Three weeks left...

Three weeks left! That's it until I have to officially go back to work. This summer flew by, but I think I achieved my goal of having a healthy and fun summer break.

On Friday, J and I went to dinner at P.F. Changs. He received a $25 gift card for his birthday. We took full advantage of it!

J ordered Kung Pao Chicken:

I ordered the Honey Shrimp:

Both were really good, but I still prefer my Chinese place down the street, Fongs. :) We had leftovers, but unfortunately I did not get to enjoy mine. My brother ate my leftovers when he got home from work that night. Boo younger brothers with voracious appetites!

On Saturday, I went to the gym and then lounged around at home in the morning. I did paint my nails with this color:

Source

Essie's Turquoise and Caicos. It's such a fun color. I only wear funky colors on my nails during the summer. During the school year, I stick to neutrals a lot more.

I convinced J to get a haircut at my salon, with Lindsay my favorite hairstylist. In the past, I would have scoffed at paying 40 dollars for a haircut, shampoo and blowdry, but Lindsay listens really carefully to what you want. She also knows what works for my wavy/curly hair and what doesn't. J's had a string of bad luck with haircuts and since guys cuts are way cheaper he gave it a go. I don't have a picture (such a bad blogger), but I think it turned out great!

Yesterday, I went to St. Augustine with my family. My cousin is in town spending part of his summer with my uncle. He brought his cousin to keep him company. My mom and I took them all over St. Augustine, including the beach:

My cousin's cousin Johnathan, my uncle, my cousin, my mom and me at St. Augustine Beach.

We walked all over Downtown St. Augustine. We ate at the Florida Cracker Cafe, but I was bummed because they were out of gator tail. I love gator tail, especially fried gator tail.

I was exhausted when we came home and took a two hour nap. :) I'm going to miss those when school starts.

So that's my weekend.  Now I'm off to go pick up dry cleaning, laminate some things at the school store, and head to the library to hopefully plan my first week of school. Hope everyone has a fabulous Monday!


Linking up for Weekend Update and YOLO Mondays. :)

PS. Oh and all my thoughts and prayers go to the victims of the Aurora shootings. It's simply horrible that one would choose to commit that act.  Reminded me of how in April, a fired teacher brought an assault rifle onto the campus of one of Jacksonville's most prestigious private schools and killed the headmistress and then himself. No one should have to go through that.

Weekend Update

The weekend's almost over. But Nilda, aren't you on summer vacation? Isn't EVERYDAY a weekend for you? Why yes, dear reader, I am on summer vacation. But all this week I am slated to go to a Common Core Math Standards training with a focus on number sense (don't leave non-teacher friends, I promise this post is interesting!). Which means that I have to wake up at 7:00 a.m. all week long. THE HORROR!

Ha, just kidding. Not gonna lie, I'm looking forward to this training. I love the people that are giving it, so it should be a good time. On to my weekend recap:

Saturday
Yesterday morning, I woke up and went to the gym. Not only did I do my strength workout without crapping out, I also ran on the treadmill for 15 minutes and did this Pinterest workout three times:

Source: hipbonesandflatstomachs.tumblr.com via Nilda on Pinterest

I was definitely sweating up a storm by the end of it!

Later that afternoon, I went to my friend's birthday BBQ. It was fun and I got to see a few my co-workers from my old school. Plus the food was delicious!

Today
I had ALL intentions of going to the gym this morning. But I've been really diligent about going all week and it was raining when I woke up, so I chose not to go. Don't worry; my gym bag is already packed in my car. I'm planing on going to workout right after my training.

J and I decided to meet up for some lunch. I chose to wear my favorite dress because a) this summer weather is killing! and b) I wanted to look cute.

Dress is an old Forever 21 dress and shoes are old Madden Girl.

 I love the print of this dress. I can't help but feel cute and happy when I wear it!

After lunch, J and I went shopping for new shoes for him. I'm his personal stylist, so he can't seem to buy anything fashion wise without me. :) We found some great deals at Famous Footwear:

Skechers Trojo Shoes

Croc's Modi Flip Espresso

The top pair he bought because he has a similar pair but in white. He wanted a darker pair and I really liked these gray ones. J's been wanting a pair of flip flops and he got  really excited when we found this pair of brown Crocs flip flops. I approved, because they are ten times nicer looking than his beat up blue crocs! He spent fifty bucks total, because Famous Footwear was having a Buy One Get One 1/2 sale. Being the shoe lover  that I am, I was very very jealous!

All in all, it was a great weekend. Now I'm home. I'm going to ATTEMPT to go to bed at 10:00; I'll let you guys know if I was successful or not! Hope you all had fabulous weekends.

PS. Caitlin over at A Day in the Life nominated me for a Liebster Award. I'll post her questions and my nominees tomorrow. Meanwhile, go check her out!

Oh and linkin' up for YOLO Mondays and Weekend Update!

Busy day!

I am trying to get out of the house at least once a day while I am on vacation. It helps keeps me sane and not lazy!

Today, I ran a ton of errands. I first stopped to pick up J's watch and drop off my comforter to be dry cleaned. TRUTH: My comforter has been in a bag for the last week or so. It's too hot to use it, so taking it to the cleaners has been low on my list.

Then I went to Target, where a miracle happened! I ONLY BOUGHT WHAT I NEEDED!!





I needed cat food, shampoo,  and bobby pins. That's all I bought. Yay me! I even resisted all the new teacher stuff in the Dollar Spot.

Next to Target is the most amazing fro-yo place: Sweet Cece's. It's creamy and low fat. I treated myself to some coconut yogurt topped with almonds, strawberries, and cheesecake.

Pure deliciousness!

My final stop was the library. I had to return some DVDs and books. I was only going to check out Catcher in The Rye   (to get a head start on my 30 Before 30 list). I'm delusional apparently. Only come home with one book? Please! I came home with 6 CDs, 5 books and 2 DVDs. Disclaimer: the DVDs were for my dad and brother.

Like I said, busy day. Off I go to read a great book and drink my amazing Strawberry Pink Lemonade slushie.

Yum! Happy Monday!T his post is linked up with Carly at Lipgloss and Crayons and Molly at Still Being Molly for YOLO Monday! I like meeting new bloggers and I hope you like what you see

Opa!

I have the hardest times coming up with titles. I think this one SHOULD work.

Say did you know that I'm off this summer? I am. :)  I try my darndest to stay busy, but it can be tough. It helps that J works, so I can always meet him for lunch. Which is what we decided to do today since he needs to hit the hay early tonight. He has this crazy long bike ride at the crack of dawn... whoops that has nothing to do with my story! Moving on...

I went to pick him up. The guard at the front gate kind of flirted with me (he was older so it was a bit creepy!). I picked up J at his building. I'm so proud that I was able to find it on the first try! Every building in the complex looks exactly the same except for the numbers at the top...and I'm babbling so moving on!

Using Urbanspoon, I discovered that there is a Greek restaurant called Greek Isles Cafe not too far from where J works. So there we went!

When we walked in, I felt like I was in Greece. There was a huge photo of Santorini on one wall. One the other were really cute shutters painted blue like the ones in Greece.

 Cute right?

It smelled delicious when we walked in. J and I both ordered meals that came with the cafe soup. It was this delicious lemon chicken orzo soup. So light and yummy!

I order the Greek chicken tidbits over rice and J got a gyro.

Mine was delicious! Seasoned just right. J's gyro was humongous and, according to him, one of the best he's eaten.  The best part of the whole meal was that it wasn't that expensive. I got my plate and the soup for nine dollars and J got his soup and gyro for 7.

This is definitely on my list of fantastic hole in the walls. I'm pretty sure J and I will be going back; he wants to try their grape leaves and I want to try their hummus!

What's the best new restaurant you've tried recently?

Rollercoasters, water slides, and ice cream, oh my!

Happy 4th everyone! I just got back from Wild Adventures and I am BEAT! J and I met up at 7:45 this mornig. Which mean I woke up at 7, which for being summer is SUPER EARLY. I packed up some snacks and met him at his place. We were on the road by eight.

I adore road trips. Especially with J. I love talking to him (our road trip conversations included such topics as selling a house, the Publix warehouse, and road trips in general). Plus I love all the random things you see, such as this sign at the gas station:

Don' you just love it when gas stations announce their cleanliness? :)

We made it right when the park opened.

It seemed really dead to us (we are Disney/Universal Studios experts!) but that worked out because we got on all the main roller coasters fairly quickly. The first we one rode was the Boomerang:

This was one awesome roller coaster. It starts by pulling the train back up the tracks. When it lets you go you loop around a few times. It then pulls you back up and then lets you go, so you do the whole thing in reverse! AMAZING!

J's favorite roller coaster was this old wooden one called the Cheetah. Didn't get any pictures of it, but it was still a fun one. We then went on Swamp Thing, but that one sucked. No loops. No corkscrews. Nothing. At this point we were getting worried we'd done everything cool. So we went on the Ferris Wheel (the coolest thing at any theme park right?)

I should mention, J hates Ferris Wheels. I think it comes from the fact that the one at the fair is REALLY squeaky and you feel like you might fall to your death. This one did not feel like that.

J actually enjoying a Ferris Wheel ride!

While we were up on the Ferris Wheel, we noticed this cool looking coaster in the distance:

Look reallllllly carefully and find the blue roller coaster.

It looked like a roller coaster we would love, so after we got down from the wheel, we set off to find it. And we when we found it we knew it would be the coolest roller coast there.

 This was the Twisted Typhoon, a bottomless roller coaster that had so many loops and corkscrews I lost count. It was by far the best one we rode! It was also the location where I almost had to pull out the teacher voice a month early; I hate when kids are rude and their parents don't correct them!

After that, we hit the water park. I didn't take my camera to the water park; I'm a klutz and knowing me I'd drop it. But the water park was the best part of the whole park. Great slides, a nice wave pool and a relaxing lazy river. It wore us out! We decided to head back home. I really wanted some soft serveice cream, but right when we gott he stand, their machine broke. :(

But J is a great boyfriend and on the way home, spotted a sign for a Dairy Queen. It was in this Florida Welcome Center. They had some weird trinkets:

 

A little man made out shells, smoking a cigar TOTALLY reminds me of Florida. Or not? But even these creepy guys could not distract me from my goal: ICE CREAM!

 It was creamy, huge and delicious. I savored every single bite!

It's storming now, so I'm glad we made it home when we did. I hope that everyone is enjoying their Fourth!

It was a long and hot day...

Whew! Boy was it hot today! Luckily, J had the brilliant idea of going to the beach. But just like always, we went a few places before we actually hit the beach.

Place numero uno: Target. Why Target? Because my wonderful and BRAND NEW Magic Bullet broke yesterday. The little gear on my blade popped off. So we went to Target where the nice little lady let me get a new one. Cross your fingers that this one doesn't break!

Place numero dos: Subway! We were starving so we popped in at Subway. Mmmm, Subway. J and I split a foot long Black Forest Ham sandwich with all the fixins. It was delicious!

Finally, we made it to the beach!

We actually found a spot that wasn't ridiculously crowded. Now if I would have taken the picture a little more to the left or right, you would have seen the entire Jacksonville population lounging out. I kid, but seriously it was packed! (It was also 100 degrees today, can you blame them?)

J set up his awesome umbrella and we promptly got to just relaxing.

J looking at me like I'm crazy for taking a picture. 

Later, we went into the water. The temperature was absolutely perfect. The tide came in and created this great little section where you could just lay and the waves would cover you. Wonderful!

While we were at the beach, this boat came up really close to shore. You could tell they just wanted to show off to the hundreds of people at the beach.

Funny part is, they got stuck! Why? They were too close to shore! Karma sucks. :)

All in all, it was a good day. J and I had some interesting conversations, which is always a good thing. How did you spend this hot first day of July?

Shopping and Ghost Stories

I realized the name of my blog is Laughter, Love and Necklaces, and I've yet to post a picture of me actually wearing one. I have quite the necklace collection and the one I wore today got me a lot of compliments:

I love teal and this necklace is awesome. Yes, I'm the lameo taking a picture in the Loft fitting room. Loft had an amazing sale today, half off everything with a special coupon. I had a gift card from the parents and got a pair of shorts, and two shirts for 12 dollars! Score!

After shopping, I met up J. His mom is in town, so we took her to St. Augustine. St. Augustine is one of my favorite places on the planet for multiple reasons:

• The history. I'm the biggest history geek and love that it's the oldest city in the USA.
• The atmosphere. St Augustine is just such a laid back place, despite all the tourists.
• And last but not least, because of this place:

 

This would be a picture of Flagler College, where I went to school. Beautiful isn't it? It was originally the Ponce De Leon Hotel built in 1888 by Henry Flagler. Flagler is right in the middle of the touristy area and is a National Landmark. I had the best time there! /end gushfest/. 

J, his mom and I walked all over St. Augustine and I gave her a tour of the public areas of the school. I ended up showing her what is a classic Flagler artifact.: the tile on the floor with Henry Flagler's face on it:

Legend has it that Henry Flagler's funeral took place in the rotunda of the hotel. A hotel janitor closed all the doors and windows (despite Flagler always wanting them opened). Hotel workers dropped Henry Flagler's casket and his spirit, having no where to go because everything was closed, flew into this tile. Neat, huh?

Now there's a huge possibility that it was put there on purpose. Each piece of the tile was hand laid, and Flagler had a sense of humor. For instance, he had the dining hall designed so that depending on where you sat you could hear the conversation across the room. He did this so he could hear people talking about the hotel. But I like the ghost story, better don't you?

All in all, despite it being hot as you know what, it was a great day! Speaking of ghost stories, what's the best one you've ever heard?

Debby, Debby, Debby

Apparently Debby will making a turn, crossing Florida, and exiting RIGHT below St. Augustine. Which means, non stop rain for the next few days. My backyard is flooded, and earlier today the street by my house looked like a little river.

It dried up for a few hours, so I headed to the library and Target.
Picked up the following two books:

Totally different books, I know; one is historical fiction and one is just a good beach read. My reading interests ALWAYS vary.



After that, I headed to Target to pick up a card and gift bag for J's birthday present. His birthday is tomorrow, which also happens to be my birthday. (CRAZY, right?!) I also stopped by the party store to find him some "I'm turning 30" goodies.







My brother came with me, so as a reward for putting up with the library and Target, we went to Sweet Cece's. And no, he is not ten, he's twenty-two, but still feels the need to be rewarded.

Sweet Cece's is the BEST frozen yogurt in town. It's creamy and doesn't melt quickly like some of the others. They have a great selection of toppings, too.

So that was my day. How was yours?