Holy smokes this month has been CRAZY~ and by crazy I mean its been: BUSY FUN SCARY CELEBRATORY ADVENTUROUS
It basically been an over all wonderful month so far! Here's why (brace yourself for TONS of pictures):
1) HAPPY BIRTHDAY to myself and Tristin! YAY. We had a TON of fun skiing over my birthday weekend with Jay and Christina. Jay and Christina rented a condo in Keystone, invited us to go up with then and we had fun and skied all weekend! It was my third time in my life skiing so it was a very mixed-feeling adventure for me. Adrenaline can be fun...until it's not fun. And nothing gets the adrenaline pumping in your veins better than sliding down a mountain of snow and ice at 30 MPH.
Birthday embrace for ME!
Here I am skiing my first run. This was taken when the adrenaline was still fun
There's Lake Dillion in the background
Gotta Love Colorado
Jay and Christina
Jay and Christina bought me a cake but we had to get creative with the candles. It was very sweet! and yes, I'm 24 Finally!
2) One weekend later Tristin and I drove back up to Keystone to celebrate the wedding of Jay and Christina! They finally tied the knot and celebrated by renting another condo up at Red Hawk and invited a hand full of friend and family to celebrate with them as well as participate in the semi casual ceremony. We were lucky enough to be invited to go and celebrate this wonderful occasion. I offered to play photographer for the weekend and so T and I had a lot of fun doing that (as well as be a part of the ceremony). The happy couple looked stunning so taking pictures of the two of them was simple.
The exchanging of the rings during the ceremony
We did the actual wedding ceremony here....on the ice over the river...so I guess you can say they got married on a river :)
The bling
She was really easy to shoot for obvious reasons...and check out those shoes!! Love em!
This is one of my personal favorites! Can someone say "Boy band cover?"
Congrats you two! We love you both and are so happy to have you be a part of our lives and are honored to be a part of the ceremony! We adore you both and are lucky to have you as friends!!
2 weeks down, 2 more to go. We still have Christmas and our 5 year anniversary to celebrate!
Round 4 of Antibiotics is up. Seriously, you'd think I'd be over this by now.
Last week I contracted just about every virus know to man. Ok, maybe that's a slight over exaggeration, I only got 3 different infections which turned into 4 and I'm now back on my 4th round of antibiotics. Ironic because it was taking all the antibiotics in the first place (which DID kill off the bone infection) that caused all the other things to manifest in my body.
Get this! I have taken more medication in the past 6 weeks than I have in my ENTIRE 24 years of existence! That record was one I was not hoping to break. OH well, such is life... If this is my trial to bare this year, I'LL TAKE IT! I'd rather go through this a dozen times than go through what we did last year!
Lately Tristin and I have had a lot of visitor from out of state (and country) come visit us. first there was Sonto and Antonio from Johannesburg, South Africa. Sonto is my best friends sister. I'll upload pictures from her trip in the near future once I get them downloaded from my camera. But this past week we had a lot of fun hanging out with Kim.
Pearl St, November 5th (hence the Guy Fawkes shirt)
Kim came to visit us at our humble Boulder home with the goal of experiencing different types and forms of Yoga. Boulder is kinda "Hippie Central" here in the USA so what better place to do it than here? There's probably 5 yoga studios on every block!
Thurssay Nov 3rd. The day after the Snow Storm
however, the day she arrived we were currently being hit with Snow Storm #2! it was like we were picking her up at the North Pole!
While she was here we were able to take her to some great restaurants around town as well as take her to Celestial Seasoning, Pearl Street and Whole Foods (having a Whole Foods so near by is a definite luxury for us). Kim even let me try Bikram Yoga (Which is very hot yoga) with her which I LOVED and am now hooked on!
It was a lot of fun having her here and we were both really sad to see her go.
On Wednesday we had our first huge snow storm. The only problem with this snow storm was that there were still lots of leaves on the trees so a lot of trees broke which, in turn, broke power lines and therefore caused a lot of homes to not have power during these past few and very cold days. Thank heavens we were not one of these homes!
As far as my tooth/bone infection business goes, I am now down to 3 Antibiotics and taking painkillers only once every other day. Yay for progress. It's still hard to eat but at least I can eat.
No, seriously, it is. I have never seen so many orange prescription bottles in my life! Lets hope I never have see this many again.
I had surgery done Tuesday morning. Apparently my root canal was leaky and therefore infected the bone underneath it so they had to clean the bone as well as redo the root canal again.
*Are you ready for some gory details??*
The doc said when they got to the bone the pus was like a volcano when they opened it up and it took about 1 and a half hours to clean it out and seal it up again (I'm sorry if the word "puss" grosses you out). Post treatment they gave me 5 new prescriptions (3 being antibiotics, 1 narcotic and 1 pain killer) and informed me that I'd probably be in pain for the next 2 weeks!
Well I bought the antibiotics but decided that I was tired of narcotics and pain killers. Standard Ibuprofen is good enough for me, besides I think a little pain is a good lesson for me to not treat dental emergencies so lightly, and if ever the pain isn't enough of a lesson, looking at the super massive black holein my bank account to pay for the procedure is enough punishment for a decade.
Thank you to my family and friends who have been keeping me in their prayers! They are much appreciated. It has been a scary few weeks but we are hopeful that the worst part is over.
...TOOTH! (You thought I was going to say something else, didn't you?)
HOLY COW! If I never saw another antibiotic pill or bottle of Vicodin, it would be too soon! To say I hate all things pertaining to teeth and dentistry would be putting it lightly. Why, do you ask? Here's why. Are you ready for a tedious story?
I promise I'll reward you with cute pictures and videos of This guy at the end of this post to make it worth while
5 years ago marked the beginning of the end for a particular molar in my mouth. I had a root canal performed on it 5 years ago. One year ago I had tooth ache in my tooth that had said root canal (which is funny because a root canal is suppose to get rid of the ROOT OF THE TOOTH and therefore rid of all pain. Ironic!). Turns out the moron who did my root canal botched it so I was advised to take antibiotics for the root infection and go to a specialist who fixes messed root canals.
Specialists=special surgeries=lots of money=SCARY=not so enthused Juanique.
You can see why I didn't rush to go see a specialist...
Now back to present day/year:
One month ago my root canal tooth started to hurt again. I went to my friends husband (who's a dentist and probably the only person I'd ever trust to work on me because I hate all things pertaining to dentists) who said the same thing to me, "Take antibiotics for the tooth infection and go see a Specialist. Also, here's some vicodin for the pain".
Pain?? Tooth pain couldn't be THAT bad, right? What on earth would I need vicodin for?
Round 2 of Antibiotics....done.
Tooth pain? Gone.
Juanique=Happy!!! Bye bye specialist. No pain means no problem in my world, right??
WRONG!!!!!
2 weeks later-Tooth pain! At this point I'm swearing like a South African Sailor and completely ticked that I have to undergo ROUND 3 of Antibiotics for this freaking tooth! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? How could one stupid tooth that was suppose to be fixed 5 years ago, cause me so many issues?
So I finally swallow my pride, suppress my fears (I HATE DENTISTS!!) and email the endodontist/specialist who also happens to be my Bishop. He emails back and says "Get an appointment to see me ASAP!!". Unfortunately I was scheduled to work in Utah when he said I needed to get in so I scheduled with him a week out. How much bad could come from one weeks wait? After all, I HAD been dealing with this tooth problem for about a year and have come out unscathed. What's the worst that could happen?
Present week:
Utah trip was a success. I was busy busy busy. Took my antibiotics like a good girl BUT for some reason my tooth pain slowly got worse....and worse....and worse. In my mind I'm thinking, "Well this hasn't ever happened before? I'm sure it'll go away like the other times so I'm OK".
It did not go away like the other times....in fact, it did the opposite.
In my desperation I took out my orange bottle of vicodin and stared at it for the longest time. "Do I give in or do I sleep this pain off?" By nature, I'm not a huge fan of pain killers to begin with so to give in would mean to go against all my moral codes I've instilled in my brain. Sadly, pain overruled my code-of-ethics and I gave into vicodin
Vicodin-1 Juaniques code of ethics-0
THEN last night happened. Oh heaven I wish I could forget it!!
1:30am- I wake up and my whole mouth is throbbing from pain! Of course I panic. I've never experienced this in my entire life. Worse case scenarios are running through my mind like:
"My whole head is infected"
"my brain might have an infection from this!"
"OH NO, will I need to go to the emergency room?"
"This isn't going to kill me is it? OH HELL it is!!!"
"My vicodin isn't strong enough, WHAT DO I DO?!"
"They're probably going to have to take out several teeth and part of my bone now!"
Yeah, sleepless Juanique=Ludicrous Juanique. What does Juanique, who is intoxicated with fear, go and do? She calls her friend and her friends husband (who's the dentist) at 1:30am to find out if she's going to live or die!
Long story short, turns out I'm going to live and I just need to wait for the Vicodin to kick in. I'm not going to get a brain infection or loose multiple teeth. Be grateful that you aren't my friend who has a dentist for a husband although my friend, Rebecca, whom I called, was very sweet and loving and supportive over the phone with me at 1:30am. She's an angel! I don't know what I would have done without her and her husbands kindness. I probably would have walked over to the Boulder Hospital and checked myself in. She told me to ask Tristin for a priesthood blessing and then try and get some sleep. It was the right advise at the right time. Both worked miracles for me
After hanging up with her I realized just how crazy I had been to actually call someone at 1;30 in the morning about a stupid tooth pain!
Vicodin-2 Juanique's code of ethics (and sanity)-0
So there's my mark of shame for the year of 2011. It's my equivalent to drunk dialing someone. Thank heaven it was Rebecca because I don't know if anyone else would forgive me for something like that!
I love you, Rebecca! Thank you for all the favors you do for me! You are a true friend and Sista from another Mista!
Now as promised, here are the cute videos and pictures of Evan that I took during this trip to Utah. Aint he a Cutie-pa-Tutie?
Tristin works forwith the Marketing and Communications Department at Naropa University (He's officially a contractor now with his partner under the name Hat Tip Industries, Ltd. --T). Last weekend the Art Therapy Department held a 48 hour paint-a-thon where teams of students would take shift painting for 48 hours straight to raise funds for art therapy in South America. Tristin was in charge of getting some video footage for this event. I just tagged along for the heck of it.
I love Boulder but MAN OH MAN it is a strange place!!
World, meet the festive Art Therapy Students of Naropa University:
Haha. Priceless!
I had to be discreet about taking this picture. I didn't want to seem obvious at all. I got into my "super sleuth" mode and took pics with my camera phone hiding behind my book as I was pretending to read in the corner.
WOW~ this brings back some memories for us. I remember spending hours designing this in Photoshop with Tristin. That was 5 YEARS AGO!! Where does the time go? We'll be married for 5 years come December. Craziness!
I just had to post this for memories sake. Also, If I ever DO lose the CD with this on, at least it'll forever remain on our blog.
Now all I need to find is the video of Tristin's proposal and I'll be even more happy. Can you believe I cant find that anywhere? Yeah, I wanna kick me too!
Thank you World Wide Web for storing all my memorabilia!
-Lived in 2 different countries -Lived in 4 different States in the USA -Went to 4 different high school in the period of one year -Had my first Thanksgiving meal -Experience my first proper winter (with snow and everything) -Hated my first winter -Lost an accent and replaced it with an new one -Moved 11 times and lived in 11 different homes -Graduated from high school -Went to University -Got my first car -Crashed my first car -Won the Greencard Lottery (technically, my dad won it which automatically got my mom and myself a greencard too) -Spent $28,000 in lawyers fees and applications papers to not get kicked out of this country -Became an illegal immigrant for the period of 1 week (I had to wait for my Greencard papers to get processed, in the mean time my visa had expired) -Found and married my best friend and soul mate -Started my own business at the age of 20 (the first time in Utah, the second in Colorado) -Survived our apartment flooding -Became an American Citizen
Durban Airport, South Africa. September 22nd, 2002
That is the only picture I have of the day I left South Africa. Now just over 9 years later I find myself inside the office building of the U.S Department of Homeland Security Pledging an Oath of Allegiance to the United States, being told I'm now lawfully an American Citizen and watching a Video of Barrack Obama congratulating me on my new Citizenship.
Who knew that today in Colorado, 50 people from 30 different countries swore an Oath to become American citizens? Cheers were cried, a few tears shed and lots of hugs broke out as we were all dismissed and congratulated with a piece of paper proving our new nationality.
To my left sat a man from Nigeria and to my right sat a man from Albania, both dressed in fine suits and shoes. For a second I thought I had missed the newsletter telling me about the dress code. All I wore was my make up from the day before, slightly combed bed hair and a sweater with tights. Frankly, I was uber-ticked that I had to wake up at 6:50am for this ceremony and spent the hour and a half's drive to Homeland Security griping about it. I was humbled when I walked into the office and saw families and friends of families excited for this eventful day. Only then did I realize that today WAS a really big day for all of us. We had all struggled for several year to get the honor of saying our oath and being called American Citizens.
Grumpy, sleep-deprived Juanique was now humbled and slightly excited Juanique. I even wished I had taken time to put some make-up on. I guess the struggle to get to this point wasn't really fought for by me but by my parents. So I have them to thank for this day. I didn't really understand why they were so excited for this day to come. I didn't even tell them I was doing it until I had an hours worth of Stop-Start traffic to endure prior to my ceremony. When my parents got sworn in 2 months ago they threw a big party with all their South African friends and celebrated becoming Americans. They are the ones who struggled with the lawyers and IRS and the people who submitted our paperwork. They are the ones who left their jobs and all they had owned, earned and worked for to come to the States, where as I was just a lucky recipient of their sacrifices.
Thanks Mom and Dad!
So maybe if I was there with them getting sworn in I would have cried in gratitude for all their hard work and sacrifice in getting their children to the USA. If Tristin was there I may have smiled a little more about it and shared with him my hopes and hesitations of this day. However, what I could do was celebrate this life altering day with 50 different strangers from 30 different countries. For just an hour of our lives we were all comrades in that room that had shared similar struggles is different countries and were now at the same pinnacle in our lives.
This morning I woke up a South African, and now this afternoon I blog as a New American Citizen. Maybe on the 4th of July I'll actually get in the American spirit and start wearing Red, White and Blue.
As some of you know, this past week Tristin was away in New York for a Mindfulness Based Relapse Prevention Seminar. So I went to Utah to work and see my family. What I didn't know when I booked my flight was that my mom would be away in Spain and my dad in California... So it was just me, Dessi the dog and thankfully Conryd, Aly and Mr Evan.
Tristin seemed to really like his seminar. There were doctors from all over the world and the USA there to learn these techniques. When he spoke with some of the other dr's there (these dr's having spent thousands and thousands of dollars or seminars and traveling all over the world for them) about what they thought of this training, one of them said that it was probably one of the best seminars she had been to (and she'd been to a lot).
*WARNING, I'm going to get all mushy and "my husband is so wonderful" on you. Brace yourself*
I do have to say I am so proud of him for choosing the program he's in at Naropa and for learning all he can about mindfulness based techniques for therapy. He's going to be one heck of a therapist one day and he's going to help a lot of people. I am so proud of him for it (even though his schooling and seminars are costing me a lot of money....I mean US a lot of money).
One of the training halls at the seminar.
As for me, I got to spend some time with this heart breaker! I'm a lucky Aunty!
if you have a short attention span (like myself) go to 45 seconds into the video. That's when he gets really cute
Last night, Mr T and I went to the Longmont Festival.
We aren't really ones to go out and do festival type things (we can get a little reclusive sometimes) but I'm glad we did this one. It was simple and entertaining enough for me to stick around.
When looking back on some of the video I took I wanted to KICK MYSELF IN THE PANTS!!
Heres why:
Did anyone else see dancing Hippie Man??? No, I'm not referring to the big fake dancer, I'm referring to the guy with long hair and in a pink shirt dancing in the first 4 seconds of my video. Look in the bottom left hand corner!
Why on EARTH didn't I get more video of HIM!!!! GGGGAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!! Great opportunity lost forever! Goodbye Dancing-Hippie-Man.
Moving on....
Mr T and I stuck around to watch a fire show. I won't post all the video I took because even I don't have the attention span to sit through them all. Tristin did make a very invaluable comment to me while watching the show, however:
"Remember, in order to turn something mundane into something interesting, just add fire! So you should advertise Fire Massage!"
there's something about fire....It just makes things so much more alluring.
For the record, I will not be doing fire massage.
Lastly, we ended our evening with contemporary music in the background, tuna melts and salad from SunRose Cafe.
Ya know, I would never live in Longmont, but they do have some really cool things going on in that town.
Taking 2 weeks to write this post must only mean one thing...I've still got Cayman Brain.
Def. of Cayman Brain: A viral pathogen transmitted by sunlight, only found in the Cayman Islands, affecting the thalamic cortex of the brain and causing random bouts of laziness, sluggish thought processes, and the occasionally urge to want to do absolutely nothing but find some sunshine, water, and a good book to veg out with.
Cayman was wonderful as always. Pictures speak a thousand words, which is great because I don't really have much to say about the vacation other than it was super. It was awesome. It was super awesome.
(Yes, I got sick the last 2 days there, but that was minor compared to the other 5 days).
I had to dedicate an entire collage to Ophelia because she kept me entertained ALL WEEK long! Man, that little girl is too cute for words and she just LOVES to swim! Taking her away from the pool was like taking away the oxygen from her lung!
All week long she kept calling me "Tistin" (Tristin), because she couldn't say "Juanique". I guess she associated me with Tristin because everytime he's around her, I am as well. However by Saturday she finally called me "WoWheat" (Juanique). YAY!
I also couldn't resist putting this video up of her! She's so goofy I wanna eat her alive!!
I unfortunately didn't get any pictures of it but on Friday we saw a tornado touch ground over 7 Mile Beach. I'm sure it wasn't anything terribly powerful and damaging but it was unbelievable cool to see. It started off as a teeny tine funnel and from that kept getting bigger and bigger. Brienne took some pictures of it so hopefully I can steal some pictures from her and put them up here in the future!
And last but not least I CANNOT BELIEVE I DIDN'T GET ANY PICTURES OF STINGRAY CITY! ARGH!!! Luckily, I DID get a small video of it. I think I was tired of playing photographer by day 3 in Cayman and so stopped taking pictures, which I now regret (Stupid Cayman Brain!!!) Hopefully the video will be enough...
It's been swell Cayman. Hopefully we'll see you again next year!
*I realize I'm extremely tardy with my blogging updates so this may all seem "so last month"... because it was. But here goes:
Oh yes yes yes!!! It's that time of the year again! I just love love LOVE summer times!
Not only did July bring the 4th of July, my parents visiting and me passing my Citizenship test (Yes, I'm one step closer to becoming a Yankie....is that a derogatory term? I honestly don't know) but it also brought LAKE POWELL!!
Oh, Lake Powell, how you sooth me!
It was bliss, it was chaos, It was blissfully chaotic.... it was SO MUCH FUN!
Long story short, when trying to dock and anchor the house boat a storm conveniently started to brew pushing our boat onto a shallow sand bank in the lake. So there we all were, standing on a massive three story house boat in the middle of the lake with dented propellers (House boat, meet rocks. Rocks, meet House boat).
Lucky for us there were several other vacationers around that came to our rescue. 15 men, lots of digging and 2 hours later we were freed from the clutches of a sand/rock bank!
THANK YOU GOOD SAMARITANS! You guys rocked!
The rest of our vacationing was just that...a vacation. Boating, surfing, eating, games, REPEAT!
Thank you Rick and Kim for always spoiling us with these trips! Not only are they healthy for the soul, but they do wonders for my sanity! You guys Rock!
I Just HAD to dedicate an entire page to Beatrix because, let's be honest, she kinda runs the show sometimes! She also loves to be in the spot light so getting funny pics of her was a cinch!
Cant wait til next year! Thanks Rick and Kim for an AMAZING vacation! We love you!
Last month (July 6th-9th) my parents came to town to visit us! My mom LOVES Boulder. She says it feels like Cape Town to her and Cape Town is a pretty amazing place!
Normally when they do come to town they love to eat out and buy us a lot of food. You'd think by the way they act that I don't feed Tristin. They, my mother in particular, would force (YES, force!) us to buy things. No joke...
mom: "Juan, do you and Tristin want some of these gluten free cookies?"
Juan: "No thanks mom. We don't need it"
mom to the guy selling cookies: "I'll take 2 boxes of cookies please"
Juan: "No mom, seriously, I don't want it!"
mom: "Oh yes you do. You'll want it later"
*sigh*
Wednesday my parents took Tristin, myself and our roommate Casey to the Boulders Farmers market and then to eat at the Dushambe Tea House. They seriously have THE BEST food in Boulder....I'm sure of it!
The love birds....and me
Thursday and Friday consisted of more dining out in Boulder. Leaf Restaurant (which is a vegan restaurant) and The Mediteranian are now one my top 5 of Favorite Restaurants. Thanks Mom and Dad for taking us to places we wouldn't normally go :)
Saturday we revisited the Farmers Market and continued our bickering about being forced to buy food. At least I know she loves me.
The bottom line is, I LOVED having my parents here. Thanks Mom and Dad for spoiling us rotten. You guys are above and beyond wonderful
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