These were a few of my favorite things...

hanging with Sarah, Sam and Dan...528 steps to the top of St. Paul's Cathedral...original fried apple pies from McDonalds...mastering London's public transportation...the british accent...the architecture...indian food

Check out the pics - hope the links work.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=39463&l=23a8a&id=836778728


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=39752&l=96ae4&id=836778728


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=40012&l=3c755&id=836778728


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=40214&l=31260&id=836778728


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=40538&l=46602&id=836778728

Greetings from London

Hey - day 5 of my 7 day trip in London. It's going well. Hanging out alot with Sam and Dan and seeing the sights of London. Sarah's in France, but I got to hang out with her on the Thursday that I got in. Taken loads (British word or maybe just a Dan word) of pictures and have lots of exciting stuff to blog about when I get back. If you have Facebook and you're my Facebook friend, I have all of the pictures posted there if you want a sneak preview. Having a great time!!!

Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest pics from last Friday.

carpooling from the gundo - there's more but they're heading down separately

they had these awesome german pretzels

Laundry Love

Every 3rd Thursday for the past few months, the Outlet and the Fuse have a service opportunity called Laundry Love where they go to a coin laundrymat in Hawthorne pay for a few loads of laundry for the families that use that laundrymat and hang out with the adults and kids (playing, tutoring, entertaining).

This past Thursday we hosted a special Halloween Laundry Love and Rose, in my bible study, had signed up to make 100 sugar cookies (for cookie decorating) for the service event. We decided as a bible study to get together before bible study on Wednesday to help make the cookies.

Here's the coin laundrymat where we do Laundry Love. Usually I have a conflict, but I skipped a portion so I could check it out and help.




Rich & Beth spearhead all of the Laundry Love service events and went ALL out for the Halloween one (as you'll see from the pictures). They did an absolutely amazing job of pulling this all together and bringing us all together. It was so cool to watch everyone who came to serve doing different roles and utilizing their gifts to reach out to the Hawthorne community.

Dave Hart putting quarters in to run a load for a woman at the laundrymat.

Lauren was part of the face painting team. This was a favorite for the kids.

There was trick or treat bag decorating.

and a costume contest for the kids

and a pinata filled with candy (poor parents - giving kids candy at 7p at night could only be trouble). Unfortunately the string didn't hold up the pinata so Rich grabbed the tallest guy to hold the pinata while the kids swung a paddle trying to break the pinata. The kids were so cute, they kept hitting the pinata softly because they didn't want to hit Billy.

Eventually though some of the older kids weren't so worried about physical damage and broke the pinata and out came the candy.

and mass chaos ensued

Free Stuff at Monday Night Football

If you've been one of my blog readers for a while, you'll know that for the past 3 years Jen Carpenter and I have gotten together every Monday night to watch Monday Night Football and hang out. We have 6 or 7 different sports bars that we rotate through. The first year it was just Jen and I. Last year we had one or two others that would join. This year we went big and have a Facebook invite and its been fun to have a big group get together to hang out, rave about the food and drink specials and watch a little bit of football. If you're up for checking it out sometime, let me know.

Anyways had to blog about this last MNF as for the first time, we got some (I should actually say ALOT) free stuff. Well it wasn't exactly free because we each had to buy a Three Olives shooter but it was only $3 and it was pretty tasty since my was grape and tasted like grape soda.

Poor Daniel...he had to model all of the Three Olives stuff that we got. Chapstick, Popshots, tshirt, tank top, keychain. I think we cleaned them out of the stuff they had since there were 8 of us there and we all wanted everything.

Remember poprocks, well Three Olives has popshots. No alcohol in them, just fun to eat like you did with poprocks when you were a kid.

The Three Olives girls must have loved our table because they came back by with this one random beanie that they found and figured we'd want.

Have I grown out of my FANatisism?

When I started this post on Tuesday, I would have totally said YES. Come on what woman in her 30's still is obsessed with New Kids on the Block like she was when she was a teen?

When I was a teen, I loved New Kids on the Block. My fave was Jonathan Knight. I bought every magazine that featured them, was part of their fan club (see those glossy pics in the left top corner they were from the fan club and had paper frames with my name on them) and cut out every newspaper article written about them in our local paper.

I didn't realize until my dad showed up with a XL ziploc bag full of all of this stuff. Apparently along with 3 mini Jonathan buttons, my mom had saved all of this stuff for the last 18 years. I'm so embarassed although I couldn't resist thumbing through the mags.

I didn't even remember this, but I guess I used to cut out the pictures of Jonathan Knight and put them in my own photo albums (just pics of him, I'm not that psycho that I put my picture in there too).



Seriously I was over them on Tuesday. THEN CAME WEDNESDAY and the NKOTB concert at the Staples Center. It was 18 years since I last saw them in concert and was semi interested in seeing them reunite but was really more interested in seeing all the other crazed now old fans.

First let me say that the majority of 30(s) year old women in Los Angeles and the surrounding area was probably at the Staples Center. We (me, Taylor, Nicole, Jen and Jen Carpenter (not pictured)) joined the thousands of women and handful of men to see our favorite boy band. Although we re-lived our teen years, there was an air of oldness as the car ride consisted of comments focused on how late the concert was going to go, how tired we were going to be on Thursday morning for work, what we were going to eat, forgetting ear plugs and how I was going to get pictures since the ticket said no cameras which being old and responsible I followed because I thought out the consequence that I could possibly have my camera confiscated.

The concert was impressive and the guys sang all of their old popular songs as well as some of their new ones. It was a pretty good concert and I must admit I was crushing a bit and spent a bit of time today doing a few internet searches on them and watching some YouTube stuff.

So I did leave my camera in the car, but was friendly with the woman sitting next to me and asked if she would take a few pictures and send them to me.

If you loved them before, I would definitely recommend going to see them in concert - they're coming back to LA on November 26th.

New article in the LA Times on Friday. Another to add to my collection...

Other Stuff From This Week

Tuesday night my Wednesday bible study girls met (because of the NKOTB concert on Wednesday). We celebrated Rose's birthday a day early minus a few of the other girls that couldn't make it.

Happy Birthday, Rose!!!

My dad's school work schedule gives him two weeks off in October so he headed down to hang out with me this week. My mom had to work so she couldn't get away to come down with him. On Wednesday, the weather was so beautiful that we headed down to Manhattan Beach for lunch.

I always love this view when I'm on the pier and looking back at Manhattan Beach.

my dad & I

Also went to see 9 to 5 the Musical at the Ahmanson Theater on Thursday night but didn't get a fun pic. I would definitely recommend seeing it although its only playing through October 19th. http://www.9to5themusical.com/ It was really funny and cute.

Girl Time

Spent the weekend in Solvang with my Tuesday night small group (minus Nickki and Stephanie). A little celebration weekend after we finished our first study on Song of Solomon and before we embark on our new book Strong Women Soft Hearts.

The weekend kicked off with a slight drizzle on the way up there but by the time we got there it cleared up and was a beautiful weekend.

God definitely had his hand in this trip as we only locked down on the lodging a few days before we were leaving because EVERY other place had a two night minimum and this was originally the place I found a few weeks before but they weren't originally willing to relent on the two night minimum. Definitely recommend this cute B&B - Solvang Garden Lodge. Its two blocks (definitely walking distance) from all the shops and restaurants.

Goofin' around after we checked in - well maybe me screwing up the shot by goofing around.

After we checked in, we headed out for a picnic lunch at the Kalyra Winery. What a great way to spend a Saturday.

So the shot above is from two years ago when I visited the Kalyra Winery for a bachelorette party and there was this dog that roamed the winery and kept begging for food.

and...

we meet again...

Next stop was my favorite winery, Sunstone Winery. Its beautiful and a great backdrop for pictures. I got to test out the sepia function on my camera. They have (or had) an amazing Reserve Chardonnay - which apparently they don't have anymore and this great bread dipping sauce made with grapeseed oil.

This is my favorite shot of the group from the weekend.

After the wineries, we headed back to Solvang to walk around a bit. Taylor raved about these prezels that she used to get when she came to Solvang when she was young so we definitely had to sample. It was one of the best soft prezels I've ever had. Checked out a few other shops, searched for some Dybdahls (Allison informed us on the way there that this was the land of her "peeps").

AJ Spurs for dinner - made friends with a bison and then feasted on a great steak, ribs and shrimp dinner. Good thing Taylor and I shared although it was big enough for 3 to share.

So my goal is to be more "actiony" in pictures and take more action/playful shots so had to throw this one in. Sorry Allison...

Can't have a trip to Solvang without sampling the Aebelskivers (any idea why William Sonoma leaves the A off? only wondering because I got an email advertisement for the pan and mix yesterday - kind of random huh since I just went to Solvang)

Great weekend away with these girls.