The good ole days

I was going through my old scrapbooks and thought it would be fun to post some old photos from back in the day.

Here is a picture from my baptism October of 1988. We were living in Egypt at the time, so my awesome parents suggested I get baptized in the Red Sea. There are 3 Nigerians behind my dad and me, and they got baptized also. And then they sang "God Be With you Till We Meet Again" right after. It was so special. And then I came across this picture too.
It just made me laugh.
I love my brothers.

This was taken at a beach on the Mediterranean called Ras Nasrani, I think. Either that or Sharm El Sheik. The latter was my favorite place to go as a kid. It was mainly for military families vacationing, and last year it got bombed by terrorists.

Anyway, this was fun. I may go back in time once a week on here.

Change

No, I'm not running for president.

I've had a lot on my mind the last few weeks. All of which will be slowly unraveling themselves on this blog over the course of the next few months.

The first thing I will mention today is in reference to my change of mind for the degree I am currently pursuing. Yeah, huge eye opener happened for me this last Monday at class. We were supposed to make up the exam we had missed from the day that it snowed and school was closed; then the next Monday was spring break. Well, my professor forgot to cancel the guest speakers she had scheduled, so we could make up the exam. HUGE BLESSING for many reasons; one: she gave the exam to us to take home, two: I had missed all of the lectures for said exam because I was in Mexico getting skin cancer, and three: It gave me insight into what I was getting myself into, which is... more of what I hate about my current place of employment.

The guest speakers were very interesting. One of them was ranked #1 paralegal in NC by the National Assoc of Legal Assistants, and the other one was also something great, I can't quite recall. Well, one of the questions asked by a student turned all of this around for me. The question was simply: "What are the pros and cons of what you do?"
And their list of cons were exactly what my current list of cons are for what I do now. At that point my mind shut down and I couldn't get excited about ANYTHING they were talking about.

So that's that. I do, however, have some idea of what I may change my degree to. I LOVE my computers class. I love working on computers. I love design. hmmmmm. I think I am finally embracing the fact that I may just be a computer nerd.

I've been doing ALOT of thinking about this. I just don't think I was meant to work FOR anybody. Looking back at my life, I never have. I ran my own successful business in high school for 3 years. Paid for my car and volleyball clubs myself, and then onto college where volleyball continued to pay the way for me. Then I met Spencer, and we moved so often for the company he was working for, that I just decided to get a job where he worked so we could be employed and transferred together, and that's how I got to do what I have been doing. Now that Spencer has left the company, I have been getting this itch to finally finish school, so I can really get to do what I want to do. And Im not exactly sure what that is yet, but I DO know that I want to do it on my own time and terms.

That's all for today. Tune in next week for Part II Mid-life Crisis Cont.

Spring Break

Gone are the days of spending spring break on the beaches of Southern California, the strip in Las Vegas, or snowboarding on whatever was left of the snow on Powder Mountain.

All I have done this week is work 8 hours a day and read a book scary enough to not allow me any sleep at night.

My mom's got skillz

My mom is so amazing! Check out this project she is working on. Stained glass. It is NOT easy. She is an amazing artist. She paints, she draws, she does mosaics, she wood works, and now she stain glasses(?).

YOU GO GIRL!

love you.

"Good times...noodle salad"

Here are the random pictures taken throughout the 2 weeks 'o fun.

However, there were more things wrong with me physically in those 2 weeks than there have been in the past 2 years of my life.

Starting the 3rd day, then consecutive:

*infected toe from beach volleyball
*sprained muscle in lower back
*swollen patella in right knee
*respiratory infection/fever
*jammed toe (running and forgot there was a step)
and last but not least
*cold sore
for the trip home, of course

Due to these ailments we had to cancel our town/water excursions. My dad also got pneumonia.

But other than all of that...what a GREAT trip!

I may look relaxed and feeling great here in this jacuzzi, but I was actually experiencing excruciating back pain!
Those water noodles have some serious fire power
my skillz with a camera ( if only those stupid noodles weren't in it)
(sigh)
vogue
My dad...a man of the little people
awwww

Dinner on the back patio during a fantastic sunset that my suck camera can't capture.
A picture of my swollen toe...it got a lot worse. But I'm just sorry we couldn't capture the video of me tripping and literally flying 4 feet across pavement.
Check out the size of this lasagna! I think it may be bigger than mom's head.

Some new friends

Team Bradford/Iacono took home the gold for pool volleyball

Ace.

Go momma!
The doubles rematch. Miguel and I against Carlos and Oscar. We won again!

Miguel and I are the ones in the middle. Hard to point me out seeing as we are all the same color. I guess the dress gives me away.

basking in victory

Jason calls this picture "The Iacono ad for Secret and Old Spice"

Check out his air.....and ON SAND! yeah...he's mine.

Dinner at The Bistro

And I still got some work done!

The Villa

the front door opens into this cute little courtyard, then into the living room.
To the left is the master bedroom and bathroom/closet.
Then go to the right is the full kitchen and dining room which opens up to this view.
Then down the tiled staircase with a fountain
And this is the downstairs TV room and internet access which opens up to our private pool.And this is one of the extra bedrooms with private bath

Now let's go out back
This is Spencer in the jacuzzi which is upstairs through the Master bedroom's doors.

And this is the entire upstairs patio

Then down the exterior stairs

And this is the downstairs patio w/ pool

This is as good of a view of the back that I could get

stay tuned...more to come

Interruption of Cabo posting

People this tan shouldn't be in this kind of weather!

The Celebration

My man is DA MAN!
Spencer set up everything so spectacularly!
We flew in to Cabo on our 7 year Anniversary/Valentine's Day.
(FYI: Im not that sappy...7 years ago Valentine's Day just happened to be the start of a 4 day weekend, so Spencer didn't have school)

We have been to Mexico 4 times in the past 2 years, and this is the first time we felt that we had actually been to Mexico.
Spencer made reservations at Siesta Hotel...right smack dab in the middle of downtown Cabo San Lucas. And for our very special dinner....drum roll please...
SALVATORE'S
This restaurant is the #1 premier Italian restaurant in all of Mexico. He had to make the reservations one month in advance...and better yet, it was connected to our hotel.

We were a little late getting out of customs at the airport, so by the time we got to our hotel, it was time to get to our reservations.(not time to change clothes)..so I ate my 7 year anniversary dinner at a premier Italian restaurante wearing a white vneck t-shirt w/ a chocolate stain paired with my green crop bottom sweat pants.

It was a six course FANTASTIC dinner. For the main course, I had the sea bass, and Spencer had the Filet Mignon.

I wrote Spencer a poem, appropriately entitled: "Anniversary"

After dinner we walked around downtown for awhile, and it was great, but none of my pictures turn out at night. But it is amazing how safe and non threatening Cabo is at nighttime. We saw some INCREDIBLE artists on the sides of the road, and met some very interesting people.

Here are some morning views from our hotel room.

The picture above is SALVATORE'S, I love how our hotel room was right above it! We sat against the far brick wall for dinner. I LOVE how it is just covered by palm trees! Oh, and the only music they play is the classic crooner stuff...Sinatra, Martin, etc.

The picture below is me under the sign, in case you can't read it....and that was the dress I was supposed to change into for the dinner, alas, I could only wear it to church the next day.

Okay, HONORABLE MENTION goes to....
STEVE BRODERICK
Before we left, Steve had told Spencer about this vendor guy who sells the world's most amazing tacos on the street by Cabo Wabo. So we were on a mission. While we were walking around meeting people after our dinner, we find out that the vendor guy has become so famous he finally got his own little shop, and he got ranked on City Traveler magazine!

GORDO LELE TACOS

WORDS CAN NOT DESCRIBE!!

These tacos are so super duper amazing!! They are packed with tons of whatever kind of meat you want...stacked with avocado, onions, salsa's, and when I say packed...I mean HUGE PACKED! We got 15 tacos for $20. My favorite was the shrimp tacos!!!
Well, we got so many tacos, because church was from 12:30 to 1:30 and then we were meeting my parents at the villa. And they would be hungry.
When I first bit into one, I think I felt one glistening tear of joy stream down my face.

So, that was our first "REAL" trip to Mexico. It really is amazing how Americanized the resorts are. Not that I'm complaining...2 days in real Mexico was just enough for my first!

Okay, I'll post the rest of the 2 weeks later.