Birthdays!

Yesterday and today were two very important days....

Dad's birthday was on the 26th...we had the best family party, mexican theme complete w/festive decor, margaritas, delicious cuisine, pinning the tail on the donkey and even a pinata!

Here's Dad opening presents, surrounded by the Z's...

Mikey takes his turn with the pinata..... And then all the "kids" dove in after the candy (yes, that's Jeff!).

The top 3 things I love about my dad are:

• He's the most generous person I know (he takes us all on trips all the time)
• He always wants to know everything about me and my life
• He never missed a game or a concert! :)

Too bad he won't ever read this so he'll never know all these nice things that I've said about him. :( Love you Dad!

And now for birthday #2: Today is Jill's birthday!! It's sad to not be able to celebrate w/her but she'll be here this weekend and I can't wait to see her!!

This is Jill and Caroline this past November...aren't they pretty? My beautiful blonde bombshells!

Top 3 moments with Jill:

• Florida the first time--the beach, the diet coke, the Tiger Beat, the concert (sigh)
• Greyhound trip to NYC--hello kitty cd player, no sleep, the press conference, seeing our boys again.....what an amazing weekend! wait--that was actually a Tuesday! :)
• Our walk last Sept when I was in DC--good scenery, good exercise and great conversation!
• ok there's one more--the Italian restaurant in Georgetown right after you volunteered at Earth day. hahahaha

Happy Birthday Jill! I love you!

Lastly, but not leastly, today is also Lori's birthday! Here she is in all her birthday glory!! You might recognize her from some of my business trip postings--we are on the same team so we work closely all the time. I'm so lucky to have such awesome coworkers! Lori is always happy, kind and fun & easy to talk to! Hope your b-day was awesome Lola! ;)

Saturdays

Most Saturdays, I get to spend the day w/Hill and Zoey.....often Zoey will just call me in the mornings and want me to pick her up to "go to the mall and run errands." We usually eat at "Little Einsteins" (at least that's what she calls it) and go to a few other random places. One time we went to TJ Maxx and lunch and ran out of time for the mall and Zoe had a complete melt down! haha

This week Hill was snowboarding w/Zane (see her post about that if you're interested, complete w/video footage) so it was just me and Zoe out on the town. I definitely look forward to Saturdays now more than I ever have before! :)

Total Eclipse of the Heart!

This past weekend I finally finished Eclipse--the 3rd book in the Twilight series. Needless to say, this nearly 700 page book was so hard for me to get through!!And now that I'm finished, I have only one question to ask myself: WHAT WAS STEPHENIE THINKING?? Twilight is my all time favorite book!! I've never loved reading--and Twilight is pretty much the only book I've read where I was wrapped up in an alternate world, escaping from my life as I know it. :)

So you can imagine my chagrin when the series took an unexpected turn to werewolfdom. I am still asking myself "WHY????"

• Why did she set us up for an amazing vampire series only to completely change mid-way through?
• Why did there have to be a love triangle created?
• Why ruin a perfect escape by making it tangled and complicated and waaaay too human?
• Why can't Bella decide to be a vampire without overanalyzing every side of this decision?
• These are vampire books, for heaven's sake--why waste time trying to make them real life?

Not only did New Moon include 300 pages w/out Edward that we will never get back (thanks Sina for my fave quote)....but Eclipse just continued down this path of confused, conflicting and boring stories. I just have to wonder if I am missing something here b/c there are people who seem to still like these books.

The Twilight movie characters were unveiled this week and I realized I am still not over Henry Cavill not being picked to be Edward. I can't even begin to process the rest of the cast....of course I will still see the movie but I'm nervous about it. I hope at least the music is good--I'm putting two options for the trailer in my playlist so ya'll can hear. :)

In the end, I can't say I regret the whole thing b/c I will always have Twilight. And I do believe an author has the right to write whatever she/he wants....I just think they all should stop making comments like "I am a character writer" b/c for one that is just stupid. And for two, aren't all characters part of the author from the beginning anyway? (sigh) Whatever!

Oakland

This past weeked, I went to Oakland on a business trip. Billions of good times are what we had! So here's a recap...

Thursday I picked up Lisa, and we soon met up w/Jaron. Thanks heavens for medallion status....we skipped security which was a relief b/c the lines were terrible and not only would we have missed our flight, but we would've missed breakfast too! No--we just couldn't have that!

I think pics like these are probably illegal but whatever--I wanted to capture the beginning of our trip somehow. :) Anyway we arrived.....

Jaron, Darlene, Lisa and me on the shuttle to the hotel (do you think I look like Ronnie Milsap?)

Checked in, set up.....

Lori & Lisa....

....and Me & Jaron setting up

And then Jaron, Lisa & I headed to downtown San Francisco.

Here they are on the BART just as we went under the water and our ears had to adjust. :) Once we got into the city, we immediately happened upon thousands of people standing in a square, waiting for the clock to chime 6pm....and when it did, this is what we saw....

Indeed we just happened upon the biggest pillow fight in the world! Apparently this is one of San Francisco's Valentine's Day traditions. It was awesome! Then we were off to Pier 39 for some delish seafood & magnet shopping.

On our way back to Oakland, we saw the pillow fight again because more than 2 hours later, it was still going on!
And so we wandered around and found this cool waterfall...and just had a grand ole time.

Friday & Saturday were show days and everything went really well. Have I mentioned before how much I love my job.....but really.....I do!!!

Here's Jaron at the end of one of the days making fun of me....yes that's right, I went on stage w/my jacket buttoned improperly. :) Like I said, billions of good times!

And here I am w/my crown--and the crown's creator. And just a note, this shirt that I'm wearing is super cha-cha! At least that's what a demonstrator told me. :)

Saturday night we went back into SF to find H&M. We heard it was there and we were determined to find it.....and SUCCESS!!

We did find it but by the time we got there, we were so worn out and hungry that it was a shorter shopping trip than I would've liked. We needed fuel! Oddly, we had time for one more stop---at possibly the most amazing accessory store I've ever laid eyes on. There is no equal!! I can only compare it to the ring store in Ukraine where I would spend hours trying to decide which of the sparkly gems to purchase! I bought a headband that I really think I might wear every day for the rest of my life! It deserves its own post so I'll not put a picture here right now...

Sunday we came home.....and that's the end.

2 Hours

2 HOURS!!! That's how long it took me to get home from work tonight--normally a 25 min commute. Needless to say, those were 2 of the most frustrating hours of my life. It's really bad here--I don't ever remember a winter like this.

However, when I say bad, of course to me it means good. :) I was disappointed to arrive home and only have traces of snow on the ground--even though there are many inches in other areas of Utah. It makes me so happy to look outside and see snow falling! I LOVE WINTER!!!

Dayglo!

Last night, I went to the Mika concert with two of my sisters and two of our friends. The concert was In the Venue--which was actually a pretty cool place to go to a concert (despite the sketchiness of the location) because it was so small that everyone had a great view. When we arrived, an hour after the official start time, there was still a line all the way around the block. So we waited until the line was moving before going out into the cold. :) It was a great opportunity for people watching! Here we are on our way in...(L to R) Lindsey, moi, Hillary, Shelly & Natalie.

Sitting in the car and people watching for an hour made me sad that I didn't come to the concert decked out in dayglo. I'd say only about 1% of the crowd did. Dayglo is a term that basically means flourescent colors--b/c it evolved from flourescent lights or something. Lindsey taught me about this--so thanks Pop! I snapped one photo while we were waiting in the car....there were lots of cute girls in leg warmers and t-shirt dresses and it was so fun to watch! And of course we knew Mika wouldn't disappoint--he'd have his on for sure!

Just before we went inside, we learned that Mika's equipment was stuck in Idaho somewhere, so instead of canceling the concert, they gave us all a refund of 10 bucks and did a 45 min acoustic show. Mika unplugged! haha Probably hard to imagine considering all the electronic everything he has in his music....but we were optimistic and once we got inside--the stage was truly a vision of happiness!

I took this pic from back behind the bar, just after the show started. You can see the fabulous chandeliers and disco balls (two of my favorite things)--and you can also see Mika's back--white shirt and the fabulous electric blue skinny jeans that he wore on SYTYCD--which was my first introduction to him.

Here's the front view of the stage. The drummers were sitting in these huge throne like chairs. They seemed like just a bunch of funky people, playing and having a good time!

Here's a clip of Billy Brown. This isn't my fave song but it was really a fun one to hear live--and the crowd really got into it!

Another one of my fave parts was towards the end when several fans got up on stage in the left corner and started dancing and singing. They stayed there for several songs--no one told them to get down and they didn't try to attack Mika or anything. It was so awesome!

The biggest disappointment of the evening was when he played "Relax (take it easy)" about the 3rd song in....and it was totally slow and acoustic-ish. It was pretty cool, actually, but I was slightly devastated that I didn't hear the real version, which was pretty much the main reason I wanted to go to the concert! I'm putting the song on my playlist so you're probably listening to it right now and noticing how cool it is. :)

In the end, it was such a great night--just the right amount of time & fun--I am so glad we went!!

A Dozen Roses

The past week has been one filled with roses--not the flowers but rather Hillary's family. :) Zoey turned 5 last week!!! It was such a fun day that it almost overshadowed the fact that she just keeps getting older and it makes me sad. :( Hill and Zoey and I went to Zoe's favorite restaurant for lunch: Chili's. Here she is showing off her new b-day outfit.

Then we went to Color Me Mine to do a ceramic--Zoey spends many hours a day coloring and drawing and is actually in art school to learn all kinds of arts & crafts. So Hill thought Color Me Mine would be fun activity that Zoe would love.....and she was right!!! This next pic contains 3 of my favorite things--can you find them?

We finished the night w/a fun family party at the Pizza Factory. It was a great day!

Thursday through Sunday, I watched Zane & Zoey while Hill and Lance went out of town. So we had 3 more fun-filled days....starting w/a sledding party. The kids sure are taking advantage of all this snow! Here's Mikey and Zane, during a quick hot chocolate break. I love this pic b/c it shows them just having fun and goofing around!

Saturday we went to Kangaroo Zoo (playground w/big jumping toys) AND to see The Water Horse. I also took it upon myself to pass on one of life's most important lessons by teaching the Z's to smuggle popcorn, drinks and donuts into the movie. :) As their aunt, it's the least I can do!

Sunday we weatherd the next snow storm and made it to church! I curled Zoe's hair for church and when I was finished, she looked in the mirror and said "My hair looks fat! Put some pomade on it!!" hahaha It was so funny I laughed outloud for a good while!

Later I tried to take a pic of the fat hair but she refused to smile--and you can also see that she did everything she could to disguise it w/her headband. :) It does look a little Dorothy Hamill in this pic--but it doesn't really matter b/c every look is cute on her!