Disneyland: How I Spent My Halloween

I know, you are all thinking, 'Halloween? Why is she writing about Halloween when Thanksgiving has already passed?'  Because I got busy.

This year I spent my Halloween (and the day after) at the Happiest Place on Earth.  You may know it as Disneyland and California Adventure.  I was really excited to go again as it had been about 18 years since my last visit.  Now that I've done it again I must say it is way better as an adult!  Err, wait.  Adult isn't exactly what I mean.  Don't act like an adult, just be old enough to wander off on your own.  That's about where I am in my maturity.

You might recall that I have a sister named Sandie.  She came along with me to frolic in the autumn mist sunshine.  Here is our tale, told mostly by pictures. (possibly videos in the future, not sure if I want those online just yet...)

 

 

We got soaked.  Many times.

  

Oh just wait till you see the video we made here!

This is the last picture taken before my chocolate frozen banana of goodness landed on my shirt.

 

Did you know there are apps for Disneyland?  They will tell you how long the wait is for each ride so you know where to go at what time!  (Thanks Brenda for all your tips!!)

 

 

We ended our last day by seeing the World of Color at California Adventure Land--Amazing! 

Brandon Sanderson

Friday evening I had the opportunity to attend a book signing in Seattle with Brandon Sanderson.  I had been looking forward to this event for months especially since I had never been to a book signing before and (more importantly) I absolutely love the books I've read by this talented author.

Brandon Sanderson was on tour promoting his newest book, The Alloy of Law.

It's always fun to have something personally signed, but what I enjoyed most about the evening was getting to know a little bit of Brandon Sanderson's personality.  He was funny and friendly.  He made an effort to give everyone time to ask questions in line as well as read to us some of his unpublished work and even do a question and answer session.  I'm twice as much of a fan now.

Brandon Sanderson is the dark-haired man with glasses sitting down in the background. 

Oh.  And he brought us cookies to have once we got through the line.  Butterscotch oatmeal cookies.  Mmm mmm!

Life lately, according to my Android pictures.

September went by quickly.  The beginning of September was busy with my birthday plans and getting my students lined up with the new school year starting.  Somewhere in the middle I got sick with pneumonia, but it ended great with buying tickets to go on a Caribbean cruise over Christmas break.  So I really can't complain. 

A couple of my Beehives made me a little birthday treat this year.  Thanks Torrey and Vanessa! It was absolutely delicious.

I had dinner with family, Tommy loves his soup.

Derek showed up everyone at our dinner with his mad chalk drawing skills.

Josh took me to another Sounders game, I think I have formed a crush on Kasey Keller.  

I made a Barbie Cake for Tasha's birthday (my mom made these all the time for me as a kid).

And you know how much I love Kerry Park and the Seattle skyline, right?  Last night I found myself in the neighborhood and decided to swing by to see the view at night with the beautiful city lights.

To (Most) Single LDS Men

I recently tried out eHarmony for the first time and would now like to share with you what happened and what I learned.  For those of you surprised to hear the news it is due to the fact that I did not want to tell people I joined an online dating website.  In the past I've had a number of friends tell me that I should try it out, my response had always been, 'That's not for me, but maybe I'll consider it when I get kicked out of the singles ward.'  And here I am. I've been attending the family ward for almost a year so when a good friend of mine mentioned she had just signed up I agreed to do it with her.  I decided a 3 month membership would be enough time to get a feel for how things worked and would then make a choice to continue my membership or not.

After answering what seemed like endless questions about myself and my personality I was then asked to rate how strong I felt regarding certain characteristics of potential matches.  Feeling passionate about my faith I indicated that all of my matches should be Latter-Day Saint (Mormon) men.  The website recommends starting out slow.  For example I would start communicating by sending 5 preset questions to matches I am interested in getting to know a little better.

As matches began to roll in I found myself a little shy as I was still learning how eHarmony works.  I did not send questions to matches right away.  My first communication was about 5 days into my membership and with a guy named Jonathan from CA who sent me his 5 questions.  Once I had this first communication on the website I realized just how casual and easy it is to make that first step.  At this point I decided I was going to get my money's worth so I sent my 5 questions to every match I received.  Every one.

For 2 and a half months I did this and never once received a response back from any of those guys.  Not one.  Jonathan remained the only guy who ever communicated with me on the site.  By this time I decided it had been a waste of my money and I would not be renewing my membership with them.

Then a thought occurred to me and I acted on it.  I went into my settings and changed one thing: I indicated a potential match could be of any religious belief.

The next morning came and I received my matches.  As usual I glanced through the profile and sent my 5 questions on to each of them.  On the second day I was already communicating with a couple guys.  Wow.  By the end of the week I had to go back into my settings and change it again because I was overwhelmed with the number of guys communicating with me that I did not have time to respond to all of them.  Again, wow.

How would you react if this happened to you?  My initial response: severe irritation at all LDS men.  I was ready to find the closest one and give him a piece of my mind.

I've had a few weeks to think it over and quite frankly I'm still irritated.

I've never been a girl that dates a lot, although I've had a few boyfriends here and there.  At times in my life there has been as much as 2 years between men asking me on a date.  Being an LDS single woman in my 30's I've had many opportunities to talk with and get to know other amazing single women in the church.  As I've done so I've been comforted and annoyed to find many other women in the same dating boat as me.  "Why don't guys notice me?" and "why do I never get asked out?" have been common questions asked by friends and myself.  Sometimes the questions are asked with frustration, sometimes it's barely audible between sobs.

In the world we live in it is all too easy to fall prey to Satan's lies.  He constantly tells daughters of God they aren't good enough, they aren't pretty enough, they aren't worth a man's notice.  Women, these are lies.  I know these are lies and yet even I have had times when I believed them.  Why shouldn't I believe it when Satan tells me I'm not worth a guys notice?  I have the evidence right in front of me: the last man to ask me out was a year and a half ago and he is now happily married to someone else.

EHarmony taught me this is not true, I am worth a man's notice.  There are men who do want to get to know me.  And there are men in the world who do actually ask girls out on a date.

This leaves the questions: what is wrong with LDS men?  Why don't they ask girls out?  I do not have an answer, although I am sure I've heard every possible theory on this from women who want to know.

In reality there is not a lot wrong with LDS men.  Most of the single guys I know are quality men, ones I look up to, respect and confide in.  It's just this one little thing.  Perhaps each of them has their own special little excuse for not asking girls out.  But that's just it--it's an excuse.

To (most) single LDS men I say it is time to start acting like a proper man.  No more excuses.  Just do it.

Birthday Dinner Party

This week I hosted a small dinner party in celebration of my birthday.  I am officially 32 years old and up until this week I had never thrown a proper dinner party.  I like to use the excuse of my birthday to do pretty much anything I want to.  Sometimes it's skydiving, sometimes it's a trip to Hawaii, sometimes it's a formal black and white dinner party in my back yard.

There is a lot of planning involved in a dinner party.  There was the guest list.  I'm sorry I could not invite everyone I care about and wanted to invite.  Then there was the menu, I needed an experts opinion on this one so I called my sister Merry, the dragon tamer and mother extraordinaire, she helped me find exactly what I wanted.

The Menu
Provençal Lamb, baked with fresh tomatoes, rosemary, thyme, drizzled with honey
New Potatoes with Lemon and Saffron
Fresh Steamed Asparagus with Butter and Sea Salt
Artisan Bread
Italian Cream Sodas, available flavors Raspberry, Irish Cream, Pomegranate, French Vanilla
Dessert: Blueberry-Peach Upside-Down Cake

I am proud to say I made everything completely from scratch.  I even chopped up the fresh rosemary sprigs (no bottled spices here!).

the lamb just before it went into the oven

Then there was the decorations. My friend Shannon gave me the idea of doing a Black and White theme, which I loved.  My friend Tasha ran wild with this theme and started sending me ideas of things we could do.  Both of them helped to make the decorations ahead of time.  

we made tissue paper puff balls

we made string balls by dipping it in glue and starch and wrapping it around a balloon to dry

these string balls were attached together for a hanging chandelier above the table

we made smaller tissue paper puff balls for the napkin holders

Several other decorations were donated by my sisters Melanie and Sandie, both of which made excellent suggestions for things I could do with this B&W theme.

And then there was the mishap.  No proper party will happen exactly according to plan, right?  We have, or rather I should say had, an old wooden table in our backyard.  We use it for food when we eat outside but mostly it sits there covered by a tarp to protect it from mother nature.  I made an attempt to move the table and it seemed a little weird, so I decided it best to wait for my brothers help.  Once Tommy arrived we agreed it would be best to lift the table by its legs to move it.  The very moment we picked up the table the entire thing fell to pieces.  I mean it shattered.  It was actually rather laughable and I wish I would have thought to snap a picture of the pile of table parts before we hauled it away.  Luckily Tommy had enough foresight to make a tabletop for his Senior project about 5 years ago.  He pulled the legs off the broken table and nailed them into the new tabletop and voilà, a table was made.  Thanks for saving my party Tommy!

To fancy things up a bit my handsome brother Tommy and his beautiful and clever wife Carly came to be our servers for the evening.  They helped with the set up, ran errands for me, served the food, ran the Italian soda bar, and generally looked really good in their black and white outfits.

I pulled out and polished the silver for this special occasion.  I happen to love silver and have inherited a few beautiful pieces from both of my grandmothers that were in use for this night.

the silver water pitcher

With the small table incident we were running a little behind schedule and were not quite ready when my guests arrived.  It didn't matter as I have fabulous friends who all jumped right in and helped out.  We quickly had things pulled together and finally sat down to eat.  

Shannon pouring the water

As the dinner progressed the sun slowly vanished letting the twinkle lights and tea lights shine brighter to create a beautiful ambiance.  This was enhanced with the handsome voice of Josh Groban singing soft music in the background. 

*almost every photo by Tasha.

I learned a lot about throwing a party.  I learned that it's terribly fun to do, but in doing everything that needs to be done I wore myself out and was pretty tired by the time I finally got to sit down and eat.  Still I'm glad I did it and enjoyed how it turned out.  Thanks to my friends who were able to make it and celebrate with me.  

2 Years Ago Today

Tonight was one of those nights that happened all wrong.  Nothing I wanted to happen actually happened.  Instead what I wanted to not happen, happened.

But then I came home and wondered around facebook for a time.  Have you noticed they've started re-posting your old posts from years ago along the right side?  Exactly 2 years ago today I posted,

"Windy saw the entire island of Kauai and all it's beauty from the seat of a helicopter with NO DOORS and a humorous Italian pilot."

And I had to smile.  It felt nice to smile.  That was an amazing day.

Post Graduate Adventures

You might have mistakenly assumed that I would have more time to blog now that I am done with Grad school.  The truth is I'm far too busy playing to do such things.

Here are a few of the highlights from the last month, in no particular order.

• I bought my first TV! Flat screen, 42'' plasma. 
• Finished reading Lavinia, and started 3 more books: Sherlock Holmes, The Lost Hero, and The Well of Ascension.
• Had Indian Curry with Shannon, Sarah, and Drew.  Mmm mmm!
• Took a ferry ride.

• Attended 2 wedding receptions.
• Tasha made me a delicious keish breakfast.
• Joined Google+.
• Saw a car show.

• Had brunch with JMoney.
• I bought a Lady Gaga song off iTunes. So uncharacteristic of me, yet I can't stop listening to it. (Or rather, I can't stop dancing around to it).
• Got thoroughly sunburned on the 4th while attending a parade/street fair with friends.

• Had countless movie nights at Derek's or Erica's or my own digs (now that I have a TV!!).
• Had lunch with Shannon at this fabulous Taiwanese Dumplings place in Bellevue called Din Tai Fung.
• Saw Green Lantern with my nephew, was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
• Absolutely loved Midnight in Paris, X-Men: First Class, and Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
• Went to a few BBQ's, one on Bainbridge Island on the 4th, one at a friends house last night, and another with Erica.
• Went to Karaoke with some friends, first time in several years. I sang two songs: Britney Spears and Sublime.
• Celebrated Brad's birthday with a Chinese dinner and movie.
• I've made a couple new friends as well as saw some old friends.

• I might have shamelessly flirted with a few of them.
• Attended my first Mariner's game of the year with Josh.

And most important of all: I've laughed. Laughed hard enough to snort. A few times.