Roots

Rather than get my roots touched up this time...

This ginger went back to her roots.

Blond ones.

Mmm-hmm. It's been mmphhmmph years since I've been blond. I've had red hair since before my first driver's license. Or some shade of red. Or brown. Or auburn. Or brown with purple highlights. Or...okay, let's just say it's been much darker than it is now. (Check out the profile pic over in the right margin.)

So for 3 days this dynamic duo bleached, lightened, colored, highlighted and trimmed my now goldilocks. Well, actually, Eric did it all. I just sat. And then I made him dinner and he didn't even use Tabasco. Does this mean I am cooking better? ;) Love that man.

Bleaching.

Highlighting. 

Can you even deal with the hotness in this picture?

And here we are today (Eric actually did my hair about two weeks ago). Due to reading more textbooks than humanly possible, a research paper, and finals (and school just basically eliminating my social life), I've not had many picture taking opps.

What that actually means is I finally washed my hair and put make up on today because I had to take a picture and send it in for my school badge.

Please excuse the washed-outness - cuter pics to follow later. Much later. (After school isn't consuming me.)

And if you see this picture on a badge, then I am your nurse practitioner student. =D

Málaga

Málaga was a much larger city than we expected. It is one of the biggest cities on the south coast of Spain, in the Andalucía region. Our guide said that it is quite a warm climate for most of the year and with the exception of a few months, people frequent this beach and swim.

We saw the bullfighting ring (Plaza de Toros). Bullfighting has been banned in the Catalonian region of Spain (Barcelona). Our guide mentioned that animal rights’ activists wanted credit, but that it really had to do with Catalonia wanting an independent identity from Spain.

Just walking around the city. On a quest for coffee and other treats hecho in España.

Málaga is the birthplace of Pablo Picasso. He lived on the second floor of this building. Antonio Banderas was also born in Málaga.

Where everyone knows your name.

I’ll have the pork sirloin, hold the whine.

Really beautiful architecture and massive wood doors.

One of the most magnificent sites was the Málaga Cathedral.

Our guide said this is where the bishop worked.

And this was the Bishop's house, across from his work.

And the Bishop's bar.

The tower pictured above with the palm trees kept us from getting lost quite a few times. You can see it from almost any street in the city. I also took pictures of street corners to leave a bread crumb trail so we could find our way back.

The Castillo de Gibralfaro.

At the end of our day we visited a conservatory called La Concepcion. A beautiful, peaceful garden outside of town. I don’t know about you, but I always feel refreshed when I get in touch with nature.

An example of how everything was labeled.

Used to be private property until 1990. Now the employees do their best to preserve each of the species of plants and trees, over 400 I think he said. This is really a museum of trees and plants – not to be missed.

To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment. -Jane Austen

Barcelona

Rather than writing one excessively long post about our recent vacation, I am going to split it up a little. It will serve two purposes: 1) it will give me a break from studying and 2) I will get to relive it a little more. This last reason is especially important because I doubt we will be taking any vacations like this until we're done with (read: paying for) school.

The trip to Barcelona was long. L.O.N.G. Funny though, our return flight from Fort Lauderdale to Las Vegas seemed longer with Sam sitting behind me.


Who's Sam, you say? A darling 4 year old with legs-just-long-enough to kick the back of my chair.


And you wonder how do I know his name? Because of the many times his mom tried to distract/bribe him with food, visuals, etc. so he wouldn't kick my chair.


"Sam, look at the mountains!"


"Sam, here's some gummy bears." Yes, please do give him some sugar. I'm sure this is the right thing to do.


"Sam, look! Here's your toy."


"Sam, (insert favorite but ineffective bribe here)."


Back to Barcelona. It was about 16 hours travel time. It was 9 am when we arrived and we hadn't slept in over a day, so for our first day there we crashed after we walked around a bit. This is the main sidewalk/street near our hotel.

We woke up late afternoon and found a little (seriously, it was like only 10 feet wide) take out place. We ordered pizza and a cheeseburger/fries combo.

Then we headed straight back to the hotel room, ate, watched a soccer match and then slept until morning! Our hotel was great - these little boutique hotels are a good fit for us.

The next day we hit the town. After stopping at a coffee shop near the hotel, we got on a Hop On Hop Off bus. I think this is a GREAT idea if you are in a big city with lots of sights to see and not enough time to walk. You pay one price and can get on and off as much as you like for a day (or in some cases two days). A little pricey in Barcelona, but worth it. We also took the Metro a few times. Very easy and cheap. We went to their shopping district La Rambla and walked up and down. There was an outdoor market there - such a find!

Yes, that is fresh squeezed OJ - took longer to make than the coffee. I don't drink juice, but I drank some of that. Yum.E.

 La Rambla

 The market

More of La Rambla

 They have some serious round-abouts. Definite learning curve here for the inexperienced.

 Olympic stadium

The palace

Next up... Málaga!

Happy New Year!

New Year's Resolutions. Eat better, exercise more, be nicer, blah blah blah.

We're just taking it one day at a time here, folks!

We are wishing all of you a year filled with peace and blessings.

Love to you all!

Salsa and Crocheting

Lots has happened since I last wrote!

Another semester ended and my students will be starting their final semester this week. They graduate in February!

I have mentioned that I volunteer at Volunteers in Medicine of Southern Nevada. This clinic is completely funded by private donations. We have primary care, intermal medicine, gynecology, cardiology and an orthopedist. We do EKG's, echocardiograms, gyne procedures, on and on. We also have a full pharmacy minus the narcotics. The care and medicines dispensed here are COMPLETELY FREE to the patients.

I volunteered at their 2nd annual fundraising ball last month, and - wow. Cirque performers, a harpist, two of the singers from Phantom, a live auctioneer, almost 600 guests, 100s of raffle and auction items. They raised $350,000 in that one night. And everything was donated for the ball - even the open bar. Right now the clinic is located in some old office space. There are plans for a new clinic that will include mammography and a dental clinic. The land was donated - 1.3 acres. I love volunteering here. With a capital L.

I also love my job. It isn't all sunshine but one of the (many) reasons I love my job at the hospital is because of the people I work with. Over and over again my life has been enriched because of some of these people. Our unit has decided to crochet Christmas hats for all of the babies born in our hospital in December. I love that we come up with stuff like this and then get it done.

In the past, I have always thought knitting, crocheting, needlepoint, sewing (any I've forgotten?) to be the most tedious, mind-numbing, arthritis-and-sore-neck-giving tasks known to mankind. Totally not my thing. I would rather clean all the grout in my house with a toothbrush. As a side note, my whole house is tile.

Well, we've not been too busy at work lately. So, one of the nurses taught me how to crochet! I've made two hats. The first one I finished in 3 hours flat. It fits a 1-year old, not a newborn. Whoopsies. I gave it to my friend's son below. The second one looks much better, more fitting. :)

 A new picture of us.

In honor of trying something new, not being stagnant, doing something together, etc etc...Eric and I went to a dance lesson.

A salsa lesson.

If you know us, you know this was totally my idea. And after all that crocheting, I felt like I should be sitting in a rocking chair by a fireplace with a cup of tea and an afghan on my lap.  Salsa seemed like the cure.

Well, maybe we didn't look exactly like this. We need a few more lessons. A few hundred more.

Here's to keeping things spicy.