Slave to Technology

This past week a lot of things happened, all at once. The first, is that my Macbook Air decided to break again...so I had to take it to the Genius Bar. You know it's bad when the people behind the counter start recognizing you. Anyway, they kept my laptop for two days, and on Friday, I got a phone call saying that they wanted to replace my old Mac Air with the new 11-inch Macbook Air! I was SO HAPPY. You see, I strongly believe that an Apple product lasts for 3 years, and then everything goes kaboom. My Mac Air was nearing the 3 year mark, and I had 1 month left on my Applecare. After graduation, I was planning to buy the 11 inch mac air anyway, so Apple essentially gave me an early graduation present, minus the hefty fee it would have come with! So I am now a proud owner of this computer:

It's so tiny I LOVE IT!!!

Note to self: NEVER buy first generation of anything from Apple!

I am so excited! Also, I went approximately 2 weeks without my phone, and Kyle went ahead and got me a new blackberry torch yesterday. I am so...at peace now :) I need technology to function. I've been carrying around a little $10 flip phone for the talk/text capabilities, and then my iPad for my data/email capabilities. It was getting a little ridiculous, and I feel more connected right now, with a new (FREE!) laptop, and a new (pretty good deal from ATT) Blackberry Torch. Not quite ready to jump into the iPhone bandwagon yet, but maybe in a year and half when the new phone comes out :)

This past week it's been absolutely unbearably hot. On Friday the heat index was 120 degrees!!! It's one thing when it's summer weather, but another when it just plain hurts to breathe outside...this week is supposed to be in the 80s so I'm crossing my fingers. The past two weekends Kyle drove down to DC to see me. He's been doing really well, still loving his job, which I find amazing and awesome and very...jealousy-inducing :) He has already gone to court multiple times, which is great for litigation experience, and he plays a lot of golf with the people at his firm. He finally has his name on the door and his official business cards, so I am SUPER proud of him. Super super super.

Yay!!!!!!!

The Happiest Place On Earth

Two weekends ago I was able to see three of my best friends from our time as camp counselors. It's hard to believe that we've known each other since summer of 2004, where Camp Champions in Marble Falls, TX changed our lives :) Since then, we've all tried to meet up once a year, and the past two years have been Sarah's and my wedding, respectively. This year, though Lanie's wedding is in November, we decided to go to Orlando, and will be starting official MVC trips every year, excluding weddings. It was seriously one of the funnest weekends ever, one that we had planned since December.

Because we only had two full days, we decided to spend our time wisely. We knew we wanted to go to Disneyworld, and to Harry Potter World, so it made sense to do Magic Kingdom one day, and Universal's Islands of Adventure the next. Lanie, Robin, and I managed to land in Orlando at the same time. We parked ourselves on the balcony of our hotel right away and waited for Sarah, and in the process, watched in horror as it thunderstormed and rained and....THUNDERSTORMED some more. It was pretty terrifying. As soon as Sarah got in, we went out for dinner in Downtown Disney. It was also Lanie's bachelorette and so we celebrated in style! We were able to have a relatively cheap meal in downtown Disney at Gloria Estefan's restaurant, after which we headed to an Irish pub. We were able to royally embarrass Lanie by asking the Irish fiddler and guitar player to invite her up on stage and dance a jig. Literally. Here she is hating us with every inch of her life:

Lanie dancing an Irish jig.

I love us :) Cheers!

The next morning, we got up nice and early to head to Disney! I've never been to Disneyworld before since we have Disneyland in California, and my parents never really saw the need to travel domestically when we can travel internationally. So, basically, I set foot in 15 different other countries before I'd ever even been to NYC or DC. No joke. But I suppose that's where I get my traveling bug, and that's how I turned Kyle into a world traveler too :) Anyway, I digress. We got to Disneyworld, and it was...SPECTACULAR. The four of us acted just as young as the majority of the patrons there- namely kids. We ran around and went on EVERY SINGLE RIDE, and were quite successful! It was soooo much fun. Pirates of the Caribbean, Winne the Pooh, Snow White, Small World, Peter Pan, etc etc, and the BEST roller coaster ride of all was Space Mountain. I am SUCH a fan. Love. In the midst of all that it started to POUR. It was quite disgusting, but luckily, everything in Disneyworld is pretty close together, so we were able to not get as soaked as we would have been at Universal, where everything is wide open. The last thing we did was stalk the princesses and Mickey/Minnie for pics, which we did quite successfully! It was so much fun!

Belle was probably the nicest princess out of them...and the prettiest!

This was right before Sarah called Mickey short and almost got us kicked out of Disney ;)

That night we went out into the town of Celebration for dinner. Now, we got a nice little background info from our hotel person about the town. Celebration isn't really a real town. It was created by Walt Disney so that Disney employees can live, eat, and breathe Disney. It's a perfect little town, very reminiscent of the Truman Show or Pleasantville, where everything is basically ...perfect. It was quite eerie. It's a little haven where kids grow up and ARE disney. Kinda crazy. We had the best Italian food ever, and headed back early bc Universal was going to be a LONG day.

Next morning: Universal. O.M.G. I can't even begin to describe how much fun it was and how incredible everything was, and the fact that you could drink your way through Universal. Who knew that selling beer during 2 hour lines was genius? Anyway, I digress...as soon as we got in, we raced in Harry Potter World. HP world is...everything you can imagine it is. I'm an HP fan, but not really...I read all the books and thought they were good, but didn't like it enough to watch the movies. Well, HP World is INCREDIBLE. It is an exact replica of Hogsmeade, from the shops to the signs to the little things like the bathroom ghost person in the restrooms! The best part of HP world was....BUTTERBEER!

OMG BUTTERBEER.

Entering HP World was like a rite of passage.

We were ecstatic, and ran around like little kids in a candy store. Lanie, Sarah, and I did the Dragon rollercoaster, which was incredible, and we tried to do the main HP attraction, but it was closed, so we did everything else first. We did Jurassic Park, which had an incredible water ride that got us soaked, then we headed into Toontown for lunch, and that was super cool.

ToonTown!!! Bettyboop's territory.

The next island we went to was Marvel Comics Superheroes land, and went on an amazing Spiderman ride. I convinced Sarah to go on the Hulk rollercoaster to me, and....let's say I give her props. I'm a HUGE rollercoaster person, and Robin is DEFINITELY not. Lanie kinda is, but didn't end up going with me, and Sarah was a good sport and went with me. Anyway, it was ... INTENSE. It was definitely one of the most intense rollercoasters I've EVER been to, but it was still incredible. I don't think Sarah will be going on any rollercoasters soon after that one :) Thanks, girl! :D As soon as we got off the Hulk, these...dressed up superheroes started running around, and we chased after them to get pics with them:

Captain America!

Wolverine! He was prob my fave, but whoever took this pic sucked.

We did Dr. Seuss land, which was REALLY trippy and eerie. I've never read Dr. Seuss as a child, and I can't imagine reading them...whoever the creator is must have been on acid when he created the storylines and characters, no joke.

Dr. Seuss land. Trippy, right?

The last thing we did before heading back to HP world was the Lost City or whatever it was, and we had dinner there. Post dinner (9pm-ish), we headed back to HP world, got some drinks, and headed to the line for the Hogswart ride. OMG. The 90 minute line was worth it. The castle is AMAZING. It had EVERYTHING...the fat lady portrait, the sorting hat, Dumbledore's office, etc etc. It was ....AWESOME. The ride was very very scary. I'm not scared of rollercoasters, but I hate 3D things where ...things pop out at me. This is our picture at the end:

The key to this pic is all our different expressions.

Nothing beats Hogswart. This is exactly what it looked like at dusk :)

The ride capped off an amazing day at Universal. We ended the night with a bang, bc that's when I lost my precious Blackberry. :( Otherwise, it was definitely an amazing trip celebrating Lanie's upcoming nuptials. I love these three girls with all my heart, and I'm so blessed to have them as friends :) We only see each other once or twice a year, and every time we do get together, it's like nothing's changed. Can't wait to see where our adventures take us next year!

Happy Fourth of July!!!

This is my first time blogging from my iPad, so please forgive me if my grammar is off. My MacBook air is in the shop again, of course....you know, by this point I've had a completely new computer from all my trips to the genius bar: I have a new motherboard, new keyboard, new trackpad, new fan, new display (monitor screen thing included), and now new speakers. It would have been cheaper for apple to just give me a new freakin computer. Anyway, I digress. This past long weekend Kyle came to visit! It is always nice when there is a long weekend bc the visit doesn't seem so short, but it still flew by nonetheless. Friday night he got in and we just hung out. Saturday morning we went to Alexandria to get my mini serviced and checked out the Countryman, which is the four door mini and a ridiculously awesome car. Probably my next car after this lease is over :) we came home, rented two movies from redbox, got food, and came home. Rented The Other Guys and The A Team. Both EXCELLENT movies, amazing! Sunday we finally decided to get the new bed, and so now we are proud new owners of a westin heavenly bed! Very exciting, since the tempurpedic actually hurt my back, which is really counterproductive. Nadia and Nick were in town for the day from Baltimore, so we met up in Georgetown. Got in line for g-town cupcakes. The line was insane, but as always, the cupcakes were worth it. We then headed to the Potomac River, which is literally a couple blocks away. We walked downhill, nearing the dock, and looked behind us. The sky was, no joke, BLACK. There was a fierce storm coming our way. The wind started going, water started churning. And the crazy thing was, PEOPLE WERE STILL GETTING ON THE BOATS, and people were still out on their kayaks, floating around. Well, our little group got a little nervous, so we decided to turn back. Sure enough, no sooner than walking half a block, this torrential DOWNPOUR came down. Not like, rain. But big fat droplets that pelted us. Luckily, we were under a highway, so everybody in the surrounding vicinity got under it. The river, which was half a block away, was now totally NOT visible. Virginia and the trees? Gone. The kayaks? I hope they're ok. It was a ridiculous thunder/lightning/rain spectacle that lasted a good 20 minutes. Freak storm for real. Anyway, after that we decided to be near a car at all times, so we headed to National Cathedral, then to Cactus Cantina for margs and food, after which we took Nadia and Nick to Union so they could head back to Baltimore :)

line @ g-towncupcake

Today (4th of July!) was pretty worthless. We got up, watched a movie, ate, slept, and read books all day, just enjoying each other's company :) We headed over to Duane and DeVere's for a little 4th get-together and to watch fireworks. Good food, good company, and a great view of the fireworks that were going over the mall. It really is something to be an American. I do a lot of immigration work, and so it makes me even more thankful to be an American, knowing what we have, and knowing how hard so many people strive in order to get that green card (which isn't even green...). Immigrants in this country really love being here, and are thankful to be here. Many of them don't take it for granted, and I think there are many people who can learn a thing or two from them. Anyway, that's my two cents for the day :) Happy Fourth, everyone! God bless America :)

great view of the fireworks from duane and devere's!

(ps: blogging from an ipad sucks. i had to switch to a real computer. blarghhh)