traumatized

This morning I started off the day with my heart racing. I was getting ready for the day per the usual. As I was straightening my hair I notice a brown chunk of something on my floor. I thought it looked like a piece of bark. I was sitting there thinking how strange that was, I knew it had not been there yesterday and I had no idea where it came from. It's not like there is tons of bark around our house.

So I forget about it and continue on. Then I kept seeing it out of the corner of my eye and it was really starting to bother me. I like things to be clean, so this thing had to go. I don't know what made me touch it with a pen instead of my hand but boy am I glad I did. It moved. AAAAHHH!!!! I screamed, it slithered. It was a lizard. SO GROSS! I am not going to exaggerate it was small. Like maybe two inches but still.....it was a lizard in my room ACK!

I panicked. I had no idea what to do. You can't squish a lizard like a bug. And I surely was not going to touch it. I was at this point completely incapable of thinking clearly. My solution was to vacuum it up. That would work right? It wasn't too big so I was hoping that the vacuum would be strong enough to suck that baby right up.

Thankfully Angela came to the rescue and I didn't have to find out if the vacuum would catch it. She is all her calm heroness suggests trapping it in a cup and letting it go outside. Genius! Angela is my new hero - she made my room lizard free. Thank you thank you thank you!!!!

* On my way to work I had the not so pleasant realization that soon I will be living alone and I will have to deal with all lizard and spider situations on my own. OH NO!

disneyland

The last two days I got to [skip a day or work!] enjoy the land of Disney with the Holt clan....and Jake and Hannah. It was a blast....and a bit exhausting at times, it is quite different going with small children. It was so fun watching Audra point and "WOW" at everything - and see Gavin play Toy Story Mania, although I think he enjoyed looking at all the toys in the stores more than any of the rides haha.

Some quick highlights were: 
1) thinking Gavin would LOVE the Buzz Lightyear ride, only to have is screaming the entire time because Zurge was so scary.
2) Riding Toy Story Mania back to back to back....to the point were the workers feel like they know you.
3) World of Color - very cool but my one complaint, why must you include the death of Mufassa? That maybe my least favorite Disney movie moment of all time.
4) seeing John Stamos, but only noticing him because I liked his button up sweater.
5) The guy next to Hannah on Soarin who thought he was flying the plane and finally the best memory of all was
6) when Kevin became a special needs guest on Space Mountain. It started off with the use of fast passes, we jetted to the front of the line only to have the ride break down for a little while. But we waited it out, and got seated. Kevin however did not fit very well. His legs were causing all kinds of problems. When it came time for the seat belt check the worked instructed him that both legs had to be under the same bar, he waited rather impatiently as Kevin tried to move....but then after a few seconds he led our car off the track and down a dark hallway. He then without saying anything brings up a ladder making us get out of the cars (the ladder was like the cars only for shorter people - we all hit our heads getting out). So here we are all standing in the back area waiting for instruction. We are then led down a hallway, past all of their computer servers and end up at a door that is clearly marked as NOT AN ENTRY. Are we supposed to go through? Do we wait for further instructions? We decided to risk it and go through, eventually we ended up back at the boarding area. Where we continued to apologies to the poor normal height people that were in the back of our car. We had no idea that we Kevin was going to cause such problems - they ended up having a much prolonged wait time. Thankfully they were nice and made some  jokes about the ride needing not only a must be this tall to ride sign but also a "can not be over this tall to ride." They were good sports. Finally a worker came up to give us instructions or rather options, which were something along the lines of  you can try again to get in by yourself but you must be very very quick or you can go up here to the handicapped entrance where you can take your time, and we can offer you assistance getting in. All of which was just funnier because Kevin, is a fully capable man, really does not need any help getting in and out of a little car thing, and the guy offering to help him is about half his size and looked like he was still in high school. Let's just say if Kevin had gotten stuck in the car when he tried to sit properly I don't think that guy could have pulled him out.

santa catalina

It's been a crazy crazy weekend. Starting with a final hang out with some of my friends. Tear, I had my first round of goodbyes. Followed up with yet another thing I have talked of doing for years and never actually done. CATALINA!

Ok now let me just say our whole visit to Catalina was quite a learning experience.  When I first decided to move a few months ago Angela and I talked about going to Catalina before I left, that was when I discovered how much it cost to get over there. Yikes! I had no idea that it was in the $50-60 range. Wowsa! So naturally when a groupon popped up in July we jumped on it. 

Bam! Tickets purchased. They were set aside and never really thought about again. Then Last month we picked the day we would go and again didn't give it a though again until Friday. So I'm sitting at work checking out the sights of Catalina, seeing what we can do all day long when I look at our groupon and see that is says "must reserve seats at least 48 hours in advance" Uhm? Really? Have no fear we were not deterred. Angela called, they were booked full until November 18th. Seriously! Isn't that crazy? I had NO idea you had to sign up to go to Catalina two months in advance. Oh My WORD!

But alas they have standby. So we showed up at 7:10am to put our name on the standby list. Waited until they started boarding at 9 (waited in the drizzly rain - which Weather.com totally lied about ...it said 74 and ZERO percent chance of rain. YEAH RIGHT!) But yay they called my name WOOT! We made it on the boat, I think we were one of the last groups called -when there was only top deck seating left. bbbrrr!

The boat ride was quite cold, but we managed to snag some seats on a covered deck after a while and get out of the drizzle, which I was quite thankful for as I was not dressed weather appropriate - thanks to the misguidance of weather.com. (I also had no idea it was an hour boat ride...I thought it was like 20 min haha) 

We walked around most of Avalon, exploring many of the sights and even went into the little museum. Funny enough it just happened to be national Free Museum Day. I am assuming that is a real thing, and not just something on Catalina Island. Either way we took advantage and check out the history of Catalina, and the Marylyn Monroe exhibit.

One of the funniest things we did was go bowling. hehe. In the arcade there is a miniature bowling alley. I think it said it was 2/3 scale of normal bowling. Little alley, little pins and even miniature bowling balls. We had so much fun - and Angela LOVED it because she scored a lifetime best of 116 (i think....that may not be accurate number wise) her first time ever to break 100 YAY!!!

FALL

Happy first day of Autumn!!!

Isn't it wonderful?

I woke up to a gloomy and overcast sky. I know in a few hours all the clouds will be bruned off and the sun will be shining bright, but for now I am going to enjoy the sweet feeling of fall.

[*]

It looks like it's time to pull ou thte Ingrid Michaelson, the spiced cider, boots, scarfs, and You've Got Mail!

Oh dear sweet fall how I love you!! And I am super excited to be able to spend a little time in Washington next month, were I will be able to actually have crips fall weather. Manito Park here I come!

club 657

Boy am I getting old. Last night I hit up club 657 for the first time - and had way to late of a night (I am pretty sure I didn't leave until way past my usual bed time. Oh the things I do for you Jake and Hannah. But then again it was totally worth it becuae, boy did I get the royal treatment!

Hannah prepared us a feast of a meal...if you look closely at the photo you can see her little menu listed out there: Chicken Parmesan, pasta, fresh baked french bread, cesar salad and chewey graham cookies. It was all SO GOOD!!!

I had a blast touring their new apartment, jumping on their bed, going through all their cupboards so I could ooohh and aaahh over all their wedding gifts, viewing pics of their honeymoon and getting really jealous of their visit to Disney World. [I am defiantly going there someday...preferably after they finish building the Beauty and the Beast castle]

Thanks for having me over guys - for dinner and for going to the movies with me. I really enjoyed sitting by Hannah who had the tendency to jump/scream a lot...and I have a feeling she may have crushed a few of Jake's fingers in her death grip :)

creeper with a mullet

If there was an Olympic event for having the most creepers I would have a gold medal or ten. Really, I don't know why but for some reason I really have the knack for attracting the strange ones. Remember the one from work that would wait for me in the parking lot and then play Barry Manillow for me in the stairway? Thankfully since he moved from our building I had been creeper free - until tonight.

So I am nearly done with my run, passing a semi sketchy strip mall on Chapman when I see a man parked in the parking lot I am running next to talking to me. I had head phones in so until I got really close I could not hear him - but he was saying something like "hi, how's it going?" Harmless right? Minus the NASTY mullet he had going on. I just kept on running ignoring him, but he waved, and so I smiled and waved back. But I must emphasize this is totally normal. I greet most people that pass by me while I am running, you know just being friendly and all. Well Mr. Creeper to my wave as some kind of invitation.

Next thing I know he is now driving down the road on my left really really really slowly, like keeping pace with me. He rolled down his window and kept right on chatting. I still with my head phones in couldn't hear anything he was saying - but still getting really creeped out because well he was following me. Of course he started doing this when all cars in the Fullerton area decided to disappear. I kept hoping that people would come up behind him and he would have to speed up but not such luck. There was not a car in sight.

I had to go past the turn to my house because I didn't want him to know where I lived. So thank you Mr. Creeper for making me go an extra mile. And thank you Mr. Impatient driver that eventually [2 or 3 blocks later] made the creepy man drive faster.

the weekend

My weekend in photos:

I am pretty behind the times, after about six months I finally just now got up a little button on the side there for mom/sister and I's etsy shop....I didn't make it so thanks to mom or sister whoever make it - it's cute. And on a more exciting note - I FINALLY made a sale or two or three. Yippe!  I am going to say it is in part due to one of Lindsey's signs making the front page, yup that's my sister, she's cool! 

The cooler nearly fallish weather this weekend was so wonderful (minus the threatening rain on my run of course)! I ended up spending most of the weekend finishing up those etsy orders and prepping for the Vintage Market this coming weekend - but thanks to Netflix and the cool breeze coming in my window it was perfect.

*other random tidbits

I am currently watching the Justin Bieber movie Never Say Never - with Angela and Rachel, it is SO FUNNY!

I am pretty sure Rachel loves Scooter....and Angela is now the worlds #1 Bieber fan!

salt the final chapter of Wichita

Did you know there were 8 wonders in Kansas? Yeah neither did we. But we did manage to see one of them. And I am willing to bet it is the only wonder that was underground......The Salt Mine! 

We paid our dues, signed out second guest book of the trip, sat down and enjoyed an episode of "dirty jobs" that was filmed in the mine, and prepared ourselves to head 650 feet below.

After watching a quick safety video, we were given our gear - hard hats and our emergency breathing devices. Don't we look fantastic in hard hats? After cramming 15 people in the lift we began our 3 minute plunge into the deep dark mines below. 

We were giving specific instructions not to touch any of the walls/ceilings/floors because they were made of salt...and we would cause them to disintegrate. So naturally we got really excited when they had lard salt samples we could touch!

We explored all the exhibits, learned how the salt was mined, ground and shipped miles from the mine. We rode the train, and dark ride....and yet still had not learned if this was the kind of salt we could eat. They never told us - Angela had to ask one of our tour guides, and no it is not the salt you eat, I was disappointed, it is the salt used in animal food and for deicing roads. So boring. One of the stops on the dark rides let us pick some souvineer salt from a giant mound. They had little bags for you to fill and take home. Our guide explained to us that we could each take a handful - and then demonstrated to us what a handful was. Take special not of that fourth photo with Megan showing off her little bag of Salt and Angela showing off her handful sized GIANT rock of salt.

Randomly the mines also house a large storage facility. They store all kinds of things like extra large ancient computers (don't worry even though you can't see my it I am wearing shorts...not just a sweater) to old movie reels/props and costumes. I think the bat cave may have been located somewhere down there....because I definitely saw Batman.

Christmas

I interrupt your regularly programed Wichita blog post with this FANTASTIC news:

A Very She and Him Christmas, will be available October 25th!!!!

I have a feeling this is going to be the best Christmas EVER!

Tune in later this evening for your regularly scheduled post about our last day in Wichita, a visit to the .....Salt Mine 

botanica

Besides eating all the local food we noticed a second theme came about in our activities. Education. You know us, we are just always ready to learn, so we went to a few places that just screamed "field-trip." 

Our first stop was the Bontanica gardens, not to be confused with botanicaL gardens. I think it is safe to say that the children's area was by far our favorite. We loved everything from the rainbow on the ground to the activities they had set up all around. After following the rainbow path we had to pump water, and water all of the plants that were just begging for our help.

Then we took a tour or ant hill, the haunted forest, and the musical maze. We had an extended stay in the dress up area....just had to try out a few costumes. I was of course thrilled to find a T-Rex hat, because we all know that I still have not gotten over my love of dinosaurs that came about from the trip to Universal Studios.

After completing a tour around the whole garden, including the Shakespere garden that inspired Angela to read some sonnets (hows that goin Ang?) and the butterfly farm, that made me realize I might not only be afraid of birds, but all flying things, we each picked out our favorite plant. Megan's pick was the Gomphrena Las Vegas, Angela's was the Coleus Versa Watermelon, and mine was ...well the redwood tree of course.

good eats

Oddly enough there is not a ton of things to do in Wichita. Whenever you ask someone what you should do while you are there they mention restaurants. It was made quite clear that they people of Kansas like to eat. So naturally we had to take in some of the local cuisine.

The first stop was the Donut Whole - with the best coffee in Kansas, or so their sign boasts. It did not disappoint, neither did the gourmet donuts. We had two Thick Mint's, a Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup, Lemon cooler, Homer J and ....a chocolate coconut one that I can't remember the fancy name of. That was soon followed by a visit to Two Brothers BBQ, where we had a tasty dinner, and I defiantly built a sandwich with all three types of bbq sauce yum!

One of my favorites was a stop at the local movie theater where they serve you dinner at your seat. What more could I dream of? We got to see a move and have like 7 different servers come to our seats throughout the movie.....although paying during the movie/in the dark was a tad bit complicated. A skill none of us have perfected yet. And of course we rounded out our visit with a trip to Freddy's for steak burgers and frozen custard (that tasted amazingly like McDonald's soft serve - oh but they did have Diet Dr. Pepper which always makes me SO HAPPY!!). 

off to see the wizzard

We love us a good visit with Megan over Labor day, after all it was three years ago this last weekend that we took our trip to Wheaton/Chicago. But this year it was Wichita, Kansas. We had a blast of course - we expected nothing less, and of course took about 1.6723 million photos so naturally it will take most of the week to share out adventures with you. So sit down, grab a cup of coffee, and enjoy our trip to see Dorothy....er Megan.

Since Wichita is on the smaller side, our flight options were very limited. The result of many searches we us catching a 6am flight from LAX. Sounds early but totally doable right? Yeah we thought so too until we realized that meant we had to get up at 2:40 am and leave the house at 3:15. SO early for a Saturday morning. Then because we are just such nice people and didn't want to make people drop us off at that way to early hour we decided to try out the LAX shuttle situation. So 4am we park and head out for the shuttle stop.....which says a shuttle will come every zero minutes - really it is supposed to be every ten minutes. But of course we are not that lucky, we had to wait a good forty minutes and then stop at every terminal before we got to ours. Thank goodness security wasn't too crazy - until they had a safety drill that is. Angela had a panic attack when everyone yells "bravo" and we are told to step back from our belongings and not touch anything. Of course when this happened I was on one side of the metal detector and she was on the other. After a few minutes we were informed it was just a drill and we went on our merry way. But the day was made all better when we spotted Angela's new favorite bar in Denver.

Denver, Denver, Denver what can I say about that airport? We had a nice breakfast there....and then got sent off to the dim basement hallway - to hopefully wander around and find the right door that lead to our runway. They took our tickets like normal, but then instead of walking down the jetway we were ushered down a sketchy staircase that lead to a long hallway with numerous different doors. People from all different flights were walking around and going out doors. We could have seriously walked out the wrong door very easily, many of them didn't even have the destinations listed on them. But then we saw the lovely bright orange sign beckoning us out to the runway. Wichita here we come!!! 

baby central

There are just new babies left and right these days. Not even 24 hours after Angela gained a nephew, Melanie had her sweet baby girl. Remember when Angela and I tried to help them come up with baby names? Well clearly we were not helpful enough because the little girl is now 24 hours old and has yet to be named. 

So for the second time in two months I was off to the hospital - this time with a special delivery of In & Out. This hospital made us feel like very official visitors, we had to wear wrist bands. After journeying up the worlds slowest elevator to the fifth floor, and winding our way around the maze of rooms, we got to hold her aka "the yet to be named baby girl" ( Mel's room was in the North wing, although I was secretly hoping for the West Wing hehe). 

Congratulations Momma Melly!!!!

_____________
Update: A name has been chosen. Kylie Elizabeth LaVigne
[for the record this is the name Angela and I helped them settle on - high five Ang we are awesome!!!]

warrior

Last week I got an email for a free advanced screening of the movie Warrior, I laughed. I mean I had seen the preview and was all "oh yeah I love me some fighting!" Then something funny happened. I told Angela about it and we decided to go. Strange yes, in a way but then again who are we to turn down something free?

We printed out our passes, pretended to ogle/not be grossed out by the guys on the poster...because you know whoa they have muscles [really Tom Hardy looked like a hunchback in the movie...so gross]. But you know what? I have to say, I liked it. Quite a lot actually (minus the semi inconclusive ending) - I was very surprised.

Carlos if you are reading this you will LOVE it. 

And super fun/random Angela's newest nephew, Grayson Jude, was born in the midst of the fighting. Congratulations Ryan and Terilee!