THE birth day

Oh my dear sweet, wonderful, amazing sister. I think you are quite swell. And you know you are one HOT momma, because well let's face it - not just anyone could pull of that AWESOME pancho!

And to Rachel, aka Freelancer, you are quite possibly the BEST spy

[and drawer/artist/color combiner] I know.
Happy Birthday to you both, I love you bunches and bunches!!!

The Big 80!

I just can't believe how many people I know with birthdays this week and next week. SO MANY!!! But today, today is the 80th birthday of Nancy Drew. Quite exciting if you ask me.

Nancy was a HUGE part of my childhood......and well more than just childhood, seeing as I read the books way past the appropriate age. I do believe it is Nancy I have to thank for my love of reading, and all crime/mystery related things in general. There were never enough books for me, even with multiple series, hundreds of books, I am pretty certain I have read nearly all of them. I remember going to the library and checking out stacks and stacks of them, and begging my mom to buy me the sets of them from Costco. Oh the pretty yellow covers.

Ha! I also went through a multiple year phase where I wanted my name to be George.........or just name my future daughter George, and marry Ned Nickerson of course. I think I have outgrown that desire.........I think.

FOUND!

A few years ago CIA Agent Sydney Bristow went missing. She was assumed dead until recently when she had been spotted in the city of Fullerton. Last night Agent Simonsen, code name freelancer embarked on a dangerous recovery mission. Freelancer with the help of her AMAZING CIA handlers: Bluebird and Mountaineer were able to follow the clues around Fullerton and recover Agent Bristow.........who had been so viciously shoved in the trunk of a car.

Here is some of the footage from the search.

HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY RACHEL!!!!!

Some More

Per the request of Lindsey here are some more photos from the San Diego trip. Mostly at Balboa Park and the Maritime Museum. Enjoy!

Don't forget to go here or here to vote the winner of our Balboa Park Photo Challenge.

It Happened One Night

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I explained how our new coffee maker was going to kill us? Yeah, well it very nearly occurred over the weekend. We were at our hotel, enjoying the lush amenities it offered, mostly the cable TV. When Angela decided to make coffee in the little midget pot that was in our room.

Ten minutes later I was in the middle of What Not To Wear when the fire alarm went off. We are talking deafening beeping noises here. What did I do? Continued sitting on the bed and thought to myself "oh the coffee must be done." Seriously, this is true. It took a few seconds for me to realize that it was not the coffee maker, as this one was not near fancy enough to offer such warnings, it was in fact the fire alarm going off.

What does one do in a hotel when the fire alarm goes off? I am sure you are supposed to evacuate. Did we - no. We laughed about how we both thought the noise was the coffee maker. I did eventually check the hallway to see if there was smoke, flames or running people. There was none.

There was no fire.
But there was coffee.
Thank Goodness!

I Don't Live In A Yellow Submarine

While in San Diego we visited the Maritime Museum. It was GREAT!!! We got to take a boat tour around the bay, tour the India Star, the Berkly and two submarines. Ok something you should know, my love of sailing and nauticalness does not extend to submarines. NO! I don't like them. They are SMALL and completely underwater, terrifying.

I just assumed I/we would not go on them. Just because they are there to tour does not mean we HAVE to go on them right? Angela had other ideas. Something about conquering fears and what not. This is me right after she informed me that we WOULD be going on the U.S.S. Dolphin.

She clearly has no fear of subs.
After surviving the tour of the Dolphin we headed over to the Russian sub. The first one was not so bad (after getting down the stairs I did fine - no dramatic freak outs) so I figured I could go on another one and it would be no big deal. HA! Yeah I changed my mind when we got to this:
Did you read the sign?

We would have to crawl though multiple openings this size.

NO THANK YOU!

It looks like a McDonald's playground - which I also have an unnatural fear of.

Call me crazy but I feel like I will get stuck.

Again Angela had no problem. She was LOVING the small spaces, but then again she could stand up in the passageways without hunching over.
I did survive the Russian torpedo submarine. I also learned that this is the more difficult way to pass through the openings. By the third one I was a pro.

Inked

So I LOVE sail boats. We all know that right? Sailing, anchors, blue and white - any and all things nautical. This weekend on our mini vacation we were able to take part in some swell nautical activities (more to come on those on future posts).

After all of our time on and near the sea, I just felt the need to remember this fantastic vacation forever. And what better way to do that than with a souvenir. I came away from this weekend with a lovely sailboat tattoo. Check her out:

And you know Angela felt such a strong connection with the men who climbed up the ropes and worked on the sails that she too decided to get a tattoo. Nothing says roommate bonding like matching tatts.

CHALLENGE

While at Balboa park yesterday Angela and I went a little bazerk taking photos of the flowers. If you ever read Angela's blog then you know she LOVES a good flower photo...... I guess I just wanted to be like her.

150 photos later we made it a challenge.

We each selected what we believe to be out top two photos from the day. And now we need YOU to help us pick a winner. Check out the four pictures below and tell us which is your favorite in the comment section.

ONE:

TWO:

THREE:

FOUR:

VACATION!!!

This is the first installment of stories from the road:

To celebrate the end of tax season and the end of Angela's spring break we packed up Ebony and headed south to San Diego for a weekend of fun and relaxation!

Angela and I really like to talk. You know it may be the fact that we are girls.....or that we have just known each other so long - but whatever the reason you put us in a car together and we just talk talk talk. Usually to the point where we get lost or miss a turn because we were too into our conversation. It is for this very reason that we at the start of our trip made predictions as to how many times we would get lost (even with Gabby the GPS).

Part way into our journey we passed a sign for San Clemente.

Angela: "Isn't the Rainbow outlet in San Clemente?"

Me: "Ooooohhhhh yeah I think it is."

Angela: "Should we go?"

Me: "sure why not - I'll get Gabby out."

Angela: "I don't know if Gabby will be fast enough we only have six exits."

All that to say Angela picked and exit made two completely random turns and WHA-LA [I am quite certain I gasped] there it was. Not only did we not get lost be we found a new location without an address. That was a first!

TGIF

Thank goodness it's Friday......yeah the last Friday of tax season.

WAHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

One week from today I will officially be on VACATION!

To celebrate this wonderful occasion Angela made me a breakfast feast of Cinnamon Rolls. YUM!

EARTHQUAKE!!!!

We had just finished our Easter basket hunt when I herd Rachel yell "EARTHQUAKE." My response was "no that's just my phone." I don't know why but I guess I thought that she heard my phone ringing and thought it was an Earthquake. YEAH that makes complete sense.

So I obviously was not feeling the earthquake, I picked up my phone to chat with my mom. Rachel, still yelling "EARTHQUAKE" ran to the doorway and was soon joined my Angela. They both continued yelling and acted like I was going to die because I was walking around the house. I did not die. And due to my non earthquake fear I was able to check on Rachel's computer........besides earthquake, she may have yelled a few times "MY COMPUTER!! SAVE THE COMPUTER!!!" It survived unscathed.

After the great EE (Easter Earthquake) ended we settled in to watch a good 30 minutes of CNN. Let me tell you, those people over at CNN are not very informative. All they did was read us comments that people left on the website explaining what they were doing when the great EE struck. Seriously. Gloria from Yuma said: I was sitting at my kitchen table yada yada yada.

A couple hours later Angela and I arrived back home to the Penthouse. When I opened the closet I was started to find some damage left by the EE. Ugh! I specifically remember hanging that belt on the hook on the closet wall before I left the house that morning. The EE had given the Penthouse such a violent shake that it was knocked right off the wall. Poor belt. I am sure it is now scared for life.

Happy Easter

This year was an Easter like none other. We will defiantly be remembering it for years to come. We experience quite the spectrum of events, everything from dead fish to earthquakes. One not relating to the other however. But have no fear there will be more to come on the earthquake tomorrow.......something that big deserves it's own post. For tonight I will simply leave you with a few photos of our joyous Easter basket hunt.

Rachel found her basket before it was even her turn to look.

I had to search every room in the house, and the yard because someone led me to believe it was outside [Angela] only to then find it in the shower.

And Angela well her amazing sleuth skills helped her find her basket in the first place she looked.

April Fools!

Today I am officially an April Fool.

I have fallen for THREE lies today.

This is horrible.

The worst part is that my creative juices are just not flowing.

I can't come up with anything good of my own to get back at these people.

Instead I shall leave you with a link to my great April Fools post from last year, and you can laugh over the fact that my life has not changed at all in the last year.