Beautiful life

This is going to be a little bit of rambling... I've got lots to say.

First of all, I have such wonderful family and friends - they gave me one of the best birthdays yet.  Here's to 23!

Being a pony for Aubrey and Alyx

Kelly, Dustin and I heading out to Mill to celebrate my birthday!

The Fearsome Five re-united at Maloney's in Tucson :)

These were only some of the birthday celebrations.  Not pictured is a dinner with Kieren, Anson, Kelly and Dustin, a dinner with just Mom and Dad and Vegas celebrations with Kelly, Jill and Mom.  TOO MUCH FUN!

On the work side: my boss from IWS sent my article over to She Knows - just waiting to hear from them on when it's up!  Exciting!  Also, I got an email today from a parent at HHS, it looks like I'll be tutoring her daughter.  I'm looking forward to getting back into languages and helping someone else learn them.  Languages are truly beautiful.  Hopefully it all goes well!  I'm completely lost in the work world.  I want to have a job I'm passionate about... and the more I think about it, the more I want to live in another country and teach.  I'm looking into Chile, Argentina and Spain.  (Kelly, don't freak out, I promise I'll keep you in the loop, and it's a big process even getting accepted into teaching... I haven't ruled out Irvine by any means!)

So, I love reading all of my friends blogs.  And there are a lot of them: Kelly, Kieren, Lauren S, Lauren O, Claire, Alyse... I'm sure I'm missing some.  I group them into 4 categories: factual online scrapbook/diary, journalist style, and deep thoughts - either directed toward an audience or used as a form of release.  I feel like mine at the moment is very dry: I did this at this time with these people.  Awesome.  I want to change it.  If you are a friend of mine you already know what I did when, because you were with me.  Sooo, my new goal is to write with more of a purpose I guess - like what I did for IWS.  Have a topic that I'm passionate about, or maybe even share some of my secrets with you.  Let's hope I can stick to it.

And for the grand finale... Welcome to the world Haylee Noreen Howard! :) Born on October 11th perfect as can be.

Home and Happiness

I finished reading Firefly Lane, it was such a good book.  Probably one of the best I've read in a long time - if you're looking for a story about an amazing friendship that goes through the trials of life.  I whole-heartedly recommend it!

Also, I've found the perfect tea blend:
3 bags of green tea
1 mint (Tazo's refresh)
1 of the Tazo orange/wildflower tea

All in a 9 cup pitcher.  YUM!  And if you want it a little sweet, add some agave nectar!

Family dinner was an event as always... you'd think we were 100% italian with how loud it gets.  Yikes!  Gotta love family. :)

Such a lucky girl!

Oh goodness, what a weekend!


I visited the girls in Tucson (for less than 20 hours) last night, it'd been two weeks since I'd seen them! Let me tell you, the four of them (plus Jess) are amazing, and I love them more than anything in the world! They are true friends to the core, and I missed them the second I closed the door behind me.

I got to top the weekend off with family dinner at Grandma and Papa's, celebrating birthdays and a late Father's Day. It was too much fun as always! We are so lucky to have the family we do, not enough people are willing to call the members of their family their best friends.

Here comes another week!