Lunch at the Lake and our Lake Date

On my day off last week, Dan and I decided to finally get most of our condo in order. Although it has been a month since we moved in, we have been out of town and frankly I have a TON of stuff to put away. We finally got our IVGID passes which means we are officially residents of Incline Village. These cards get us into the private beaches for free and discounts at the golf and tennis courses. When we arrived at the recreation center to pick up our cards we were told that the owner of our property had issued out all of the cards already. This infuriated us and we now have been waiting a week for them to cancel the other cards. After this little setback, Dan had the fabulous idea of grabbing sandwiches at the deli and taking them to the beach. We drove around the lake and hiked down to a secluded area on the East shore. We climbed out on the rocks until we found a big flat one to have our picnic on. It was such a beautiful day and a great idea for a picnic. We will have many more of those to come this Summer.


A few days ago Dan surprised me by taking me down to the beach to watch the sunset and have a bottle of wine. It was such a cute and romantic gesture on his part and I was excited. We bundled up because it is still really cold here and headed down to the beach. There were a few people down there but one in particular was a man playing his guitar. Luckily he was sitting close to us and provided some entertainment on our lake date.  We stayed out there for about 2 hours and watched the sun go down, which was so beautiful. When we came home he made me dinner and we watched a movie. I can't wait for more of these to come.

Lauren's Wedding Weekend

Thursday night Dan and I flew down to SoCal to celebrate Lauren and Colin's wedding weekend. We had so much to do beforehand, manicures, pedicures, waxing, hair color, etc. Well, Dan was only involved in the haircut but I needed it all.  Since moving to Tahoe I refuse to find a new hair dresser, nail salon or esthetician. I got my eyebrows waxed down in Reno and they ripped off my skin, so that was the end of me trying new places. Dan was such a trooper driving me all around town to my appointments and didn't complain once. We went to lunch at one of my favorite restaurants Taleo Mexican grill. I had never seen Dan devour his plate so fast like he did that day. Their food is incredible and definitely underrated, it also helps that they are one of my most favorite clients and give me 50% off.

Saturday was the rehearsal and dinner before the big day. Since Lauren works for the Ritz Carlton they upgraded our room to a huge 1600 sq ft suite, which was perfect for all the girls to get ready in. We also had club access, which means all the food and drink you can eat for free. Saturday night was my last night to cuddle with my Lolly before she became a married woman. =) All my friends know that if you are sleeping in a bed with me expect to be cuddled.

Sunday at 4:30 am was our wake up call to get ready for the wedding. Nicki and Sarah were arriving at 6am to start our hair so we had to be showered and ready to go. Note to self... have an evening wedding so I can sleep in. 11 am arrives and the wedding is about to start. I see Dan for a quick moment before the wedding and he hands me a little note. Lauren's wedding day was exactly 1 year since Dan and I first met and fell in love and we can't wait for our big day to come. I got a little nervous standing there waiting to walk out, as I look behind me I see Lauren and her Dad Bill and I start to cry. I try to be strong throughout the wedding because lets face it I cry at people's weddings I don't even know. I have to say that I did pretty well throughout the ceremony and only got a little choked up when I saw my friend Kristin crying. The food was amazing and we danced our little hearts away. Nicki caught the bouquet, she does have a significant advantage being about 8 inches taller than me. But by being such a great friend, she gave the bouquet to me. We drove home to have dinner with my parents and get a good night's rest before the big drive back to Tahoe.

Monday had arrived, we checked the weather and chains or 4wd were required to get over the pass. Since we were driving Dan's 350Z back home this was not going to be an easy task. We decided that I should fly back so I would be able to get to work on time and he would wait until the storm was over. As we were packing the car we seemed to have lost the car keys. We couldn't figure out where I had put them, I remembered seeing them on the bed and Dan thought maybe I packed them in the car. Now with the car locked we had an even bigger problem than the weather. AAA came quickly and it seemed that Dan's car was impossible to break into. After several tries and Dan hyperventilating that they were scratching up his car it was finally unlocked. To our surprise there we no keys in the car. We searched the house several times and decided that I would fly back to Tahoe and overnight the spare keys to Dan so he could drive home. My brother picked me up and drove me up to Incline to get some clothes and the spare keys, on the way back down the hill my mom calls to tell me that she found the keys under my bed! Really?!! I looked there twice and Dan did as well and we saw nothing. It didn't surprise me that she would find something that we couldn't since she is a total clean freak. But I couldn't believe that after all that went on that day and all the money that was spent, the keys were there all along.
I guess now we have a great story to tell and can laugh at ourselves.

I don't have my camera back from SoCal so these are a few I stole from a friend =)

The Big Move

It has been 3 months since I moved to this winter wonderland/nightmare and I never thought I would say it but I hate the snow. I guess once you've lived in sunny SoCal your whole life, you are spoiled and have never had to deal with it. I would have to say that moving here has been a really good thing for me. It has definitely made me appreciate life and I now realize that many of the superficial things I used to have are not necessary.
I have been living in Reno the last few months with my brothers and Dan in South Lake Tahoe. We had to live separately because of the locations of our jobs and the bad weather. I definitely did not want to be driving down a snowy mountain everyday to get to work. As the snow is subsiding (as I am writing this we are having a huge storm) we decided to move to Incline Village. When Dan and I first started dating I told him that I would not live with him until we were married. Not because of my religious beliefs but mostly because I had seen so many relationships fail while doing so. This thought quickly went out the window as we became inseparable and made commitments to marry in the future. Times are changing and my thoughts are too.
April 1st was the BIG day when Dan and I moved in together. I woke up at 6:30 am to get a good start on the move. I was supposed to pick up the keys and meet the cable guy because God forbid I go one day with out my dvr and internet. My first setback of the day was a 6 car accident on the freeway on the way to Incline. Next my radiator blew out in the POS vehicle I have been driving the last few months. It was my worst nightmare. All of my stuff was packed in the car, my brothers were at work and Dan was over 90 minutes away. Of course I began to cry because I am a big baby like that! My brother came to my rescue and picked me up in the Paramedic Sup truck. That's right, my car breaks down and I have an "ambulance" come pick me up. He let me borrow his truck, I transferred all my stuff and made it up the hill just in time for the cable guy.
Our little condo is so cute and we couldn't be happier. It is a fully furnished one bedroom, one bathroom unit almost 800 sq ft. When I say fully furnished this is an understatement. We arrive to an espresso maker, extra pillows and blankets for guests, tons of entertaining dishes and glasses, toilet paper, paper towels and literally everything you could think of. This is actually becoming a burden since I have so much stuff and we are trying to figure out where to put theirs. I refuse to use other peoples sheets, blankets and bath towels. =) I can't wait for the Summer..fishing, hiking, boating, camping and swimming. For those of you that know me you must me thinking ...YEAH RIGHT! But I am definitely becoming more grounded living here and can't wait for all our new adventures.

Sonoma County Birthday Trip

So I finally have something to write about! Sorry I have been lagging!   I definitely will never become a professional blogger. Well here is our latest adventure....

March 24th was my birthday, I decided to work that day since I am getting "older" and its not that important to have the day off for my birthday. My bestie Lauren sent me a beautiful bouquet of roses at work, she always knows how to cheer me up. This year was my first birthday away from all my closest friends, but I was so thankful to have my family and Dan to help me celebrate.

We had 4 days off work and Daniel and I decided to drive down to the wine country for the weekend to get out of the terrible snow and cold weather. I couldn't find a better place to spend my birthday than in the wine country. Dan was my designated driver for the day since he is from the area and has been wine tasting most of his life. We headed up to Healdsburg, a part of Sonoma County I had never been to and started tasting. Already at our first stop we were being treated to free tastings since he is a "Local" and I was the birthday girl. I knew we had fun and crazy day ahead of us. We toured several wineries, had a gourmet picnic lunch and got home in time for me to pass out.

We were having too much fun and decided that we weren't ready to go back to the snow. We took a trip to visit Dan's grandmother, she is 93 and still going strong. It was really nice for me to finally meet her and one of his aunts as well. Next we headed over to Dan's best friend's brother's tasting room and to our surprise it was probably our favorite.  Super happy that they are doing so well and that we get a discount on such great wine. We met up with Dan's dad for a late lunch and then headed towards his mom's house in Sonoma. We decided to head up to the top of the vineyard and watch the sunset. It was so beautiful looking out over the whole valley and watching the sun go down. We ended the night with family, a hot fire, and some beers. Overall it was an amazing trip and just what we both needed. It was so nice to see the family since some of them we haven't seen since Thanksgiving.

o

Another date with the Nevada DMV

Moving to a new state is surely a lot more work than I had expected. I've told you of my two wondrous experiences with the Nevada DMV and now I have another bone to pick with them. Once you decide to claim residency in another state of course they want you to obtain their license and registration so they can make their money off of you. I was fine with this as I didn't want to pay those nasty CA taxes anymore. It sure has made a big difference in my pay check, even with the pay cut to come here. 

The greatest task I had when moving was to choose a new car insurance carrier. I called around to a few different agencies and finally decided on AAA since they are a very reputable company and surprisingly had a competitive price. I paid the 6 month premium and about a week later received a letter in the mail telling me they screwed up and I now owe them 14 more dollars. Well, I could have really cared less why, so I sent them off a check. It's now 2 months later and now they are telling me they REALLY screwed up and I owe them another 500, almost twice the amount of my entire premium. So, as you can see I was pretty sick of them at this moment and had decided to once again change carriers. 

Today I received another quote and to be sure this one wasn't going to get screwed up the lady took down my VIN numbers and my new NV license info. Everything was going along just fine until she couldn't figure out why my license report wasn't coming up. She suggested that I go to the NV DMV website and order myself a copy for a mere $7 dollars. I wanted to get this insurance switch over as quickly as possible and definitely didn't want to go down to the local DMV office so I decided to take her advice. As my report was pulling up I noticed something really wrong with the report. It said the status of my license was CANCELED. 

Seriously Nevada!! I just can't handle this DMV anymore. Apparently when they accidentally forgot to put the “A” restriction on my license and I had to come back and take another picture, I was also unable to return that same day and came back to the DMV a dew days later. They made me pay another $3 dollars for the photo, I completed another application and the license was on its way. I ended up receiving both licenses, the first was the invalid one and the second, the one I am currently using is apparently now canceled. Of course today was Saturday so I could get nothing accomplished, so now on Monday I am going to have to fight to get this fixed and I'm not going to pay another $7 dollars for their mistake. I will show them who is boss! HAHA!

For the Love of Snow

So today was a pretty rough day for me and the snow. Over the weekend I was down in Southern California visiting friends and while it was raining there, it was dumping snow at my house in Nevada. I was worried about the amount of snow we actually got in one day. My brother sent me pictures of the house and it was covered in snow. I started thinking about my car just sitting there day after day with the snow piling up and I new I would be in for a surprise when I got home. My flight back home was delayed over an hour, which put the time of me getting home after midnight and I wasn't about to deal with my car then.
I woke up this morning and figured I needed to give myself about 30 minutes to deal with the snow before I headed to work. Boy, was I sure wrong! I haven't had to deal with too much snow since I moved here, the occasional scraping off the windows was about the only task I had to do. But not today, the snow was piled high on top of the car and frozen ice was all over the windows. Struggling to get all the snow off the car with my 5'2" frame I started getting really frustrated. Shoveling, brushing, scraping, and all of this was not doing much to the snow and ice. Of course, I had left my snow boots inside the car and after I had gotten my nice leather boots all full of snow walking out there, I really could have cared less.  It also didn't help that the snow plow was on our street making huge piles of snow around my car for me to step in. I started to cry in frustration, thinking to myself that I'm just not cut out for this kind of stuff. But then started laughing at the poor job I was doing getting the snow off since it kept falling off the roof and onto my face and clothes. Finally over an hour of scraping it was driveable and I was on my way to work......45 minutes late

A New Low

So, the other day I was sick of being a lazy human and decided I was going to go get the Jillian Michael's 30 day shred video. There isn't a convenient gym, the closest being 20 miles from my house, so, my living room has become my pilates studio. I have heard from other people who have tried this video and all of them have said that ts difficult. Of course, I had to have it THAT day, so I went on my search. It was no where to be found at Target but Wal-Mart had it so I set out on my lunch break to acquire said video.  Let me tell you that it sure feels weird strolling into Wal-Mart while wearing a suit. I received a ton of funny looks but really didn't care since I was on a mission. Of course I couldn't leave that place with just the video, I decided to do some grocery shopping as well.
Finally at the check out counter I used my best points card, my Wells Fargo Credit Card (SHAMELESS PLUG HERE). I try to use it as much as possible when buying things since my friend Robyn convinced me that it is best to earn something free while you are spending money. The cashier proceeded to run my card when this little message came up....SUPERVISOR APPROVAL REQUIRED. I was shocked to see this and since I don't shop at Wal-Mart very often, I wasn't sure what it meant. The supervisor came over to check things out and I was told I needed another form of payment. Confused as to why this was happening to ME, since I work for the bank and know my balances. I proceeded to give the cashier my debit card, as the balding homeless lady was snickering behind me. Thankfully that card went through since I had experienced enough embarrassment for the day. I left Wal-Mart and just blew the whole incident off thinking it must have been there computer systems and it wasn't until I tried to make my next purchase that I realized my credit card had expired. I first cursed the WF credit card company for not sending me a new one on time and then realized that I had seen it come in the mail. It was sitting at home unactivated and I could have forgone all the embarrassment at Wal-Mart if I just would have activated the card in the first place.  Lesson learned and a new low I felt that day.