California Dreamin ...

I finally found the cord for my camera so I was able to get all the pics and videos off. Now everyone out there in interweb land can see what we've been doing for the last month or two.

In September we went and saw "Walking With the Dinosaurs Live"- I was able to get TJ and myself really good, really cheap tickets to the live show of the popular BBC program.

In the show, an "archaeologist" introduces you to all sorts of different dinosaurs. And they are life size and they move.

Decorations:



This is a mother T-Rex defending her baby.



This one was pretty cool. It's a brachiosauras and it's just a baby. When it would stretch its head up it actually was in the rafters of the ceiling. And that's the Staples Center (you know, where the Lakers play) so it was really, really big.



And now for the video.




It was honestly very amazing. When the dinosaurs would roar it would vibrate your whole body. Especially when the T-Rex would do it. Excellent times.


Then in October, we went camping.



Beautiful Northern California!

We went with our friends Sabrina and Joseph (who somehow managed to escape being photographed the entire weekend) to Montana de Oro near Morro Bay. It's just south of Monterey and what I consider to be the beautiful part of California.



Chloe loves the camping. It was muddy when we woke up Saturday morning so I made her eat her breakfast on the picnic table.


Our camp site.



And for November, we went to Disneyland. You see, back in February we did some volunteer work. We donated our time to help clean up Dockweiler beach.







And because we did, Disney gave us 2 free tickets to the park of our choice.

And today, we finally cashed in our free tickets. It was a pretty near perfect day to go. The park wasn't that crowded - lines were around the 25 minute mark, the weather was crisp and clear and we both got to wear 2 cool giant buttons. My 2 were "Happy Birthday Jennifer" (which meant that every cast member and person in the park shouted out my name and Happy Birthday) and "Honorary Volunteer" and TJ's were "1st Visit" and also "Honorary Volunteer".



Upon entering, we caught sight of Sleeping Beauty's Castle which is already decorated for Christmas.



And some Disney chick named Selena Gomez was performing live in front of it for the ABC Very Merry Disney Christmas special (they tape it in November and air it in December) Apparently she is very, very popular with the children folk which played to our advantage. As the little children were running and screaming toward Selena Gomez, TJ and I quickly and efficiently made our way to:



Space-tacular.



Then on to Buzz Lightyear





I scored 159,000 and change. TJ got 15,000.

Thank you Call of Duty :)

Then it was off to Fantasyland.

A little Snow White



Some Pinocchio



One too many pictures at the Mad Hatters











Then TJ tried to convince me he was a King or something.



No such luck.

Then it was off to the Matterhorn



Oh but the fun doesn't stop there.

We hit Thundermountain Railroad.



Took a quick pause for a photo op with Tom Sawyer's Island



Splashed down a Mountain



Saw some pirates, went on an adventure with Indiana Jones, ate some Dole Whip, bought some candy, and made it out of the park all before sunset.

Twas a Magical Day indeed.

Happy Birthday Dear Chloe ...

Little Miss Thang turned ... I think 5. Honestly, I have no idea how old she is. Her papers say one thing, Ryan says another. Anyway, I would have missed her birthday completely had it not been for her wonderful insurance company. They sent her a birthday card - it was even addressed to her. Pretty funny.

So, today we went out and did a little birthday shopping. I bought her a new collar and ordered her a new ID tag.

She also got some squeaky squirrels



And a birthday cupcake!



They kind of got squished on the ride home. The one on the left is a bone shaped sandwich cookie. The one on the right is her cupcake.

Yeah, we found a dog bakery.



You have no idea the amount of restraint she is showing. She wanted to dive into those things so badly.

When I let her have at it - it was over quickly



Yeah, that's the only pic I could get.

Born to Run

my camera broke.
it still has pictures in it and i still need to get them out and post about my DC trip that occurred some two months ago.

oops.

i am, however, going to be buying a new camera in the next month or so. i'm upgrading :) and possibly going to enroll in a photography class just to keep things fresh. we'll see.

anyway,
i've decided to blog about my 5k training for my race in April since Mom thinks i need to blog more.

plus i'm super bored at work.

i have 8 weeks and blah blah days til race day. plenty of time so i'm starting an 8 week training program because why should you run more than you have to?

i'll try to steal one of my roommates cameras and take pics of my training cause i'm sure you all (read: Mom) are just dying to see it. i always look like i'm going to die when i'm done. i'm not joking. people stare at me. my face gets so red and i sweat like a mountain man. but fear not, i'm not out of shape - just always been that way.

i've used a heart rate monitor for a couple of years now. it's my favorite running gadget. i love it.

you see Mom, the heart rate monitor tells me my heart rate during my runs. it also tells me how many calories i burn which is just fun to see.

when i wear it, it looks like this:



except my watch is light green and very pretty and i have on a shirt.

i also just recently bought new nike running shoes and the nike+ running chip.

you see Mom, the nike+ running chip is this tiny little chip that you put in your shoe.

It's the orange oval thing on the right.



and it wirelessly connects to my ipod (the white rectangular thing on the left) and it SUPPOSEDLY tells me my distance, pace, calories burned and other fun stuff.

so i've been using it on my treadmill runs and so far i'm not that impressed. my first try didn't record, my second try stopped recording 8 minutes in and below is the generated graph from my third try.





i'm sorry but that line is wonky. i might believe it if i was doing an outdoor/hilly run but i was on a treadmill with a constant pace. one minute i'm running a 6 minute mile the next i was doing a 23 minute mile. ugh. anyway, the only accurate thing is the 1.51 distance. i've read reviews on this gem and i've heard that it takes a few tries and calibration runs to get it in tip top shape so i'm not giving up on it yet. i really only wanted it to tell me my distance for runs outside so i guess i shouldn't complain. i can always figure out my pace myself. the treadmill hit 1.5 just about the same time so that's good.

alright, next run is thursday.