Last Friday my dearest friend, Jesus Jugs was kind enough to host a give away for one of my State prints. I would have given you a heads up but my GM diet had me loopy and I got my days a little mix-matched! Silly me.
What is a State Print? I'm so glad you asked.
Here are some examples. I can do the state in any color of your choice, (according to the color chart on my Etsy Shop that is) With a heart in your preferred city.
OR
I can do a the state, again in any color with all of its bordering counties on the side and the heart in your county.
These are perfect for Home Decor as Christmas gifts for that someone who just seems to have everything, or for yourself! The photo below is of the print I gave Jesus Jugs for her Birthday last year, lovingly hung up on prime wall real estate in her living room!
Anyways, it's still not too late to enter and win! Just click the button and you'll be there!
As for my diet. It finished up on Sunday and I lost 8 lbs in total! Yay me. My Jeans now fit again and I can finally go shopping confidently for that tiny little New Years Dress!
This Summer was a life changing one. In 3 months I've learned so much about who I am and what I want in my life. I fell in love with my dream man and lost an important member of my family in one season. This time of year always reminds me of one of my favorite Death Cab for Cutie songs, Summer Skin. It's the perfect song to conclude the summer. Here are some of the main events that have happened in my life the last 3 months plus some sprinkled song lyrics here and there.
Squeaky swings and tall grass The longest shadows ever cast The water's warm and children swim And we frolicked about in our summer skin
In June....
We celebrated Memorial day weekend in Palm springs at the Riviera Spa and Resort. This was also the weekend that the "L word" was used for the first time. :) Now it's a constant one in mine and Wes's vocabulary and I hope it stays that way!
In July....
We honored the 4th with a relaxing day and an unexpected romantic firework viewing. It was wonderful!
My Dad turned 49. He's quite the party animal!
Who enjoys a stiff drink every so often. Below is his version of a margarita. Ick.
My Mama moved to Vegas and made a pit-stop in Orange County to visit little ol' me!
...And Wes took us to see Young the Giant. They were A-maze-ing live!
Our family suffered a painful loss when my grandfather passed away. Just days after his birthday... He had a good life and was loved by many. I know that even though he's not with us in person, he will always be with us in our hearts.
(my Grandpa, my Brother, Me, and my Grandma)
On the night you left I came over
And we peeled the freckles from our shoulders
Our brand new coats so flushed and pink
And I knew your heart I couldn't win
Cause the seasons change was a conduit
And we left our love in our summer skin
I went with Wes and a couple of our friends to see Tears for Fears and we shouted it out!
In August....
Wes's parents came all the way from Connecticut to visit us and California for the first time on their cross country RV trip!
Unfortunately, his parent's Shitzus freaked out his cat, and Wes was attacked.
A 3 hour ER visit and 4 stitches later, he was good as new. The cat however, took a week to recover from the trauma and spent 2 weeks after the event, hiding in the closet.
We said farewell to this lovely couple as they left OC to get hitched and start a life together back in their home state of CT. The wedding is October 20th, which means that I'll be taking a little vacay soon! Woot, woot!
We went to LA's H20 Festival to see Wes's friend Nick perform with his band, Santa Mamba.
Where I also got to meet freaking Snoop Dogg/Lion! That shizzle was off the hookizzle. You can get the lowdizzle on that story over hizzle. I'm done with the Snopp talk. Sorry.
In September....
This sweet little muffin turned 4 years old. Or 28 in puppy years!
We had homemade pupcakes and hot dogs for dinner in her honor! Read all about her day and get the cupcake recipe here.
I don't recall a single care Just greenery and humid air Then Labor day came and went And we shed what was left of our summer skin
I helped Jesus Jugs and her Ginger Hubs move in to their very own home! She has a cute and witty post on her blog explaining their 'Hunt to Homeownership in Numbers!' Check it out ya'll.
The weekend after we had a much needed girls cowgirls night out at Incahoots in Fullerton.
I turned 27.
Wasn't I a cute little baby?
Wes turned 31 the same day so we took a mini trip to Catalina for the night. It was Beautiful! And super fun.
Just look at this place! Click here to see the whole trip in detail.
And for your musical enjoyment....
I hope everyone had a great Summer as well! I am so excited for what the rest of this year has in store. Peace out Summer! Finally.
Friday night, Wes and I decided to start the holiday weekend right by getting off work early and enjoying each other's company with alcohol. About 4 beers in we realized it was nearing 7 and we were hungry. Not in driving condition we thought to order a pizza but I just wasn't into the idea of wasting a wonderful friday, stuffing my face with carbs and my ass weighed in to the sofa. SO we decided to get off our lazy butts and walk the mile and a half to Aliso Town Center for some 'On the Border' Margaritas and Mexican food.
We had just stumbled out of the house and were walking through the parking lot when we ran in to one of Wes's "friends"/ neighbor. See how I put "friends" in quotation marks? It's because they only know each other from drunken weekends at the pool. That's it. And by neighbor, I mean, he lives a few condo buildings away. Not next door. I actually did meet this "friend" and his wife at the pool once before, and at the time the wife was ENORMOUSLY preggo. Now she has a baby girl, which is very exciting.... for them!
After some awkward drunken small talk about said baby, "friend" asked us what our plans were for the weekend. Because Wes is a happy, dumb boy, he goes on about the fun activities that we had planned, all involving alcohol and fun. (we're not drunks, I swear!) The very tired looking new Daddy said back, "Well, I only asked because you'll have to stop by sometime and see the baby." Oh Joy.
Have I gotten to that age? Am I really to the point that going to see a baby is really a form of entertainment? It brought me back to this Seinfeld episode:
Please watch video for full effect.
Here's the thing. Babies all look the same when they're fresh out of the womb. They're puffy and red. They have blue eyes. And lets face it, they're kind of lame- Not much of a personality at 3 weeks. Sorry if that offends any new parents/ parents to be. I am just not a kid kind of person. I don't talk to them and enjoy it. I never babysat in high school and I sure as hell have never gone to a house whose occupants I've met once, to see their offspring. I mean, if I know you and like you, that's a whole different ball game. But the last thing on this green earth that I would want to do is go and uncomfortably see these stranger's baby. I hope they don't ask me to hold it. What if it's ugly? Do I have to tell them it's cute? I don't think I can lie to them... Who asks people they don't know to stare at their precious new human? It's not that I don't like allchildren. I want and willlove my own ( I made a birthday cake for my dog for Pete's Sake ) but other peoples? I don't know. I'm not a fan. Maybe when my friends have kids I'll be singing another tune but for now, I'm fine baby free. In all aspects.
Wes cleverly and drunkenly ended with a "I'll give you a call this weekend, and we'll plan something." And we parted ways. Him to his happy new family, and us to happy hour!
Turns out, we had a really busy weekend, and we never made it over there, but Wes received a text message tonight inviting us for this weekend. I am NOT excited for it. In fact, I think I might skip out and leave Wes to fend for himself on this one. Sorry Honey!
September is a big month for Birthdays in my family. My Mom turns 48 on the 25th. Wes turns 31 on the 16th, while I will only be turning 27! (yep, we have the same Birthdays!) And my sweet little puppy turned 4 yesterday!
Because I didn't get labor day off we celebrated on Saturday instead. When I say celebrated I'm not kidding. Roxie had presents and we feasted on hot dogs and German beer in her honor. Rox even had a Happy Birthday Doggie Cupcake that I made at home!
Before, I'd always gone to 3 Dog Bakery to get her little somethin' somethin's every year but this time I looked up recipes online and was surprised to see that they were not only easy but really inexpensive too! For those of you who think I'm crazy for making my dog cupcakes and having a party, I get it. But I'll take any excuse to bake and drink, and to me, turning four is a pretty big deal.
For those of you who like to throw parties for your dogs birthday, I have a step by step recipe for yummy pup-cakes.
Here is what you need:
Cake:
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup shredded carrots
1 tsp vanilla 1/3 cup honey
1 egg
1 cup white or whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup peanut butter
Dog biscuits for decoration
Optional: Banana, more peanut butter
Frosting:
18oz low fat cream cheese such as Philadelphia
2 tablespoons plain yogurt
2 tablespoons of honey
Dog Biscuits for decoration
Steps:
Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C)
Mix together flour and baking soda
add remaining ingredients
and mix well.
Place into muffin cups. Or if your dog is big, a small cake pan.
Bake 20 minutes if cupcakes and 40, if cake.
voila!
While cake is cooling, combine the cream cheese (at room temperature), honey and yogurt until smooth. I started in a regular bowl but decided it would be easier in my mixer.
I also added a little bit of food coloring to my mix for fun.
I checked online to see if sprinkles were safe for dogs. They seemed to be, so I added those too.
You can't even tell those are't regular cupcakes! I tried a little bit here and there while making them, and while they weren't bad. They weren't real good either.
For dinner, we made hot dogs. I saw this cool tutorial on Pinterest for spiraling your hotdog and tried it. I like them way better spiral cooked than regular now! When you put condiments on them like ketchup and relish, they get in the spiral crevices creating extra yummy goodness. No more dog sliding out of the bun this way!
(Photo Cred: Wes.) He insisted he get credit for taking this picture.
After dinner and presents, we got out the cake. We didn't sing 'Happy Birthday'- I'm not that big of a freak, but I did light a candle for the camera.
As you can see. Roxie really enjoyed her birthday cake.
Once it got cooler outside, we went to the park to play some ball.
This pic is my favorite!
It was a good day. Hard to believe another birthday has come and gone! Hope everyone else had a great holiday weekend as well!
Two, dos, (2) weekends in a row I went to Los Angeles. Both times were for a very good reason, but if you live in Orange County, LA is a place that is tried to be avoided at all costs. Seriously. Going a couple times a year is enough for me....
So now my quota is filled till January.
I just dislike everything about it. As soon as you pass Disneyland and get out of the perfectly manicured green foliage, the freeway begins to narrow. Traffic starts to congest and graffiti and homeless people seem to be the usual scenery. Plus I swear there is a faint smell of urine that is locked between the asphalt and the smog. And I have to disagree with Gwen Stefani and her Orange County Girl song. I think what's behind the "Orange Curtain" is just that bad.
Clearly, I'm not a fan.
Anyways, lets get off why I don't like the city of Angels and talk about the cool things I got to do the last couple of weeks!
First, We went with Jesus Jugs and her Ginger hubs to our friends 24th Birthday Party at Tokyo Delves. If you've never been there, the only way I can describe it is it's a Sushi restaurant, club and shit show all rolled into one. Despite the fact that it smelled like a roller rink. (You know that smell where you can't decide if it smells like stinky feet or just ass?) And the sushi was below par, we had a fabulous time! At one point Wes was rapping to Vanilla Ice and I did N'Sync's "Bye, bye, bye" dance while on a chair in heels. I gots skillz y'all. Oh and did I mention they had gallon kegs of beer and every so often our waiter would make us do a saki bomb? Well they do and he did.
Here are some pics.
I got this from the Tokyo Delves website. This wasn't us but they looked like they were having so much fun I felt obligated to put it up.
This was our crowd. Sushi restaurant or Club? That is the question.
The Birthday girl herself!
Wes and I did not get one good picture the whole night. I just put this one up because my sock bun looks cute.
Then this last weekend we went to LA again to see Wes's friend perform at the H2O Festival.
Let me just begin the story by saying that the festival started at 3:00 pm Saturday afternoon. It takes about an hour to get to downtown from where we live in orange county. I was thinking that we would have the morning and part of the afternoon to be lazy and enjoy the day, but Wes was ADAMANT about leaving the house at one. I took my time getting ready with him eagerly badgering me and telling me how much he hate's to be late. We left at 1:30 and he whined the whole way there. We got to the festival at 2:30. Plenty of time. We got in the line at the gate and literally stood there in the hot sun in 90 degree heat for an hour. They ended up not opening the gates until 3:30. Lets just say I was a good sport about the whole thing and Wes felt bad. Now the next time we go to an event we will get there on my time. Sometimes fashionably late is in fact better. Boys are stupid. I've said my peace.
Back to the festival. Wes's friend's band in Connecticut won a contest to be able to perform at this festival. Pretty darn cool. We got V.I.P tickets because we knew the guys which was pretty awesome. What I did not know was that this band is a Latin American Band. Funny because the only hispanic person is the lead singer. The rest are super nice and really cool white nerdy guys. I liked them right away.
So the Band is called Santa Mamba
The dude in the center is Wes's friend Nick. Apparently Connecticut only breeds men with long hair.
The Festival was fun! We were the only white blonde people in the whole vicinity though. I should have guessed with Santa Mamba being a Latin band that the rest of the festival would be as well. Yup. It was chola central. No offense to any sassy senoritas out there. I've just never seen that many sharpie eyebrows in one place before. It was fascinating.
I was really glad that we had V.I.P because while most of the crowd had to deal with the disgustingly hot weather and pay for overly priced beer and fair food, we got to enjoy an air-conditioned tent with free booze and mediocre food. But it was free mediocre food! Also, while everyone else had to use a port a potty we got to use airplane style port a pottys. SO much better! Santa Mamba didn't perform until later and we didn't know most of the bands playing, so we stayed in our little tent like happy campers and took advantage... Or at least I took advantage of the free alcohol. Wes is a saint for putting up with my "I'm so sexy dirty terrible dancing." I just can't help myself, the alcohol brings out the sex kitten in me.
Some other performers there were:
I'm not sure who she is. But she was very pretty when I saw he on stage.
I don't know these guys either. Couldn't tell you if they were good or not.
I did see him perform a little. Coincidentally he is dating Christine "Chrissy" Teigen. A now super model who went to high school with me and she sat next to me in Algebra. I remember when she dropped out of school to move to LA and become a model. We all thought she was stupid. She showed us. She's living a celebrity life in NY, and I am a waitress. A pretty happy waitress though!
Moving on.
Gym Class Heroes were supposed to be there but they were a no show. However, Snoop Dogg/Lion was!
D - O double G!
Santa Mamba was set to go on stage at 7:30, right after Snoopy. The way the place was set up was there was a large stage and then right next to it a smaller stage. we were right in the middle of both so we got to watch snoop on the big stage and then when he was done we turned our heads and Santa Mamba was on the smaller one. They were really good.
Here's a video I found of their most popular song if you're interested.
After they performed we got to go back stage with them and who did we run in to? Wait for it.
Oh yes. Snoop Dogg's diamond encrusted hand is on my shoulder and Wes made it into the background too! I love that the security guard looks sketched out by him. I had to make the photo black and white because the red eye in it was so bad I looked like a Twilight character.
So there you have it my friends. Two weeks of interesting yet really awesome weekends in LA. Hopefully the next time I have to go there again will be next year ;)
