Pimp my blog

Thanks to a fellow friend's post I was able to makeover by blog! I added a new header by following a tutorial someone posted. I downloaded a program called Picasa, it's super cool and easy!  I just spent 10 minutes playing around and look what else I created. Can't wait to play around with it some more!

If you want to learn how to create your own header click here for the link to the blog!

Chicago Day 3

Today we went downtown to the heart of Chicago! It was so amazing! The buildings are so big and so old, you can see how much history Chicago has. My parents and I went to the Sears Tower, now known as the Willis Tower and went up to the 103 floor to the SkyDeck! It was so pretty to see Lake Michigan (which is huge!) and I was super excited to go in their Skydeck which is like a human window that puts you on the side of the building 1,453 feet above the city! It was funny because I had to force my dad in it because he was scared and my dad is NEVER scared!

After the tower we ate at a place called Coco Pazzo Cafe which is an Italian restaurant, it was delicious! Even though Chicago is freezing in the winter time, I really like it. I've thought about applying to Northwestern University for graduate school and today we drove past the campus which right smack dab in the middle of downtown. I'm still trying to decide if I would enjoy walking on a campus that is downtown...and if I would want to walk in freezing temperature haha but the thought of living in Chicago is super exciting, so I guess we'll see!

We were hoping to go back downtown tomorrow but a huge blizzard is coming. Not like the so-called "blizzard" Utah had a few months ago but a full on crazy storm. They're calling it one of Chicago's top five worst storms, schools and flights have even been canceled ahead of time!! Not really excited for this...but it's kinda cool that we get to witness something so...historic? Maybe after tomorrow's storm my love for Chicago will lessen, I'll let ya'll know :)

Chicago Day 2

So as many of you may know from my DOZEN facebook check-ins and tweets, I am in Chicago! This is my first time here, this trip was somewhat random! My parents' friends from high school live here and we flew out to visit them. My parents were both born in Lithuania and we speak Lithuanian at home so it has been super cool in Chicago because there are Lithuanian towns and communities!

The first night our friend's daughter took me to a restaurant where EVERYTHING was Lithuanian, the people, food, signs, everything haha. It was awesome to meet Lithuanians my age, it was a crazy time!

Then this morning my parents and I drove to a little suburb called Lemont where there is a place called the Lithuanian world center. There we attended mass which was in the Lithuanian language. It was super interesting although there were parts I didn't understand haha. After speaking and hearing in Lithuanian for the past 48 hours I have to admit that when we went to Walgreens I wasn't sure if people would be speaking English or not, it's been an awesome experience thus far. Stay tune for more updates :)

So crazy to me to see Lithuanian places, Utah has nothing like this

Inside the Lithuanian community church

Jealousy

I've been thinking lately and I decided that it is so unfair that we, as human beings, feel emotions that we have no control over. It sucks feeling sad or angry and not knowing why we feel that way. It's the same with jealousy. It's not like we purposely make ourselves desire what someone else has or despise someone because they are dating the guy we like. It's sad that girls are rude, even vicious, when they become jealous of another girl.

I've had girls talk behind my back, saying things that aren't true and truly hurt me. And everyone will say "oh they're just jealous."  To me it doesn't really make sense...I'll be the first to admit that I too feel jealous at times. Growing up I would be jealous of girls that my crush liked or the soccer girls who were so popular. Even today, I will be Facebook stalking (dang Facebook) or reading blogs and I think "wow I am so jealous she has the perfect husband", "they are so cute together, why can't I have a perfect relationship", "her hair is gorgeous, why is mine so lame", "she's so creative or talented"...blah blah blah! And obviously, everyone does this, it's pretty normal. But there has to be a reason behind why we feel certain emotions such as jealousy.

Over the summer I was speaking to a friend of mine and we came upon the topic of jealously and spoke about how it ruins friendships, lives and much more. Obviously, there wasn't much we could do to reverse the feelings of jealously so we just let out a sigh and dwelled on how unfortunate it was when people encounter jealously. After we parted I came across a quote that spoke volumes.

"Envy is the art of counting the other fellow's blessings, instead of your own"

Sometimes we become so consumed in what others have, we forget what we have. I can almost guarantee there is someone who is as jealous as you are because they are looking at you and saying the same things.  It is easy to want more and envy others, but it isn't always healthy. There is a reason envy is one of the seven deadly sins because it can eat away at you causing you to ruin friendships or become hateful. It's hard to take a step back and count your own blessings but you should, because most of the time the things we envy may not be worth envying at all, besides we don't know what goes on behind closed doors but we know the blessings that our behind our doors :)

NYE Vegas

First off, Happy New Year! 2011 is going to be awesome!! I rang in the new year in Vegas and to be completely honest, the whole trip did not seem like real life! So get comfy in your chair because here is the story of my crazy Vegas adventure! It's super long but super AWESOME to read :)

My bestie Kelly and I drove down to Vegas on the 30th, from Orem all the way to Payson (25 miles) we were going 20MPH because the road was PURE ice! Of course, the major blizzard decided to come the night before we left so we had a nail biting drive all the way until Cedar City (175 miles from Vegas) where the roads finally cleared up. Luckily we made it safely to Vegas and within the hour, our crazy adventures had begun!

Kelly and I were waiting to pick up her friend from the airport so we decided to go to a dollar store to buy some champagne glasses...we found a store called "Super $" (yes, not dollar, but $)...the people inside didnt speak english and we didn't find our champagne glasses. Of course, I had to use the bathroom and of course, the bathroom door was locked and they didn't have the key. So we went next door to a Spanish cell phone store and it was empty and it smelt like a mix between burritos and wood. Then...finally a lady runs out from the back as a guy walks behind her and she is fixing her top as she greets us...(hmmm wonder what they were doing) and they didn't have a bathroom either. Next, we went to this mexican restaurant (by now i'm thinking this "plaza" is for the spanish community of las vegas). They DID have a bathroom...but it was like a jail cell, literally. I didn't even want to wash my hands because everything was broken and so gross that I didn't dare touch anything (hah TMI?). Anyway so that was the beginning of our adventures...

When it was time, we arrived at the airport and picked up Kelly's friend Katie. We checked into our hotel just as our other two friends, Kristen and Steph, got to the hotel. We got ready and headed to Lavo for dinner. When we got there, a man named Sergio said "hey ladies you going to the club tonight?". We said yes and he said he could get us into Tao and Lavo nightclub free of charge blah blah so we got his number and went to dinner. Our waiter was super cute and totally hooked us up by giving us a free round of shots ha welcome to vegas! After dinner we headed to Tao, when we get there we see a HUGE line wrapping around the entire first floor...we were like you have got to be kidding?! So we found a security guard and said "we're on sergio's list". Before we knew it, security unhooked the velvet rope and was escorting us to the front! VIP style! But they weren't going to let me into the club!

I was using my friend's ID and I was soooo nervous! The bouncer took a look at me and said...do you have anything else? I said "no is there a problem?" (I knew what to say because kelly and I had practiced getting rejected on the drive down) he asked me something else and I told him I had just turned 21 on the 8th of december (I had the entire ID memorized). Next, he asked what year I graduated, "2008", "2008?" he questioned as if it was wrong...and I rolled my eyes and said yea! Then he asked me to sign my name (well...my friend's name), don't worry I practiced this before I left too. So I signed the name, he looks at it and says go see him. He points towards this even bigger black bouncer who pulls me to the side and starts playing 21 questions with me. "What's your address? What's your zip code?" By now my heart is beating so hard I thought they would see it trying to jump out of my chest. Luckily, I kept my cool and answered the questions correctly and smoothly. Again, he asks me to sign my name, acting annoyed, I did. He looked at it and said "thank you",  I was in! Now that I look back and think about it, I looked NOTHING like that ID haha.

We were in TAO and it was ok. I had never been in a club in Vegas before, it was dark and there were tons of people lined up to get free drinks. By now, all of our feet were killing us and we decided to leave after an hour of being there (so much for getting interrogated). We ended up back at Planet Hollywood, which is where we were staying, and headed to KOI nightclub (at 1am).

Me and Kristen at TAO

I got into KOI no problem! We LOVED this club! Somehow we ended up in one of the booths on the side and had a good time. We danced the night, I guess morning, away and I look over just in time to see our friend, Kristen fly down to the floor as she pulls Kelly down with her! The other girls and I rush over and help them up...by now we figured it was time to head back to the room. As we leave the club a guy yells "she's bleeding!". We look at Kristen and blood is running down her neck! I guess as she fell she hit her head and cut it. We made it back to the room and put Kristen in the tub as I cleaned the blood off her neck. Long story short, she was fine, and the next morning we decided that she DEFINITELY had a concussion...haha whoops!

Now it was new year's eve! We got ready and went to dinner, after dinner it was only 8:30 so we had a little photo shoot in our room while we waited for the time to pass. Next, we started to make our way to the Palazzo hotel where Katie's friends had a suite. The walk wasn't too bad but I have never seen so many wasted people in my life. The strip was shut down and even the cops were cat calling us...

Vegas was FREEZING on NYE

In the suite there was about 30 random people I've never met. We stayed there till 11:30 and headed out to the strip and it was PACKED! We lost Katie and Steph, so Kelly, Kristen and I stood in front of the Palazzo and counted down to the New Year. We were right in front of the fireworks which lasted forever!

After the fireworks ended we kept searching for the other two girls. We couldn't find them and just when I thought the night was going to be incident-free...Kelly disappeared. Not just, go to the bathroom-be right back disappear, like literally GONE! Kristen and I waited to see if she would appear, she didn't. Oh and the best part was that she had lost her phone so we had no way to contact her. Fast forward two hours later, we walked around the hotel 5 times searching for her, no where to be found. We went to security and filed a missing person's request. We gave him the worst description ever, "blonde hair, black heels, short dress, sparkly purse", which was practically every girl in Vegas. He said he would report it over the radio and call us if he found anything. 

By 4am, Kristen and I decided to make our way back, on the way back to our hotel we ran into a guy on the side of the strip who was bleeding from his mouth, cops surrounding him, we have no idea what happened but he obviously didnt have a good New Years. Next, this guy, who i'm sure was on acid or something! Comes up to us asking which way north was...and then proceeds to tell us he was Michael Chin who served in Iraq and the rest of his life story...weird. Once we made it to our room, to our lovely surprise we see Kelly in bed sleeping like an angel. Thankfully she made it back.

Come morning Kelly tell us she had soooo much fun! She found some gay guy who she gambled with and she won $150 and he walked her back to the room...all while we were thinking we had lost a friend haha. Anyways, it was the day to check out. We went to valet to retrieve our keys and it was supposed to be an hour wait until we got our car! Come on! So we bribed the guy $10 and he said it would take 15 minutes. Those 15 minutes turned into 3 hours. They had lost Steph's car keys. How can valet lose keys?! Her car was unlocked so we searched the inside for them and they were no where to be found. The manager said they would have to make a new key. Seeing as it was New Year's day, we would have to stay another night. 

I'm not gonna lie, by this time I was READY to go home...but a flight home was $250, ONE WAY! So we all stayed and Planet Hollywood gave us a FREE two night stay with FREE buffet! We walk into our new room and it was UPGRADED! HUGE room with the BEST view ever!!! This was not real life!

The sick view from our new room

After resting, we were out for our, hopefully, final night in Vegas. Don't worry, the adventures just kept coming. After dinner we headed back to KOI, hoping Kristen wouldn't get another concussion haha.

Me, Katie, Kelly, Kristen, Steph

Inside Koi we got called in the VIP roped off section, which made us feel special haha and we had a great time with no busted open heads. When we left this guy runs up to me with star-struck eyes and asks "Can I have your autograph??!!" and me, thinking he's joking or high responded with "what?!". He thought I was Robin from How I met your mother, Colbie Smulders....no joke. He LEGIT thought I was her.

I had never seen the show, but I guess I look like her haha. So after I got through that whole ordeal, I run into my friends from UTAH! So random! We walked around the casino and I ended up winning $90 on roulette. Haha bomb! We had some dinner at 4am and went to bed. Finally the next day Kelly and I drove home. Our friends had to stay another night because their keys weren't ready and they got FREE tickets to Peepshow! Sooo jealous, but Kelly and I had the funniest ride home and I've got to say I was glad to be home, but that was the best trip ever! No wonder they were able to make the movie The Hangover because crazy stuff happens in Vegas! Good times!