The Daily Kelly - Day 216

Today I suffered a very tragic workplace accident... I broke a nail!

 It's Halloween! Which in my family is a serious holiday. For the first time in years and years, I didn't dress up. Also, for the first time since I moved in here, like four years ago, I had trick or treaters. Crazy! If I'm home, I always watch Hocus Pocus on Halloween. This year, once I'd finished that one, I watched the scariest movie I've ever seen, The Darkness, for the second time ever. During the movie, I noticed that I hadn't seen Calli in a while, look where I found her. I guess she figured if she couldn't see the scary movie, it couldn't see her.

The Daily Kelly - Day 215

It's National Cat Day (If FourSquare says it, it must be true)!

 Calli and Cokaya are obviously thrilled :-)

The Daily Kelly - Day 214

This morning I headed back to the orthopedic surgeon. It was raining on my way there and, considering the time of day, traffic seemed to be headed the wrong way. Very The Walking Dead:

Of course, I found the traffic a few more miles down the road and was late for my appointment. But so was everyone else, so I was lucky enough to still be able to see the doctor. 

 Unfortunately, he didn't have very good news for me. Considering the damage to my wrist/hand and the current pain I'm experiencing almost constantly, the only option left is surgery. Here's the plan he's proposed:

Yeah, my options are to remove the pisiform bone in my right hand. Or don't. I didn't even know that removing a bone was a thing... it just seems super drastic to me. After some google action, it appears to be super common and generally brings relief to people who have suffered injuries to the area that I have. The doctor told me to call his office when I'm ready. Basically, whenever the pain gets too much to handle anymore. Get it HANDle. Yeah, I'm lame, I know.

The Daily Kelly - Day 213

My Cokaya kitty decided to be extra sweet at bedtime tonight. Calli's also in this picture too, can you spot her?

The Daily Kelly - Day 212

You ever get that feeling that feeling like there's a ton of bricks on your chest... then you wake up and it's just this?

After Calli's creepilicious awakening, I hung out with my boyfriend today. We went to the mall and discovered that there's a new, delightfully named place in town (we had just eaten, so we did not get to experience the magic):

The Daily Kelly - Day 211

I rushed home yesterday so I would be back in town in time for the ASPA meeting today. Luckily, more people were able to come this time than last time. Yay!
After the meeting, I had to go back to That Pie Place, because, it's That Pie Place.

The Daily Kelly - Day 210

This morning,  got up, got dressed, and went to have breakfast with my dad and my sister. I then left for Georgia... without my cell phone! Luckily, I didn't make it too far without it and found it safely at my dad's house.
Here I am, somewhere in middle of nowhere Georgia:

 This is how I knew I was getting closer to home... traffic:

Now I'm home and both of my kitties are alive. Calli hopped up on my lap as soon as I sat down. Everything's normal :-) 

The Daily Kelly - Day 209

This morning, we left Minnesota. Shook and Will left super early this morning, so Rachael and Kevin took us to the airport together, since they've both got rental cars to drive home.
On the way to the airport, Greg found Shook's sunglasses. So Rachael and I photobombed his taunting selfies. Win!

 Here's the last Field Lieutenant photo for GSSA 2013:

Greg and I had a quick layover in Chicago, luckily we didn't even have to get off the plane (and we got to move up to better seats!). My dad picked me up from the airport and then we went to dinner. Noms! After that, I headed over to my grandmother's house to visit with her for a couple hours before heading back to my dad's house for some sleep. 

The Daily Kelly - Day 208

GSSA Debrief - Day Two... also known as preparing to be separated from some of my best friends on the planet.
Brrrrr, it's cold in Minnesota! Our car windows were frosty, so we made Greg do the scraping:

 Once we arrived safely at corporate, Greg took a nice picture of Rachael and me:

 And I totally photobombed his selfie:

 Then, we had the chance to take a photo with Michael Sherwood, he's kind of a big deal. This isn't the full group shot, it's a semi-fail selfie of Greg's... but the full group shot turned out horribad.

Here's the board from our day two meeting room, it may be hard for you to make it out, but it's got a ton of hashtags, including hashtag hashtag, lol:

 Here's a random and totally middle school shot I just had to have as we left for dinner. We did not put the message in the dirt, it was already there:

 Dinner was super fun and super special. I got to sit between Shook and Evan, which is always fun. Evan's drink was frothy and foamy on its own:

Shook and I shared a drink, since it said it was made for two and we are the WonderTwins:

 Patricia ended up getting way more meat than she was expecting:

I, of course, had dessert. It was flaming. Also, the waitress brought me a drink in a coconut, right after I'd finished telling her I was allergic to coconut when I ordered my dessert (the s'mores were supposed to come with coconut). I didn't die! Yay!

 I desperately adore this picture of Evan. He had a ton of fun with his dessert.

Our super awesome, special secret swag for this year were meritorious service awards. They are apparently the last ones that will ever be issued, since we're going to a new badge system where speciality titles will no longer be printed.

It's a totally real badge, just encased in acrylic. Kind of like an emergency "break glass for badge" badge, lol. Here's a close up:

 At the end of the night, I borrowed Greg's camera to copy his pictures. Here's a special surprise I left on his memory card for him:

The Daily Kelly - Day 207

GSSA Debrief... we're all ready to take off our briefs, wait, that's not why we're here? Oh, well then, we're all ready to discuss this summer and plan for next summer. Sound better? Good.
Here we are doing our thing (Evan is taking the picture, but his jacket is on his seat next to me being all branded and stuff):

I ended up with a defective mini-bag of Skittles. Mine are on the left, three colors and not very many. Evan's are on the left, normal colors and normal amount. It was really weird. 

 It's a group shot with the original Geek Mobile!

 At the end of the day, I went with Brandon to post-it his old boss' desk. We had fun.

Here we are walking out of the Best Buy corporate office for the night: 

 For dinner, we were invited by some corporate Agents to Cuzzy's. It's a dive bar.

The Daily Kelly - Day 206

Today is Kristy's birthday! So I had her drive me to the airport. Yeah, sorry about that.
At the airport, I met up with Greg, one of my travel partners from last year. It was nice having a friend to fly with, and he helped guide me through the insanity that is South West's no assigned seats policy:

Once we landed, we were picked up by the other Field Lieutenants, and we headed to the hotel to check in. When I got to my room, I discovered an exciting bonus, I had enough beds to sleep seven or eight people! A king sized bed, a fold out couch, and bunk beds! Wow!

Once we reconvened downstairs, I heard from my WonderTwin that there had been a problem with his plane and that he was going to be super late getting in... we all had a sad (except Greg):

After sharing our depression with Shook, we headed to the Mall of America, for games and dinner. And, of course, we had to take an escalator picture:

I was partnered with Brandon, our Quartermaster, for a scavenger hunt. There was a strict no cell phones policy, but I was excused due to my missing WonderTwin:

 Here Brandon and I are after our triumphant loss (we tied for second... out of three). Though, the team who won was called Team Cheat To Win... hmmmmm

 On the way in to dinner, I met a very shady bear:

My WonderTwin finally arrived:

 And I got to make my own hat (it says: I'm So Ninja, Zombies Can't Catch Me):

Then we took a group shot to celebrate GSSA 2013. Woot!

The Daily Kelly - Day 205

Today is Isaiah's birthday! It's hard to believe that my baby is already 12 years old. Next year he'll be a teenager! He chose to go to an organic farm today with his family (awwww). The farm had a corn maze, pick your own, and all sorts of other things.
Here Isaiah and I are in a dramatic reenactment of our family's escape from the corn maze (there was a potty emergency for other members of our party by the time we triumphantly escaped the corn maze the first time):

 They also had a big swing hanging from a tree, our family had fun:

 

I seem to be missing a lot of pictures from today, but here's one of my dad and Isaiah that survived:

 Once we got back to St. Pete, it was time for cupcakes! Everybody loves a good fire hazard :-)