Halloweenie

Ohhhh to follow our dreams of being current on our blog. As a wise man once said,I think I’m just going to see where my dreams are going and catch up with them later.

Oh look. It’s Halloween.

In honor of such a magical holiday (when else to you get to see grown people look like silly little kids and kids look like silly little sluts) we celebrated it all weekend long. Our Halloween Weekend was spent in the best way possible – by taking a trip to California!!! We got to spend time with family, catch up on our shows, carve some sweet punkins, eat at the site of the original French dip sandwich in LA Chinatown (of all places), AAAAAAND go to OCTOBERFLAME III at The Grove!!!

It was, in a word, special. The two opening bands were unfortunate. The first one kinda almost had something going for them. They all had sweet face paint except the awkward tubby guy in a dress. The lead singer had on a Mexican/Sailor costume on… to start with. The music was almost okay, entertaining enough as the lead guy did some ridiculous, seemingly drink induced dances… by the end he was down to tighty whities and frankly I was embarrassed for him. The second band was just shameful. They were old, painful to listen to, and looked like they belonged in cubicles... not in a geek chic way. Yeahhhh I walked out and got some fresh air during their set.

BUT then… the main event… TIGER ARMY!! They were aaaaaaaawesomeeeeeeee. I even fished my wish and got to hear my favorite Tiger Army song (Afterworld, which we coincidentally danced to at our wedding for THE first dance) as the SECOND song they played. ALSO Nick 13’s parents were in the audience and so he played his mom’s favorite song they play (Through the Darkness) and it became my NEW favorite : )

All Hallows Eve was pretty sweet too – we walked around with Chris & Dennis – both dressed for the part – Dennis as Nacho Libre and Chris as a lovely Asian. We even shared an awesome dark choco sundae for a Halloween treat. But anyone who knows anything about me and trips to San Clemente know that my FAVORITE treat I could even wish for is Pedro’s Fish Tacos and Horchata which I also had at least once a day : D

BEST HALLOWEEN EVERRRRR!

TV - new for fall 2010!

know what's pretty good? TV. Not all of it, but some of it. Here are some of the things you can find on one near you that is worth your time:

Raising Hope. Never heard of it? Neither did we until earlier today. It may be best to just watch it not knowing what you're getting into.

No Ordinary Family. Did you like the Incredibles? X-men? Smallville? Throw them all in a blender, add Michael Chiklis and you've got No Ordinary Family. It's actually eerily similar to the Incredibles (it's a good thing it's made by ABC so Disney doesn't go crazy on them).

Running Wilde. Love Arrested Development? Well here's a show for you! It even has G.O.B. and Tobias! PLUS Mitch Hurwitz is one of the Exec. Producers.

My Generation. A fake documentary about how some high schoolers 10 years after they graduate, complete with flashbacks and all!

And of course there are all the staples: the Office, Community, and Modern Family.

(and when we finally get around to catching up on past seasons: Chuck, Psych, and Burn Notice)

And that's how we spend our free time. Of course there isn't much of that since for some reason we think we need to go to school and work, and eat and sleep. I don't know where those ideas came from , but they're really cramping our leisure time.

We're becoming a real family

Last night we got home a little past 9pm due to my night class, and yet Andre decided we would have our first "real" Family Home Evening - like with a theme and scriptures and a treat and an activity and everything.  I thought this was quite cute.  He pulled up the scripture story about David and how his friend's dad, the king, wanted to kill him, but his friend hid him to protect him cause he was his best friend.  I hadn't heard that story before, but his point was the importance of friends and how happy he is we're best friends : )

We then had hot dogs and popcorn for our treat (aka dinner).  I sure hope Jamie Oliver isn't reading this.... I really do want us to start cooking more and being more healthy.  The popcorn isn't THAT bad though - it's my very favorite kind.

Then for our activity, we watched animal bff videos here.

I think my favorite was this one

General Conference

This weekend was one of the two special weekends a year when everyone in the whole world has the opportunity to hear from the prophet and his apostles on the things we need to hear today in our time. While I admit I wasn't as prepared as many others and I had to work on Saturday, so I only got to watch to Sunday's sessions live, between what I was able to watch and what I was able to hear from my institute class yesterday, I thought I'd jot down some of my favorite stories and takeaways.

1. The Stupid Cow story.  Short version - there were cows grazing in a pasture with a fence to keep them out of the wheat (bc if they ate the wheat their bellies would expand and they'd die) well one cow liked the wheat, busted out of the fence, ate a bunch of wheat, bloated up like a balloon, and died before they were able to help rescue him. Moral of the story - fences are there for a reason, to protect us. If you do things you ought not to you will face the consequences (ouch).

2. The Farm story. Short version - A farmer had his kids count all their sheep and chickens etc, which was a lot of work, but they were able to see how much they have and feel good because they worked to see their blessings. Moral of the story - we are so blessed and have so much to be grateful for so look around and say thanks : )

3. The message to slow down.  I didn't actually hear this talk, but the gist I got was that we so easily get caught up in ourselves and the "go go go" "i need everything and i need it right now" mentality, but sometimes we just need to take a step back, slow down, and think about what really matters most.  This made me think of one of my favorite songs by Jack Johnson

A celebration for a smarty-pants

 Well, one of the many things that attracted me to my little Andre Joseph in the first place was his rating of awesome in the smartness category.  A couple weekends ago on the 18th of September after a whole week of sleep deprivation and exams and stress he took THE GRE. That dreaded exam to help decide the fate of grad school.  He may not admit it, but he was pretty nervous. HOWEVER, not only did he finish way early, he got 100% of the math part right!!!! Yeah.... ALL of it. In addition to doing pretty dang well on the other parts. Obviously I am beyond proud and love to embarrass him by telling everyone I know, but before we told the world we had a *little* celebration at our apartment by playing dress up and drinking fancy drinks : )