Chloe

On Thursday November 18th, I went over to Rachelle's house to meet Chloe, Rachelle's new mini goldendoodle. She is the cutest thing I have ever seen! She is so sweet and friendly and Rachelle has already taught her to sit, lay and come. What a smart puppy, right? I brought her a sprinkles puppy cupcake and she loved it! I am so in love with her and it definitely makes me want to get a puppy of my own!

SYTYCD

On Tuesday November 16th my mom, Sydney Baker and I went to Katsuya for dinner and then met Aunt Susannah at the So You Think You Can Dance show at Staples Center. It was AMAZING!! I loved every second of it and was blown away by how talented all the dancers were!

Scrapbooking Weekend

Friday November 12th kicked off a full weekend of scrapbooking. I went to the Friday night event by myself because the rest of the family, including Nic, went up to Mammoth to watch Tyler's football game. I'm so glad it worked out that Nic's basketball was cancelled so he was able to watch Tyler play.

The next morning my mom and Nic drove down together and my mom and I spent the whole day scrapbooking. We learned a bunch of new techniques and had a great time! On Sunday we went back for another full day of scrapbooking and ended the night with dinner at New Moon.

November Challenge Part 2

Here are the 5 things I am thankful for this week:
-My parents: They do so much for Nic and I and we really appreciate it. I'm also thankful that we get to spend so much time with them.
-My sister: Sabrina and I have been growing so much closer the last couple of years and I am really thankful for that. She is a wonderful person and I'm so proud of her.
-My brothers: My brothers are both great kids who are so fun to be around. They remind me how important it is to play and have fun in life and to not always take things to seriously.
-My in-laws: I am so lucky to have the best in-laws in the world! They are always so supportive and I am so thankful to have such a great relationship with them.
-Valencia: I am really thankful that we get to live in such a great community. I still get a warm, fuzzy feeling every time I drive up tree-lined McBean towards our house and I just love our neighborhood. Valencia also has a new, fabulous outdoor shopping center that reminds me a lot of Fashion Island, with a Williams-Sonoma and Sephora!! We also have Magic Mountain, tons of great restaurants, and the best scrapbooking store. It really is an awesome town. ;)

Magic Mountain Double Date

On Sunday we went to Magic Mountain with Rachelle and Brandon. We had so much fun!

We went on Viper first and Rachelle was hilarious. She was so scared and practically in tears.

After Viper we waited in a huge line for the Riddler. It was the only line all day and it was a bit surprising that it was for such an old ride. It is a good ride, don't get me wrong, but not worth a long wait. Next we went on Scream, which I think I have gone on once before, but I don't remember for sure. It was really fun! Then we went on Colasses, which is literally about to fall apart. After that we did Goliath, then decided it was time to brave X2. I have been on a lot of roller coasters in my life and none have ever scared me until this ride. So you can imagine Rachelle, who was practically crying on Viper, was completely terrified. I wish I had been able to take the picture taken of her on the ride because it was priceless! She looked beyond terrified. Here are her before and after pictures:

After Rachelle survived X2, we tortured her some more by going on Tatsu. It was getting dark at that point and was so awesome at night with all the lights. By this point Rachelle was back to her old brave teenage self who loves roller coasters and even blurted out that she wanted to go on X2 once more before we left! Impressive, huh? So we went on X2 once more before leaving. I again blew the picture taking of the ride photos, which is a huge bummer because our faces on that ride are priceless! That ride is honestly the scariest ride ever!!

After Magic Mountain, we grabbed some dinner at New Moon. It was a really great day with great friends! :)

Casino Night

On Saturday night we went to Nic's work dinner. It was a black, white and red themed casino night. They had food, drinks, black jack tables, craps, roulette, and a poker tournament. The poker tournament started off with 4 preliminary tables where the top 2 from each table advanced to the final game. Nic advanced from his table then joined me for some dinner and black jack. He went back for the final table and ended up winning!! I continued to play black jack and ended up with almost $4,000 in chips! Nic managed to make around $6,000 in between poker tournaments and we ended up with the second highest chip count overall!! For winning the poker tournament we got a $100 gift card to Amazon and for coming in second in the most overall chips contest we got a $50 gift card to Amazon. The last contest was a raffle drawing. Throughout the night tickets were given out if a person got black jack or there number came up on the roulette table, and I don't know anything about craps so I have no idea how people won tickets at that one, but they had a drawing at the end of the night for 3 grand prizes: $150 gift card to Glen Ivy, an Ipad, and a 42 inch flat screen TV. We didn't win any of them, which was actually kind of good since people were already probably annoyed that we won so much stuff. ;) Nic also got an award for making it into the $5,000 club. He made over $5,000 profit for the company in one month. It was a really fun night! :)

November Challenge

My friend Rebecca was telling me about a study that showed that people who were grateful and wrote down what they were grateful for were happier than those who didn't focus on what they are grateful for. So since it is November, the month to be thankful for what you have, my November challenge is going to be to write 5 things every week that I am thankful for.

Here are my first 5:

-My health: Considering that I barely ever exercise anymore and eat pretty bad, it is pretty impressive I am still as healthy as I am. I am very grateful that I can still be physically active when I choose to be (I should really work on choosing to be active more often ;)) Being healthy is really a blessing.

-My husband:I have the best husband in the world! He works so hard at work and at home. He loves me unconditionally and he treats me so well. I am so grateful to have the most amazing person to share life with.

-My house: I am so grateful to have this beautiful house in such a wonderful neighborhood. I love coming home every day and knowing that it belongs to me. Sometimes I just sit in my backyard and wonder how I got so lucky.

-My friends (homies): I have the best friends! They are so fun, supportive, loving and I am truly blessed to have so many wonderful friends from so many different chapters in my life. Each and every one makes my life that much better.

-My home cooking: I am really grateful that I can come home from work and cook and bake. I really enjoy it and am glad that I don't totally suck at it. :)

-Bonus:I'm thankful that I could come up with 5 things that start with "H" that I am thankful for. ;)

Birthday Dinner

I couldn't be happier! Our blog inspired Nic's family to not only carve their own jack~o~lantern this October, but to also make an Oktoberfest meal!! :) I'm so glad that people are reading the blog and being inspired by some of the stories on it.

October in Australia

I couldn't be happier! Our blog inspired Nic's family to not only carve their own jack~o~lantern this October, but to also make an Oktoberfest meal!! :) I'm so glad that people are reading the blog and being inspired by some of the stories on it.

Trick or Treat

This was my first time having trick or treaters, not only at my house, but ever. For some reason, no one ever ventured up our ten minute dirt road for some candy. It was really fun! We missed a large group of kids because we got home later than planned from Vegas, but we still  got to pass out candy to quite a few kids (not enough kids though, because I still have two huge bags of candy!!) Little kids dressed in costumes have to be one of the cutest things ever!! It was really a lot of fun. Once the trick or treaters slowed a bit, I left to stop by Lindsay's for a bit and Nic stayed at home on candy duty.

This was my first time having trick or treaters, not only at my house, but ever. For some reason, no one ever ventured up our ten minute dirt road for some candy. It was really fun! We missed a large group of kids because we got home later than planned from Vegas, but we still  got to pass out candy to quite a few kids (not enough kids though, because I still have two huge bags of candy!!) Little kids dressed in costumes have to be one of the cutest things ever!! It was really a lot of fun. Once the trick or treaters slowed a bit, I left to stop by Lindsay's for a bit and Nic stayed at home on candy duty.

Vegas

We went to Vegas for the weekend to celebrate my birthday and had the best time. First of all, for all those that expressed concern that we were staying at Circus Circus, it was fine! I know it is a very budget hotel, but Nic and I have definitely stayed in much worse, and we were much happier spending the money we saved on a hotel room we were barely in on fun things like shows and meals! ;) Plus, they upgraded us to a really nice, large room overlooking the strip so it worked out quite well.

On Saturday morning, after a nice sleep in, we went to the champagne brunch buffet at the Paris Hotel. It was great! The champagne was actually really good (I'm not a fan of champagne usually) they had all the standard buffet food, plus the most delicious freshly made crepes! Yummy!!! After stuffing our faces and getting our drink on we went exploring the strip. We walked all the way down to New York New York before we decided to head back. Along the way we were handed a coupon for 50% off Viva Elvis tickets, which was perfect because a friend of ours is in the show and we were hoping to see it that night. After picking up our tickets at Aria we walked through Bellagio and watched the fountain show. Then grabbed a frrrozen hot chocolate at Serendipity before continuing our walk along the strip.

We went back to our hotel to get ready for our night out. We had a few drinks, got all dressed up in our costumes and then headed off for a fun night. We were dressed perfectly for Viva Elvis and I quickly realized how popular Marliyn is. We grabbed drinks at the bar then went in to enjoy the show. It was really fun to watch our friend and I really enjoyed the dancing, although both Nic and I wished there were more traditional "Cirque" acts in the show. They did use a ton of cool Elvis video footage and it was a very nicely done tribute show.

After the show we walked along the strip with our new friends Jack and the Colonel. They were hilarious and the walk from Aria to the Bellagio fountains might have been the highlight of the night. Every kid that saw Jack would get a sparkle in their eyes as if it were Santa on Christmas morning, point with excitement and exclaim, "Jack!"

After we watched the fountain show again (it is soooo good!) we walked along the street to Tao were we had dinner reservations. People shouted at me, took my picture, and honked there car horns at me. Eventhough my biggest fans seemed to be really old men, I was truly surprised by the overwhelming response I got for my Marilyn costume. :)

The line for Tao nightclub was insane! I have never seen anything like it! It stretched the width of the hotel and back numerous times and then curved around the corner! Thank goodness we had dinner reservations! We got a spicy tuna rice krispy appetizer and lobster potstickers to start off with. Then we got the delicious beef dinner to share. Thye give you raw beef and put this bowl of broth over a flame and you cook the beef in the broth then dip it in this delicious sauce. It is so unique, fun and delicious. Then we got a molten chocolate cake to top off the wonderful birthday dinner. After our 3 hour dinner event, we decided to check out the nightclub. It was insane!! Honestly, the entire place was packed from wall to wall with people. There was barely room to stand stick straight let alone dance. It was such a bummer because the atmosphere was great, the music was great, and it had the potential to be really fun!

The next morning we used our coupons from the hotel to ride the Circus Circus roller coaster for free! It was actually a really good rollercoaster. It had two loops, two corkscrews and was pretty scary! After that we checked out of our hotel, drove over to Mandalay Bay and walked around Mandalay and Luxor. I hadn't ever been to that end of the strip before so now I can say I have pretty much seen the entire strip. We met our friend Hailey, the one who is in Viva Vegas, for lunch at Burger Bar for lunch. It was amazing!! We got a nutella shake that was huge and so good. I got the chef's favorite menu item-the buffalo burger with carmelized onions, blue cheese, and spinach with a side of sweet potatoe fries. Nic got a black angus beef burger with cheddar cheese, bacon and grilled onions with a side of zucchini fries (these were my absolute favorite!) and Hailey got a healthy, but still delicious looking Cobb salad. It was really fun catching up with her and hearing all the behind the scenes info from the show. All in all it was a very fun weekend and a great way to celebrate my birthday!!!

Halloween at Work

Nic and I dressed up for work on Friday. I went as a Laker Girl (very creative, I know) and Nic had to do a group dress up with two other guys. Apparently one is medium height and one is short so they all wore red and were the Verizon Bars! I thought it sounded lame, but apparently everyone loved it and thought it was very creative! I'm hoping Nic can get a picture of the three of them from someone so we can get the full effect.