California Dreamin' - Part Two

Day 3 - Monday
Sydney had to work, so Andrew and I explored around a little on our own. We walked to this really cool place called Amoeba Music that had tons of records. We got a Cannonball Adderly record for $5! Then we ate lunch and headed back to Sydney's apartment where we met up with Andy. He took us over to Runyon Canyon Park where we hiked up to see the Hollywood Sign.

It was a pretty nice place - there were tons of dogs off leash which was kind of unexpected. Some weren't very nice to Frodo - some were :)

We were able to get a good view of the city AND some huge houses in the hills. (the arrow points to Sydney's apartment building).

After Sydney got off work, she picked us up and we initially headed out with the intention of getting some groceries. We decided to grab some dinner first and settled on Bob's Big Boy in Burbank.

When Andrew graduated high school, he came out to CA to visit a friend who lived in Burbank and they had eaten at Bob's Big Boy. As we're driving, he tells me and Sydney about it, mentioning that Drew Carey supposedly frequents it.

When we arrive, they seat us in the back, which is relatively empty except for this guy who's kind of overweight and wearing thick black glasses. Andrew jokingly says, "Look, it's Drew Carey," and we all laugh.

THEN, a group of people kind of dressed up head over to this guy's table and say, "Hey, Drew!" I immediately slide to the other side of the booth so I can get a better look, and lo and behold, it really is Drew Cary. Well, then we really had a good laugh at the irony of the situation. Sadly, I did not have my camera to snap a picture of the iconic Big Boy sign to commemorate our memorable dinner :(

But we'll always remember our (very ironic) "celebrity sighting."

California Dreamin' - Part One

First of all, sorry for the incredibly long gap in posts. Graduate school has been keeping me far busier than I'd like :)

Last week was spring break, and for the first time ever, Andrew and I actually took a trip somewhere. For Christmas, Andrew's parents gave us plane tickets to visit Andrew's sister Sydney in Los Angeles. So, we decided to use them for spring break. Tales of our trip will be divided into multiple posts because I don't have time to do it all in one!

Day 1

When we arrived on Saturday, we were pretty tired so we just grabbed dinner at In-n-Out and headed to Sydney's apartment. After eating, we accompanied Sydney while she walked her 2 dogs, Frodo (a big black dog) and Coco (a chihuahua). Well, about 3/4 of the way through our walk, a skateboarder came up behind us AND some dogs in a window next to us started barking. This scared both of the dogs and sent them running- Frodo right out of his collar and down the sidewalk and Coco right into traffic - LA traffic. I chased Frodo down while Sydney and Andrew ran after Coco and all I could hear was yelping. I thought for sure poor Coco was a goner. Amazingly, she was perfectly fine. Her leg had gotten stuck in the sweater she had on, causing her to fall just short of where tires would have run her over. It was pretty much miraculous. She had trouble keeping her eyes open though, so we went with Sydney to an emergency animal center to have her checked out. THREE HOURS later, we left (Coco was fine - just needed some drops in her eyes). Needless to say, Andrew and I were exhausted. And I won't even get started on the crazy lady/alien that came into the vet center while we were waiting....ok, maybe I will. This woman (at least I think she was a woman - the only clear shot I got of her face put her more in line with ET) comes in all hysterical holding her dog (I think it was a Westie). She's freaking out and the vet tech can barely understand her. She just keeps saying that the dog's hair is all matted down and his skin is pink. Umm, yeah? The vet tech keeps asking her questions, trying to figure out what the heck is really going on and the woman/alien starts whispering. From what Andrew and I could pick up on, we're pretty sure she said that the dog took crack. As in cocaine. The dog actually seemed fine to me, a little frenetic, but otherwise fine. His owner was just nuts though. The vet tech checks the dog out to make sure its stable then has this woman/alien fill out some paperwork. She took the entire time we were waiting on Sydney to fill out that paperwork. She disappeared into the bathroom for about an hour and I'm pretty sure she was using the sink to bathe herself. The whole episode was surreal/hysterical/really sad.

On to Day 2: Sunday

Andrew and I woke up fairly late given our late night at the vet center, and our bodies were totally mixed up on what time it was. By the time we were up and had taken showers, we could hear the church bells ringing -oops.

Sydney took us to a little sidewalk cafe for brunch and then we walked down Hollywood Blvd. to the shoestore that Sydney used to work at and her friend Andy works at now. I decided I needed a good pair of shoes to walk around in so I got a pair of shoes (p.s. Andy, you need to work on your salesmanship !)

Then, courtesy of Andrew's parents, we went to Disneyland. Sydney's friend Chris came along with us. One thing you should know: I love Disneyworld and by default Disneyland - so does Andrew - so does Sydney. And, surprisingly Chris turned out to be a Disney aficionado as well, so it was a great time.

We ate dinner at a restaurant called The Blue Bayou which is actually inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. It was awesome.

Then we figured out that in the top of the restaurant resides Club 33 - an elite secret Disney club.

We thought we were so cool to have figured out where it was until we saw this:

guess it's not as secret as we thought.

All in all, it was a fun day.

to be continued...

Just Married!

Last Saturday, we were in Wilmington for the wedding of Andrew's sister/my sister-in-law Nicole and her fiance (now husband!) Robbie. The wedding was absolutely beautiful, and Nicole was completely radiant. It was wonderful to see everyone, and we had a great time. We were sad our visit was so short but luckily we'll be back down for the week of Thanksgiving :)

Sorry this post is pretty long - there's a bunch of pictures.

Nicole's hair being "dressed" by Sarah

The beautiful result

Sarah works her magic on Sydney

Nicole getting ready

Such a beautiful bride

The whirlwind after the "I do's"

A nice-looking group of people - wonder who they are :)

The gorgeous cake Michel made

It tasted great, too!

Dragonflies just for Nicole

Cutting the cake

The father-daughter dance to "Sweet Child O' Mine"

All dressed up

Good ol' Kevin - always debonair

With the soon-be-famous Sydney

First dance as Mr. and Mrs.

Congratulations to the bride and groom, and welcome to the family Robbie! We love you!

Halloween

This year, Andrew and I had a Halloween party to go to, so we decided to actually put some effort into our costumes. What could we be as a couple?

Well,

2 pieces of colored foam

1 giant roll of foam

1 huge pile of red felt (turned into a poncho)

some hot glue and burned fingers later....

Voila! a giant can of Raid and a ladybug:

(we even won a prize!)

Andrew passed!

So, this posting is a little late but last Friday (Oct. 24), Andrew passed his Master's thesis defense at NC State. He gave his exit seminar and then defended before his committee. He did a great job and we're all very proud of him!

Of course, I forgot my camera - thus, the picture of a "fence" - the closest thing I had to "defense."

It was wonderful to be in NC again and feel warm weather - although a tad cruel since it was freezing when we came back!

Blue light special: Two Seasons for the price of One!

Fall has been beautiful here.

The leaves have been a mix of gold, crimson, & auburn - very New England-y.
So, we've been enjoying the gorgeous scenery here.... but it comes with a cost - cooold. We had kind of adjusted to it, then BAM - it snowed this week!

GO WOLFPACK!!!!!!!

Today 3-0 Penn State played Temple at noon and 1-2 NC State played ECU at noon. Both games were televised up here. Which game did we watch? NC State, baby! We got to see a NC State quarterback actually throw TOUCHDOWNS (imagine that), NC State defense make a goal-line stand against ECU and succeed AND force a fumble in overtime, then top it all off with a hard-fought touchdown to win the game. It was an awesome game, way more exciting than watching Penn State steamroll their fourth team in a row. We wish we could have been there with our fellow Wolf-packers but it was enough to see NC State actually PLAY an entire football game. I'm so proud of our team!