Vacation Time: Cozumel Spring Break

One island. 8 days, 7 nights with four fabulous couples. 

 Drinks, memories and sunsets galore. 

One new engagement, a few bumps in the road, and 30 SPF sunscreen. 

Two fancy reservations, one beach shack dinner and too much buffet food.

18 holes of golf and 40 liars dice.

New adventures with old friends. 

Two sea turtles and three rays seen, gallons of salt water drank. 

A few bug bites, scraped knees and books read. 

5 new nicknames and endless new Spanish words.

An absolutely fabulous, relaxing, perfect spring break get-away. 

This trip was exactly what I needed right before I embark on the toughest course of the entire year. A huge thank you to J and our amazing friends for making the trip so special!

(Yes, my spring break was at the end of February. I'm lucky to have great friends who didn't mind. We stayed at Iberostar Cozumel and booked through Apple Vacations for those of you who are curious. We will do things differently next time but it was still a fantastic trip.)

Spring Break Days

It is currently my spring break and I wish I was here telling you what a fabulous vacation I've been on or how many drinks by the pool I've been having or at least how productive I've been with the extra time off. But who are we kidding? None of those are true. I've been relaxing, watching my recorded TV shows, working a little bit, and hanging out with my man and pup. However, I haven't been completely useless and here is the proof!

[+] Remember my Burst Skirt? My very first, completely from scratch, piece of clothing? I love it so much that I decided to make another.

We'll call this one Yellow Bouquet Skirt.

Ollie insisted on standing right next to me where ever I stood to take these pictures. At least he was out there with me so if someone walked by I could pretend to be taking him potty instead of being awkward taking pictures of myself. Speaking of awkward, like my jump?

I'm such a loser :-)

[+] I made new pillows for our living room and I love them. I don't have a good picture of them (bag blogger) but here is the link to the picture I tweeted right after I made them.

[+] Speaking of the living room... J and I just purchased a whole new living room furniture set and I'm so excited for them to get here. We were very fortunate to have parents that let us have the things we do now but I'm ready for a change and to have our "own" furniture instead of hand-me-downs. We got a steal of a deal for a new couch, loveseat, chair, ottoman, coffee table, two end tables and two lamps. Now if only they weren't out of stock and we didn't have to wait until the end of April to get them!

[+] Ollie's been a big boy and has been playing at the dog park almost every day recently. He loves going up there to run and play with his doggie friends but he gets mighty dirty in the process. Especially since there are many dirt patches and it's been raining recently which means lots of mud. It wouldn't be such a problem if Ollie didn't end up on the ground so often (combination of being submissive and clumsy). Needless to say he's been in bad need for a bath and finally got one on Tuesday.

It's a struggle to give him a bath because it has to be in our tub but our shower has doors instead of a curtain. Picture a 90+ lb dog in a bathtub that's even too small for me sometimes. Not pretty. However, he is definitely pretty now!

It was a gorgeous day outside on Tuesday so after I scrubbed him good and quickly ran him through the apartment and onto the porch to shake we headed out for a nice long walk. He has so much fur it's impossible to towel dry him so there's nothing better than the sun and breeze to dry this pup.

We walked for a long time and headed to the Starbucks closest to our apartment. We spent a lovely afternoon sipping lattes and ice cubes (the first for me, the second for him) and once he was just slightly damp we headed home.

He's the softest and fluffiest he's ever been before and it's wonderful. Plus he smells good. Now if only he would stop shedding garbage bags of hair we'd be set.

I only have one more day and then the weekend before spring break is over and I hope J and I can get some fun in this weekend. For now I'm off to volunteer. Happy Thursday everyone.

on busy bees

I am more busy this coming week than I have been in a long long time. So I'm sorry that I'll be MIA for a little while but believe me, I want to be back here and reflecting very much. I just have to be realistic that other things in my life are taking priority of my time as of now. A quick update though is that my spring break was great. I got to spend some quality time with my mom that was much needed and I was still able to get a good amount of studying done for my big test. While I don't think I will ever feel like I've studied enough, I feel like I at least made good progress. This is the latest picture of my wonderful-amazing-sweet-cuddly boy Basil. I absolutely love going home and being around him. He makes me smile :-D

While I was home I even got to color Easter eggs and take no shame in the fact that I'm 21 and still participating in this child's fun. (more pictures to come of my beautiful creations but here's a sneak preview.) And yes, that egg has hair and eyes.

Unfortunately as I sit here, my biochem studying is yelling "come back to me"....but here's a quick update of the things that are keeping me away for the next while:

• Committee interviews today, tomorrow and Wednesday
• Biochem Exam II on Thursday
• E coli mutant genetics lab report due Monday
• Hospice volunteering Thursday
• Essay on the movie Idiocracy dealing with satire
• MCAT in 19 days... and counting

So take care my friends, try not to miss me too much (though I don't know if anyone actually reads this), and I will be back, someday.

on being able to relax

Spring break could not have come sooner. I thought this semester was going to be my easiest one yet but I still find myself stressing out.

Stressing out about MCAT studying.

Stressing out about committee.

Stressing out about lab reports.

Stressing out about interviews.

Stressing out about exams.

Stressing out about presentations.

I guess what gets me the most is that I anticipated it being different. I anticipated having more down time and more time to relax. But that's exactly the reason I'm glad its spring break... finally. While I wish that I had the life where I could go on vacation and sit on the beach for the whole break, I'm most excited to have some time to relax. Its been so nice and so needed to be able to do absolutely today. I spent the day in sweats, watching Say Yes To The Dress and Keeping Up With The Kardashians while painting my nails and eating left-over pizza from dinner. (Yes I'm guilty of enjoying these shows.) And the best part of today is that I don't feel bad about any of it.

I don't have the creeping voice in my head saying I need to get things done. It's not telling me that there's laundry to do or that we don't have anything for dinner or that I need to be productive. While the rest of my break is going to be spent studying for my MCAT and spending time with my family, I have taken full advantage of a day for myself. Maybe I'll decide to shower and get dressed at some point but if I don't, there's always tomorrow. Maybe I'll manage to find something to make for dinner but if I don't, I'll eat a bowl of cereal. Maybe I can find something to be productive doing or maybe I'll read some of the book I'm in the middle of. Maybe, maybe not. And I'm completely okay with that.

+On a side note, I am very excited for my mom and sister to come to SD for a few days. It will be really great to have them in town. And I am also very excited to go home for a few days. I miss my house in Littleton and my family and plan to mix in a few fun excursions amidst my studying.