All I Ever Wanted

Well, he didn't go to Jared.

But I think he did even better than that anyway.

Back story.

Adam and I try to have date days with each other at least 2x a month and Adam decided to book me for this Sunday. After a huge let down of not winning that free wedding (and much less, losing it by one point), I was really looking forward to his surprise date. With our schedules - his law school and my new full time job, it's hard to find any time together.

The day started with Adam waking me up eeeeearly and made me pancakes shaped like hearts and with J's in the middle of them. Even though he didn't measure ingredients, they were still delicious :)

Our mystery day continued when our friends started showing up at Adam's house, mainly Katie, Joe, Erika, and Kate! He then told me we were going to Cedar Point.

Puke.

Now, I happen to absolutely hate Cedar Point, but since Adam had been training me since Disney to be able to stand roller coasters, I wasn't totally unwilling ;)

Our first ride was the Magnum. 1st of all, it is WAY scarier than Adam said it would be. I don't care that little kids can go on that ride. It is not made for me. Haha. 2ndly, I kept my eyes closed the entire time. And when I heard Adam tell Erika "It wasn't this one," I closed them even MORE because I was afraid they were talking about more drops.

Oi.

After we got off the ride, we followed the line to view the pictures of the ride, and I knew I would look like a moron because my eyes had been closed the whole time. Katie and Joe pointed ours out to us and my jaw dropped.

I honestly thought it was a joke.

My hands flew up to my mouth and I probably said "What?!?" about 3 times and as I turned to look at Adam, he was pulling out the ring and getting down on one knee.

I stared at him like an idiot saying nothing for forever until he said, "Well......?"

All I could do was nod yes :)

He got up from bended knee and I proceeded to...

Ball my eyes out.

The lady behind the counter told us we made their "happy book" and she wrote our story down. She then charged us for the photos.

This ain't Disney, folks. Where are the freebees when you need 'em? :)

So that's pretty much the story. We spent the rest of the day at the park while the sun beat down on us incessantly. After the park, we saw Despicable Me (GREATNESS), met Erin and Matt for dinner and now I'm here writing this story, super thankful for my new FIANCE who was not only wonderful enough to plan this amazing day for me, but was wonderful enough to invite my friends to enjoy it with us :)

I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with him and to become Jessica O'Neil :)

Neglected

*Disclaimer: I [Erika] just logged on to our blogger account after many many months of neglect and found this unpublished blog. The information is therefore a little old, but good nonetheless, so I decided to post it. :)

It has recently been brought to my [Erika's] attention just how neglected our poor little blog has been in the past months. [Thank you, James].

So this is me trying to be good again. And update you on my life.

I am still working at Blockbuster and as a dental assistant. Both jobs are going swimmingly. It's fine for now as I search for something more related to my field of study. And as I live at home. And as I chip away at the massive amount of student debt I have accumulated over the past four years.

First item of business: Blockbuster.

Things are going fine. There really isn't much to tell here. I really like all the people I work with which really is one of the most important things [in my opinion] to have in a job.

Though, I have learned that I need to be more tactful when turning people down. A while back, a guy asked for my number. My response wasn't, "No, I'm sorry I have a boyfriend." [even though that would be a lie, it does help to sugarcoat it.] Nor was my response, "No, I'm sorry, I don't date strangers." No. This was my reponse: "No. I'm sorry." That's it. No reason why. Just "No." I felt bad afterwards. Also. He used to be a regular. I haven't seen him since. Sorry, Blockbuster.

Also. A couple weeks ago, I was given my very first cheesy pick-up line. Before I tell you what it was, you should know that he was both totally serious. And totally sober. It was a guy who was trying to sell me coupons. After listening to his [LONG] spiel, I turned to walk away, and he said to me, "I just want to let you know that you have a really pretty smile." I said, "thanks," and continued walking. He then said, "And thanks for keeping America beautiful, and I don't mean picking up the litter." Hahaha. Oh, man.

Second Item of business: Dental Assisting.

I really am enjoying being a dental assistant. Again, I really love all the people I work with. They are all SO nice. And I get to do things that I never would have thought I'd do. Ever. In my life. Remember when I was worried about doing extractions? Well, call me morbid, but now they are one of my favorite things to do. It's just so fascinating. And today, the dentist had to sew somebody up after pulling their tooth. I never thought that I would be able to have a part in sewing somebody's body back together. But I did. It was gross. But oh, so fascinating.

Third Item of Business: Living at Home.

I love my family. Sure there are times when we (and by "we," I mean my siblings) bicker, but for the most part we all get along quite well. And I have to say, my mom's home-cooked meals sure do beat what I was eating in the Dining Commons a year ago. I also have full access to a television again and can watch all the sporting events I want, with people who also watch (and enjoy) sporting events. One thing I have to say that I don't like about being home is the dirt roads. I love living in the woods (I mean today, I saw about 7 wild turkeys run through our front yard. How cool is that??). But I do not love the dust, mud, bumps and potholes that come from living on a dirt road. What can I say, though. Ya win some, ya lose some. The moral of this story, though, is: I love my family.

And that's about that for now.
Ok. Peace out.

*Disclaimer: That ends the recently discovered unpublished blog. I will try my hardest to be better. . . even though I am fairly certain we have lost many (if not all) of our readers.

Breathe

I know, I know.
It's been about a billion years since I [Erika] posted. And for that, I'm sorry. But man oh man. My life has been crrrazy lately. I have to remind myself to breathe...

For those of you who don't know, I got a job as a dental assistant. And no, you're not crazy if you think that is not what I went to school for. I was, in fact a Graphic Design major. But as it turns out, you don't have to have any schooling to be a dental assistant. Don't worry. I'm not the one doing the cleaning. That's the hygenist. I'm just basically the person helping the dentist when he needs his instruments for fillings, crowns, root canals, and yes, extractions.

How did I land this job, you may ask? Well. Let me tell you. Over the summer, I was house/dog-sitting for a family that goes to Timmy and Rebekah's school. The dad is a dentist. Towards the end of the summer, he called me one day, and I assumed it was to tell me that they were going up north again and needed me to watch their doggies. But oh, no. He says to me, "I know this wasn't you're major or anything, but I was wondering if you wanted to be my dental assistant." After the initial shock, I said yes and the rest is history.

I have to say I was rather nervous about doing my first extraction. For those of you who don't know, passing out runs in the family. For my mom, it's the sight of blood. For my brother, it's needles. For my sister it's... well, she almost passed out when my mom had to "pop" one of her blisters. For me, it's always been broken bones. I broke my toe and almost passed out. Not from the pain, but just the thought of a broken bone being in my body. I jammed my finger. Passed out. Diane almost broke her finger, I got woozy. So! Since pulling a tooth can be compared to breaking a bone, I was nervous that I would get in there, he'd pull the tooth, and I'd hit the floor. Not good. But. As it turns out, I survived. The first one I did was about a week or so ago, and it went fine. I mean, it was pretty gross. He had to kind of dig around in her gums to get all of the roots. I had to smack the hole with the suction thing to suck up all the blood, which there was a lot of. My mom wouldn't have been able to handle it. Yuck. But! I didn't even feel woozy. Yes!

I am also still working at Blockbuster. And totally rockin' it out, if I do say so myself.

And when I'm not working at one of those 2 places, I'm finally working on my final class. Let me tell you, it was a trick getting registered for that darn class. Stupid money. Or lack thereof.

Also. In other news. Most of you know [if you read my past posts] that my computer conked out on me this summer. It has been dead since.... oh, I want to say... end of May, beginning of June. Something like that. My very best good friend Jessica had the marvelous idea of taking it in to the computer repair center at SAU. I did that last week, and the initial diagnosis didn't look good. He said that he wasn't sure if he could save my files.

Frick.

There go my 5,000 pictures [that's only a slight exagerration]. There go my 2,000 songs. There go all the papers and such that I wrote [ok, I wasn't too broken hearted about that]. Thank goodness I had all my art work backed up. I still had hope that they all could be saved, though.

Then a couple days later, I got a call from the tech center and he said that he wasn't able to save any of the files.

Oh no.

I was devastated. He had left a voicemail wondering what I wanted him to do next. If I wanted him to go ahead with the reboot and lose all my files or if I wanted to take it someplace else. I called back, hoping to get more of an explanation before I made a decision. And that is when he told me that he WAS able to save my files!!

PHEW.

He went ahead with the reboot, and to curtail this story, I am now typing this blog on MY computer with a software updated and all. For only $50.

There are a couple morals to this story. First and foremost: back up your files! Second, if you are still a student at SAU, take any broken computer to the tech center. Cause they are the best. If I took my computer to the Apple store or Best Buy geek squad, I would have had to pay $60 for them to even look at my computer. Lame.

Ok. Last item of business. [I know this is a long one, but it's been so long in coming, you had to expect a long, rambling blog from me :)].
I don't know how many of you may have heard, but alas, my soulmate Jiri Hudler is no longer a Red Wing. :( I know. So sad. Happy Hudler will be missed. So this means that I need a new soulmate from the Wings, and I know that you are all anxious to know who I will pick.
My new Red Wings soulmate is.... *insert drumroll here* .... Darren Helm!

I mean, c'mon. How can I NOT fall in love with that?? I also love it when the announcer says that the Detroit crowd is "knowledgeable." Yeah. We know our hockey.

Okie dokes. I think that's about it for me. We are going to FLORIDA on Monday, and I'm sure there will be a few blogs sharing that joyous occasion.

Ok, peace out.

Gives You Hell

I never thought one of my days at Disney could ever trump the horrible awfulness of my days in strollers, but I was wrong.

So wrong.

Yesterday, my dad came into town on business so Megan and I picked him up from Downtown Orlando so that we could go to T-Rex for dinner. This was all well and good, but as my dad was driving, he noticed that another light on my dashboard came on. Previously, it had just been the "ETS off" and "Check Engine" lights, but now the battery light was on. We decided to bring the car in Wednesday to get it looked at.

After dropping my dad off, the seatbelt light and ABS light come on. Megan and I are now five minutes away from home, and the airbag light and check fluid light come on. I'm in panic mode and am starting to come frightening close to Cuss-ville USA. We approach a stoplight and all of the lights go off.

All.

And then my car turns off. Completely and totally.

So Meg and I are trying to wave people around us while we figure out what to do. A cop pulls up behind us and tells me to move.

No kidding. Really? I can't just park here?

We tell him that we're calling AAA, but he tells us to just call a friend and get a jump. Okaaaaay. We call David, but he's at a Halloween party. We call Mike, David's roommate, and he books it over and gives me a jump.

As Mike's following us home, I'm on the phone with him, and I begin to panic again, because the gas pedal is pushed all the way to the floor and my car's slowing down. He tells me to keep going, but then I lose power steering and have to pull over.

Mike then decides we'll push the car home. All two miles home.

So there we are. Mike's pushing and steering, Megan and I are pushing from behind, flip flops flailing, running pell mell. Mike complains that he just showered. Megan has to pee. Things aren't looking up.

Then a humongous bus comes and tries to run us over.

Not only does it try to run us over, it calls us in to security of the apartment complex we're passing to tell on us.

Skeeze.

We pull over and Mike goes to talk to the security guards and they let us in. I finally call AAA and a tow truck comes to tow my car to the nearest repair shop. The tow truck man was in fact very jolly and put me in a good mood, which was a tremendously difficult feat. Dan. What a great guy. He even called me an hour after I got home to make sure I got home safe. Precious.

Anyway, we end up catching a ride home from Erica, a friend of ours and don't get home until about 12:30 am. We had left my dad around 9 pm? Something like that....and poor Megan had to be up for work around 5 am.

Suckiest day in Florida thus far.

To top it all off, I have a broken alternator, alternator belt, ruined spark plugs, and something to do with fluids that need to be flushed. You can add up the cost on your own.

Needless to say, no good.

A Whole New World

They're revamping my old stomping grounds of Fantasyland.  Needless to say, everyone at Disney is straight up freaking out.  Enjoy the first sneak peek :)

- Jessica

Don't Stop Believin'

I'm sorry that I'm the worst at this, but my (Jessica) days are rather full...it takes a lot to just sit down and actually write on the computer, you know?

First of all, there's work. Lots of it. But I do love it. As a Fairy Godmother in Training, I work on princess' hair and tell them stories about my life in the castle - how the Fairy Godmother (as in, Cinderella's) recruited me from Michigan to get me out of the cold weather. Now I live upstairs above the boutique, eat chocolate chip cookies for breakfast, and am 220 years old (You have to be at least 1,000 years old to be a real fairy godmother, so that's why we're all in training. Also, the pixie dust keeps us young looking, even if one princess did tell me I looked my age. Ouch.) Here are the 3 hairstyles:

The Fairytale (my favorite):

The Disney Diva:
The Pop Princess (the hairstyle on the left):

When I'm done working, I work out. I'm kind of in a competition, so I'm work out semi (but not really) -hardcore, even though I honestly think that David and Megan are being paid off to try to deter me from working out. Just a theory, but probably correct.

They distract me by inviting me to do stuff, like go to cast previews of parades, go out to movies, play in the parks, yada yada, yada. They are bad.

The cast preview of the Halloween parade was off the chain. For those of you who know me, you know that is a BIG deal that I liked the parade, considering the complete and utter disdain that I hold for parades in general. It was totally legit though. LOVED it.


The headless horseman totally took my breath away. It was excellent.


We went and saw "All About Steve" in the theaters and I haven't laughed that hard in a theater since "The Hangover."



Oh. My. Word.
SOO freaking hilarious.

In other news, I went to Cinderella's Castle to eat breakfast for Ebonee's birthday (the one with the tiara).


Again, off the chain. I never thought I'd be able to eat there!! Now I've been in every place in the castle that the public is allowed to go.

I know. Be jealous.

Also, Belle played with my hair and told me it was soft and beautiful. Excuse me while I go pass out for a bit from excitement :)

As always, for more pictures of my Disney adventures, click here.

Lastly, I got my first package in the mail yesterday!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I totally 100% loved it :)

Speaking of love, love you all (probably...considering I don't know absolutely everyone who reads this, but I'm gonna go with it's mostly true...)

Jessica

Begin Again

And so begin the chronicles of my (Jessica's) life at Disney:

About a week ago, I arrived back in sunny Orlando, and it's like I never left. I can still navigate around town, in the dark much less, without my GPS, and I'm a little ecstatic about that to say the least. I'm not quite as pitiful as I was last time I came down here :)

Thursday, I officially started work as a Fairy-Godmother-in-Training in Cinderella's castle!! As if all my dreams werent already coming true now, they put me in one of the world's most recognized landmarks and I get to play with hair and makeup all day long. Score. My outfit is pretty legit this time- you can actually tell that I have a feminine form, so I'm pretty psyched about that. Here's just a sneak preview...maybe someday I'll post a picture of me actually being a fairy godmother. We'll see. Or maybe we won't.


I've already spent a couple days doing princess' hair and makeup and nails. I've even gotten some tips so far...the money kind for all you smart alecks out there.

I'm rooming with a girl, Megan, that I've known since elementary school. It's been great living with her so far - she's a character attendant and I don't envy her job one bit. She has to be able to cut off character's lines and not be influenced by crying, pathetic children whose lives she's just ruined. No fun.

Speaking of no fun, David's the opposite. Last year, I came down to Disney all by my lonesome, but this year, David came down to intern as a character. It's really nice to have someone I know to go to the parks with and hang out with in my rather sparse spare time, but nonetheless, he's a barrel of laughs and we're gonna have so much fun this semester.


Obviously.

Also, don't worry. My love for Prince Caspian hasn't wavered in my absence.


But don't worry - I haven't forgotten about all of you. Some of the best parts of my week thus far have been talking to people, and you know who you are, from home. I really miss you guys, but thank goodness for cell phones/texting/Skype. What lifesavers.

Miss you and love you,
Jessica