& that's the way life goes<br /> my not-so fairytale

mah furkids

10-03-2010 by rialeilani

C and I adore our dogs…

We adore

making fun of them
putting things on them that make them look funnier
irritating them
poking each other and saying ‘look’ when they do something cute
talking about them when we are at work

…you know that kind of smushy stuff. When we were in California we were cooing over all the cute dogs and how Nani would enjoy the beach and Scooby would enjoy the other dogs and Liko would enjoy the sand. In short, we miss them immensely when we go on vacation (though truthfully in the days leading up to vacation we tell them we can’t wait to have a break from them haha).

So here is some visual love of my canine kids. I should warn you that Scooby is our model. Nani isn’t all that photogenic and Liko is usually burrowed under the blankets.

Want more? Check out the Mah Furkids gallery

Tags: liko, nani, scooby category: dogs, family | 10 comments »

happy sunday

08-03-2010 by rialeilani

I had a kickass Sunday! And to be honest I woke up a nervous ball of energy because I knew I’d be seeing my family later in the day. (I’ll apologize now, this post is image heavy and a lil on the long winded side!)

Aerial yoga was AWESOME. It was full of accomplishments for our last class of this 8 week session. It is definitely mind blowing how much Sarah, Mandy and I have achieved. We have tons more strength and stamina than we had when we first started. Not only that but the difference even between last week and this week was stellar.

Sarah totally rocked the midair footlock and most of all she conquered her fear of the half cross and full iron cross. For the full iron cross she had to do it twice because I didn’t have my camera ready. She’s even smiling!

Mandy totally kicked the fabrics ass, look at her splits! (I stole this picture from Paul’s Facebook)

I, my friends, finally flipped upside down in the locust! We only did this trick once during the session and I almost had it. Yesterday I was determined to do it.

I also got pretty with pointing my toes, something I learned from Sarah

Look at the ghosties in this one!

And this was something new we did in warm ups. I’m not going to lie I freaked out and might have screamed a little bit taking my leg off the bar (I stole this picture from Paul’s facebook too)

This class was just totally awesome. I don’t even have the words to describe it. I love pushing myself and trying new things. I can’t wait for the next session to start and to initiate Jenni into the circus world! I know she’ll rock it!

In other news, Mae is having an awesome giveaway on her blog. It’s a Hana Elite 1″ flat iron hair straightener. It’s ok if you don’t enter, that means I have more chance of winning. I curled my hair this weekend with my flat iron it was so easy!

And lastly, I saw my grams yesterday. Of course we pretended like nothing ever happened. Like I said, she’s family so what am I going to do? I just know now not to let her in too much, because when I need someone, she’s no replacement for my Mom.

I would also like to mention that my cousin T is expecting her first baby in May and she is adorable. She’s so tiny! It was really nice to see her and her husband yesterday.

Tags: aerial yoga, hana elite flat iron category: photos, weekend | 14 comments »

love affair with yogen fruz

05-03-2010 by rialeilani

Besides the beautiful sunsets, warming sunshine and beyond awesome weather; I think my favorite thing was Yogen Fruz. No seriously. They had green tea frozen yogurt. I’m easy …easy like sunday morning… and that totally made my trip. I was really sad I only got it once.

There are couple frozen yogurt places by my work so I decided to venture out since I’m skipping my lunch time jog at the gym. I almost peed my pants when I saw green tea on their menu. Of course they didn’t have it. Boo. Instead I settled for Pomegranate with kashi granola, strawberries and kiwi. It was still good but no green tea!

I’m begging someone to open a Yogen Fruz in Michigan. Please?

Tags: green tea yogurt, yogen fruz category: girl thoughts, vacation | 10 comments »

a facebook story & brain fart

03-03-2010 by rialeilani

I’m clicking around Facebook thinking how I really don’t feel like blogging. Sure I have things I want to share. Like how I adore Jenni and we had a fabulous time at dinner last night, with the exception of a server who didn’t care to give us any attention and wanted to rush us out ASAP. Did we smell? I didn’t think so.

Or a bunch of us girls are going to see Alice in Wonderland and grab dinner next week. But I don’t feel very verbal.

Right, so now I’ve told you those things. But what made me write a post was where I ended up on Facebook.

A little backstory…

There is this guy that I stumbled across by accident awhile ago on someone I worked with in college’s page. I knew him when I was little, like 10. His grandma lived next door to my great aunt. We were penpals for a second when his family moved to Saudi Arabia. Yeah. Saudi Arabia. One summer he chased me around my aunt’s house with his trombone and I locked myself in the bathroom. We also played a game of Trivial Pursuit. He was smart for a kid his age and I guess I was too cuz I could hang.

Anyhow. Quite by accident I came across his music page. I was like no way it can’t be the same DL. (I would totally link to him but this is kind of my safe haven from IRL people. If you want to check it out email me/twitter me and I’ll send you the link.) It was. I sent him a quick message just saying something along the lines of you probably don’t remember but your grandma lived next door to my aunt blah blah blah. Honestly, I don’t think he remembered who I was but that’s cool. In certain areas I have a memory like an elephant (is that the saying?).

Wow this is taking a long time to tell. Hang in there ok?

So I’m clicking around Facebook this afternoon and I saw his page in my fan pages so I”m checking it out again along with his band pictures and I had the urge to pick up the phone and call my mom. What?! That doesn’t happen often but I kinda forgot for a milisecond that I can’t do that. I think she’d get a kick out looking at his artist page. He was an interesting dude. Hello, he lived in Saudi Arabia when he was like 11 and from what it says on his page he’s moved to many different places. Secretly, I think my mom hoped we would date sometime.

It’s just weird when things like that happen. It’s like I have a brain lapse and it’s kind of a pain (no pun intended) to have to face reality.

Way to make a short story long huh?

Tags: facebook category: girl thoughts, photos | 5 comments »

quick saturday post

27-02-2010 by rialeilani

Yesterday was a pretty good day except now I’m left feeling guilty because I didn’t make it to my uncle’s retirement party. In all honesty, I tried. I got out on the roads to go pick C up from hockey so we could head out but I’m deathly afraid of black ice. This comes from totaling one car, smashing another and doing a 360 on a main road. My chest gets tight and I start to wheeze. To me it wasn’t worth it to drive an hour. I’m sure because of it I’m the topic of what an awful relative I am for not showing.

Besides that I hung out with my girl LP. I <3 this girl. We’ve been friends since I was 3 and we’ve had major ups and downs but she’s become a sister to me. So much that there are times I admittedly want to strangle her but I wouldn’t trade her for the world. That’s when you know your friends have crossed the line to a sister. Even when I want to kill her (clearly not literally) I’d never think of pushing her out of my life. I know that she will always be there, just like I”ll always be there for her.

I worked out with her and her trainer, we got lunch and did a little shopping. I bought this awesomeness because I’ve needed some nice hooker boots for when I go out. Also, I think they will be perfect for our Chicago adventure with LP and her boyfriend in June. I am trying to save money but I think this was a pretty good purchase.

Have I mentioned that C invited LP and her boyfriend to go to Chicago with us? I was shocked when he asked them but I’m so excited! We are going to take the train, similarly to what we did for C’s birthday last year (part 1, part 2, part 3).

Lastly, OMG USA vs CANADA tomorrow in hockey! I’m so excited and nervous at the same time. It will hopefully be an awesome game regardless of who wins. {USA, USA, USA }

Tags: chicago, madden girl boots category: girl thoughts | 4 comments »

you got questions? i got answers

25-02-2010 by rialeilani

With a little persuading from Jenni, I decided to jump on the bandwagon.

<a href="http://www.formspring.me/rialeilani" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.formspring.me');">http://www.formspring.me/rialeilani</a>

I promise my answers will be completely honest.

xoxo

Tags: formspring, random category: girl thoughts | No comments »

thought purge

24-02-2010 by rialeilani

I’m taking a break from the San Diego pictures because honestly, I cry a little each time I look at them. They have sun the majority of the time. We have clouds and right now, SNOW.

…My job is a little iffy right now. In reality, it will probably be ok. Hopefully, we won’t have to take a 5% paycut or whatever else the state is deciding on. Because 5% is more than I’ve gotten in cost of living raises in the past 3 years. I did a job search looking for jobs in my area and I came up with nothing in Michigan. Yeah. I really would hate to have to take a job I wasn’t going to advance in or learn. And talking about that, well, I know I can’t stay where I’m at forever. I get antsy and frankly, bored.

…Thank you to all my guest bloggers! When are we getting together for karaoke?! Maybe next month when everyone is back from their vacations?!

…Keeping with the honesty, aerial yoga was not stellar the past couple of weeks before my trip, but last Sunday? Awesome. I think it helps a lot the group of people you are with. I actually was in a group with Sillygrrl again I know I’ve said it before but the girl is GRACEFUL!

Right before I literally unrolled and fell out…classy

…I prefer the trapeze, there is something about being wrapped up in the fabric that freaks me out. It’s one of my goals is to get over that because hello, that’s kind of weird.

…My dad is going to be 60 this year! Jenni has offered to help me plan the party! Now I just have to save some money and get his friends numbers.

…I’ve been watching Team USA in hockey. Did you know Rafalski (Dearborn/Allen Park) and Kesler (Livonia) are both from the Detroit area?

…So I twittered yesterday about babies. I don’t coo over babies like I will over puppies or dogs in general. Don’t get me wrong I love my friends’ kids and the occasional child will make me say, “oh she/he is so cute” but I guess I’m just not there. Part of me feels bad about it, even though I know I shouldn’t.

Anything you’d like to share?

Tags: aerial yoga, family, hockey, random, work category: girl thoughts | 12 comments »

a valentines day in SD

23-02-2010 by rialeilani

Valentine’s Day started with the most perfect sunrise over the mountains. Yes we were up at sunrise, that is how we roll. No matter what we did we were up early every day!

We drove up to La Jolla and walked around a bit.

Wanting to jump in the car and just drive we decided just to see where we ended up. (I look thrilled, huh?)

Well we ended up at a mall in La Jolla because C had to pee. But it wasn’t quite 11am and the stores weren’t open. We looked for a rest room but ended up walking back out into the parking lot. Across the parking lot was a Crate and Barrel and I saw a couple come out. So we hurriedly made our way over there. We saw the workers standing at the door and we looked at each other like , are we ready to deal with salespeople? But by this time we both had to pee (lots of coffee will do that) so we sucked in a breath and pasted a smile on our face. As we walked in they told us to grab a registry gun and to help ourselves.

Help ourselves?

We had walked into an engagement promotion at Crate and Barrel. I slipped off my wedding band and left my engagement ring on (something I only wear when we go on vacation because normally it just gets in my way). I asked C to take his off but he didn’t believe me that all the people in there were engaged couples. As we mocked shopping we ran across mimosas, strawberries and chocolate, waffles, cupcakes, pancakes and more. It was awesome because we hadn’t yet had breakfast!

After we used the restroom and gotten some mimosas we were looking at furniture. I unnerved impressed C with my quick skills of fibbing our engagement and wedding date (as he kept his left hand in his pocket). When we left he was like I didn’t know you could lie like that! It was fun to pretend for awhile.

Afterward we headed into San Diego where we wondered around San Diego Harbor. C had wanted to join the navy so we bought tickets to the USS Midway.

Got some Valentine’s Day sushi, where C actually used his chopsticks (even if he cheated a little)

Checked out the Star of India

(C has cooler pictures of this on his camera)

Watched the sunset over the harbor

And back at the condo he was cracking me up while we ate the pizza we ordered

It was a really good day and classic C and M style. Low key and trying to avoid crowds of people.

Tags: la jolla, san diego, san diego harbor, uss midway category: photos, vacation | 11 comments »

the beauty of the D

22-02-2010 by rialeilani

I’m guess posting over at Supergirl’s. In her words, check it.

The Beauty of Detroit

category: guest blogging | No comments »

san diego part I

by rialeilani

I need to start off by saying that C and I aren’t planners. We don’t go on vacation with a list of things we MUST do. Sure we’ll pick out a few cool things that maybe we will get around to doing, but in reality, we walk around aimlessly. When I say walk, I mean that literally. We also rent bikes and explore that way too.

So the day it snowed in 49 states? It fucked our flying plans. The closure of the Atlanta and Dallas hubs backed up all the flights and because Delta has it’s head up it’s ass, we waited 3 hours just to check in. JUST TO CHECK IN. We missed our 9am flight and had to be put on standby to fly into LA. They put our luggage on the first flight out so we were stuck flying there unless we wanted to trust them to get our luggage to us. Um no.

C called Delta’s reservation line multiple times as we waited on standby to see if there was anything else we could do. If we could fly into somewhere else and get a flight the next day, or something. There were over 20 people flying standby that had missed the same flight we had. Did I mention that the flights to LA were overbooked too? On all these calls never once did anyone let him know we could receive a discount on a rental car. We ended up paying $300 more because we had to rent a car in LA and drop it off in San Diego.

We finally got on a flight, rented a car and got to San Diego around 11:30pm PST. We had been up since 5am EST. You do the math. When we got to the condo we immediately passed out though I remember having a conversation about how the sheets smelled musty. Yeah. I don’t even want to talk about that.

After all that, we did have a good time and the weather was GORGEOUS. We flew out Thursday and Friday was bringing rain so we definitely timed that trip perfect.

Enough talking! Here are some pictures

We stopped in Redondo Beach to grab some dinner on the way to San Diego.

C just wanted to eat