Punkin Head

Day 8: A picture that makes you laugh

So I actually didn't have a picture in mind for this post, so I decided to dig through some oldies and see what I had and this one was def. the winner! (Side note: while digging I realized how much I miss Italy and all the wonderful friends I made during that trip, waaaah Italy friends I need you)

This picture is from Halloween of 2009, when my roomies and boyfriend at the time decided to carve some cute little pumpkins. Just look how happy they are! And then after halloween our pumpkins proceeded to rot out on our porch. Lovely.

Adios,

B.Hines

Nikon!

Day 7: A picture of your most treasured item.

This probably goes without saying, but SURPRISE...my Nikon D5000 is my baby :) And seeing as how it's a camera, it's kind of hard to take a picture of it, so it's a good thing I have photo booth.

Let's just talk about this picture though, shall we?

1. Yeah, I look busted and I'm rocking the hood, so what? (anything to hide my nasty, gym-smelling, unshowered self-- I'm sure I just attracted a million guys with that description.)

2. My expression is goofy and my hand is awkward, just deal with it.

3. You know it's awesome that you can see my face in my lens.

Paz,

B.Hines

Enredados

Day 6: A picture of a person you'd love to trade places with for a day.

This is tough. I'd love to trade places for a day with a professional photographer, tennis player, or world traveler just to see what it's like to be in their shoes. But I don't have any specific person in mind, I'd just love to see what a day is like for someone in any of those professions. 

So aside from anyone who falls in the above categories, I'm going to have to go with someone for the weirdest and randomest (is that a word?) reason ever.

Fergie

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Why Fergie you ask? No, not because of her looks and no definitely not because she's a famous singer (in fact, I honestly don't think she's that great and I've grown tired of the Black Eyed Pees...sorry, but in my opinion that Super Bowl performance was not good).

I want to be Fergie for the day just so I can be this sexy man's wife:

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Hello most attractive looking man I've ever laid eyes on. We need some Josh Duhamel look-a-likes to come to Raleigh and find me, ASAP.

In other news, today I bought one of my new favorite movies, Tangled (Enredados in Spanish) and my roommate and I just finished watching it and let me just say, Disney has ruined me. How am I supposed to find a happy-ever-after fairy tale kind of love in real life when I'm always comparing it to the latest Disney movie?! I mean seriously, what guy is going to say to me "you were my new dream" and then get us floating lanterns to send off into the sky together? Unrealistic. Thanks Disney, now I want my own Flynn Rider/Eugene Fitzherbert. 

Regardless, I'm still going to watch and love all Disney movies. They've got me hooked :)

Ciao,

B.Hines

Guuuess Whaaaat...

MY WEBSITE IS finally DONE!!

I'm sure I'll still be changing things around as I get feedback from people and figure out the flow of the whole thing...but, there it is!

Check it out HERE and let me know what y'all think!

Happy Tuesday,

B.Hines

"Cooler than a polar bears toe nail!"

While watching DWTS on Monday nights I fall in love with Hines Ward even more! Gotta love those Steelers ;)

Anyway...

Day 5: A picture of your favorite memory.

I have a lot of favorite memories. Lots from my childhood, lots from family beach trips, and many from high school and college. However, one of my most favorite and recent memories would have to be Italia!

Italy is so gorgeous! The people and food were so amazing and I wouldn't have traded this study aboard experience for anything! We 'lived' in Florence and traveled to Pisa, Capri, Sorrento, Pompeii, Cinque Terra, Rome, and Venice. All are wonderful cities, I suggest you go...and take me. :)

Getting Things Accomplished!

Day 4: A picture of your night.

Welp, this is a screenshot of my night...

Just relaxing on my computer getting things done! I've had this photography website in the works for a while now and all I have left to do is get my pictures on it. That's what tonight is for! I'm going through and editing a bunch of pictures and adding them to the page. And while I'm doing all this I've got my candles lit and I have my lovely Jim Brickman pandora station playing :) It's a wonderful Sunday night (minus the fact that it is nasty outside, possible snow tomorrow? no thanks).

In more exciting news, Tomorrow will be my first day in a REAL office! Woohooo! I'm moving into the new building at SAS and will no longer be in a cubicle. This new building looks amazing too! And...best of all, they have GELATO! Yeah, I'll be working in heaven. 

It's time to go back to getting things accomplished. But first, some words of wisdom...

"Time is like slipping through my hands. It's like sand when you pick a up a lot and then it all goes through your hands and you only have that little piece left in the creases of your palm. That's what time is." -- Hillary Scales

 Adios y'all,

B.Hines

GG, HIMYM, MF

Day 3: A picture of the cast from your favorite show.

This is tough, I have a ton of favorite shows. But for the sake of time, I'll pick only three...

#1: Gossip Girl

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#2: How I Met Your Mother

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#3: Modern Family

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Go check 'em out!

Paz.

Alicia the Great

Day 2: A picture of you and the person you have been closest with the longest.

So obviously the person I've been super close with the longest is my mom...but that's probably a no-brainer so I've gotta go with my best friend, Alicia!

This was back in our YMCA days...when we used to go to the guys' soccer games with our delicious strawberries!

We met when we were 15 years old? Maybe 14? We were trainee's at the YMCA (weee!) and since then we were volunteers together, we started working there together, we started hanging out together, and then we went to NC State together! And now at age 21 we are still best friends :)

Five fun facts about Alicia:

1. She programmed herself in my phone as "Alicia the Great" and made up a super cool ringtone for when she calls. (although I've switched phones since then so the ringtone is gone...)

2. We got to experience the oh-so-crazy freshman year together!

3. She will tell you exactly what she thinks about a situation and what is on her mind no matter what the consequences.

4. She has the worst ADD ever. But surprisingly, she's the best story teller ever.

5. She's an amazing listener!

If you don't know Alicia, go meet her! She's an awesome person and she's so fun to hang out with! I don't know what I'm going to do next year when she's over at Duke for Grad School and I'm still in Raleigh :( 

Adios,

B.Hines

Ten Facts!

A while ago as I was blog surfing I came across someone who had started the 30 Day Photo Challenge. This was back before Spring Break (back before everyone started doing it), and I said to myself "when I get back from Spring Break I'm going to start that!" So, here we go! Since I couldn't do the 365 days in a row hopefully I can at least blog 30 days in a row :)

Day 1: A picture of yourself with ten facts.

1. I'm a dork and a goof. 

2. Late Spring/Summer is the BEST time of year. I'm such a shorts/dresses/skirts person. 

3. I love traveling and photography. Put the two together and you've got my dream job. Hello National Geographic?

4. I have the vocabulary of an elementary schooler. Slash, I'm just an elementary schooler at heart. It's whatever.

5. I have no rhythm (confirmed this today in Zumba).

6. I love tennis. 

7. I hate skittles and twizzlers.

8. I am absolutely terrified of cockroaches. I will cry if one comes near me. Just ask my brother, he and a friend had to save me once...

9. I'm a runner.

10. I learn more about myself and my relationship with Jesus each and every day and I love it!

Ciao,

B.Hines

Photo Booth Fun

It's really fun to go through the Photo Booth pictures on my computer, all 586 of them...

And now I have to leave you all with one of my favorite Photo Booth videos....

Paz!

Delicioso!

Happy St. Patricks Day! I hope you are all enjoying it by wearing green and enjoying some yummy Irish food and beer! Some friends and I are doing a fun St. Patty's Day "Hike" tonight and for once I actually got ready early, so now I have an hour to kill before we head out.

So what better thing to do than blog! I need to share with you all something that I love am obsessed with.

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Oh my gosh, Original Ritz Toasted Chips! Hello, YUM. I discovered these babies a few weeks ago and have fallen in loooove. I eat them with anything and everything. Only downfall? The bag is misleading. They only fill it up about halfway! Hello crazy people, don't you know that that will only last me a week, if that?! I just bought a bag the on Sunday and I'm almost already out. Guess I gotta go back and stock up...

Beannacht (apparently this means bye in Irish?),

B.Hines

Only in a Jeep Part II

Remember a month ago when I blogged about how ridiculous my jeep was? If not, refresh your memory here. 

Well, exactly a month later, I am blogging again to say that my jeep sucks.

Here's what happened:

I went out with some friends Saturday night and decided to be the driver for the night. So we're out, just doing our thing, it's whatever (If you're really curious to read about how our night went down, go to Hilldy's blog and read about it here, it's amusing...and maybe a bit sad).

At the end of the night we all head back to my car, ready to get out of there and get some sleep (boo for losing an hour), but when I turn on my car, put it in reverse, and attempt to cut the wheel to back up, nothing happens. My wheel decided that nope, it didn't want to turn. Not easily anyway. It took everything in me to attempt to move it just a little bit. Obviously I was unable to drive my stupid Jeep. Luckily we had someone much stronger with us, so after a few laps around the parking deck to practice, we maneuvered our way on to the road. The drive didn't consist of a lot of turns, so it wasn't that bad, but I still couldn't drive it and it sadly didn't just fix itself (although wouldn't it be nice if that happened?).

And as if that wasn't enough, on our drive the battery light decided to turn on (but I just changed my battery a year ago?) and my car started to overheat. Yay, fun! Three different problems, that seem totally unrelated. What in the world is happening with my car?!

So I had to get my car towed yesterday, and they took it to the shop where they then told me that apparently some belt piece or something is snapped off or gone and that piece makes the belt move, and when this certain belt moves it prevents the car from a) overheating b) the steering wheel not moving and c) the battery from failing. Or something like that. Somehow, this belt was tied in to all of these three things, and it decided to break, thus causing the rest to fail as well. I just LOVE my Jeep.

I'm ready to just follow in my brothers footsteps and sell the jeep and get a truck.

I'm kidding, kind of.

Vamos a la playa, a mi me gusta bailar!

Welp, I have officially woken up from my Spring Break dream and I am now back in good 'ole Raleigh. So now it's time to share all of my wonderful Mexican adventures with you wonderful bloggies! 

Before we begin, I need to warn you all. I took over 1,000 pictures while in Cozumel, Mexico for all of 4 nights, and although I will not put all of those pictures in this post, it will still be very picture heavy. Be prepared.

Sunday

The beginning! Hills and I woke up at 3:30 am to head off to the airport for our 6:30 flight. 3:30 is insanely early. It is NOT an ideal time to start your day. But we survived and after our long flights we finally arrived to Cozumel where it was a bit overcast, but so warm! As soon as we got to our GORGEOUS resort this is what we were greeted with: 

Um, YES we would like some "free" fruity drinks (yay all inclusive resort!)

Okay so let me just say that this hotel was downright amazing. It was all open and there was greenery and birds and water, I felt like I was in a rain forest! It was beautiful! I mean, just look at the lobby area...

This is the downstairs lobby area, once you go upstairs that's where the check in is and where the shuttles pull up. There's also comfy couches and a sports bar. 

After we explored around the hotel a bit (more pictures will come later!) we went in to see our buddy Juan who gave us some information and some sweet Mardi Gras beads, had some dinner, and then hit the hay! We were literally back at our hotel room watching Beauty and the Beast in spanish at like 7:30. Then passed out by 9. It was a long day.

Monday

First off...let me just start by saying that every morning the breakfast buffet was phenomenal. Seriously, I ate so much. And due to my fear of drinking the water (at first) I even had milk every morning to go with my breakfast. This is big for me. After breakfast it was off to la playa! Let me just show you where Hills and I parked it for the majority of the morning/day on Monday.

#1:

Our lovely tanning spot on the beach... 

With this as our view :)

#2

Hello infiniti pool #1 with a swim up bar, I love you.

After spending the majority of the day at the beach, we decided to walk in to downtown to check it out/maybe do a little shopping. That walk was long and super tiring in our flimsy little sandals. But, it was gorgeous and very worth it.

We even saw an Iguana sun bathing! Unfortunately I didn't have my telephoto lens with me, so enjoy my cropping skills:

We saw some dancers...

movies in spanish...

and, Senor Frog's, where we stopped in for a drink before heading back!

And our view on the way back...

Why did I ever leave this place?!

After dinner and lounging around by the pool for a while, we decided to go to the "Caribbean Show" that the hotel was performing. It included a bunch of dances from different countries in the caribbean and it was really neat to see. However, at the very end, they decided to pull some people up on stage as dance partners. Who was chosen? Me, of course. The one with no rhythm. 

But regardless it was still a lot of fun making a total fool of myself...

Tuesday

Probably one of the best days ever!

First of all, we came here...

Then, we played with Jack, the dolphin...

And Karla, the Sea Lion...

I'm so in love with these animals. It was one of the greatest experiences ever!

After our day in Chankanaab park, we headed back to the resort to get ready for the Fat Tuesday festivities!

Dinner at Margaritaville where we got free Margarita's thanks to our resort :)

Parade time! Yes, that is a monster truck in a parade and yes, that is a toy story float. They had a maaasssive parade for the end of Mardi Gras and it literally lasted over an hour. The 'strip' was packed with people and it was so exciting to see everyone out and dressed up! Cozumel certainly knows how to party.

Wednesday

Our last, full day! It was a super relaxing day. We woke up at 7am (yes, that early) in order to reserve a chair to lay out on the beach, got ready for the day, headed to breakfast, then went straight to the beach! It was such a perfect day. We relaxed in our chairs, had some Strawberry Daiquiris & Mint Mojitos, ate the best nachos ever, and cooled off in the ocean and pools.

We even decided to take on snorkeling (which I have now come to absolutely love!)

After our day in the sun, we went back to get ready for the night, and then headed back out to the beach to take some pictures at dusk...

We enjoyed the rest of our last night by relaxing by the pool, playing with my camera, drinking some beers, and listening to a very talented keyboardist. 

Thursday

Wah, the day we had to leave. Our flight was at 3:10 in the afternoon so we decided to make the best of what we had left by hanging out at the beach all morning! We may have even had one last Strawberry Daiquiri...

Before we left in the shuttle to head to the airport, we stopped in to the buffet to grab some lunch. While we were waiting for it to open we were sitting outside, just watching people in the pool area. And that's when we saw this guy, leading water aerobics...

He has on a chip n' dale bow tie, and a sombrero. Why can't people in the U.S. lead water aerobics dressed like this? And not only was this awesome, but one of the songs playing was "Vamos a la playa." We hadn't heard it until that moment, but we instantly fell in love with the song. And yes, that's where the title of this post comes from :)

It's quite a catchy song...

And that was my wonderful Spring Break in Cozumel! I'm sad that it's over, but I'm so glad that it turned out as wonderful as I thought it would! I hope you all had great Spring Break's as well. Now it's time to enjoy these last few days before school!

Adios, 

B.Hines