Happy Halloween!!

I love Halloween, mostly because I love the fall and I love candy. I also love watching Spriket24 videos on Youtube.com. Karen Alloy is pretty funny and I've decided to give you a taste of what her humor is all about. Also she's had a couple of Emmy Nominations and even won one for her video 2012. Happy Halloween and stay clear of those zombies!!

Rude Neighbor...

Hello inconsiderate neighbor,

I come to you from the (un)comforts of my desk chair with a message. For the sake of those who share walls with you, please refrain from blaring your dance party music throughout the night. I know that your neighbors sleeping on a weeknight is obviously the least of your concerns right now, what, with the singing to Beyonce at the top of your lungs thinking your all booty-licious too, but some of us enjoy the wee small hour of 3:00am and all that R.E.M. sleep has to offer.

Signing off in the hopes that I can still salvage some of the remaining nighttime with my head sandwiched between two pillows for the small amount of muffling it affords me from the words of "Umbrella."

Sincerely,

Your kind neighbor who does nothing but smile and open the door to your constant drunken knocking at midnight just to pet my cats, while I roll my eyes behind your back.

Halloween isn't Halloween without Candy Corn!

Since Michael and I have moved into an apartment with a security door we don't plan on having any trick-or-treaters this year, but what is Halloween (BOO!) without sneaking some of the candy meant for those doorbell ringers. Well, to satiate my sweet tooth this year I decided to limit myself to cheap candy that is still festive and I decided on these yummies, Brach's Milk Maid Caramel Candy Corn. I enjoy candy corn anyway but I've discovered that these are delicious, even more so than normal candy corn. Their only 88cents at Rite Aid so you should try them. The only problem is that since they aren't individually wrapped I just keep eating away at them. I think I need to go and buy another bag... and I've just discovered that they also make Chocolate Caramel Candy Corn and Caramel Apple Candy Corn. YUM YUM!

Glamerican Idol

Was it Adam's idea to channel 1972 broadway vibes of Xanadu for his cover? I think so.

Oh, Adam Lambert. You're so pretty... (Note the sarcasm).

I actually detested every performance by Adam Lambert on American Idol. Don't even get me started...

Cross Country Move/Road Trip: Part 4

Okay boys and girls, I think it's about time we wrapped this up, because honestly, I'm getting tired of posting about our move! :)

Michael and I stayed in Ogden with my sister Dee Ann and her family for a couple nights and we had a great time since some of my other family members came to visit including my sister Kristi, my two nieces Aubree and Jessica, and Jessica's husband Leard, as well as my brother Steve and his girlfriend Stacy. We had a fun night eating cupcakes and playing games. Dee Ann insisted on my putting on my glasses because I couldn't see the cards very well while we were playing. JK!

From there we went to my parent's house to stay with my best friend Martha (who happens to be house-sitting for my parent's while they are on their mission.) While in Bountiful I got to have a great girls dinner with some old high school girlfriends, Martha, Brooke, Heather, and Melinda, as well as get together at my fav sister-in-law Tish's house where Michael's mom was able to come as well.

After leaving Bountiful we stopped in Provo to have dinner with Steve and Stacy at Guru's (love that place!) and then we made the 4 hour drive down to Hurricane, Utah to stay and visit Zion National Park. It was absolutely beautiful. I had never been so Michael and I decided to hike the Narrows. It was AMAZING!! The Narrows are a skinny river-like part of Zion that cuts through these amazing cliffs.

You pretty much walk through the river the entire time and at one point you have to walk in water up to your waist.

It was so much fun and Michael and I had such an awesome time there, even though it wore us out pretty quickly, Michael even fell asleep on the tram back to the parking lot... :)

From Zion we drove the final few hours to Los Angeles our new home! This picture is of Michael's car somewhere in California! I still can't believe his car made it the entire way! Notice that it has no front bumper. That is the least of it's problems...

So, in all we drove a total of 2,917 miles through 14 states. It was an amazing trip and we had so much fun! Let's just hope that in 3 years when Michael is done with his Master's at UCLA we don't decide to move to Boston Massachusetts or something like that!!

Cross Country Move/Road Trip: Part 3

Ready for the next installment? Because I am!

After leaving the Muldowney's home in Sheridan, Wyoming we drove through Yellowstone National Park. It was beautiful and we wished we had more time to spend since there was so much to see and because it is such a large Park. In the few hours we managed to get up close and personal with a couple of different Bison, one was simply walking down the street next to us. Unfortunately, even though I got it on video, the computer isn't allowing me to upload it.

We also made it in time to see Old Faithful erupt, walk around some bubbling and boiling hot springs and wind our way around the Yellowstone lake on our drive. It was such a beautiful park and it was worth driving through on our way to Idaho Falls to stay with one of my sisters and her family.

Some of my favorite pictures are the ones I've posted. It was really pretty to see how Old Faithful would create its own rainbow from its spray and how high it could reach. Although Michael fell asleep on the bench waiting for it to erupt he still enjoyed it once it did.

Some of these last pictures were from the hot springs and how much steam the produced. We saw them pretty late in the day so we weren't able to see all of the beautiful colors that they produce in the water, but they were still beautiful and interesting all the same.

I though this poster was funny. They had it up all over the hot springs area. Notice the sister freaked out and the father walking away oblivious to the son/boy scout walking in the hot springs! It was pretty funny to me.

After leaving the park we drove a few hours to Idaho Falls to stay with my sister Sheri and her family. They took us out to dinner that night which was great because we were famished from all of our driving and sight-seeing that day. The following day we were supposed to drive down to Ogden, Utah to stay with my other sister Dee Ann and her family but we had little bit of a "cat disappearing act" that caused us a delay. Apparently, after I loaded up the car and put the two cats in, Sadie, the fluffy one, decided to hide under the driver's seat for about 3 hours. We thought she had jumped out of the car while I had the door open so after searching for her all over Sheri's yard I sat down in the driveway with the car in view and I see her pop up in the window. We only got to Dee Ann's house about 4 hours after we originally planned to! Sorry Dee Ann!

Well, I'm tired out from blogging. More in Part 4!

Cross Country Move/Road Trip: Part 2

More from our Move! After leaving Devil's Tower, we had the opportunity to stay with some of our great friends the Muldowney's in Sheridan, Wyoming. We had such a wonderful time relaxing for a couple of nights with them playing games, eating their yummy cooking and hanging out with their two sons. They have an adorable family and one of their sons, Isaac, heard Michael call me honey when we first got to their home so for the remainder of our stay he called me "honey." That and uncle Jayna. He was so cute! Anne made some of the most amazing desserts, and while we were there we had a nice day of walking to the post office and spending time in the backyard while Michael took a painting lesson from Ryan at the college where he teaches. Here a couple of pictures from our stay. We didn't take many but thanks Ann for the ones you sent.

Movies and MORE Movies!

One great thing about living in the land of movie-making is that you definitely get your eye full of movie and television posters. A couple of new movies coming out that I am excited to see are ones that I have seen multiple posters for already, some even 15 stories high. Check out these previews for Disney's A Christmas Carol and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. I love movies!

Cross Country Move/Road Trip: Part 1

Well, here it is, the start of our epic road trip/move from Cincinnati, Ohio to Los Angeles. I finally was able to figure a way to load pictures onto Michael's computer because his IPhoto is not cooperating but here they are. I'll break this trip up into parts as to make it easier to view. Long blog posts make me antsy.

Michael and I left on a Tuesday morning at 1 am, after cleaning our house for the very last time. (It is still on the market so send good moocha our way). We packed my car full of everything we could fit and after getting rid of so much stuff we had a little room to spare, hence the spices and the bottle of Midol, thanks Dee Ann and Sheri

for pointing that out. Our two cats had plenty of room behind the front seats but their favorite place to sleep was on top of all of the boxes.

After driving about 18 hours through the night and the following day as well as through Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, we made our stop in Wall, South Dakota. There wasn't much to see there but we were able to get a good night's sleep and wake up early to see The Badlands National Park. It was absolutely amazing! I think it was one of Michael's favorite stops. The Badlands are located in the middle of nowhere and when you come upon them all you see are canyons and caverns and what look to be mountains. It was very cool to see. I was still pretty tired from our drive the day before so while Michael took a little hike up one of the "mountains" I decided to take a little nap.

Next, we drove to Mount Rushmore which was about 2 hours away from where the Badlands were. It was amazing how much the scenery changed from rolling prairies to green mountains in just a matter of hours. We decided to only stop and see Mount Rushmore rather than park the car and hike close to it, mainly because we didn't want to spend the $15 charge. It was really cool to see. Michael kept saying that it looked a lot smaller than he expected it to, which I agreed with, but I was happy to see it because it really is amazing.

The final place we visited in South Dakota was Devil's Tower, about an hour and half from Mount Rushmore. It is known as America's first National Monument and it was huge!! Apparently it is this gigantic mountainous rock in the middle of nowhere. We stopped and looked around and I had some ice cream while Michael sketched. It was pretty crazy to see, and Michael kept telling me about how it was in the movie "Close Encounter's of the Third Kind," which I've never seen.

Anyway, more of our journey next time in part 2!

Great Read

I decided once we moved to LA that I was going to join a bookclub through meetup.com, so that I had a good reason to read some really great novels as well as meet new people. The first meeting is on the 19th of this month and the novel we selected to read is called The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I borrowed it from a neighbor and hoped that I would have it finished by the bookclub meeting date, but it was such a great read that I finished it in about 3 days. It is such a compelling story and I couldn't put it down. Michael is actually reading it right now. He picked it up last night as soon as I finished it and he actually only has about 30 pages left to read. For anyone looking for a great novel to read that you will fly right through, you should definitely pick this one up.

I was also excited to see that they have made a movie of it and it will be out next weekend, the 16th. For anyone interested here's the trailer. If you read it

or end up seeing the movie, let me know. I would love to hear what you t

hink of it.