Dateline: Disneyland

Hello everyone! Here's a short update from Disneyland. We are having a great time. We got into Anaheim on Wednesday night and checked into our hotel. Thursday we did Disneyland all day (except for a break in the afternoon to give Kyle a nap.) Today we are taking it easy. We just finished breakfast at Denny's, and now we're heading up to the L.A. area to visit some of Jeff's cousins. Tonight we might get a movie. Tomorrow is all Disneyland and the company lunch. Hooray! It's going to be very exciting. I'll try to post some pictures later.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Times are hard in the LV

Hello, my dear readers. I am writing to advise everyone out there to BE CAREFUL and lock up all your valuables. One sad by-product of a downturn in the economy is the rise in crime, especially theft and burglary, particularly now that the holidays are approaching:

Yesterday afternoon, in an attempt to get a head start on my Disneyland trip, I came home from a deposition and parked my truck in the driveway while I loaded in Kyle's stroller, extra diapers, etc. in the back of the truck This was about 4:30 pm. Kyle was inside taking a short nap. I went inside and left the truck unlocked because I was going to be leaving in 15 minutes for a 5:00 pm hair appointment. I got Kyle up, fed him some dinner, and when it was time to leave, I loaded him and his diaper bag into his car seat. I then opened my door and noticed that the center console lid was up. "That's strange," I thought. "I don't remember leaving that lid up, or even opening up the console today." I then noticed napkins, papers, and other detritus strewn across the front seat, and my old Treo phone, the one with the inoperable battery, missing from the cupholder. I looked in the center console and the old black Coach purse that I had left in the console was gone as well. Someone had obviously come along during the 15-20 minutes that I was inside, got into my vehicle, and just grabbed whatever they saw that they wanted. Luckily, my new real iPhone and my real purse (that contains my wallet and real valuables) was inside my house and unscathed. I bet that jerk was disappointed when he found out all he got was a broken, 3 year old phone with a burned-out battery and a battered Coach bag with nothing but business cards, pens, and lip gloss in it.

In any event, I got lucky, but the moral of the story is in these times, NEVER leave your car unlocked, not even for a minute, not even in your driveway, even if you live in a good area. And NEVER leave valuables in your car. There are too many drug fiends, thieves, and other general losers out there that want to steal your stuff!

8's

I was tagged by Kyle's Aunt Julie again. This time, the subject is 8's:

8 favorite TV Shows: (in no particular order)

1. Homicide: Life on the Street (best show in the history of television, ever.)
2. Magnum P.I. (from back in the day)
3. Grey's Anatomy (when I have time, which is never.)
4. Monday Night Football (does that count as a show?)
5. Anything that Jeff tivo's for me (like 30 Rock and The Office)
6. The Wire (I'm hoping to get the series for Christmas, hint, hint!)
7. Reno 911 (I know, so embarrassing!)
8. Gotta be a tie between Matt Houston (another 80s detective show, go figure) and any lawyer show from the 80s or 90s (since heaven knows I get enough lawyering in now that I don't need to watch any shows about it! Haha!)

8 Favorite Restaurants:

1. McDonald's (so embarrassing!)
2. Ray's Boathouse (Seattle)
3. Buffalo Wild Wings
4. Bonito Michoacan
5. Roadrunner
6. Katie Downs in Tacoma (miss those law school days so much!!)
7. Foundation Room at Mandalay Bay
8. Dos Serranos (used to be at 5400 S and Redwood Road in Taylorsville but they tore it down and built a Wal-Mart!)

8 Things I Did Today:

1. Took a police officer's deposition
2. Wrote a motion for Kevin
3. Wrote a letter to another attorney
4. Met with a client
5. Defended a client deposition
6. Took Kyle grocery shopping
7. Got my car washed at Terrible's
8. Went to dinner with Darla at Roadrunner

8 Things I look forward to:

1. Disneyland (in two days!)
2. For this election to be over!
3. Thanksgiving
4. Christmas/my birthday
5. The January cruise
6. When Kyle starts talking in real sentences
7. Passing the Utah bar exam
8. Visiting the beach at Ocean City, Maryland next summer

Tag others: Heidi, Staci

Pumpkin Party

On Sunday afternoon, our friends Asa and Kristol threw a Pumpkin Party. This was an opportunity for their family and friends to come together and carve pumpkins, eat fall food, and drink root beer. (Kyle got milk instead of root beer.) Here, Asa and Kyle took a break from the pumpkins to play Flying Baby in the backyard:


Kristol studies the directions for her pumpkin kit:

Here's the Baby Monster and I just enjoying the beautiful fall weather. It is so nice to be outside this time of year.

Only two more days to Disneyland! We're so excited! I went shopping for all our fun Road Trip junk food this afternoon, and tonight after dinner I'm going to confirm the park's hours and our hotel reservation. I think we are going to have a great time! :)

Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday we took Kyle to the pumpkin patch dressed in his monkey Halloween costume. He looked so dang cute!!! We took tons of pictures. These are the ones that turned out the best:

Kyle with my parents:

My dad kept giving him a pumpkin to hold, and he kept throwing it on the ground! So funny!


I don't know what he was going after here:

Me and my little buddy!

Happy Sunday, everyone! :)

Corn Maze at Thanksgiving Point

I'm still catching up the blog from last weekend. Here are some cute pictures from last Saturday's trip to the corn maze at Thanksgiving Point. Kyle stayed in Las Vegas with his dad, but Jeff and I still had a good time.

Here's a picture of the south part of the corn maze from a tower. Check out those mountains in the background! It was a beautiful day, about 68 degrees and sunny...just perfect for a day of autumn adventures.

There was a "Chicken Show" next the corn maze. What is a chicken show, you might ask? Basically, someone had taken a miniature barn and put some cages in front of it. Inside the cages were stuffed, animated chickens. This is the "stage" for the chicken show. In front of the barn were hay bales for the kids to sit on. Next to the barn was a button that the kids could press. When the button was pressed, the chickens would "fly" up out of their cages, sing, dance, and tell "corny" jokes. (Get it?) I can't wait to take Kyle to this next year when he gets a little bit older.


Here we are inside the corn maze. It was very relaxing just to walk through the rows of corn for an hour, no phones, no emails, etc.


Here is a pumpkin tower next to the corn maze. It was at least 40 feet tall, and had all kinds of carved pumpkins.

Have a great weekend everyone! Kyle's grandparents are here, and we're off to the Pumpkin Patch as soon as Kyle wakes up from his nap.

Real Salt Lake soccer game

Last weekend, Jeff and I went to the Real Salt Lake soccer game at their new stadium in Sandy. It was a lot of fun. RSL won the game too, 3-1. Here is the stadium before the game started:

Here we are. We were so excited to go to the second game in the new stadium:

Much to my surprise and delight, the entire crowd joined together to do "The Wave" toward the end of the game. As you may be aware, I love "The Wave" and look forward to doing "The Wave" at each sporting event that I attend. Jeff is so funny. He is just like my dad in that they both refuse to do "The Wave" under pretty much circumstance whatsoever. They are "Wave Naysayers." You can't see in this picture very well, but here's the east side of the stadium as "The Wave" approached our section.

I also received my bar review books yesterday, and Kyle's police car was delivered to Jeff's house in Utah. So, now I'll have to buy something else online to track its shipment.

In other excellent news, it's almost Friday. Yay! Kyle's Grammy and Grandad will be here tomorrow afternoon. We have so many fun activities planned for this weekend. We are going to take Kyle to the pumpkin patch, to Costco, to Target to get a new big-boy car seat, and to dinner. We are also planning to watch the Ohio State-Penn State football game, and to attend the annual church Chili Cookoff and Trunk or Treat. I will be sure to take lots of pictures and post them later. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Tracking Packages

I'm so excited for the two shipments that I'm expecting this week. Both of them were originally scheduled for delivery tomorrow. The first is Kyle's police car, which is being shipped Fed Ex ground. It's actually being delivered to Jeff's house since we won't be in the LV for Christmas. I just tracked the package using the confirmation number, and its status is "On Fed Ex vehicle for delivery." So, we will get it early. The second shipment is my bar exam study books. That's being shipped UPS ground. I tracked it this morning and it was in Commerce City, Colorado. Then, I just tracked it now and it has moved to Salt Lake City. That's scheduled for delivery tomorrow.

I know I have a problem when it comes to buying things online, but I just can't resist the high that I get from entering tracking numbers online and seeing where my packages are!!!

Kyle and Kitty

Here's a picture that I snapped of Kyle and his new sweatshirt. I got it purely by luck...both Kyle and Kitty are fast movers!

Other than that, I'm just catching up from being gone this weekend, with laundry, chores, etc. and looking forward to MNF (as always). Have a great week, everyone!

Redskins fans

I left my camera up in SLC two weeks ago, and I just brought it back tonight. Here's a cute pic of Jeff and Kyle last Sunday as we got ready to go to breakfast. As you can tell, these two were cheering for the Redskins:

This weekend, we had such a super-fun and action-packed good time. It was so fun. Friday night we went to La Frontera in West Valley City for dinner. Saturday we went shopping at the District in South Jordan and to lunch at the Red Robin. Then, we picked out pumpkins at the pumpkin patch and did the corn maze at Thanksgiving Point. Saturday night we went to the Real Salt Lake soccer game at their new stadium. It was lots of fun! Today we met my friend Sean and his girlfriend Danielle with their new baby, Bridger, for breakfast. He is such a cute and tiny baby! It's hard for me to remember that Kyle was that small (and even smaller) when he was born.

Lastly, Jeff's mom sent Kyle an adorable sweatshirt. I am going to put it on him when he wakes up and take a picture. It is so cute. It says, "Don't Scare Me -- I Poop Easily." Haha!

One Word

I got this "tag" off of Kyle's Aunt Julie's blog. You're supposed to answer every question with just one word:

1. Where is your cell phone? Desk
2. Where is your significant other? Utah
3. Your hair? Blonde
4. Your mother? Caring
5. You father? Funny
6. Your favorite thing? Beach
7. Your dream last night? Courtroom
8. Your dream/goal? Togetherness
9. The room you're in? Office
10. Your hobby? Scrapbooking
11. Your fear? Failure
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Partner
13. Where were you last night? Home
14. What you're not? Afraid
15. One of your wish list items? Perfume
16. Where you grew up? Puyallup
17. The last thing you did? Email
18. What you're wearing? Boots
19. Your TV? Football
20. Your pet? Dominique
21. Your computer? Slow
22. What do you think of tags like this? Fun
23. Your mood? Content
24. Missing someone? Yes
25. Where would you rather be? Airport
26. Something you're not wearing right now? Coat
27. Favorite store? Costco
28. Your summer? Hot!
29. Love someone? Kyle
30. Favorite color? Pink
31. The last time you laughed? Meeting
32. Who will participate? Staci

Kyle's Police Car

Shhhhhhhh! Don't tell Kyle, but he's getting a little ride-on police car for Christmas. I ordered it from a store called Meijer. I guess they're located in the Midwest. I looked everywhere online for this thing. Amazon.com was out of stock, and so was Toys R Us. However, Meijer had it in stock and even on sale. (In this economy, we looooooove sales! Haha!) So anyway, I figured I'd lock in the sale price, so I ordered it on Wednesday. It shipped today via Fed Ex ground from Richfield, Ohio, so now I have something to track online. Yay! Here's a picture of it. I hope he likes it!

Kyle goes to the zoo

Kyle and his dad went to Seattle last weekend and visited my mom and dad. Kyle got to go to a zoo for the first time. Here are some cute pictures:

My mom said that Kyle paid close attention to the animals and that he was very good when he came to visit. What a cutie!

Also, read below for this week's poll. :)

Cruisewear...Formalwear advice needed!

Hi everyone. I need your opinions. I'm going on a cruise on January 25 and I want your help. There are two formal nights on our cruise, and J's getting a tux! That means that I have to step it up, and try to look dazzling, while also looking age-appropriate (will have just turned twenty-fifteen, eeeek!) Luckily, the all-stress, no-food diet has resulted in an 8 pound loss since June 30, and I'm squarely in the 120s, so we're loving that...and if the Dow and the LV housing market continue to tank, I could be down from a size 4 and back into a size 0 again before too long, so let's focus on what's positive about our dwindling economy, and not on what's negative, okay? Haha! Okay. End of satire, beginning of seriousness.

Please choose TWO of the following that you think most suit T for formal night on a Holland America Western Caribbean cruise:

Option 1:


Option 2 (far right):

Option 3 (on the right):

Option 4 (far right):

Option 5 (pink):

Option 6 (no laughing allowed!):

All right, vote away! (On the top right.) Thanks!

Home alone!

Rick had some work come up in the Northwest, so he took Kyle up to visit my mom and dad. It's been a long time since I've spent a weekend at home by myself without Kyle...I think the 4th of July weekend was the last time. The house seems so quiet! It's hard to remember that it used to be this quiet all the time. I used the time to catch up on some housework and also made a few scrapbook pages yesterday. Today is Kevin's wedding up at The Grove. I'm looking forward to it. I think it will be lots of fun.

Here's a picture from last weekend. We went through the drive-through at Fazoli's for dinner on Friday night. Kyle loves any kind of pasta. Here, he is eating spaghetti as fast as Jeff can feed it to him, haha:

Have a great Sunday, everyone. Wish me luck in Fantasy Football! :)

Jeff is the best! :)

Nothing makes a bad week better like flowers. Check these out...Jeff even picked out the pink ones because he knows it's my favorite color. He always seems to know exactly what I need, even when he's 400 miles away. He's the best. Cool boyfriends are awesome! Thanks, baby! :)



So, now let's focus on what's positive and not on what's negative. (I think that's my mantra.) First, I won the work football pool last week, and now I'm in the lead and ahead of 25 people. Yay! Also, today I'm wearing jeans, a pink zip-front sweatshirt, and my pink Redskins ballcap, and I've already had two people today tell me I look cute, and that I match my flowers. Double yay! And speaking of the Redskins, they will soundly trounce the Rams on Sunday. Triple yay! Okay! I'm psyched! I'm ready to go tackle Friday! :)

Frequent Flyer

Hey, everyone! Happy Monday. Kyle and I had a super-fun time in Salt Lake City this past weekend. I'll have to write more about it later. We are glad that the busy summer travel season is over, because this means more empty seats on flights. In fact, the plane had empty seats both ways, and Kyle got to have his own seat both coming and going. Here's a picture of my favorite frequent flyer just before takeoff Friday afternoon in Las Vegas:






Also, check this out...on the way back last night, the flight attendant came around to take the drink orders. The guy in front of me got a Diet Coke. She then asked me what I wanted, and I asked for a Sprite (watching my caffeine intake after 4pm). So did the guy in the window seat. Kyle, in the middle seat, then stood up, and I swear, I am not making this up, opened his mouth and said, "Diet Coke." I mean, in Kyle-speak it sounded like "Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Kooooooooooooooooooe," but I clearly understood what he meant. However, at 14 months, he's a little young to take after his mother that way. He'll have to stick with whole milk and Enfamil Next-Stage formula....for now.

Mid-Week Update

Hey everyone, and Happy Wednesday. The workweek is half over, yippee! I had my doctor appointment this morning and got recommended to do PT on my knee. I know, one more thing to cram into my schedule, right? I am supposed to go two to three time a week for six weeks and see if it helps. If not, they are going to send me for an MRI and possible arthroscopic surgery. Luckily, my knee looked good on the x-ray in terms of not having any bone spurs or arthritis. It's the cartilage that is all jacked up...along with what could be a small tear in the meniscus.

Also, my article supposedly got published today, but I haven't seen it yet. The magazines are supposed to be delivered tomorrow.

My check for the application fee for the bar exam ($625!!!!) got cashed. All systems go!

I'm looking forward to going to Utah this weekend. (Miss ya J!!!) One of my friends from the law firm is going to Utah tomorrow and also gets to go to the Oregon State/Utah football game tomorrow night. So lucky! I wish I could go...but I gotta crank out the BH's (billable hours) to make up for my sorry showing in September, haha. We gotta have a good October and finish strong in time for Disneyland!