Glee Live!!! in Concert

With the Glee phenomenon sweeping the nation and capturing my heart it was clear we had a one-way ticket to the concert with the original cast. We got Bailey and Aunt Karen on board to come with us and Bailey's friend Riley came along too. Riley, Bailey, Lucas and I had a lot of fun at the concert (The girls might have enjoyed themselves a bit more).  We made sure to sing along to all the songs, while Lucas naturally became the photographer of the "grand" event.  As I looked around the Gibson Amphitheatre, I saw the same "glee" on Lucas' face as many of the other fathers/husbands/boyfriends had.  Most of them probably didn't want to be caught dead in that place but there was a mutual understanding between them that they were being "supportive" by being dragged there.

Daughtry and Lifehouse Concert and Lucas' New Job

Fresh off of the Sugarland concert, I planned a Girls Night with some girls at work to go to the Daughtry and Lifehouse concert at the Nokia Theater.  That venue was one of the best indoor venues I have ever been to because of how acoustically sound it was.  We started off the night by grabbing dinner at Rock'N Fish where I had one of the best crabcake burgers I have ever had!

We entered the concert at the perfect time, minutes before Lifehouse came on stage.  Boy, did they start the night on a good note.  After Lifehouse played their setlist, everyone was waiting anxiously for the grand entrance of Daughtry.  The whole concert was completely overshadowed by the encore; the main singers from Lifehouse and Daughtry sang a duet mash-up of their most popular songs, You and Me and Home.  It was by far the highlight of the concert and made the whole audience wishing the concert wouldn't end.

Also on the same day, Lucas started his new job at American Golf.  We are so happy and excited for this change and with this new job.  Now we can't wait to learn how to golf.  If anyone has some pointers, please let us know!

Sugarland Concert = Best Concert Ever

We were off to Bakersfield, of all places, to see Sugarland in concert. Mahina had been talking about seeing them perform since they were on tour with and opening for Keith Urban. We finally managed to score some seats and hit the road for the long drive to the middle of no where. 

Once we made it, we immediately realized that we were about to be in the midst of a very rambunctious, beer guzzling crowd. But as soon as the concert started Sugarland took over and rocked the stage. They had incredible stage presence and were extremely enthusiastic throughout the whole show. There isn't a whole lot more to say about the show - Sugarland was incredible and put on a great show. It was nice to see an artist who spent a lot of time throughout and after the show signing fan memorabilia and gave one lucky fan a signed guitar. 

If you can check out the show, we highly recommend it!  We had such a great time at the concert, that we actually bought tickets to another one of their concerts in Los Angeles in July.  Stay tuned for that post!

Lucas' Class Lu`au

For the last 12 weeks, Lucas has been taking a beginner's course in the Hawaiian language which culminated in a class lu`au at the UC Irvine campus. We all got together to share in what we had learned as a class and celebrate over some great Hawaiian food and share in the culture together. 

Each student got a chance to share either a genealogy chant of their family, a hula dance or a song to the class. It was really fun to get to spend some face to face time with each of his classmates who he had otherwise known as screen names on his online class sessions. Randomly enough, and this just proves how small the world is, one of the other students, Haunani, taking a higher level Hawaiian class happened to know my mom when they were both in High School at Kamehameha. It was really fun to get to hear about their high school days.

On our way out, we got one last surprise from UC Irvine - a parking ticket. We were parked in the visitor parking lot, but apparently only some of the actual parking spots were for visitors. Naturally we weren't parked in one of these visitor parking spots, despite being in the visitor parking lot. Yes, California is that desperate for money that they'll do anything to issue tickets. This brings the count of parking tickets received to 3 by Lucas and 1 by Mahina in my car... Argh. 

Glee Premiere at The Grove!!!

Gleeks!

The addiction and phenomenon that has become Glee was not at all evident the night of the special premiere of the first episode of the second half of Season 1 at the Grove in Los Angeles... Ya right. When we got there at 5pm for the 7pm showing the line was already around the block and continuing to grow. KISS FM was playing host to the people in line as well as the premiere itself so luckily we had some entertainment while we all waited in line. The Glee Cheerleaders were working the line handing out hats, posters and water to everyone waiting.

After a short two-hour wait the line finally began to show signs of life and slowly started moving. We don't think that everyone made it into the special viewing area, but the fenced off area in front of the projection screen was standing room only as everyone got excited to see the premiere. Continuing to build the hype, KISS FM held a couple of Glee sing-off contests and dance contests giving away prizes and tickets to the Glee Concert before showing the episode. What we were really waiting for though was for the sun to set so that the projector screen wouldn't be washed out. Much to everyone's glee (no pun intended), most of the cast made an appearance at the premiere and said hello to the crowd and introduced the episode when it was time to get the show rolling. 

With the episode underway, the crowd went silent and stood transfixed on the screen as the episode was shown. At the end, they also previewed the next episode, Madonna, as everyone was walking out. When the night came to a close it had been fun and exciting to see the episode surrounded by a ton of fans and making out with special Glee water and a cast poster was great too!

Dinner with Ke`ala, Mac and Sarah!!!

Ke`ala was in Los Angeles for a couple of days with her boyfriend Pierre touring the city and seeing the sights which gave us all a chance to get together for dinner. We were joined by Sarah, Mac and her boyfriend, Joel, who came up from Long Beach. We all met up in Beverly Hills at Gyu-Kaku had a great time catching up on each others happenings while grilling our own food at the table. 

Having criss-crossed the globe on many adventures, Pierre and Ke`ala were slowing down for a couple of weeks to enjoy some time in Hawai`i with Ke`ala's family and relax around the island. Ke`ala and Pierre met in China while Ke`ala was teaching English and Pierre was attending university. It was great to finally meet Pierre and get to spend some time with Ke`ala catching up on our lives.

Mac and Joel made it up from Long Beach to join us all for dinner and it was great getting to see them again. Joel and I had taken up the duties of managing the grilling and were trying to keep up with the vanishing act the cooked food seemed to be playing.

Sarah had the stereotypical glow that comes with being well into the second half of her pregnancy and everyone was overjoyed to see her and see that she was doing well. The girls spent the majority of the night recalling great memories and telling stories about each other which was a lot of fun for all of us guys to hear. When they weren't trading stories, everyone was trying to guess what the sex of Sarah's baby was going to be. Sarah had made the great decision of not knowing what sex her baby was going to be until the birth (hint hint nudge nudge Mahina), so everyone had fun trying to guess and of course throw out names for the baby. It was sad to see everyone go as the night came to an end and everyone went on their way. But, it was a great chance to get to see everyone and spend some time together.

Gladstone's Brunch

Nema and Olivia were in town, and although they had a packed schedule we managed to meet up with them for Brunch this past weekend. Nema was craving a seafood, specifically lobster, brunch so we eventually ended up at Gladstone's. And by eventually, we mean an hour late because the LA Marathon decided to end its course right at the Santa Monica pier, making traffic on the 10 a nightmare. Leave it to Nema to head into Santa Monica as well and it was a disaster of epic proportions.

Meanwhile Mahina and I spent some time at the beach enjoying the ocean and relaxing; this also gave Mahina plenty of time to spew of comments about bicyclists hogging the road, valet attendants high-fiving each other and the general inept driving skills of Malibu's elite.

We all made it to Gladstone's where the four of us were also joined by Nema's cousin Payam and his girlfriend Maritza (Nema correct our spelling on this). We all settled into our booth and enjoyed a great seafood breakfast over watermelon mojitos and drinks. On a side note, Nema and Payam also managed to bring my phone back from the dead after Mahina broke it taking this picture of the beach, I'm glad to say it's alive and well again. It was a great meal and a laid back atmosphere at Gladstone's which made for a really nice brunch.

The Green and Anuhea Concert

Some of my old friends and classmates from Kamehameha had just gone on tour across the mainland and were coming into Los Angeles to play at The Mint. Naturally, Lucas and I made sure that we attended so that I could be with "my people" and he could "get culture."

The Green includes core members JP Kennedy, Caleb Keolanui, Zion Thompson and Ikaika Antone.  Now these boys were no ordinary "opening act," since all four guys sing and two guys can play two instruments.  Their first album, "The Green" hit #3 on the Billboard Reggae charts.  They could have definitely had a concert that only starred themselves, but with Anuhea and The Green teaming up, it was nothing short of a awesome treat.  They started off the concert and from the first strum, never let the energy die down.

Anuhea is in the midst of launching her amazing and I'm sure long solo career.  Already after her first album, she is nominated for five Na Hoku Hanohano Awards, which are like the Grammy's of Hawaiian and Local Music back in the islands.  Needless to say, she makes the whole island of Maui and the graduates of Kamehameha proud.

Thanks to Ikaika Sheehan, The Hawaiian Publicist and "The Guy that Has the Goods," we found out about the great concert and were able to pick up some gear while we were there.  Check out both of their websites that we linked for you for more information on their concert tour and their music.  You will truly not be disappointed!

Mahina's Birthday!!!

It was time to celebrate the joyous birth of Mahina again as she reached the last true milestone that comes with birthdays until the ripe young age of 65 and retirement come along. This year, our special day came a long in the middle of the week.

By virtue of that timing, what would ordinarily have been a birthDAY turned into a birthWEEK, which of course meant there was plenty of celebrating and the constant reminder that "hey, it's my birthday week!" We had a lot of fun though. Mahina finally picked up a dutch oven as part of her birthday gift from her Mom that she has been craving and has already put it to good use. We also started looking around for a beach cruiser that Mahina could take Duke bike riding with. To be clear though, Duke wouldn't be running alongside the beach cruiser, rather he'd be perched right inside a little basket going along for the ride. Sissy.

For her birthday dinner, we went to Benihana's in Beverly Hills and had a great meal. Our chef though wasn't as animated as most of the Chef's, but he made up for it with some great cooking. We had a great time and headed back home to celebrate with the dogs, who also enjoyed mom's birthday since they got to eat the leftover Benihana's for their dinner.  Tough life they live.

Valentine's Day

Ahh, Valentine's Day. Our first commercialized, over-the-top, excuse to go out to an expensive dinner and get dressed up...  Err, I digress. Our first Valentine's Day as a married couple. We had been debating where we should go for dinner, of course I had a couple of options already but we all know Mahina hates surprises and even when you try she usually guesses what's going to happen. So instead, we tried to decide on where to go together. We had been drawing a blank on anything that seemed truly fitting for the occasion until we got a letter from the Ayres Hotel. 

You might remember the Ayres Hotel is where we had our wedding reception. Some genius marketing person decided to send out invitations to everyone who celebrated a wedding at the Ayres and invite them to a special Valentine's Day dinner. Genius, I tell you. What better place, to quote the letter, "come enjoy Valentine's Day where it all began..." Enough said. We had our dinner reservation. 

February 14th, eight months and one day since we had gotten married, and we were back at the Ayres. Not surprisingly, there was a wedding reception just getting under way when we arrived. After we were seated we caught a peak of the Bride and Groom arriving at the Ayres and waiting in the lobby before making their grand entrance to get the party started. Ahh the memories. It was a quiet night at the Ayres otherwise, while eating at a hotel restaurant may not be the first option on many people's Valentine's Day itinerary, we were happy to see a handful of other couples back to celebrate their first V-Day at the Ayres.

Since this year's Valentine's Day happened to fall on a Sunday it left us with a whole day's worth of activities to celebrate with.  Did I also mention that because it was on a Sunday, I also lucked out and didn't have to buy overpriced flowers to be sent to Mahina's work and compete with the other husbands?  We all know that you women compete to see who gets the prettiest, biggest, and best flowers.  We decided to split the day into Mahina's plans and Lucas' plans - to be fair, of course. Mahina organized a great picnic in the park with the dogs and also managed to squeeze in an activity while we were there. With a quick stop at Michaels, we had managed to find two of those "craft in a box" designs which included the paint and everything to make our very own war ships. After a nice and relaxing lunch at the park, it was arts and crafts time. 

Naturally, arts and crafts quickly turned into a competition of who could build a better ship and who could paint it better. We were off, Mahina immediately referred to the directions while Lucas headed for the building blocks using the picture as his guide. In no time he had pulled away and was leading the building place. But shoddy materials slowed him down, allowing the ever persistent Mahina to catch up. It all came down to the paint job, and Lucas didn't stand a chance. Mahina easily pulled away on the painting, while keeping it neat and artistic, while Lucas struggled to throw paint on this boat and just get it covered. Hey, it's the thought that counts right?

Back at home, we traded presents before getting ready for dinner. Mahina came away with new Stila make-up she had been eyeing at the store and Lucas finally got a real set of collar-stays, no longer having to fiddle with the cheap plastic ones that came with his shirts. 

Once we were ready for dinner we headed over to the Ayres to cap off a great day. The food was great and we celebrated our first Valentine's Day married over steak, fish and champagne. Sadly, Valentine's day came to an end after dinner, but it was a great day filled with fun and comedy. 

We Moved... Yes, Again...

Yes, it's getting old... We're like nomads... George Clooney in Up in the Air... Gypsies traveling the back country...  No matter which way you dice it, we move a lot. But, at least this time we signed a one year lease. 

It all, unfortunately, started because the house we were renting went into foreclosure, so there was no option for us to renew our lease. It was a shame, the house was a great spot with an amazing kitchen. But, all is well that ends well. As the new hunt began we wanted to focus on finding a place with a yard for the dogs to hang out outside; but the problem we kept running into was that either the houses in our price range were complete dumps or any decent house was either too expensive or didn't allow dogs. So the house route was not coming easily, which only stressed us out as the time for us to move out kept creeping up.

Somewhere along the way the word townhouse popped onto our radar. There seemed to be a much more diverse and more available market for townhouses so off we went checking out at least a dozen of them. Then we found it - our dream townhouse. It was on Beloit Avenue, between Santa Moncia Blvd. and Olympic Blvd. Brand new re-model, hardwood floors, completely wired for internet and surround sound, great kitchen, THREE LEVELS, majestic... Pop...the sound of our bubble crashing all around us. This place was $2,400 a month. But the mahogany hardwood floors, wired ethernet, surround sound and the three levels... Nothing... Too expensive. It still hurts to think about. 

It was tough, but we had to move on and leave Beloit behind us. It didn't help that the other townhouses we were seeing were falling apart or didn't have wood floors or didn't have built in wiring...we were beginning to get desperate. About to leave for Hawaii for Christmas and be homeless two short weeks after that we started looking at any ad resembling a townhouse on Craigslist. Forget pictures, we'll drive by. What do you know - look hard enough and under enough rocks and sure enough we found a two-line Craigslist posting for a townhouse in Culver City/Palms. Something about new appliances and plenty of room. We call. 

As it would turn out, the place is brand-new construction, they're not even completely finished yet. Stainless steel brand new appliances, new everything and the rent, well the rent was in the "teen-hundereds" well below our previous low/mid two-thousand's rentals. Unheard of, was there a catch? No dogs, no parking, something? Nothing. It was perfect. We filled out the application and had a conditional agreement to take one of the units as soon as we got back from Hawaii. We would be the first tenants in the building and had the picking of any unit we wanted. That made going to Hawaii a lot less stressful and by the time we got back, we were ready to pick our new place. 

It was a good two or three weeks before anyone else moved into the building. We had once again rented a truck - this time a refrigerated truck because Ryder ran out of regular trucks - and bugged Elijah and Diana to help us out and managed to get everything moved in one afternoon. This time, we promised ourselves that we would unpack everything that first weekend and not have boxes all around us for the first three months. And so it was done. 

With this move came losing a garage for storage which meant we couldn't be pack-rats and have four storage bins of stuff. Part of the unpacking meant consolidating. And so four 54-gallon tubs turned into one, with the excess meeting the trash or the Goodwill donation bin. 

Who knows how long we'll stay at this place - knowing us we'll start itching to move next year, but do we really want to deal with moving around the holidays again?? Doubtful. Will we most likely be hiring movers the next time? Yes - we've done our share of moving. In the meantime we have really enjoyed our new townhouse and have lucked out with some great neighbors moving into our building. Looks like a fun year ahead in our new place!

New Years Eve

Ah the end of 2009, another decade past. In this decade we both graudated from high school and college and also got married - quite a busy decade.

We knew Nema and Olivia were coming into town, but as far as plans for New Years went we didn't have much until we got an invite from Jill to stop by her place for a catered dinner her house was putting together. New Years Eve is also when we signed the lease to our new townhouse, yes we are moving once again and yes it's a huge pain, but nonetheless we managed to find a place. With the day finally done and managing a long nap to battle the exhaustion from our red eye flight the night before we headed over to Jill's to get the night underway. Jill and her roommates had really gone all out on their holiday decorations and their place looked great. Lindsey put together the catered dinner from Maggiano's Little Italy, AMAZING Italian food.

After dinner it was of course time to hit the bars. The group decided to first head over to South and see where the night went from there. After we helped Jill and her roommates shuttle the other people to the bar we met up with Nema and Olivia at their friends house in the Valley. So by about 11:30pm we had made our way over to Nema's friend Bassan's house and were enjoying the last minutes of 2009. Before we knew it it was 2010. We all rang in 2010 with a drink and a toast and after calls to family wishing each other Happy New Year it was seriously getting time for us to crash. We made it back home a little bit later and enjoyed the first 8 or so hours of 2010 asleep.

Christmas in Hawai`i!!!

It had been 3 years since Mahina had returned to Hawai`i for Christmas, and our first Christmas married seemed like a great chance to break that streak. Oddly enough, the toughest part of the trip was leaving the dogs behind for their first holiday without us. We originally wanted to keep our trip back home a secret and surprise everyone, but since it was Christmas we realized this would be a difficult and potentially risky thing to do with presents being in one place and us in another...

So we spilled the beans. The first thing we had to do, beyond finding two seats next to each other in what ended up being a very full flight, was to put together our list of places to eat. All trips to Hawai`i involve plenty of time around the island and just as much time sampling the different eateries all across Oahu. Put together, our list seemed do-able. We landed in Hawai`i after a long flight with some decent turbulence. The weather was Hawai`i's fineset, mild and humid. After making our way down to baggage claim to meet up with Mahina's family we immediately proceeded to our first restaurant - Zippy's. I knew that for the next week I wouldn't be choosing much when it came to ordering off a menu, which was fine by me. Zippy's was no exception.

We spent Christmas Eve day visiting Brandi Jean and Jason and helping Kai wrap the last of his presents. The weather was great - way different from the chill of San Diego. Since Kai's truck had been sold the year before, so we all shared the Murano which was quite the experience for Mahina driving around in a large SUV - and her Mom's car no less! We were glad we had gotten a chance to see Brandi Jean and Jason before they left for Utah and we were really excited when we got to drive past their pile of dirt that will soon be the new house they are building. The Cumpstons' Christmas Eve tradition included going to mass, dinner at CPK, leaving cookies out for Santa and food/water for the reindeer on the roof. Yes, Santa comes to Hawai`i and yes he still visits us at our age.

Christmas morning was a lot of fun. Santa and the reindeers had of course visited, leaving behind cookie crumbs, bits of carrots and drool all over the roof and water bucket. We all gathered around the *cough* fake tree and started to open presents together. After a lot of good laughs and fun opening presents it was time for the annual Christmas lunch, BLTs. We all spent the rest of the day hanging out and enjoying Christmas, while Mahina's Dad cooked and we waited for Grandpa Ben and Uncle Harry to come over for Christmas Dinner. It was a great day, though the dogs said next time they are coming.

Mahina had seen/read somewhere about a Christmas tradition where everyone gets a set of matching pajamas and wears them together on Christmas morning. We didn't get the chance to wear them together on Christmas morning, but managed to take some photos together at dinner with Grandpa Ben.

Mahina had also fit in a couple of destinations on the island that we hadn't already seen on our last visit and of course we got plenty of shopping in, requiring an extra box to come back with us filled to the brim with stuff. We did our usual drive around the island seeing the sights and enjoying our time on the island. Although we didn't make it to a shrimp truck, again, this year - we'll make it at some point - we had a lot of fun stopping over at Matsumoto's Shave Ice, Pali look out and driving by Mauna`ala this year.

We also got to go through China Town which was a lot of fun. We randomly ran into the vendor that made the Leis and provided the loose flowers for our wedding which was really cool. Cindy's Lei Stand is a great spot for wedding flowers and worked out really well for us. While we were in China Town, we also found ourselves checking out jade bracelets for Mahina. After some comparison shopping and trying many of them on we settled on a bracelet.

We also got to meet up with Jody for lunch spend some time with Jessica, Sean and Seja - who is getting bigger by the minute by the way. It was nice to just relax and spend time with some of Mahina's old friends and catch-up on our lives.

Leaving Hawai`i is always tough and this time was no exception - plus trying to get all of our stuff back to LA didn't help. Of course, if you remember, the talk of the entire holiday period with how President Obama was in Hawai`i, everyone was talking about where he was, where he was going and hoping to see him. While we didn't quite see him, we did happen to pass by his motorcade on the way to the airport as he headed in the opposite direction back to Kailua. Pretty cool. We can't wait to get back to Hawai`i and visit again! It was great to spend Christmas in Hawai`i!

6 Month Anniversary and Christmas Tree

December 13... Ahh 6 months of marriage, how time has flown by. We woke up late this morning and decided that it was high time we got ourselves a Christmas tree and since it was our anniversary we decided to cook a nice dinner for ourselves in celebration. First stop though was to get us a tree!

We usually head for a Christmas tree store that is right on Washington and Centinela, but it was insanely muddy and wearing slippers we realized we were at the wrong Christmas tree lot. So we backtracked and ended up at Shawn's Christmas Tree lot where they had a huge collection of trees in all sizes. After a couple of minutes of looking around and sizing up the different trees we decided our 2-3ft Noble Fir tree.

Once pack home it was time to decorate. We brought out our box of ornaments and lights from the garage, sorry the Christmas lights are Philips brand, and started decorating. We had been worried about the dogs getting into the tree's water bowl and wanting to eat at the tree but they seemed content to leave it alone. Now that the tree was up it was time to start cooking!

Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving meant a nice long weekend off from work for both of us, so we spent it relaxing and doing a little shopping. This year we decided to take Duke & Harley down to San Diego with us for Thanksgiving with Lucas' family after making sure that we had tired them out so that they wouldn't be as hyper around everyone.

We made the drive down to San Diego Wednesday night...big mistake, traffic was insane and an hour and a half later we had only made it maybe half way when it would normally take just about two hours to get down there. Alas, it was Thanksgiving...the dogs had been getting restless anyways so we stopped over to let them walk around and stretch their legs. A little while later we were finally there.

It was time for Harley to meet Kasey, Uncle Dan & Aunt Karen's new dog. Duke had met Kasey a couple of weeks before and they had a lot of fun chasing each other around, but Harley is a lot bigger and she loves picking on Duke so we were a little worried considering Kasey is about half Duke's size. But, they got along great and would have a great time playing with each other.

The next morning, Thanksgiving day, we all went to the nearby lagoon and went for a walk/run with Duke, Harley and Kasey coming along too. Aidan and Julian wanted to take turns walking Duke while Harley went for a run with Will so we stayed back to walk with them. The boys had a lot of fun walking Duke and watching him explore all the bushes along the way. When they weren't walking Duke they each took turns sitting on Lucas' shoulders. It was a lot of fun and a nice start to the morning.

After lunch, we kept up with one of Mahina's Thankgiving traditions and went to see The Blindside at the theatres. The Blindside was a great movie that we both really enjoyed and look forward to buying on DVD. When we got back to the house, Jason, Aunt Karen't nephew and his girlfriend Peggy had arrived. We hadn't realized how close they both live to us, it'll be nice to know more couples around us.

Thanksgiving dinner was a feast as usual, everyone crowded around the center island as the food was being pulled out ready to dig in. By the end of the night everyone was tired and completely full and ready to relax. While Lucas was playing and beating Aidan in NCAA '10 (Hawai`i over Texas!) Mahina was downstairs with Jocelyn having fun while the dogs just roamed the house and played with the first person they saw. Harley was the perfect size for Julian to grab by the collar and walk around with so when she wasn't causing roucous around the house she could always be found right at Julian's side.

We spent the rest of the weekend taking advantages of the sales that were going on and also managed to get iPhone's too. With Nema in town, we took advantage of his iPhone knowledge and were bugging him with questions and recommendations for different apps, even taking him to the Apple store with us to pick out phone cases and screen protectors. All in all it was a great weekend and we had a lot of fun!

UCLA vs ASU Football

Our Saturday morning started out much like any other until Elijah called us up with extra tickets to the day's UCLA v ASU football game at the Rose Bowl. We quickly re-scheduled Harley's grooming appointment for the following Monday and got a quick work out in for Harley before heading over to Venice to pick up Elijah and his brother Zack.

We started the drive out to Pasadena telling stories and hearing of this year's MOB Days adventures. Soon enough we were in Pasadena and found ourselves driving around looking for a place to eat lunch. We headed for L&L but changed course and ate lunch at a teriyaki restaurant right next door.

Refueled we took off for the stadium. There were tons of people tail gating by the time we got there and the party was in full swing. We managed to find a parking spot close to an exit so getting out wouldn't be too much of a hassle. It was getting to the stadium and back that was going to be a hike. Elijah had 6 tickets  to the game and before we went in to the stadium he managed to unload the last 2 tickets. We were really fortunate to have some great seats to the game, we were 3 rows up from the visiting sideline at about the 37yd line so we had a great view of the field.

Once the game got going things got a lot more fun. ASU started with the ball and on their first drive their sophomore quarterback threw a Pick 6 to get the scoring going for UCLA. Things were looking to be a good night for the Bruins, but the Sun Devils hung in there and were running the ball up and down the field.

It was starting to get cold so Mahina and I made our way over to the UCLA gear booth and Mahina picked up a UCLA football shirt to layer up with. We weren't the only ones cold though, Elijah and Zack started to cuddle to keep each other warm and kept the lewd jokes flowing all game long.

One of the big reasons we all went to the game was to see Eddie Williams start at right guard. Eddie and Elijah played high school ball together, but Eddie had broken his foot a couple of weeks before so he was out for the season which sucked. We left the game with about 5 minutes to go in the 4th quarter and headed over to the UCLA campus to meet up with Eddie. Once we found the dorm, Eddie rolled over on his scooter and met us in the lobby. We hung out for a little bit and then headed over to grab some Diddy Reese cookies in Westwood. All in all it was a great day with the Bruins and we had a lot of fun.

Kappa Alpha Theta Alumni Brunch

If you ask either of us what the best and most rewarding decision we made while in college, besides Lucas’ decision to date me, it would be hands down joining our Sorority and Fraternity, Kappa Alpha Theta and Sigma Phi Epsilon. It might be stereotypical to say that these people are our sisters and brothers, but they truly are. My “family” of Alex, Dominique, Taylor, Hayley, Taylor and Julie are truly some of the most amazing girls I have met. So when I got the email that we would be having the Annual Theta Alumni Brunch, I quickly responded yes and was counting down the days till I got to hang out with my sisters.

When I arrived at the brunch I was greeted my Christie, the Undergraduate Alumni Chair, Monica, the VP of Public Relations, Sarah, the President and the Alumni Alicia, Sarah and Dominique, my little sis and bridesmaid. We quickly sat down to catch up on all things Theta; it was amazing to see these girls again. Partially through the Brunch we had a “little competition” and got quizzed by tables on Theta Trivia. Not by our surprise, the Alumni killed it and took home the prizes.

It is always ironic to me that we have the Annual Alumni Brunch in The Hill because that is where my pledge class had our Bid Day. It is always surreal to come back year after year to where it all started and think that it was only yesterday that I received my first, of many, Theta Shirts and met my sisters for life.

Griffith Observatory

It was a beautiful night in LA so after doing a little research we decided to head to the Griffith Observatory. Mahina had managed to find out that between 5:54 and 5:58pm the International Space Station would be flying overhead of the Observatory, and conditions permitting we would be able to see it fly by.

We decided to make a trip of it and stopped to get dinner in downtown. Originally, we were planning to stop at the Nickel Diner that we had see on "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" a Food Network Channel great, but they were closed so instead we ended up at this funky pizza shop the Pitfire Pizza Company. We lucked out and the food was great... except for the homemade watermelon lemonade, worst idea ever.

As we drove up the long and windy road to the Observatory it became apparent that parking was going to be an issue, but instead of getting greedy and going for that one spot at the top that's sure to materialize when only you get there we found a spot along the road just a little ways down the hill. As soon as we were out of the car we were awestruck by the beauty of the city down below. It was a little hazy so the visibility wasn't as clear as it could have been, but the panoramic views of the city were just incredible. Due to an unforeseen road closure, we arrived at the Observatory right after the International Space Station would have made its way overhead, which sucked, but the exhibits in the Observatory made up for it.

Once we were inside we immediately headed over to buy our tickets for the "Center of the Universe" movie exhibit. By the time we got the tickets we only had a little bit of time before the movie started so we started to explore the Observatory before heading outside. The Observatory does a great job of making the science of Astronomy understandable and hands-on. There were plenty of diagrams, samples and pictures to explain everything you wanted to know about Astronomy.

Hands down though, the Center of the Universe move was the highlight of our trip. The movie is shown on a screen that is basically the entire ceiling of a dome. It's a sight to behold itself. The movie was basically Astronomy 101 with some incredible animation and real space images as well. We both thought that the movie was incredibly eye-opening and fascinating. Had Lucas seen it 10 years earlier, accounting might not have ever happened...

Right in the center of the Observatory where you walk in hangs a huge pendulum that is there to prove that the Earth is in fact rotating on its axis. It's a difficult concept to explain, but the basically because the pendulum is constantly swinging and always in the same direction if you setup some pins say 90 degrees to its right they will eventually come to be knocked over by the pendulum because the earth's rotation brought the pins into the path of the pendulum. It's pretty cool.

Another exhibit the Observatory had was about the planets in our solar system, and yes they still had Pluto up there. At each planet there was a lot of information about its size, mass and gravity with a scale on the floor so you could see what your weight would be on each planet.

We spent the last couple of hours checking out the rest of the Observatory before making our way over to the gift shop where we managed to pick up two 50 year paperweight calendars that were pretty nifty.

National History Museum

One of Mahina's oldest friends Jessica was in LA for the weekend for her birthday with her husband Jeremy and their two friends Garrett and Meagan. They had all made the trip from Utah to celebrate Jessica's birthday with a trip to Disneyland. After a weekend of festivities, we were able to catch up with Jessica and everyone at the National History Museum.

After the museum the group still had the rest of the afternoon before their flight back home so we decided to catch a movie. When we got to the theater the only thing that looked remotely good was Law Abiding Citizen with Jamie Foxx and Gerald Butler. It was a great movie, but a little intense for Mahina and scared her good a couple of times.

Sadly it was time for Jessica and everyone to head to the airport to catch their flight back home.

Riley's Farms and Pumpkin Carving

For a couple of weeks in October, Mahina had been doing research on those farms that allow you to pick directly from the vine yourself. With Halloween right on the horizon, this weekend seemed like the perfect opportunity to head out and pick some pumpkins and whatever else grows on farms...

The farm Mahina found online was a great family-run operation that reminded us both a lot of Roloff Farms from the TLC show "Little People, Big World." To set the scene, imagine driving 80-90 miles due east from Santa Monica...where are you? The middle of nowhere, surrounded by mountains and truckers. Now, this farm had a pretty sizable chunk of land buried back in the depths of this valley they call the city of Yuchaipa. As soon as you pull up you're greeted by staffers in true western wardrobe guiding us to the parking lot. There are all kinds of stations set up all over the property -- we would stumble onto a few fun ones during our time at the farm.

But first things first, let's get us some pumpkins. The entire hillside was filled with rows of pumpkins that hadn't been picked from the ground yet. The hillside had a pretty generous slope to it so it was no walk in the park...must add to the allure of picking your own pumpkin and dissuade people from trying to steal their business idea. Oh well, after a short trek up the hillside to where there were less people and of course better pumpkins we began to make our way through the rows. We were of course looking for a pumpkin that met a very particular set of guidelines: it had to be a tall and well rounded pumpkin with no blemishes or unsightly areas; it had to have a nice "vine top" that hadn't been sawed off into a nub; and finally, it had to have smooth ridges for easy carving. A couple of dozen pumpkins later we had managed to narrow it down to 3 pumpkins that fit the part. Once we had finally chosen, our conscience kicked into high gear screaming at us for not getting this pumpkin any company. Apparently Riley's Farms was way ahead of us as they not only grew your traditional pumpkins but also a variety of exotic pumpkins of all kinds of shapes and sizes. Of course, this meant that we had to get an exotic pumpkin too (did we just get hustled?).

The key difference, and let this serve as a lesson to all you exotic pumpkin shoppers out there, is that the vines on these pumpkins have thorns. Mahina found out the hard way when a bunch of them plunged their way into her hand as she grabbed a neat looking pumpkin...we retaliated by refusing to by it. A couple of exotic pumpkins later we had it! With a pumpkin under each arm we were headed down the mountain...err grade.

After dropping those off at the car we did some more exploring around the farm. Along the way we found a station where you could make a gallon of your own apple cider. Intrigued, we headed over, paid the requisite fee and started picking apples to crush. The genius behind this station was that the apples they were having us pick from to make our cider were the discards from the orchards - the apples with holes, bruises, discolored or that were too small to be sold. After collecting a box full of these runt apples we headed over to make our cider. Of course, Riley's Farms were going old school and had the old machines setup to crush apples that required one person to spin the grinder while the other sent the apples down the chute to be crushed. Fifteen minutes later we had both taken turns spinning the wheel and keeping a steady flow of apples coming to be crushed we had managed to fill a bucket with crushed apples. This is where the real fun began. The only way to turn crushed apples into apple cider is to crush them again. As we turned the press down on the crushed apples the bottom of the bucket began to spew out apple cider. We had clearly made way more than a gallon, but that was fine by us. Now, some of you may be wondering, as we were, what the difference between apple cider and apple juice is. Well, as the helpful Riley's Farms employee explained apple juice is lacking one things...apples, it's all chemicals. So you learn something new everyday.

After walking around the gift shop for a few minutes we decided to head back home and get ready to carve the pumpkins. All in all Riley's Farms was a lot of fun and a great place to check out if you ever feel the urge to pick your own fruit