The past few weeks in my life have been super crazy.  I mean, I've felt like crap several times and then felt amazing other times, but I'm going to focus on Derek's issues first.

So a little less than two weeks ago, Derek lost his job.  He'd been working at the Lexington Wal-Mart (I know: Booooo Wal-Mart) for about a year and a half, switching from in-stock to dairy to in-stock again, and then finally in TLE as a mechanic.  He didn't have a problem with the job itself as it was easy work, but he (like many other people) had a huge problem with the company itself.  But with the economy being so horrible, he didn't think it would be possible to find anything better.  A job at Wal-Mart is better than no job at all, right?

Well, one night, Derek decided to get his tires rotated after work, before taking me back to school for the week.  Evidently this is a no-no, since he had just gotten off of a shift (the thinking is that you could have premium oil put in and only pay for regular, or something like that). Everything would have been fine, but the people who were working on his truck messed up--they forgot to tighten lug-nuts, and so his tire got a little messed up when he attempted to drive off. Again, everything would have been fine had Derek been any other customer because he could just file a claim and get it fixed free (including the little bit of damage it did).  But, instead, his supervisor informed him that if he filed a claim, he AND the people who worked on his truck could get fired because he shouldn't have brought the truck there anyway. So THAT really pissed him off... So he just went home to cool off. When he went back to work the next day, they fired him anyway, but in the process, the other mechanics did not lose their jobs. That's good because I know at least one has a family to support.

So the week after this incident was emotional and full of me trying to support him from 40 miles away.  He felt pretty useless and horrible and I HATED seeing him like that.  I cried more that week than I have in a long time, just because I know he's worth more than he felt like he was.  Kentucky has really been a pain in his ass since he's been here, and I feel bad because he wouldn't be here if it weren't for me.

But anyway, this Monday, he took a day to get everything settled.  He went to the unemployment office to try and get benefits while he looked for another job, so that he would still be able to make truck payments.  While he was walking out of the office, people handed him a paper that advertised available jobs at the Amazon (yes, the website) warehouse. He went to the place and got a job that day. Tonight is his first official day of work.

I am so unbelievably thankful right now that he was able to find a job so fast.  I was worried, but this turned out to be positive because now he is making more money than he was before.  He is working nights, which really super sucks, but I'm not going to complain because we're only going to be here for a year and a half anyway.

Now with my issues... I have been feeling like crap this week.  Part of it is because I'm burnt out from school and I'm ready for a break.  But I've also been ahving lactose intolerance issues this week and a migraine that keeps reappearing.  It's not been pleasant, but this too shall pass, right?

In short, life has been a rollercoaster the past few weeks... But Thanksgiving is coming up and it makes me think how lucky we are to have everything that we do. There are so many people in this country, and especially the world, who have nowhere near what we have.

Derek and I just got back from our vacation, or "Operation: Escape" as we like to call it. We try to do one of these at least once a year, and have so far been successful. This summer's Operation: Escape was a mini roadtrip around Kentucky.

The first day, we stopped by Newport Aquarium. It was pretty cool because I've never been to a huge aquarium like that before.Here's a picture of a huge sea-turtle! His name was Denver. :)

That night, we headed to our hotel in Louisville. We also visited my roomie since she lives there--only about 10 minutes from our hotel. She made us cheeseburger pizza; it had pickles on it and was surprisingly delicious!

The next day, we went to Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom. It was a hot day, and their roller coasters are honestly not that great, so we spent most of the day at the Water Park. This was just fine with me. We didn't have the camera out much that day, because we were walking around and going on water rides. But here is an image of a really cool ride (found this on about.com via google images). It's a water coaster--it's like a water slide, but there are magnetic pulls that make you go uphill too!



That night, Derek proposed to me. :) His original plan was to propose on our scenic railway trip later in the week (more on that later), but he ended up keeping my shyness in mind and proposed in our hotel room when it was just us. I liked that much better. For the past few months, Derek had been playfully saying "Will you marry me?" a lot whenever I did something particularly cute and I would jokingly respond with either "Yeah, tomorrow?" or "Shiny thing?" with my hand out. Well, he asked me to marry him and I said, "Shiny thing?" jokingly... That's when he pulled the actual "shiny thing" out from behind him. He likes to make fun of my face at the moment, which was evidently smacking myself in the face. lol! But anyway, I said yes and we're engaged now, but won't be getting married for about two more years. Here is my ring:




The next day we went to the zoo, but it was pouring so I don't have pictures. :( I did get to see two giant turtles mating though. That was pretty cool!! Haha!

After we were done at the zoo, we went to Mammoth Cave and set up camp. At that point, I was trying to reach family members and inform them that we were engaged. I was able to reach almost all family members--all but my dad--before my phone died. Aye aye aye... Because we were camping, I had no way to charge my phone so everyone else had to wait for a while before they could hear the good news. This is a fun picture I took of the fire at our campsite:



Here is a picture Derek took of me while we were hiking the trails around Mammoth Cave.


After hiking and doing some cave tours, we went down to Corbin, Kentucky for our hotel room. We just relaxed that night and went over to a steak buffet. It was yummy! The next morning, we left for Stearns, Kentucky to the Big Fork Scenic Railway.  It travels through a few old coal towns and there are museums to walk through--it's very informative. We rode the train and looked at all the quaint little shops around there. Here are a few pictures:


Some older gentlemen singing at the train depot.


Inside a traincar.


A sample of the beautiful scenery seen from the train.

After we were done with this portion of our trip, we had originally planned to go to Red River Gorge, which is basically Kentucky's much smaller and greener version of the Grand Canyon. However, it was supposed to POUR that night, and the camping set-up at Red River Gorge is pretty much: hike up the gorge, find a random spot off the trail, set up your tent, stay there.  No one knows you're there so if you die, they'll find you in a few weeks probably.

So we decided to go to a closer campground, Holly Bay, which is in the Daniel Boone National Forest. I have to say this was an awesome decision!


This is our campsite. Yes, that's water behind those trees. Our assigned campsite was only a tiny trail from the waterfront. :)




This is Laurel Lake. We were allowed to swim in it too, so we spent a little time in there. Here is my smexy sugar dumplin':


He doesn't like this picture, probably since he's half naked and all. lol!

That was pretty much our vacation. It definitely didn't last long enough...

Well everyone, I have returned! I absolutely had the time of my life in Europe and enjoyed seeing everything I could. It amazed me most how old everything was--I don't know how many buildings I was in that were older than our entire country! It was just WOW!

The purpose of my trip was to be educational, and I definitely learned a lot. Denmark has universal healthcare and allows gay marriage, and we actually got the chance to talk to a hospital administrator and a few gay couples so that we could learn about those major differences. One thing about their healthcare that blew me away is that it literally pays for pretty much EVERYTHING. Chemo, surgery, fertility treatment (including for lesbians), everything! The only bummer is that the healthcare system covers things that would happen in a normal hospital or doctor's office, so not dental or vision. For blind people like me, that would suck, but the person we talked to at the hospital says that the govt. is working on changing that.

Anyway, here is a quick summary of my trip, using pictures!!


Me in front of Rosenborg Castle, the first one we saw. It was a museum inside as well, and contained things like the crown jewels--super shiny!


A Danish street--Copenhagen. So ultimately European! Notice the bikes--the Danes ride bikes everywhere!!
 
View from the Canal Boat Ride in Copenhagen. Most photographed street in Scandinavia.
This windmill is in Kerteminde, Denmark (may have spelled that wrong...) by the Johannes Larsen's Museum of Art. It was beautiful and reminded me of home.
This is Hans Christian Andersen's birthplace/boyhood home.  His dad was a cobbler and the family was very poor. Seven families shared this building as a house. One day, his mom had a fortune teller come and tell HC Andersen's fortune, and the fortune teller said he would be very successful, rich, and known around the world. The fortune teller was mad about this, because she didn't think he deserved it.


This is the point where the Baltic Sea meets the North Sea, in Skagen (pronounced Skayn). It was beautiful there but the sun didn't set until 11, and then rose at 4 in the morning. Ugh.

 
Denmark is one of the safest places in the world--mothers seriously leave their babies outside for their naps because the fresh air is good for them. You would never see this in America, and if you did, CPS would be called.


This is a coaster at Tivoli Gardens, the 2nd oldest amusement park in the world. It was a blast! This was a great coaster too--one of the very few rides there that was aimed toward adults.

These are just a few of my MANY pictures. I also traveled to Ireland and Norway while I was over in Europe, and I didn't include any of those. If you've got me on facebook, though, you can see all of those pictures over there. :) I had a great time, but I'm also very glad to be home!