I love this time of year because it is the one time that my whole family spends the day together. This year we all went to my brothers house for a bbq. It was my brother 'Jimbo' and his family, my sister Gwen and her kids, me, my mom, and my brother's friend Brent and his family. Here are a bunch of pictures...
Heart:
I just want to apologize for the lengthy post. I left a lot out trying to cut it down but it is still long! Sorry!
About 3 or 4 months ago my friend Fai'ana invited me to go to Hawai'i with her and her cousin V for the graduation of a relative. I really couldn't afford to go because the airfare was so expensive but V is a Delta employee and said I could have a buddy pass. Score! I would only have to pay $150 for my ticket from Salt Lake to Hawai'i! There is no way I could pass this up! It would be the 3 of us going and we would stay at their cousins house in Hawai'i. We even planned an excursion to swim with dolphins and manta rays! Let the countdown begin! I bought a new swimsuit, some snorkel gear, underwater cameras and started packing.
The morning we were scheduled to leave it was pouring rain which made it all the more exciting that we were leaving. We get to the airport, check our luggage, and then go get us something to eat while we wait. Now, I've never flown stand-by before so this was a whole new experience for me. For those of you that don't know they have a television screen above the desk at the gate that tells you whether or not you've made the flight. It also lets you know your priority on the stand-by list. Well, Salt Lake only has one flight a day to Honolulu and this one was looking pretty full. None of us made the flight! It was a little disappointing but V made a few phone calls and it was decided that we should try our luck and fly to Los Angeles because they have 2 flights a day to Honolulu. So, we headed over to the gate and started our long wait staring at the tv screen. V made the flight but it wasn't looking good for F and I. At the last minute we got good news because some of the people on the list higher than us didn't show up so we just made the flight! Things were starting to look good for us!
We get to LAX and head over to the gate. We looked at the screen and my heart sank. The stand-by list was even longer than it was on Salt Lake and my name was getting closer and closer to the end of the list. Well, the flight came and none of us got on. Again V made another call and we decided to spend the night and try the morning flight. The next morning the stand-by list was looking just as long as it was the night before. The only difference was that both V and F got on the flight! Well, V had to be there for the graduation and F didn't want to leave me behind so we told her to go and that we would wait and see if we could get on the evening flight. Well, of course F got on the flight but once again, I didn't. So, we found ourselves a little corner and made our home for the night.
Now, let me just say that the Delta terminal at LAX is severely lacking in food choices. There was a McDonalds, a mexican restaurant, and a California Pizza Kitchen. All of which were EXPENSIVE! And it is a good thing we decided to pack playing cards and books before we left because waiting in the airport makes for a long night. After midnight there pretty much weren't any more flights arriving or taking off so it got pretty quiet and creepy. We were jolted awake around 3am by airport security because they had a power outage and wanted everyone in a central location. So there we were with one other traveller and about 15 McDonalds employees sitting on the chairs waiting for them to let us go back to sleep. There was some drama with a door too. Eventually they let us go back to our corner so we could go back to sleep.
The next day we once again tried to both get on the flight but once again F made it and I didn't. The stand-by list just kept getting longer and longer. There were other people that were on the stand-by list that had been trying to get onto all the flights with us. Some of them had been trying for weeks and others had flown all over the country (Atlanta to Salt Lake to LAX) trying to get one a flight. I was so sad and frustrated! It got to the point that I called my brother to see if he could find any cheap last minute deals online but the cheapest we could find was still around $600. So we discussed it and decided that we would try one more time that night and if I still didn't get on, she should go and I would take the next flight back to Salt Lake in the morning. Well, wouldn't you know it...she didn't even make the flight! We decided that we'd had enough of sleeping in the airport and got a hotel room. The next morning I got on my flight back to Salt Lake and she got on her flight to Honolulu. It was so sad. I know that F felt bad too for going and leaving me behind but I wanted her to go and have a good time with. It just wasn't meant to be for me. My suitcase made it to Hawai'i and I couldn't even get that back until Tuesday! I hope it had a nice time. They have another cousin that graduates in 2 years so I've started saving for my confirmed seat to Hawai'i! So, here are the pictures of my 'trip' to Hawai'i.
These are the results of my many attempts to get onto a flight.
This was the stand-by list for the final flight. Notice my name is #57.
This was across the street from the hotel we stayed at. It was the closest I got to the big island.
Overall, it was a good time and an experience I won't soon forget. Next time something seems too good to be true I'll think twice!
So, I am a total slacker and still haven't posted about our trip to California! And since I've been getting death threats (ok, maybe not quite that bad), I figured now is as good a time as any. So here is our trip to California in a nutshell...
We arrived on Monday afternoon, picked up our rental car, and drove out to our hotel. Now, we booked everything online and picked a place that was reasonably priced but not trashy. It ended up being in Diamond Bar which seemed like forever away from Los Angeles and every where we wanted to go. After doing the drive a few times it ended up not being too bad. It is pretty much like Chinatown. The signs all over the place were in English and then Chinese. And if you love Chinese food then this was heaven! Unfortunately for me, anything other than Chinese food was hard to find. Even a grocery store! 
Well, the next day was our big Ellen day. We had received another phone call letting us know that they were offering all of Ellen's guests a free screening of the documentary Young At Heart. It is about a group of senior citizens that form a choir and they travel all over the world singing pop songs. It was amazing! The screening was at 11am so after it was over, we had just enough time to get us something to eat and then head over to the Ellen studios. We had to be in line by 3pm and pretty much just wait until taping time which wasn't until 6pm. It was a long day! The show itself was pretty fun! It is a lot of dancing and clapping and screaming. The guests on that day were America Ferrera from Ugly Betty, Leo Wyatt who saved 3 people when a small plane crashed into his neighbors house, and the Young At Heart Choir. We told everyone we knew to look for us when the show aired but unfortunately, unless you knew where we were and what we were wearing...you couldn't see us at all. We sat all the way to the side right by Stryker. He is pretty dang cute so I wasn't complaining. Overall, it was a pretty fun experience. They wouldn't let us take pictures while we were on the lot so the pictures are limited. Here is the sign at check in where we stood in line and the other is a picture of Fai'ana in front of the Ellen Store. 
The next day was our day in Los Angeles to play tourists and see the musical Wicked. We did a little sight seeing and ended up on Hollywood Blvd. Typical tourists we took a double decker bus tour. It was pretty fun! We got to see a lot of things we wouldn't have had the chance to see or know what we were seeing if we just drove ourselves. The best time of the whole day was of course seeing Wicked. It was AMAZING!!! I am serious. If you ever have the chance to see this musical you should jump on it. It is such a clever story and the musical performances were unreal! I used to make fun of my friends for being obsessed with it but I find myself slowly becoming the same. And to top it all off, we were sitting two rows behind and about 10 seats over from Jay from the Biggest Loser. If any of you are reality tv junkies like I am, you know who I'm talking about. I tried to talk to him and get his picture but I had a hard time so this is the best that I could do. 
The next day we drove down to San Diego and went to Sea World. It was so nice because it was perfect weather and not crowded at all. We spent about 4 hours going to every exhibit and watching all of the water shows. I kinda felt like a little kid again. At the Shamu show, Fai'ana made us sit down in the soak zone. Everyone around us got soaked but we didn't get one drop on us. It was great! After our day at Sea World, we headed up the Pacific Coast Highway and headed back to our hotel. We were exhausted! 
Friday was the day we planned on just relaxing at the beach. Unfortunately, the weather did not have the same plans. We drove down the Pacific Coast Highway and just ended up at Redondo Beach and sat on a bench and just watched the ocean. We were hoping to wait it out so we could see the sunset but it got very cold, very fast so we called it an early night and headed back to our hotel to try and swim in the pool. Little did we know that the hotel pool was not heated. Yikes! Good thing they had a hottub! Here is a pic I took of Fai'ana looking at the ocean and then a little sailboat I was worried might get lost in the storm. 
It was such a fun trip and there are so many more pictures and stories that I could tell but this is already turning into a novel. So much for a nutshell huh? I didn't want to come home! I think being a responsible adult is overrated sometimes.
My friend Fai'ana and I had a trip planned to go see the musical Wicked in Los Angeles last October. Her father got really sick right before we were to leave so we decided to postpone the trip. Everyone was really great about refunding our money and the theater even said they would honor our tickets for a future show! Well, we are leaving the 14th of April for the trip again and this time we decided to see if we could get tickets to the Ellen Degeneres Show while we were there. Both of us have watched her website faithfully for the past 2 months waiting for our days to have tickets available. I even set the homepage on my laptop to her ticket request page just so I wouldn't miss them if they did come available! One night last week I got onto my computer and much to my surprise, our week was open! I filled out the request form, submitted it, and then crossed my fingers that we would get tickets to the show. Well, I waited and waited and then when I left work on Thursday I had a missed call on my cell phone from an unknown number. I got really excited hoping that it was Ellen. And guess what???? It was Ellen!! Ok, not Ellen herself but Lauren from the Ellen show asking if I had still wanted tickets to the show. Of course I did! So I called and left a message and then left myself a reminder to call again the next day. Well, I didn't have to call them back again because she called me. She said we had 2 guaranteed tickets to the taping on Tuesday April 15th. I am so dang excited! I keep telling Fai'ana that I hope they play the marshmallow game. And if they do, I hope she gets chosen to play. I think it would be awesome!
Well, it doesn't look as though I'm very good at this thing called blogging. I think about posting things all of the time but just never get around to doing it. That doesn't stop me from reading though. I've recently discovered the some friends from high school that have blogs. It's been fun reading all about where their lives have taken them. It's hard to believe that some of them have their own little families and are grown ups! So fun! I feel a little bit like a stalker though. I just read but never comment. Is that bad? And then I find my way to blogs of other people that I went to high school with and read about them. I guess I would like it if people commented on my blogs (if I ever had any) so I should do the same. I'll work on it.
Pretty much everyone that I know has a blog so I've decided that I should too. I'm not going to promise to post every day and that the posts will be interesting...but I'll do my best. Wish me luck!