dellagoodpinarich: 18 days 'til Election Day

Hello family and friends. Hope you all had a good summer and are easing into Fall. People out here sometimes say they miss having seasons. Huh?! First of all, we definitely have seasons -- I had to wear long pants the other day! And second of all, would anyone REALLY miss snow?! C'mon. ;-)

Anyway we have no major news to report but here is a collection of crappe we've done over the past two months.

Brian turned 31! For his birthday he got a camcorder and a really nice dinner with me and his parents at Wilshire. Of course he had a steak. For dessert they served donuts!! And they were nice enough to swirl some chocolate on the plate, to form the words "Hogpy Boifoday" which is, I think, Polish for Feliz Navidad.

In case you hadn't noticed, a major theme of this blog is what (and how much) we EAT. Yeah, I try to diet all the time, but I fail frequently. We went to the Santa Monica BBQ Festival. They stamped Brian's hand as a signal to mean "do not serve this man any more meat, he has had more than 19 times the recommended daily allowance."

Brian has taken up the hobby of fly fishing with GUSTO. He ties his own flies (they are so cool, despite the massive amounts of feather debris that litters our dining room) and heads out to a nearby-ish river most weekends. In fact, that is where he dropped his IPHONE! Some fish somewhere is confused by the vibrating, colorful, inedible, alien disk. Here are some pics of Brian and his dad Jim fishing in Maryland.

In September we headed to one of my favorite spots, Las Vegas! And this was no ordinary trip to Vegas. See, for the previous couple of months, my "BFF" Katie's husband, Jamie, was working on a surprise trip for her 30th birthday. She knew she was going somewhere, she just didn't know where -- and she sure didn't know I was gonna be there too!

We had a ridiculous amount of fun, as evidenced by this photo of our first night in town. We chose to go the Cheesy But Hedonistic Tourist Route, and drank huuuge, steaming, tropical drinks at "Kahunaville." Lucky us, there was a "bartender flair" competition going on. Woo hoo, Tom Cruise in Cocktail!!

Poor KK had a toothache! That's okay, we discovered that with enough alcohol, you won't even FEEL your teeth anymore.

We had a fantastic dinner at Tao, where we received some VERY ominous fortunes.

And finally, one more big surprise for Katie -- tickets to see the Beatles LOVE Cirque du Soleil show. WHOA, it was fantastic! My cousins Nancy and Berni, my Aunt Deanna and my mom went in June and raved about it. So we checked it out and yes, it lived up to the hype. Here's a little sneak of what we saw -- this was during the song "Octopus's Garden" or as I call it "I'd like to be... under the sea..."

When we left the show, we were solicited by a photographer to buy INSANELY overpriced photos of ourselves. Feigning disgust, we stomped off... only to admit defeat and turn back around and buy them! They were just too nice -- big and glossy, and somehow, magically, they made Brian's shirt look like it was nice and pressed! Believe me, it reeeeeeally wasn't. Anyway I will try to scan it but for now, here's a pic of a pic (oh my goodness if that isn't the chintziest thing I've ever done on this blog...).