5 days and counting...

I was sitting behind him when this picture was taken in 2006.I'm currently working on my "I heart Neil" t-shirt to wear to the concert. I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty sweet.

Neil Diamond must be pretty excited to see me in 5 days!!

Disneyland Day

My mom convinced my Grandma to come visit for a few days so I took a vacation day and spent it with them at Disneyland.

I can't remember the last time I spent the whole day there, but we had so much fun. We got there at 9:45 (just before California Adventure Opened) and got in line early for the new ToyStory Mania ride. We rode ToyStory Mania (oh my goodness... cutest ride EVER!), Soaring Over California, went to Turtle Talk and saw Aladdin (all before lunch!). We then headed over to Disneyland for lunch and got seats to watch Billy Hill and the Hillbillies (my mom's favorite show). I've seen this show tons of times, usually begrudgingly (same songs, same lame jokes, and I guess the origional guy (who was really funny) doesn't work there anymore... ). Everytime I go with my mom, I hope and pray that they do my favorite part, where they play each other's instruments, but they haven't done it in YEARS... Well, THEY DID IT! And it was AWESOME!


It totally made an already wonderful day even more wonderful!
After Billy Hill we rode Pirates of the Caribbean, the Jungle Cruise and the Casey Junior train (The short but ridiculously slow moving line was NOT worth the wait, but it was still super cute) I took a few pictures that looked like I was in a helicopter...

We then met Brent for dinner at Storyteller's Cafe (let me just say that I HATE it when places change their menu...). I orderd the Pirate Punch (Minute Maid light raspberry lemonade) with a light up Tinker Bell and color changing straw. I got laughed at (twice) by the waiter who served it to me.

It was such a fun day- I was so blessed to get to spend a whole day with my mom and grandma just having fun and laughing and talking.

mmm...

'nuff said!

so fun... even if it does look like Jess made me cry...

*notice that i actually ranked in the top 100 of the day!!! so exciting!

My Mom

On Sunday morning I went over to my parent's house to help out and organize some of my Mom's cupboards (one of my Operation: Raise $$ for Taxes jobs that has come up)
So as I was figuring out which of the Jell-o molds to keep from my grandma's 60's Tupperware collection, my mom says to me "Amber, I would have let you borrow my DVD player"
huh?
"uh... what are you talking about?"
"You said you couldn't watch a DVD on your TV because it wasn't working."
"uh... what?"
"Amber. I read your blog."
I'm so glad Amy (my cousin) was standing there to witness this because I NEVER thought I would hear these words come out of my mothers mouth.

So Ladies, and Gentelman (all 9 of you) I would like to welcome to my blog my newest reader: My MOM!!!

Mom: this now officially makes you cool :) Love you!

Disneyland Part 2

He DOES exist...

Disneyland Part 1

One of my favorite things is to go to Disneyland. Brent is an especially fun Disneyland companion (except for the fact that he doesn't like rides... he's getting better, though)
One of our favorite rides is the train- it takes you all around the park. It's nice, especially when I had mono but didn't know I had mono and would be totally exhausted for no reason- sitting down for 20 minutes made me feel a whole lot better. One of the last times we rode the train, we sat behind two ladies who hadn't been to Disneyland in over 20 years and were having dinner at Club 33 (and clearly had NO IDEA what a big deal that was... Brent and I made sure they knew that that was a big deal).
They were discussing where to go until dinner time and what to do afterwards and didn't know where anything was, so I offered them my map and we got to talking about how different Disneyland is now and out of nowhere comes Edward. Edward was working on the train that day and within 30 seconds not only did he manage to totally interject himself into our conversation by telling the ladies what they should and shouldn't do, but he also managed to shatter my dreams of watching my children in the Jedi Training Academy... he heard that it was going away in the next 3 years (I bet he made that number up)... anyways- he talked our ears off for the rest of our train ride.
When we got off the train I remember saying to Brent "Was that guy for real??"
Yes. He was.
We saw him again a few weeks later, and I talked Brent into taking a picture of me with him in the background so that I could blog about it, and again, he couldn't help but interject himself into our business.

This picture so perfectly captures his personality.
Here's Edward elfed.
He's a sweet guy, and he gave me a great picture-story to tell.

Juno

I can't wait to see this movie...

"Juno has an implicit pro-life sensibility: Life is life, and deserves to be nurtured, even -- if not especially -- when everything around it is broken."

So what do you think, homeskillet? Wanna go?

Did you hear the big news?

I just found out that I have readers in SEVEN other countries!
So exciting!

Dear Jessica,

Ever since you blogged about eating lunch at Trader Joe's, I've been thinking about it. In fact, I think about it every day at lunchtime and think "I wish I knew how to get to Trader Joe's from here."
Well, today I went.
And it was every bit as glorious as you'd described it.
So thank you, my dear Jessica, for a wonderful recommendation!
Love,
me