Out of nowhere this guy in his twenties walked by, covered in awesome tattoos from the bottom of his face to the tops of his feet. His ears had those crazy huge earrings in them and he was wearing a pretty hip beach outfit. (I’m not exactly sure what made it a “hip beach outfit”.) People were high-fiving him as they past him.

Clearly this guy was somebody.

Mr. Somebody walked over by us at the pool. As if out of nowhere about five blonde chicks joined him. They all were beautiful, had the same long hair, and were wearing sexy (double sexy!) bikinis. The group got in the pool right in front of us and proceeded to hang out there for the rest of the afternoon.

The King and I had no idea who this guy was.

One of the hott ladies had an adorable kid who was playing in the water with them. She seemed to be a very good mom and quite attentive to her child. Honesty, they all seemed super nice. We couldn’t help but listen in to what they were saying.

They were there for a wedding.

We were pretty sure the wedding was between Mr. Somebody and one of the blondes.

Mr. Somebody and his entourage were there with us during our entire stay. Any time we were at the pool, they were there with us.

And yet, The King and I could not figure out who he was.

One night, after a day of pool time with The Entourage, we got online and tried to figure out who this guy was.

We googled everything we could think of in every order we could think of:

• Tattooed rockstar
• Rockstar wedding May Maui

We started naming bands trying to think of one that he might be a member of. We then realized we’re not hip enough to know the majority of “Top 20 Bands” at the moment. The King got online and googled that. Yeah, we didn’t know most of the bands, let alone who one of the drummers might be and if it was Mr. Somebody.

I texted Carrisa and was all “we’re staying in the same hotel as some rockstar, but we’re too lame to know who he is.” To which she replied, “it’s probably someone from Bon Jovi and that’s why you don’t him.”

Um yeah, I would know EVERY SINGLE MEMBER of Bon Jovi. I could even tell you some random facts about each of them.

He wasn’t from Bon Jovi.

The next day, at the pool, (I just typed “poop” instead of “pool”. Tee-hee!) I tried to take a picture of Mr. Somebody by trying to make it look like I was taking a picture of Babboo.

Clearly that didn’t work. (One more reason why I’ll never work at US Weekly.) You can see two of the hott blondes from The Entourage. (Check out the back tattoo of the one in the black suit. Awesome!) (Mr. Somebody is in the pool directly behind Babboo’s head. Go Isabel!)

We quickly learned that most of The Entourage’s rooms were next to our room. Look, you can even see one of them behind us in this picture we took outside our patio door.

(Oh my gosh, look at me posting a picture of myself IN A BIKINI WITH A HUGE PREGNANT BELLY. Whateves. I figure if I could spend a week on vacation looking like this for everyone in Maui, who cares if the interweb sees me too.)

(I’m nerdy enough to say that I wore a different bikini every day of our trip. Oh yes, I own that many and they all needed their chance in the sun.)

After a few days trying to figure out who this freaking guy was, we gave up and hung out with Mr. Somebody and The Entourage at the pool. We didn’t give them any special attention or treat them differently. They were seriously all very lovely and respectful. (You know, not like you’d expect from rockstar types.)

Dude, mostly because we weren’t sure who in the heck they were.

The day after the wedding, down at the pool, we heard how nice the wedding was and about how one of the hott blondes got so drunk she ended up outside with her bedding in the middle of the night. Apparently she passed out before she made it to the beach. She wanted to sleep near the water.

Hey, I don’t blame her.

So tell me, do you know of any tattooed rockstars that got married last week in Maui?

Me: I’ve never been to Hawaii. Let’s go there!

The King: Perfect. I’d love to go back.

We immediately start looking at plane tickets and hotel prices in Hawaii.

The King: Holy crap. We could fly to Europe IN THE HIGH SEASON for these prices.

Me: Just look at these hotel prices. We can get a hotel in Berlin for $30 a night!

And then we book flights to Europe and forget about Hawaii. At least until we start planning for our next vacation. In which we repeat this process.

So I’ve never been to Hawaii in my entire life. The King’s only been the one time when he was in college. And he went with his family so that doesn’t really count. My family was way too poor to ever go to Hawaii. In fact my own parents didn’t go until a few years ago. They had a blast, although my dad had this to say about Hawaii; “when you get off the plane you might as well just open your wallet and give them all your money. They’re going to get it anyway.”

Ah, words to live by.

The King was unemployed last fall when we decided to go ahead and try to get knocked up. We were okay with the decision, but were a little nervous about how others would take it. You know, that maybe we weren’t being fiscally responsible. We knew it was okay; we had insurance, money in savings, and all of Babboo’s hand-me-downs.

So I got pregnant.

After that we were all; “hey, this might be our last chance in a few years to go on a Big Vacation. We should plan one.”

Again, people might find this fiscally irresponsible. We did not.

Plus we had a crap load of hotel points a travel vouchers that were about to expire. And honestly, we did not want to lose those.

It started this way:

The King: Let’s take a beach vacation without Babboo. Just the two of us.

Me: Sounds perfect. I can rock out with my pregnant belly in a bikini and just relax.

The King: Where should we go?

Me: HAWAII!!

(See, the plans always start this way.)

Me: But this time, let’s actually go to Hawaii. Let’s just suck it up and pay the money and DO IT.

We asked The King’s folks if they’d watch out kid for a week. They agreed. And so planning began.

First we needed to figure out how to best utilize the hotel points we had. We had something like 5 free nights in ANY hotel, up to $400 A NIGHT. Naturally that meant we needed to find a hotel that cost no less then $395 a night. Hey, might as well get our moneys worth. We searched and searched for the perfect hotel for our needs. We found that one of the nicer hotels was also offering a FREE night for every 3 nights you booked. The all you can eat breakfast buffet was also included in this special.

Double score.

We ended up getting 7 nights in a 4 star hotel RIGHT ON THE BEACH for less then we would have paid for some crappy hotel in the middle of the island, blah, blah, blah.

(I must admit The King’s a little nervous that we’ll get used to that kind of hotel and be afraid to stay in our usual $30 a night hotel in Berlin. He has nothing to be worried about. I’ll never be okay with spending $400 a night on a hotel room.)

Then we started looking at using our frequent flier miles and vouchers.

Long story short, Babboo is coming with us and we only had to buy one ticket. (Buy one, get one plus a travel companion voucher.) It’s okay. I sort of like the kid, so I’m sure it’ll be just fine having him there.

At this point we were like .75 cents into our week in Maui.

(Maybe a little more then .75 cents, but you get the picture.)

The King is now gainfully employed, so no more worries about being fiscally irresponsible. Phew.

Yesterday The King put me in charge of finding a cheap rental car so I headed over to biddingfortravel and saw that people were getting FULL SIZED rental cars on Priceline for $9-$11 a day. A DAY. I immediately put in a bid for $8 a day. (Hey, if I’m going to go for it, I might as well go for it.)

And then my bid was accepted.

Yes, you heard that right. I got a FULL SIZED CAR in HAWAII for $8 A DAY. (To be fair, it’s more like $15 a day when you add on taxes. But still, SCORE!) I’m pretty sure this is a screaming deal, because I know my parents paid more then that for their car when they came to Seattle a few weeks ago. HAA!

Since our month in Europe in 2008 I’ve expanded my bikini collection by about a dozen. I won’t be buying any new suits for the trip. Babboo has his one from last year as well as the one he got as a birthday present last week. I’m not sure we’ll need much in the line of actual clothing. I found some sunscreen on sale at Target the other day. We borrowed snorkeling gear from my aunt and The King installed our new home alarm last weekend and we’re got someone from church to stay at our house during the night.

And we’re set. We leave in like a week.

(We’ve yet to decided if we want to shell out the dough to see a luau while we’re there. I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts on it. Is it worth it? Is it just a crappy tourist thing? WHAT, what, what?)

I’m not kidding when I say I might actually start packing tonight.

Oh wait, NOT tonight. Tonight my bestest friend May, who deserted me and moved to Reno, is in town and we’re going out to dinner with all the ladies.

Packing begins tomorrow.

So tell me, any advice on Maui? Or rather Maui with a kid? Or just Maui being pregnant? Or Maui on a budget?

Or you can just hit me over the head for not being very fiscally responsible. I probably deserve it a little bit.

“You’ve got to see this video. It’s the funniest thing I’ve.Ever.Seen! It will change your life forever.”

And then there is some random YouTube link.

Or this:

“Check out the pictures of my new baby on Facebook. I haven’t posted them anywhere else. You’re gonna love this kid.”

And then some random link to a Facebook photo album.

My texted me last night to tell me she had just gotten engaged. I’m sure she’ll send out an e-mail with a link to the pictures of her ring on Facebook.

I hate these e-mails.

HATE.

And here’s why:

I CAN’T ACCESS YOUTUBE OR FACEBOOK AT WORK.

When I click on a link to either site I get the “access denied” and the big read hand. (I also get that guilty feeling that I was just caught looking at porn at work.) I always write the e-mailer back and say “I can’t access Facebook/YouTube at work. Can you send it in another format?”

They never do. I don’t blame them. I mean, who wants to be bothered by someone too good for Facebook or YouTube?

I think they just figure that I’ll look at it on my laptop at home.

They are sorely mistaken. I can count on my hands how many times I’ve accessed the internet at home. And when I do it’s usually been to Skype my family on holidays. I stare at a computer screen for 8+ hours a day, why would I want to subject myself to more computer screen death when I’m not getting paid? Yeah, I wouldn’t.

At my cousin’s wedding reception a few years ago they had this adorable green cake with polka dots on it. I found out my younger cousin (who got engaged last night) made her herself. I was impressed beyond belief. (And, to be honest, I didn’t believe her at first.) When I asked her how in the heck she learned how to do stuff like that she was all “I watched a video on YouTube and just followed along.”

Interesting.

During Christmas, while hanging out with this same cousin, she told me she’d recently taken up knitting. I knew her mom didn’t knit, so I asked her who taught her.

“I watched a video on YouTube and learned that way.”

My friend Kasey (who got a positive pregnancy test, thankyouverymuch) recently started cutting her family’s hair. I asked her how in the heck she learned how to cut hair.

“I watched a video on YouTube.”

I guess I didn’t know that YouTube for good for things other then watching monkey’s have sex or seeing video of your child’s first steps. YouTube seemed to actually be useful!

I bought a light gray shirt/dress (tunic?) for $4 at American Eagle (my first purchase ever at AE). The thing was, it was just gray. Nothing exciting at all about it. I wanted to jazz it up, but didn’t know how.

And then I remembered YouTube and how, apparently, there are useful videos on there. I dug our laptop out from under a pile of papers on our desk and searched YouTube for “how to make rosettes”. The search results numbered in the 100’s. I’d hit a winner.

I began watching video after video to find the type of rosette I liked the best. (And that looked the easiest. And was made out of supplies I already owned.) I decided upon a sassy felt rosette.

I watched the video over and over. I dug through my craft supplies and found some yellow felt. I sat in front of the laptop, felt strip in hand, and followed along with the cute girl on YouTube and she walked me through the process!

I totally did it. And it was cute. And fun. And easy.

I ended up making quite a few rosettes in all different sizes. And then I sewed them onto my new shirt/dress thingy (seriously, are they called “tunics”?). It sassed up the look a ton. The King* was even impressed. As he should be.

After that I decided to get back on YouTube and see if I could find a video on how to trim my own bangs.

Dude, not only were there videos showing you how to trim you own bangs, but there were videos on how to trim your entire head of hair. I even watched a video on how to get the “perfect messy work bun”. I HAD NO IDEA!

My life has been changed. Now when I want to do something, or make something…I’ll simply head over to YouTube and just watch a video on it. I know I’m like three years behind everyone else on this. (Maybe even more like six years.) Better late then never, right?

But I’m still not going to check out Facebook.

So tell me, what interesting thing have you learned to do via YouTube? (And let’s keep this clean folks!)

*A quick HAPPY BIRTHDAY shout-out to The King. I hope you have a good day.

There she is, just standing there posing for a picture with her huge helmet on. Like she’s saying “why bother taking this totally uncomfortable helmet off for a little lunch break?”

Why bother? Because it’s hideous. But it’s also hilarious.

The best part is that most pictures of my mom look similar to this. She’s always wearing a puffy coat that’s 3 sizes too big for her and a helmet that’s made for professional motor cross guys and not some mom from Utah.

(You’ll note that in this picture my younger brother took the time to remove his helmet. But not his goggles? Yeah, I don’t get it.)

My parents spend most weekends riding their 4-wheelers on the back trails of Utah. They love it and I think that’s great. (I grew up around 3-wheelers, but now they only ride 4-wheelers since they’re much safer.) (But not safe enough that Babboo is allowed near one.)

Looking at these other pictures I’m thinking that it might not just be her huge helmet and over sized coat, it may also be her post; standing, arms at side, no emotions.

This year for Christmas The King surprised me with a brand new coat.  It’s black and fitted and cozy and I love it.

I was surprised he got it for me since I didn’t need a new coat. I had a perfectly good coat that I got for free. You see, my BFF May (who deserted me and moved to Reno) is married to a guy that used to work in the fashion industry and therefore got a lot of clothing samples. Mr. May had been nice enough to get me a lovely, albeit super large, purple puffy coat. Sure, I hate purple. Sure, it’s too big. But it was warm and best of all it was free. *

When I asked The King why he bought me this slick new black coat when I had a coat already, he said:

“You were one helmet away from looking like your mom.”

I knew what he meant and I was thankful he had my back. I hadn’t even realized it until it was pointed out to me. And I was glad it had been pointed out.

Because that’s what marriage is all about; making sure your spouse doesn’t turn into their parent.

*May and Mr. May are celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary today. Congrats to the both of them!

I don’t know who first told me about Fritzies.  It was as if I had always known it existed.  As if everyone had always known.

Fritzies was located in a giant warehouse a few towns away.  There weren’t any signs on the outside of the building.  So honestly, I’m not sure if Fritzies was even its actual name.  The inside of the warehouse was a mess.  Basically it was just racks and racks of clothes in no particular order.  When there wasn’t room for a rack, a huge cardboard box was filled with clothes.

It was amazing and disgusting, all at the same time.

I have no idea where these clothes came from or where they were going.  I just knew they were inexpensive.  It was like magic.  When you found something you liked on the rack, you have to look it over very carefully to make sure there weren’t any holes in it.  At the time I had no idea what that was about.  As an adult I know they were samples or seconds.  But back then, I just thought someone had been pissed and sliced the clothes.  (duh!)

You didn’t always find anything to buy at Fritzies.  Sometimes, after hours of searching, you had to accept that it was a bust.  But sometimes, sometimes, you hit pay dirt and found the most perfect item for less then $10.  Finding something I loved was a treat for me. Finding something that didn’t cost a lot of money was a treat for my mom!  (You know, since she was paying for my clothes back then.)

Here’s the thing about Fritzies; since it was technically just a warehouse, it didn’t have your typical changing rooms.  What it had was one big room where everyone would try on their clothes together.  TOGETHER.  This frightened me to the core.  Before a planned trip to Fritzies I would spend days and days stressing over having to change in front of people.  The odds were that it wouldn’t be anyone you knew.  But, naturally, there was the possibility of going in the dressing room and seeing the most popular girl from school, your Sunday school teacher, or even your English teacher.

Gulp.

Because of this I never went to Fritzies with girlfriends.  I took my mom.  And as I got older, I went alone.  I wasn’t dumb enough to bring someone with me that I’d have to change in front of.  Thinking back, when my mom did come I’d make her stand in front of me and be a sort of screen when I changed.

As I got a little older, and stopped growing, I didn’t have to try the clothes on as frequently.  I could usually just hold something up to me and tell if it fit or not.  Thankfully.

We went to Utah last weekend to visit my family.  The King and I had a little time to ourselves to go out.  We just happened to be driving through the town were Fritzies was located.  As we passed the street it was on I was reminded of Fritzies.  The warehouse looked empty.

I’m not sure where the locals find cheap clothes anymore.  (Probably Wal-Mart.)

While thinking about this post I knew I wanted to try to include a picture of me wearing something I got at Fritzies.  I could remember one (black velvet) dress I got there that I wore to a dance.  And I knew I wore a skirt from there on my way to my first wedding ceremony.

I knew I wasn’t going to find a picture from my wedding day.  But I was pretty sure I had a picture of the black dress.

(I bought this dress for $10.  My mom bought the white lace, which cost more then the dress, and sewed it on to the front of the dress and the sleeves.)

(Yes, I’m a senior in high school in this picture.  Yes, my date was 15!  He asked me.  I didn’t want to be rude and turn him down. So instead I dated a minor.)

(Plus, dude, check out his sweater!)

Then I found this next picture.  I KNOW I got this dress at Fritzies too.  (It had all this weird extra fabric on the back.  I wasn’t sure what it was for.  Mostly it just made me look like I had a bubble butt, which you can see in the picture.)

(This date is also younger then me.  Again, he asked me!)

(Again, check out that sweater!)

I about died when I found the next picture which is from my COLLEGE GRADUATION.  Dude, I got this dress at Fritzies too.  As well as the white shirt I wore under it.  (To be fair, it was adorable.  I wore it with white knee high socks and Doc Martin mary janes.)

(That boy isn’t younger then me, nor was he my boyfriend.  I mean, seriously, while I will date a boy with a horrible sweater, I draw the line at dating someone with suspenders.)

I didn’t realize I was still shopping at Frtizies in college.  E-gads, that’s embarrassing.