A Valentine's Day Treat

The night before Valentine's Day I was feeling in the mood to procrastinate homework (which is what I spent doing my entire day today doing). So, I went over to my mom's house to hang out and she helped me make a little treat for Dalton for Valentine's Day. I'm not really one to be huge on the "romance" of days like these, but I do try to do nice things for the people who love me, as much as I can. Plus, they were DELICIOUS! Success is alway nice :)

 The ingredients were surprisingly very simple, it was all about beating it properly, I guess.

 

 Haha, my mom being a good sport past her bed time to help me roll the dough into balls :)

 My little chocolate fudge drops are done! And they were even better than I expected!

My little gift...it was raining so it needed protection :/ 

Dalton and I had class until 5pm that day, and he was planning on taking me to a restaurant for dinner, but all the places were overly packed and crazy, so we ended up saving our time and money and going to Souplantation, our traditional study place. Haha they had some Valentine themed food there and my favorite soup ever! :)

Prom 2012

This weekend, my friend's older sister threw a Prom themed party at her house, and I thought it was a great idea! Haha I am 21 years old and was going to the prom..how could this not be great?! It was actually pretty cute :) We had a lot of fun dancing to random songs and eating prom snacks. I'm surprised how many people they fit into that little house!

They decorated their whole house and even had a little "prom picture area". 

She just got a old Polaroid camera and took all the couple's pictures and put them in little frames. Haha, I was the only one who went solo. (And one of the only non-married ones...this is happening to me more and more!)

Courtney decided to wear her Halloween fro since she couldn't figure out how to wear her hair :) 

Kylee's husband, Austin. The assistant prom decorator

 And the Afro comes off :(

Cal State San Marcos Nursing School

Okay, so I know this seems very obsessive of me, but I can't help it. I'm just sitting at home, having a realizing Friday evening alone, and I can't help but think about my points on my nursing applications. At this point, I would be more than thrilled to get into any nursing school, near or far, but realistically, my chances to get into a BSN program are no better anywhere else rather than here (schools really like to pick based on residency because of the competition).

Last year I found out I only had a total of 47 points in my 2011 application. This year, I have so many more opportunities to raise my points than I thought! I can get 2 more points if get about 90 more hours of volunteer service, 3 more for taking this math class (in replace of my last math class I got a B- in), 1 more if I get .7% higher on my TEAS test. Last year I only had 54 units completed and after this semester, I'll have 83 units done (possibly more). Because the nursing school only looks at your GPA for your latest 60 units, my total GPA points will raise 2-3 points, due to cutting of my first semester of college (my worst one :/ )! So I have a potential of having 52-57 points! Last year the minimum allowed in was 51, so it IS possible for me to get in! :)

These are all the numbers I've looked at so many times over the years to see where I'm at on getting accepted. So many possibilites, options, and outcomes to look at. I only have 7 Bs and the rest of the 20 classes are all As. It's crazy how incredibly competitive this major has gotten. I know my grades aren't perfect, but I've worked pretty hard and think I've done well enough to be in a program without worries!

Hopefully after this semester, I will be in one! Although it is frustrating not being in a program, I'm glad I've learned to work hard for what I want, and that I CAN handle all this work. It helped me see that I know I want to do this with my life. At least I'm not in a situation like many of my friends in the nursing program who are dropping out and switching to completely different majors because they feel like they will never succeed. I couldn't even imagine starting all over at this point...

We'll see what happens for me in Round 2 in 4-5 more months! :) My fingers are crossed and I've got my A-game ready! (Literally.)

Twenty/20 Bar and Grill

I must the luckiest girl ever! Birthday dinner #3 (well...4 if you count my pre-birthday dinner in Vegas) was with my mom, her husband, Kevin, and my brother at this nice little wine bar and grill at the Sheraton near Legoland. Our waitress was the happiest and peppiest one I have ever had, which was definitely entertaining :)

 I got the Moroccan Spiced Chicken (recommended by our waitress). It came with zucchini, my favorite, salsa, and this shallot bread pudding that was surprisingly the best part!

 After dinner, they brought me a surprise "adult" birthday shake! Very tasty!

 When we got back home, I discovered the breath-a-lizer and force tested my mother :)

Birthday cake #264.21

 My slightly Asian mom...

Family portrait..haha

Weird lighting with my brotha

East Village Asian Diner

Last night, I went to my birthday dinner with my Dad, Melissa, and Nicky to this cool little Asian food place in downtown Encinitas. I actually almost didn't end up making it to the dinner...and I found out I was never really invited! Apparently, my brother told my mom that he would not make it to dinner at her house because he had a birthday dinner with my dad and me. Luckily, my mom mentioned the dinner to me by telling me to have fun at my birthday dinner, because before that, I had no idea it even existed! I guess my dad had sent me a couple text messages about it and I never received the text about dinner but received another one after that I had replied "okay" to. Luckily, after investigating whether my brother was pulling a fast one on my mom or not, I made it just in time to my dad's house :)

But anyway, I thought the restaurant was really cool in a simple, quirky, clean kind of way. The food there was also delicious. (And they were playing Ponyo on the TVs there...my favorite!) The appetizers were good and my brother and I both got these dishes in "Monk Pots" which seemed similar to the fajita plate idea where the pan is scorching hot.

 I have a weird fancy for the red plastic chopsticks...

Our delicious appetizer...they're called Mung Pancakes. Way tastier than they look here. 

This is the Monk Pot. The bowl was sizzling the food when it came out, and the combination of all the toppings and sauces was DELICIOUS!! 

The * at the bottom says: maybe. Haha, I just thought this was funny.

 Yummy specials every day!!

Afterwards, we went back to my dad's house where they got me a chocolate ganache covered mousse cake and a fancy little swiveling suitcase for all my travels!

Blue Velvet Cheesecake

Pinterest.com has tricked me into making so many foods ever since Cindy and my step-mom, Melissa converted me into it recently. Last night, I discovered a Blue Velvet Cheesecake with cream cheese frosting topped with blueberries and blueberry sauce. I loveee velvet cakes and blueberries are my favorite, so I had to make it. Unfortunately, it wasn't as fluffy as I was hoping, and I know I did a couple things wrong...but the homemade frosting was delicious!

I WILL make a cake right one of these days!!

21st Birthday in Las Vegas

I posted this a while ago, but somehow I accidentally erased it...ohh, the wrath of technology :/

Friday after my Spanish Internship class, I left with a few of my friends to go to Vegas. Originally, we were planning on staying at Circus Circus, but the day before we left, we noticed that the Luxor was about the same price as what we paid for Circus, so we traded! I think the Luxor is one of my favorite (affordable) hotels there. Got to stay in a modern day pyramid for my birthday! :)

When we got there later that afternoon, we headed over the Benihana at the Hilton for a pre-birthday dinner. Our friend, James, is living just outside Las Vegas right now, so he decided to join us at dinner.

The notorious horrible Benihana group picture

(From left to right: Grant, McKenzie, me, James, Kristal, Dalton and Eric)

 Our chef was hilarious. He made up an eccentric love story about him and me in high school and our long lost love...and mainly what I was missing out on :)

The elevators in the Luxor go up at a diagonal angle, and there was one particularly terrifying one. After we went on the first time, we refused to go back on. We did accidentally end back up on it, and it was so bad that we decided to get off and walk rather than go for a rattling rie up and down 13 stories. Conveniently, the stairs were almost as horrific...

 At midnight, Eric (my only 21+ friend who could make it) and I went down to the Casino to find a good "first drink". We ended up wandering around because I was tired and not very interested (putting all my energy towards school tends to make me boring in the middle of the night), so I ended up settling for a margarita, took about 3 sips and went to bed!

 The next morning, Kristal gave me her leftover voucher from the casino as an "morning birthday present".  I really have zero interest in gambling, but if it was free, I don't see why not. After a few minutes at the slots, I got some magical free spin and the ticker landed on the $46,503 jackpot slot! And of course, being that I did not have my non-existant Player's card and was only betting 80 cents per turn, the ticker decided to move over one slot and give me $6 instead. :( If it only knew I would be putting all that money to a very good, educational cause!

That day, we ended up walking down the strip looking at hotels and shops while people watching and then headed to the mall at the other end of the strip at Treasure Island. My feet were killing me! Navigating through crazy people for 2.5 or 3 miles is way more of a challenge on the feet than I expected.

 That night, we went to the Rainforest Cafe to "eat with the animals". I think this place is pretty cool with all the animal noises and periodic "thunder storms", it's a cool experience. After dinner, the waiters came running through the restaurant screaming "volcano!" and brought us this ice cream/cake dessert.

There seemed to be SpongeBobs everywhere, especially at Excalibur...and I am not sure why. This is above the arcade we decided to stop by after we were done with our stop at Dick's. If we're going to drop coins into machines, I would prefer it to be games anyway :)

Everyone had originally wanted to go to Dick's Last Resort for dinner, where they are explicitly rude to you throughout your entire meal. I was able to get out of that one, because although it is entertaining to make a trip there every now and again, on your birthday (especially a 21st), it's a little outrageous.

On weekends (and probably most week nights too, they have this ^ guy jump/dance around in a red string bikini, give people disturbing lap dance and smash head into his "taco belly". Girls (above the age of 18 of course) on their birthday, get extra taco attention...NO THANK YOU!

Instead, we just stopped by the bar to get a couple minutes of harassment entertain and looked at the shop.

This was a GREAT weekend and a wonderful 21st birthday present. I'm so happy my friends were able to make it and spend the weekend with me. I had so much fun! Thanks Kuhn family and friends!

Super Bowl Sunday

We got home from the long drive home from Vegas just about as the Super Bowl was starting. (It's been a bittersweet thing sharing my birthday with the Super Bowl every year). I quite a bit of homework to do for school early in the morning and did NOT want to! 4 hours of car sickness is the worst :/ So I ended up procrastinating and pretended to myself to be interested in the game and make some Spinach Atrichoke dip. Let me tell you...this from scratch was not nearly as simple as I assumed. I forgot what a pain artichokes are to prepare!

 I cut up some of the giant pack of Costco pita chips I had and enjoyed my little procrastinating snack :)

And ended up being up past midnight doing homework :/ Oh well, I had a great weekend anyway! :)