Funny Memories

Last night on American Idol, David Archuleta sang Neil Diamond's "Coming to America." I have to admit that it brought back an embarrassing, but hilarious memory that I thought I would share with you. When I was in 6th grade we had to do a "creative project." This project could be basically anything that we wanted to do. For some strange reason I thought it would be a great idea to do a dance. I enlisted the help of my friend Megan and we began choreographing a dance to "Coming to America." I don't remember why we chose that particular song, or really to do a dance in the first place. I didn't have a lot of dancing experience. I had taken a couple community summer Jazz dance classes, and one folk dance class at BYU, and apparently I thought that made me qualified to do a dance project. Needless to say it was a complete mess. We wore blue leotards with red, white and blue striped skirts. We were going to use pom poms, and I honestly don't remember if we ended up using them or not. I had to perform this dance numerous times for classmates, teachers, and parents. I thankfully don't have any pictures to post, so for those of you that were not there to witness this dance, you won't ever completely appreciate how hilarious this was. I don't remember what anyone else did for their creative projects, so I am hoping that no one remembers mine. But for me, whenever I hear Neil Diamond singing, I can't help but laugh at myself. What was I thinking??!!

How high can it go?

Can you tell that I don't like taking out the garbage? That is a job that I leave for Andrew.

Western Conference Preview

As promised, here is the full preview of the Western Conference finals, without a certain female interrupting my in-depth analysis:

Mavs vs New Orleans: New Orleans is a pretty amazing team. I would, in fact, want nothing more than a NO and Jazz matchup. The thought of 4-7 games in a row of Deron Williams taking on Chris Paul already has me in tears of joy. That would make it the first time I cried over a TV show, well behind Diane's 437 times (Imagine watching Biggest Loser every week with sniffles saying "sniff...sniff...he used to not be able to play with his kids...sniff sniff...but look at him now...he's skinny and playing basketball with his little boy...sniff sniff...") Seriously I could write pages and pages about that matchup; hopefully we'll get the chance to do so. But this is here and now, with this series. So my original guess for the series had the Mavs in six, and game one showed why I work for Duff and Phelps as a financial valuation expert and not at ESPN as an analyst (that and the fact that I'm not an ex-player who refers to himself in the 3rd person). The Mavs lost by 12. I thought experience and grit would win the series for the Mavs, but I should have realized that the more important aspect would be talent (ya know, the reason I'm not in the NBA myself, seeing as I would be the first NBA player to jumpe like a wounded hippo). Ah whatever, NO in 7. I'm a sell-out.

Lakers vs Nuggets: This one is for Jessica: BOOOOOOOOOOO! (That would make two posts with your name and the phrase BOO referring to the LA Lakers. By the way, I like my oatmeal raisin cookies with extra raisins and a little extra dash of cinnamon. ) As you can tell, I'm completely objective about the Lakers. The Lake-show is incredibly talented, of that there is no doubt. Denver is also talented. Denver is essentially a team that a 13 year old would construct via manipulative trading on XBOX. The Lakers are a team that were constructed by manipulating an inept GM. The Nuggets play like the old cliche: sans head. Gotta hand the series to the Lake-show in a walk. Ironic to see Kobe back in Denver to try and reach his peak. Lakers in 5.

Suns vs Spurs: So Cory and I were watching this one on his tivo, and then it suddenly gave out, and skipped ahead live, erasing the part we had not yet watched. So we missed the last part of the 4th quarter, the 1st overtime and then up until 20 seconds left in the 2nd OT. Thanks tivo, if Brady hadn't been in the room I might have thrown you through the wall. Suns in 6 (I like the orange uniforms).

Jazz vs Houston: I watched this game wearing my Stockton jersey, and the Jazz played great...coincidence? No way. I'm basically the reason we won yesterdays game. AK was amazing, Deron was his steady 20-10 MVP caliber self and Boozer was rolling. Good for them, I'm still giving the game ball to myself, and you better believe I'll be sporting that jersey every game until we hoist the trophy (and possibly underneath my work clothes). Jazz in 5.

Los Gringos Locos

I thought I would share one of our favorite finds ... Los Gringos Locos. It's a little mexican restaraunt in La Canada, about 5 minutes from our apartment. I was introduced to this place by the other Rose Bowl swim coaches. Apparently they have great margaritas, but we go there for their amazing guacamole, which is made to order at your table. We now go there almost every week with the other swim coaches. When we left there on Friday night the waiter said "see you next time!" If you are ever in the area, I definitely recommend that you go there and try their guacamole and fajitas!

Here is a picture from when we took Jessica, Cory and Brady there a few weeks ago.

Our new couch

We got a new couch a few weeks ago and I thought I would post some pictures so you all could see. I had been wanting a new couch for a long time, but I couldn't ever find the right one. We finally found this one at IKEA. It's really small (2 seater), but that was what we liked about it. We don't have a lot of room in our apartment, and we also have two love sacs (one of which is huge!) So this size works perfectly, just as long as we don't have too many people over at our apartment at one time. The couch does convert to a bed, so you are all welcome to stay with us next time you are in town!
There are a couple of funny stories that go along with our new couch. We tried very hard to donate our old couch, but after being turned away at 3 different places, Andrew and Cory decided to leave it out on the curb not far from our apartment. When Cory drove by 10 minutes later, it was gone. Hopefully someone found a great home for it.

The second story seems to follow a recurring theme in our home. Andrew thinks that he can do everything by himself. He wanted to move the old couch in and bring the new one in by himself. I told him that he needed help ... and ... as always ... I was right. I not only have the dent in my floor to prove it, but also this illustration given to us with the new couch. I love being right!

3:30 A.M.

Have you ever had the phone ring in the middle of the night? For me, it's never a good feeling to hear the phone ring that late (or that early). Not just because it wakes me up, but mostly because it's usually not good news. Well, our phone rang this morning at 3:30 a.m. I was somewhat relieved when I saw that the caller id was noone that I recognized. I answer hello to hear a surprised mumbling of "oh ... uh ... I thought I'd get an answering machine ..." A little annoyed at this point I again say "hello?" He then says something about how he thought this was Focus Properties. I realize that it is someone calling for information about a vacant apartment in our building. (If you didn't already know, we are the apartment managers in our building.) After this guy realizes that he has called on-site managers and has clearly woken us up at 3:30 in the morning, he then proceeds to ask "well ... is Andrew there?" As if I am actually going to give the phone to Andrew so he can answer questions about the apartment. As politely as I think this guy deserves at this point I say "Call back tomorrow." and I hang up. It's times like these that I have to remind myself that it is actually worth the rent discount to deal with things like this. --we have many other interesting stories about our adventures as apartment managers. But that's a whole other post --

(FYI: We have received two other phone calls past 11:00 at night asking about the apartments!)

Let's Go U-Tah, Da da da da da!

This would be my inaugural post, which I decided to make about one of the shows I watch (Here's a hint, it doesn't rhyme with Shamerican Idol, nor does the singing in my show induce thoughts of smacking my head against hard objects, like the side of Jewish Community Center located adjacent to our apartment building). So my "show", isn't so much a show per se, as televised basketball games. Starting this Saturday, the Playoffs begin, here is my analysis:

I think that David and Dave will be the final two. I just love Dave's voice...oh wait I'm not a 14 year old girl. Here we go:

Eastern Conference:

Possibly the worst conference in sports history. I swear I could have played for half the teams in the Eastern Conference. There would have been better basketball if David Stern had swapped out some of the teams for middle school girls teams. Given that I find the Eastern Conference to be best described with adjectives normally reserved for describing an fire consumed orphanage (not good), a reasonable person would assume that I will avoid watching any games involving teams from that conference. My answer, reason is lame and I enjoy chilling on the couch with my buddy Cory trying to convince one of our wives to make cookies (I like oatmeal raisin Jessica). Here are my picks for the conference:

• Boston over Atlanta 4-0: Atlanta's just good enough that I would not make the squad, but just barely. No game will be closer than 11 points.


• Cleveland over Washington 4-3: I hate Cleveland. Not because of Lebron, I love Lebron. He may be the 3rd greatest player I've ever watched (I'll let you know who number 1 and 2 are later). I just hate the Lebronettes. Cleveland is a team I could play for. My old man Joe Jarvis would be a better power forward than Ben Wallace (though with slightly worse hair than Ben Wallace...Still love ya Pops!). What a crappy team. I'll still tune in for the game at 9:30 am pacific time. It should be a good series. Lebron wins four games by himself (30+ points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists per game in the wins), and the Lebronettes lose three games (31 % shooting).


• Orlando over Toronto 4-1: If the Chinese can't stop him, Canada has no hope.


• Detroit over the Sixers 4-2: I just got told to stop writing so much.

Western Conference:

Here's my analysis: Go Jazz! Allow me to introduce my man crush and my most favorite player to watch since John Stockton : I'm not saying I love him more than Diane, but if he wins the Jazz a title...no promises. Enjoy! Jazz in 5, Suns in 6, Mavs in 6 and Lakes (boo!) in 5.

American Idol

American Idol ... either you love it or you hate it. I for one, love it. At least this season. Whenever I don't like the outcome of a season I refuse to watch it for a year or two, but somehow I always get sucked back in. (This year I began watching again, even though I was not happy about Blake not winning last year, but with the writers strike there wasn't much else on.) Anyway, this isn't something that I want to write about often, but I just had to put my predictions out there so when they come true ... I have it in writing. So here are my predictions for this season. I think that the final 3 will be Brooke White, David Archuleta and David Cook. While Brooke White is a great singer, I think the final 2 will come down to the Davids. That will be an incredible show with a lot of talent. They are both extremely talented singers and it will be very close, but I think that David Cook will take it all in the end! So there you have it.

(I also have to put it out there that I like Simon Cowell. I think he is the only judge that actually tells the truth. He doesn't try to sugar coat anything. He gives them the criticism that they need to improve. I have been annoyed this season with the amount of disrespect that the contestants have shown towards him!)

Goodbye Nalgene Bottle!

This morning on the Today Show they talked about the new warnings that are coming out about the plastic used in some reusable water bottles. They warned not to use any recycle numbers 3, 6, or 7 (look at the bottom of your bottles). It has something to do with the plastic that is used and harmful effects that it may have. Not really knowing anything about it, but believing everything Matt Lauer tells me, I looked at all of our water bottles. I found that almost all of our bottles are #7. I am fine with throwing away these bottles, but Andrew is having a little bit more of a difficult time. When he got to work this morning he checked out his favorite orange nalgene bottle and was extremely dissapointed to find out that it too must go. He wrote a poem about his bottle and I thought it was hilarious and had to post it.

"Nalgene bottle in my favorite hue

I never thought I'd be poisoned by you

I bought you long ago at the sports store dicks,

now I find out, you might be making me sick

I took you on hikes, to quench my thirst

now I know why my stomach always hurt

I love you for the color of your shell

but some nerdy doctor told me you're making me unwell

so goodbye, I must throw you away

maybe number 7 plastic is why my hair is turning gray!"

Boomshine!

I do not play computer games. I don't really play video games that much either (except for the Wii, which we got for Christmas). There are a lot of different things that I would rather spend (waste) my time doing. But I recently came across a computer game called Boomshine. After five minutes, I was addicted. I spent over an hour the other night playing this game. I'm not sure what it is about the game that is so appealing to me, but I love it. It's very simple, all you do is click a bubble, which lingers until other bubbles bump into it. If you have a couple of minutes, or a few hours, give it a try! (Thanks to Megan for the link!)

Play here!

Hello Blogging World!

I always said that I would eventually start a blog, most likely when we had kids, because that would be when we would actually have something that people would want to read. But enough people have told us that we should blog now ... so ... here we are! I hope that this will be a great way for family and friends to keep up to date on all of the great adventures that Andrew and I have out here in California. So with that in mind, here we go ...