last few minutes at disneyland

Our season pass to Disneyland doesn't expire until August but since it's the summer our pass had one last day we'd be able to enjoy it. And since I was at work and the park closed at midnight by the time we parked, drove, and took the monorail to Tomorrowland we had 1 hour of Disneyland left for the rest of the year. Originally we were going because Star Tours had been revamped and I was dying to check it out since Star Tours is my favorite ride at Disneyland. 

Unfortunately the line was 2 hours long and there was no way I was gonna wait that, especially with the invention of Fastpass so we'll have to wait. So instead we wandered to other places in the park that might not have so long a line and ended up in... Fantasyland.

I learned that while the park may close at midnight, if you're in line before midnight you're safe and they'll let you ride so we got a chance to do Peter Pan which for once was under 20 minutes long. It was bittersweet saying goodbye to Walt and Mickey knowing well we have no idea when we'll be back next... so I found a way to fill the void. Tan! Tan! Tan!

baby face

Wednesday Man-D and I went to visit Michelle and meet their latest home accent:


Claire being a big sister:


She's pretty cute but newborns dont do much so while your arm is pinned down by baby tuchus you need something to do with the other hand. I realized that a phone with unlimited internet is a great thing to have or even better: ipad.


Michelle make Jonathan buy you an ipad. He owes you.

- mobile blog post. spelling irrelevant.

summer dining table

This is what it looks like with white chairs and sunflowers and a yellow tablecloth instead and unfortunately Lyla's chair which I was just too lazy to remove for the picture.

This shot's a little wider so you can see where the cart is in relation to the room.

It's just one more thing to play with. 

cupboard business

I spent a few hours re-organizing a few pantry and cupboard items. I figured it didn't make sense to keep like things apart from each other so I moved the wine and glasses and cups and bowls out of here and moved in anything that had anything to do with serving. Platters, pourers, cake stands, etc.

I felt like it look cluttered but in pictures it looks fine.

I put spare baskets and candle holders up top.

Here's Lyla holding a blue ball.

And here's the cupboards. Top shelf has anything mellamine, then my reusable coffee and beverage cups, then coffee mugs and the teacups from mother's day and then our day to day drinking cups.

The other side has what Ambre referred to as the overwhelming collection of stemware.

12 champagne flutes, 9 red wine glasses, 12 white wine glasses, 12 water goblets,

6 large coupes, 6 small coupes, 6 martini glasses, 3 smaller champagne flutes (obviously I broke one), and two tall champagne flutes from Anthro that only Matt and I use for special occasions. Honestly they're not that fancy but at $10 each at the time it seemed like a freaking fortune.

And speaking of Anthro. Gosh I love these bowls.

Anyway, it's not like it was a retched mess in there to begin with I mean, it's ME we're talking about, but now it makes more sense, especially to those that put things away when they do the dishes. Which is rarely me since I do the cooking around these parts.

have a good weekend

What? I wasn't doing nothing.


- mobile blog post. spelling irrelevant.

clothes blog you should be reading

You may not know this about me or believe it when you see me but I care about clothes. I like clothes. I try to keep up with trends. I'm sick of everything in my closet, probably because I have a closet of summer clothes and it's barely starting to get warm but anyway I have a few blogs I read and this chick's my favorite right now:

Her outfits are adorable and she buys things from mass retailers which makes it accessible and affordable and she has this thing, what is it called oh yeah, a sense of humor.

The outfit above however, cannot do, I have a firm religious belief that short girls cannot wear maxi dresses. We look like hobos.

lemonade stand

As I wandered Target, supposedly to buy minty nail polish (tried it, not a fan) and lara bars I came across a lemonade stand sign which inspired the bar area for the summer.

I need to put it on a pole so you can see it better but how cute is that? You can add a price to it too and they sold cups, napkins, a tablecloth, and a money box if your kids are so inclined to start their own lemonade stand.

Now I've added "make fresh lemonade" to my list of things for my summer checklist. Isn't it a cute little vignette though? A lemonade stand bar area.

Oh and you knew it was only a matter of time before I did this so it should come as no surprise that I swapped the yellow chairs in the dining area with the ones in the living room.

I'd show you what the dining area looks like but it's piled with things I'm sorting with the great cupboard swap of 2011. It's epic. Prepare yourself.

michelle's hot mom idea

Since it wasn't hot enough for me in LA (people, I grew up going to Mexicali) I headed to Indio to visit my perpetually pregnant pal Michelle. I wish her name was Penelope so I could have had four P words. And it was HOT. 114º hot. She had this situation going on in the top shelf of her eldest daughter's closet:

Through the course of her pregnancy, Michelle will purchase a big box here and there of diapers in various sizes for the baby to be. Genius. Then the cost doesn't hit you all at once and you experience that moment of horror when you realize you are out of diapers and it's 2am.

Michelle will be having baby numero tres next week. Everyone pray that she gets her way and gets to name this girl whatever she wants. It's only fair.

shiny shoes

Sometimes a gal just needs to buy herself a pair of shoes to cheer herself up.

Hot pink toenails also help the situation.

summer movies: green lantern

The critics hated this movie. I did not. I actually enjoyed it. Matt LOVES The Green Lantern books and he'd been looking forward to this movie for over a year so he took me with the understanding that 1) I was to remain silent and not bash the movie and 2) I was to keep my drooling over Ryan Reynolds to a minimum.

I should have said that he couldn't say anything about Blake Lively but I forgot she was in it. She was pretty good, she's a good actress actually, my only beef with her character was that she's way too young, how old is she, she's like 14, and the character I imagined in her 30s. But other than that she was a very likeable character and she is not ugly. 

The movie is about a dude and a magical ring and some fighting of evil. Unlike X-Men it had good pacing, good acting, and much more likeable characters. You know who's awesome in it? Peter Sarsgaard. His characterization of Victor Hammond was amazing: creepy and weird and fantastic. I would add a picture of him in there but that would just reduce the amount of Ryan Reynolds pictures so just look up Peter Sarsgaard. He's good.

The movie also had a very emotional scene of Ryan Reynolds in just his underwear. And by emotional I mean, awesome.

So if you're debating between this and Mr. Popper's Penguins, go with the abs, I mean, Green Lantern.

white hot summer

For summer time decorating I like to bring in the brights like turquoise, hot pink, and bright green and I hadn't really noticed it but a lot of my summer decorating had a base of white.

Which only makes flamingos and palm trees look even hotter...

Did you notice the bottom bucket in the cart? It's meant for drinks but right now holds summer supplies like kites, water balloons, squirt guns, and a badmiton set.

Happy First Day of Summer Gang. Make it a good one.

father's day

Matt & I spend the mother's and father's days with his family so that means it's more than one person to shop for so I usually do a few little gifts times three. This year on the internets I saw a genius idea I knew was perfect for the dads in our family:

It's a root beer sampler six pack. As the post told me, Bevmo has various types of root beer so I bought six different ones and the white holder came free with purchase. Then I just printed a label and glued it to the front and ta-da, a cute little present for the pops. The boys liked it but not as much as the ladies thought it was adorable. Women's opinions are more important. Men like anything.

For his Un-Father's Day present I bought Matt a four pack of pint glasses with DC characters (featuring Batman, Superman, and the Green Lantern) and his sister sent him a cute father's day card from the dogs. He was a happy boy.

summer movies: x-men first class

After our Super 8 high on Monday, Matt, his friend Jared, and I went to see X-Men:First Class, the prequel for the X-Men movies of which I am a huge fan of. The second one, X2 directed by Bryan Singer might be one of my favorite movies of all time. Anyway, this one's about the beginning of the X-Men and how Professor Charles Xavier meets up with Eric Lensherr who eventually become Professor X and Magneto. Now, the roles of Magneto and Professor X were originally played by Gandalf AKA Sir Ian McKellan and Captain Picard of the Starship Enterprise AKA Patrick Stewart so these dudes have some MAJOR shoes to fill. And since James McAvoy is a tasty morsel, I'm gonna give him a pass on this one. Doesn't have Patrick's rich and sexy voice but heaven knows I'm a sucker for brunettes with good hair. Oh and he can act.

The rest of the gang: barf. Magneto, meh, he was okay. I hate Rose Brynne so she sucks as Moira McTaggert, I can't even remember the rest of them, oh the chick that played Mystique, she was okay too, I can't say anything bad about someone willing to spend hours in a makeup chair that covers her from top to bottom. But the worst of the WORST was January Jones as Emma Frost. That woman is a stiff board, can't act worth shit, and completely wastes all of our time. 

So for this movie's massive failures I am blaming el director. Bad pacing, bad acting, no heart. I don't know what the stupid critics are talking about comparing it to Dark Knight (sacrilege!) as a great comic book movie. No, it isn't. It's subpar at best. Maybe I'm criticizing it harshly because I love the X-Men stories and the original three movies. I'm kind of mad at Bryan Singer for not directing this because he already regretted not directing the third one so he should have made it up to me/all of humanity and taken over the job. Of course if they make another X-Men movie I'll totally be there I just hope January Jones gets eaten by a fog monster before that happens.

Overall: don't waste your time on this crappy crapfest.

inspirational speech by little kid

Have a good weekend. I'll be re-arranging stuff in the cupboards. Sounds like a great time right?

bamboo garden

After the Experience Music Project, we headed to the one Vegetarian place I could find nearby and our pal Milena was actually game so the three of us had dinner at Bamboo Garden. Which is Chinese. Vegan Chinese. Vegan KOSHER Chinese. Delicious.

I could tell by the outside this place was gonna be solid. Somehow I can tell when Chinese places are the real thing or just posing. The interiors were cheesy so I knew it was gonna be good.

Their whole thing was that the emperor of China would have a few weeks a year where he would do some holy crap and wouldn't eat meat. So he made his chef's make him a special vegetarian meal that tasted as good as the real thing and if you looked at this meal at first glance, you'd buy it.

This is the Chinese meal I've craved since I quit eating meat. Almond/Cashew "chicken".

Milena had Mongolian "beef".

Matt had snow peas and "chicken".

I wish they had this place near us. I bet they have a vegetarian Chinese place somewhere...

I highly recommend it next time you're in Seattle.

Fun for the whole family!