Pirates Dinner Adventure! Arrrgggghhh!!!

I have an awesome bucket list and, every now and then, I get to check something off of it.  Pirates Dinner Adventure in Buena Park was on the list and on Saturday, I got to cross it off!  Scott had gone for his nephew's birthday a couple of years ago, but fortunately, it was a different show this time around.  When we first got there, we checked in and got our seat assignment and, as we entered the building, they took a picture of us.  There was a ship's wheel that we stood by and then there was a little dragon cracking out of an egg.  Neither of us knew at the time that the show we were seeing was called, "Rise of the Sea Dragon" and we were both so confused about why there was a funky looking dragon attached to the wheel.  We were laughing a little bit about it, but posed and smiled behind the wheel anyways.  Then, the lady taking the picture said, "I need you to both put your hand on the dragon's egg."  It seemed SO random to us and we both totally lost it.  Laughing SO hard!  Scott pulled it together at the last minute to smile for the picture, but I was clearly still laughing! haha!  We decided, however, that it was a pretty good picture still and ended up buying it!  

For your viewing pleasure, here we are with the dragon's egg!  Haha!

It wasn't until the salesperson approached us with our picture that she pointed out that the show was about a dragon.  Then it all made sense to us!  ;)

For the next hour and a half, we just walked around the building, indulging on complimentary appetizers, marveling at a very tall man (like taller than anyone either of us had ever seen), and just having a good time together.  Naturally, there had to be a few selfies to document my bucket list achievement:

We were on the purple team!

The show was awesome and alot of fun to see!  Dinner was good, but I have trouble eating chicken off the bones, so when an entire half chicken was placed on my table, I realized I would be going home a bit hungry and wished that I had ordered the kabobs instead.  BUT live and learn!  It was still an awesome night!  Plus, it ended with brownies a la mode, which made up for the chicken situation.  ;)  By the way, if you are celebrating your kid's birthday, I highly recommend this show.  All of the birthday kids got to go up on the ship and also participate in the show, which I thought was pretty cool!  After the show, we asked our server to take a picture for us and she asked if we wanted a picture with our pirate!  Ummmm...YES!!!  So, we went down by the ship and got a picture with the purple pirate, whom we had been rooting for all night.

In the show we saw, the purple pirate is the dumb one and does a whole bunch of stupid stuff the whole time, so that awesome look on his face is entirely appropriate!  After this, they kicked everyone out and, I'm proud to say that we didn't get lost driving to or from the show!  That's quite an accomplishment for the two of us!  It was such a fun night and I'm definitely glad to have gotten the chance to go!

And Then I Turned 29...

This year my birthday was especially special!  I got to share my day with my sweet nephew, Aaron, who was being baptized that day!  Early in the morning, Scott and I drove up to Victorville, followed soon after by the rest of my family.  Here's a pictures of Aaron with both sets of grandparents, and aunts.  His two uncles couldn't make it because Daniel lives in Utah and had to work and Evan is on a mission in Uganda, but we know they both would've loved to have been there, had circumstances permitted.  

After the baptism, we all headed to David and Melissa's house for lunch and birthday cake.

Although Aaron's birthday is on September 22nd, we celebrated together!  

I love sharing my birthday week with this cutie!

After the party had died down, Scott and I stayed a little longer and hung out with David and Melissa for awhile.  Then, we went to Northwoods Inn for dinner.  When we got to the restaurant, we discovered that the wait was nearly an hour, so we walked across the street and browsed a Halloween shop with some...ummmm...interesting costumes and then headed back to Northwoods for dinner.  That place is delicious!!!  They sang happy birthday to me at the restaurant in their unique style, which I love and then we had some yummy sherbet!

After dinner, I realized that we didn't actually ever get any birthday ice cream (sherbet is not real ice cream) and we stopped at a grocery store and got some peanut butter cup ice cream.  We went back to Scott's to eat ice cream and then just had a good time relaxing and enjoying each others' company.  This was seriously one of the best birthdays I've ever had because I spent it with the people that mean the most to me!  

I think 29 is going to be a good year!

The Hills are Alive!!!

September 21st.  The day we had all been waiting for:  The Sound of Music SING-ALONG at the Hollywood Bowl!!!

Some friends of ours had gone last year and said that it was absolutely amazing!  Basically, they play The Sound of Music on a huge screen at the Hollywood Bowl and anytime a song comes on, the words show up on the screen and everyone sings along.  It's basically like a big movie theater where it's perfectly ok to yell at the characters, boo them, warn them, and then break out into song.  An entire arena full of people who have lost their inhibitions.  Aunt Cheryl was the ring leader in getting us all to go and we were glad we joined in the fun!  

Before the movie, though, we decided to make a day of it.  We all met at Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Richard's house in the morning and then went to Travel Town in LA, where we got to see lots of train cars and play on the railroad tracks without any fear of dying!  Not too shabby!  It was fun to be with so much family and it reminded me of the many good time we had as children with our cousins, doing various things.

Then, we all rode on the little train together!

After our train ride, we had a picnic lunch and then headed to the Hollywood Bowl!

It was my first time there and it was a bucket list item!!!

There were so many people there, both crazy and normal ones!  Lots of people were in costume and, before the movie began, they had a costume parade and I gotta say that some people were extremely creative...and maybe slightly disturbed!  ;)  Here are some pictures of our night!!

We had so much fun and can't wait to go again next year!

If You Were a President, You'd Be Baberham Lincoln!

In September we all went to the Reagan Library to see the awesome exhibit it had on Abraham Lincoln.  I've been to this library many times now and I still think it's pretty cool every time we go.  We got to see one of the original copies of the Emancipation Proclamation, one of Lincoln's stovepipe hats, a bunch of cool things from the Civil War and, one of the bloody pillowcases from the night he was assassinated, and in general, lots of awesome historical documents and artifacts.  Of course, the best part is that we do these things together!

Afterwards we went to Denny's, like we usually do.  With the 4 little men, it's always a circus, but at least it's an awesome circus and we wouldn't have it any other way!

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

On August 17th, my good friend Val got married in the Las Vegas Temple!  Yay for Val and Brian!  So, the previous day, a couple of friends (Kajsa and Sara) and I drove up to Vegas after work.  We were ready for a 6 hour drive because we knew that going to Vegas on a Friday night usually means hours of gridlock.  Fortunately we were wrong!  We took a little detour at the very beginning of our trip to avoid the first stretch of traffic and then it was smooth sailing the rest of the way up!  It was awesome!  Later we were talking to some friends that told us they drove up Friday morning and ran into awful traffic...probably all of the people trying to avoid the Friday night rush.  Works for us!  ;)

We all stayed in the Golden Nugget, which was nice!  Kajsa and Sara were staying in a room with Val and her friend, Jen, but when we got there, Val was out to dinner with her family.  So, we three girls got to hang out in my room for a little while.  Somehow, I was given a room upgrade and my room ended up being super crazy!  At first, I thought it was way dated (I don't really care about that stuff as long as the bed is comfy) and we all had a good laugh about the faux wood paneling, etc.  Then I realized that it was purposely made to look like that.  This is where we can make the distinction of "vintage" vs. "dated".  Anyhow, it was WAY more than 1 person needs and I thought it was pretty funny.  It had a huge sectional couch, a king-size bed, dual sinks, a huge entertainment center thingy, and even CDs to listen to during your stay.  Also, even with all of the lights turned on, it was still only "mood-lighting" at best.  That made me laugh too.  

Here are some pictures:

And yes, that is a TV in the middle of the bathroom mirror.  Crazy.

Anyhow, with such a big room and with three crazy girls that had been sitting in a car for 3 and a half hours, plus a little spare time, things got a little wild (well, as wild as three good Mormon girls get) and we decided to do what girls do at sleepovers.  This included the compulsory duckface photos, which will not be shared (haha), silly photo shoots (including the cliche mirror shot), and of course, a pillow fight and jumping on the bed!  We had lots of fun!

 When Val got back to the hotel, we all went over and hung out in her room for awhile.  It was lots of fun catching up and talking about how exciting the next day would be.  We even got to help her choose which necklace to wear with her wedding dress.  It was a great night and we were a so happy for Val!

I figured out how to use my camera's timer so we could have one of all of us together.

The next morning came WAY too early.  Val did her pictures before her sealing, so she was up and out the door pretty early.  The rest of us headed to the Temple a little later.  We got there and I waited outside for Melissa (who also got to be there for the sealing).  Once she got there, we went in and all got to be together in the Temple.  It's always such a cool thing to be in such a peaceful place for such a happy occasion, with people that you love!  Just such a wonderful feeling!  The sealing was beautiful and Brian and Val are officially married for eternity!

We waited outside in the Temple waiting room for a while and then ventured out into the 116 degree Vegas heat.  My chapstick melted in my purse and my deoderant melted in my car, but that's ok!  ;)  haha  The happy couple came out, looking radiant, of course!

 After the Temple, we all headed to Roy's Restaurant for a delicious luncheon.  It was fun to catch up with people that we love, but haven't gotten to talk to much, recently.  Here we are in our "Roy's" chef's hats!  Big kids deserve to have fun too!  ;)

Most of all, it was awesome to see Val so happy and in love!  

Overall, it was a great trip!

A Little Bit of Southern Love!

July 19th was a pretty spectacular day!  It didn't start off that way, but it ended up being a great adventure.  I went to Aunt Cheryl's house to help her rip down some wallpaper, but when I got there, she told me that she was tired of working in the house and wanted to do something fun.  I had dressed in grubby clothes since I was just planning on removing wallpaper, but I decided that an adventure would be fun anyways!  Aunt Cheryl mentioned Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles and so we decided to go there.  We were getting ready to go when I noticed I had a new voicemail.  I listened to it and it was someone from HR in my school district wanting me to call them back.  I had interviewed to transfer to a new school the previous morning and so getting a call from them was great news!  I called back and they offered me the job!!!  So, so happy!  I walked back in the house (I had stepped out onto the porch to make the call) and shared the news with my aunt!  We were both so excited!  Then, I called my parents and sent out the happiest text ever to several others!  Now I was REALLY ready for an adventure and was not disappointed.  We made it to Pasadena without getting lost, which is major for me since I get lost everywhere I go, and even found a parking spot!  I have been to Roscoe's several times, but I had only been to the one in Long Beach, so this was a new experience.  Plus, I had heard from a friend, who used to be a police officer in Pasadena, to never go to the Pasadena Roscoe's in the dark.  Apparently, it's not the safest place.  Though we weren't going to be there at night, we still got to experience some pretty "interesting" people. In fact, the whole group of people sitting at the table next to us was pretty interesting.  We had a good time, though, and my aunt got to experience the magic of Roscoe's for the first time.  

It was a fun day!

Jumping Jacks!

Joshua turned 6 on July 8th and Dylan turned 5 on July 25th, and to celebrate, Jacob threw a party at Jumping Jacks in Rancho Cucamonga.  It was a party for the kids, but they let grown-ups jump too!  I decided to go for it!  There were several other adults who jumped and then others that just sat and talked.  It was so much fun!  It was so cute to see all of the little guys having so much fun and when Dylan would ask me to go down the slide with him and Jonathan, it made my heart happy!  This was just a week or two before Josh, Dylan, and Jacob moved to China, so every single moment with them was precious.

Going down the slide with Dylan

David and Joey jousting

 Melissa having fun

 At the bottom of the slide with Jonathan and Dylan

 Sliding with Melissa

 Jacob!

 So much fun!

 The special birthday throne!

 Each boy go to choose a cake.  Joshua insisted on an "Over the Hill" Grim Reaper cake, which he dubbed "The Cake of Death".  Jacob tried to dissuade him from choosing this one, but he was insistent.

 Dylan chose a Toy Story cake since he is currently obsessed with Woody.  He looks SO adorable in the little cowboy hat and cowboy boots Anthony and Marianne got him for his birthday. 

 Cake time with friends!

At the end of the night, Jacob, Josh, and Dylan said their goodbyes since they would not be able to see most of the people at the party before leaving for China.  We had a ton of fun at Jumping Jacks, but it was a difficult night for us because goodbyes are always hard and we knew that this would be the last big event we would have with the boys for awhile.  After we left Jumping Jacks, David, Melissa, and the boys, Nancy, Jacob, Josh, Dylan, and I went back to Nancy's house and spent some more time together.  Though a little sad, we had a good time together.