Day 168, 169, 170 AND 171

"Viva Las Vegas with you neon flashin'
And your one armbandits crashin'
All those hopes down the drain
Viva Las Vegas turnin' day into nighttime
Turnin' night into daytime
If you see it once
You'll never be the same again"

---Elvis Presley, "Viva Las Vegas"

Well....I can honestly say that I survived my trip to Vegas!  We did a TON in our short time and I spent a lot of money but it was all worth it!  I also came away with two new friends...Esther and Sarah!  The four of us spent two whirlwind days touring Vegas.  The first night (after all of us were traveling all day) we actually ended up going to a Vegas staple: Chippen Dales!!!!!  Sooooo...it wasn't really my cup of tea but it was still a fun time and we got to meet the guys afterwards.  They were super nice.  On Saturday we spent the day wandering all over man's creation!  We pretty much walked the entire strip and visited most of the big name hotels and attractions!  I enjoyed seeing a lot of the same things that I saw the last time I was in Vegas (when I was 15) but it was nice to be able to experience more of it this time!  That evening we decided to go see the original Cirque show, "O", which is the water show!  It was incredible!!!!  The stage was one of the most amazing parts...one second it was there and the next it disappeared completely and there was a deep pool full of water with people swimming around.  And the acrobatics that the performers were able to do were absolutely amazing.

I didn't end up taking a lot of pictures with my camera due to all 4 of us having cameras...so I will be stealing pictures from the other girls once they are posted but here is a few of my favorites!

Fantastic weekend with fantastic girls!

Day 167

Quick blog...cuz I have packing to do!  No matter how hard I tried to stay on task this evening and get everything done, I still feel like I am behind!  I haven't even begun to pack...where am I going you might ask?! TO VEGAS!!!! I am spending this weekend in Vegas with my friend Elaine from elementary school.  It's one of my last weekends in California and I couldn't leave without visiting Vegas at least once.  We are having a girl's weekend and I am super excited to get away for the weekend and relax in a fun atmosphere before the final push to the Nashville show starts next week.  There will be no blog posts until I get back because I am not bringing my laptop.  But have no fear....a nice long post will be coming your way full with pictures and stories about my adventures.  So...until I return...

This is where you can find me for the next few days :-)

Day 166

"Summer starry nights

We can spend tonight at your place

I'm not picky

Watch the stars go by

Losing track of time

There's not place I'd rather be

Wooaho uh oh

Got me thinkin'

Wooaho uh oh

Everything I wanted

I know, I know

I need to meet your parents

uh oh, uh oh

You're everthing I wanted"

---Mark Russell, "Annika"

So it's late and I have been trying to catch up on stuff all evening....I feel like this post is not going to be very long...or informative!  It was a long day of work but I realized that two weeks from today I will be in Nashville preparing for the first day of Summer NAMM! I still can't believe that this internship is over.  In fact, in 19 days I will be done with my last day of the internship and preparing for my drive back to Indiana.  HOW CRAZY IS THAT??

Anyway, I took some time this evening to watch Mark Russell perform on StageIt.com and it was super exciting because I finally got to hear the song that Mark promised he would write me over three years ago!!!  The lyrics of the day are what I could interpret from the song (I in NO way think they are 100% accurate but it's as close as I could get lol)...it has no title but Mark said he may just have to call it Annika for now so that's the working title.  It was very exciting!!!

And here is the great Mark Russell performing live on StageIt.com :-)

Day 161, 162, 163, 164, AND 165

"Bad boys, bad boys whatcha gonna do?
Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?
Bad boys, bad boys whatcha gonna do?
Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?"

---Inner Circle, "Bad Boys"

I've been bad...I'm not a boy but I have been bad...I've missed FOUR days of blogging!  But I warned you, my dear blog readers!  And I have a very good excuse.  I'm going to go with...my boyfriend was here and I was on total vacation mode and it was AMAZING!!! The last few days I have been playing tourist with Adam.  On Friday we explored the Nixon Museum and Nixon's Boyhood Home in Yorba Linda, California. We learned a lot about the life of former president Richard Nixon and saw many artifacts.

It was beautiful California weather, although a little warmer than we expected.  This is a photo of the house that Nixon grew up in and in the bottom left corner is Nixon's final resting place.  After the Nixon Museum, we traveled about twenty minutes to Anaheim where we attended the Anaheim Angels v. Los Angeles Dodgers game.  We made friends with two of the ushers (we were early and the only one's in our section for awhile) and one of them reminded us of Dad and Pop Pop.  I think those two have a triplet in California!  The game was interesting since it was very much a rivalry game of the two LA teams.  There was lots of friendly rivalry between fans.  I loved the view from the stadium as the sun was setting especially the mountains in the background...

It makes me miss living somewhere where there are actual HILLS and mountains.  Indiana is just too flat for me.  On Saturday, we journeyed the opposite direction on the 5 to San Diego.  We visited the USS Midway and took a tour.  I don't know if I could ever live on a ship like that.  It was so confusing to get around I never knew what level we were on or how to get to different parts of the ship.  While on the flight deck, we witnessed another part of history.  Docked across the harbor, in Coronado, was the USS Carl Vinson.  This ship recently returned from deployment.  It was the ship that Osama bin Laden was taken to before being buried at sea.

The banner behind us in this picture was hung on the the Midway when the Carl Vinson came back to port about two weeks ago.  It says "Welcome Home."  After our adventures on the Midway, we traveled to Old Town San Diego to eat some authentic Mexican.  We found a restaurant called Casa Guadalajara and it was SOOOOOOO yummy!!

I ate a chimichanga and Adam had a burrito.  We also had a yummy shrimp appetizer and some much needed margaritas after a hot day.  We wandered around the rest of Old Town for a bit before heading back up to Carlsbad to catch a movie.  We went to see Transformers 3.  Surprisingly, I really enjoyed it even though I never saw the first two movies.  I have decided that I need to see the other two now.

Day three was full of more fun.  We actually slept in, which was nice, then heading down to San Diego again to visit the world famous San Diego Zoo.  The zoo was extremely crowded.  So crowded, in fact, that we couldn't even park in the normal parking lot.  We ended up parking in the extended parking which is actually a track for a middle school down the road from the zoo.

Once we were inside the zoo, it was equally as busy.  We tried to start at one end of the zoo and make our way to the other end without too much repetition.  It took us a while to figure out the pathways but I think we hit everything we wanted to see (except the pandas which had an extremely long line).  I love the San Diego Zoo but MAN do you get a workout wandering up and down and all around those hills.  We decided to call it an early evening and made dinner at home, went on an evening walk, and called it an early night.  Oh yeah...we also rented Yogi Bear and watched that.  It may have gotten bad reviews but I found it pretty funny!  Gotta love Yogi and his pic-i-nick baskets.

Monday, the 4th of July, was our busiest day.  We were up and on the road by 7AM to make it up north, past Los Angeles, by 10AM when the Reagan Museum opened.  We ended up making it there with almost an hour to spare.  I don't know where everyone was on Monday morning but the roads to, through, and out of LA were completely traffic free.  I don't think I could get that lucky again if I tried!  After making a donut stop, we heading to the Reagan Museum about 20 minutes before it opened.  Little did we know that there would be TONS of people there.  We weren't even allowed to park in the parking lot...we had to park going downhill on the road leading up to the museum.  It was INSANE the amount of people that were there.  We found out they were having a 4th of July celebration with many free events for kids and families. This museum was very different than the Nixon museum.  It was obvious that the Reagan's had more money to work with.  There was a lot of interactive elements in the galleries and everything was very well put together.  Some of the most memorable parts was being able to tour Air Force One, seeing a portrait of Reagan made out of Jelly Bellys, seeing a beam from 9/11, seeing a note written to Nancy Reagan by Queen Elizabeth after President Reagan passed away, and seeing a portion of the Berlin Wall...

Adam and I then traveled down to Los Angeles to eat at Phillipe's for some French Dipped deliciousness...

And finally finished our 4th of July festivities at Dodgers Stadium to see my Amazin' Mets play!!!!!!  It was a great game and OF COURSE the Mets won which made it simply the best.  The fireworks after the game were amazing and the cherry on top of the sundae came when I met and took a picture with Justin Turner, a Mets player originally from Long Beach, California, who's family was sitting in the section just over from us.

It was a great weekend with a fantastic boyfriend!!  I am so glad that we were able to take a mini vacation together.  Again, I am sorry that the blog wasn't written for a few days but I am hoping that these extra pictures and text about my adventures make up for it.  I could probably go on forever about this weekend but I think it is time for bed.  For more pictures from the weekend, check out facebook tomorrow or Thursday.

Good night world!

Day 160

"Waiting, Wait, Waiting
Cause everybody's playing the waiting game
Waiting, Wait, Waiting
It doesn't even matter if
you both feel the same
Waiting, Wait, Waiting
Come on make your move, baby
you're driving me insane
Waiting, Wait, Waiting
Everybody's playing the waiting game"

---The Olsen Twins, "The Waiting Game"

OH YEAH! I went there...I chose a song by the Olsen Twins!  Does anyone else remember "School Dance Party"!??!  MAN I used to LOVE the Olsen Twins and their movies.  When "Passport to Paris" came out, my friend Katherine and I literally knew all of the words.  We would call each other after school, turn on the movie, and watch it together while reciting the lines....dorky...I know!  But it was so much fun when I was younger. 

Anyway...back to the reason that I chose this song...I'm WAITING for Adam to get here!!!!!  He plane is delayed out of Denver due to weather.  I should be just about getting to the airport right now to hang around and wait for him and yet he is still safely on the ground in Denver.  AHEM!!! EARTH TO DENVER...FREE MY BOYFRIEND SO I CAN HANG OUT WITH HIM!!!!!! Looks like it is going to be a long night of waiting.  We have a busy weekend so we need as much sleep as possible.  Oh well...I guess I should get back to waiting...and cleaning! C'MON ADAM!!!!!!!!!!! :-D

Day 159

**EDITOR'S NOTE** Totally tried to post this last night but blogspot was NOT having it.  I wrote it all out and went to hit publish and the site was down!!!! So I copied and pasted it and sent it to my mom in and e-mail so she wouldn't get mad at me!  Here is what I wrote haha

"Every song I heard today

In my head

I could swear I was hearing your voice

It's not easy to let you go

Or forget

From the start it was there in my dreams

We don't need much time to fall in love

If we have tonight then that's enough

Here and now

I'll make a promise

Once I have you

I wont let you go

Baby believe this

Once I have you

I wont let you go"

---Adam Tyler, "I Wont Let You Go"

I am uber excited right now!!!! In just about 24 hours, I will be driving to the San Diego Airport to pick up Adam!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I have a lot of work to do cleaning up the apartment tomorrow to prepare for his arrival BUT hopefully that will make the afternoon pass quickly.  I am so excited to see him and to show him around my life for the last 5 months.  We are going to be super busy but we are going to see a lot of cool things.  I may or may not write a blog every night but I promise I will catch you all up on what I have been up to!  Until then...

Picture of the day is the NAMM staff dressed in orange to honor Bonnie for her birthday!!!  This picture shows what I was talking about yesterday AND shows you all the crazies I have been working with for the last 5 months!!!  I am so glad that I have a staff photo.  Do you see me in the photo?? Probably not....I am kinda hidden but I still think it is a cool photo.  The guy sitting on the drum is our CEO, Joe Lamond.  Mary Brown (pretty much my go-to person for anything for the internship) is to the right of him in the white shirt and Cathy (my "boss") is to the right of Mary.  I hope this picture explains how awesome everyone at NAMM is.

Day 158

"Knock, knock

Who's there?

Banana

Banana who?

Knock, knock

Who's there?

Banana

Banana who?

Knock, knock

Who's there?

Banana

Banana who?

Knock, knock

Who's there?

Orange

Orange who?

Orange you glad I didn't say banana?!?!?!"

Today, we were all asked to wear orange to work in honor of our friend and colleague Bonnie.  Bonnie, the woman who occasionally invites me over for dinner, has leukemia.  She is currently on a leave from work because she is having chemo and it is really taking a toll on her.  This is her second or third attempt at chemo and I really hope it works for her.  She has been beyond strong through all of this.  If I hadn't have been told that  Bonnie has cancer, I never would have know.  She still has a completely positive outlook on life and is fighting this disease as best she can.  Anyway, back to work today, Bonnie's birthday is tomorrow and everyone at work wanted to do something special for her.  After the 9:05 this morning, we all congregated in our orange garb and took some pictures to show our support and wish her a happy birthday from the office.  A few of us are going to lunch with Bonnie tomorrow and will give her the picture.  Oh, by the way, orange is the support color for leukemia in case you didn't know.

Happy Birthday Bonnie!  I am so glad I have gotten to know such and incredible and brave woman through my time here.  Thanks for taking me in and making me feel like I had a family out here in California.  I will always wear orange for you.