t have ANY videos of me when I was growing up.

I was a neglected child.

*start pity music*

Anyway, Aspen is a non-neglected child and she got just what she asked for for Christmas – a barbie car. Her reasoning? “Bennie ate my Barbie car, I need a new one!” The video below is her reaction when she opened the present.

Ash, I hope you don’t mind me posting it. I did so because your Blogger account was being lame and I’m a nerd that lives in a basement and still plays WoW cool and have my own lame website that my mom doesn’t even read domain.