Shannon Elizabeth

Look @ this blast from the past I found!

Girls' Night Out!

Moving to New York!

Can you believe October 2009 is almost here?! I can’t-this year has just flown by. I guess the older I get the faster the years seem to go. Why is that? I don’t like it. I remember being home in the summers with my mom when I was little and one day would seem to be so very long. I remember lots of the morning game shows being and then boring soaps. I’d be trying to play with my Barbies or reading or doing anything I could to pass the time. Nowadays I feel like I have so much I should be doing that I can barely accomplish one thing in a day. Sighhhhhhhhhhhh.

Well-in an attempt to break out of that cycle of procrastination & possible laziness I’ve decided to move to New York for a bit. I was just there on vacation mixed with some work and realized I was so happy and motivated! My cousin (who lives in the city) and I came up with a great idea for a web series we want to create, but it would require me being there. Perfect! That gives me reason #1 to head East! But I don’t want to make this a big deal. I haven’t decided to move permanently. I love my house in LA and having a car and a yard for the dogs. I haven’t decided I’m ready to give that up all together. So for now I figure I’ll just go out for maybe 2-3 months and see how it goes. I’ve never been out there past November for longer than a few days to really experience their winter. But, to tell you the truth, I’m looking forward to being in another season besides summer right now. It’s so hot still at my house in LA that it’s not so nice. Especially since you don’t feel like you should be going out of the house in summer clothes since the rest of the country is in fall.

Reason #2 came to me last week after I’d been putting it out there that I was ready to move for a bit…a film! Yes-I was offered a role in a script that I think is really fun and it just happens to shoot in NY! How perfect is that?! I guess that’s the Law of Attraction at it’s finest! I can’t say anything more about the script right now other than it’s in the romantic comedy genre. So I’m really looking forward to that.

And finally-my last reason for wanting to head out to NY is really that I just need a change. I’ve been in LA a very long time and I feel like I need to step outside my comfort zone and challenge myself. I tend to get very comfortable staying home and hanging with my dogs and watching Tivo. I’m super happy when I’m doing that! But then I’m not so happy at the same time. I love working and staying busy and can forget how much I love that very easily when I’m home and being lazy. I feel like I’ve been home long enough. This is my time-my time to get out and do everything I can-see everything I can-create and work and have fun! I’ve been home long enough!

So a lot of people want to know what I’m doing with my dogs, who are truly my kids. I’ve decided for now to take Winnie with my on the plane (because she’s the only one who’ll fit under the seat in the cabin with me) and to fly Boomer out on Pet Airways (that way he also will fly safely in the cabin). Boomer is my quietest dog who’s very docile and loves to hang by himself. He’ll be very easy for me to have in NY and honestly will love the time apart from the rest of the gang. Casper and Katie are going to stay home and watch the house for me. Why are they the ones staying home? Well-they are best friends who can never be separated-Casper is a barker-he’s very loud, which in turn makes Katie very loud. And Katie is my biggest baby and she’s very lazy. I just felt like they would be best at home holding down the fort while I go check out this new place and see if after a few months they should meet me out there or if I’ll want to come back home to them. I have a friend who’ll be staying at my house and taking very good care of my kids. And Casper and Katie are used to me going away on trips quite often, and I think they have more fun when I’m gone cause they’re usually spoiled rotten by my friends. So I know they’ll be great and happy at home in their own beds. So, come the holidays I’ll reevaluate where I’m at both literally and in my life and decide what the next step for my kids and I will be. I’m really happy separating the dogs like this for now too because whenever there’s ever been a scuffle amongst them it’s Boomer against Casper & Katie. So now I’ll have no worries at all. My kids are everything to me. I would never do anything that’s not in their best interest. I love them with all my heart!

So there you have it. I’m leaving LA October 8th-so I have just under 2 weeks to get some bags packed and head out. I’m ready to start this next chapter in my life. Me getting out of this rut and doing well in my life will only help me to give my doggies a better life and do more good for animal rescue everywhere. So it’s time. Thank you to all of you who have sent me words of support and encouragement through Twitter or anywhere else. If you want to follow my future journeys on Twitter, my name on there is ShannonElizab. I have a whole list of great places to check out while in NY that all of you have recommended to me-mainly good restaurants. I can’t wait! I’m always open to anything new and all suggestions! Once I know what area I’ll be living in I’ll definitely be searching for a good yoga class and gym. Maybe even a great dance class!

Once we get the web series going too I’ll let you all know what that’s about and where you can find it. I think I’m more excited about that than anything else!

Thanks again to all of you! This is the happiest I’ve felt in a very long time. I have to say too-I love Twitter! I love communicating with everyone on there-so please come say HI if you haven’t already. I really do try to respond to the messages I see. If I miss you I apologize-but I’ll always try. And if you see me ever walking the streets in NY come over and tell me your Twitter name-I’m starting to recognize a lot of names on there that communicate with me regularly. Names and avatars. It’s really quite fun!

Lots of love and happiness to all of you-Happy October 2009!

Xoxo-Shannon

BORA BORA - PART THREE - THE STINGING CONCLUSION

Bora Bora-Part Three-The Stinging Conclusion

So I left off summing up our Saturday. Sunday and Monday we relaxed, dove off of the side of our pool into the ocean a lot and just played around. The whole time we were in Bora Bora we felt like we were in the TV show “Lost.” So we were calling each other Kate and Sawyer a lot-usually when we rode our bicycles around. I took some fun pics of “the hatch” and “Dharma Initiative Orchid Station.” Check ‘em out…....

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Monday night we opted to eat off of the island for the first time. Everyone kept telling us about this “famous” place called Bloody Mary’s. We had heard it was nothing special, but a place you had to go to just to say you’d been I guess. So we made reservations the day before so that they could send a boat to get us Monday evening. We boarded a boat around 6:30 along with two other couples, one of which had the same destination we had. We got to the dock on the other side, said hello to a pier doggie who greeted us and were guided into a van along with one other couple. The van drove for quite awhile along a few not-so-paved roads. We finally stopped just to find that more people were boarding our van and we weren’t there yet. We had no idea the restaurant was this far from the dock-but there was no turning back now. We were starving and ready to stretch our legs. We finally arrived at a cute, little restaurant with torches out front, sand for the floor and a display of all of the meat specials for the night (this area I tried to avoid making eye contact with!). We were told to hang at the bar until they were ready for us. Once we were called we were verbally told the menu, ordered right by the entrance and then were taken to our table. I immediately spotted the house cat who befriended anyone with food! Although I had no food yet I got the cat to come over and say hi and petted her enough that she hung out by my feet for a good while. Having animals nearby always makes me happy. The music they were playing seemed like a good 80’s compilation-but usually in other countries like this I find that they are just really behind the times a bit when it comes to music. Everyone eating there seemed to fit in with the whole tourist vibe they had going-meaning this was not a locals hangout. At one point Derek came back from the bathroom and told me about a waterfall that doubled for the sink to wash your hands, but to make it work you had to pull a cord. But this wasn’t just any cord. No-this was a cord in the shape of a penis. What? Weird! I had to see it myself-then later found out what Derek had told me was a unisex bathroom was really the men’s room that I shouldn’t have been in. Oooooops! Oh well. Anyway-the van heading back to the dock was at a set time of around 9:45 if I remember right. So we had quite awhile to finish dinner and just walk around the place for a bit. As we were finishing dinner our waitress told us there was a board of names up front of all of the “celebrities” who’ve eaten there over the years, and she wanted to add our names with our permission. So she asked us to write our names down so she didn’t misspell them. We hadn’t even seen the board she was talking about, so we ventured up front to check it out. Sure enough, right at the entrance there were two long wooded boards with names all over them. There have been a lot of people at this place! Here’s a link to a picture I just found of the front of this place, boards and all, online… http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/353def/.....

Here’s a few fun pictures we took there as well…....

 

Tuesday-departure day-we didn’t leave the island until late afternoon, so we had all day to have one last day of sun and fun. So we decided we wanted to snorkel again in the lagoon at the hotel because we had heard there was a stingray in there, which we didn’t see before. Derek really, really wanted to see it and was bummed we didn’t have an under-water camera…so…he got another one at the gift shop (turns out this one was better than the one we had for diving before!) and off we were on our stingray search. Well-last time we snorkeled we forgot to bring bread with us to gather the fish. So this time we grabbed bread from our breakfast and took it out there with us. Funny thing was that we needed to swim a little ways to get to where most of the fish resided-so I swam along-side Derek with my hand holding the bread out of the water. That was not easy and a funny sight I’m sure. Once we got to the area with tons of fish I started throwing pieces of bread around Derek and watched him suddenly get swarmed. It was so funny because he didn’t realize I’d thrown bread in yet! So we took turns taking pics of each other with all of the fish, being sure to save some shots for the big prize. We started swimming a bit further when Derek spotted the stingray! We followed it at a good distance and decided to stop when we realized he was going to have to turn around and come back our direction. So we moved away and kept watching, trying to find him again if he came back. We eventually saw him swim by us and down this narrow stream the resort had built to go around the spa area. Derek’s now not afraid to follow him and exclaims, “Come on!” I start swimming behind Derek, but my goggles have become a bit foggy and I’m having trouble seeing. We were also coming up on this shaded area under an over-cross, so it was harder to see there too. 

Then, all of a sudden, Derek screams, “turn around, he’s coming for us!!!!” I start to just backstroke a bit, but then realize Derek has actually flipped over and is swimming full speed at/past me. Seeing as my goggles were foggy I thought the stingray may be close and maybe I should be swimming a bit faster. So I go to flip over and do a full stroke, but as soon as I do I feel my hand slam right into a sea urchin! HOLY #$%*! I just start screaming!!!!!!!! Derek looks back and sees me pull my hand out of the water and scream. He knows exactly what must have happened. We were warned about the sea urchin that lined the sides of the lagoon. Up until now we had stayed at a safe distance from them. But remember I said this stream was narrow?! I had no idea we were that close to the side until it was too late. I glanced at my hand and saw a bunch of black things and blood all over my throbbing fingers. It was my right hand to make matters worse because I’m right handed. Derek grabs my wrist and starts dragging me out of the water. The lady at the spa heard my screams and came running out. She also knew what must have happened, seeing as this was her second sea urchin casualty that day. She sits me down and grabs a very hot towel and a lemon for me to put on my hand. I keep telling her it’s throbbing and stinging! That’s when she said, “Well, if you really want the pain to go away someone should pee on it.” Derek walked up with my stuff right as she says this and says, “I can pee right now.” Oh thank God! I never thought I’d ever say this but I said it-“Derek, pee on me fast!” The spa manager quickly ushered us into the ladies room and we went into one of the shower stalls. “Pee away” I exclaim. Derek proceeded to pee on my hand and I gotta tell you-at that very moment-nothing would have felt better! I was shocked that my hand actually stopped throbbing and felt a million times better after that. We’ve all heard that peeing on a snake bit or maybe a jelly fish sting was supposed to help-but I never knew if it was actually true or not. Well-I’m here to tell you-it works wonders on a sea urchin sting! Miracles! The lady told me I could now keep wrapping it in hot towels or putting lemon on it, but for the most part I’d have to leave it alone. The number one rule was I was NOT to try to get any of the black spikes out that had been left buried in my flesh. They would have to work themselves out gradually. Oh boy-ok. No problem-I will not pick at it. I unfortunately had not finished packing yet. So we went back and showered and I carefully finished packing. ....

 

That was about it for the drama and excitement. In looking through the pictures I remembered we had a cute visitor come and and get drunk on sugar in our hut. I’ll include that photo below. After we packed we each got one last massage and went straight from the spa to our boat to head back to the airport. It was hard and sad to say good-bye. Escaping reality can be a very fun, relaxing, necessary thing sometimes. I see how people can decide to move to places like this and just work at a little resort or restaurant on the beach. It looks like a pretty good life to me! Hopefully we’ll get to go back again someday. Derek was telling me there’s a movie he just saw the previews for that takes place at the St. Regis in Bora Bora and shows all of the places we had been to. We even met a guy in the downtown area who worked in a jewelry shop who said he got a role in this movie. At the time we didn’t know which film he was talking about-but now we do! So we’re looking forward to seeing that. ....

 

Ok-I have to stop and get this posted tonight! I’ve been adding paragraphs and pictures to this forever-I apologize for the very long wait! I’ll write about something much simpler next time. J Thanks for reading all of this if you made it this far. Hope it was somewhat entertaining. Til next time…xoxo-Shannon

BORA BORA - PART TWO - OUR ADVENTURES!

One of the first things we did once in our hut was to start looking through all of the adventures they had to offer and figuring out what fun trouble we could get into. I have to say, the prices for everything here are much steeper than I’ve encountered anywhere else I’ve ever traveled-ever! I didn’t expect a simple lunch at the pool bar to exceed $100 or for it to cost over $300 to rent a wave runner for an hour and a half! I’m not one who likes to throw money around and I already spent a ton for the trip itself, so I wanted to choose wisely and get the most for our buck. Besides, the main goal was relaxation and unwinding. And we can’t forget tanning of course. J The activity I wanted to do more than anything was diving. Derek and I are both certified, so that was something I’d been talking about for a while. So we set up diving for Saturday and were able to get massages that afternoon last thing before the spa closed at 6pm. So that was one day set.

 

We decided to grab the 2pm boat to their “downtown” area where we’d be able to hit a grocery store and some shops. I wanted to get some fruit and juice so I could make some smoothies with the protein and vitamin powder I had from my nutritionist. Plus it was a chance for us to see more of the island away from our resort. The boat back to the St. Regis left promptly at 4pm. So we were off on our first adventure. We quickly realized that the black pearl was very big here. So we checked out a few shops and learned a bit about what we could only guess Captain Jack Sparrow was already an expert on. We took tons of pictures everywhere we went and made it back to our resort just in time to play with the perfect sunset. Check out some of these photos!

 

The next couple of days were spent laying out, snorkeling, biking, playing some night tennis, and relaxing in our wicked villa. The only real TV we got in English was CNN, one old movie channel and cartoons. So we mainly played music and borrowed some DVDs from the front desk for the evenings.

 

As Saturday slowly approached Derek started having nightmares about sharks. He admitted to being a bit worried about getting in the waters away from what seemed to be a safety net around the hotel. Of course, what at first looked like the hotel waters were contained really turned out to be a simple buoy for the boats. None-the-less, Derek woke up Saturday morning having had a horrible nightmare about being attacked by sharks and was very hesitant to actually get out of bed and go. But alas, he finally got up and off we went to the dive boat.

 

We jumped on the boat with a few other people, picked up a few more folks and were off to our first dive. On our way, our guide explained what we could expect to see in each location. The first location mainly consisted of Lemon Sharks and Black-Tip Sharks. I chuckled as a look of terror came across Derek’s face and he started asking questions about whether they might attack or not. The guides all assured us the sharks don’t attack people, but please don’t try to touch them or anything. So with all of the rules in place it was time to jump in the water and start exploring. Derek and I jumped in and while waiting for everyone else to get in the water Derek took a peek below us. I suddenly heard’ “Shannon! Look below us! There’s a shark!!” Funny thing was he was so excited! Once Derek actually saw a shark, all of his fears subsided. We started to go under, but I had a lot of trouble equalizing my ears for some reason. So I took some extra time, but never felt 100%. This might have contributed to the sudden fear I started to feel. We were near the ocean floor exploring and had at least 5 to 7 sharks swirling around us. It was crazy because I’d be looking in one direction and Derek would point out another shark coming up right behind us. I watched one swimming directly at us and started to get worried that it might not turn last minute. They all had up to that point, but what if one didn’t? Derek could feel me squeezing his hand harder and valiantly pushed me behind him. It was very sweet. And as always, the shark turned and really didn't mind us all being down there. I think the sharks were as curious about us as we were about them. But that was it. -Then there was this other little fish I was later told was a shark sucker. Well, this one little guy kept coming at me and the more I tried to swim away from him the more he advanced. Derek was laughing at me and the guide came over and just shooed him away. All I knew was this fish was getting too close for comfort, especially since I didn’t know what it was or whether it had teeth or not. He freaked me out a bit I have to say-for a second anyway. :)

 

Our second dive wasn’t that exciting. Both of our ears were hurting a bit, the visibility was really low and there wasn’t much to see. So that was it for our water activities for the day. Once back at the hotel we were so exhausted be both ended up completely crashing out until time for our massages. And what amazing massages those ended up being-definitely worth waking up for! So good, in fact, we decided to try to book other ones before heading back to reality.

 

Ok-I have to crash out, but there will be another chapter in this journey. I’ll have to try to get it all down in the next week or two. I was hoping to do it now, but there’s so much to tell. I wish I could have gotten it all down as it happened, because I probably have the worst memory in the world. So I’m hitting the main events that were probably the most interesting. Until I get the ending done…Happy Father’s Day…have a great week…smile and exert positivity and love fully! Here's a few more fun pics from the trip...

 

 

Love Always,

Xoxoxoxoxoxox SHANNON