Today was the Softshare Pumpkin Decorating Contest. I submitted my entry (see 10/27 post) and soon learned that my "Pirate Pumpkin" was a bit sad compared to the competition. Below you can see the winners:

This first one was done by Robin and it was a spoof on Silence of the Lambs- it's hard to see, but she won the "Most creative use of the Pumpkin" award.

This next one was done by Christine- it was called "Jurassic Pumpkin" I know she got an award, but I can't remember what it was called - I think "Most Creative" or something like that:
And then there was Ray's entry. Ray's entry had scenery. Ray's entry had a soundtrack. Ray's entry had a motor, for CRYING OUT LOUD!! Ray's award was "Best Overall" and was entitled: "Raiders of the Lost Pumpkin":

The soundtrack was turned down low, but you can see in the video that he has his ipod in the dock and it's tuned to the theme song from "Raider's of the Lost Ark"......... unbelievable.

Not everyone was so extreme... here are some of the others that didn't win awards, but were still pretty funny.

I'm from Iowa City too!!

We went to our first live show in Santa Barbara last night. Our neighbors Mike and Shayna invited us to go and hear Jason Reeves- apparently he's from Iowa... Iowa City in fact. I thought it was rather strange that I had never heard of him and was now being invited by my neighbors in Santa Barbara to go and see him at SOHO (a club downtown). So we accepted the invite and went to hear him last night. Below is a rough video that I took:

So, after he played he was signing autographs so I decided to go and find out if he was REALLY from Iowa City (I'm very possessive of my hometown, just ask my brother-in-law Kyle- he and I always argue about whose hometown is better.....and I always win!) So I waited to speak to Jason and his handler looks up at me and goes "Did you want to buy a cd?" and I said "um, no, I just wanted to say 'hi' to Jason because I'm from Iowa City too!" Jason did a bit of a double-take and was like "no way!". So I asked him what highschool he attended and he said "City High" and I said "Really? I was class of '99" and he said "Class of '03"..... dang, I'm old!!! I'm kind of surprised they let a granny like me in the club! So I asked if he knew my brother and he did, and then I told him it was a great show and wished him luck.

So today I called up my brother to do a little "fact checking". My brother tells me that not only does he know Jason, but our MOM gave him a few VOICE LESSONS!! It's a small world after all. The kid has been in my HOUSE for crying out loud. And I paid 7 bucks to hear him play....

California Corn Maze

The first time I tasted corn in Santa Barbara I knew something was a little off. We were at the "Lemon Festival" with our neighbors and they bought corn on the cob from one of those vendor booths. There were all manner of spices and things to dress up your corn which should have been my first clue.... Apparantly the spices are there to cover up the fact that the corn (which is an unnaturally pale yellow) doesn't taste so much like corn... at least not to an IOWA girl!! I took one bite and exclaimed- "That doesn't even TASTE like corn!!". Most dissappointing, but not entirely surprising.

My next Santa Barbara corn encounter was something altogether different. My homegroup (group from church that meets once a week) decided to visit the corn maze and pumpkin patch tonight, since Wednesday is Halloween. Being from Iowa, I was a bit skeptical about a corn maze in the middle of Santa Barbara. But I was told it was actually quite difficult and fun, so we decided to give it a try. Even though it was dark out, I tried to take a couple of pictures, because I couldn't help but giggle at the palm trees in the background- not your average corn maze!!



The hay ride was pretty fun- although the hay bales were kind of hard (don't hay rack rides usually involve tons of fluffy hay that you can roll around in??) All in all it was a very fun night- mainly because I didn't actually have to EAT any of the corn!! (It's THAT bad!) Seriously, though, it was a really good time with some very fun new friends and the corn maze was actually VERY difficult.

Halloween!

I can't believe it's Halloween! It snuck up on me- I think because I was out of town helping with wedding preparations I sort of lost track of time! Anyways- Softshare is having a pumpkin decorating contest. We got to pick out a pumpkin from a batch that one of my co-workers brought in and next Wednesday we have to bring in our decorated pumpkins. Check mine out:

Stalkers Anonymous

A note to blog stalkers.... specifically Krista, Laura, Ashley, Leslie, Monica or Rachel.... You guys rock. Blog stalkers unite!! I'm so glad I've found a group of people who share in my addiction. :) Keep on stalking.... And don't be afraid to leave a comment here....KRISTA!!

Believe it or not, I think I'd prefer SNOW!

I thought orange would be a good color since I will be referencing the wildfires! I'm sure everyone has heard about the wildfires in CA. The closest one's to Santa Barbara are only 30 miles away, but we're not really in any danger. The problem here (which, I know, pale's in comparison to the horrible tragedy of the fires) is the the ASH!! The Santa Ana winds are stirring up the ash in the mountains and Santa Barbara is covered in it. It's wreaking havoc on my respiratory system, and just in case you think I'm being dramatic, I took a few pictures of what it looks like....

Since it is also unseasonably warm, we of course have the windows open (being that we don't have air conditioning). Which means, as you can see below, ash EVERYWHERE- from the windowsills to the floors.

So, really, I would prefer snow. It's pretty and white and it doesn't muck up your windowsills and floors like the nasty black soot. Since ash is basically raining from the sky, does that qualify it as precipitation? And if so, am I a precipitation racist because I prefer white snow to black ash???!!

A LONG Week

Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad that I got to spend the week with my best friend. Especially the week before her wedding, which included her birthday:

In this picture she is taking the first of 3 tequila shots on her birthday at "Don Jose"- the Mexican restaurant in Estherville, IA that looks more like a Shakey's buffet than a Mexican restaurant, but yet has impressively authentic food. Much later in the evening she received a phone call from her dad who asked for me three times before she finally handed me the phone in a fit of giggles over the fact that her dad would only talk to me (he wanted to make sure I would be able to get her home! Of course, being the friend that I am, we were already on our way). He told me that the last time she was out that late they brought her home in a bucket...

For most of the week April's mom was referring to me as "the sergeant". April and I made a list on Monday of what we needed to get done for the week and then I made sure we got it done- even when they tried to go to bed Monday night without completing Monday's list!! We took a picture of the list:

One of the toughest things on the list was putting together the favors, which were also the name cards with table assignments. They were little bronze airplane's that were also pencil sharpeners, and we hot glued ribbons to the back of them that had cards with the guest's names and table assignments.

The tables were all named with the aviation letter terms (ie. Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta etc.). Needless to say, I can do the entire alphabet now... (Echo, Fox-trot, Gulf, Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu). April got a kick out of the living room when we spread them all out to be alphabatized... it looked like an airfield!

Not too long after we got started on this task, April's dollar-store glue gun turned into a volcano and she ended up burning her finger so badly that it blistered. Unfortunately, it was on her left hand (bad for wedding ring photos). Fortunately, it was on her middle finger (good for a laugh when she showed it to people.)

Wednesday night we stayed in Chaska, MN (suburb of Minneapolis) at our friend Amber's new house (which, by the way, is AMAZING!) and then Thursday we checked into the impressive St. Paul hotel. This is where things started to go haywire....

We had called the hotel two days before to confirm that we had a room with two beds- so that we could get ready for the wedding there the next day. When we got to our room, we found one king size bed.... argh! We were NOT happy about this and quickly let the front desk know that. Luckily April was quite calm and nice about it (I was very hungry, and so, wisely, no one asked ME to talk to the front desk people!) After a frustrating 20 minutes we were upgraded to a 2500/night suite at no additional charge...

The suite was on the 11th floor and had a VERY impressive view:

It was the perfect place for the bridal party to get ready and take pictures, so all in all it worked out splendidly. The wedding and reception went off without a hitch- April was a beautiful bride of COURSE.

P.S. We're going on the cruise!

Wedding'd OUT!!

2 weddings in the span of a week- what a whirlwind! First off, Justin and I flew back to Des Moines to attend the wedding of our good friend Byrd (Mike) and his fiancee April. They were married in April's hometown of Perry, IA. We saw a bunch of people we hadn't seen in ages and despite the fact that most everyone seems a lot more mature and grown up, we had a really great time. :) Friday night we went to the rehearsal dinner at the local pizza parlor and then hit the "club" next to our hotel, which, considering the size of Perry, was actually pretty cool. Below is a picture of Justin and our friend Schade (pronounced "Shady").

The wedding was lovely- April was gorgeous and Byrd looked awesome in his Taupe tuxedo. I got a great picture of the kiss:

The reception was like a reunion- it was great to see all of our old friends.... we still clean up pretty nicely!

Quite Possibly the BEST P/T JOB EVER!!!

Good....no GREAT news: I may be going on a 3 day cruise in January courtesy of my new part-time employer. Oh, and guess what else? My husband gets to come too. 3 day cruise down to Mexico....I love my life.

They scheduled the cruise a couple of months ago so it's still tentative as to whether they can get cabin for us. I'm not getting my hopes up.... really....I'm not....ok, maybe I am. But come on... a CRUISE!!!

In other good news: I found a wonderful hairstylist!! I know, headline news- right?! Well, when one moves to a new city, one must find new hairstylists, mechanics, doctors etc. It took over two YEARS to find a good hairstylist in Michigan!! I got very lucky here in California- Joanne is one of Justin's colleague's wives. Not only is she a fab hairstylist, but a very cool girl that I am looking forward to getting to know better! Life is good.

Oh, one more bit of good news....
Rockstar was delivered TODAY!!

Accent??!!

Apparently, I have an accent. For the very first time in my entire life, I have been accused of having an accent. A "midwest" accent, to be precise. The accusation occurred at work yesterday (Softshare- not the Children's Chorus).

Yesterday afternoon at work I had my first "crisis management" experience in the "office work" setting. The Coca-cola delivery guy came, and at first, that seemed routine. (We have a cooler in our break room that is stocked full of sodas, fruit drinks, and energy drinks). Then, my co-worker Natalie (who sits at the front desk with me) noticed that something about our delivery was "off". Our delivery did not contain any of the EXTREMELY POPULAR soda, Vault. When asked why, the delivery guy said that none of the other buyers in the area are ordering enough of it, and therefore we would have to order extreme mass quantities of Vault, if we wanted it to be delivered to us.

News traveled fast around the office and we were in crisis mode. After the initial hysteria started to abate, we started to discuss our options...

Option 1: Go without.

This option did not seem viable as several of the employees were near panic-attacks at this prospect.

Option 2: Purchase it from the store.

This option seemed, well, very expensive and a bit irrational.

Option 3: Find a substitute.

Of our three options, this one seemed the most likely, even though it illicited a few sharp gasps. We quickly set about the task of coming up with a suitable replacement. Red Bull was volunteered, but then quickly shut down (I don't think Coca-Cola delivers it anyway). To pay homage to my favorite father-in-law, I then volunteered "Rockstar" as a solution. This got some raised eyebrows and a few exclamations, as well as an accusation that I HAVE AN ACCENT!!!!

When I recovered from this accusation, I assured my co-workers that Rockstar (and I do say the "ah" vowel brightly when I say this word- mom, you know what that means) has many many fine qualities that could stand up to Vault, if not surpass it.

Quality 1: MASS QUANTITIES OF ENERGY... here is where I shared the anecdote about my father-in-law and his first experience with Rockstar, during which he stayed up most of the night painting the foyer of his house.

Quality 2 : You can get DIET Rockstar.

Quality 3: It tastes like Smarties.

After my Rockstar lobbying (during which I became increasingly more self-conscious about my "accent") a conclusion was reached and Rockstar became the new kid on the Softshare block. I can't wait to see people bounce off the walls!!