I Just want a House...

I just want a house. A place for Ben and I to call our own. Unfortunately that has yet to happen. After viewing I don't even know how many homes and making offers on three different homes since February just to have each and everyone fall through is really starting to get on my nerves. Is it really so much to ask that we actually find a place we like in our price range and actually have someone accept our offer? On the last house we even submitted an offer above the listing price and someone outbid us by $1000. We missed out on a house we loved by a mere $1000. I'm more than a little frustrated by this point. Sorry there are no pictures to make your reading of my venting more interesting.

A little late...but here's some pretty pictures

So most people don't think of Kangaroos in Ireland but there's this great place called Fota that we went to the first day we were in Ireland. My cousins Eoin and Jack love it and its pretty much a petting zoo, without the petting since they do in fact get angry if you touch any of the animals. I would know, I got yelled at for pettting a lemur that walked up to me. This picture is in fact two very hansome men, Ben and my cousin Eoin. I'm surprised Eoin stopped talking long enough for me to take this picture, he's a chatty little man.

The second day in Ireland we went to Kinsale to meet up with some of the family. This is the view from the upper part of the town overlooking the harbor. It was beautiful.

This is actually in the harbor at Kinsale. We looked at the boats and the homes listed for $2 million Euros.

The is the whole crew in Kinsale. Ben wanted to show that the street was narrow since you would in fact have two way traffic driving to the left of these parked cars.

This was a pretty view and to prove that yes, it does rain a lot in order to make it green here.

We visited Blarney castle the third day with my uncle Ted. This is just as we were walking up to the Castle.

Better shot of Blarney Castle with its pretty flowers.

Ben's comtemplative reading of the sign at Blarney castle. Right next to him is the entrance to the dungeon.

This is my Uncle Ted, in his natural element, camera in hand. He's the family photographer and who took most of the pictures where Ben and I are both in them.

I made it to the top of Blarney Castle! I survived the winding narrow staircase. Ben kissed the blarney stone at the top, but I'll have to post that picture later since he does show a little skin while leaning back and giving the rock a smooch.

the inside of the Castle at one point there were wooden floors between the levels but they decayed at least a couple centuries ago.

I don't remember where this waterfall was but it was gorgeous, Ben was so proud he made it over the rocks to stand in front.

This is my retired semi-pro soccer player Uncle, Cormac. And his sons, my cousins Shane and Bryan. This day happened to be Bryans birthday so he was excited that our visit got him out of school for the day.

I wanted to prove that most things really are green in Ireland, including the rocks.

Mucross house is very old. And awesome. I come here every time I visit Ireland and I remembered a lot from the last time I took the tour. It made me sound smart but I guess I was really just cheating from hearing the answers last time. This is Ben, me, and Shane in front of the house. Just as a tidbit of useless information, the rich nobles slept sitting up, and in order to take a bath the servants had to carry the boiling water up three levels from the kitchen to the bathroom, talk about an annoying job. Oh yeah, this was also the day of our three year wedding anniversary. CRAZY! I can't believe I've been married that long.

This is me at the garden at Mucross house. You can't see it in this picture but they do in fact have black tulips growing here.

The boys, ben included. Ben, Bryan, and Shane. This was their favorite part of Mucross house.

So the noble family that owned Cahir Castle in Ireland built this house (the Swiss Cottage) to make it look like a peasants cottage but it was wicked expensive. The really cool thing about this house though is it was nature themed and designed to look like it grew up from the ground. You can't take pictures inside but each room has a different theme thats nature related. Funny thing though is while it has two bedrooms the family that built it never once spent the night here, it was purely used for summer entertaining. I'd like to have a house just for summer entertaining.

The aforementioned Cahir Castle. Ben went up the little steps on the bottom right of the picture. There was no railing. I did not attempt to do this.

My aunt Paula and I manning the cannon at Cahir castle. We had a blast exploring before we visited the Swiss Cottage.

This was on a beach in West Cork. Paula, Frank, Eoin and Jack took us to see the ocean. We did not go in, it was rather windy and cold. The sand was actually blowing in patterns. It was a tons of fun though hanging out with Paula and the kids. We even explored the tide pools.

This is Ben with a Guinness. He wanted me to take the picture. Its Frank's Guinness. What a nerd. I love him. This concludes the short recap of my Ireland trip. More pictures may be forthcoming.

IRELAND

I leave for Ireland in less than 12 hours so my next post should have so very pretty pictures! Now I just have to pack...

Yesterday

Yesterday was my Mommy's birthday. It was sad. I miss her.

More Pictures...

So here are some pictures that I forgot to add that obviously are necessary to add to the Vegas adventure trip:
This is Paris. Obviously a necessary photo when visiting Vegas.

This is the Castle I stayed in. It was like being inside the Disney logo. I stayed in the tower to the right of this picture up on the 26 floor, across the street from the roller coaster on top of New York New York.

This is my favorite Vegas picture. I call it Ceaser Benjamin. I love my hubby.

I'm a Slacker

So I've been to Vegas, I'm now an associate financial rep, my dog now sits, lays down, and comes on command, and I've starting doing the Carmen Electra Strip Tease work out videos and I have not blogged about any of it. I know how sad that must make you not to know the intricate workings of my life. Just kidding, I'm sure you're just as busy as I am and don't care whether I update my blog, but here goes:

Ben and I went to Vegas the last week in February to see my Dad who was there for an IT conference. We stayed at the Excalibur and my Dad stayed at the Bellagio. This is the view out our hotel window.

This was one of Ben's favorite things about Vegas, you can rent nice cars. The cars are on the side of the road in parking lots with numbers on them to call to rent them for an evening. Ben had to get a picture of me with the yellow Lamborghini.

We also took a little day trip to Hoover dam. This is my Daddy and I looking out on the Nevada side of the Dam over to Arizona side.

While at the dam I also made some friends due to the fact I had a bag of goldfish crackers the little critters loved them. What you don't see in the picture is the other 100 chipmunks in this little guys family standing about 5 feet behind him. By the end I had about 10 chipmunks fighting over each cracker I dropped.
Now this, was just creepy. They have people in Vegas whose job is to stand around and look like statues and then move and look at you when you walk past. This guys was one of these statues. There was also a white Greek looking while marble statue in the Venetian that moved. And a futurist one that looked like Mr. Freeze in front of Ceasers Places. People painted like statues...Weird.

If you can see the picture on the right it's for the Cirque du Solei show KA. THIS. SHOW. IS. AMAZING! My Daddy bought us tickets to go see this show one of the nights we were here. It's at the MGM Grand and the stage was specially built just for this show. There are a total of four stages that can all moved forward backward, tilt up and down, and go to a 90 degree angle to the floor, all while actors are on them, dancing, fights, and jumping. You watch people fun up and down the stage while is straight up and down and watch people fall 70 of 80 feet into a pit of the stage and all you can think is "I hope there's a net down there." Also they cover the stage with sand then tip that off into the pit below too. How they do it I just don't know, but it is well worth seeing.
This is us on the drive home. I was a little bit bored. We had fun though, a 5 hour drive is quite the opportunity for bonding. As long as you're not a grumpy traveler.

This was a stop we made on our way home from the Vegas. The Las Vegas Temple in all its glory. It is quite the beautiful building and a nice contrast to the strip. We stopped and did an endowment session around 12 and that temple is gorgeous inside.

To continue the temple seeing we also stopped at the St. George Temple just so we could say we've been there. This concludes the Vegas info. We had fun. I have more pictures but they're on my phone so I need to figure out how to get them from there to here.

In other news I am in fact an associate financial rep now and that does in fact mean I do nothing differently except now I can sign off on insurance applications if I want too. Still its a much cooler title and I'm excited about that, its so much more distinguished to be called an Associate Financial Representative than just an Agent Assistant.

On a more interesting note, I've been sick recently so exercise has not been at the top of my list. I couldn't sleep, or breathe, because I had a bacterial infection for a two weeks and now all that remains is a lingering cough. In an attempt to get back into shape I've been doing workout videos with Jackie. So far we've done Carmen Electra's strip tease bedroom edition and a pilates video. Who know what the future will hold. Of the two though I must say I enjoy the Carmen Electra video more. Besides I'm learning all kinds of valuable information : ).

Boston dog is also doing well and once I can get pictures off my phone onto my computer those will also be forthcoming. That's all for now!

I PASSED MY TEST!!!!!

Some of you may know that I have been studying for my Utah Life, Health, and Accident Insurance Test. I've been studying on and off for the last several months, but I kept putting off scheduling an actual time to take my test. I finally set the time and spent the week before doing nothing but eating, sleeping, working, and studying. I felt like I was in college again and not in a good way. Studying is not something I wanted to be stuck doing again. It didn't help at all that many of the people I talked to at my work who had taken the test had not passed the first time. I freaked out a little bit.

This past Thursday was the day of truth. I woke up to get in some last minute studying, ate a balanced breakfast, grabbed the textbook I'd come to despise, and drove my newly working again car to the Lindon testing center. I got my test and headed into the testing room to my assigned computer cube and started my test. I flew through as fast a I could all the while watching the question number on the right of my screen and mentally counting how many I had left until 100 and I could be done with it. At the beginning of the test there is a message about how 5 or so questions will be test questions that will not count against me but are just to see if the question should be used in future tests. I'm getting close to question 100 and I'm getting excited to be done. Then I get to questions 110, then 115, then 120. At this point I'm getting a little nervous. At 130 I got up from my computer terminal and went to the test proctor to ask if she knew how many questions were suppose to be on the test because I thought there were only 100 questions and I was on question 130. She tried not to laugh at me as she looked up my test and told me there were in fact 150 questions. I felt slightly embarrassed as I walked back to my computer and continued to take my test. And then, the moment of truth. I submitted my answers and waited for the results. It took me a few seconds to realize I actually passed. I passed by 4 percent but I passed. I. Was. Psyched.

I almost started jumping up and down right there in the testing room. Luckily I managed to control myself until I left the building, but I lost it in the parking lot. There was a victory dance and I was so excited on the drive in to work that I almost didn't notice my car overheating. My prayers of thanks turned to prayers of please let me get to work before my engine explodes. I'm proud to say I am in fact still alive and my engine did in fact not explode, but it did get as hot as the temperature gauge can measure and scare me quite a bit. My car remains in the garage for the time being and its back to car pooling with Ben.

Now back to the good news, everyone at work was so excited I passed my test. It was made better by my automatic raise that came with passing the test and that I got reimbursed for every single cent I spent on the test and test preparation. Becca, the receptionist, also said not that I had passed my insurance test all I need to do is take two fast track exams and I could be contracted as an associate financial representative.

On Friday I took my FastTrack exams and passed both with flying colors, on Monday I'll fill out my paperwork and my title will change from Administrative Assistant to Associate Financial Representative. Lets just say I'll now be equals with a certain someone at work and it cracks me up to no end. Life is good. Except for my car. But life's still good.