A Taste of My Halloween.

Part of my Halloween fun includes watching scary TV shows or Horror movies!  Here's an example (and yes, these are 2 of my girl crushes, lol):

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Bookmark.

I have quite a few bookmarks that I've collected throughout my years of reading.  I even have one with a unicorn on it that I got in elementary school that has a pink tassel on it.  I like to switch between them when I open a new book.  The one I recently brought out to use is very fitting as to how I am feeling these past few weeks...

"Count your night by stars,
Not shadows.
Count your years with smiles,
Not tears.
Count your blessings,
Not your troubles.
Count your age by friends,
Not years."

I don't remember who gave this bookmark to me, but thank you.

Happiness.

One of my favorite things to do is be with my nieces and nephew at Disneyland with my family.  This week has proven no different.  I had the opportunity to meet up with my sister Tiffany and her husband Seanie and their little girl Jaiden at Disneyland twice (so far) this week.  And yes, we plan on going again and again!

Jady is getting so big!  She's talking now and the other day she pointed to my purse, which has a Mickey Mouse on it (after all, it's my DLand purse) and said, "Mimmy!"  That is her version of Mickey.  She also calls Minnie "Mimmy" as well.  I was able to get a video of her doing it today while the Pixar Parade started at California Adventure.

Translation:
Mimmy = Mickey or Minnie Mouse
Duck Duck = Donald Duck
Woof Woof/Puppy = Pluto
Goofy = Goofy

Jady also loves to watch the parades and shows and tries to join them every time!  She is an excellent dancer and even claps to the beat (most of the time)!

Catalina Boat Dives.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to dive Catalina, boat style!  I have always wanted to dive off of Catalina.  As you recall, I did the kelp forest at Casino Park with my friend Marisa.  Well this was another great adventure!

We took a boat out and dove 3 separate dives with the company Scuba Luv.  I don't remember if you remember the previous posting about this company but I had a little "run in" with the mayor of Avalon.  Well, he was our captain on this boat and I kept praying he wouldn't remember me!  Haha!  Lucky for me, he didn't.

We had such a blast!  The water was in the lower to mid-60's but the sights we encountered made the cold worthwhile.  On the first dive, we saw a giant Sea Bass, but unfortunately, not one, but both of my calves cramped up so tight I had to dig into the sand and try to stretch them out.  Thankfully I was able to continue on.  It's such an amazing feeling coasting through those kelp forests.  It's unlike anything else I've experienced.  It sort of remind me of driving through a thick fog until it finally comes to a clearing because the kelp can get so thick!

The second dive was my favorite of the three.  It was a pinnacle so all we had to do was swim in an upward spiral.  We saw lots of fun critters including Lobsters, Eels and an Octopus!  We were cruising along and I was looking around.  I looked down and noticed slow motion movement that I thought was an eel at first, until I saw the tentacles!  We played with him for a bit until he squeezed himself through the tiniest crack!  what amazing little creatures!

The third dive was pretty easy breezy.  As we were cruising along, we looked down and saw something that looked like a giant Nudibranch.  We went deeper, appeasing our curiosities and laid down on the sand.  The thing was huge!  As we sat there watching, he slowly moved along, inching across the ocean floor.  Come to find out, it was a Sea Hair.  I've never even heard of these before but it was pretty cool to find!

All in all, the dives were definitely worth my money.  I don't know how often I can do kelp forests because when you've done one you've pretty much done them all.  It still a  lot of fun though!

Ew!

Ummmmmm..... WHAT?!?  

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!