"Can you blow up the World?"

"Egad. I hope not. That's where I keep all of my stuff." ~The Tick

Hee-hee... I love the Tick. Anyways, I'm losing my stuff on Wednesday for a couple of days. Which includes my laptop and sewing machine. So sad.... what am I going to do? All of our stuff is going away to be cleaned while they redo our insulation, paint our walls, and other stuff.

*sniff* *sniff* my stuff.....

Anyone seen Burn Notice?

I have and I love that show. I also love Fiona's hip purse. I want one very badly. Believe me, I've searched for it and have found nothing. (Ok, so not exactly nothing - recently I've found some but I haven't liked how they looked.)

I attempted to make one but there were some issues with it, but I believe I have the kinks worked out now and I'm going to attempt it again! (Wish me luck!)

Well I'm off to bed. I've been exhausted all week and today was no exception. :-) Yay bed! I love my bed....

I want this SO badly!!!!

Can' you just imagine the type of pictures you can take?!?!?

I was browsing photojojo last night and found this. Laura and I each will be purchasing one within the next couple of days.

Isn't it awesome?!?!

I've been wanting rainboots

For a long time & I sure could have used them this past couple of weeks. I've been checking out Target's rainboots for awhile but I just can't decide which ones I'd like to buy. I hope I can figure that out ASAP.

AND I discovered that Target also has bubble umbrellas! I know having an umbrella in Oregon is screaming "I'm a tourist look at me!" but I'd love to have a one! And I've been on the look out for bubble umbrellas for a few years now. I think I may have to grab me one when I get the rainboots.

Sometimes Twilight cracks me up

the fans and the movie merchandise that is. During my unproductive online shopping spree (What? I'm trying to stimulate the economy) I discovered this perfume and it makes me laugh.

The container is apple shaped, because that's the forbidden fruit, and the smell is something and fresia... because that's what humans smell like to vampires. (You want this, don't you Amanda?)

So, do you want to smell good for vampires?

And the other thing that cracks me up is how fans are freaking out that Rob Pattinson cut his hair. (Oh no, heaven forbid! Whatever - who freakin cares!)

Hee-hee I'm so easily amused. But the kid needed a haircut, and if he wants one he's entitled to one.

I'm sure every time he went on an interview or made any public appearance his hair stylists would be saying "Don't touch your hair!" And every time he combed his fingers through his sexy hair during the interviews I'm sure they were freaking out backstage "Not again! We spent hours doing his hair!" I know that's how it went down.

I think our house is haunted because

I was sitting at the dinning room table doing a little online shopping, the boys are in bed, and Laura is in her room when suddenly I hear Darth Vader making shooting noises.

And then it happened AGAIN!

You may think that that's nothing but it's a toy that you have to push a button for it to make noise. Besides that I've had other weird things happen in that room.... buh nuh nuh nuh!


Image credit: Found it online somewhere - it's not mine

Curses and blessings...

That ice storm was something else! And I have some really cool pictures to upload here but I have no power so I can't. I'm at my sister's in-laws right now borrowing their power and laptop. (They even fed us a delicious dinner!)

We lost power about a quarter to 5;00. It's freezing, but we were ok because we have a wonderful wood burning stove. That thing heated up our house and made my room HOT. Around 11:30 my brothers and I even cooked Ramen on it because we didn't have dinner. I love the wood burning stove, it's our saving grace!

Then, I get woken up at 2:00 to a "Steph, wake up and get your shoes! There a small fire in the attic and we need to get out." I love my sleep and have a hard time waking up but when something like that is yelled, you wake up quick. Curse you wood burning stove!!

We scrambled to wake the kids and get them out of the house. All the cars are iced over and I honestly have no idea how my dad was able to open the driver's door to the cars. Not even 5 minutes after calling 911, 4 fire trucks are on our street and the firemen are trekking up our hill/driveway.

Everyone is ok and we now have a new skylight. Power is still off and we now have no way to heat the house. Luckily my sister's in-laws live close and we're over here eating breakfast and charging our phones. (My phone completely died)

It was raining while we were outside with the firemen. We were out there for about 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Somewhere between 4:00 am and 9:30 the rain turned into snow and we woke up to at least 4 inches of new snow on top of the ice.

We still have no power but we have lots of sleeping bags and blankets! This has been a CRAZY week! But we learned a very important message.... we need to have backpacks with shoes, wallets, clothes, and car keys (along other stuff) to grab in an emergency. Some of us didn't even know where our shoes were. We'll be working on that today so we'll be better prepared if anything like this ever happens again.

I will be posting pictures of the ice storm and the firemen working on our house later. When we get power again.... Well I'm off to be social now! :-)

Vegas baby, Vegas... Part 3

I finally was able to see The Phantom of the Opera and boy was I excited!

I sure was worried that we were going to be late because Jen and Erika weren't too concerned about being on time or didn't consider traffic on the strip. Either way I was stressing that we weren't going to be on time.

If you're late there is no guarantee that they'll let you in. Either way it's rude to the actors and everyone involved in the production to come in late and disrupt the performance. But the management that night didn't care they let several people come in late and it was rather annoying. But we weren't the ones coming in late, yes that's right we made it just in time to hear the phantom tell us to turn off our cell phones.

You may be wondering about the picture of my shoes.... the top part was my shoes of death (but aren't they cute?!) that I wore for the show and the I brought flip-flops to change into after the show.

This is our dramatization of us running to the show... yes we literally ran and to do that we had to take off the death shoes.

This is one of my favorite shots of Las Vegas.

Vegas baby, Vegas..... Part 2

More memories from Vegas. We took Coco-Cola world by storm!

At this table Jenn tried her hardest to go cross-eyed, but couldn't. It sure gave us a hard laugh but it's so hard to explain on a blog.... but believe me, we were dying with laughter!


Every girl needs to own a boa! So how could we not have a little boa party to celebrate?
Man... I miss these girls!

I had to see the Waters of Belagio, the last time I missed them because I got sick from sun exposure and little water. (I know it was dumb) So I was excited to finally be able to catch them this time.


The following pictures were taken from the car. We were at a red light enjoying this show so much! The song was "I am Proud to be an American." We were singing along and rocking out with our windows down, needless to say some people on the streets were staring at us, but whatever! We were in the zone! That was the best red light I ever stopped at.


Next is the final installment - Phantom of the Opera....

Vegas baby, Vegas!

Back in September I met up with my friends in Las Vegas. It wasn't just any trip it was a celebration, a birthday celebration for Erika that is. Erika turned the big 20 - 10.

We packed in a lot of activities throughout the weekend and we had a blast!

It is possible to have clean fun in the city of sin. You just have to advert your eyes and know when not to look at the ground.




Vegas trip is to be continued....

Photography + Sister

My sister is an amazing photographer and I'm trying to learn from her. So we go on several photography trips together and just have a blast.

Right before Laura's surgery we went to Portland's Cathedral Park. We talked about going there since March, so it was nice that we were finally able to check it out.

But sometimes Laura makes me nervous. She'll do anything for a good shot... like stand in the middle of St. Johns Bridge for example. Seriously, I can't do that. I have too much of "I don't want to get hurt" gene going off in my brain.

She does amazing shots, but sometimes I worry about her...

I've been thinking, a dangerous past time I know...

I wonder if you know where I stole my title from. Here's a hint...

It's a line in a song....

ok, here's another hint:

So anyways while I was dying this weekend I was thinking. (Ok, I wasn't really dying but during my moments of consciousness I sure felt like it.) Anyways, I've concluded I'm lonely. I really have no friends up here. I have no one that I can just call to hang out if I'm having a problem or when I feel alone. I just do everything by myself or ask my sister to come along.

The people I do call in that instance, the people I trust to be my friends that I cry on are all in a different state! That's rather sad. (It takes me awhile to trust people enough to connect emotionally as friends, otherwise I don't let my mask / guard down... basically I'm just weird.)

Anyways, I was reading an article tonight and I really like this chic's quote about a network of friends, "I need someone in my life that I can talk to almost every day - someone who remembers when I have a test or that it's my birthday." So true sister, so true.

I think I need to make some friends in the same state I live in....

On another note I watched this new show Sunday night called "Leverage" and I thought it was pretty cool!

I really liked the muscle dude. And the computer guy was funny too! Oh and the thief, I liked her too... ok I thought all the characters were good.

I think I'll be following this one.


I came to another epiphany this weekend while on my deathbed.

Ok, so I'm joking about how bad I was this weekend, but in reality I was really sick this weekend. My sister saw me Friday night and she said, "No offense but you look horrible." And I had to cancel all of my plans for Saturday. I was going to visit the Pittock Mansion with my old co-workers / friends and I was so excited! And this time of year the Pittock Mansion is all decorated Christmas-y. And then my work's Christmas party was that night and I couldn't go either. I basically slept Saturday and most of Sunday away.

So back to my epiphany... thanks to the stupid meth heads sudafed now sucks. There are few medicines that I can take to help my congestion that don't knock me out. Sudafed was always my saving grace. But not anymore! Since they had to remove the key ingredient because of the stupid meth heads it doesn't work for me anymore! I hate the meth heads. I know hate is a strong word but its deserved in this instance!

I found Waldo!

No, really I did!
Here are some of my favorite costumes that I saw at comic con. (I'm not going to repeat any costumes that I already posted during my other entries.)



Good times, good times. I'm glad I finally made it to Comic con because it was something that I wanted to go to ever since high school.

Last panels of Comic Con

Saturday I was able to meet up with my friends, yay! And I was able to finally take my time through the Exhibitors Hall and it was HUGE! The companies had way cool exhibits though!
I did see Tite Kubo (creator of Bleach) at the Viz booth but they were Nazi's about the no photography around their booth while he was there. I don't think he likes his picture taken. If you read Bleach, you know how he draws pictures of himself in sunglasses all the time, guess what he was wearing? Yep he was wearing sunglasses indoors while signing autographs. Honestly I did have a shot of him on the side of the booth where there were no security guards, but I decided to respect him and I didn't take a picture.

We had a fun time doing pictures...
I sure love geeking out with friends!
Later, we joined in on the last half of the 'Guide to the DC Universe' panel. I know le gasp, I actually went to a panel that had to do with comics at a comic book convention!

We went to the DC Animation panel that discussed the new Wonder Woman animated movie and Nathan Fillon joined the panel. It was a very fun panel and they showed us some sneak peeks of Wonder Woman-I would like to check this movie out.

We were one of the last people that they let in for the 'Creating Characters workshop.' It was very informative and the presenter was a good. I'm glad we were able to make it.

And I was able to make it to one of the costumer designers panels. The panelists have worked on Matrix, Speed Racer, The Watchmen, Spirit, The New Terminator and others

That night I wanted to go see the preview of the new X-men cartoon ("Wolverine and the X-Men") so we went ahead to the room and sat through the panel before it which was the Sara Silverman Show panel... not impressed with her or the show. I definitely won't be checking that show out.

I'm intrigued by the new X-men cartoon and they showed us the first three episodes I believe... but I'm very concerned about the lack of Gambit so.... hmm... I'll still check it out because I did enjoy X-Men Evolution even though it was lacking Gambit at first and when they did have him he wasn't in a whole lot. But I'm going to check it out in January.

And on Sunday I spent the morning in the Exhibitor's Hall with my dad. Yay for shopping!

Seriously though, this is how crowded the Exhibitor's Hall is. I do not recommend Comic Con for anyone that is claustrophobic or gets anxiety attacks in crowds. Geesh I'm not any of that but I started to be during this weekend. :-)

And look who I saw in the hall on Sunday!!! It's Number 1, (or Xanatos...) Troy, (or Demona....) and Jordi (he has no Gargoyles character... and I'm sure I spelled his character's name wrong.)

Comic Con: Avatar

There were two things that I wanted to see at Comic Con Twilight and Avatar. And Friday night I was able to attend the Avatar panel.... and it was AWESOME!!! There were over 1600 fans in this room and we first watched the last hour of the finale and the fans were so into it... I couldn't help but get sucked into the screaming madness myself. And the creators were in the audience watching it with us.

Micheal Dante DiMartino (creator), Byran Konietzko (creator), and Director Joaguim Dos Santos were our panelists. Mike and Bryan thanked us for coming out and filling up the big room so this way they don't look stupid saying "we need the big room" & they told us that even though Avatar has ended this won't be the last Avatar panel at SDCC.

They informed us and thanked us that the Avatar finale attracted 5.6 million viewers (a record for Avatar) and placed Avatar among the top five cable shows for that week. Yay for Avatar!

Right at the beginning they showed this little clip of a cartoon of Mike and Bryan introducing everything. And the little Bryan mentioned that it was Mike's fault that Zuko didn't see his mom and we need to blame him. It was amusing. Later on someone did ask where Zuko's mom was and they never answered it! They got sidetracked and then neve came back to it!

Mike also told us that the live action movie being done by M.Night Shalayman will be a faithful retelling of Book One: Water. Yay on that!

I saw some awesome costumes while I was in line and in the room waiting for the panel.

Now there have been shipping battles throughout the life of Avatar and they're well aware that the Zutara fans weren't happy that Katara didn't end up with Zuko. So they made a forbidden love episode for those fans. They took fanart from online and put together an episode of Zutara fun. And then it ended with Katara and Aang back together with the phrase "How could we ever doubt Mike and Bryan's wisdom?"

And they judged a costume contest....



... and Appa behind Fire Lord Ozai won first place!

At the end they thanking everyone for the love. And they told us that they do see the fanart online even though some of it scares them. Also thanked the fans for watching it and showing up at the panel. And to show their appreciation they gave everyone Avatar t-shirts!!!

It was a great panel! Yay for Avatar!!!

Comic Con - Friday

Friday started off with me waiting in line to see the Ghost Hunters Panel. I was on my own this day because Sarah had left already and my friends weren't going to be there until Saturday. But that's ok, I'm a survivor!

I met a dude from Massachusetts while I was waiting for the Ghost Hunter panel, he later found out that his cousin made it into the room earlier and saved some seats closer up front, so he asked me to move up with him and I was like "Sure!" Closer to the front is always a good thing!

Sadly Jason and Grant weren't able to attend but Rob Demarest & Donna La Croix from Ghost Hunters International attended along with Jason and Grant's bobble heads. So they were there in spirit... no pun intended.

This was very interesting they discussed some items that are coming up... like how Barry is working on a way to do EVP work in real time. That will be very interesting to see. And other items that, and I quote, "Will blow our mind."

Someone had asked about weegee boards (I don't think I spelled that right) and Donna responded with "no... those welcome things that are hard to get rid of."

Rob told us a story at one time they were packing up and leaving a castle, I don't remember which country, but a voice was heard between him and Donna, "Get out of here." Rob told us he picked up his bag and said "You don't have to tell me twice." And he told us, "I don't know why the voice spoke English he just did."

I found out that they do the EVP session in the native tongue and in English, but they butcher the languages so bad that they get lost on the editing floor.

Oh, this is funny... someone had asked "Who has the best scream?" And they both agreed on Andy because he tries to debunk and when he can't debunk he screams.

Since there wasn't anything I was dying to do I decided to wait in line for Avatar the Last Airbender. I barely made it into the 24 panel, so I was in the back of the room. I moved up and got closer during the Prison Break panel. And when Avatar started I was even closer!

I really don't watch either of these shows but I did learn that when the show cuts to the White House that's when Jack is going to the restroom. Also that Jack can get through LA traffic in like a minute because of a helicopter.... yeah.

Avatar the Last Airbender is next...