Halloweekend!

Shane and I had a very Halloweeny weekend. Lets take a look, shall we?

First off, we hit up the ward trunk or treat in these random outfits. We had these wigs and these matching pants...and wuala! 80's hippies? Sure. Anyway, Shane and I played some tricks on the munchkins while running the fishing for candy game. Then we gave out candy from our scary trunk - take a look! Shane's masterpiece.

We ditched the kids for the after party to play Mafia with all of these cool people. You all should totally play Mafia at your next party - it was surprisingly super fun!

Saturday (after an awesome surfing session), we headed out for another Halloweeny night. But not before we transformed into our alter-egos.

After a funny dinner out with friends who were not dressed up, we spent the evening at Tim and Jenni's, our friends from Wipeout (Tortoise and the Hair, 3rd place). They went ALL out for this party and there were some awesome costumes. Hide yo wife, hide you kids...my personal favorite.

Dwight: It was only a cat.

Angela: You don’t like them.

Dwight: Cats do not provide milk nor wool or meat.

Happy late Halloween! From me and the Assistant to the Regional Manager.

Great Urban Race

What is The Great Urban Race?

The Great Urban Race is a wacky urban adventure. Teams of two solve twelve clues, have a wild city adventure and complete fun challenges while discovering the city in a fresh way.

http://www.greaturbanrace.com/

Last Christmas, one of Shane's gifts to me was registering us for this awesome race! This weekend the big day finally came. We headed to San Diego decked out in our 80's gear. Some of the other costumes were pretty dang awesome.

After checking out the clue sheet, Shane and I headed out to get our race on. It's designed to take the average team between 3 to 4 hours. Racers are only allowed to travel on foot or by public transportation - no bikes, taxis, hitch hiking, etc. Needless to say we covered a lot of ground!

We used a map that we snagged from a hotel and Shane's phone to help us make our way around the city. It was up to us to decide which order to complete the clues; the goal is to map them out in a geographically smart way and not have to backtrack. The clues were were fun and sometimes pretty tough to figure out! Having a digital camera is required - we had to return to the finish line with pictures doing certain funny things along the way and at different clue destinations. It was super fun.

I swear I never finish anything without some sort of injury. Check out my blistered toes and bleeding heel!

We finished in the middle of pack, tired and happy. What a sweet memory. We want to do again next year with some friends!

Funny/cool story: Our team name was "Moose on the Loose" and the girl who signed us in instantly exclaimed, "You guys are Mr. and Mrs. Moose, from Wipeout! I love that team!!" We smiled and confirmed that we were, and we thought it was pretty fun to still be recognized for Wipeout. Then at the end of the race we saw the same girl and said goodbye to her as we were walking to the car. She stopped us and said, "So, what inspired you to dress up like Mr. and Mrs. Moose?" Haha! We laughed and told her we were Mr. and Mrs. Moose! She didn't believe us so I pulled up Shane's shirt so we could prove it! The girl freaked out and took a picture with us. She said, "This is like, the best celebrity sighting of my life!" Ha! Pretty fun, eh? We thought it was pretty cool.

Overall, awesome day. Thanks for a radical gift, Shane!

WEEKEND TOP 3

This weekend was another very lovely Long Beach Shally weekend. I love it here and I love my husband.

Enough of that, on to the WEEKEND TOP 3 (I just made that up...) We experienced 3 new awesome things this weekend that I'd like to share with you all, my dear friends and family.

#1. Little Saigon Massage

We went with some friends on Friday night to a dark, pretty sketchy strip mall in a place called Little Saigon to get a one hour massage for $20! It was quite the experience. We entered through a sheet veil into a very dimly lit room jammed with massage beds and Vietnamese people who don't speak English. I laid next to Shane as a Vietnamese man worked me over! It was funny and relaxing and funny.

#2. Cottage Cheese Enchiladas

On Saturday I had some leftover rotisserie chicken from Costco (the best!) and we were having the missionaries over for dinner. So I decided to make chicken enchiladas and found this cottage cheese recipe (Shane suggested we try it). It was AWESOME! I'm not taking the credit - this recipie is the bomb. Here's the link, you have to try it! http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cottage-Cheese-Chicken-Enchiladas/Detail.aspx

#3. Red Tide at night

We decided to walk by the ocean on the way home from a friends house and we saw something AMAZING! Red tide is an event in which estuarine, marine, or fresh water algae accumulate rapidly in the water column and results in discoloration of the surface water. And it looks really cool at night - the waves light up like the Belagio in Vegas! And when we walked, the sand lit up under our feet. SO COOL!

Those, ladies and gentlemen, were our WEEKEND TOP 3.

Giddyup!

As you know, Shane grew up in Utah. Which means he grew up going to the rodeo. So when he saw that a rodeo was happening in LA, naturally he bought us tickets.

Luckily for me we got our friends Aaron, Dorothy and their little guy, Cormack, to come along with us. Me and Cormack are buddies.

Saturday, we had an awesome day: a church service project, beach volleyball, and surfing (Shane came with me and owned it!) Then Sunday we took a leisurely bike ride in the beautiful Long Beach sunshine.

Check out this Segway tour! It cracked us up.

Cheers to another golden weekend with my boyfriend!

PS. Props to Shane for working so hard, doing sooo great, and not working weekends anymore!! HiphipHORAAAY!

St. George Birthday Bash

Shane's best bud growing up, Layth, is married to Lou and they live in St. George. Layth's 30th birthday was last week and Lou decided it would be best if we drove up to surprise him for a weekend celebration! We decided she was right.

Little did Layth know that Shane and I were awaiting him at his favorite restaurant. He said, "So what are you guys really up here for?" He didn't believe that we came up just for his b-day. What can we say? We're dedicated.

This is little Ty. He's the darling offspring of our dear friends. We had fun playing aunt and uncle for the weekend.

On Saturday we hit up the lake! It was really awesome. Hot weather, lots of fun toys, good food, and fun new friends. Layth and Lou have a great group of friends who took us right in and were really nice to us. It think it was mostly because we were on Wipeout...but, hey, I'll take it.

My two favorite parts of the lake day: learning how to ride a stand up jet ski (a little trippy to learn, but super fun once you get the hang of it!) and cliff jumping (just like the old days on Tubbs Hill in Coeur d'Alene!)

Saturday night everyone came over for pizza and some Mr.and Mrs. Moose action. We watched our Wipeout episode and gave everyone the play-by-play inside info! It never gets old:)

A big thanks to Layth and Lou for letting us stay in their awesome house, play with their cute kid, share their fun friends, take us to the awesome lake, and feed us such good food! We had a blast - can't wait to visit again.

Bringing sexy back to my life

Justin Timberlake and I meet again! Okay, not really "meet" but we were in very close proximity. It all started while babysitting, watching 'N Sync on TRL. JT crooning in a wife beater, earings, curly bleached locks. I was hooked. Shane took me to see him in concert in 2007 (best night EVER), and then last year we sat in the front row at Jimmy Kimmel while JT was a guest. And now,THIS marvelous evening:

Justin has a clothing line called William Rast that he started with his best friend, Trace Ayala. It's a pretty awesome collection and if I was rich I'd be decked out in William Rast. So Friday night was "Fashion Night Out" in LA and New York. Justin made an appearance at Nordstroms in Santa Monica to promote his clothing line. He said hello, made some jokes, and gave away some free stuff from his line.

Excited.

My husband gets an award for the night. He was the best! He left work way early to come pick me up and drive to Santa Monica. He waited around for 2 hours in the middle of a swarm of eager girls. He saw some girls interviewing people for JustinTimberlake.com and sent them over to me to be interviewed! And yes, they interviewed me:) Stay tuned for that; I'm thinking Monday it will be up.

After the Nordstroms appearance, me being the insider that I am, knew that he'd make another appearance down the street at his William Rast store. We headed over and saw it was exclusive and you had to be on the list to get in. Luckily, with all our experience being poor and dipping our toes in showbiz world, we've learned how to schmooze! One of the girls working for JT spotted me outside and just brought us right in! It was pretty rad.

The store was pretty small and we were in the very front. These pictures are all taken by me! We were so close we could smell his hair gel. Pretty unreal!

Yes!

I made friends with JT's cousin and met his best friend...so yeah, I'm getting close to meeting the man himself :) After the appearance, the JT.com girls took me and another guy out front to do a "fan battle!" It was funny. We took some photos, introduced ourselves, and then we were asked trivia questions on camera. Of course, I won. Then I asked his cousin, "Don't you think the winner of the fan battle earned a picture with Justin?" She said she thought I was right! So she went to the back and showed him the video! He said "Oh, she's from Long Beach, I dated a girl from Long Beach."(he's talking about Cameron Diaz by the way) But to my extreme disappointment his cousin said he was with his friends and about to leave and he had had a really long day, yada yada...so no hand shaking or picture :( But it WILL happen! I was so close, so now I'm very determined. Overall it was a super awesome evening. Thanks Shane, for being my supportive, fellow JT fan! I love you!!

Party in the USA

Summer is my favorite time of the year, for many reasons. But the main reason is that I get to hang with my fam!! They decided to come for a "quick" trip to the states from Guam so Sam could go to EFY and my parents could see their families. But lucky for me, it ended up being a not so quick trip! And we didn't waste any of that time sitting around - we partied it up!! It was awesome, to say the least. Here are a few of my favorite photos:

A HUGE THANK YOU to my parents. You guys are seriously so awesome. Thanks a million for spending all that money and time on us! It really made our summer, and you know it! We love you and can't wait till you come back.

To see the rest of our photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2355596&id=17809381&l=4027081d19