Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Paradise in La Jolla


This last Sunday Paul and I were doing what we usually do on a Sunday afternoon...sit around, watch a little tube and eat to our heart's content...lazy...lazy...lazy! It was time for us to come out of our hermit hole and we are so glad we did! We decided to go visit beautiful La Jolla cove. We were planning on walking around the main cove but it was too crowded...so we took our drive a little further south to a beach where we held our reception. It was so incredible! Paul and I took a little nap on a grassy knoll overlooking the horizon...magical!

This is where we took our cat nap!
We then decided to go take a stroll on the beach and check out the tide pools. The tide pools were crazy there was so much action going on! I don't think I have ever seen so many hermit crabs in my life. Paul decided he wanted to contribute to the circle of life and fed one of the hermit crabs to a sea anemone (so sad...poor little guy:(
On our little stroll we also came across this funny hand-shaped rock...so I decided to go try and mimic the hand and paul snapped a pic.! As we were walking back to retrieve Paul's Rainbows we noticed a bunch of seagulls' were surrounding his sandals they seriously go after anything and everything...luckily we were able to rescue the sandals!

Here is the famous Pink Panther mobile home! Paul and I were lucky enough to take a private tour of it a couple of years ago. We were so happy to see that this pink ride still makes its way to the cove! Inside this pink beauty are some fun trinkets linked one way or another to the glorified Pink Panther...

Leaving the cove...we are so fortunate to live in such a wonderful world with exquisite beauty! Nature's breath is waiting outside your front door....all you need to do is take a step out every once in awhile!

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Hostess with the Mostess!


This last Thursday one of my great friends Natalie Andrews-Wardel invited me to a fun, free party planning event held at the Prado in beautiful Balboa Park. Balboa Park is so fun, each building has a name and we ended up at the house of hospitality. When we arrived we were able to meet the fun hostess of the mostess founder who put this whole thing together! All around there was summer inspired party ideas. She mixed two themes together which were Tahitian with Zen, it created such a unique and subtle atmosphere! Nat and I were wondering how this fun party was funded we weren't surprised when we found out it was sponsored by the famous Chambourd drinking company. We were offered drinks left and right...it was crazy...however, we were super excited to get a virgin pineapple drink that was very tasty! The food there was quite scrumptious! For appetizers there were grapes, stinky cheese (the stinkier the better!) and crackers, for the main course we had a choice between chicken and beef tacos, and last but not least for dessert we had whipped cream with yummy raspberries served in a chocolate tear-dropped cup. Nat and I were a little nervous, because after we ate the dessert someone at the table had mentioned there was possibly some Chambourd product mixed in with the dessert. We didn't feel any differently and we certainly didn't taste the surprise in the dessert...we came to two conclusions either the lady was wrong...or the alcohol in the dessert was cooked out which is very possible! Here are a couple of pics from the event...


Here is a fun table setting, I love the monstera leaves underlining the forks and plate...bamboo mats...coconut shell squat cups. I also love the circular vase with a banana leaf wrap and the mix with the lava rock...so fresh!

I love this flower arrangement. Each flower complements the other and the criss-crossed bamboo brings brings an exciting element to the arrangement!

Last but not least the beautiful presentation of the sketchy/tasty dessert...can we say my chocolate fever has just set in just looking at it!

Saturday, May 24, 2008

American Idol Live!

This last Monday I took the day off of work and visited Heather in Pasadena. I was planning on leaving at night that is until Heather received a surprise phone call from her fun friend Lindsay Peyzant. Lindsey pretty much asked Heather if she wanted four tickets to American Idol on Tuesday night, of course she was thrilled as was I when she asked me if I wanted to go with her! We then called Sandy to see if she wanted to join us she was laughing hysterically when we told her and said yes of course. We were also lucky enough to have one of Sandy's friends, Kristen to come and join us.
So we woke up the following morning ecstatic for the fun day ahead of us! Supposedly the line for the tickets was supposed to start at 10:00 a.m. We arrived just shortly after that around 10:15. Much to our surprise the line was probably formed by idol-crazed fans around 6 in the morning. We were a little bit nervous considering we might not be able to get tickets for the vouchers we had brought in, but we decided to wait. On the vouchers it said we would receive our tickets at 12:00 and be seated for the practice rehearsal which started around 1:00. We thought that two hours wouldn't be too dificult to endure for my sister who is seven months pregnant! We sat on all types of things in line, tissues Sandy had brought, a power box, and plastic bags just to name a few! The line was moving pretty fast and then there was a complete hault! We were just twenty people behind the beginning of the line and we were in the same spot for two hours!

During our time in line Sandy noticed that fox news from Utah was interviewing people in line, she then called out "hey we're from Utah". He turned around and came over to us. He asked us when we got our tickets to American Idol, we told him, the previous night and then he was fishing for a story, he asked, "you mean you purchased plane tickets last night and flew in this morning?! Much to his dismay we told him no and that we were now living in California, but we still got on the news as we yelled and cheered for David Archuletta, even though we were secretly big fans of David Cook...so we are swingers but we really wanted to be on t.v. and we were! Finally the man who was issuing the tickets came and he only had maybe a hundred tickets left which is such a small amount considering there was about 600-800 people in line behind us! We luckily ended up receiving out tickets around 4:00 which means we missed the dress rehearsal but we finally got seated at 4:30. Sandy was such a trooper, she is seriously amazing we were in line for about six hours and she hardly complained at all!
American Idol was held in the beautiful new Nokia theatre. It was so big I believe the theatre held up to 7, 1oo people! We were pretty far in the back but had an amazing time as we were screaming for both David's. They both did such a great job! We rocked out with Cook and swayed to the love songs with Archuletta. We were all surprised at the negative comments given by the judges that were directed towards David Cook! We thought he did incredibly well and were a little disturbed with Simon's tactless comments, but that's Simon for ya! I mean with the wrestling themed night Simon told Archuletta, he knocked Cook out hard. All in all the energy in the theatre was contagious and we pretty much lost our voices from cheering so loud, well worth it though!
As we exited we were interviewed by Fox news stations from DC, LA, and Pheonix. We were major supporters for David Cook, surprisingly we were severely outnumbered by Archuletta but we were determined to stand by our hearthrob rocker! We also ran into our fun cousin that was in line 700 people behind us and were unable to get tickets, that is until they tracked down the ticket man and scored tickets for the sixth row, way to go Christy! The following night we were all jumping for joy when the proclaimed winner by a staggering 12 million votes was Cook, looks like we were right and the judges were wrong this time, but hey America ultimately decides not the judges even though they do have great influence. One last thing I went to work on Wednesday and one of my co-workers had voted 805 times for Cook, I think she set the all-time record, way to go Beverly! Well there is the long version of the story for ya!

Monday, May 12, 2008

In Tribute

This post is dedicated to a wonderful, charismatic friend, Lindsey Spjute that passed away a couple of days ago. While serving a full time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in London, she had a sudden heart attack while running. It was a little difficult today, it hit me pretty hard that she was gone and what a short but sweet life she had lived. Lindsey was such a joy and delight to be around, she was always lifting others up! Of the times I was around her I never heard anything negative seep from her mouth. She had such an optomistic attitude about life, and great concern and love for others. She left her mark for good in everything she did. Love you Lindsey, thanks for being such a great example to me and to so many others. I know you are in a much better place surrounded by glorious angels in heaven, and dear family who have awaited your homecoming. We will all miss you but thankfully we know we will see you again in time.

Grand Theft Auto IV

I am appalled at how Halo’s Grand Theft Auto IV has hit the record high for most sales out of any interactive media! I am so disgusted with this game because it completely lacks all standards of ethics! Basically this game is propogated towards those who want to be thugs of all thugs. How thuggish…let’s just say that sex and violence are the two core elements. Activities include but not limited to drive-by shootings, pornography, prostitution and if you participate in it your well being goes up. What a sick and twisted game! It scares me to think how accessible these types of video games are. What could be the side effects of this game…a demoralization of society...maybe that is a little too dramatic, but seriously it does more harm than good, that is for sure. It seems as though childhood violence is escalating, I believe there is a definite correlation with video game violence and childhood violence. Through these video games you are conditioned to think violence is fun and guilt-free, all in all you become desensitized to violence. These video games don't show the real impacts that violence can bring and consequences aren't given for the obscene actions you take. I wish there was some way to stop these crazy people from creating these abhorrish games. Well there is my soap box moment for the day!

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

The Stellar San Diego Zoo!

The Saturday before last Paul and I went yet again to see the animals...are we obsessed maybe a little bit but Sandy(my wonderful older sister) let us use her pass which expired on April 30th, so we had to take advantage, thanks Sand and Tim. We met up with some great friends the wonderful Wardels. We hit up the zoo around 10:00 am because Nat and I wanted to see the baby Panda and he is only out and about in the morning. Little did we know we picked the best time of the day to go! If you go early in the morning the animals are very entertaining, alert, and fun because it isn't in the middle of the day when it is too hot to for them to rove around.

The highlight of the day were the Polar Bears, they were absolutely incredible! They were in the water glass enclosure, this was the first time I have ever seen them this close they are usually hiding away and you are lucky to even catch a glimpse of them. They were so beautiful their fur coats looked like big giant cotton balls as they swirled their way through the water. There were two Polar bears who were wrestling each other, it kind of reminded me of my cousins who would wrestle unceasingly till there was a victor...they were so fun to watch! They went through three rounds and it was hard to say who the victor was because they were so similar in size and looked identical, watching them was almost hypnotic it took us awhile to pull away from them and gallivant on to see what else the zoo had to offer.
We then went to see the beautiful sleeping giants, panda bears that is. It is so sad everytime I have been to the zoo they are always sleeping but they still look so darn cute! We were able to catch a little glimpse of the baby panda but he was so high up in the tree I couldn't get a good shot! Anyway the baby panda was adorable as ever nestled up in the tree oblivious to what was around him. Wouldn't it be cool if you could fall asleep so easily perched on the branch of a tree...with no fear of falling?!
We then went on to see the gorillas, not a whole lot went on in this exhibit but the boys sure did have a good time talking to the zoo keeper. A couple of random facts gathered was that the gorillas take birth control because they are maxed out on the space they have for the gorillas. There are two baby gorillas and he said they are super playful and he wrestles with them at times, however, he wouldn't be caught dead...then again he might...if he tried wrestling with the silverback. He said they are very tempermental and one time the silverback got so angry he broke the inner layer of the glass. Last but not least the average life span for a gorilla is 40 years...well there is some random trivia for the day! The silly Gorilla below is giving herself a pedicure...so random!
As the day went on Nat convinced me it was time for me to go green, it was going to happen sooner than later...Nat just nudged me in the right direction! Thanks for the great day you two we had so much fun!!