Virginia loves to save!

I decided to get a jump start on my New Year's resolutions and I created a coupon blog to explain all about how I do what I do :) More than a few people recently have asked/pleaded with me to show them the coupon ropes so I thought it would be best to create a resource that I can just refer everyone to. Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to sit down and talk coupons all day with someone if they want to because it is so much fun for me, but most other people just want the facts so they can get on with what they were doing :)

So here it is:
www.virginialovestosave.blogspot.com

It is still in the developing stage, but hopefully I can get it up and running the way I would like in no time. Feel free to add me to your google reader, blog rolls, etc... at least until I bore you to death with coupon tips!

More graduation photos

Finally: Virginia Parkes Lagana, MHS, CRC!

Graduation was wonderful!!! You never realize it until you get there, but some things just don't feel official until there is a ceremony. I can't believe that I am no longer a student! Of course, Anthony thinks that is the most exciting thing in the world, but there is the nerd in me that is also kind of sad about that. There are lots more pictures to come, but here is what I could wrangle from friends:
My name in the program. The program is the same one for everyone graduating in December 2009, so mine has Tim Tebow in it!
Waiting, waiting, and more waiting :)We were the very last college to walk across the stage so we had to sit through about two hours of everyone else walking before us. They save the best for last, right? This is me finally walking across the stage. I think there were about 10 people behind me before the end of the entire ceremony! I think we got some extra cheers just because we were the last group. The master of ceremonies (is that the right title?), anyway, he was one of my professors and right before I went to shook the Dean of the Graduate School's hand, he looked at my name card and asked me if there was a Santa Claus. I said yes. This is a group of most of my classmates, one of my professors who was a doctoral student who got her PhD that night, and the other on my right is my major professor and advisor. She was seriously the best professor ever, and we all just love her to death. When she escorted the other student across the stage a girl sitting next to me started talking to her friend about Dr. Young and how boring she was (I guess she guest lectured or something). I seriously wanted to challenge her to a duel or something. After all, we were wearing ceremonial robes right :)

The other fun/interesting event of the night is that Harry Potter attended my graduation! Not really, but some joker tricked the announcer into reading his name card with "Harry Potter" written on it. Everyone got a good laugh and I spent a good portion of the rest of the ceremony looking through the program to see if that really was his name. Nope. My coworker is convinced that UF is going to get back at him by taking an exxxxtra long time in getting his diploma in the mail...

Gingerbread House: CSI Style

So this is what happens when you get a bunch of grown siblings decorating a gingerbread house. We had no idea what to do or how exactly to decorate... until we decided to put some dead people in it. Pretty soon that evolved into a murdered candy stick-figure with gum drop caution tape surrounding it (notice the bottom right lawn and the gum drop caution tape on the door):
A few minutes later we decided that the culprit felt guilty (seeing as it is Christmas and all) and committed suicide around the back of the gingerbread house. The makings of a murderer? Slightly crushed gumball head, a carved gum drop gun, red icing and sprinkles blood/brain matter:
Anthony swears that I have been watching too much Criminal Minds, since I keep suspecting overly cautious drivers of having bodies in their trunks and making Murder/Suicide gingerbread houses. He might have a point :)

On a less morbid note, tomorrow is graduation! I've got my regalia all laid out and I am getting really excited. I can't believe it is happening after all this time! Of course, I am already considering going back to school because of the stinky job market, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't already start hatching plans for my next big accomplishment :) More pictures and an anniversary post to come!

He passed!!!

Anthony passed his really difficult class!!!!! We are both beside ourselves excited at how incredibly awesome this is!!! Seriously, we both had lots of reasons and stories about how ridiculous his one professor was, but in the end there wasn't much we could do about it except try to play by her rules, no matter how insane. All semester Anthony has been averaging 79's or 80's on the exams and that is with studying nonstop everyday. You need an 84 to pass the class, so we figured he would need a 90 on the comprehensive final to get the score he needed. Umm, we were both pretty sure that that wasn't going to happen. SO, Anthony still studied really hard but we both resigned ourselves to him having to repeat the course. He didn't turn in his paperwork for clinicals next semester, and he went ahead and reregistered himself for the same class for next semester.

And then, miracle of all miracles, Anthony called me today to tell me that he got a 93 on the exam!!! The neatest part is that the exam was just as hard as the previous exams but Anthony has worked so hard and learned so many different study strategies over the semester that it is like they all came together for this exam. I cannot tell you how much of a surprise and fall-down-on-your-knees blessing this is. This class has been such a trial for both of us, involving a lot of tears and disappointment at different times in the past few months. But, we pulled through and persevered and the Lord DEFINITELY blessed us tremendously. Even in the past few weeks leading up to this test, we both were feeling a lot of peace about what was happening and we trusted that maybe there was a reason that Heavenly Father wanted Anthony to retake this course (like maybe there was something he didn't learn the first time around that he would learn the second time that would save someone's life down the road).

So, thank you, thank you, thank you Heavenly Father, and congratulations to Anthony for all of his hard work and perseverance. Some of his classmates dropped the course after the first two tests, thinking that there was no way they could make the grade. It is a testament to Anthony's true love and desire for learning what he needs to know that he didn't take the easy way out and drop the class. He continued to study his booty off and work hard just so he could learn as much as he could, not expecting that he would get the grade he needed. I married the best man in the world :)

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas friends and family!!! I almost didn't put up Christmas decorations this year since we are spending the actual holiday out of town with family, but as soon as Thanksgiving was over I was craving some more holiday cheer :) So, last Monday for Family Home Evening Ant and I put up our tree.

I tried to get a good picture of us but I haven't really mastered being both photo-taker and photo-subject yet. Sitting here putting up the photos I realized that I am wearing almost the exact same thing as last Monday night. I guess that is my Monday work-out outfit. (And if Ant and I do anything together at night you can pretty much bet it will be right before or after a workout. Hence, the sweaty, make-up free photo :)
I am so excited that it is December already! Not only is it the best time of year, but this year it is full of celebrations. Next week is Ant and my 4 year wedding anniversary and my graduation from graduate school. The week after that is Christmas, and the week after that I am spending in Ohio at my sister's house with the rest of my family.

Work has been pretty stressful for me lately. Since I hold all of my stress in my stomach I've had a perpetual stomachache throughout the workday that takes away my appetite which then resolves after I get home and talk it out with Anthony. (As a side note, I seriously couldn't have picked a man more laid back and stress-free to help me through my "crazy" times). Then I proceed to catch up on my eating for the day. Eating an entire box of cheez-its isn't bad if they are whole grain right? :) On the bright side, most of the stress and hassle will resolve after this week when finals are over. Since our office is administering about 60 exams a day during finals week, I don't think I have ever been this stressed about finals, even my own.

Anthony is bravely pushing through his finals. One of his classes is going really well and the other not so much. There is all of this departmental controversy and drama over this particular professor for his problem class. She basically tries her best to fail her students by creating seriously unreasonable tests and "tricking" the students by telling them things will not be on the test and then turning around and putting several questions about it on the test. Her defense is that they should know everything about everything and photographically memorize the textbook, so if they don't know a random fact that is mentioned once in the textbook then that is the student's fault. Other professors in his program have actually come out and told students that they have a problem with this professor and one even said that she would compare her teaching style to "terrorism" and "domestic violence abuse". Next semester there will be a new Dean for the college of nursing, so the good professors are hoping that the Dean will either force this professor to start trying to actually teach her students or replace her with someone who will. Drama, drama, drama. On the bright side again, Ant's last test is Wednesday and after that he can breathe for a few weeks before it starts all over again. For all of you who are already done with school, don't you miss all of this ;)

My dogs need a job

Doesn't she look stressed out? I walked into the room and this was how she was relaxing on the couch. Oh, the life...

Bread Therapy

I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to learn how to make homemade bread from scratch. I thought it might be a good skill to have and I've always wanted to be able to "whip up some bread" whenever I felt like being housewifey. I had no idea what I was in for. No idea.

Round 1, Sunday night: I had some time and I really wanted to get started. I had everything that I needed except yeast and it being Sunday I couldn't go to the store to buy some. A few days before I had made some zucchini bread without yeast, so I didn't think it would be that different without it. I looked up a yeast-less recipe online and the people who wrote swore that it was delicious... The batter ended up really wet, the consistency of pancake batter, but I put it in the pan and baked it anyway thinking that the recipe must know something I didn't. It baked for over an hour and didn't even brown. It ended up about a half an inch high, a yellowey white color on the outside and mushy on the inside. I almost threw it away, but Ant hates to throw things away so I put it in a container and left it on the counter. (Fast forward 5 days later and I finally threw it away after it started culturing mold and feeding fruit flies)

Round 2, Monday night: On the way home from work I picked up some yeast and milk from the grocery store. I found a different recipe online and it looked so simple that it had to work, right? Wrong. I went through all of the steps and ended up with a fist sized lump of dough that never rose and baked into a thick half-inch brick of bread. After researching online I decided that I must have killed my yeast by using too hot water to dissolve it in. Rookie mistake.

Round 3, Tuesday night: I was sure my persistence would pay off. I tried again, same recipe but made sure to use only lukewarm water as well as to proof the yeast to make double sure that they were doing whatever it is little yeasties do. Check, everything all go. I didn't think that my counter would be a warm enough place to let the dough rise so I had the genius idea to place the dough in a glass dish and put it on a stove top burner on the lowest setting to let it rise. Fast forward to an hour later, I checked on the dough and the bottom was cooked, while the rest was an unrisen yeasty dough. Oops. To much direct heat.

Round 4, Friday night: I was not going to let this bread beat me. I stocked up on extra yeast at the grocery store, and I felt like I was appropriately chastened. I had not give this bread thing the respect it deserved and the bread was punishing me. So, I went through all of the steps AGAIN and put my dough to rise on the counter. I was assured by multiple people that it would be warm enough there as long as I covered the dough with a kitchen towel. After the first round of rising and it hadn't moved, I googled some more and decided to do the next round of rising in the oven on the "warm" setting. Finally my dough rose!!! Not very much though, but at least some measurable progress. This was definitely the most bread-like of loaves so far.

Round 5, Saturday night (tonight): I gambled today. I decided to change more than one thing at a time, yet another rookie mistake. I was kicking myself part of the way through for doing that, but fortunately it finally worked!! I used the same basic recipe, but I made more of it. I used highly active yeast instead of the regular kind, and I let the dough rise in the oven for the full time. I cannot tell you how excited I was to see how large those loaves got after the first hour!!!!! Here is the finished product:

After hearing about a few of my failed attempts, a friend of mine suggested that I develop a new therapy called "bread therapy" for relationships.
Insert your significant other's name when ever you see "bread":

*Bread loves it when you give it a massage. In fact, it demands it in order for it to be at its best.
*Life with bread takes commitment, perseverance, preparation, and most importantly a good sense of humor (think flour hand prints all over your hair, face, clothes, pets, children, etc..).
*Even with the most careful of plans, there will be times when bread will not cooperate and instead of getting mad and giving up you need to try to make it work, find the problem, and fix it.
*It is necessary to consistently give bread some space, or bread will rebel against you and no one will be happy.
*You must respect the finicky complexity of bread or it will not rise/bake right for you.
*You get back what you put into it.

There you have it. There's nothing like a good old fashioned throwdown with a centuries old recipe to give you a new perspective :)

Who steals crabs, honestly?

For the past few months, Ant and I have been putting out his crab trap near a local bridge and catching some blue crabs. We were able to have at least two dinners of all crab that we "caught" ourselves. There is something about eating food that you have foraged or grown yourself that makes you feel like you can accomplish anything :) Here's a picture of one of our catches: I know what you are thinking. Yes, They were delicious.

So imagine our disappointment when the last time we put the crab trap out, we went to retrieve it a day or so later and it was gone!!! Some joker stole our crab trap!!! Ant was definitely upset over it, but I couldn't really think of anything we could have done to prevent it. I mean, can you deadbolt your trap to the bottom of the ocean? It kind of ruined our crab-catching fun. It was also pretty economical too because we would pay a couple of dollars for bait and end up with a crab dinner for two.

We're becoming quite the experts on living on no money now that Anthony isn't working and I'm only making lowly-intern money. Anthony especially has been making great strides on that front. I used to have to show him over and over again how much money he was spending on his aquarium and his fishing because he just wouldn't believe me that he spent that much. Now, he comes up with creative ways to sell things so that he can buy a $10 coral from some guy down the street! As for me, I'm still a crazy coupon lady and proud of it. Today I did our weekly shopping at publix and spent $32 and saved $87! After more than a year I still get a little jolt of adrenaline everytime I see the cashier start scanning my coupons and my total starts to drop :) I keep thinking how wonderful it is that I got into doing this before we moved to Tampa because if not, life would be so much harder now with us trying to figure out how to make everything work.

Other than that, life has been pretty uneventful. Work has been heating up as finals week approaches. The testing gets crazy busy and since after next week I will be running the testing center, I'm hoping that everything goes relatively smoothly. I've been looking around at the different jobs available but I think I have decided to wait to actually apply to any of them until after I graduate. Maybe by then something at USF will have opened up....

Happy Halloween 2009!

This year for halloween we were pretty low key. Since Ant worked Friday night, we didn't go to our new ward's trunk and treat :( But, on Halloween night we went to a game night at our new friends Lindsay and Scott's house and we had a blast!!! We decided to go as gator fans, since in Tampa it really is a costume to be a gator! It is so weird compared to Gainesville where everyone wears gator attire as a matter of course (remember my counting-the-gator-clothes game that I used to play at the gym?), here I feel like I am in a secret gators club and I recognize other members because they half whisper "go gators" when I walk by in a gator shirt :) Here is a picture of everyone who came to the party: Our hosts were the Chiquita lady and a Chiquita banana, a reaper and a queen bee, another couple was a coon hound and a racoon, an 80's workout girl and Jim from the office, and a hillbilly :) Next year I vow to really go all out on the costumes!!!

So now we have a SERIOUS amount of candy that I am dying to give away, but Ant insists that we not only need to keep it, we need to get even more clearance candy from the store! A girl can't stay on a clean food diet with a husband who eats like a growing teenager!

We are still loving our jobs and school. We have definitely settled into our schedules. I get up and go to work and Anthony gets up to study all day or go to class. After work I usually go the gym while Anthony cooks dinner (!). When I get home we eat dinner and catch up for a few hours and then we go to bed. Repeat x7 weeks and you will have a pretty good picture of what we have been doing :) I've decided to run in another 5K to see if I can improve my time, so I need to get back into training. I keep waiting around for the weather to change so I don't have to run in 90 degree weather in November!

Spartan 5K Challenge

I did it!!!! I ran my first 5K this morning and it wasn't horrible!! I was completely expecting to be the last person dragging myself over the finish line, but I actually did pretty well. My time was 34:18, so for 3.2 miles I was running an average of 10min 45sec per mile! I didn't even run that fast as a kid. Probably especially not as a kid... Anthony came as my cheerleader and official photographer. Here is me looking out at the track: It was seriously cold this morning! I was glad because I knew that I would get heated up once the running started, but I had to wait in the cold for at least an hour for everything to start. Ant didn't run with me, so a group of crossfitters (extreme crazy fitness people) invited me to hang out with them. I felt like an adopted stray :)

Here's me running by on my first lap (I'm in the middle of the picture in the far lane close to the grass): I was thinking to myself, "How in the world am I going to do this?"

Here's me on my second lap: See? My need for personal space kicked in and I was willing to run faster just to get away from that huge crowd of people :)

The entire course was actually pretty cool. They had you do the first few laps on the track, then the course ran through the entire University of Tampa campus with different obstacle courses. I had to jump over bales of hay twice, crawl under a net in the sandpit of a volleyball court, and jump over those huge tractor tires. I did my first mile in 10:30. Nice right? No one was more surprised than me, let me tell you! Somewhere after the the 2 mile mark, I was feeling pretty good and passing everyone and then I hit the tractor tires. I was like, "ARE you kiddding me?". After that, my heart rate skyrocketed and I had to literally talk myself out of vomiting. But, I pushed through and as the course made its way back to the starting point I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. Ant got a picture of me coming up at the last 1/2 mile:

Finally I was approaching the finish line: You can tell by the look on my face what I was feeling at that moment.

The finish line!!!! Yeah, I know. I'm not one of those people that look cute after working out, but hey you can't have everything right?

Disability Humor

You would think that working in an office full of disability advocates that we would be the last people to tell disability jokes. And you would be wrong! Of course, we all have the utmost respect for our students (most of the time) but some of the best jokes come directly from the students themselves! So, it was a little strange to get used to the atmosphere of the office at first, but it was nice to relax and not worry so much about being politically correct all the time as long as it wasn't in a derogatory way.


So, sharing some humor from yesterday at work. First, a picture my supervisor posted on his facebook page from failblog.com:

This is definitely funny because of the irony, but I seriously see ridiculousness like this all the time!!! It's like people think that they if they throw up some accessible parking signs and paint some parking spaces that all of a sudden their building is accessible. Never mind the fact that there are stairs everywhere with extremely narrow doorways!

Second, we had a meeting about a big event we are having at the university for disability awareness month. We are having a Deaf performer coming and while discussing the schedule for the day, one of our coordinators who is also an ASL interpreter mentioned that on the same day an ASL comedian, Keith Wann is coming to USF. After watching some of his videos on youtube, I can't wait to see him! He is so funny!!!! Here's one of my favorite ones. It kind of reminds me of that youtube video "Evolution of Dance". In this, Keith is acting like a newbie interpreter that is signing a Rap song...

Killer rats!!!

We have rats in our new apartment!!!! Are you as freaked out as I am and that idea? For the past few weeks Bitsy has been going crazy digging at our kitchen floorboards and Ant said that he saw ONE tiny little mouse looking thing the other day. I wasn't too worried because it seemed like the dogs or the cat were going to take care of it.

However, yesterday we found a dead little rat in the kitchen. We thought that it was THE one and that the dogs finally got it. Apparently not. Apparently, it was one of a litter of baby rats that spread throughout the entire apartment! Last night after my mom and my brother left our apartment, Ant decided to go get a fish tank from a friend. I walked into our closet in our bedroom while I was changing into my pajamas, looked down, and there was a small rat on the floor right in front of me!!! I screamed and ran out of there mid-change. I didn't know what to do! I didn't want it to crawl away somewhere where we couldn't get to it but I didn't want to go near it. Eventually I decided to get a cup and trap it underneath the cup until reinforcements came home. After I trapped it (and heard some disturbing squeaking sounds!) I was walking out of the bedroom and saw another one crawling towards our office!!!! Now, my dogs can't get to our bedroom so they were off the hook for that one, but they sure should have been all over this one. I took my dog and pointed her towards the new rat so she could get it and my dog RAN INTO HER KENNEL!!! After all this time of acting like she was dying to get at this thing, she ended up being scared of it! I noticed that the cat was suspiciously absent, so I looked around for her and she had run under our bed!! Traitors!! So all by myself, I trapped this one under another cup, turned on all the lights, curled up on the couch and waited for Ant to come home. Here is a picture Ant took of them after he got home:

Terrifying right? :) I felt so conflicted. On the one hand these are vermin and are in my house, so ewwwwww, but on the other hand I don't want to kill them because they are so little and helpless (and kind of cute in the way that all small things are cute even if they are hideous at the same time). The exterminators are coming on Wednesday, but until then I will not walk into a room without first turning on the light and checking the floors!

Aside from all of that excitement, I took my certification exam last Thursday. I'm pretty sure I passed it, but I won't get the official results until January AND I found out today that I passed my comprehensive exams!!! Now the only thing left to do is show up for graduation! I can't believe I am done with tests, essays, all of it. Now I am free to....work. Huh. Wait a minute...

Beware the hunting knife wielding cowboy and his puppy

So, um, today was a crazy day. Around 2pm today a few of my coworkers received a text message from the USF emergency alert system that there was an armed intruder on campus. The message said the campus was on lock down and to lock the doors and stay inside. We locked the office doors and turned the lights out to the lobby. To be honest, I wasn't too concerned because Ant gets texts at least once a month from USF about a suspicious character on campus. However, this was the first one that had actual instructions with the warnings. We all went to the USF website to get more updates.

A few minutes later we got another alert saying that the intruder was at the library and that police were en route. Guess where the library is on the USF campus? Right across from my OFFICE!!! Crazy right? Then, a few minutes later we got an update that ANOTHER guy was identified on a campus bus as having a weapon and a possible BOMB and that the bomb squad was en route!!! What?? And then, if things weren't crazy enough as it was we got yet another report of a suspicious person who was described, no joke, as a white male wearing a black tank top, a cowboy hat and carrying a black puppy in one hand and a large hunting knife in the other. You can't make that stuff up!!!!!! Of course, that message spurred an entire conversation of conjecture over where that man was going with his puppy in hand. One coworker thinks he was an off duty cop who wanted in on the excitement, forgot his gun and uniform at home, and didn't have time to drop his puppy off at the doggie daycare. My guess was he was a student from one of the dorms that smuggled his puppy onto campus and had taken a vow to protect his puppy (with his trusty hunting knife) from the swarms of investigating police at all costs. Luckily the campus got the all clear right before 5Pm so we were able to leave to go home on time (although there were still helicopters circling the campus). As far as I know no one got hurt, so that is a blessing.

In other news, I am loving taking classes at my new gym!! My next door neighbor has become my official gym buddy and we can't get enough of the group fitness. Tonight we took a kickboxing class that kicked my trash!! I was a sweaty hot mess afterwards and the little scandanavian woman that teaches it does seriously impossible things with her legs. The room all of the classes are in is surrounded by mirrors like a dance studio so I got to see myself losing my balance and kicking out my unusually large feet (I wear size 9 1/2 in running shoes). I swear I almost drop kicked a 65 year old woman working out next to me! Over the past few weeks I've taken a spin cycle class, several Zumba classes (latin dancing basically), strengthing training classes, a step class, pilates, and several dance party classes (where we jump around a lot and shake our booties. It's awesome.) It is really neat to see what a range of ages and sizes come to the gym, even among the personal trainers who you expect to be perfectly toned. Although I will say I was pretty intimidated by this one fitness instructor's body until I found out that she competes professionally in fitness/body building competitions. It made me feel a little more normal to know that she doesn't look that way naturally :)

So there you have it: a day of police, bomb squads, puppy wielding cowboys, and drop kicking the elderly. Hopefully tomorrow will not be quite as eventful.

Update

I got good at posting there for awhile and then life caught up with me! We are doing good and still loving living here in Tampa.

Me: I absolutely love my job/internship!!! It is still as cool as it was in the beginning, if not better because I am more familiar with the people and everything we do. I get to do some really fun things so far, like making bus schedules in braille (fyi brailling things is a LOUD process), talking to students about where they got their guide dog trained at, figuring out how to use the new wheelchair straps for keeping your wheels in place on the campus buses, learning about the logistics of translating a class into sign language for students, and programming computers so that they can recognize my voice and speak patterns and write down what I say into a word document just to mention a few. I am well on my way to graduation. YES!!!! My comprehensive exams are due Friday and I have a little more than half done so far, and next month I will take my national certification exam. One day I will be out of school and it will be amazingly awesome.

Ant: Ant is having a good time in his classes. He has his first assessment/fake patient assignment today where he goes into a mock doctor's office exam room and takes a history from someone paid to be a pretend patient. He had to get a lab coat and everything, so he looks all official. Still, he keeps telling me how he likes his classes, but he can't wait until he actually knows something :)

Church: We both are having a good time with our callings as youth leaders and with our new ward. We've met a lot of cool people and this past Sunday I like to refer to as Lagana Sunday: we both gave a talk in sacrament meeting (my first since I was 14) and then Ant had to teach the lesson to the young men in the third hour. The joys of being in a small ward!!!

I knew there was a reason I didn't like fishing

Ant convinced me to get up at 6AM this morning to go fishing with him. Here was the deal: we would go to a fishing pier that was only 30 minutes away, it would be in the morning so it wouldn't be hot, and we would use bait so I would be sure to catch something. He was thinking that we would catch a lot of small snapper that we could take home.

On my first cast I caught an empty mussel shell. Score. I thought that was weird and maybe a fluke, but then Anthony caught one and I caught another one! So, we switched to the other side of the bridge. I started catching a lot of small bait fish and Anthony set them up on the other fishing rods. After about an hour, I was sitting next to the rods, just enjoying the sunrise and the breeze and the reel next to me started going crazy! Anthony yelled for me to pick it up because he wanted me to catch a big fish (and maybe stay out there longer?). I started to reel and it was HEAVY! We were both excited and were thinking maybe we caught a big one. We're looking into the water trying to see what it was and a DOLPHIN surfaced. A DOLPHIN!!!!!! Of course, I started flipping out. My voice stayed about an octave above my normal pitch while I kept repeating "what do I do? what do I do?" and all I could think of was that I was like those evil fishermen that kill dolphins when fishing for tuna (remember those commercials?). Anthony grabbed the rod from me and started to let it out but then it instantly went slack. He reeled it in and there was nothing wrong with the hook at all. It turns out, Ant had heard about dolphins doing this at this fishing pier. They just go around to the different hooks and take every one's bait, being careful to avoid the hook. Anthony kept laughing and calling the dolphin a "jerk". I was just happy that I hadn't hooked flipper.

After that excitement we decided to move our stuff to the opposite end of the pier. We weren't any more successful on catching something, but at least no one else was catching anything that we saw so I guess it was a case of the fish not being there. After about 30 minutes we had a little deja vu... The reel started spinning, I started to reel it in, the dolphin surfaced to laugh at me, and then the hook popped loose. When we reeled it in, he had carefully bitten down right next to the hook so there was just a tiny bit hanging on.

So now Anthony thinks dolphins are evil. Dolphins are evil because of their shenanigans today along with manatees for trying to flip him over in his kayaks a few months back I wonder what cuddly land or sea creature will prove evil next...

Free money!!!!!

What are you looking at here? Oh, just $140 in gift cards I got for $2 and few minutes of my time!!!! Two weeks ago this Friday, I signed up for four different free or $1 for the first month trial offers so that I could get the free gift, which ranged from $50 in gas cards, to $50 in Lowe's gift cards. It was the easiest thing in the world! I ususally shy away from the gift card offers because even though some of them are legit, it is really time consuming and you have to be on top of everything. This was so easy, I couldn't believe it!

I followed the instructions on how to do it from a blog I follow. Here is the link to her instructions if you are interested.

Here is how it worked out for me: I followed her instructions and signed up for the different offers. She uses a prepaid visa card with a few dollars on it, so that they can't charge her for anything else (coolest idea ever!!!). I used a debit card and didn't have any problems. After a few days I got an email with my membership number and the terms of my membership that had the number to call to cancel. SAVE that!! A day or so after that, I got an email with a link to fill out an online form for my gift cards, and a week later here they are! For a few of them I didn't get a form for gift cards, but weird rebate forms for future purchases (?) so I used my information on the link that the woman from the other blog got for gift cards and it went through perfectly. I still can't believe that this worked out! $2 investment for $140, not bad!

I love my new job!

Can I just say, I love my new job!! I know today was only my second day, but the first few weeks at a job are supposed to be the worst and if that is true, then I landed the best job ever! Every one in this office is just so nice! They are friendly with me, show me things, and make me feel welcome. They keep telling me how glad they are to have me, and the office environment itself is pretty laid back. The work itself is also pretty awesome. The students do most of the work themselves, getting documentation of their disability and we just meet with them to help them coordinate with their professors and make sure they know we are there to help them.

Case in point: the director came up to me today to give me this: a name tag just like everyone else in the office has! She said she had it in her desk for the past couple of weeks. Can you believe it!! This is what it is like to feel wanted and appreciated instead of gum on the bottom of someone's shoe (see blogs about past internship experiences). Seriously I almost cried when she gave it to me. I told her I had to take it home to show it to my husband and she kind of laughed and told me that I'm getting business cards too. Now I really am going to cry :) What a huge blessing this placement is. Even if I don't end up with a job at graduation, these next few months will be heaven compared to the last two years of graduate school. Thank you Heavenly Father, you know I needed to catch a break :)

New callings and new goals

It has been an eventful Sunday so far. Our new ward meets at 11AM and at 10:20 this morning we got a call from the ward clerk asking us if we could meet with the bishop at 10:40 before church. Yikes! The bishop called Anthony to be the 2nd counselor in the Young Men's presidency and me to be the 1st counselor in the Young Women's presidency. Then in sacrament meeting, they had us stand up to be sustained. Sooo, last week was our first week attending that ward, they got our records during the week and skipped the whole "welcome to the ward having you stand up in sacrament meeting" and went straight to callings. How's that for efficient! We are going to an elder's quorum activity tonight so that we can meet some new people and after that Anthony is off to a Stake Young Men's leadership meeting at the stake center. This morning: no calling, this afternoon: calling + stake meeting. I think our heads are still spinning a little bit :)

In other news, I have decided to renew my previously abandoned goal of running a 5K. I looked it up and there is one near here in St. Petersburg on Thanksgiving day called the "Turkey Trot". I think that is a reasonable goal for me to do if I start training now. I'm going to try some inserts for my shoes and more stretching so I won't hurt my knee like last time.

I'm also doing the P90x workout (have you ever seen those informercials? They got me). I've been doing it for about 3 weeks now and it really has been great. (In fact, while we were moving Ant kept saying he was glad I had been working out because of all of the heavy lifting and carrying) I think I finally found a fitness-person/guru that doesn't annoy the heck out of me during their videos. He's actually pretty funny and makes sarcastic jokes about some of the harder exercises so you know that it is okay not to be happy and perky while you are dying. There are also 12 different workouts so there is a lot of variety. I never thought I would be able to do serious hard-core workouts for an hour at a time, but now it feels normal. I also bought myself a really good heart rate monitor so that I can keep better track of my exercises now that I'm not using machines at the gym. It is so cute!!! Here it is:
It was expensive, but so worth it. I've been using a $20 walmart one and not only is it obviously inaccurate, but for it to take your heart rate you have to stop and press a button for a few seconds. I don't have time for that!!! I need to be working it!! :)

Clothes on dogs will always be funny

Brownie- a gator dog in bull country. It's a hard life.

Ant's aquarium

The aquarium is finally moved and looking good! Ant has been working non-stop for a week now trying to get it the way he likes it. He even tried to take pictures earlier, but they didn't look good enough for him :)
The full view. The left side of the tank. The right side of the tank. Under the actinic lights. Now you can see why it took over twice as long for him to move this thing and set it up than for us to move our entire condo!

I've been trying to get more involved with the aquarium and have Ant teach me more stuff, and it's been pretty fun. We went around to check out all of the reef stores in Tampa and some of them were so big it was like going to an aquarium. One even had a tank with sharks and sting rays! Next Ant really wants to get a pair of Onyx clown fish to replace his regular-old "nemo" clown. They're not cool enough anymore:) Here is what they look like: Aren't they cute???

Lessons learned so far...

Lessons I've learned from my first week living in Tampa:
1)I married a pack-rat that not only hates to throw things away, but is compelled to collect new toys. There is nothing I can do about this. I must try to focus on anything else while I am spending a third day in a row carrying/arranging/tripping over HIS stuff. (Repeat in my head, "he is a good man, he is a good man, he is a good man, etc...)

2)Life is different without your own washer and dryer. I never had to worry before about someone stealing my underwear, or SOMEONE ELSES underwear ending up in my laundry. (We left the mystery boxers on the floor). I look at clothes differently now. Instead of just throwing it in the hamper, I think about how soon I'm going to have to trek it to the other side of the apartment complex to spend 1 1/2 hours waiting for a load of laundry to be completely finished. As a result, I have been rewearing my clothes. A lot. Also, I don't like paying $3 a load to wash my own clothes. If I am paying for laundry, I want someone to come pick it up and do it for me. So there.

3)DO NOT take the interstate in the Tampa area unless you absolutely have to!! We got stuck on it today at 4:30 and it was stop and go for miles. Every exit the traffic stops because there are so many cars, they have to stop to let merging traffic on. It is a nightmare.

4)GPS is the devil. It is programmed to be confused and recalculate at the exact moment you need to know where to turn and when it isn't doing that, it is telling you to turn left and then immediately right when REALLY, you just need to keep going straight. Also, if you decide to go a different way because of aforementioned traffic it flips out and tells you to take a left turn three times in a row. Then it pouts and keeps telling you to turn around at the next street when it is obvious that you want to go a different way.

5)You need AAA or the correct tools for changing a tire. Always. In the past week, we got a flat tire on my car and then didn't have the right sized tool for taking the lugnuts (?) off the tire. Luckily, my brother has AAA and called them for us so we got didn't have to pay for towing. Later that week we were driving my mom's minivan back from Tampa and we got a flat tire going over a bridge on the interstate. Luckily we had the right tools for changing it. Unfortunately we might have broken the cage that holds the spare tire underneath the car. (Oops) We had to tie it up with a red rope so that it didn't drag on the ground while we were driving. Can you say Ghetto?

6)You can fufill a check cashing or money order urge immediately at any time of the day. I have never seen so many of these money order places in my life! They are literally on every corner, even in the nicer neighborhoods. When I called to set-up our electricity, the customer service rep told me I could pay my deposit online for a $5 fee, or go to one of these places with cash and it will only cost me $1 to pay my bill. She then went on to tell me that these places are addictive because you can pay your bills and get free money orders! What? What do I need money orders for, and are there that many Tampa businesses that use them instead of letting you pay your bill online? Maybe after a year I will be changing my tune and telling YOU how wonderful check cashing places are and that you should be using them more often :)

7) There are a serious amount of people in this town. I don't know if I've blogged about this before, but I don't do well in crowds. I get all uncomfortable and irritable and snappish because of everyone being in my personal bubble. We actually did an exercise in class once about individual differences in the amount of space people need between them and another person in order to feel comfortable. Everyone in the class was surprised and had a little laugh at how much space I needed to be comfortable, even with friends (probably around 3 feet or more). Soo, it is not cool when the local grocery store has people bumping into me and standing real close to look at that piece of meat. With traffic and everything, sometimes I crave to be alone in my bedroom so that I can breathe my own air.

So there you have it. We are learned the ropes of living in a big city and even though it can be frustrating at times, it still is fun having new experiences and thinking about things I never thought of before. As for job updates, Ant got a job with a nursing agency here in town so they will be sending him around to different places as needed. He gets to pick his schedule and he will be making more money than with just a regular job in a hospital, so that is a good thing. I am starting my new job with student disability services as USF on Monday and I am really excited about it. The director emailed me to apologize that they are moving things out of the office I will be using so it might be messy. I was thinking "I have an office??!!". I am sincerely hoping that this placement ends up as where I want to be. All of the others haven't felt like the right place career-wise, and if this feels right then I will probably be set for a job after graduation, which can I say is in 4 MONTHS!!!!!!!!!! :)

Our new ward

Today was our first Sunday in our new ward. We weren't sure what to expect, but it went really well! It is a small ward, and EXTREMELY friendly, which makes things nice. Different people kept saying over and over that they love getting new people :) At the beginning of sacrament, a woman looked at me, smiled, and waved. I smiled back, but I thought she was saying hi to someone behind me. We met her after church and it turns out, she was saying hi to me. When we confirmed to her that we were new to the ward, she pumped her fist and said "yes!".

Another person came up to us right after sacrament and introduced himself. He then wanted to introduce us to the Bishop, so he led us to him, introducing us to everyone on the way. We met with the Bishop for a full 30 minutes, visiting and getting to know each other. He told us that most of the young couples in the ward are there for the summer to do seasonal sales work and will be leaving in the next few weeks. He also pretty much told us that we can expect some big callings, since a good chunk of an already small ward will be leaving soon. It is a little intimidating, but also exciting because I feel like it will be a good opportunity to grow. The ward in Gainesville is so big that sometimes it is so easy to just sit back and do nothing because there are a million and one other people available to serve.

As a funny side note, the piano in the relief society room is an electric, self-playing piano! I guess since the ward is so small that not many people play, so you just have to push a button and the piano plays whatever hymn you chose from the hymnbook!

Our new digs

Here is a front and back picture of our new apartment in Tampa. It's pretty nice! It has been a crazy 4 days!!!! Let me chronicle this day by exhausting day:
Tuesday:
Anthony and I drove down to Tampa to sign our lease, get our keys, and move a few little things. We got there around 12PM and started going through the paperwork. The leasing agent didn't calculate the pet fee for our dogs in the email she sent us with the final amount due and you should have seen our faces when she said that it would be $300 for each dog!! She felt bad for us, so she got her manager to agree to let us pay for just one dog since they are both so small. Whew! Around 2 o'clock, we had everything and we found our way to the apartment (we'd only seen a model before this). I opened the door to find that the apartment was gutted!!!!! There was no flooring in most of the place, and where there was carpet it was filthy. The kitchen had no appliances and stuff was hanging from the ceiling. So, back to the office we went and the leasing agent apologetically told us that she made a mistake and put us in a unit that is being renovated. We got a new address and apartment number, new keys and we left to hopefully find our real apartment, promising to come back to sign paperwork with the corrected address. When we came back, we had to wait 30 minutes to sign the paperwork and then we finally started home to finish packing.

We got home around 5PM and started packing. Since I am so speedy, I did most of the packing while Anthony did trash duty and broke down all of the electrics with the maze of wiring. We finished around midnight, but I couldn't sleep, so I stayed up for an hour changing our addresses on things online.

Wednesday:
Moving, moving, and more moving!! After today I had bruises and sore muscles in places I didn't know could get hurt (like the bruises I have on my hip bones from jutting them out so I can balance boxes I am carrying). It took us about 4 hours to pack up the u-haul and my mom's van and we left for Tampa around 3:30. When we got to the apartment, it was just me, Ant, and my brother Daniel to do all of the unpacking. It went surprisingly fast and we got done in about 1 1/2 hours. We were all sweating like pigs, and Daniel made Anthony carry things downwind because of his manly odor :) We went to 3 different u-haul places to finally find one that was open so we could drop off the drop. As a side note, I had no idea that u-haul favored kwikie marts and discount clothing/cell phone stores to run their operation. Huh.
Being as sweaty and stinky as we were, we decided that a trip to a restaurant was in order. After that, Ant and Daniel dropped me off at the new apartment while they went back to Gainesville to get Ant's aquarium. I couldn't sleep in such a messy, disorganized, new place so I stayed up to 3am unpacking and arranging furniture.

Thursday:
Woke up promptly at 9am to LOUD construction workers. Apparently we are the only unit in our building not under renovation. Nice. Decided I might as well unpack as long as I was up. Anthony spent the entire day in Gainesville breaking down his aquarium and loading it in the car. He got home around 10:30pm and I had pretty much finished all of the unpacking and arranging (what a perfect ploy to get out of unpacking!!). We finally dragged ourselves to bed around midnight

Friday:
Finally a day of sanity! We got internet hooked up today, which makes life in a new place SOO much more bearable and getting things accomplished SOOO much easier :) Ant's still working on setting up his tank, but I think it is starting to settle in for both of us that we live in a different place. Here is what my living room looks like courtesy of Ant's hobby:

And just so you know, I plan on never moving again. I am going to live and die in this 2bedroom/1bathroom apartment. Either that, or if we ever do move again it is going to be for the wealthiest job imaginable so that I can just get rid of everything and buy all new stuff there. For real.

Our first yard sale

This morning Anthony and I had our very first yard sale! We had a lot of junk to get rid of, and now that it is all over I am glad to be rid of it. I was way too nervous about doing this!! I mean, what is there to be nervous about right? I couldn't sleep all night because I was thinking about how exactly we were going to set things up. We got up at 6am to start putting out signs and starting setting things up at 7am. Not very many people came, probably in part because we are in the back of a small neighborhood. Still, I told myself that I would be happy if we made $25, and we ended up making $40! What is funny is that the things I was sure were going to sell didn't, and we sold some things that I put in because otherwise I was going to through it away (like an old back scratcher that I have no idea where it came from).

I don't think we will be having very many yard sales in the years to come. We aren't patient people, and sitting there for hours we kept second guessing ourselves on what we could sell on ebay. We ended up taking things back and putting them in the house, vowing to put them on ebay tonight. Whether that will happen or not remains to be seen :) After a few hours, we were tired and no one was coming so we packed the car FULL of 7 bags of stuff and one big box of books to take to Goodwill. Now I don't have any more excuses, I have to get to packing. If only I had some boxes...

Laughter is the best medicine

My family and I got back last night after a 3 day road trip to Mississippi to bury my dad in his family plot. The memorial service on Monday was wonderful, and so much that was said reminded me of my dad's sense of humor. Sometimes his humor was kind of morbid (I guess that happens when you spend your life aware of your own death), but it fits with my family and how we handle things.

Illustration: here is a picture of my dad picking out his spot in the family cemetery a few years ago Classic dad.

The trip was quite something. I don't think that we had all been on a car trip together since we were in elementary school. We rented a Tahoe so that we could fit all six of us, and let me tell you it was not big enough. Anthony and I got the very very back seat that was designed for children or people without legs because there was no floor! The seat was level with the floor, so we spent the entire trip with our knees pulled up against the seat in front of us. The trunk was right behind us and it was the size of a postage stamp, so everything was also spilling out onto our heads. Remind me to never buy a Tahoe.

It is a 9 hour drive one way, so we slept, ate, and played a lot of trivia and car games. We played an especially rousing game of "would you rather" which included questions like: "would you rather sweat cheese or wake up every morning covered in ham and not know why?" and "would you rather have a nostril that sharpens pencils or a navel that dispenses ketchup?" Who comes up with these things?

How did I live before coupons?

This week I had some especially awesome coupon deals. What makes it that much better is that some of the stuff I was getting ready to buy anyway, and I stumbled upon an awesome deal!

Walgreens:
5lb bag of Purina Cat food 4bags@$5each= $20
*Used (4) $3.50 off coupons from Purina website
*Used $6 in register rewards from last week
Total= $1.40 (basically sales tax)

CVS:
Kashi Granola Bars & Cereal 3 boxes@$3.33each + Colgate Toothpaste ($2.88)= $12.88
*Used (3) $1.50 off coupons from Kashi website
*Used (1) $1.00 off coupon from Colgate website
*Used $4 in Extra Care Bucks from last week
Total= $3.38 and I got back $7 in Extra Care Bucks for next week

Publix:
Cherries (2lbs @$1.99/lb) + Bananas (2lbs @ $.49/lb) + Vienna fingers cookies (2/$3.99) + Chef Boyardee (2/$1.70) + No sugar added yogurt (4/$2.00) = $12.70
*Used (1) $2 off $5 produce purchase from Food Lion
*Used (2) $.55 off Keebler cookies from coupons.com
*Used (2) $1 off Chef Boyardee from simplydelicious.com (cashier reduced them to $.85 each)
Total= $8.00

How fun was that? I didn't do any real grocery shopping since we are going to be out of town for most of the week, so it was fun just to pick up the best deals. As a side note, I only bought the chef boyardee because it was free. We don't eat that kind of stuff, but if it is free I buy it and give it to the missionaries on sundays. I gives me an excuse to use more coupons!

Proof that I am a nerd

Today we got our official reservation letter from the apartment complex we are moving to in Tampa with our address and everything. Guess what street we are going to live on? Matador Court. Who comes up with these names?? I've lived in Gainesville all of my life, so I am used to good ol' plain numbered streets. At least I have memorized our new address already :)

So, what was one of the first things I did after I got the letter today? After looking into all of the coordinating it takes to move (shut one service off, turn another one one, etc..), I had to look up the county's library website to see if it is as cool as the one in Alachua county. Then, I guessed at which library would be closest to our apartment and almost did a happy jig when it came up as 4 minutes away!!!! I had to bookmark it in my favorites right away. I seriously tried to think of a way that I could sign up for an account now so that I could start reserving books. Then, I started to get all excited about going into a new library and getting a new card and checking out all that they have there. I started telling Anthony all of this and of course, his response to all of this was to give me a "how in the world can you be this excited about the library" look. But hey, he is already checking out all of the Tampa reef-aquarium clubs and forums so he should understand :)

Superman wears Tebow pajamas

I went to the mall today to check out if there were any good sales on clothes and ended up in the Gator mania store looking at all of the gator t-shirts. I couldn't resist, I had to get a Gator Tebow/superman t-shirt! I love it and I love Tebow!!!! I still can't wrap my head around the fact that in the fall I will be working at another university where they probably aren't as gator-crazy as Gainesville. (Although you never know, we are awesome so they could worship us)

Case in point: when I am at the gym and I finish reading my magazine and there is nothing good on tv I play a game I like to call "count the gator clothes". Today I counted 10 gator t-shirts and basketball shorts and that was on a Saturday when the gym is usually empty. It is kind of fun, I keep a running count in my head and end up staring at random people across the room, trying to see if that sports bra they are wearing has a gator logo (have I blogged before about how many girls at the gym don't wear outer clothes? It's annoying). I also get disproportionately excited when a new person walks in the cardio room because they might just be wearing a gator shirt. And if I get some one with a gator shirt AND gator shorts: Jackpot!

Pumpkin is good all year round!

Since today is Ant's last day of work, I thought I would bake some treats for him and his coworkers to enjoy. My sister just introduced me to this awesome and easy recipe and I highly recommend it. Now, I rarely bake anything unless it is for someone else, but I might actually make this alot.

Pumpkin muffins: take a box of yellow cake mix and mix it with a can of pumpkin pie filling and then bake them in muffin tins at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. That's it! You can add cinnamin or nutmeg, but you don't need eggs or water or anything like that. It is so easy, and I thought it would be kid friendly too, because it is so easy and you can eat the batter all you want since there aren't any eggs. Cool!

As a funny side note, when I went to Publix to buy the ingredients, a worker told me that they didn't have canned pumpkin because of a problem with the manufacturer. He then told me that he was pretty sure that no other Publix was going to have it. What?? So, I drove down the road to Sweetbay, and they had at least 10 cans sitting on the shelf. Apparently the manufacturer is trying to pull a fast one on Publix :)

The best dad in the world: because he is mine

This is a sad post to write, but I feel like I have to write it. Early this morning my dad passed away. He had been sick for a very long time and we were all as prepared as we could be for it to happen. My mom slept in bed with him and he passed sometime during the night in his sleep, very peacefully. In some ways it still doesn't feel real, but in other ways it is a blessing to know that he is happier and free now. The last thing we said to each other was "I love you" which I am so grateful for because not everyone gets to say those things to each other.

I was thinking about some of my favorite memories of my dad. One was when I was in high school and we had a brat of a foreign exchange student stay with us. I couldn't stand her and the foreign exchange coordinator was always really mean to me and would call the house constantly to ask me why we weren't entertaining her enough (he was kind of a bully and would never say those things to my parents, just a 17 year old girl). When I told him over the phone that I didn't want to do the other part of the exchange and go to her country, he tried to talk down to me. Without me asking or knowing, my dad got on a phone in the other room and gave that guy a piece of his mind and totally backed me up! I still think about that sometimes because I remember how awesome it felt to have someone stand up for me.

Another favorite memory was actually not that long ago, maybe a few years. For some reason my mom couldn't take my dad to a doctor's appointment, so I drove out to Trenton to pick him up, take him to Gainesville for the appointment, and then take him back. When we were at the doctor's office he introduced me to all of the medical staff who know him so well and he was so proud of me. He kept telling them where I worked and what I was going to school for. The best part was that we had a great conversation in the hour we spent in the car together! We talked about life and he told me stories about his youth (he did some crazy things, bucket list things, way before he even met my mom!). It was that conversation that made me decide to go to graduate school because he acted like he had such confidence in me, and he gave off this attitude like "of course you can get a master's degree! You could get three if you wanted" :)

My family and I are going to miss him terribly, but we know that we will see him again. We love you dad.

The largest aquarium in the world

This morning Anthony and I finally visited the largest aquarium in the world, the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, GA. We have been wanting to see it since it opened, and Anthony especially wanted to see the coral reef exhibit that has real corals (most places have fake stuff). It was amazing!!!! I felt like a kid because everything was so cool and new to see and all around awesome. We stayed in a hotel an hour outside of Atlanta and here are some pictures of us this morning:

Ant and I could not get over a peach tree in the parking lot of the hotel! I don't think either of us had ever seen a peach tree up close before. We even picked some, but they were definitely not ripe yet :)
On to pictures of the aquarium exhibits. I can't stress how amazing everything was! They also had little signs next to different tanks with a cell phone number to call and get a little guided tour of that part of the exhibit.
River Exhibit:
A big part of the river exhibit is a river that you walk under so you can see underneath all of the fish. These are some serious catfish beer bellies:
Cold Water Exhibit: All I could think about when I saw this guy, was how much good eating his legs would be! This whale was seriously loving all of the attention he was getting from the crowd. One little girl asked a worker why he chased away the other two females and he had to struggle to figure out a way to say that the whale wasn't chasing them, he was actually "interested" in them and the females weren't feeling it.
Leafy Dragons The jelly fish were so surreal! It is almost like they are some kind of alien creature or something.
The coral reef exhibit:
This is the view as you come to the main reef tank: They have a simulated wave that comes through every few minutes to mimic the ocean: I could just see the wheels in Anthony's head turning, trying to figure out how he could get his tank to do a wave like that.
Ocean Voyager Exhibit: The fish is bigger than the kid next to it! There was a moving platform that took you underneath the tank so that you could see all of the sharks and fish. We stayed a good 30 minutes just at this display window. It was so big!! The tank is the largest in the world and holds 4 whale sharks, which grow to be 30 feet long! Here are two of the whale sharks. Believe it or not, they are actually still juveniles and can grow to be twice as big.
It was so fun, and even though we had to cut our trip short, we are both so glad that we went!