Almost a Month!
With the new kitties!
This weekend will be a full month with my new cats that we got for the condo! They're absolutely fabulous! And now it's time that I finally blogged about them!
Meet Molly (photo taken by Kevin!):
And Cali (photo taken by Kevin!):
Cali loves attention and follows us around everywhere. She also thinks she needs to eat every time we're in the kitchen. She is very talkative and will meow and meow until she's been satisfied with whatever she was asking for. Molly is more quiet and is usually only interested in attention when she feels like it. She is a lap cat, when she feels like it. Recently Molly likes to sleep on the bed all day coming out when she is ready for her people time!
I love them!!! :)
~Taylor~
What do you do when you have an assortment of leftovers but have no idea what to do with it all? I had chicken left over from the Cumin Grilled Chicken Breasts, and I had flour tortillas, cheese, and salsa left over from a breakfast burrito thing I tried out for Kevin. Wait a minute. What has chicken, flour tortillas, cheese, and salsa?! Chicken Quesadilla!!! Sweet.
I had some frozen corn so I threw that on the plate too. It was quite tasty! I first took my left over chicken breast and made it like I was making the Cumin Chicken and after it was grilled up, I cut it up into small chunks. Since I was going to use the George Foreman grill to grill the quesadillas, I had to wipe it all down after the chicken grilled. I buttered the outside of the tortilla. I don't know why, but I usually butter my bread when making a 
grilled cheese, and I guessed this was similar, so I just felt I should but a little butter on the outside of the tortilla. In the center, I put in shredded cheddar cheese and the little chunks of chicken. No certain amount, I just eye-balled it, whatever looked like a decent amount. Also, if I hadn't had the cheddar cheese already, I probably would have used the mexican mix of shredded cheese. I then folded the tortilla and put the whole thing on to the George Foreman grill. I didn't know how long to leave it on, so I just checked to make sure the tortilla was getting crispy and the cheese was melted. After I was satisfied with how it looked, I took it off, cut it in half and served it with salsa and sour cream (which was the only thing I had to buy for this meal!), and of course the corn.
Kevin liked it so much he asked for another one. I liked this more than some quesadillas I've had at Macado's or Red Robin or any mexican place. Plus I'm sure they were a lot more healthy, considering there was no grease and low-fat things were used. I'm sure what I made could be tinkered with to add some peppers and onions and such into the mixture, but I liked it how it was and will definitely be making it again! It's so easy! :)
However, 
in all this joy over the quesadilla success, I did not go un-injured! I placed the side of my hand accidentally on the hot part of the grill and got burnt a little. It didn't hurt at first, but then all of a sudden a surge of pain when through my hand, and I got some ice to put on it. I took a picture, but it hardly looks like anything, but let me tell you -- that hardly anything mark hurt! Despite the pain, I persevered and finished lunch!
~Taylor~
Ever since we got the condo I've gone crazy with cooking! We don't have much to cook with as far as utensils...well, and food...but I've gone online in search of recipes to try. I first cooked Kevin some bacon and eggs, then some sloppy joes! Kevin told me he wanted to be eating healthier, which of course, is awesome. So I did that whole "google" thing and got some healthy recipes to try out! One of them was a Cumin Grilled Chicken Breasts!
Which was great because that gave us a chance to use the George Foreman grill that Kevin wanted oh so badly when we were shopping at Bed Bath & Beyond. He cooked me burgers that night because I let him get it. Ever since I've been hoping for more uses for it other than making burgers.
It turned out pretty good! Kevin liked it, so I think we'll make it a keeper recipe. It's got a sort of mexican chicken type flavor to it. We had broccoli with cheese on it and mashed potatoes. I also made some corn bread, which I LOVE! :) So it was sort of healthy. I think we hit some food groups decently at least.
What to drink? Well, my mom makes lipton sweet ice tea at my house, and Kevin really liked it and drank it like all last summer. So I made my mom teach me how to make it and now I keep a steady supply of the sweet tea in the fridge. And it is good because it is sweetened with the no calorie Splenda! YUM...
That was it for tonight's dinner. I hope to branch out and try new things! Eventually...
~Taylor~
Yep. I'm finished with college. I now have a degree in Geography. I don't think I'll use it. I'll definitely use the experiences I got from getting it. I'm going to eventually get a degree in Hospitality and Tourism Management. I'd like to do something with a hotel or something with a customer service aspect. I really enjoyed my Intro to HTM class, and I really wish I had taken it earlier in my college career. However, earlier I still wanted to go into Meteorology. Weather to me is more of a hobby than something that I want to make my whole life.
However right now I really want to space myself from classes and the whole college life and get into the real world. I'm searching for a job currently. I've applied only for a million! I really hope I am able to get a job soon.
Once I get a job (with benefits is the huge thing), I'm going to be moving in with Kevin! Now there are all these statistics screaming at us not to move in together because we'd more likely than not break up or get divorced. However, after some research, most of these statistics are very broad. They don't take in to the fact that a couple would move in together because they are on the road to getting engaged and married. Those couples don't have any more of a chance of getting a divorce than a couple who decided to not live together until they were married. The couples who make up the bulk of the statistics are those who have lived with someone else before, or they moved in together "just to see if it would work out." It just makes sense to live with him. So I'm very excited about it!
He is currently moved (almost) out of his grandma's place and living in a condo just up the road from where he works. It's a fantastic location and away from rowdy, constant partying college students! Most of the people who live in the complex are studious VCOM students. We're still working on getting it filled with furniture and there are still a lot of boxes all of the place (and that's just with Kevin's stuff!), but it'll be feeling extra homey eventually!
Please let me know if you know of any jobs around Blacksburg that involves customer service in anyway! THANKS!
~Taylor~
I work at the BreakZONE now! In December I was laid off from my job with CPE. Ever since then I've been trying to find a part time job to have some sort of income again. I had zero luck. No one was hiring, and I had no idea what to do. I kept checking jobs.vt.edu to see if anything was up that I could possibly do with my background (as in...my 5 years at the same place...can I do something similar to that since that's what I know?!). Then I spot an opening for a Recreation Assistant for BreakZONE. I read the description, and I knew I could do it. Besides, I figured it would give me some customer service experience for when I pursue a degree in Hospitality and want to get a job in some sort of customer service aspect. So it's not a huge resume builder, but it's a job right now and income, and I think will give me good experience for dealing with different kinds of people!
Anyway, I've had a bunch of shifts now, I know...for the most part...how to fix bowling machines now, and I have cash register experience and dealing with cash, credit cards, etc. It's a new environment than my previous desk job. However, I do miss having my own little space. And my trolls. :)
I do hope that my time with CPE isn't over. That I could possibly work there again in a more active roll than my student job. Time will tell what the future holds!
For now, I'm also looking toward the future and finding a full time job for when I graduate. There is one I'm going to apply for right now with Virginia Tech. I'm not sure if they'll appreciate my fresh out of college state, but in my opinion, I think being right out of college makes me right for the job. More on that later. :)
Happy Easter!
~Taylor~
Yesterday I was sitting in my Intro to Hospitality and Tourism Management class, when I noticed my mom was calling me. 10 minutes later she called me again. And I had notice that she called me from her work phone 30 minutes prior to the first call. What?! I started to think...what is she so frantic to get in touch with me about? Then I got really nervous that something had happened to one of our family members. As soon as class was over, I called her back and asked her what was up, she answers with a cheery voice and wanted to know if I was coming home for dinner. WHAT? She had a "surprise" she wanted to show me on the way to dinner. Hmm...okay, yeah I'll come home. All that worry for that? Thanks, Mom!
She wouldn't tell me what the surprise was or where we were going. We ended up at the Tractor Supply store in Christiansburg. This was my surprise:
Again. Thanks, Mom! :P
~Taylor~
After we were back in Miami and went through customs and finally got to our car with all our luggage, we were back on the road to head home. First, however, we stopped in Charleston, SC to stay at our favorite Bed and Breakfast, King George IV Inn, for the night. After lunch Kevin decided we were not stopping again until we got there. Fabulous...but we finally got there nine hours after leaving Miami just in time to enjoy some dinner at Bubba Gump! It was within walking distance from where we were staying so we got to stretch our legs. However, it was dreary and cool out, and I didn't have any other shoes other than flip-flops. It was 70 when I left Blacksburg, and I was in the Caribbean...oops. I toughed it out and had a fantastic dinner at Bubba Gump with Kevin.
Afterward, Kevin decided we were finally going to find the American Theater from the Notebook once and for all! And we could do it this time with Kevin's iphone! Turns out we went the wrong way down King Street last time. We found it!
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, watch the movie! :)
Kevin was playing around with his iphone and looked up
where the closest Apple Store was, turns out it was one small block from our bed & breakfast! No way! We had passed it without even seeing it. So we re-traced our steps and saw the huge glass doors to the pristine looking apple store. Kevin looked up the hours and we made plans to come back the next morning. Which we did, and I almost bought the new version of iLife but they were really busy and everyone was with another customer, so I waited to get it until later. It was fun playing with the new ipod touch and the iphone. I want an iphone! One day.
Since our time in Charleston was over, we headed Northwest to our home in the mountains of Virginia. Kevin wanted to stop at the Ikea on the way back in Charlotte, NC. He wanted to check out some desks they had there. We had each never been in an Ikea before. We got to the store and it was PACKED. There was no where to park, people were creating their own parking spaces. We assumed it was a grand-opening or something until Kevin twittered about it and someone responded back that the Ikea was always like that on the weekends. HOLY COW! I had never seen something like that before. And the Ikea was AMAZING. Kevin and I definitely decided that our future home would be filled with furniture from Ikea! However, when we go back, we'll be going on a weekday! (the picture below doesn't give even half of how crowded it was around this store!)
Kevin and I ended our trip by enjoying dinner at Kobe. It was an amazing Spring Break, best one yet! :D
~Taylor~
Other Cruise Posts:
I saw this lolcat and immediately knew where it was from!
That's at the Hemingway house! This is a picture I took when we were down there last month:
It's just cool seeing something you've seen before on something like lolcats! :)
~Taylor~
It was so sad that it was our last night on the cruise, but we were definitely going to make the most of it! In the picture above from left to right: Juan -- our assistant waiter; Dave and Sue -- from New Hampshire, they got everyone at the table a round of drink! Which was promised if we didn't make them go up on stage during the Love and Marriage game show; next is just Kevin and I; then there is Mike and Allison -- they're from Michigan and DROVE to Miami, that makes me and Kevin's drive seem like nothing; Derrick and Cristina -- from Orlando, Fl and they were celebrating their two year anniversary, Congrats!;
Jeremy and Catherine -- from NOVA, they flew, however, which I think Kevin and I should try out next time! They had been drinking wine all cruise, and the last night they brought the table a bottle of white wine and red wine, so we all ended up with three drinks in front of us!; Jose -- our head waiter who was fantastic and hilarious! The waiters on Royal Caribbean ships are always so awesome! (below is Jose and Juan when they performed for us again on the last night!)
We went back to our room to change and pack (our suitcases needed to be out by our door before midnight) with the plans to meet back up with our table before the farewell show so we could all exchange information and sit together for the show.
On our bed was a towel heart. That wasn't an animal! We also realized our steward took his tip envelope, which I had hid because we weren't exactly ready to give it to him yet. He always had seemed to be rummaging through our things. Oh well. We got all packed up, put our stuff out by our door, then headed to the Schooner Bar to meet up with our table mates for one last time. We had such a good time with them and since getting back home we've been emailing each other! We then watched the show, Signed, Sealed, Delivered.
Later that night we also went to the adult show by the first comedian we saw on the first night. We then passed out, we had a long drive ahead of us the next day, and had to get up early to eat breakfast and get ready to leave. It was a great night though!
~Taylor~
Our last port of call was Key West, Florida. We had plenty of time to spend at Key West so 
we took our time in the morning, and gradually made our way off the ship toward the town. We had already decided we definitely wanted to walk down to the southernmost point of the continental US! So Kevin used his trusty iPhone (which he FINALLY got to use again, poor baby had to be without it for an entire two days!) to navigate. We hopped on a road which would take us straight to the marker. Along the way we passed by mile zero of interstate 1! Awesome! I knew it existed on the island, but I didn't know where. We passed by an awesome post office and a huge Kapok Tree that had a sign under it stating that Key West was the end of the rainbow...and route 1. Some of the houses along that road were just gorgeous. I had never been out of the downtown area, except for I did go on one of those train tours the first time I was in Key West, but that was like...5 years ago. We finally got to the Southernmost Point and there were a bunch of people there taking pictures. I clicked a quick shot of the marker before someone else stepped in my shot and didn't feel like waiting around so Kevin and I could get a picture with it. There was more of the island to explore!
We went a block over from the street we went up, and went back toward town on Duval Street. We ran into Dave and Sue on our way back! They were another of the couples we sat with at dinner. We told them where we just were and that it wasn't too far back if they wanted to go, and went on our different ways. They pointed to a art gallery they had just been in that had different pieces of the old Hollywood Sign and they were painted with different stars on them. Really cool. Naturally we went in the gallery to see them, there was some amazing painting in there, and crazy 3D looking images. I forget what it is called, but if you're ever in Key West and see a gallery on a corner, go in!
Then we found Irish Kevin's, which every time I came to Key West...like two other times...I took a picture of it for him, and in December I got him a shot glass, so naturally he needed to see it and I wanted a picture of him with it! At first we didn't see it, but on Kevin's GPS it said it was right by us. If it had been a black snake, it would have bit us! (I don't understand that saying...) Anyway, as you can see we got the picture!
I asked Kevin where Ernest Hemingway's house was, I thought we could go by and peer at it without going in. It was, of course, a mile back in the direction we had just come from. 
Oh well, we have time, lets go back! So we did, and I saw a sign that it was only $12 to go in. That's not bad! (On the ship for the same thing, it was around $50!) We go to pay, and they were having a special for Spring Breakers -- show your Student IDs and you'd get in for $6! Sweet! I was so excited to go in. (Mainly because of the cats, I don't think I've read one of Ernest Hemingway's books, but I might have to now) We get to the house and they are about to have a tour. Awesome.
I highly recommend the tour, you get to learn so much about Ernest, the house, and his wives. I did learn quite a bit! On the tour we got to see where he wrote a lot of his books:
From his porch you could see the lighthouse sticking up above the trees. Our tour guide told us that he bought the house so that after he had been out drinking and forgot where he lived, he could just follow where the lighthouse was, and then he could find his house that way!
One of my favorite stories had to do with a sequence of events due to a pool...
The Hemingways looked into getting a pool, however, because the island is made out of hard coral rock, the pool would have to be carved out and couldn't be blasted out. It would cost a lot of money to do that, and Ernest decided against it. Well, Pauline (his wife) really wanted that pool, and when Ernest went out of town with a women who had been "interviewing" him, Pauline put that pool in. When Ernest got back and saw that pool, and knew how much it cost, he pulled out a penny from his pocket and told her that was their last penny!
She took that penny and stuck it in the concrete. After they got divorced and Ernest Hemingway ran off with that interviewer, she could always say she got his last penny.
This is our tour guide with what seems like a pretty fountain. There is a bar in town called Sloppy Joes, which Ernest loved to go to.
It found out that it was moving locations and asked the owner if he could have the urinal. He took that urinal and put it right next to Pauline's precious pool. She demanded he move it, and he said he would when she moved her pool. So she tried to make it look nice with spanish tile. Then one of the groundsmen put that big spanish vase up there and made it into a fountain, and you'd never know the difference. The cats of the house like to use it as a water bowl, except for Archibald who only will drink from the water fountain.
Speaking of the cats, and Archibald who is the cat in the upper left corner on the master bed:
I enjoyed seeing the cats! They were all so adorable. Only about half of the 45 cats on the property have the six toes. I saw a lot more than above, but those were some of my favorites. It was a hot day, and I'm sure most of them were hiding and sleeping in the shade. There were a couple that let us pet them. Kevin was excited to be touching a cat that was directly a descendant of Snowball, Ernest's original six toed cat.
After the Hemingway House, we went back to town to visit the Key West Lime Shoppe. I wanted to show Kevin how Tom Green had once been there for the Tonight Show, and I have always gone there every time I've been to Key West (four times now), so naturally we had to go. Kevin got some Key West Lime Pie and we sat out by the fishes. He was amazed how big their gold fish were! And I still am, even though I've seen them many times now. Then we went over to the Key West Winery to try some of their unique wines. They have wine that is made out of anything put grapes...grapefruit, oranges, strawberries, bananas,etc. We got some Hurricane wine which was a blend of many different fruits, it is REALLY good. Kevin also got a Key Lime Wine from the Key West Lime Shoppe.
Then we trotted back off to the ship for some lunch, and probably a nap.
~Taylor~