Before And After

I received great news yesterday that Stacy was staying with us for the night. I've been wanting to reupholster our dining room chairs for awhile and since Al hates Jo-Ann Fabrics and I'm always too indecisive to choose something I knew Stacy would be perfect for this project. Ideally I would like a new table, but since we don't really have a big dining room I figure I should wait until we have a house. Here are the before pictures of the original fabric that I was so sick of looking at.

During our project
Notice my Lakers colors in the next picture. We totally wanted to go down to the Staples Center after the game, but figured the riots could be a little too much. I am from Utah after all.. It's amazing how many people will talk to you when you are wearing Lakers colors. Some lady came up to me at the mall and said "are you wearing purple for the Lakers?" Of course I said and then she proceeded to unbutton her trench coat and show me her Lakers shirt. I just smiled and said Gooooo Lakers!!
We were eating at a restaurant at the mall when the game ended and I've never seen anything like it, honking, screaming, and running around like crazy people. I'm sure alcohol had something to do with it, but we were only in Glendale. I can only imagine what downtown L.A. was like. Way to go Lakers!!

Sorry for that detour....back to the chairs. 10pm on a Thursday night probably isn't the best time to reupholster chairs and it took waaaaay longer than we thought it would. Getting those corners to lay proper was tricky.
This is at midnight.....still smiling and ready to throw the chairs through the window.
AFTER.....finally. I love them. I think they look so much better and now I can stop thinking about getting a new table for a few months:)
Just enjoying one more box of Jr Mints before we go to bed. So good to see you Stacy. Come back soon.

Happy 60th Anniversary

To Hot Dog On A Stick!! For those of you that didn't know today Hot Dog On A Stick was giving away free hot dogs from 5-8pm. What we didn't know is you could order as many as you wanted....lol Al's eyes lit up and he said "I should order 8", but he wasn't greedy and only had 3....lol That's like $10 worth of Hot Dog On A Sticks. If we were really spontaneous we would have drove to Santa Monica and gone to THE ORIGINAL Hot Dog On A Stick, but we settled for our local mall location. Happy Anniversary Hot Dog On A Stick

Descanso Gardens

We have lived 10 minutes from Descanso Gardens for almost a year and just discovered it. Descanso Gardens is a 150 acre botanical garden. It used to be owned by Manchester Boddy who was an interior designer and owned the Los Angeles Daily News. There is a huge mansion you can walk through at the end of the gardens that Boddy used to live in. You can rent it out for weddings and parties, so fun. Everything was so beautiful.
In the rose garden there was an art gallery with artists painting pictures. Megan if you are reading this you should totally come here and paint a picture.
So many beautiful flowers. I wish I knew what they all were:) There is a mini replica of a Diesel train that takes visitors around a small section of the park. Al is lucky it was closed when we left because I totally wanted to ride it.
The flowers I'm standing by in the picture below smelled AMAZING.
I spotted a racoon in one of the rivers. He was tring to catch fish.
The Japanese Garden was my favorite. So pretty and peaceful.

They also had vegetables growing in some areas. I've always wondered how artichokes grow and here is a picture. I was soooo tempted to pick it!! I loved Descanso Gardens and want to go back on Easter weekend when they have an Easter Egg Hunt and tulips are in full bloom.
I made a Corn and Blueberry Salad today, compliments of Better Homes And Gardens. I must say it was pretty amazing since all those blueberries were hand picked by us and all the vegetables were fresh from the Farmers Markets. I highly recommend it!!
Corn & Blueberry Salad

6 ears fresh sweet corn, husked
1 cup fresh blueberries
1 small cucumber, sliced
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and finely chopped*
2 Tbsp. lime juice
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. honey
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
Directions
1. In Dutch oven bring salted water to boiling. Add corn. Cook, covered, 5 minutes, or until tender. When cool enough to handle, cut corn from cobs.

2. In a serving bowl combine corn, blueberries, cucumber, red onion, cilantro, and jalapeño. For dressing, in screw-top jar combine lime juice, oil, honey, cumin, and 1/2 tsp. salt. Cover; shake well to combine. Add to salad; toss. Cover and refrigerate overnight (up to 24 hours). Makes 6 to 8 servings.

3. *Hot peppers, such as jalepeños, contain oils that can burn skin and eyes. Wear plastic gloves when working with them. If using bare hands wash well with soap and water.

Randoms

I have a bunch of random pictures I've been meaning to post, so I will start with the best one first. Ever wonder what brain surgery looks like? Well here is an up close and personal picture of a day at the office for Al. This is one of the many devices Al sells called the brain retractor. If you look closely at the left middle piece, it holds the brain open. Pretty crazy right?Our first softball game last week. I got really bored playing Right Field, so I snapped some pictures of the Verdugo Hills. It's probably one of the coolest softball fields I've played on which is only like 2....hahah
Just doing my job out in Right Field. Al is that dot on the far right. He is by far the best player on our team and I'm not just saying that because he's my husband.
I was hoping there would be some dandelions or something to pick, but no such luck. Good news we won our first game. Only 11 more to go.....Ahhhhhhh
I was going to get our mail the other day and spotted this sign, so funny.
Tonya and Billy were so nice to drive all the way from The OC to Glendale to come see where we live and meet all our Armenian neighbors. We took them to downtown Glendale for some Thai food and Thrifty's ice cream afterwards....Tonya's childhood memory. Dear Tonya & Billy, Please move to California soon. XOXO Whitney
Lastly Lakers Fans. There are a lot of them in LA and if we could afford to buy tickets I might consider being one. I laughed when this jacked up Excursion drove by me on the freeway with his Lakers flag flapping in the wind.

The Perfect Saturday

The perfect way to start a perfect day is to have a perfect breakfast and that is why we went to Aroma in Studio City. It's a quaint little cafe filled with lots of trinkets, pastries, cakes, jars filled with candy, and a menu with breakfast, lunch and dinner. If you click on this collage you can see how delicous our breakfast was. Al's was of course the sweet dish....french toast and mine was the eggs benedict with asaparagus and a bowl of fresh fruit.
After breakfast we drove to Simi Valley which is where I work now. Normally I wouldn't want to be anywhere near that city on a weekend, but I had big plans for us to go to the Blueberry Farm and the Ronald Reagan Library. When we got to the Farm I was so excited to find goats and llamas that you could feed and OF COURSE I fed them. One of the goats was being really lazy, basking in the sun on his 20ft post. Picking blueberries was so much fun. I'm sure it would get old after about an hour, but since I've never been to a blueberry farm I loved it. Picking blueberries is definatley harder than it looks. It's very time consuming and I totally understand now why they are so expensive in the stores. If you look at the top right picture that was the blueberry winner.....big, blue, and round. I'm a pro now!!

You may sample, but don't make a meal out of it. I'm suprised my teeth weren't blue by the time we left because I had a lot of samples:)
They also had a Farmers Market and I was in heaven. I loooove fresh fruits and vegetables. I would have been perfectly fine if Al would have left me there for the day. Hooray for Farmers Markets and picking your own blueberries!!
Next stop.... The Ronald Reagan Library
Air Force One
You weren't allowed to take pictures in Air Force One which I didn't really understand, but I figured since I paid $12 and turned off my flash that I could sneak a couple of pictures. This was the plane for Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W Bush. George W. Bush got a new plane at some point and I'm sure the one Obama is flying around in is amazing. Below is a picture of the office.A sitting area. Reagan apparently loved jelly bellys and they had jars of them displayed all over the plane.

This next picture is a perfect replica of Ronald Reagans Oval Office
The next exhibit was my favorite.....inside the White House. A mini White House replica that took over 600,000 hours to create. It shows every room inside the White House and has tiny working televisions, hand carved chairs, and crystal chandeliers.
It was so impressive that at one point I thought how cool would it have been to have a doll house like this when I was little......maybe even now, lol.
The top left room is the First Lady's sitting room, next to it is their bedroom, and next to that one is Obamas sitting room and of course the guy gets the t.v.
Close Up
Air Force One, one of Reagans cars, and a beautiful view of dried up Simi Valley.

A piece of the Berlin wall, so much amazing history.

The Ronald Reagan tree. There is a Nancy Reagan tree on the left, so sweet.

A beautiful and amazing Saturday.

June Gloom

On Friday night we went to the Dodgers game. We are going to try and take advantage of living so close to Dodger stadium and go a couple times a month even though I suffer from severe ADD and can't focus on the game for more than 10 minutes.
If you look closely you can see the LA smog line.....It can't be good for our lungs. Everytime we go to a game Al teaches me something new. That night I learned about Closers and Jonathan Broxton. I was like wait....so that's all he does? He just comes out at the end of the game, runs around to hard rock, and pitches? Sounds like a pretty sweet gig to me. Broxton made LA proud and THE DODGERS WON!!

Downtown LA

On Saturday we went to Ventura to visit Tonya, Billy, and Baby Camden. I hope Tonya convinces Billy to move back to California soon:) Check out Camdens shades....sooo cute
He is adorable
Tonya and Camden
Billy & Camden
Al and I with the Bush family. It was so much fun to hang out with them for the afternoon....it doesn't happen often enough.
On Sunday Al did the WORLD FAMOUS 10k mud run at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside.
There were so many creative team names. These were some of my favorites I saw.
Mud Studs. They won the team race and finished in 49 minutes which is so fast because you have to wait until all 5 runners are together to finish.
The Dirty Girls
I'm not really sure about this guy.....maybe he was just craving attention. I think the sign on his back says Do I look fat in this dress?These guys were my favorite,Front side..... Salute This
Back Side....I wish my wife were this dirty
I would have totally been on this team Little Red Riding Hood and The Big Bad Wolf
The starting line. Get ready for 3 miles of runnin and 3 miles of muddin.

The last mud pit the runners have to crawl/run through.
The first runners that were totally cheating....they were lifting up the streamers they had to "crawl" under.
Here comes Al

and he's in the Mud

So sick. The mud smelled so gross.

The guy on the left looked like he was in pain.

Almost to the finish line

Way to go Al!!

Mud EVERYWHERE. Teeth, Nose, Ears, Eyes, Shoes, basically anything you can think of.
Don't touch me please:)

The guys Al ran with.Nothing like a cold community shower.

Afterwards we had big plans to go to breakfast and the beach, but believe it or not June Gloom really exists. It has been so gross this week....go away June Gloom. We had breakfast at The Longboarder Cafe in Oceanside. It was delicous and we will definately be going back, but only if it's sunny at the beach!!