OMG I AM SO BROKE!!! + vacation

And I hate it!

I owe $364 to my mom! Well $200 is what RYAN borrowed from her for Vegas. $100 is for my parking ticket, which I have yet to explain. And $64 for my phone bill. Plus rent is due in ten days, I'm not getting a paycheck this week, and I don't have a single dollar in my wallet! What in the world am I going to do????

More importantly, what is RYAN going to do? He's as broke as I am. No, he's more broke because he owes ME close to $1,000 (which I don't plan on getting from him for a long, long time), and he pays much more rent than I do! He'll probably have to borrow more money from me.

I should start charging him interest. Hahaha.

The dryer is taking 12 years to finish drying our laundry (wow we have like eight loads of laundry to do!), so I'm going to update about my summer so far. Finally.

So Dougie came to visit for like five days. That was LOADS of fun! I went over to David and Sarah's and we all got smashed which was great. Dougie spent two nights at my mom's house. We got to fight and pick on each other like old times and it was so much fun! We drove my mom up the wall, which was the goal. We went out one night and washed his new truck. Another night we got WASTED!!! It was so much fun. I was so sad to see him go! Next month he'll be in the Mojave training for Iraq, so I might drive down one weekend to visit him. Even though it's like a seven hour drive!

He's leaving some time in October-December for Iraq. He'll be there for a year. I'm worried to death about him, but he swears to me that he will be okay. If anything happened to him, my world would end. He's one of the few REAL family members I have left, and by far the most important to me (of course with the exception of my parents).

So my mom and I are going to try to fly out to Texas for a weekend to visit him before he leaves. And while he's gone, I'll be sending him loads of care packages stuffed with chips and cookies and cigarettes and all other kinds of goodies that are hard to come by over there. By God, he will be the most spoiled soldier in Iraq if I have any say in the matter! My Dougie will be living as good of a life as he can in Iraq. That's for damn sure. I wont have it any other way.

Fourth of July. Fun, but not as fun as last year. We went to the same beach this year with a load of people. Good fireworks, but not as good. At least we were more prepared this year, and we ate well! Only when we left, we found a $100 parking ticket on my car.

See, I find this really funny, seeing as how a POLICE OFFICER TOLD ME TO PARK THERE. WHY in the WORLD would a police officer tell me to park somewhere where I would be violating a parking law? Which, by the way, I should note that it was an UNPOSTED parking violation!

Absolutely, undeniably, incredibly ludicrous.

Looks like someone was such a shitty cop that they needed to lower themselves to telling people to park in the wrong spots just so he could fill his quota.

Yes, he was the same officer that later wrote the ticket.

I tried to fight it, but I was told if I did I would have to appear in court, and I decided I didn't really want to drive ALL the way back to Santa Cruz to fight a parking ticket. Too much of a hassle. So I just paid the damn thing.

If I had more time though, there's no doubt I would have fought it. Especially since I was one of the few people who got one, while there were many more cars violating the law. BUT fuck it.

Looks like we're doing something different next year.

Vegas rocked. So much that we stayed two extra days. We lost everything, and it was awesome. I had lunch with Kris one day which was great! It was so good to see her again!

We stayed at the Sahara the first three days, which was SOOOOO ghetto! We spent the last two days at the MGM Grand. They fucked up our room the second day and nearly gave us a heart attack, so they cut our room price to 50% to make up for it. Sweet.

I have to say, the greatest thing we did in Vegas was go to the Palms. The Palms is the PLACE TO BE! We went to a five star restaraunt called Nine. It cost us $180 for the both of us to eat, and man was it worth it. The BEST steak I have EVER had in my LIFE! And the place was just SO NICE!

After that, we went to the Ghost Bar at the Palms. $10 cover fee. I had no idea what it was. I thought it was just some bar. But they took us down this hallway, and onto an elevator, and up to the 55th floor. The very top floor of the Palms. The only thing above you is the sign.

The bar was just...fabulous. Five stars. Half was inside, the other half was outside on a balcony, where you could see ALL of Vegas! There was a hole in the floor, too, with plexy glass over it so you could see 55 stories down to the street! Insane!

We drank, and I actually got Ryan to dance with me (they played like ALL my favorite dance songs of the moment)! He isn't nearly as bad as he says he is. ;o)

The whole trip was great.

Oh! And we got to take a picture with a baby lion at the MGM!!! I'll try to get that scanned soon! It's a GREAT picture.

I love Vegas.

Ryan also showed me his old apartment out there, and all the places he used to hang out. It was cool to finally see all that stuff, since he talks about it fairly often.

AND I SAW NASTY HOOKERS AND JUNKIES!!! WOOHOO! IT WAS AWESOME!!!

Fabulous trip. Our first real vacation together. Aw yay! Next stop, Hawaii!

So we got back at like 1:30 Saturday morning, and then Sunday morning we left for Reno. Nothing too exciting there. Just an overnighter to visit my dad. We came home Monday night. It was really good to see him though! I miss him. But no worries! We're going back in two weeks for Hot August Nights. YES!!!!

So needless to say, my summer has been great so far, and I don't want it to ever end!

Ryan and I just passed our 17 month anniversary on Tuesday, which means the year and a half is next month! Wow! I can't believe it's been so long! Our relationship has been a bit rocky in the previous months, but this past month so far has been great. The best we've had yet, I think!

I just love him so much. I STILL can't get enough of that boy! He makes me so incredibly happy. I can't even explain how much I love him. He's just so great.

You know when you first start dating someone, how you can NEVER get them out of your mind no matter how hard you try? That's how I am with Ryan, still. Even after all this time, he continues to take up 95% of my thoughts and daydreams.

I never want it to end. Ever. He's the greatest boyfriend in the world. We have so much fun together! And he does everything for me.

I'm keeping him.