The Cupcake Activist

I know I have blogged about this wonderful girl before but right now she is running a contest and I get extra entries if I blog about her once more and her blog is one of my favorites so this is not a hard thing for me to do. She blogs about all the different cupcakeries that she finds and gives each one an overall rating. There are also recipes and suggestions for all things cupcake. So there is a link on the side but here is her blog if so all of you amazing people can learn about CUPCAKES!!!

http://www.cupcakeactivist.com/

The Journey of an X Box

Friday, November 6, 2009

Early in the day I find out about the X Box sale and think little of it but as the night progresses the sale starts sounding better and better. I go to see The Men Who Stare At Goats at 9:10 with Kristen and Tony and discuss my X Box debacle with them since Tony owns one. After doing some research on my phone I realize that it is $199 with a $100 gift card thus making it only $100 and so my mind is made up. I will purchase an X Box so that I may someday be the proud owner of the game Rock Band. After the movie I confer with Kristen, Tony, and Kevin and decide that since it's already almost 11 it will only be an hour wait they decide to keep me company on my adventure

After arriving at Walmart I see no line and wonder if I could really be so luck. As I approach the store I see 2 people sitting on a bench and ask the almighty question "Is this the line?" I am quickly given a yes but then the horror strikes when informed that the sale does not start till 8 am. It is 11:20 pm at this point and I am faced with the difficult decision of deciding to stay and wait or abandoning my hopes of owning Rock Band. After much consideration and the realization that I have nothing to do the next day I come to the decision and tell Kristen "Yes, I will stay!" Kristen is unhappy with my decision as my fellow adventurers cannot or will not stay. After some convincing she concedes and runs off to Tony's house to procure me a sleeping bag. They return quickly and I am left to face my journey alone. Soon after they leave employees come out and hand us a list of all that is on sale and wish us luck. I start to ponder how I will fill my 8 hours. I have less than half a battery on my iPhone, my Nintendo DS for once is not in my purse, damn; I am also without a book as I have been trying to lighten my load, horrible idea now. I sit and stare out into the semi empty parking lot when an idea strikes me. I have pen and paper, I shall take it back old school and tell my tale as many before me have done. That brings me to this point. 12:29 pm. From here on out I will document more like a log than a journal entry and hopefully take you on the journey with me. The journey of an X Box 360

12:45 am After a brief introduction (I believe their names were Winsu, an asian man, and Shaniqua, a black woman) with the 2 people standing in line ahead of me we decide a game of go fish is in order. We play 2 games of go fish and one game of war. I win none of these.

1:19 am Our group is cold and hungry so they save my spot in line and I venture out to go get Wendy's. After arriving at Wendy's I realize they are closed and end up at Carls Jr. instead. During this entire time I am able to charge my cell phone and warm up in my truck. I arrive back with food in hand and everyone has their spirits lifted with the warm meal.

2:30 am Winsu (who has camped out for things many times before and is fully prepared for boredom) has brought his laptop full of movies. We end up watching The Ugly Truth which was hilarious and I highly recommend to anyone who hasn't seen it. This kills a good 2 hours because at 2:57 am the amazing night manager at Walmart opens the doors and allows us to go inside and use the restroom.

4:00 am The movie ends and the next people in line finally arrive. A very nice couple who is buying a laptop for their college aged son. Slowly from this point on we get trickles of people coming in line behind us. We all have a sense of camaraderie in freezing outside together and I decide I think a snuggie is a great investment

6:45 am I return my sleeping bag to my truck and see about 30 people in line. The electronics manager comes out and starts handing out tickets for the items we wish to purchase. I decide to buy a laptop for my mom since she is long overdue for a new one and my Xbox.

7:00 am Walmart finally opens and we are able to form our line inside the electronics dept. of Walmart where it is significantly warmer. I start to get increasingly grumpy from this point on.

8:00 am They open the registers and I am able to make my purchase. One Xbox and one laptop both with warrantys. I spent so much that by the end of the day Wellsfargo called to make sure my credit card hadn't been stolen.

8:06 am I leave Walmart with my purchase's and drive home. My adventure was a success and now I must sleep.

I finally fall asleep around 10 am and sleep till about 4 at which point I am woken up by my oh so precious niece staring me right in the face telling me "hi lala hi, hi lala hi, (a kiss on my nose) shh lala seeping" At this point I get up and go online and find my Rockband on sale on the Walmart website for $99. I had to pay $8 in tax and $.97 in shipping but in a few days my rockband will be here and I will be rocking out rather happily :)

So that is the journey of my Xbox. It's one that if given the choice I feel I could totally do again but it would have to be something totally worth it. If anyone wants to come play Rockband in a few weeks let me know and we can have a party!

Chinese Food

Kristen and I went out tonight for chinese food at Lettuce Wok N Roll and were finally able to catch up after not getting to talk for a week. At the end of our meal the customary fortune cookies came and I was once again frustrated with the fact that instead of a fortune I was once again greeted with words of advice or wisdom. "If you promise someone something, keep it." That is not a fortune but just words to live by. What happened to the fortunes? What am I supposed to add "in bed" to? Come on chinese fortune cookie people hop to it!

Life at Disney

It has been about 2 months now since I started at Disney and the reason you have seen a lack of updates from me lies in the fact that I really do not enjoy my job. It has slowly gotten better but for the most part I am not a fan of standing in the sun for 8 hours a day carrying around 10 lbs worth of equipment and dealing with stupid people who ask stupid questions.

Standing in front of It's a Small World a guest asks me "Where is it's a small world?" to which I just point.

A woman comes up to me and asks "where is magic mountain?" I go through the list of mountains we have "space mountain, matterhorn, splash mountain" she says "no we want magic mountain" to which I reply "Magic mountain is about 3 hours north of here. It is a separate theme park" she then decides that she meant space mountain.

Standing at the main entrance by the mickey flowers a woman comes up and asks "how do we get out of this place" to which I point right behind me.

Although some of the stupid questions are entertaining most of the people are just stupid and think they can do whatever they want because they paid to be there. Sadly I am not paid enough to care how much they pay to be there so it can get rather annoying.

That is about it for now. I will rant more later on dealing with Mr. Mouse but for now it is my day off and I am going to have some fun!

Bad blogging

My blogging skills have been less than par as of late but in my defense a lot has been going on. I will try to post everything asap but if not know that my life is not that exciting and you aren't missing too much.

Starting back from my last blog (I don't even really remember when that was) I have graduated, my brother got married, I moved to California, started working for Disney and gotten ill. You know me so lots of pictures if you are just patient and read on.

I wish I could show pictures of my graduation but alas I don't really have any. Others do but I have yet to get these so if you want to see pictures start harassing my sister or father because they are the only ones with them I believe. I attended both graduations (ASU and Liberal Arts and Sciences) and of the two I would have to say the latter was much more enjoyable. The ASU graduation had President Obama speaking so while he gave a very good speech it was not worth the pain and suffering I endured (blisters, peeing in a bush, etc.). My colleges graduation was pretty awesome in terms of a graduation. It was indoors for one, the speaker was just as good and it was much shorter. If you want to know all the agonizing details feel free to ask but for now I will leave you with I don't plan on attending any more graduations for myself, they aren't worth it.

Immediately following my graduation everyone (my mom, ann, matt, paige, granny, and thomas) jumped on a plane to go to Thomas' wedding up in Fresno. The plane ride was awful but that is a story for another day as well. We made it in time for the rehearsal that night and it was an amazing ceremony (short and to the point, my idea of a good wedding) the next day. Vanessa was gorgeous and I will admit that I did cry but can you really blame me? Paige was an adorable flower girl and did a great job walking down the aisle. The reception was a blast and other than the fact that it was so hot it couldn't have gone better. I only have pictures of the rehearsal but hopefully I will get some pictures of the wedding and reception eventually.

The following weekend my amazing friends in Arizona threw me a surprise going away party and it was so much fun to see everyone before I left. Kristen came the next day to help me pack up and move to California (what an great best friend). We filled both trucks but got 90% of my things back to California (man did I have a lot of stuff). Upon getting back to California I was diagnosed with Strep Throat and spent the next few days in bed. Last Thursday I started at Disney with lots of training and orientation Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. Sunday I found out that I wouldn't start my OJT till the following weekend so I decided to make a trip back to Arizona to visit my babies and friends.

I am currently sitting in Arizona getting ready to drive back to California so that I can watch Paige in the morning and then run some errands before my training on Saturday. I have a whole other post full of everything Disney but that will have to wait for another time as I need to get on the road to California. I hope everything is going well for all of you who read my not so entertaining blog but thanks to my loyal readers :)

Grand Canyon

My classes were cancelled and I didn't have work on Wednesday so my friend Jonathan and I drove up to the Grand Canyon for the day. These are some of my favorite pictures from the trip.







I was climbing the tree like a monkey!

Jonathan was a bit obsessed with the recycling cans so we took a picture with the last one

This was on our drive home. I thought this cloud looked like a Dinosaur :)

Puppies and Babies

The babies spent the night last week and Tonka and Guinness thought this was the greatest thing in the world because they got to drink the water out of the bathtub when the girls were in there. It was pretty funny because they both wanted to get in with the girls. I am so happy to know that both my boys get along so well with little kids (other than Tonka's tail occasionally hitting someone in the face).

Sophie, Olivia, Tonka, and Guinness

Sophie and Guinness

Tonka trying to get in the tub

Olivia being her cute self

RAAAAAAAAAAVE comes for a visit

My friend from high school, Rave, came for a visit for a few days. We were able to go to a spring training game and see the Dodgers play the Giants. Sadly my Dodgers lost but it was still an awesome game.

Rave rocking it at the game.

The game...kind of

Me!

Rave and I

Dani, Jonathan and Nate

Some pictures from the last month

For my birthday this year we had a murder mystery birthday party. It was a lot of fun and totally different. This is me with my giant cupcake that my friend Janelle made me. It was very tasty


Nate, Dani and I went to a wedding for Nate's coworker. It was a mormon wedding and Dani and I looked scandalous even though we tried to cover up.



Sophie and I at Ann's 30th surprise birthday party. Chrissy and I took the babies to Disneyland for their spring break which happened to work out so we could all go to the party :)


Thomas, Ann, and I playing rock band at the party. We could be like the Partridge family or something haha

Disneyland Resort College Program

So when I first heard that I had been accepted I was really excited but mainly because I finally had a job and knew what would be happening for the next couple of months. Now that I have talked to some people who have done the college program and have talked to a few people who will be doing the program with me I am actually excited for the opportunity. Never have I considered myself a "Disney Freak" as a lot of people I know are but I do think it would be awesome to work for a company built around (besides making money) making people feel special and magical.

Another thing that I am really excited about is I found out about half way through the program you have the opportunity to try and switch positions and while I think doing photography will be cool I would really love to have the experience of working in one of the hotels at the front desk.

All of you should be excited as well because this means that my blogs should be getting a whole lot more interesting since I will be working with the public once again and we all know how bright the majority of the public is :) and who knows maybe this time I will let someone take a picture of me in my embarrassing uniform.

Moving back to California...

So I just found out that come May I will be moving back to California for a job at Disneyland. I applied to their college program and was accepted so I will be working as a photographer in the parks from May till January. Hopefully in that time I will also get certification to be a substitute teacher and find a job somewhere else. That's all for now!

Pictures of Tonka at the beach

These are a bit old but here are pictures of Tonka at the beach having fun with his friend Kynan.

Sometimes shit happens

*Advisory, if you have a weak stomach you may not want to read this post*

This past week was my spring break which left me with a lot of free time on my hands. Not only did I work on my mad video game skills but I had Mitchell (the oldest of the 3 children I nanny for) over for a sleep over. When I went to return him on Wednesday after a really fun night his mom and I got to talking and decided on a last minute trip to Disneyland. We left Thursday night with the 3 kids and my 2 dogs. The plan was to drop off Tonka and Guinness at my moms house on the way to Disneyland and then I would pick them up in 2 weeks when I was back in town so that they wouldn't have to do a ton of traveling. So Mitchell (6) and Sophie (4) are in the very back row of the minivan, Olivia (2) is in the captain chair behind the driver and Chrissy and I are up front. Sophie and Olivia were asleep and Mitchell was watching a DVD. We had removed the other captain chair so that the dogs would have room to lay down. We had just passed into California driving by the state prison and were about 2.5 hours from my moms house when Chrissy and I hear what sounds like running water. We then hear from Mitchell "Liz's dog just peed on Sophie and it really stinks." We turn the lights on and Chrissy jumps into the back seat and yells for me to pull over. Tonka had just had liquid diarrhea poop all over sophie and the back of the van. Immediately Mitchell starts puking from the smell followed by Sophie and Chrissy. Chrissy takes the dog and goes over to the call box while I start ripping everything out of the back of the van that is covered in shit and getting the kids out so that they stop puking. I strip Sophies clothes off because she is covered head to toe in shit and can't stop puking from the smell on herself. So we are now 2 women on the side of the road across from the prison with 3 babies who are covered in shit and can't stop puking (one of which is naked) and a shitting dog. When Chrissy tells the operator this on the phone the operator responds with "So what is your emergency?" She then asks if she can call someone for us like a family member or friend but Chrissy asks for her to just send an officer so that no one pulls over to help us and so we don't get hit. While she is on the phone I crawl into the van and start cleaning up all the shit with baby wipes. Chrissy and I can't stop cracking up about the whole thing and are cracking jokes back and forth about shit. Now on the side of the road we have baby blakets, pillows, clothes, carseat liners, and shoes all covered in shit and unsalvageable. After using hundreds of baby wipes to wipe down the interior of the van and try to clean sophie off we finally have the van clean enough that the kids can get in without puking from the smell. The officers finally arrive sometime after we get the kids and dogs back in the van and cannot believe that we are laughing about it. One of the officers said that if it had been his wife she would have been in tears. Chrissy asks if they have any bags or anything for us to pack up all the shit covered stuff in and they proceed to pull out body bags. As she is trying to get everything in the body bags and the 2 officers are just standing there she asks if they are going to help at all. One of the officers picks something up and immediately starts dry heaving and says no. Everything is eventually packed into the body bags and the officers then say we have to take it with us to the rest area and throw it away there. That's right we stick the shit filled body bags into the back of the minivan and drive it to the rest stop a few miles down the road. I give all 3 kids baby wipes to hold over their noses so that they aren't smelling the shit as much as baby wipes. We eventually make it to my moms house and drop the dogs off and proceed on our way to Disneyland. The following day we take the van to get detailed and they do manage to get the smell out before we have to drive back to Arizona. We spend 4 lovely days in Anaheim going to Disneyland and California Adventure. We also go to a surprise birthday party for my sister and had a ton of fun drinking margaritas and playing rock band. All in all it was a very memorable trip but I don't think I would ever want to repeat it :)

An addition to our family

Your family has grown with the addition of a baby girl! She was born last night at 11:30 P.M. Malakai is a little over three years old now, and has been eagerly awaiting the baby's birth. Malakai holds and rocks the baby, and even feeds her with a bottle of pre-pumped breast milk or formula. Malakai is fascinated with the baby and tells everyone about her. You notice as the weeks go by that Malakai likes to imitate the baby's sounds and movements, and enjoys play-acting a baby role. He sometimes seems to be regressing and becoming more demanding and whiny, and less cooperative, but other times prides himself on being a competent older sibling.

A little catching up....

So I have been a bad blogger lately. I know all of you rush to your computers daily (sometimes hourly) awaiting my amazing blogs yet for the past month I have failed you all and for this I apologize. The last month has been kind of insane really. School is definitely in full swing at this point and after the first week of classes I had to do some reorganizing of my schedule.

First of all my Capoeira class was not really working for me. It gave me an intense workout but during the first class I managed to sprain my thumb and for all of you out there who know how accident prone I am, if I am already hurting myself in the first class then I should probably save face and drop it asap. So Capoeira was dropped and I added a HIp Hop music class which is now kicking my butt in new and exciting ways but also in ways that don't lead to me ending up in the ER.

Malakai is doing well. The program frustrates me to no end because it will give you a problem that has come up and a list of different things you can try and you have to choose one. My problem is that for many of the problems I would most likely choose two or three of the different solutions and it wont allow me to. Malakai is now 2 and a half years old and is starting preschool and is potty trained. I am also apparently pregnant once again but we are not telling Malakai this.

My belly dancing class is going fairly well. I still lack rhythm but am learning to jiggle with purpose and not be afraid of my hips. Nate and I went and saw a belly dance performance by my teacher last weekend and he was thoroughly impressed by her (she was miss world belly dancer or something like that) but then later when I got up and belly danced at Hubbly Bubbly he was not nearly as impressed. Incase you are wondering, yes there will be a recital, no you cannot come.

Yoga has brought some new and challenging tasks to me and shed some light on certain things. One of those things is while I learned to have amazing balance on my right foot while my left one was in a cast my left foot has no balancing ability whatsoever. Yoga generally leads to me falling over at least once but I have learned to fall so that I don't take anyone else out with me.

My Astronomy lab pretty much sucks. The instructor has this accent that is so annoying and listening to her talk makes me want to jam a pen into my brain. She is also someone who lacks public speaking skills so she stands up there twice as long as necessary generally saying "um..." a lot.

Tonka and Guinness are both doing well. They spend the majority of their days waiting for me to get home and take them to the dog park where they run around like a bunch of crazies and play with their friends. Guinness has a personality similar to the "special" kids at school in that he wants to be everyones friend and is rather annoying about it. He wants to be in everyones face and is always wanting everyone to play with him. Tonka is more the strong silent type. He loves to play once he gets to know a dog but is timid around anyone new. He is a bit like Lenny from Of Mice and Men in that he really likes the little little dogs but doesn't really know how to interact with them so he frequently tries to either swipe them or hump them. The little dogs are not fond of this. Tonka, also, has not mastered the workings of his turning radius or his breaks so he frequently tramples people and dogs.

Not to much else has been going on lately. My friend Jonathan came into town a few weeks ago before heading off to Cambodia again so we had a birthday party for him and Nate that lasted for a good 5 days and involved no one getting to bed before 5 am during that time. We have successfully caught up on sleep since them but are still trying to get rid of the rest of the beer. I currently have a sinus infection which is kicking my butt but hopefully it will pass quickly and I can get on with everything. If anyone knows of any companies that are hiring I am still in a great search for a job when I graduate but may decide to pursue law school in the fall if nothing else comes up. Hope everyone else is well.

A son is born!

So due to silly requirements put forth by the University I am about to partake in a parenting class. Part of this class requires you to raise a virtual child from birth to age 18. I even had to take a personality and intelligence test so that my baby will have similar attributes. After all was said and done I "gave birth" to a baby boy and named him Malakai. Here is how it went down:

You are relieved that things have been going so well after Malakai's birth. Things were a little scary for a while. You had high blood pressure, premature dilation of the cervix, and had to go on maternity leave early. You remained in bed for the last two months of the pregnancy. At the last prenatal check-up, the baby was showing some signs of distress. The doctors decided to induce labor early, and Malakai was born three weeks early. He weighed only five pounds, and had an Apgar score of six. He was kept in the hospital for a week, and pronounced healthy at the end of that time. You notice that Malakai seems restless and uncomfortable some of the time, and cries more than most newborns. He was slow to learn how to feed and lost a little weight after birth. However, after 3 weeks Malakai has finally started gaining weight. The doctors will keep an eye on his development over the next few months.

I will try to keep everyone updated on Malakai's development over the next semester because I know you are all dying to know :)

Other than that I start school tomorrow and actually have quite a few classes on campus. Here is my schedule so you can avoid calling me during these times (although I think some of you purposefully call me during class...hmmm)

My Class Schedule - Spring 2009
Class # Course Title Type Units Instructor(s) Days Times
10894 FAS 301 Introduction to Parenting Lecture 3.0 Reesing
26273 THE 405 Topic: Great Comedy Films Lecture 3.0 LaMont
26315 DAN 194 Topic: Pilates/Yoga Lecture 2.0 Malan-McDonald T Th 7:30 AM - 9:00 AM
13977 DAN 194 Topic: Capoeira Lecture 2.0 Spain T Th 6:45 PM - 8:15 PM
21234 AST 114 Astronomy Laboratory II Laboratory 1.0 Windhorst W 7:30 PM - 10:00 PM
14835 DAN 294 Topic: Raqs Sharqi Lecture 2.0 Fleming T Th 8:30 PM - 10:00 PM


That's about it for now. I am sure I will be posting soon about my dance classes and how I am awful at them but until then you can send all baby presents for Malakai to me in Arizona (although he really prefers things for me or his two older brothers Tonka and Guinness :) )

New Year's Day

On New Years Day my mom, Ann, Paige, and I all went up to Mt. Baldy and played in the snow. It's extremely picture heavy but I highly recommend getting to the ones that have my mom going down the hill in the tube (try to piece them together and picture her screaming and laughing).

Christmas Pictures

I know these are ridiculously late at this point but doesn't the saying always go better late than never? These are pictures from all of Christmas from decorating for Christmas at my condo with Nate and the boys to Christmas Eve at my Moms house (with Ann, Matt, Paige, and my Mom) to Christmas Day at Ann and Matt's house (with my mom, Ann, Matt, and Paige) to the day after Christmas at Ann's house (with my brother and Vanessa included) to the day after the day after Christmas at Ann's house (with my Nana and Papa added).

"Good Riddance"

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it's worth it was worth all the while

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.