A friend of ours had eco-party light bulbs in his bathroom.
You can guess what we did in the bathroom…and it’s sad to say we’re all 26 years old.
After all, our parents say we’re still kids.

My smoking hot husband! Blurry equals signing and that happens a lot with deaf people.

At least we had fun!

Perhaps it’s time to share my goals for 2011.

Lose weight. This clearly is a problem for me. I did lose weight after joining a sweat challenge in the area but then it got too expensive so I couldn’t continue and finish the challenge. Let’s just say it was about $250+ a week. Now I’m back on Weight Watchers and making it a routine to go to the gym more often. I’m trying to change my mindset to make sure that a trip to the gym is on top of my daily list. I have also started wearing my BodyMedia armband and I’m excited to actually be aware of how many calories I’m eating and burning. It also calculates how many steps I’m getting in daily & hours of sleep I’m getting. Pretty cool, right?

Debt-Free. Well, not entirely 100% debt-free but at least pay off all of our credit cards. After looking at our budget, we realized we could actually save more money and be able to do things if we didn’t have credit cards to pay off. So we’re anxious to make it happen this year! We have been doing great with earning extra money from Yellow & Savvy Design, rent money from Joe since he’s living with us and things we sell on Craigslist.

Vacation. Tyler and I haven’t gone on our honeymoon yet! We’re so anxious to go on our honeymoon soon. Although it looks like we might not get to go anywhere until later after summer. My co-worker is going on maternity leave in March and then Tyler’s company doesn’t really allow vacation days during the summer. Hopefully we can make it happen! I’d love to go somewhere alone with Tyler and be technology-free which means no phones (and sports)!

Overall my main goal this year is to really take one day at a time and live in the present instead of dwelling on the past and thinking too much about the future. I have a great feeling about 2011 and I’m going to make sure it’s a great year! I also hope you have a great year too!

Our good friends, Haley & Chase, were in town this weekend. They were stopping in to see us on their way to begin their new chapter in Austin, Texas from California.

I posted a status on Facebook that we were getting ready for their arrival. A friend commented saying, “With all the entertaining you’ve been doing, perhaps you should make a sign for your house, The Bed & Breakfast”.

While on the road, Haley saw the status & commented, “I expect to see the sign tonight. Make it happen.*waves wand*”

It was up for me to decide if her wand was working or not.

So I immediately told Tyler that we had to do this! I was up for the challenge to make it happen. Tyler looked through the garage and found two scraps of wood so we spray painted them.

The hardest part was thinking of a name when being rushed! Tyler suggested “The East Wing” and “The West Wing” right above both of the guest bedrooms. Um, very creative?! Ha!

I was looking around at words for inspiration and then my eyes wandered over to the dandelions that we have in our kitchen. There it was!

The Field of Dandelions

I was feeling rushed when painting it since Haley & Chase were minutes away from arriving. After I was done, I didn’t like my handwriting and wish I had done it in cursive. (I heart cursive!) I think I might re-paint it again later. For now it’ll grow on me.

DeafNation Expo occurs all over the United States. Tyler and I usually go when they come to Phoenix – it’s so easy to get sucked into conversations with friends we haven’t seen in a long time that we don’t have time to look around and see what’s at the expo.

This year was the first time they were hosting DeafNation World Expo in Las Vegas which turned out to be a huge success since 23,400 deaf people from 73 different countries all were there. Unfortunately Tyler and I couldn’t take the week off to be there but we were able to go for the weekend.

The drive there was boring since I was in a car full of boys! We got to our hotel and within minutes I was ready to go to the Deaf World Party which was hosted at Mandalay Bay. Who would’ve knew that the boys would take forever to get ready!? Rahul was being emo with his hair and the boys were swapping clothes/shoes. Finally we left after a while and got to the hotel. We had to pay $20 each to get in and I was hoping that it was going to be worth my money!

I was immediately overwhelmed at first seeing everyone again in the dark club. There were times when some people would come up to me and I couldn’t remember exactly where I knew them from….school in Washington, school in Arizona, college in New York, camp, etc. Luckily for me I didn’t embarrass myself!

I felt like I had a speech prepared for the whole weekend of how to sum up my life in a few sentences. The deaf community is so big that it’s hard to keep in touch with everyone.

It was really awesome seeing deaf people everywhere we went….in the bathroom, in line at a restaurant or club, & gambling next to us. Usually if deaf people see other deaf people in public – they usually ask in excitement, “You’re deaf too!?!” and then they introduce themselves because it’s not that often you see deaf people that you don’t know. In Las Vegas no one did that & I’m glad because I personally think it’s annoying when people approach me because we’re both deaf.

When Tyler and I normally see deaf people in public that we don’t know – we stop signing and then I make sure my hair is covering my hearing aid. I know this makes me sound like I’m a rude person but I’m not… I just don’t normally feel like talking about where I’m from, what school I went to, who else I know in the deaf community, and so on.

Anyways, there were so many other people we intended on seeing in Vegas but there wasn’t a lot of time and so many different groups & plans. We even picked up on some international sign language too and saw people signing in different languages too. It was fascinating seeing them sign and not even understand what they’re saying….but there are some signs that are obvious & similar to ours.

Haley and I’ve known each other since elementary school.
We hung out with Haley & her boyfriend, Chase, a lot that weekend.

We were leaving the club when the Deaf World Party ended and this
kid got his hand stuck in the elevator only seconds after I took this picture.
What an idiot and we had to push his hand out!

At the pool party (Treasure Island) with my Sigma Sigma Sigma sisters!

Catching up with old friends from high school.

Please ask me any questions you have about being deaf or the deaf culture. Anything and I’ll answer your questions!