breaking news

Taco Bell has two new sauces!

I am so behind the times - I am sure this happened a while ago, but I had no idea. Usually I only hit up the drive through - which does not inform you of the new additions. So naturally when Cam and I stumbled upon the new flavors last night we had to have an official taste test.

Our incredibly professional, and very legit findings were as follows:

Fire-Roasted, I thought tasted like BBQ sauce....Cam confirmed my findings - and we tossed it aside, no bbq flavor for us.

Verde, we both thought had a pretty good flavor, but not really what we were looking for.

In the end we both concluded that we would stick to our beloved fire sauce.

 

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the weddin

It came and went just like that. Four days of all wedding all the time, and now I don't quite know what to do with myself. That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it is a bit crazy to think that my little brother is now a husband.

Thursday began with a bachelorette night....complete with Hannah wearing a sash and crown with veil. While at dinner multiple people asked her if she was Miss Oceanside. Random? Yes, but funny of course, so naturally we refereed to her the rest of the weekend as Miss Oceanside. I also managed to drive the suburban full of girls the wrong way down a one way street woops! And yes there were lots of cars around - jut not in the lane I was in [thank goodness] and no cops. That could have been an interesting end to the evening.

Friday started out with mani/pedi's - the boys all beat us to that one, having had their pedicures last weekend hehe. Last minute decorations, packing Hannah's belongings and the rehearsal dinner.

Then Saturday we had the grand event! Hannah wore her bedazzled robe into Starbucks. She got some strange looks - you could not see her shorts underneath, it very much looked like she was just wearing a robe, she called it her boxer robe. The wedding was great - a smidge hot during photos, but over all really fun. At the end I felt a little like I was at Disneyland due to all the glow toys on the dance floor.

Congratulations again Jake and Hannah - hopefully you are not reading this :) cuz your having a blast in Florida!!

the beginning

Don't worry it's not quite that time yet, I still have a month or so to go. But, the first few boxes have been packed. They are going to be making the journey ahead of me to Arizona after the weekend wedding festivities.

Seeing three boxes fill up, and my bookshelf still not empty was kind of a reality check. It made me realize how much stuff I have, how many boxes I am going to need, and how much work it will be to actually move everything. Ugh! Not really looking forward to that part.

universal

Checking another thing of my list Angela and I payed our first visit to Universal Studios on Saturday. We had a blast! You can look at all our photos below - but first I shall sum up our experience with you in three words: Spitting - Simulators - 3-D

Many of their rides/shows/experiences spit or spray water on you. Nearly all of them are simulator type rides that involve three or even 4-D. The Studio Tour was unanimously our favorite part, followed close behind by the Mummy ride.

another one bites the dust

One more item checked off my list - of things to do before I leave. I've been wanting to try out The Counter, a burger place down in Irvine. So last night Angela and I ventured down with Melanie and Sean. It was really fun -  you get a clipboard with millions of different options, and build your own burger. It took us WAY too long to make our selections [really like 30 min probably and some taste testing of special sauces].

1. Mel & Sean [Mel being comletely washed out by the BLINDING sun]

2. Showing off our selections

3. Angela's burger, the corn salsa and chipotle sauce were raved about

4. Sean hiding the extra sauce so it could be used for the fries

5. The yet to be named baby

6. the BEST milkshakes ever

The the baby was craving some ice cream so we hit up the Chick-fil-a next door for dessert. I have to say the oreo shake that I had, was quite literally the best milk shake I have ever had. Angela and I tried to mediate some decisions on the baby's name - as he/she/it will be here in just a few weeks and there has been no progress in selecting names. By the end of the night we did find some common ground - and we (Angela and I) decided on the names - but I am guessing that in the end they will not be chosen.

rowenta

Remember how excited I got over my new vaccum back in January? If you do it should come as no surprise that I am equally as ecstatic about the new iron I just purchased. Over the weekend Angela and I started to sort through some of our 8 years of combined belongings. Which was followed by a list making session. Figuring out all of the things we will each need in order to live on our own.

We have been having lots of fun shopping the interweb, scoping out the best deals and planning out our purchases. Enter the iron situation. We had an iron, it was cheap, not great, and well didn't really do a good job at all - ruined a few shirts even. Then we moved in with Rachel. She has a FANCY iron. It is incredible. We love it so much. It has changed my life, for reals. I know that sounds silly, but until you use that puppy you just would not understand.

So it was with great please we skipped over to Bed Bath and Beyond when we saw that they had nearly the same fancy iron on sale - combined with our awesome 20% coupons we have been saving it was quite the deal.

Freshly pressed clothing here we come!

REALLY?!

Do you see this?

It's disgusting right?

A spider on my toothbrush!!!!

And yes I didn't see it until after I put the toothpaste on...I don't think I can tell you how relieved I am that I saw it - and didn't discover it once it was in my mouth. So gross! Coming off last months incident with the spider on my pillow, I feel like they are taking over my life. [for the record this one was much larger than one on my pillow]

I don't quite understand why things like this always happen to me and no one else.

run and hit

The park by our house has lots of wild bunnies. I see them all the time, yesterday was no different. As I passed the one I thought to myself "oh look there is another bunny." Then kept running. Saw the second one and thought "oh look another one, his tail is cute." Then came number three and I thought "wow I should count how many I see today, one, two three." Then I saw number four (usually I see maybe two at a time) "four, maybe I should take a picture of one so I can blog about it like the dead opossum." "Five, wow that's a lot, ok if I see one more I will stop and take a picture." Immediately following which I saw the sixth, seventh and eighth, all of which scampered away while I was fumbling with my phone trying to take a picture. I thought maybe I had managed to capture the final one.  

As I jogged on I was watching my phone, waiting for the picture to come up, hoping that it had taken before he completely disappeared into the bushes. It was taking forever, when running numerous apps the phone gets a little slow...so I'm jogging on and watching my phone when BAM/SMACK!!!!

I ran into a parked car.

Some teenage boys down a ways started to point and laugh.

I continued on my merry way, trying to pretend nothing happened.

Lesson learned, I can't multi task, and should not be looking at my phone while moving.

And after all that the bunny of course was not in the photo.

recalculating

Hi my name is Mandy and I'm directionally challenged. I have gotten better with my new phone, that has navigation. It helps a lot, but I still hear "recalculating" a lot. Which means that I just can't follow directions very well. It's a real problem.
Saturday I met up with Joselle at her house, before we ventured over to the HB park and ride. The thing is I had never been to Joselle's house before, and other than trips to Ikea I had never really been to Covina, so I didn't know my way around at all. I was doing good following my step by step instructions until I got to the last couple blocks. I somehow managed to miss a turn and was then led in a two mile circle around the area and back to do a u turn. It was strange, but I made it. Reached the destination. Saw the house number and parked on the street.

I didn't however see Joselle's car. But the house had a garage so I thought maybe she was parked inside. Still I was a little unsure so I did what any insecure person would do, I called her. Told her I had arrived, verified I had the right number, I did, verified she was at the end of the culdesac, she was. Ok I was now feeling good, she was coming outside to greet me and I stared walking up the driveway. There I was waiting on the doorstep, waiting.....and waiting.  It was sure taking her a long time to get to the door.

I could hear a football game playing and men cheering/talking through the open window. It seemed strange, but I also knew that one of her housemates was a man...so I assumed it was her housemate, and maybe a friend. After five minutes of standing awkwardly holding a bag and a blanked on the doorstep I decided to call again. It should not take her that long to get to the front door.

When Joselle told me she was standing outside her house, I knew it was safe to say I was not standing at her front door. AAAHH! Which meant the men that I could hear did not know her, and it was probably really strange that I was standing outside their house.....and I am sure they could hear me now talking on the phone. So what do I do? Start walking quite briskly towards my car. Right as I reached my car, someone came out of the house, a shirtless middle aged man with a rather large gut stood watching me. I was so embarrassed over the whole situation. Once in my car I bolted out of there and around the corner where I could see the street signs and reevaluate my location.

Turns out I was one block over.

the HB

Ever since I mad the official decision to move I have had a running list of things I wanted to do in the OC/LA area before I leave. But then I keep saying oh well I have plenty of time....and well I don't - the list is longer than the weekends available I think. yikes!

Saturday night however I hit up the Hollywood Bowl with Joselle and officially crossed off one last visit from my list. I have been lucky enough to go to the bowl once a summer for the last few years, and I really enjoy it. This time we saw Hairspray, it was the first musical I have attended there. Granted we were pretty far back, but because we were in the center we could still see everything -and with the assistance of the jumbo screens we could easily swoon over the celebs on stage.

It was really fun, not only because of the production, but also due to the audience. The cast included John Stamos, Drew Carey, Nick Jonas and Corbin Bleu - many more, but theses were the ones that made people go crazy. Any time Nick Jonas moved girls (well maybe the boys too I did see a really kind of creepy looking older man wearing a Jonas Brothers T shirt and necklace) were SCREAMING! It was so funny, the group of ladies (probably slightly older than me) sitting behind us talked the whole time about how much the loved him, how he was SO talented and debated his current relationship status and age - while intermittently discussing how well Corbin Bleu could move his hips. It was all so so so entertaining.

oceanside

Thanks to Billy's grandparents who kindly let us use their beachside condo we have been able to have a yearly friendcation in Oceanside. This was our third year going, the first time that the ladies outnumbered the men. I started out strong taking photos and documenting out trip.....but once we arrived things went down hill. With all this new technology Carlos took over as photographer on his phone so that he could upload as we went. So you can check facebook for more photos.

Car one....yes it was a little creepy and no Carlos did not wear a tie the whole weekend.

Car two - the PARTY car!!!

The annual elevator shot.

We were able to spend the day at the beach, eating, reading, chatting, playing boccie ball, having fun. It was really funny to watch everyone lather up with sunscreen - I want to say every hour we would all gather round compare our SPF numbers and reapply. As I am known for getting badly burned every time I set foot outside, shaded or un shaded sunscreened or not. And lucky us we all walked away sunburned in one spot or another, I guess it's just unavoidable.

As I was preparing this post I glanced back at some pictures from Oceanside trips past and found this one from our first visit in 2008

Besides Angela's face being really funny, I noticed that I wore this same shirt to dinner this year.

Oh and how could I forget to mention we went SAILING!!! It was great fun. Thankfully I had packed my new boat shoes. They got broken in at sea :)

Hannah Hannah!

HAPPIEST OF HAPPY BIRTHDAYS

to my soon to be little sister!