Today.

My Orange County Bubble...

Ok, so apparently I live in a bubble.  Well, sort of.

A couple weekends ago, I went on a date to the L.A. Fair.  Now, growing up in southern California, you'd think I'd have been to this fair.  After all, it's not even an hour away.  Nope!  I've never been.  I've stayed in my Orange County bubble most of my life and haven't ventured out to the 909/951 often enough!  (Oh yeah.  Did I mention the L.A. Fair is located in the Inland Empire, which, by the way, isn't even part of Los Angeles??  I know, right?)

 Anyway, we met at my house then drove to the fairgrounds.  We parked and walked to the front gate (after taking a picture or two) and the fun began!  It was a blast!  I had no idea how big this place actually was!  It puts the Orange County Fair to shame!  It's probably at least 4 times the size!

(If you look closely, you can see a couple stuffed animals hitching a ride!)

We started off with the animals (of course) and we felt so bad for them.  It was so hot and there were so many people there it was kind of ridiculous.  Some of the animals were even swaying, almost panting in the heat.  It made us sad, even though it was really neat to see them.  We saw cows, horses of all sizes, sheep, goats, piggies and more!

After the animals we ventured over to the little arena where they had some cowboy and cowgirl rangers. They had a Ranger competition where they rode their horses and shot balloons that sat on poles.  It was pretty cool!  That's when I realized how much I wanted a horse, although I have no idea how to care for a horse...  There were even little girls who used their hands as guns and pretended to shoot the balloons.  Too cute!

(This gal had on my favorite outfit!)

After the Ranger fun, we went to The Body Exhibit.  I actually went to this same exhibit in Hawaii, but Kevin hadn't.  He was super excited, being a science teacher and all.  The whole entire exhibit is made up of real cadavers and is just incredible.  As soon as you enter, you can feel the astonishment from everyone in attendance.  The human body truly is amazing!  They broke everything down into sections, from bones, to muscles, to cardiovascular, to reproduction, etc.  My favorite part of the whole exhibit was the Arterial exhibit where they had only the arteries of the entire body displayed.  Simply amazing!  I highly recommend this exhibit to anyone who hasn't seen it!

Next Kevin bought me dinner.  You know, it's kind of hard to be gluten free at a fair, but somehow we managed to find a place for me to eat!  TriTip.  Done!  Well, I ate Kevin's fries too, but what can you do?  We had some good conversations about the exhibit we'd just seen and how none of the pieces had skin.  This was pretty deep because if you think about it, we are al the same on the inside.  We all have the same pieces as any other race and we thought that was pretty neat the way they omitted the largest organ on the body.

After dinner, we hit up some "shows,"  I say "shows" because they weren't the best.  We went to Monkey Mania which included one monkey who ate french fries.  IT was more of a short lecture, but the monkey was super cute anyway!  After that, we walked around to see some animals including more monkeys, birds (yikes), porcupines, and even saw a baby kangaroo which a handler was showing off.  Super cute!  We also checked out the reptiles and saw a little Anaconda, Tortoises, Geckos, Frogs and more.  We were going to go to another show with stunt dogs but we figured it would just be dogs doing Agility races.  We also went to see some Pirates in the Sky show which was like an amateur acrobatics show.  We decided to skip the next acrobatics show for fear it would be similar to this one...  I guess after seeing KA in Vegas, as well as Cirque Del Mar at Sea World, we're a tough crowd!

 So we went on rides and played games!  Kevin had never been on The Zipper so we went on that.  It's one of my favorite rides at fairs but no one will ever go on with me because they're too scared.  I was more than thrilled when Kevin said he would go on it!  We screamed and laughed the whole entire time! I love it!  We played a few games and Kevin tried his best to win me a prize, but we both came home empty handed.

(Trying his luck at Skee Ball)

By the end of the night, we were both exhausted.  It had been a very long day but it was so much fun!  I plan on going again next year!  Especially since I just found out a friend that I work with will be competing in some of the rodeo activities!  How fun would that be to actually see someone I know riding out there!  Yay for someone to cheer on, lol!  So if you have a chance to go to the LA Fair, I would definitely do it!  I'd take the LA Fair over the OC Fair any day!

One Word: Muse.

(Anticipation!)

Last night I had the opportunity to attend a Muse concert with one of my besties, Danielle.  She texted me back in April asking if I wanted to attend.  There was nothing I could say but, absolutely.  The last time I saw Muse performed was back in 207, the night before I moved to Hawaii.  They were awesome three years ago so I had high hopes this time around.

And they succeeded.

When their performance first began, there were these three pillars set up on stage.  Danielle and I were a little confused because behind the stage (they performed at The honda Center, which is where The Ducks play hockey) there were rows of people sitting, awaiting the concert as well.  How are they going to see when there is no way they can get a glimpse behind the pillars?  Well Danielle being the smartie that she is pointed out that the pillars probably drop somehow.

Well she was mostly right.  The music began and the pillars were lit up with random images until those images became white silhouettes of men walking up several flights of stairs.  Then suddenly, slowly, those med began to fall off the stairs.  That's when the the middle of the pillars dropped and the three band members appeared on what seemed to be platforms.

It was a brilliant show!  They played almost all of my favorite songs, including "Black Holes and Revelations" and "Undisclosed  Desires."  The reason why I love this band live is because they don't just play the new songs off the most recent album, but they bring back some of their older stuff.  They even busted out Michael Buble's "Feeling Good."  Loved it!

Last night I had the opportunity to attend a Muse concert with one of my besties, Danielle.  She texted me back in April asking if I wanted to attend.  There was nothing I could say but, absolutely.  The last time I saw Muse performed was back in 207, the night before I moved to Hawaii.  they were awesome three years ago so I had high hopes this time around.

And they succeeded.  

When their performance first began, there were these three pillars set up on stage.  Danielle and I were a little confused because behind the stage (they performed at The honda Center, which is where The Ducks play hockey) there were rows of people sitting, awaiting the concert as well.  How are they going to see when there is no way they can get a glimpse behind the pillars?  Well Danielle being the smartie that she is pointed out that the pillars probably drop somehow.

Well she was mostly right.  The music began and the pillars were lit up with random images until those images became white silhouettes of men walking up several flights of stairs.  Then suddenly, slowly, those med began to fall off the stairs.  That's when the the middle of the pillars dropped and the three band members appeared on what seemed to be platforms.

It was a brilliant show!  They played almost all of my favorite songs, including "Black Holes and Revelations" and "Undisclosed  Desires."  The reason why I love this band live is because they don't just play the new songs off the most recent album, but they bring back some of their older stuff.  They even busted out Michael Buble's "Feeling Good."  Loved it!

Yee Haw!!

(Me, silly faced Kieran, and Danielle ready for the rodeo!)

I went to my first rodeo a few weekends ago.  I wasn't sure how I'd do, but I am easily entertained.  I met up with Danielle and her son, Kieran and we were off.

The rodeo took place in a town called Norco, which, who knew, is also known as Horse Town USA.  Now, I don't travel much to what we call "The I.E." or "The 909" because... well... there really isn't anything there for me except a drive in theater!  I know,  I admit, I am a total Orange County snob.  Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of friends that have lived or currently live there!  Nothing against them!  Well... most of them.  HAHA!  Anyway, I digress.  We pull off the freeway and are blown away as to how cute this town really is!  It's very old country western and is super cute!  As we drove the main street, I was reminded of the small towns of Utah.  It seems like a really cute place to live.  Especially since they had hitching posts in front of almost all of the little stores and restaurants.  Super cute!

Now i've never been to a rodeo so I had no idea what to expect.  Luckily, I'd recently seen the movie Did You Hear About the Morgans? so I had an idea of what it would be like.  Well, it was a lot smaller than I thought!  I guess it's a good thing it was my first one so I didn't experience the best rodeo first!  (I sort of did that with Scuba diving but I do not regret that at all!)

(Roping. Man, these guys are quick!)

After getting food (and defiantly using the nasty port-a-potties), we took our seats in some stands in a corner.  there were tons of cowboy hats and we immediately set that as a mandatory purchase!  We quickly became friends with the lady who wreaked of stale cigarettes and had a blast!  We saw Barrel Racing, Bull Riding, Roping and more!  It was such a blast!

I can't say that I would go every weekend to one of these types of events since I prefer a little variety in my life, but it was definitely a fun time!  Fun people, fun events and good eye candy too!  Very important, haha!

(Bull riding!  Sorry about the sound...)

Comic Relief at Work.

I received this email at work today and am still laughing at it!  Being part History major, it just makes me giggle endlessly!  Not to mention I am an avid Facebook user so it makes it even more comical!

To all you Face Book fans...

Non-Stop.

This is the song that I've been listening to on repeat all day long today.  Does it ever bother you to hear someone singing the same song over and over and over again?  Not me.  In fact, it makes me happy.  Unless I don't know the song, then it's just plain annoying.


Barenaked Ladies - Call and Answer

Tonight.

Ingrid always has the right words.



And so does her honey.