Disneyland!

My first time to Disneyland. And I got paid to go. Whoo hoo!

I got this fancy button from one of the store clerks and stuck it to my bag.

We visited Disneyland and...

California Adventure which is right across the way. We only spent one day over here, and 2 1/2 days at Disneyland. It was really pretty fun. Although the price to get in there is RIDICULOUS. But RAH got a great deal which included a 4 day park hopper pass, disney gift cards that we used for food inside the park, and a breakfast buffet with Minnie and

friends (tigger, eeyore, captain hook, the fairy godmother, the white rabbit, rafiki, chip and dale)

Here is Princess Lilly's castle (my niece Lilly in case you non Tang's are confused). It is a lot smaller than I thought it was going to be.

These are all 15 participants that we took on the trip. It was quite the task to keep everyone together fulfill all their Disneyland desires, get all the souvenirs they wanted, and not get them lost. We rode a lot of rides, saw a bunch of 3D shows, did a few interactive things and spent a lot of time here...

Ok so you'd never see a sign that said Washrooms in the states. The picture was taken in Canada. But still, we were taking restroom breaks every 30-40 minutes. With 15 people, someone is always having to go, and sometimes it's the same people going every time! You might say that we spent as much time in the bathrooms as we did in lines for rides. Truly. But the lines weren't bad at this time of the year. I don't think we ever waited more than 40 minutes to get on something.

Mickey Mouse in his Halloween costume.

Mousekateers!

Anyway, most everyone rode all the rollercoasters and other rides, although we did have 2 people who refused to even try most of the rides, even the easy ones. We got them in things like the bumper cars though, and also to the shows.

These bumper cars were the silliest bumper cars ever... they hardly gave you a jolt when you bump into other cars... plus, ants move faster than these cars did.

Everyone who wanted a chance to drive got to drive around the track at Autopia. If I ever see any of them driving a real vehicle on the streets of Provo, I'm staying off the roads!

We watched several 3D shows but the one at A Bug's Life had the funniest glasses. They do a great job making you feel like you're a part of these shows with smells and things jumping out at you and poking you on your seats and wind blowing at you. I had to convince of few of our guys that what they felt poking them or sprayed at them wasn't real!

This is the Finding Nemo submarine ride. It was pretty cool. My favorite rides included Splash Mountain, Indiana Jones, Soarin over California, and Big Thunder Mountain Train. We actually covered pretty much everything cool in both parks.

Inside California Adventure.

There was this area where they had the streams of water jumping from hole to hole and Cheryl (my boss) told the participants that she would give a prize to anyone who could catch a stream and bring it to her. Oh boy. That was hilarious to watch.

This is the result. They tried catching it in their hands, their shirts, their hats, and one even got a face full of water. It was so funny. Unfortunately, no one got a prize.

On Friday night, it got SO crowded at the park. But we fought the crowds to watch the nightly fireworks show at the magic kingdom. It was much cooler than I expected.

I was told I must get a churro at Disneyland. Well I never got an opportunity until after the fireworks as we were leaving the park for the last time. I saw a churro stand that had no line and stopped the group so I could get my $3 churro. Totally delicious. Totally not worth 3 bucks. But hey, it's part of the Disneyland experience.

Along with my first Disneyland experience, I saw my first ever speed limit sign just outside of a hotel not in an increment of 5...

Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey

Welcome to Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey: THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH!

And a great show it was. It was fun, kinda creepy, kinda cool, lots of human tricks, and some laughter too. Our RAH clients had a blast!

The show included some Chinese acrobats (they were moving so fast, it was very hard to get any sort of a clear pic - my apologies)

These dudes had some super human strength.

These guys had unnatural flexibility.

Other very dramatic acrobats.

Motorcylists (7 of them!) defying death.

This picture just makes me laugh because of the positioning of the lights in the background.

The excellent elephants who pooped a ton during their performance. They were great as always. And I was very impressed with how quickly the crews cleaned up their messes. I'd have to say that we got the strongest reactions from our clients when those elephants did their biznis.

And the tigers! They didn't do anything super amazing, but they were cool to watch!

In the end, they blew tons of confetti at the audience. What a mess! This circus was definitely way more entertaining than the one I went to at UVSC a while back! There was a lot more that went on but pictures don't do justice. These were just the highlights.

Longboarding... Sometimes You Fall...

Oops.

So i fell. Gimme a break. The road around our new complex is awesome for longboarding. Very smooth. Not too busy. I was doing great, getting pointers from my friend Mark (it was one of his boards i was riding... I don't own a longboard and you can see why...) practicing my turns and just enjoying the fresh night air. I turned onto a street that had a slight decline... that got a bit steeper. I went a teeny bit faster... and then a lot faster. Many thoughts passed through my mind in a split second... should I bail? Am I going too fast to jump off safely? Should I try to turn or will that be a disaster? I didn't follow any of my thoughts. But I'm pretty sure that if I would've followed any of them, the results would've been the same. So from what I remember, the board rocked under me, I lost control and balance and went down. Mark told me later that I had too much weight on my back foot... he saw the whole thing happen from behind me and I'm sure I freaked him out. The result: Scraped elbow and knee. Bruised hip and leg and arm. And a whole lot of embarassment. But I was fine really. I got up pretty quick and walked away with adrenaline pumping high and very grateful that I escaped worse injuries.

If any of you remember my incident from 2002 where, at the suggestion of Emily, I naively rollerbladed down a steep hill and took a tumble, this was almost like a deja vu. Except that I was longboarding this time. And the hill wasn't nearly as steep, and I didn't yell, my pants stayed intact (the back of my jeans split way open in '02), and I was not even 100 feet from my front door. So this was like an improvement! And thank you to Eli for helping to patch up my wounds.

Well this little incident probably won't stop me from longboarding again. I'll just be sure to stay off the hills from now on. Apparently, me and them don't get along so well.

As a side note, I went to the Aquarium with RAH last week, and I think these jellyfish were some of the coolest things there. Partially because they were swimming under a black light.

Arizona in August

Alyssa and I decided to take a trip to Arizona to visit her mom and just get out of Provo for a few days before Alyssa had to start school. It worked out perfect because RAH had no scheduled activities for the last week of August so we bought cheap plane tickets and off we went!

We flew over the grand canyon.

While in Arizona we did a whole lot of nothing. It was great. I love vacations like that. Many told me that I would melt in the heat, but the weather was terrific. It was never over 95, it stormed every night, and it was just a little humid, nothing unbearable. We had no real plans, but we did have some things to accomplish on our list... and most of them involved food. Unfortunately on this trip, I was without my camera a lot so I only caught a few of our moments.

We ate at the cheesecake factory. MMMMMM.

We ate ice cream at the Sugar Bowl in Scottsdale.

We attended the beautiful Mesa Temple.

Our friend Mark from our ward up here was also in Gilbert when we were there and he came and hung out with us a couple of times. This night we stayed outside on the porch from about 10p-2a watching this amazing thunderstorm. It was so awesome!

And sadly, that's about all the pictures I have of my trip. The rest of the time we just watched movies, ate good Mexican food, played ping pong, swam, shopped for home decor stuff, and hung out with Alyssa's sweet mom, and her aunt Donna and uncle Ken. It was a really fun time and we were very sad to leave.

Here is the sun setting while we were on the airplane going home. And us on our nearly empty flight back. It's a little dark cuz I didn't want to freak anyone out with the flash...

25 to 26...

So I turned the big two-six this week. And much celebrating went on during the week. Ok, so not everything was celebrated because of my birthday, but we can pretend.

On August 13 when I was still 25, a bunch of us (shown in all the pics above... me, Alyssa, our friend Karen, her bro Dave and his roommates Ryan and Eric, and Karen's other friends K and Stephanie) went to the Jordanelle Reservoir to go boating on Ryan's family boat. I haven't gone boating in a long time and it was a lot of fun. And the last time I tried any watersports was when I was 12... I went kneeboarding. It was traumatic. The board went out from under me, I forgot to let go of the darn rope and was dragged over the water until I remembered, "oh, let go!" Then I got back on the board on my tummy and the task was to get yourself back onto your knees while the boat was going. Again I lost the board and forgot to let go of the rope. Do you see a pattern developing? Anyway, you think that's the end but it happened one more time and since that dreary afternoon 13 years ago, I haven't cared for watersports. Until Wednesday when I decided to try wakeboarding! Dave went first and he was doing some cool little tricks:

Then Alyssa showed her mad skills:

Then it was me. It was awesome and I did pretty good for a first timer. And I remembered to let go of the rope when I plunged into the water. I was able to get up the first couple of times but it wasn't until about the 3rd or 4th time that I was actually able to get up AND going. But after the first time that I got up and went, it was so much easier every time after. So I was fairly successful but I wasn't able to go great distances before I found myself going under water but hey, I was way excited! The people we went with were very patient with me, very encouraging too, and gave lots of good tips.

About to plunge in the water.

Up and Going! Wahooooo!!

Dave helping me get the wakeboard off.

At the start and finish of our boating evening!

When I woke up the next morning, I was already 26 but I felt like a 90 year old. So I don't know how that would feel but if they have aching bodies then that's it! Actually Alyssa and I both agreed that we felt like a truck had hit us. In any case, we went to breakfast at Mimi's Cafe for my birthday. Yum!

Then I went to work. I was hoping that no one would remember it was my birthday. They forgot last year so I had reason to hope. I was sorely disappointed to see a birthday sign on the door, more birthday signs inside, more birthday signs on my desk and a birthday hat on my chair. But later we had ice cream cake which was the best part about work and was delicious. Our activity that day was going to the Utah County Fair in Spanish Fork. Lame. I'd never been to a County Fair before, and I never want to go back. It was hot out and there really wasn't a whole lot to do. This baby animal... I just can't remember what it's called... was the best thing about the fair. After we finally left the fair, we took the clients to dinner at Amber's Family restaurant where the clients sang to me in the parking lot. How kind of them. I didn't actually eat anything there because I already knew that I had to have room in my tummy for...

TUCANOS! Yum! If you've never been there and you like meat, it's worth a try! It's an all you can eat Brazillian Grill, lot of delicious meat, pineapple, and grilled veggies too. They have a salad bar but we don't recommend it. Just eat the meat! The roomies and I went.

Alyssa informed them it was my birthday so they did their birthday thing and had the birthday people in our area stand and dance (there were 4 of us in our area). I was the only one dancing. Those other people were lame. Or maybe I was just the one looking like an idiot. There were like 8 other people in the restaurant with a birthday... well maybe it wasn't their actual birthday but maybe it was their birthday month. Who knows.

I also got this shiny new bike for my birthday!

HA! Yeah right. Look at it with all that pink and all those hearts... EVERYwhere! It suddenly appeared at the apartment next door, but no one lives there. Anyway, everytime I walk past it I think, what the? What IS that thing?!

Anyway, on Saturday we spent all day cleaning our apartment as we are all moving out and our landlady was coming to do cleaning checks... which in reality consisted of her coming in, telling us what to do with our keys, asking if everything still worked, giving us our last gas bill... and yeah, no checking of our hard work. Oh well. At least we have a clean apartment. Alyssa and I decided that our bathroom won the award for most improved.

So we're moving. To where? That is yet to be determined... We should have something finalized this week. Wish us luck!