Newport Beach California

I had the most wonderful weekend in California. I flew in Friday night and my cousin Jenny picked me up. After dropping off my luggage at her house we drove to Huntington beach. It was dark but the ocean looked so beautiful with the moonlight glowing on the water. On Saturday we went back to the beach for a couple hours. It was so fun to play in the waves and walk along the beach. It was actually fairly warm. It was quite a change from the snowy weather that I left. During the day on Saturday we went to Balboa Island and Pennisula and just walked around and shopped in the quaint little town. We walked the boats sailing in the bay and dreaming of being on one of the yachts. Then we did some more shopping at Fashion Island in Newport Beach. It is a fun outdoor mall. I didn't buy anything because come to find out it has mainly expensive shops. It was fun to look though. We then drove to Downtown Disney to meet up with another cousin and his little family. We were going to go to dinner but ended up in Disneyland instead. It was so fun to be with them all for the evening. I haven't seen these cousins for about two year. Oh and I forgot the trip to see the Newport Beach Temple earlier on Saturday as well. It is a beautiful temple and there were no protestors at the time. Sunday we drove to the beach again and watched a surfing competition and just relaxed listening to the ocean. It was a perfect ending to a great trip. I headed back home late Sunday night. I am excited that I get to go back so soon. I really love California. 23 days and I will be back in Disneyland!

Finished!

I am finished with the Twilight series. I think book 4 "Breaking Dawn" was my favorite. I didn't want it to end but at the same time I wanted to find out what was going to happen so I couldn't put it down. Now I need to find a new book to read. Any suggestions?

Halloween

I attended the craziest and most fun Halloween party I have ever been to on Halloween Day. Where you ask? Well it was at work. They go all out for Halloween. Each team comes up with a theme and all the costumes are part of that theme. My team chose Wii Olympics. We each chose a country and dressed up either in their colors, traditional costume or the sport in which we were participating in on the Wii. We then decorated our cubicles or offices to represent that country. We made up a name for our character and I made credentials for each person. We brought two Wii's and played several different events throughout the morning. We had a Torch Relay throughout the office and then an Opening and Closing Ceremony. It was a lot of fun. We won the competition which made the day even more fun. We get the coveted trophy back and we get a free lunch for the team. Here are some pictures from the eventful day. I was from the Netherlands. I am half Dutch after all!

The Torch Relay. I don't have pictures from the lighting of the caldron because I actually had the honor of lighting the real caldron outside. We later lit this torch and then had a Tiki Torch lamp outside that we really lit during our Opening Ceremony. I did not have my camera with me during that part of the morning.

My Cubicle The Whole Team The event stadium

The Day Dawn is Breaking

...into my sleep that is. I have started Breaking Dawn and again I am losing sleep to these crazy books. Sunday night I dreamed I was being chased by vampires and other creatures in Scotland Yard. Okay, so I had played the game Scotland Yard with my brothers and sister-in-law on Sunday night. For those of you who have never played this game or heard about it here is the description from wikipedia. "Scotland Yard is a board game in which a team of players, as "police", cooperate to track down a player controlling a "criminal" around a board representing the streets of London. It is named after Scotland Yard, the headquarters of London's Metropolitan Police Service. Scotland Yard is an asymmetric board game, with the detective players cooperatively solving a variant of the pursuit-evasion problem." It is very fun. I was the criminal (known as Mr. X) during this round. We finished at midnight and because I had taken a nap earlier I couldn't fall asleep at bedtime. I decided to read and see if it would help me fall asleep. After about 15 minutes my eyes were drooping and I was tired. I woke up at 2:30am with my heart racing. I was trying to escape the creatures who were trying to turn me into a vampire and I was also running from the police who were trying to track me down in Scotland Yard. Sometimes my imagination gets the best of me. This was one of those nights.

Neverending Story

I am almost finished with Eclipse (book three of the Twilight series for those who don't know). It is driving me absolutely crazy. I want to skip to the last few pages of the book just to find out what happens but I promised myself that I would read it straight through. It seems like I am never going to get to the end. I had to take a little break because my eyes were starting to blur. I am determined to finish it tonight and start book four. Then I won't have to worry about people at work ruining the outcome for me anymore. I have had to scream to get people to stop talking about the books and I have even had to resort to the old plug your ears and sing the National Anthem or some other random song trick. I think everyone finally knows that I am only on the third book and to stop talking if I am in the room. I am probably the only person in my part of the building who has not read the books. I know that is not true though because one of my co-workers on my team borrowed my copy of New Moon (book two) and just finished so now she is on book three.

I just may reach my goal of having all the books read before the movie comes out.

Monday

Today was a typical Monday. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. It was not a fun day. I wish we would have had the day off. Columbus Day not a holiday come on. The post office is closed, the bank is closed and several of the offices I had to call were closed. Of course it would have just delayed the problems we had until tomorrow but it would have been nice to have a longer weekend.

However, now I am home and it is Monday night and three of my favorite shows are on tonight. Plus I lost another pound which brings my total to 13. I am a little more than half way towards my first weight loss goal. It's very exciting. Pretty soon I will have to go shopping for a new pair of jeans. My jeans that I am wearing now are starting to look really baggy which is exciting for me since about a year ago they were tight. I hope to be in a different size by my trip to Disneyland.

My Birthday Trip

Today I booked my birthday trip to Disneyland. I am so excited. My sister and I are going to California the first weekend in December and I will be celebrating my 35th birthday while we are there. I will be celebrating two weeks early because I didn't want to go during the week of Christmas which is when my real birthday is. I have always wanted to celebrate a birthday in Disneyland and decided this would be a great year. 35 seems like a great number even though I am not looking forward to turning 35. Celebrating in my favorite place will make it a little easier. So in 58 days we will be back in the Happiest Place on Earth!