Our Lives in Instagram

While writing a letter to my cousin (Lindsey) last week, I was telling how how I loved keeping myself busy and how "I don't have time" to blog anymore. I guess I couldn't be one of those fancy ladies who gets paid to blog and take cool pictures and promote products in different cities and such because often, to me, blogging can feel like a chore. Especially after I do lots of fun things and then it takes 10x as long to write about it since I haven't updated in a month and a lot has happened since then.

On August 17th (Sunday- the weekend Sharanya drove down), Michael was able to get us free tickets to Universal so we could check out the new Harry Potter/ Diagon Alley area. It wasn't incredibly busy, considering at that point the park had only been opened 6 for weeks. But it was incredibly fun. We decided to ride Gringotts first, which was a 2 hour wait. It didn't seem like that long, but I probably wouldn't ride it again unless the wait was around 45 minutes or less. Then we got lunch at the Leaky Cauldron. Oh my goodness those bangers (sausages) were sooo good!!! We went into all the shops and towards the end rode the Hogwarts Express to the Island of Adventure side, bringing us back to Hogsmeade. We walked to other areas as it got later in the day, Mia and Sharanya made me so happy by going on the Popeye water ride with me!! Mia had gone on it with me in December, but that was my first time. Michael doesnt like getting his regular clothes wet, but says we can plan to go to Typhoon Lagoon in November!!!!!!!!!!! Yessssssss.

Last month when I went on a walk with Alana by a popular lake, I found a few old-toney looking buildings so we did some snooping and saw that they give tours on the weekends, so the weekend after HP, I went to church with Alana and Cody, then we had a picnic and proceeded onto the tour. I liked it a lot and thought about creating a whole blog post for it, since I took a lot of pictures, but then too much time past and I don't like starting posts with, "So 7 years ago.." There were two main houses, both with two floors, but one was blocked off. I always love the kitchens and below Alana is standing in the outside laundry room with the buckets of water and rigid wooden things that somehow cleans the clothes. I need to learn more about that.. There was also a very small school, library and World War II museum. Our tour guide was actually in the war!! He pointed to a picture of a guy and asked if he looked familiar. I laughed a bit and said yes because it looked like Elvis. Wasn't he in the Army or Air Force? But the picture was of our 75 year old tour guide, when he was maybe around 30?

The week before we went to Harry Potter, I was doing really great with following along to exercise videos on Pop Sugar Fitness. Super proud of myself of course, and feeling good with memories of being fantastically "athletic" back in California. A few weekends ago I convinced Michael to check out a trail with me- one I had always passed while driving to Alana's house. Thankfully he liked the trail a lot because it was mostly walking through walls of trees, some coming together up top to make an overhang and providing shade. He has even been online looking up new breathable shirts and new exercise pants. A couple of times I have gone to the mall with him to pick out what I like for him and he tries everything on. Too bad a lot of the pants are at least $60!! Last weekend we went to the same park, but followed the trail in the opposite direction. Michael liked that trail too and it goes into a country neighborhood. The houses spaced apart, gravel roads forming driveways, fenced in areas for dogs and we heard a rooster somewhere. I liked the blue house in the little photo above. There were some newer looking ones that Michael liked. I'm hoping that aren't crazy expensive bc they are kind of out of the way, but not too far from necessary stores. These two "trails" are paved bike paths, so bikes have jumped to #1 on both of our Christmas lists.

 I started training again at the Sheriff's Office on August 25th. (Our Orientation day was August 22nd, exactly three months after I applied for the job.) We have gotten through three weeks already and I'm looking forward to the last two a lot, since we will be focusing most on just practicing fake 911 calls. There are other smaller details we have been going over as well - policy, getting certified for different programs, and of course knowing our geography is very important as well. Our class gets along well thank goodness, but we all have similar personalities. I'm almost the "middle-aged one" this time because five of the other "kids" are between 19-21, and they all gasped when I said I was 27. There are three adults who are probably aged 40-50 and they are very nice and talk and joke with us. My friend Jonathan (who I have known since I worked there in 2012) taught our class the second week, showing us how to use the main computer program where we get the maps, phone numbers, address and type in all the information about each call. Michael and I had been excited to go on a double date with him since he just proposed to his girlfriend, Brittany, at Disney's Magic Kingdom. However, Michael's schedule has been changing more as it gets closer for Halloween Horror Nights to open to the public, so we had to reschedule the date. 

I had some lovely magical motivation this past week as well. Our training shifted times from 8am to 10am, so I decided to keep waking up at the same time and using the extra hours to run (and by run I mean mostly power walking, just also some jogging) around one of the lakes on the way to work. Sometimes Miriam and her sister meet me in the morning and a couple times I ran after work with Mia. I've still be hanging out with Mia when I can because I like running errands with her and watching Glee. We're getting near the end of Season One, and Season Two is even better!! On the weekends (like today) I'm going to church with Alana and Cody, then going back to their house so we can play Wii Fit. I have definitely been slacking on the stretching before and after running, even thought I ripped out a page from one of my health and fitness magazines that has great stretching poses on it.

I hope that helped everyone (my 4 readers) get up to speed on my life. Oh! And I didn't really take any pictures of this, but I drove down to visit my Grandma in Naples for a couple days early in the week before starting 911 Orientation. I had a really nice time with her, going out to eat and running errands with her. She even gave me some money to buy hygiene products for children in need. I plan to visit her again when I am answering real calls and have every other long weekend off.

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