Happy 28th Birthday...

HARRY POTTER!!! :)

In honor of this grand day, here is my favorite poster of HP and The Half-Blood Prince!

PS> On a completely unrelated note... only ONE more day until Breaking Dawn, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here you go folks, the first real Half-Blood Prince trailer!!! (That one with Dumbledore talking with a blank screen didn't count in my book!)

We survived!

This will be a short post just because its late and I'm tired and sore and my bed is demanding my attention... but I just wanted to throw out there that we made it back alive, and for the most part, unscathed.(My feet are swollen sausages, with undistinguishable ankles!) More pictures and details to come later, but just to give you guys an idea, this is what happens when Alex is trapped for 3 & 1/2 days on a bus with a gazillion crazy teenagers...

Here I am going crazy in a cornfield next to our hotel somewhere in Iowa. :)

Riduculous... I know!

We're leaving for Nauvoo tomorrow and won't be back until Saturday, so the pups are staying with family. We dropped Sirius off at Nate & Tiff's a few hours ago and already I'm fighting the urge to call and see if he's ok. Nevermind that its 10:30PM! Ugh... I don't think I've ever been away from my blubbers for this long, we always take him with us everywhere! He went with us to New York and he's gone with us to South Carolina... the only other time he's been away was the day of my surgery last year... I can't be without my bubs!!! Sadly enough, I don't miss Mini or Luna much... I'm sure I'll be perfectly content having them stay with Grandma, but I'm sure I'll spend all week worrying about Sirius. Oh I know he'll be fine... but I won't. I hope he doesn't think I abandoned him... Oh blubbers!!! :`(

I know, I know, I need to get a grip. This is why we don't get out much... leaving Bubbas behind is torture for me. We haven't even left yet, but I can't wait to come home, go pick him up, and see his little wagging nub! AHHHHHHHHHHH! I miss my baby!!!!!!!!! :(

Good grief, what is it going to be like when we have kids and have to leave them for the first time?!?!

Close... but no cigar

So its been a few days since I stopped taking my sleeping pills before bed. That first night wasn't too bad. Saturday into Sunday was a little worse. Sunday into Monday was pretty bad, and last night was officially terrible. I'm back to tossing and turning and just giving up on sleep at about 4am. This morning I crawled out of bed to a very familiar thought/feeling... HOW am I going to do this? I just simply cannot go back to sleeping 1-2 hours per night. Seminary is about to start in a few weeks and no... NO, this cannot be happening. I'm going to try the Benadryl again and see if that helps a bit. If it doesn't I suppose we'll move up to Unisom again, and if that doesn't do the trick... well, my Dr.and I may have to have a sit down about TTC safe sleeping pills because I refuse to go down this road again.

I'll keep you all updated. Ben and I are going on our Stake Youth Conference trip to Nauvoo tomorrow and will be back Staurday. We'll see how I survive that. Hopefully sheer exhaustion will help me sleep those nights! :/

Penelope DVD Twiligh Sneak Peek (including 3 scene clips)

So we rented Penelope a few days ago, mostly just to watch the sneak peek/behind the scenes Twilight stuff. It was actually a pretty cute movie, I highly recommend it! Plus, the Twilight stuff looks WAY better on your own screen. However, I finally found a decent version of it on YouTube and thought I'd share in case there is someone that hasn't yet seen it... enjoy! (The last of the 3 scene clips is my fave, of course!)

This is it... no turning back now!

Tonight I will attempt for the first time in a little over 3 months to sleep without the aid of drugs. Wait, that didn't sound right, did it? ;P Ok, let me rephrase that, without the help of my little green friend, the sleeping pill. The Lupron should be pretty much almost out of my system since I would be due for a 7th shot on Tuesday but will instead be starting Femara again. My migraines and headaches have been steadily declining for the past 2 weeks SO I'm hopeful the insomnia will be gone as well. Of course, I've been told that these nasty side effects can linger for months unfortunately... That would be utterly sucky, but I really have no choice in the matter, as my little green good-sleep pill is classified as a class D drug which is a big no-no for me now that we're starting up Femara again. Wish me luck... I would hate to go back to only getting 1-2 hours of sleep per night, especially since Seminary is starting back up in about a month... yikes! :/

My blindness update

So a few days ago I wrote about my frustrations with my suckier eyesight, all courtesy of the Lupron. Today I had one of the doctors refract me (I know I was supposed to wait 6 weeks but after seeing my autorefractor readings it kinda scared me) and whoa... my eyes have changed a quite a bit... I knew I wasn't going crazy! I am now officially a toric contact lens wearer, ugh... I was hoping never to have to cross that threshold, but unfortunately my astigmatism is now high enough to make it so that I can't see squat in standard lenses. My myopia (nearsightedness)has also gotten worse, hooray.. not. So yeah, Alex is getting new glasses and contacts. There is always a chance my sight could change back again, but for now I just can't see out of my current Rx so we'll deal with the change (if it happens at all)when it happens. *sigh*

New Trailer!

This is the full version of those ET snippets from the other day. Very cool! :)

Entertainment Tonight Clip- new stuff!

Lots of new scenes! Enjoy! (Scroll down to the bottom to press PAUSE on playlist)

I love Barnes & Noble!

So I just realized today that with only 20 days left until Breaking Dawn comes out, I still had not pre-ordered it... yikes! Luckily I have a wonderful husband who although he may not quite understand my obsession with Edward, still graciously humors me... in this case, that meant driving me to the bookstore at 10:30PM to get it pre-ordered NOW! ;)

We walked in and right away were greeted with a whole section/stand devoted to these wondrous books as well as what looked like... wedding invitations, RSVP cards and envelopes with "stamps" and everything! Next to a feathery pen I found this:

I know its kinda blurry and hard to read, so this is what it says:

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

You are respectfully invited to a reception in

honor of the impending nuptials of

Miss Isabella Swan

To

Mr. Edward Cullen

To be held at Barnes & Noble,

6100 N May Ave.

Please join us Friday, August 1st, 2008

for festivities beginning at 8:00 p.m.

Including:

Costume contests for the following:

Best Bella (as Bride)

Best Edward (as Groom)

Ugliest Bridesmaid Dress

Bouquet and Garter Toss

How well do you know the Bride & Groom? Quiz

Cake Cutting Ceremony

Complimentary photos to commemorate the occasion

Please R.S.V.P by preordering your copy of

Breaking Dawn.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

My faithful hubby will be accompaning me that night... poor Ben, he's such a good sport! I love you baby!!! ;)

The dog days of summer

It's h-o-t here in Oklahoma. Icky, sticky, humid and hot. The pups don't really like to spend much time outside, and I can't blame them. I just got home from taking Ben his dinner at work and when I got home the dogs were all clamoring to be let in. Once inside this blessed AC'ed house, they pretty much just collapsed into pathetic looking heaps the first place the could find... 2 on the couch and one on the floor. Here are some pics, they're just so cute I had to share!

Sirius, asleep on the couch.

Luna, cooling off her belly & asleep on Ben's shirt and a blanket on the couch as well.

Mini, probably sulking because she can't fit on the couch and sleep there.

I'm blind!

Heehee, no, not really... but I can't see very well these days! Recently I've been having trouble with my distance vision, even with my glasses on. Oh and contacts? Forget that, I don't even trust myself to drive in those suckers... I can barely read the road signs, its scary. The bossman wants me to wait at least 6 weeks after my last shot (that would be in August) to let the Lupron work its way out of my system before checking me and changing my Rx. Funny thing is, I'm starting Femara again on the 22nd, right? So yeah, more hormones... I think I may just have to settle for so-so vision for a while because who knows when we'll be done with all my treatments, and I'm not going to wait that long to get new glasses. Argh! I guess I can at least look forward to Lasik next year if the Lap/Lupron/Femara fails. Might as well look on the bright side, right? ;)

Stephenie is probably throwing a FIT!

Ok, all I can say is EW to Entertainmant Weekly's new cover for their July 18th issue. They got it ALL wrong, whats wrong with them? Did no one actually bother to pick up the book and READ it? Very poorly planned picture in my opinion, and here is why:

1) Bella is a tomboy, pretty much. A plain-jane kind of girl. She HATES dressing up, never wears make up, etc. They dressed up Kristen Stewart all wrong for this... Bella would never consent to looking like that.

2) Edward does not have a nasty hairy chest! Ew!

"He turned then, with a mocking smile, and I stifled a gasp. His white shirt was sleevless, and he wore it unbuttoned, so that the smooth white skin of his throat flowed uninterrupted over the marble contours of his chest, his perfect musculature no longer merely hinted at behind concealing clothes. He was too perfect, I realized with a piercing stab of despair. There was no way this godlike creature could be meant for me." Twilight, pg.256

"He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest... a perfect statue, carved in some unkown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal." Twilight, pg. 260

Ok, what part of that makes it sound like he has a nasty carpet on his chest? Ugh, come one people, at least Photoshop it out!

3) Uh... hello, the eyes? Yeah, enough said.

4) What's with the grimy hands? Edward is always immaculately clean and well groomed. That's part of his whole "non-existant prefect guy" charm, right?

5) Poor Rob, he looks all hopped up on Percocet or something... just a terrible picture of him all together. Edward just could never look that bad even if he tried! (I dunno... maybe when he thought Bella was dead or something? But I doubt that was what they were trying to portray here)


*Sigh* Ok, thats my rant for the day. I'm sorely dissapointed in them. Boooooo to EW! And for those of you that have a hard time seeing the details I'm referring to, here is a link to go to, where you can zoom in and make the picture larger. Sorry, I'm not that cool yet with the HTML and all.

Sure I can swim... NOT!

I discovered 2 important things today at our Family Reunion Pool Party:

1) Swimming is NOT like ridding a bike. You CAN forget how to do it!
Two years ago I was pretty much coerced by my doctor to learn how to swim so that I could strengthen my back muscles in a low impact manner. I finally had to overcome my biggest fear and at 25 years of age, joined the YMCA to take swimming lessons. Watching 5 years olds swim circles around me was pretty humiliating, BUT after 6 weeks I could swim! I could not only get from point A to B (shallow to deep end and back) but I could also tread and even jump into the deep end all by myself, *gasp!* For someone who almost drowned as a kid and never wanted to get back in the water this was a major accomplishment, I'll have you know! So yeah... hooray for me, I learned how to swim. Unfortunately, we discontinued out Y membership and I quit going. Fast forward 2 years and there I was today... unable to stay afloat for more than about 10 seconds! Not good... I practiced though and by the end of the night could stay afloat for about 20 seconds and then float on my back to rest and continue treading. I guess thats cheating, but at least I didn't sink right?

2) There is NO point in opening your eyes underwater!!!
I used to think people wore goggles just because they were wusses like me and didn't want the burn/sting of the Chlorine. Going back to my fear of water/drowning... one of the biggest factors for me is the disorientation underwater. When I took the swim lessons at the Y I did so with goggles at ALL times. I refused to open them otherwise, which would throw me in a panic mode... so yeah, goggles were essential to my staying calm, especially when they had me start pencil diving into 9 feet of water. Today Iwas trying to "re-learn" how to swim, but guess what? No goggles! Uh-oh... so after a few panicky moments, I decided it was time to concquer that fear as well. I stuck my head in the water, opened my eyes and... COULDN'T SEE A THING! What is the stinking point? I expected everything to be nice and clear! Maybe I should have kept my glasses on, sheesh! Oh and the irony? All these years I was afarid of the Chlorine, right? It didn't burn/sting at all! Go figure.

4th of July birthday fun!

Besides being our country's birthday, yesterday was also my nephew Jackson's 3rd birthday! The theme was Mickey Mouse (since thats what he's into these days!) so I made him a cake to match, with a little 4th of July patriotism in there as well. I promised pictures, so here you go!

Thanks to the nasty hot and humid weather we had yesterday, I had some problems with the icing melting underneath the fondant and gooing out the edges... I now understand the difficulty all those Food Network Cake Challenge pastry chefs encounter when making their cakes in those humid locations. Things can get really sticky, really fast... I was worried the cake wouldn't make it, but thanks to the AC in our car and in Nate & Tiff's house, Mickey survived until we hacked him into pieces and devoured him! ;)

No, not another Twilight picture... *GASP!*

Nope, this time it's an HP picture from Half-Blood Prince, woohoo! I loooooooooove Luna, she is just hillarious! It must be SO much fun to play her, what an awesome character! Here she is in all her spectrespec glory... Go Quibbler! I'm guessing this is a still from a Hogwarts Express scene at the beginning of the movie?

Too bad it wasn't Edward...

Ok, so this afternoon I had to go shopping right after work to get all my stuff to make Jackson's cake for tomorrow. (Pictures to come, I promise!) I went to Crest and had to park way in the boonies because I guess everyone was there getting their 4th of July munchies? Anyway, so I get my stuff and on my way back to my car, I notice another car... Thanks to my obsession with all things Twilight, I've gotten REALLY good at spotting Cullen Cars, especially Volvo S60's! Anyway, so guess what I spot? Oh yeah, an Edward car! It was black and shiny and had tinted windows, even! Maybe I stared at it too long or something, but in any case, I was soon to be visited by the Cullen Car owner, only it was no Cullen...
So there I am, carrying this heavy grocery bag, walking across this humongous parking lot in the sweltering icky, nasty, humid Oklahoma 90+ degree heat. My hair was all wind-blown (think sweaty pony-tail thats falling out) and my face was drenched in sweat, and I was dressed in my ridiculously bright hot-pink scrubs. (This lengthy description will make sense here in a sec) Ok, so I get to my car and this Volvo has pulled out and is passing me, when it screeches to a stop. I was busy putting my groceries in my car, but when I shut the door I looked up and the car was stopped about 2 feet from me. (Um... odd) As the tinted window starts rolling down, my overworked and addled brain thinks, "Oh my gosh, please let it be Edward!" Of course it wasn't! *sigh* Instead it was this thuggish looking, blinged out guy. (And I do mean BLINGED out... down to his teeth!) This is the conversation that followed:

Dude: Um, excuse me miss?
Alex: Yes? How can I help you?
Dude: Are you married?
Alex: (Bringing up hand and flashing MY bling!) Yes, yes I am.
Dude: Oh... thats too bad.
Alex: ........... (blank stare)
Dude: You sure are very pretty, m'am.
Alex: ........... (blank stare)
Dude: (Flashes bling-bling smile and winks)
Alex: ....... uh, thanks... You have a great day!

(Run away! Run awaaaaaaaay!!!!)

I quickly hurried into my car and locked the doors. I guess it should have felt kinda good to be complimented like that, but trust me, in my nasty sweaty state, with my hair all in my face, etc... I didn't feel very pretty. I felt SCARED. I mean who does that? What could possibly possess someone to come to a screeching halt and tell a sweaty icky stranger that she's pretty? Maybe its the calloused, keep-your-head-down-and-never-make-eye-contact New Yorker in me and I'm just not all that into the whole "Southern Charm" thing... but really, I mean come on! Looking back, I realize I totally was in NO danger... I was in broad daylight, in a crowded Crest parking lot, and I was safe in my car... but yeah, that was a bit freaky.