green machine

In an attempt to add more veggies to my meals, I decided to make a green smoothie. I warned Andy that he was going to think I was gross (he doesn't EVER eat any vegatables). While he watched me make my smoothie, he commented that I was like that kid trying to make the grossest drink. Haha. Despite the unappealing color the smoothie was tasty! Well, at least to me.

EOY

I won the "Employee of the Year" for the Education Division at my work. It was very overwhelming standing in front of EVERYONE from work. Thanks Melinda for nominating me!

18 st lounge

Here are a few pics out clubbin when I was in DC a few weeks ago. I really regret not taking more pictures. :(

My good friend tami and I

This is what I look like when I get my groove on

This guy was 7 feet tall!

Cheese!

PIMC

My dad is in town and we just found out that he needs surgery and has to stay in Phoenix for at least one month due to the surgery. I'm really nervous about the surgery but am trying to stay positive. On the bright side I'll have a whole month to spend with my dad! My brother Josh and I took dad to his appointment on Thursday to a specialist. The doctor gave us a prescription and told us we could actually go to PIMC to get it filled. We headed over to PIMC and fell right into that scene from James and Ernie where they talk about the classic IHS experience that everyone goes through. First we went to the pharmacy and the employee asked "what is the patient's medical record number?" I said "huh?" and she barked back "what is your chart number?!?!" Josh is standing behind me desperately trying to hold back his laughter. Since we didn't have a chart established we couldn't get the prescription, so first we got sent to the labratory to get one but the person who does charts was not there (maybe she was on annual leave???) from there we were instructed to go to PC annex, and once again the chart person was not there, so we were sent to Express Care. When we got to Express Care the employee said "oh my, I don't think we can even fill this for you here. You need to go to the eye clinic first". So we went to the eye clinic and waited forever while they tried to get us a chart number. We actually ended up leaving before they got us either the chart number or the prescription. If it hadn't been for my dad or Josh laughing at the whole goose chase we were being sent on walking in circles around PIMC trying to get a chart number I probably would have lost my patience. Typical day at IHS! At least we weren't there for 8 hours. Haha.

the hippest family i know

My friend Jade invited me to attend the No Doubt concert this past saturday with her whole family. After getting stuck in traffic a few miles outside of the concert arena for 45 minutes, I finally made it in with minutes to spare before No Doubt got on stage. Patience is not one of my finer virtures so I was pretty grumpy by the time I got in. But the Price gals definitely got me in a better mood in minutes. I got to rock out along side Jade, Heather, Bill and lil Beanz! Jade had Beanz on her shoulders and was dancing and bouncing him all over the place. Bill and Heather had me rolling on the ground with their "hippy" dance. Bill also shared with me that she heard somewhere that the face a drummer makes is similar to the faces he makes during sex. I will never look at a drummer the same again. Mom and Larry were chillin in their lawn chairs guarding all our purses while us girls sang our hearts out to all the songs. Gwen is one hot mama! I'm so glad the Prices invited me along to their family outing.

Birthday Celebration

Last weekend I flew out to Washington DC to spend the weekend with my good friend Tami, who has been working in DC for the past few weeks. Tami and I actually used to be roomates when we lived in DC 4 years ago. It was a great weekend! We wandered the whole city all weekend long. We visited with our friend Jack who took us to a quaint little bookstore for brunch and also introduced us to the BEST mojitos and fish tacos EVER! We also perused through the Fritz Scholder exhibit at the NMAI. Jack was like our own little personal tour guide through the exhibit because he knows everything about Scholder's work. On both friday and saturday we went out on the town. On friday we went to this awesome club called the 18th st lounge. It was way different from all the places i'm used to going to in AZ and it was fun. Tami was big ballin' and ordered us bottles of champaign. We also had an incident where some guy did a fly by and totally crop dusted on our table we had. (let me know if you don't know what crop dusted means hint- it's pretty gross). On saturday we met up with some of Tami's friends. It was a totally sausage fest with a 3-9 girl guy ratio. Tami and I were not feeling up to going all out on saturday because we had TOO much fun on friday. On sunday we had coffee with Tami's old boss, Margaret who has to be the coolest boss ever, anyone who drops the F bomb in every other sentence in work place sounds awesome to me. Haha. We then walked all over DC again and watched The Soloist. We proved ourselves to not look like tourists because we had people ask us for directions and we knew what to tell them! This always excites me when I'm in a different city because I always think it's a little embarrassing to be the goofy and OBVIOUS tourist. Sunday night we had dinner at this amazing restaurant which is famous- Georgia Browns. If you are ever in the DC area I highly recommend it. Tami says the fried chicken is so good it makes her cry. We had dinner with Tami's old boss, Margaret, and her mentor, Vicki. It was a blast. Margaret and Vicki drank us under the table, claimed that we were their daughters, hit on the manager of the restaurant and got us free drinks and dessert. When I'm older, I totally want to be like them. Haha. I was really sad to leave, but I really really really missed Andy. I actually found the most perfect souvenire for him. We ate at a burger place called "Big Buns". They have shirts that say BIG BUNS on the front and in the back it says "I like big buns and I can not lie". I was all set to purchase one for Andy, but alas they did not have their shipment of mens sizes in yet. I was so bummed. I'll put up pictures once I get a chance to steal them from Tami because I forgot my camera.

Mother's Day Cook Out

My mom and I

Cute lil cousins cheezin it up

All the little ones gangin up on my brother josh

I hosted a cookout on Saturday for mother's day. My mom traveled down to Phoenix from the rez. We had lots of people over! Brother, cousins, in-laws, grandparents, cousin-in-laws, little cousins, and more. Andy's grandparents came over to spend time with us before they head out to Michigan for the summer. Andy's grandma was gracious enough to bring a turkey and a ham. She also made her famous delicious green jello, which is the bomb. My brother Josh is our chef when it comes to turkey. So thanks to him we had tasty deep fried turkey, Yum Yum. I have a pool in my back yard, which is perfect for hosting get togethers. After eating lots of good food we watched the little kids play in the pool. We practically had to chase them out of the pool. Even though the sun went down they were still splish splashing around. I wish my family lived closer so we could get together more. I can't wait for our next get together.

This is actually the first year that I've planned something for Mother's Day. After all these years I'm starting to appreciate all that my mother has done for me. Love you Mom!

I'd Hit It

I joined a kickball team that one of my co-workers is organizing. Our team name is "I'd Hit It", a little sketchy considering that team consists of preschool employees, haha. We have practice tomorrow. I think practice is really just an excuse for everyone to go to happy hour afterwards. I'm excited! Our first game is on Monday. I have never played kickball, I'm not that coordinated and I'm not really competitive when it comes to team sports BUT fortunately everyone on the team just wants to have a good time. aaaaaaaaaaand, we're getting team shirts with our team name on front and our names on the back. I'm a sucker for personalized shirts! GO TEAM!

Rez'n it

This past weekend I traveled home to the rez. I spent the weekend with my dad. Our original plan was to plant corn, but the weather was extremely windy! It was very dusty out too. So instead, we visited at my grandma's for a bit and then we went to Gallup, NM. I can't remember the last time I had been to Gallup! We ate at the best mexican food restaurant ever- Genaros. It was so tasty! I also made my dad take me to the new casino. It was just cute because my dad gave me a tour of the whole place. The casino looks pretty nice and it was crazy packed. Anyways, I was sad to go back to Phoenix on sunday. The weekend wasn't long enough, but hopefully I will make it home again soon. My dad planted a few rows of corn, so now I need to go back and help him work on the field some more. I'm hoping that we'll have a good crop because I need to fill my corn pollen pouch back up.

Little Brother

My little brother was on leave for a week and a half. I didn't get to spend much time with him because he was home with my dad then my older brother kidnapped him and took him to vegas. Anywho, I ended up ditching a little bit of work this week to spend some quality time with him. On monday after I skipped out of work early, I picked up my brother and we stopped by a Circle K to buy some drinks. We also could not resist the awesome deal they were having on PEEPS. 25 cents for a box of peeps is quite a deal! So we bought 5 dollars worth. My mom knows I hate peeps so she always buys me a box whenever they're in the store. So we have this huge box of peeps for my mom. I'm debating mailing them to her or dropping by her house unannounced and leaving them on the doorstep. Haha. Anyways, John and I get the biggest kick out it and the cashier at Circle K must have thought we were nuts. We went swimming in my pool and played volleyball! It was a tad freezing but we got used to it. We also watched Monsters VS Aliens. Seth Rogan is awesome! It was a cute movie. We wrapped up the evening by cooking mutton, green chili and frybread! YUM. It's literally been months, possibly years since I've had a meal like that! So awesome. The next day I skipped out on work some more to have breakfast with John and then to drop him off at the airport. We ate at Cracker Barrell. I tried to be healthy so I ordered the Veggie Platter meal. John ordered this breakfast that comes on like 3 plates and is basically every breakfast dish imaginable offered as one meal. It was kinda gross watching him devour all that food. HAHA. Even though our visit was short, we had a blast and I'm so happy that he got to spend LOTS of quality time with our dad. I'm kinda sad though, because John is getting deployed and might not be back until next year. Yikes!

Pat's Run 2009

Huge banner of Tillman's jersey

Posing for pics before the race
I love the shirts!

On saturday I participated in Pat's Run. I have been wanting to do this race for a few years now but something has always come up during the race day. I was really excited to do it this year! I think Pat Tillman's story is amazing, how many people would give up a million dollar paying job to join the military to serve their country? On friday I had attending a training about providing better services for people in the military and their families. The training was so informative and intense. There were people who shared their traumatic stories about being in military or having a spouse or son in the military BUT they each said that if they knew what they knew now they would still serve their country regardless of the aftermath of being a veteran. At one point I think everyone in the training cried. I felt like I was on an episode of Oprah. So after the training I was even more inspired to do the race! Haha. My goal was to finish the 4.2 mile race in 35 minutes...............aaaaand I did it in 33 minutes and 43 seconds! woo-woo! I was excited about my time. Yay. I'm hoping to start doing this race every year!

Steroids

Lately, I've been working on speed intervals. I'll run 3 minutes at a regular pace than speed it up and sprint for one minute and I'll do that through the whole run. Well it must be working because I had the treadmill set to turbo and I just kept going at a pace that is typically SUPER fast for me but I was handling it fine. I ended up running 3.66 miles in 28 minutes. I was trying to figure out if the treadmill was reading the distance in kilometers. Haha. I was in such disbelief that I went back to the gym the next day and made sure to run on a different treadmill but at the same speed just to make sure that it wasn't a fluke. It was not! I ran 3 miles in 22 minutes. I haven't ran that fast since I was in high school cross country. Haha. So I'm doing a 4.2 mile race this weekend and my goal is to get it done in 35 minutes. We'll see how it goes!

This Is Why I Love My Job!

On Wednesday at work, I attended an event hosted by another department. The event was targeted for Moms and Tots, so they ordered one of those big bouncer things that kids LOVE. The first few of hours of the event were really slow so we *ahem* tested out the bouncer. We learned that if you fall down and two other people are already bouncing, you can't get back up.