The Getty

Yesterday, Miles and I spent the entire day at The Getty Museum in LA. We loved it. The best part was that it was free! All we had to pay for was parking (which is typical of course). We were only able to see a couple of the exhibits because there was so much to see, which means we'll get to go back time and time again. There are a few exhibits that stay the same, but a couple that are constantly changing, which means there should always be something new each time we go. Miles and I were impressed with the beautiful architecture and landscaping. We took advantage of the beautiful, crisp fall day and ate a homemade lunch in the garden area. It was a perfect opportunity to practice a bit more with our camera, and we weren't the only ones. It seemed like everyone was taking pictures. We were also amazed with how kid-friendly the museum was. Listening to a story-teller was one of our favorite activities. Overall, we just had a great time. The older I get, the more I realize that things don't have to be thrilling and exciting to be enjoyable. The whole day was, as Miles put it, "chill." I hope we can find more places like The Getty to enjoy!

Leave a Note!

Friday night, Miles and I went to Red Robin in the Fashion Island mall for dinner. We had a good time. We ordered a full course complete with the new blackened bayou burger, a chicken strip basket for me, a strawberry lemonade, and even a large chocolate shake. Needless to say, we were overly satisfied when we left. We moseyed around the mall a bit, of course taking a peek in the Apple store (Miles' happiest place on earth), then returned to our car which was parked on the top level of the parking structure. And to our surprise, we saw this...My first instinct was to look for a note perhaps left on the windshield, but there was nothing! Someone rammed into the back of our car and ran. There wasn't much that we could do, so we contacted mall security who gave us the information for the Newport Beach Police. We had an officer come out and take a report just in case we wanted to make an insurance claim. However, we don't know what we're going to do--the deductible costs just about the same as it will to get it fixed. And then we ask our selves if it's worth it--probably not. The injury is only cosmetic. So, we'll probably leave it alone, forget about it, and it will still be there in 10 yrs when we are still driving this baby around. All I have to say is, if this ever happens to you--listen to your conscience and leave a note!

Bakersfield

Michelle came up with the fun idea to take a quick trip to Bakersfield this last weekend. Now I know what some of you must be thinking, "Why in the world would they want to leave the beautiful weather and coast of Irvine to visit the hot, barrenness of Bakersfield?" Well for those who don't know, and are probably the ones asking the question, my family and I lived there for six years (while I was in junior high and high school). Since my family now lives in Arizona, I haven't had any reason to visit Bakersfield since I left for BYU seven years ago.

It was Michelle's first visit and she wasn't too impressed. Sure she thought it was fun to put places to all the stories that I have told her about, but she thought overall the city was pretty ugly. Now, it doesn't fair too well with air quality but that's not its fault (Bakersfield lies at the bottom of the San Joaquin valley and accumulates all the smog from Sacramento and San Francisco), but all the oil rigs don't help either.

We visited my old house. While there we caught up with the Hemingway's, a neighbor family in our ward.

Next, we went to my high school. West High Viking pride, yeah!

CSUB swimming pool. This is where I swam throughout high school. All of our swim practices and almost all of our swim meets took place in this pool.

The LDS ward building we attended. It doubled as the Stake Center. Here we had church, seminary, dances, even performances.

Western Warehouse. This is were my dad worked and was the reason we moved to Bakersfield.

Those were the major attractions. Besides that, pretty much all we did was eat.

Dewar's is a well known ice cream and candy shop in Bakersfield. We had a black and white, bought some chews, and even a t-shirt for me.

Michelle has a bad habit lately of leaving her door open when we walk away from the car. I was able to catch it on film.

On the way home we made a stop at the Los Angeles Temple, another first for Michelle. By the way, this is Michelle's accidental "artistic" shot.

I like to ride my bicycle.

About a week before we moved, our bike we bought the summer before was stolen! It was a total bummer because I was so excited to use my bike here in California. So, we started searching around on craigslist to replace it and found this baby. It was funny because we were looking for a bike for sale that was close enough to ride home (because we don't have a rack on our car to transport it) and we found this one someone was selling in our complex. It was a fair purchase and it came with all sorts of fun accessories including a basket, helmet, and lights.

One of the main reasons I bought this bike was in hopes that I could ride it to work. Now, you might be thinking, isn't that a little too far to ride a bike? For those of you who read my blog often, you'll remember that I got a new job last week that was about a 15-20 minute drive away and I'm not that ambitious to ride a bike like 5 miles to work and back everyday. Well, I already quit that job! It didn't pan out to be what I had hoped for. I quit after the first day but they asked me to stay until the end of the week. It just ended up being a bad environment and somewhere I didn't feel very comfortable. The manager took it really well when I told her.

So, now I am hoping more seriously for an on-campus job. I have a 2nd interview for an Administrative Assistant position in the Department of Philosophy at UCI. Now that job would really be a bike-ride away. I keep hearing that on-campus jobs are really difficult to get (this was my first interview after applying to more than 15 positions) but a 2nd interview seems promising! Keep your fingers crossed!

WICKED!

Miles and I attended the musical "Wicked" last night. We drove 2 1/2 hours through heavy traffic to get to the Pantages theatre on Hollywood Blvd in L.A., but it was worth every minute of travel. It was an awesome production. We were on the second to the last row at the very top, but we still enjoyed it. We got these "nose-bleed" tickets to save money, and I'm glad we did. We paid half the price of the people seated in the row right in front of us.

What I thought was "wicked" cool about the production (not in any order, because I can't decide):

THE MUSIC

Miles and I bought the CD months ago and we loved it even without seeing the production. The lyrics are whitty and the music is so fun.

THE STORY

I tried to read the book the play is based off of, but I don't recommend it--it's pretty crude. But in the musical production they clean it up really well. The morals of the story are inspriational. They cleaverly help you see the other side of the story.

THE SET

Grabs your attention and keeps you enthralled. The costumes were creative and eye-catching. The technology and lighting were, for lack of a better word, cool.

THE CHARACTERS

You get too feel what it's like to be in each character's shoes (no pun intended).

Well, as you can tell, I pretty much loved EVERYTHING about Wicked. If you get a chance, go see it!

A New Chapter Has Begun

We made it to our new home in California. The last couple weeks have been EXHAUSTING! California is beautiful, but there it much to get used to (including the crazy traffic!). We packed up the truck on Tuesday night, slept on a borrowed air mattress and had our last day of work on Wednesday. We left Provo at about 3:30 in the afternoon that same day. Miles drove the loaded truck and I followed in our car. Our plan was to stay in St. George Wednesday night to break up the long drive to California. We had to make a couple stops along the way to check and adjust the load. There were a couple scary moments on the freeway between Provo and Nephi like the time when the mattress on top literally folded in half! But after we put another tie on the mattress and took off the tarp, it was smooth sailing.

We left St. George at 5:00am Thursday morning in hope of dodging the traffic in Vegas and LA. I don't know if we hit "real" traffic or not, but I tell you there were times when my adrenaline was really pumping! It was intense trying to follow Miles through the maze of winding, merging, and speeding freeways! So, it was such a relief to finally make it to our new apartment with no accidents.

Now to tell you a little about our new apartment. My first impression was like "oh no," but little by little I am finding the perks--like, it's HUGE, much bigger than I expected. Andrea, Nate, Kia, Mikelle, Avery, and Danny all stayed with us for a few days to help us move in, and there was elbow room for everyone. Also, we have our own balcony, and we found out today that there are quite a few LDS couples living in our same complex. The ocean and the weather are probably the biggest perks living here. I'm really loving it more and more.

While Andrea's family and Danny were here, we went to Disneyland and Newport Beach (both are only 10-15 minutes away from our apartment). We still had a blast even though both locations were busy. Miles was like a little kid playing with the girls and in the ocean--he loves the water!

So, Miles starts his new PhD program tomorrow. He's a little nervous--not really knowing what to expect. I just keep telling him he'll do great! He's such a smart and likable person. As for me, I am still looking for a job. But in the meantime I have plenty of shopping and unpacking to do to get us settled in. A new chapter in our life has begun!

Flower Power/Packing Up

Just a quick little update on how my flower pot is doing! I'm sorry, but as you can probably tell, I'm really excited about my little flowers. The pot has literally EXPLODED! The growing conditions must be perfect for this plant, because all I do is water about every-other-day and take pictures of it!. The way it's hung, it gets sunlight in the morning when it's still a little cool outside, and is shaded during the hot hours of the day.

So the dreaded time of packing up has come. Miles and I will be living in Irvine CA 10 days from now. I cannot believe how much stuff we have accumulated in the short 2 years we've been married. I love the feeling of purging all our junk, but Miles has really disliked me making him choose between keeping this old T-shirt or those broken stereo speakers. We are not renting a moving truck of any kind, instead we are planning on packing up my dad's old diesel Ford pick-up. Yep, we will definitely look like the Beverly Hillbillies moving to California with our stuff piled high on this old truck (don't worry I'll definitely take pictures!), but have found we'll save close to $500 doing so. And hopefully we'll be able to use some of the money we saved to buy some new furniture (like a new dining table, and futon for our 2nd bedroom). California HERE WE COME!

Carol's Wedding Cake

Carol, a good friend from work asked me to make her wedding cake! Wow, what a challenge. The only experience I had had was helping my sister make my own wedding cake a couple years ago. This is a picture of what she wanted. I included pics of the whole process (which took nearly 20 hours to do!).

Carol didn't want to serve her actual cake, so the bottom 2 layers were styrofoam and the top was real chocolate cake. So the first step was to make the cake from scratch and give it a good thick layer of frosting.

Next came the huge task of rolling out the fondant. It was a serious workout (my whole body is sore from this!) I actually had to get on top of the counter to get my whole weight into it!

Putting the fondant over the cake layers was probably the most difficult part of the whole process. All those pointy edges were a pain!

But luckily I had another set of hands (Michelle Shade - friend/neighbor) to help me!

We then stacked and put the red ribbon on.

I trimmed the cakes in icing, which I had never done before!

Putting the tiny red dots all over was nerve racking!

Miles and I then carefully transported the two pieces (real top layer, and bottom fake layers) to the location in Salt Lake. When we got there, we started assembling all the pieces.

This is Miles helping me!

Then came my favorite part, placing the flowers. That floral design class I took really came it handy!

And this is the final product! Wow what a project!