Emuzines

So I spent Sunday through Tuesday with my family in Las Vegas!  It was my mom and Memere’s annual birthday celebration.  We did a lot of wonderful eating, relaxed in the spa, saw La Reve (great!!), met some dolphins, leopards, and tigers, and shopped a lot!  Here are some pictures from the trip.

Here I am with my mom and aunt Debbie, eating Dim Sum.  We weren’t sure what everything was, so we said YES! to a lot of food.

Next, we checked out the Bellagio, and I got some ideas for my future garden

Here is the whole group at our twice-frequented restaurant.  Everything there tasted wonderful.

Following the food theme, lunch at Mon Ami Gabi

Again, the whole group before seeing La Reve.

I don’t like to play much, but I gave in for a half hour to play some colorful-looking and -sounding slot machines.

Pepere, on the other hand, LOVES to play!!  He could sit for hours in one chair.  How cute is he?

I fell in love!!  This little guy was the most adorable thing I’ve seen in quite some time.  I could have spent hours watching him play with his stuffed toys.  SO CUTE.

Cheers!  Italian sodas and chocolate macaroons.  Yum.

Tonight was the faculty-student recruitment dinner for incoming recruits to my program.  I am not too into the social things, the small talk…but my friends would be there and I decided to go with David.  We had a pretty good time, a little awkward, and I was way overdressed…but I’m still glad I went.  Tomorrow is the student only recruitment “dinner” (aka party)…but I have to work very far away, pretty late…so I may not make it.  Fridays always wipe me out, and the past week has wiped me out too…so I can’t imagine I’ll be energetic enough to come home and get ready to go out. 

I am almost done with all of my school stuff.  My two presentations this week went well, and I’m nearly done with my papers.  Nik and my mom keep telling me breaks are ok, so I am currently in my pjs, cuddling with Jo on the couch with my heart blanket (thanks Memere), and watching TV.  And earlier today I took a nap–unheard of!  I still feel guilty taking breaks and relaxing…how annoying. 

So looking forward to Vegas in a couple of weeks.  I get to see my Mom, Memere, Pepere, Aunt Debbie…eat a lot, go to a show, the spa, relax (nonguiltily), eat some more…

I have been so exhausted for about a week!  I thought that I was “crashing” from my stressful midterm that I studied for for many, many, many hours.  It was immediately after that that I became a zombie!  I was nearly useless for a whole week.  Making myself get off of my butt helped a bit, but still I felt exhausted.

Then, I went to Ciocolat with my friend, Maciel.  This is a chocolate/pastry/brunch/coffee/tea shop in downtown Davis.  Since I was sick a few weeks ago and missed a get-together wherein my friends ate CAKE without me, Maciel wanted to take me out for dessert.  What a perfect plan.  I had a gigantic slice of carrot cake and a vanilla latte, and Maciel had a gigantic slice of lemon poppyseed cake and a Mexican hot chocolate.  They were all delicious, and the trip snapped me out of my funk.  I came home with plenty of energy, and have been great today (even despite being woken up very early this morning by construction noises…can’t wait to move…).  Thank goodness for friends and dessert!

Hi!  Lately, I have been more buried than usual in work and school stuff.  I have a genetics midterm on Monday, which I decided to devote all weekend to getting ready for, so I’ve had to do a lot of work for my other class ahead of time, to clear out the weekend (for fun and excitement, like MAOA, tetO, housekeeping genes, and stuff like that).  Well, this was designed as a post to talk about exciting things, and that was quite sarcastic (although I admit I really do enjoy the genetics of autism), so here are some things I’m excited about:

Nik found this for me: http://www.scrapncube.com/  I doubt I’ll go with that company for a scrapbook area, as it’s really expensive, but I thought it was so sweet that he found it for me!  Once we get a house, my scrapbook stuff will have a home besides shoved into closets and on high shelves out of reach.

CHICAGO!  I wanted to go to IMFAR, an autism conference, but I also really wanted to spend Mother’s Day weekend with…well…my mom!  It happened to fall on that weekend, so I invited my mom along.  We’re extended it into a nice little trip and we already have lots of really, really exciting plans.  We’re going to see Mary Poppins, eat at great restaurants, go to Navy Pier, and go on a dinner cruise.  I am beyond excited.  And I keep forgetting about IMFAR, which is also something that really makes me happy.  Sally says I’ll be presenting there next year, so I better get ready!

LAS VEGAS!  This is coming up really, really soon.  I am going to meet my mom, Aunt Debbie, Memere, and Pepere there, like we have been doing every year for…3 years now?  Nik isn’t going this year, so it’ll be a girl + Pepere week.  Great food, a show, the spa, and Vegasy stuff.  As you can tell, food and good company make me very happy.

HOME!  I am going home in 2 weeks!  It’ll be a very, very short trip, but I’m happy about it.  Mark and I are going to take Noah to the park to feed ducks, I’m going to go out to dinner and a hopefully girly movie/illegal sweets with Gaby, and have breakfast with Melissa.  Should be a nice, quick trip.

VALENTINE’S DAY!  Nik and I cooked in last year, so we’re going out this year.  We wanted to try something new (although, most things are new up here for us, still).  We have reservations at Ruth’s Chris.

DENVER!  This is happening in April.  The primary reason for the trip is another conference, but I’m going with David, Abby, and April.  We’re going to have a lot of fun together!!  I am more than lucky in meeting these friends.

Finally…relaxation…I’m giving myself the night off.  So off I go to eat lasagne and watch a movie!

Similar to my List of Happenings post, here is a bulleted list of happenings.  I don’t feel like I can put into words the great fun and relaxation I have had during this winter break home, so here are some thoughts and happenings.

• Scrapbook catch-up!  Or, rather, scrapbook work-on, since I have completed a few pages, but made so many more memories since I’ve been here, that I’m sure I’ll go home needing to do more than I did.  But hopefully I’ll have completed all July, 2008 activities by the time I get back into school.
• I finished sorting all of my literature for my chapter.  In other words, I finished reading through all early intervention literature EVER DONE on kids who are blind, deaf, mentally retarded, or premature, or have Down Syndrome or cerebral palsy.  That’s a lot of studies.  I had to find them, first of all, which I’ve been doing since September.  Then I had to read through them all, determine their quality, and rate them.  Now I get to write on the highly rated ones!
• Gaby time.  Last night Gabs and I went to Cozymel’s for dinner and then to the movies.  We laughed so hard.  She’s the best.
• Logan cuddles.  Logan spends most part of most nights with me, and leaves in the mornings (or middle of the night, I can never tell).  In what *I* consider morning, I call him in, and he jumps on my bed for cuddles.  He is so cute.  SO CUTE.
• Again about Logan.  We played “Where’s the ball?” with him tonight, which is really hide-and-seek with a ball.  He’s great at this game and searches the house high and low for whatever particular toy we’re playing with–he always remembers.  He looks on every shelf, he checks the top of the table, he looks under and over furniture and between each pillow on the couch.  It’s great.  So today we hid it in his water bowl.  This was new, but he found it right away.  He just couldn’t bear to stick his nose deep enough to get it out.  He worked at picking it up by tennis ball fluff for a long while, while we sat and laughed until we couldn’t breathe, but that didn’t work.  Then, he drank all the water and got the ball!
• Tonight we had a Thanksgiving dinner, mostly since Mandi wasn’t able to join us in Amesbury for Thanksgiving.  My mom did a spectacular job with the food, as I selfishly perused the scrapbook store and worked on a Mark and Noah page while she cooked.  Yummy!
• Mandi, Danny, and I went ice skating, which was great fun.  We went to Seaside Lagoon.  Here we are:

• My mom treated Nik, Mandi, Danny, and myself to an incredible dinner at Fogo de Chao, a Brazilian restaurant in Beverly Hills.  It was quite the experience…SO much food!  We chatted and chatted and couldn’t stop chatting (and eating).  Here WE are:

• Tomorrow is sledding with Mandi and Justine.  It should be really fun.  I remember toppling over quite a bit last time Mandi and I went.  We’re sure to scream, and the most fun happens when it makes us scream (think dark San Francisco forest)!
• There’s so much more…  It’s just been a great break so far, and it’s been nice to see everyone who I’ve missed so much, and I hope I can squeeze everything in in my last remaining days!