I just got back from my week and a half vacation spent in grand SLC, UT.  I am exhausted!

I arrived wednesday night (the 31st) so I could attend my sisters graduation the next day.  Em is the last of my siblings to graduate High School.  Her graduation was nice, and long!  There were something like 500 kids graduationg, and her last name is 'W', so it's not like we could hang around until her name was read and then take off.

The rest of the week was dedicated to wedding stuff.  My best friend Bri-Bri got hitched!  Her wedding was on the 10th, and when I finally saw her on the 2nd, her mom was still frantically sewing away at my Maid of Honor dress and Bri's sister's Matron of Honor dress.  So my days were spent running around getting this and looking for that.  I was lucky to be able to help with and attend the Bridal Shower!  I was afraid that I would miss out on that fun tradition.

Thursday and Friday were rainy and stormy, and everyone checked their different weather reports each hour in fear that it would rain wedding day.  However, Satruday morning dawned bright and clear.  The wedding and reception were to take place at Log Haven.  It was perfect up there!  It was green and the air was so fresh.  Bri, Jo (Bri's sister) and I arrived at 9:00 to start getting the bride ready.  The ceremony was set for 11:30 and the reception for 1:00.  Jo and I had the best time attending the bride.

The ceremony took place outside on a wooden pation overlooking the canyon.  A family tradition is to place a ring of flowers around where the couple will be wed.

The ceremony was perfect, and went off without a hitch.  There were bees and butterflies fluttering all over area.  After the ceremony and pictures, we all headed down to the reception.

Log Haven is a restaurant as well as serving as a "special events" place.  So, needless to say, the food for the reception was wonderful!  There was an herb roasted chicken, roasted potatoes, steamed and seasoned veggies, and a delicious salad with a basil pesto dressing.  Everyone there loved the food.

The day was perfect, the ceremony perfect, and the reception perfect.  The only bad thing to happen was the batteries died on my camera, so I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted.

I leave you with a few more:

One Love eveyone!

I have always loved birthdays, especially mine!  My family always made a somewhat big deal about birthdays.  The weekend after our b-day the whole family would go to that person’s house to open gifts and have lots of cake and ice cream.

The kids would have their gift list all planned out weeks before hand to be distributed among the family.  Each family had their favorite type of cake.  K & K's family would pick up a typical cake from the grocery store.  D & J's family liked home made cakes, and my family liked to get a Bakers cake.  Baker’s is a famous cake store in Salt Lake City.  But for me, the only cake was Angel food cake with strawberries and real whipped cream.  Mmmm, heaven!

Since moving out here to Cali, birthdays have not been a big deal.  I miss then being a big deal, but have no one out here to make a big deal about them.  There are no surprise gifts or events planned; all I get is a card with money.  Now I know some of you are saying, 'whoa, money? take it and run!,' but I really wish, just once, I would get a beautiful wrapped gift to open.

I was determined to have a great birthday this year.  I was going to go out to dinner at this great Chinese buffet, sleep in late on Saturday, and head over to Mama's Patio for a big stack of either pancakes or waffles, depending on my mood.  Nikstock was going to be on the 13th and 14th in Irvine, and I knew one of the ands playing and was going to get discount tickets and hang out there all weekend.

Well, here is how things really went.
I get home on Friday, and T calls wanting some help at work.  I head down there and we don't get back home till 9:00 and T mentions that Grandma wants the family to head up to Bakersfield for Mothers Day.  Well, there goes sleeping in, pancakes, and Nikstock, and the Dragon Buffet, where I wanted to go for dinner, was now closed.  T took me out to dinner at Outback Steakhouse (my # 2 choice for b-day dinners) and I had the Victoria Cut with sweet potatoes, French onion soup, and cheesecake with 3 types of sauce!  Grandma & Grandpa gave me a card, and Uncle S and his girlfriend invited me over for dinner soon.

Next year my b-day had better be very great.

My best friend in the whole wide world just announced to me that she is engaged!

I am so excited for her!  She will be having a June wedding, which works our perfect since my youngest sister is having a June graduation!  I will already be there!

When she said she was getting married, I was worried that I would have to miss another dear friends wedding.  Not this time!

More news to come!

Not much going on in my life right now.  The most exciting thing I did this weekend was clean the apartment.  Wahoo! I don't have evening class to go to right now (damn speeding ticket!) and every time I try to go to a knit night or something of the sorts, I end up working late and just wanting to go home.  Ahh, clean home!

I realized I had been referencing a certain speeding ticket, but that I had neglected to post anything about it.  Sorry for that.

I was running late one morning in October and decided to take my motorcycle to work that day.  Bike = 20 minutes to work, car = 45.  So I was cruising along in the car pool lane and came up on this guy on a Harley.  I stared to pass him when he notice that, Surprise!, I was a girl.  So he stared to speed up just enough to not let me pass.  Well, being a girl, I wasn’t going to stand for that.  I sped up just enough to start to pass him again.  This goes on a bit until we are doing about 87-88 mph.  We come across a fork in the road and he takes the one on the right and I the one on the left.  I start to slow down when I hear a siren behind me.  It’s the CHP!  He pulls me over and tells me to turn off my bike, remove my helmet, and step away from my bike over the car loudspeaker.  The CHiPpy gets out of his car and asks for my license, registration, and proof of insurance.  I tell him I have my license, my registration is at home (I had only gotten it from the DMV the day before) and my proof of insurance was still in the mail somewhere.  So he takes my license back to his car, and comes back a few minutes later with a ticket for going 91 in a 65 zone, and no registration or insurance.  He has me sign, and then tells me to “ride slow and have a nice day.”

The address on my license was an old one, so I figured I wouldn’t be getting anything about the ticket in the mail.  I pull up the Orange County Courts website and do some reading.  I find out there is a court house right around the corner from my work and decide to head over there to pay my fine.

When I get there they look at my ticket and tell me it is a mandatory court appearance.  Well that’s just great.  So I arrange for a night court session the middle of December.  I show up, get signed in, and wait for my name to be called.  It’s a looooong 3 hours.  I am finally called before the judge and he asks for proof of registration and insurance.  I show him those and he signs off on them on the ticket.  Then he looks at the speeding portion of my ticket.  He tells me to sit back down while he has my driving record pulled up.  I wait another 20 minutes until he finally has it.  He calls me back up and asks if I would like to take traffic school.  (Because I was going over 25 mph over the speed limit, technically I was ineligible for traffic school.)  I asked if I could and he says that since my driving record is clean, I can take traffic school.  Just when I think he is being nice, he then tacks a $100 penalty on my ticket costs bringing the grand total to $400.  ($250 for speeding, $100 penalty, and $50 for traffic school.)

So that is what all the “damn ticket” references are referring to.

Damn Ticket!

Anyway, I just finished up two, 4 hour sessions of traffic school yesterday.  I think I may have learend my lesson.

Because of my speeding ticket (damn ticket!) I couldn't afford to do much of anything this holiday.   Christmas found me at my grandparent's home in Bakersfield again this year.

T and I drove up on Friday evening.  Funny story about Friday.  My grandma D was giving a hat or a dress (can't remember which) to one of my little cousins and wanted me to make a scarf to match.  However she told this to me a week before x-mas.  That week found me knitting a pink scarf like mad every chance I got.  I finally finished it Thursday night, and intended to take it to work the next day and mail it during my lunch.  Well typical me, I forgot to take it to work.

So I planned to rush home during my lunch break and mail it off then.  12:00 hits and I am flying out the door.  I have one hour to get to my home (15 mi; 20 min), pick up the scarf (5 min), run to the post office and put together my package (2 mi; 15 min), and then rush back to work (15 mi, 20 min).

So that was how it was supposed to go.  I realized the lines at the Post Office would probably be long, so I did have some foresight to prepare the package before I left work so I could just stuff, seal, and go.

This is how the trip actually turned out: Run home (15 mi; 18 min!), pick up scarf (2 min), head off to post office but get stuck in very, very bad traffic on a surface street with road construction (2 mi, 25 min!), give up on ever making it to the post office and head back to work (15 mi, 20 min).

So I get back to work 5 minutes late, and kind of realize that the office is looking a little empty.  Thinking everyone has headed back to their offices since lunch was over, I didn't think too long about it and went to my desk and started working.  I was trying to figure out when I would have a few minutes to spare so I could try yet again to run to the post office when one of my co-workers pokes his head in the door.  He asked me if I knew how to activate the security system.  Now why would I need to know something like that?  He replied so that I could lock up when I leave.  Well, why won't the usual lock up people be here?  Because "They" gave us the rest off the day off!  "They" announced it during lunch!!!!

So I rushed back to work for no reason at all!

Anyway I ended up making it to the post office and getting the scarf sent off so g-ma D could get it the next day on x-mas eve.

Funny story about her getting the package.  I sent it express USPS for next day delivery and called g-ma D to let her know it was on its way.  G-ma D has a few last minute things to do on Saturday and headed out on some errands.  She got back home around 12:00, and goes inside to check her mail.  She knew the package was too big to fit through her mail-slot, so she checks the door first.  No package.  So then she checks the mail-slot.  No package.  So then she opens the door and goes outside to check the mail-slot.  Hmmm, a pink delivery notice slip. "We tired to deliver a package to you but you weren't home"…blah, blah, blah.  G-ma freaks out!  She had just missed the package!  She jumped into her car and started driving up and down the streets looking for the postman.  She finally found a truck and pulled up next to it waving the pink slip.  The post-guy looks at it and says she has the wrong truck, he doesn't deliver to her house.  He tells her to try 9^th through 5^th between A and L street.  So g-ma starts looking again.  She finally goes out of the "grid" and heads down to 4^th when she spots another post truck.  She doesn't want to accidentally approach the same postman, so she waits and watches him as he delivers to a few houses.  Convinced it's not the same guy, she jumps out of her car and runs up to him with the pink slip.  Yes he tried to deliver that package! and he has it right here in his truck!  Yeah g-ma!

So x-mas ended up happy for everyone.  I made off with some books, a knitting-pattern-a-day calendar from g-ma D, a beautiful silver bracelet from my nana, some g-strings from uncle D (thankfully it turned out his wife, aunt S, bought those) and a gorgeous purse and perfume from dad and mom.

Happy New Year!

T-day was spent and Grandma's and Grandpa's house this year.  While I was looking forward to seeing family, I was kind of hoping for a quite T-day dinner like last years.  Oh, Well.

Thursday morning found Uncle T and I at a gas station in Tustin waiting for Uncle S to arrive.  Oh yeah, I haven't told anyone about the great news!  I bought a new bike!

**Great News: Uncle S had bought a Honda Shadow ACE Deluxe in 1998.  Since then it had been ridden a grand total of 3600 miles.  So two weeks ago, Uncle S decides to get a new bike, a gorgeous 2006 Harley Roadking in a metallic blue.  Well this meant that suddenly the poor Honda was no longer the favored child and must be dealt with in the typically way, selling it (or them) off.

So I volunteered to love and care for the abandoned Honda (name still pending… any ideas?) and went about getting rid of my own cherished child, er um... bike.

I bought a listing in CycleTrader and shelled out $95.00 for it.  I also thought that I should take advantage of any online listings that I could think of.  So I posted on Craig's List, MySpace, and Tribe.  Two days later I had a reply to my craigslist listing.  (I had had some replies on MySpace, but they were the typical scam emails.)  This guy wanted to meet up Saturday to check out the bike.  No questions, just if the bike was still available and what time we could meet.  I suggested 12:30 and he agreeded.  So Saturday morning found me awake bright an early to detail the bike before the guy (Mark) came.  I scrubbed, polished, waxed, scraped, and shined Ms. Rhonda Alida (my bikes name) till she hurt to look at. It took almost 4 hours!  Mark arrived about ½ hour after I had finished.  He looked over the bike, asked why I was selling it, and then asked how much I wanted for it.  I told him, and he agreed!  No arguing or bargaining, just sure, sounds good.  I  pulled out the title and bill of sale and Rhonda was loaded up in his truck 10 minutes later and gone forever.

*sniff*

As soon as Mark and Rhonda were out of site I ran inside to call Uncle S about picking up the Honda.  (I needed something to replace the empty feeling.)  Uncle T road me over to S's house and I had my new bike within 3 hours of losing the old one. **

So since I had a new(er) bike, and since Uncle S had his brand new Harley, and since Uncle T already had his VTX, we decided to ride up to G & G's for T-day to break in and get use to our toys.  We arrived just in time to start snacking down on appetizers while we waited for the rest of the dinner guests to arrive.  Dinner was started promptly at 5:00, and included: Turkey (roasted in Grandpa's new turkey roaster), stuffing with, stuffing without, 10 lbs of mashed potatoes (of which there were only 2 cups left by the end of dinner) cold broccoli salad, regular salad, cranberry sauce and jello salad.  Call me weird, but my favorite combination is mashed potatoes, turkey, and red jello salad with sour cream.  Yummieee!

The rest of the weekend was uneventful.  I knitted a sock for my brother and finished off a really bad book that I felt obligated to finish because I had started it.  I arrived home on Sunday afternoon sore (damn short couches!), cold (it was only 45* coming home), and road weary.

Lesson of the trip: always find room to pack your chaps because you WILL need them.

I just got back from my Brother’s farewell in UT.  My brother is Mormon and is serving his 2-year mission in the Denmark/Icelandic region.  He will be learning to speak Icelandic. 

I am going to really miss him.  He has started to mature and has become nicer and more caring of others.  He still has a way to go on his respect issues toward Dad and Mom, but I don’t see that happening till he has spent some time away from them.

There is not a whole lot you can fit into a visit of one weekend, but I was there for my family anyway.  I did get to see Brianna.  If there is one thing (besides my family) that I really miss about Utah, it’s Bri-Bri.  Bri was into astrology in high school.  She determined that we were meant to be friends because we are almost exactly 6 months apart.  This makes us almost exact zodiac opposites and opposites attract, so we were meant to meet and be friends.

On Sunday my whole family got together at my parents house.  Anytime there is a special church-involved event, it is written (somewhere) that the family is to attend the church meeting in which the special thing will happen, and then they are to convene at the nearest domicile to eat.

So they announced in church that my brother was going on his mission, and then he gave a talk.  And then it was time for food!  I think there was close to 50 people there.  I was so glad I could see everybody.  Last time I was in SLC, I wasn’t able to see anyone.  All of my cousins have gotten so big!  I can’t believe it!