Happy Birthday Dad!!

Today is my Dad’s birthday (29 again, right Dad?) and to mark the occasion I wanted to take a quick moment to tell you how great my Dad is!! I can honestly say I am truly blessed to have him for a Dad. He has made me the person who I am today and influenced so many things in my life.

I know a lot of girls say that they are a Daddy’s girl but I can say with a 100% certainty that I am!! When I was 15 (and I my sister was 17) my parents divorced and my poor Dad got the lucky task off parenting and living with two teenage girls. Looking back I honestly have no idea how he did this. Think about it, two teenage girls living in one house…my Dad is a saint. I wasn’t a bad kid, but I was 15-year-old-girl so to say I put my Dad through some challenges would be an understatement. What amazes me about this is that my Dad always stood by me and always loved me just as much as he did the day before. I have been so lucky to have the Dad I have, he has always been the foundation of my life.

For those of you that don’t know my Dad he is the most kind and patient person you will ever meet. You can make the same stupid mistake 100 times over and he won’t judge you, he will just help you try and get it right the next time. Now if you make him mad, please watch out as I can’t save you. Hehehehe.

I can only hope that when I have kids I can be half the parent my Dad is.

I love you Dad!! Happy Birthday!!

An Oldie But a Goodie!!

The other night while I was sitting in class I wondered to myself, “I bet Nintendo has Dr. Mario for Wii” (maybe this is why I BOMBED my mid-term; I really should start paying more attention). So of course I googled it…gotta love Google, you can find everything on there. And of what do you know? They do have Dr. Mario for Wii, and even better you can’t buy it you just download it directly to your Wii for $10.00.

For those of you that don’t know what Dr. Mario is, the basics of it is that it is a puzzle game with all sorts of little pills that you drop down in the bottle and line of like colors of three to kill the viruses. I realize my explanation of Dr. Mario might be, ok is, a little confusing, so here is a picture of what the game looks like.

Old School Version

New school version (is there such a thing as new school version or would it just be new version?)


So moving along in this story last night when I got home from work I should have studied but I am feeling a little under the weather and didn’t think I could concentrate on the History and Philosophy of Mass Communications. I pulled Danny away from his court TV (people he has a SERIOUS obsession with court TV and I think it might be getting to the point where we should seek help but that is a whole different blog posting) and asked him to please download Dr. Mario for me. We got the Doctor all downloaded, Kacie brought over some batteries so we could turn down our TV (for some reason only the remote will turn it down and we were out of AAA batteries for the remote. I am not sure if Kacie brought over the batteries because she was nice or because as she said she could hear our game from inside her house, heehehhehehe) and we were all set.

While I was outside picking up Aspen’s business, Danny started the game with out me. I am not sure how that works, I should have gotten first game since I am the one that wanted the game in the first place!! Finally after asking Danny several times to start over in two player mode, all the while listening to him say how stupid this game is, he restarted the game. This is where the massacre began. Now keep in mind I have not played this game for at least 11 years and Danny said that he had never played (maybe that was just an excuse) but I murdered him!! I really just wanted to play for a little while but at the end of each game Danny just kept saying one more game and then before I knew it two hours went. I kept asking Danny to let me stop playing but he kept saying no. We calculated it out and I would say that in two hours we played 40 games of Dr. Mario. What was the score you ask? Well that is easy…Heather 40 and Danny 0. YES I won every single game. I kick ass at Dr. Mario!! For some reason I am oddly good at these types of puzzle games, my FAVORITE is Bust a Move. Poor innocent Danny just wanted to win one game and then end it but I won game after game. I thought about letting him win one so we could stop but I am still completive and there isn’t much I am better than Danny at so I had to hold on to this one!!

After the 40 something games I left him on his own to practice, maybe he will take one next time. Hehehe. So if you have skills at Dr. Mario I am looking for challengers!! The Doctor is in so please make your appointment and meet me on my couch. And one more thing, please be prepared to get crushed!! Hopefully it really is that I am good at the game and not that Danny is just really bad…I would hate to talk a big game and then have nothing to back it up with! HEHEHEHE!!


HAPPY FRIDAY!!

I Fell Out of the Wrong Side of the Bed Today!!

No I didn’t get up on the wrong side of bed today, that is something normal people do, and I well… You heard me right, I FELL out of the wrong side of the bed!! I should have known then that it just wasn’t going to be my day today.

Let me set the scene for you. Danny has been traveling all week and when Danny travels I DON’T sleep!! My neighbors tried keep me busy; they took me out for frozen yogurt (shout out to Gary!!!! Whoot, whoot!!) and invited me over for hotdogs. I had school every night so far this week. You would think all that, in addition to work, would be enough to make me tired and get some sleep, but no.

This little evil bastard right here:



Working with this evil, evil bastard:


Caused me great harm this morning, in fact I am plotting my revenge now and it involves both items in my garbage disposal. I am aware that most people don’t seek revenge on inanimate objects but this is my blog and I DO!!

So after a night of watching late night, late, late night and late, late, late night TV when the alarm clock blared this morning something bad was bound to happen and it did. I swung my hand over, not bothering to open my eyes and reached for the snooze button. Now you all know if I hit the snooze button I wouldn’t be blogging about this. I hit the cup of diet coke (oh diet coke why do I love you so much) and diet coke was going everywhere. Since I don’t normally start my day with diet coke flying everywhere this startled me. First I am not a morning person and second I am very clumsy so this was going to be bad. Please don’t ask me how this happened, this type of stuff just happens to me and please don’t judge. I landed with the top part of my back all the way across the frame of my bed. I must admit I did sit and cry for a moment… “HEY, I said don’t judge, it HURT”. After I got over the initial shock of the pain I got back in bed to catch another 20 minutes of sleep. When I woke back up my entire upper back was one big red welt. I tried taking a picture of it, but as I am home alone I couldn’t figure out a way to do this that wouldn’t turn my blog into a whole different type of blog. **wink, wink ;)

When a morning starts with you, a 29-year-old, falling out of your bed, you know it’s only going to get worse and it did. I put my big girl pants on and told myself my back, marks and all, was going to be ok, and that since I was going to the chiropractor today (because my back was ALREADY hurting) he could set me straight (hehehehe). Ohhhh boy about 10 minutes before I was to leave the house I got sick!! I tried to keep getting ready but my body was turning against me and nothing I did could convince it to do otherwise. I tried my hardest, I was all ready with make-up and work clothes on but I quickly realized it was just not going to happen. I gave in and called into work, took some medicine, turned the air way down (I like coldness when I sleep) and climbed back in bed with my doggies (they were great and didn’t want to leave my side. AWESOME DOGGIES!!).

I sent Melissa a text that I was SICK but we would still go to the chiropractor and to please send me a text at 10:15am to wake me up. I wasn’t up for another battle with my alarm clock.

Usually I text or give Danny a call to tell him good morning but today I only had energy for one text and that was my wakeup call. While I was sleeping Danny sent me a couple texts checking in to see where I was as he hadn’t heard from me. I finally got back to him to let him know I was at home sick. His first response, “did you go drinking last night”? I wish! A hangover would have seemed like heaven. When I finally told him all my drama of the morning he said, “WOW…you are a little crazy!! You shouldn’t blog about this because people might want to come and save me!” So what is the first thing I do? Blog about it. Yep, that is how I roll!! Hehehehe. If anyone out there wants to come save Danny he will be home and available for rescue tomorrow.

As I mentioned above I had a chiropractor appointment which I manned up and went to because I wanted to get my back stuff worked out. A couple funny things happened there, first of all on the paper work I put that my birth date was 12-29-08, yep that is right I am not even born yet!! I guess I am hanging on a little too tight to my youth!! HEHEHE. Then I had to tell Dr. Jim, coolest chiropractor ever, that I fell out of bed and he told his assistant and she said, “how old are you”? Yes I know, I am 29-years-old and fell out of bed, everyone get their laughs in now, but hey if you check my paperwork I am not even born yet!! HEHEHEHE.

Of course I couldn’t have normal x-ray results on a day like today, my spine is crazy curved at the base, I slouch and I lean all my weight to my left side. Of course. So if you see me and I am slouching or leaning to the left please tell me to stand up straight!!

Oh and to conclude my wrong side of the bed kind of day, I got my midterm back and I totally BOMBED it!!!! Summer school sucks!!

I think I should just go to bed and wait for tomorrow to come.

P.S.

Danny please come home and save me!! XOXOXOXO!!

"Wine Tasting" and The Beach Club in RSM

Last weekend we went “wine tasting” with our new neighbors and a former neighbor!! We must be the best neighbors ever if all our neighbors…even former ones want to hang out with us. HEHEHEHE. JK!! Now you might be asking yourself why I put wine tasting in quotes. That would be because I really don’t consider it real wine tasting.

It was literally 5 minutes from our house down in Trabuco Canyon. We went down the windy tree covered roads that I just love, drove past the Rose Canyon Grill, past the Steak House and country store, and even past the campgrounds. Just past the horses we made a right and went into a residential area where we all began to suspect that this “winery” was at someone’s house…which it was.
We pulled in to the driveway, yep driveway and got out of our car. We of course beat our neighbor Terri-Ann, the organizer of the event there, she is one of those people that will be late for her own funeral but on the flip side she is super fun!! The property was beautiful but it was a little weird to be at a complete stranger’s house.

We went up this stairs and sat on the little upstairs patio that was all set-up for us. There were tables with umbrellas and a little appetizer station. The hostess of the winery was up there to welcome us. She said she would wait for Terri-Ann to get there before we got started. I said it was ok Terri-Ann wouldn’t mind if we had a glass of wine with out her…she thought I was joking…I wasn’t!!

So while we were waiting I took a picture of the vineyards, I am always thinking about my blog friends and what they will want to see. I just knew you guys would want to see a hill of grapes.


Here is a picture of Kacie taking a picture of the hill of grapes.


The boys just hanging out, being cool (Danny is of course on his phone, ALWAYS).


Finally only 15 minutes late Terri-Ann and crew arrived and the wine tasting began!! I must admit that it was pretty fun. The first wine we tasted was my favorite; it was Symphony or something of that sort. Everything after that was red wine, which I really don’t care for. There was one that I thought was pretty good and Danny really liked; it was the Syrah and the description said, “this syrah really jumps out at you”, I kept my eye on it…I didn’t want any wine jumping out at me!!

We met some interesting people at the winery, my favorite was the owner’s brother, I think that is who he was at least. He was a crackup and the best part of the day was when he told me that they have a Harvest party in October!! I am so in for that. First of all anything with the word harvest in it sounds like something I would love…after all October is my favorite month!! 2nd he said they have magicians, a band and all sorts of entertainment…plus wine of course. I know that this Harvest party is going to be a very worthy blog post. We had to be a member of their wine club to get an invite…so I signed up! I can’t wait for October!!

Here is me and Danny enjoying the wine tasting.


And here is Kacie and Mike…sorry it is so dark.


Our wine tasting event came to and end, they were sort of rushing us out for another party. It was good fun but I would have liked a tour of the vineyard or to see where they make the wine or something along that lines. BUT I will be back in October…Harvest party here I come!!

You might be thinking to yourself what does one do after a “wine tasting event”, go to get Margaritas of course!! Well at least that is what we did!!

Mike, Kacie, Danny and I all piled into the car. Rose Canyon here we come!! I would like to tell you how many margaritas we had while we were there but I lost track so I will just show you pictures and let them speak for me.

Get a room sickos!!


Aren’t we just the cutest?!


I was very thirsty!! I think it was from all the chips and salsa I had. Me and my drank!!



This was supposed to be a girls picture…boys!!


Kacie hanging out by the fountain.


So after our 4th, 5th or 6th margaritas we decided it was time for us to leave Rose Canyon behind and head home. One small problem…who could drive? Not any of the four of us that is for sure!! So what do you do when you can’t drive? Call your other neighbors to come pick you up!! Shout out to Royal and Karen for coming to pick us up and then letting but in on your family BBQ. We were like four little kids waiting for our parents to pick us up!! Like I said, I have awesome neighbors!!
When we got home we checked on the kids. They are all best buddies!!



After a quick change by the boys (and they say it’s us girls that are bad about clothes) it was off to the beach club!!

I think it is awesome that like 10 feet from our house we have the Beach Club, I really should use it more often.


Mike is so silly!


Just hanging out at the table, waiting for Royal to finish cooking our chicken!!


I must admit it was a pretty fun Saturday and we didn’t have to go more than five miles from our house. I love that we have such an awesome community!!

Oh and I almost forgot we went to Sushi on Friday night!

The boys at Sushi, notice the similar outfits…and they make fun of Kacie and I…

The girls at Sushi!!


And that was my jam packed weekend last weekend!! See you all next weekend!!

A Hard Day at the Office!!

On Tuesday I was headed out of the office for the day when I got a call from one of my Sales Mangers, Anthony. Of course I was thinking...crap this means I am going to have to log on to my computer when I get home. sales people always need something. HEHEHE. BUT NO! Anthony was checking to see if I wanted to go to an Angel’s game the next day. Shoot I said thanks for the offer but I have school. Stupid, I know, who turns down and all expenses paid Angels game. BUT WAIT!! Anthony informed me it was a day game. I was in!! I always knew Anthony was my favorite manager. Hey when you invite me a long to a game you get points, JK…oh wait no I am not!!

So today I went into the office for a couple hours and then it was off to Angel stadium for me. I was a little behind the rest of my group as I had to get a couple things done before I left this office. This actually worked out for me because we were tailgating before the game (sweet…I know, you were just thinking to yourself how can this get any better; and then I said tailgate) and by the time I got there the grills were already fired up!



How many sales people does it take to determine the heat of a grill? Hehehehe.


One of our sales reps was so kind and cooked everyone burgers and they were AWESOME!! I felt bad for him standing of the grill in the heat, and it was hot today.

We weren’t the only ones in the parking lot tailgating and it seems as if all the guys felt the need to take off their shirts (not the ones in my group, thanks guys, I appreciate that) which just made me laugh but I guess I should have felt lucky they were young and in basically good shape.

I have been trying to eat healthy lately but you just can’t eat healthy at a ball game!! If you don’t have a hotdog you are just un-American. So being the patriotic person I am, once the food was ready, I dug right in!!


I think everyone enjoyed our pre-game festivities.


Once we were all stuffed it was into the game. The craziest thing happened while we were at the ticket gate, I ran into Danny’s sister!! I haven’t seen her in almost a year and there were thousands of people at the game and we just happened to be entering the same gate and the exact same time. WEIRD. It was good to see her!

Once we took our seats we all quickly realized how hot it was! While we had AWESOME seats we weren’t the fortunate fans in the shade. And remember how I said I should have felt lucky that the guys with their shirts off in the parking lot were young and in shape? Well apparently the older, heavier men were also totally cool with taking their shirts off too. All I will say is NOT PRETTY!! I just tried not to look.

Here is the view from where our seats were.

Great seats but we all had to keep taking “shade breaks” because it was so FREAKIN HOT!! I also used my shade breaks to eat some more food; I think I like to go to baseball games more for the food than the game. HEHEHE. In addition to my pre-game food I also had cotton candy, helmet fries and a large Diet-Pepsi!! YUM!!

Even with the heat I had a great time at the game. The Angels hit two homeruns so we got day fireworks which are pretty much like the sudden appearance of smoke and a really loud noise. Still fireworks are fireworks; and fireworks are cool!! The final score was Angels 4 and Rays 2 (when did the stop being the Devil Rays?)

Unfortunately after the game I had to leave for school. I wish I could have just gone home and slept off the sun.

If you don’t believe me how hot it was during the game, I took this picture of my shoulder while I was in the car to leave the stadium.


Apparently my body was not happy with the sun. I should visit with the sun more often so that this doesn’t happen. You wouldn't know it by looking at me right now but my skin really does like to be tan.

Here is the stadium while I was in the line of traffic to get out.


Here is me entertaining myself while in line to get out of the stadium…it doesn’t take much.


So can you see why I called this post “a hard day at the office”? I have it so rough!!

My New Neighbors Are AWESOME!!

Last you heard of the new neighbors was in my previous blog posting. The one where I made them cupcakes to welcome them to the nieghborhood but said I couldn’t snap a picture of them because I wanted to ease them into my craziness. UPDATE…they have been fully exposed to my craziness and what do you know, they still like me!! In fact, and this is a direct quote from Mike, “You are the coolest girl I have ever met!”…in the spirit of full disclosure he said this about two seconds after I CRUSHED a champagne glass with my bare hands!! Better just to ask me about this one in person.

So far since I have met them we have had two impromptu “street parties”, Sushi and Saki dinner, Kacie and I went to Taco Tuesday at Rose Canyon, pretend wine tasting (more on this to come), another trip with everyone to Rose Canyon and a beach club BBQ. All this and they just moved in one month ago!!

I really couldn’t ask for better neighbors. They are fun, young, have two dogs and Kacie loves to text!! How could I not like them?

I figured since we are like BFF’s now I should officially introduce them to my blog!
Sporting a stylish jacket made from bear fur, while hanging out at the beach, and yes I did say bear fur, Miss Kacie!


And trying to avoid my camera, thereby ending up with a close-up, Mr. Mike!!


Thanks for the good times Kacie and Mike. Welcome to the neighborhood and welcome to my blog!!

Day 3 in Santa Barbara - Our Final Day, Solvang, a BRIEF Casino Trip and Home!!

And so our journey is coming to an end, this is my final posting of our trip to Santa Barbara. Maybe you are sad or maybe you are screaming for joy that I will now be free to blog about the many other exciting adventures in “Heatherland”. Either way I don’t care just as long as you are reading and COMMENTING on my blog. And to be honest with you guys at this point SB was so long ago the details of the day have left my head to make room for new blog details. I just need to get caught up on my blog so I can blog in real time, it sounds good but we all know the chances of it happening are slim. I have been promising forever with ZERO results. I know my faults.

Ok so anyways enough about my lack of blogging skills and on to the final day in SB! We started off the day with another 6:30am wake-up courtesy of Aspen, I love him but come, can’t you at least wait till 7:30am to wake me up!! Please, just once! Or at least while we are on vacation. I don't ask for a lot from you as a dog, you really owe me. This day wasn’t the same as the day before, where I got to sleep while Danny took the doggies out, because as Danny put it, “I did it yesterday; it’s your turn today”! I had no argument, he was right. So with my eyes barely open I got dressed and headed out with the dogs. As sleepy as I was it really was just so pretty at our hotel in the morning that I didn't really mind being up so early. Once you exited our door the pathway was full of gorgeous flowers and immediately to the right was the ocean. It was so early (plus it was an overcast weekend) and there was a thick layer of fog. I was able to force the dogs into taking this shot, which if you have ever tried to get two dogs that just want to play, to sit still for a picture at the same time you would give me an award for getting this shot.


It was actually nice to be out there so early with the dogs, so quiet, peaceful and beautiful. We walked down the beach path to the front of the hotel, where along the way we saw the hotel staff putting a huge effort into setting up for that days Mothers Day brunch and we also met another yellow lab, he was only 9-months-old and nearly the same size as Aspen. His parents are in for a treat. It was a great way to spend the morning but I was still a little sleepy so it was back to the hotel room for us.

After snoozing a little more all four of us were up for the day and trying to decide what to do for our last day in SB. Since the hotel brunch the previous day was so good I suggested to Danny that we try the Mother’s Day brunch if there were spots available. We figured it would be a little more expensive with the holiday but when Danny called to see if there were spots available, which there were, he asked the price. Now remember brunch at our hotel the day before was $16, on this day…$68!! Needless to say we passed on that and just ordered room service which was very nice and not $150.

Originally we were going to head to the polo grounds in SB on our last day, which would have been fun since I have never been to a polo match (I would have felt like Julie Roberts in Pretty Women minus the whole hooker part) but we figured since we had the dogs with us that probably wouldn’t work out to well and we decided on Solvang instead. We packed up, said good-bye to the Fess Parker Double tree and hit the road again.

Just in case you don’t know, Solvang is a small city in the Santa Ynez Valley. Solvang was originally founded in 1911 by a group of Danish educators, and while few Danish people actually live there today it still maintains the huge Danish feel and caters to tourists. The buildings in the town are insanely cute.


Just a little trivia question…What 2004 Oscar winning film was shot mostly in the town of Solvang?...still thinking…ok, I will give you a hint, think wine…just a few more minutes…give up?…”Sideways”. If you haven’t seen it you should check it out. If you got it right I have a prize for you, you get to comment on my blog!! Yay, you are so lucky. If you didn’t get it, your cost for losing is that you have to comment on my blog. Sucks to be you.

Of course our first stop in Solvang was one of its many bakeries, we selected Mortensen’s.


There was so many things to choose from, breads, muffins, creampuffs, cinnamon rolls and basically any pastry you could imagine. Danny selected a cinnamon roll and me, I of course went with the éclair.


The éclair was rather good except I must confess, I did get a little sad when I realized there was a thin layer of fruit filling. Make that #248 of weird things about Heather (for those of you that really know me, you already know this), I don’t like fruit in syrup or for that matter baked fruit…I think fruit should only be eaten has God made it, cold, crispy and fresh!! Before you worry too much, I know you were, it was ok…I was able to take of the bottom layer and still enjoy my éclair. Oh, you want proof; I see what kind of friend you are not trusting me. Here you go…me eating my éclair.


And just because we are so cute here are me and my babies in front of the bakery.


I know it really seems like we spent a lot of time at the bakery, so let’s move on! TO THE CANDY STORE. This was no small candy store; it was one of those that are just full of barrels and barrels of candy.


I am pretty sure that Danny thought he had died and gone to heaven. I waited outside while he carefully selected each piece of candy that he wanted. Which if you want to know was $16.00 worth of candy!! What can I say he loves his candy.


At this point we are fully set up with sugar and walking around seems to be the perfect idea. The town is so cute, perfect and quaint. Danny found this really awesome art gallery that he liked and while he was inside checking it out (I was waiting outside with the dogs) he found out the artist was there. We must have good timing because he is only there two weeks a year! Danny was able to get a picture with him.


There we so many little shops, bakeries and cafés in Solvang, it is nice to be able to visit stuff like this. My favorite was all the little courtyards they had, you would turn a corner and there would be a little courtyard, with benches, fountains and surrounded by little shops. This picture is one of my favorite of the trip.


After having our fill of bread, pastries and sugar is was time to say good-bye to Solvang. Thanks for letting us visit. We will be back!

On our way into Solvang we had passed an Indian casino. I asked Danny if we could stop here on the way back, it has been so long since I have been to Vegas and I miss it so. I thought maybe this would satisfy me for awhile. Wrong. Unless by satisfy you mean take all my remaining cash from the trip in under 15 minutes. If that is what you meant then you would be so right. I played Danny’s new found game from his last trip to Vegas, 3-Card-Poker. Danny swore that you couldn’t lose at this game. I think he must have meant you can’t WIN at this game. I maybe won one hand the entire time I was there. Boo…I just wanted to get out of there; so after my luck left me hanging we quickly got up from the poker table.

I have something to say to you Indian Casino! I am afraid I don’t like you, you treated me just as poorly has Vegas has in the past. I am not sure why I thought our relationship would be any different, please don’t try and contact me again. I don’t have room in my life for more than one relationship that takes me money and kicks me to the curb, you must go. I cannot afford you and it will be best for us to sever all ties.

However on the way out I spotted the perfect picture opportunity. I would like to say that it was worth the money I lost in the casino but I don’t think that would be true. It was close to it, but not quite.


What do you think?

After my misfortunes at the casino I thought it was time to call an end to our weekend in Santa Barbara so it was homeward bound for us. The four of us had a great weekend but we all were a little tired and looking forward to getting home.

You call all breath a sigh of relief, my SB blog postings are over and I will now move on to more interesting posts.

Again I can’t say how much I have enjoyed the last 10 years and how much I am looking forward to the next 10. I love you Danny and thanks for being you.

P.S.

If you want to see all the pictures from Santa Barbara I loaded them on my picture page:

http://hmwilson8.smugmug.com/