9 Temmuz 2012 Pazartesi

Packer's Team Building

To contact us Click HERE
Not bowling but, clay pigeon shooting for a team building experience. Mike McCarthy called off the mini camp practice yesterday to do a little team bonding. I think that is an awesome idea to get a bunch of grown men together to do. Perhaps Green Bay Packers left guard T.J. Lang said it best when he tweeted: “Well nobody got shot today. #success” This got me to thinking maybe Ticket King should do a little team bonding and do some paint-balling?

Girl's Trip

To contact us Click HERE
At least once a year my best friends from college and I all get together for a girl's trip. This year we gathered in San Diego where my friend LJ lives. This year was an extra special trip together because one of the four- Lyndsay Dougal is getting MARRIED!!! Yes, there are three Lindseys in our group. One goes by LJ, one goes by Dougal and they call me Searle (my maiden name). It was also special because LJ is expecting her first baby! It was so fun to get the three Lindseys and our Britt back together. Other close friends joined us that weekend too. I miss my girls like crazy. We had so much fun and got way too little sleep. Here are some pictures to prove it...
Comedy Show. It was hilarious and Katie even got called on stage to do a little improve.
Here is the Bride to Be at her bridal shower. Love making this girl blush. Especially after what they put me through at my shower!LJ and I got to go riding up the coast. It was so beautiful and made me realize how much I miss the beach.
We ate Cafe Rio - my all time favorite four times in five days. Is that really gross?I really wish I would have gotten a picture of the view from the condo we stayed at on the beach. You can barely see the sunset behind us.

Ellen Degeneres Mother's Day Giveaway

To contact us Click HERE
Well considering it's past father's day, I considered not blogging about this but then I remembered things like this don't happen to me and I would feel ungrateful not documenting it. So here it is, the story of how I got to go on the Ellen Mother's Day Giveaway 2011 Show and win a lot of really cool stuff. Back in March I went to San Diego for a fun girl's trip with my best friends from college. One of the things I wanted to do most in CA was to go to a taping of the Ellen show because I LOVE her and joke (except I couldn't be more serious) that one of the things on the top of my bucket list is to dance in her audience. Anyone reading this hopefully has seen the show so you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, we tried to get tickets but they were totally sold out.
Fast forward three weeks later when I get a hysterical message, make that 3 messages in a row from my friend Lindsey who lives in San Diego. The message went something like this, "OH MY GOSH! The Ellen show just called and left me a message. I wrote them an email and they called me back. Can you believe it?! Answer your phone. I think I may get tickets for the Mother's Day show and you are coming with me." Mix in there some screaming and you get the idea. They gave her two tickets to the show and asked if she had any pregnant friends. Here's where my luck streak comes in. I was about 5 months pregnant at the time while she was due just a month later. I bought a ticket back out to CA for the three days before mother's day and picked out an outfit that made me look the most pregnant I could be at 5 months. We drove up from San Diego to L.A early the morning of the tapping stopping along the way at Cafe Rio. Pretty soon we arrived at Universal Studios!
When we pulled into the garage where they instructed us to park this is what we saw...This picture doesn't do justice because everyone is sitting down. It was so funny to see this many pregnant women all gathered in one place. We sat down with all the other waddling ladies and dug into our Cafe Rio. An employee came out and announced that they would be handing out numbers so everyone should slowly line up to get one but assured us that this number had nothing to do with where we would sit in the studio so not to rush or worry. We were both starving so with that we sat and ate our Rio until the other ladies cleared out.
We were pretty much the last girls to get our numbers. Number 170 and 171.
Remember how he said that it had nothing to do with seating? Well he lied. When it was time to make our way into the studio they called everyone up in groups of 2o or so in numerical order. We knew we would be in the very last row of the studio but didn't even care because we were still going on the show and we knew we would still get the goods. When we finally got into the studio, sure enough we were filling into the last row when an employee put her hand in front of me and asked how many were in my party. When I replied it was just the two of us she motioned for me to follow her and started walking down the stairs to the front. This is where our second streak of luck comes in. She took us all the way down to the front left side and put us in the front row of a side balcony. We were RIGHT next to Tony!!! (Tony is her DJ in case you aren't an Ellen fan- in which case you probably aren't reading this anyway). See?!!! That's Tony's seat!
The show was amazing! We danced our hearts out. There's only one thing more funny then seeing a whole bunch of pregnant girls all sitting in the same area and that's watching that many pregnant women dance. There was one girl that was due any day and busting out moves I didn't know where possible! Kate Hudson was the guest. She was adorable. And it was really cool to see how Ellen acted when the cameras stopped rolling. She seemed totally calm and just had a big smile on her face. During one commercial break she was over by our side and looking out at the crowd with a big smile. She stopped when she saw me and started laughing. Maybe because I must have looked like a kid on Christmas with a HUGE smile and mouthing 'Hi Ellen, hi Ellen, hi Ellen". She waved back at me and people in our section started cheering.
Ok, I have to admit that when I see giveaway shows like this on TV and people are crying I kind of roll my eyes (I know that's awful) but when they brought out these incredible gifts I couldn't help but choke back tears. I was hoping for maybe one big gift like a stroller or a car seat or maybe a crib even. We got all of those things and a ton more. Here's a list of the things we got...

$300 old navy gift card

Daillia Necklace

Rockabye Baby 13 CD Set

$240 blume gift card

6-month supply of Plum food

150 Birth Announcements from Paperterie

6-month supply of Huggies

Puj microfiber bootie

Expecting 411 Book Series

Little Giraffe Blanket

Britax B-ready Stroller

Britax Car Seat

Baby Carrier

Diaper bag- go gaga

Peg perego High Chair

Video camera

pack and play

Graco espresso crib

Baby Bedding

Washer and Dryer (Hmmm, after jumping up and down when they brought these out my girlfriend and I looked at each other and said 'oh yeah, we're renting!' Anyone want to buy a washer and dryer?!)

After the show ended we got in our cars are went out in an assembly line. It took us about 4 hours to get out of the parking garage but we were so happy we didn't care! They sent us home with the high chair, pack n play, video camera, baby carrier, blanket, diaper bag, CDs and booties. Everything else they gave us vouchers in a packet that we can order any time for the next year. This is our loot.

Crew's Blessing

To contact us Click HERE
Such a special day. Justin gave Crew a beautiful blessing, and unlike his older brother Crew didn't make a peep through the whole thing. Big C literally screamed his head off from the time Justin started to speak until he sat back down with him. The bishop even said afterward from the pulpit that it looked like we'd have our hands full. And we do! We love our crazy Camden. Any chance Crew will be a calmer kid?! Doubt it but we'll see! It was so fun to have family and close friends there to be a part of this special experience. Thank you so much to those that traveled to be here!!!

8 Temmuz 2012 Pazar

Three Hours of Sleep I'll Never Get Back

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Over the last couple of weeks, I've been taking advantage of the midnight showings of this summer's blockbuster movies as my son, Brady, and wife, Sheri, are asleep at that time; thus, my father- and husband-related responsibilities are not being neglected. Of course, there is additional loss of sleep, so the movie has to be quite good.

The movie I was most looking forward to this summer, in part due to the hype of the trailers, was Transformers. I'll admit that I grew up when Transformers appeared as toys, competing with GoBots, and was one of the dominant cartoons on television. I even had a number of the Transformer toys, including Optimus Prime and Starscream. And of course, my friends had various versions of them as well. And since the only movie to date was a cartoon version, I was quite excited that a live-action film was being made.

While the movie was fair and one that is enjoyable to anyone looking for a shoot-em-up flick, I must say that I was disappointed in the film overall. In my opinion, it failed to stay true to the cartoon storyline, the storyline I grew up on. Instead, the storyline was disjointed with all the Autobots and Decepticons going after one item, the Allspark. Rather than showing how the Transformers evolved, Optimus Prime spends five minutes providing a narrative.

Now, I must say that the midnight show drew a lot of fans. The theater was packed, and the audience cheered upon the lights dimming. The audience also cheered when Optimus Prime appeared for the first time, and applauded when the film was over, much like one would see at a Starwars screening.

Fortunately, I also saw Live Free or Die Hard, also known as Die Hard 4.0 in Europe, the week before at midnight. While the audience was much smaller, I must say that this 4th Die Hard movie was everything that I expected it to be and more. While I admit that I was not a fan of Die Hard 3, I really enjoyed the first two Die Hard movies. However, I think this is the best to date as you have a known character, the introduction of several new characters, and all the action and suspense that one would expect from a Die Hard film. Thus, I was completely satisfied when I left this movie, realizing that the 11 bucks and loss of 3 hours of sleep were worth it--not so for Transformers.

Of course, I could always go to Krikorian Theatres' "Mommy Movie Mondays," which I've taken advantage of several times, but I didn't want to wait to see the movie, nor did I want to be interrupted from the action by having to tend to Brady during the movie.

Packer's Team Building

To contact us Click HERE
Not bowling but, clay pigeon shooting for a team building experience. Mike McCarthy called off the mini camp practice yesterday to do a little team bonding. I think that is an awesome idea to get a bunch of grown men together to do. Perhaps Green Bay Packers left guard T.J. Lang said it best when he tweeted: “Well nobody got shot today. #success” This got me to thinking maybe Ticket King should do a little team bonding and do some paint-balling?

Girl's Trip

To contact us Click HERE
At least once a year my best friends from college and I all get together for a girl's trip. This year we gathered in San Diego where my friend LJ lives. This year was an extra special trip together because one of the four- Lyndsay Dougal is getting MARRIED!!! Yes, there are three Lindseys in our group. One goes by LJ, one goes by Dougal and they call me Searle (my maiden name). It was also special because LJ is expecting her first baby! It was so fun to get the three Lindseys and our Britt back together. Other close friends joined us that weekend too. I miss my girls like crazy. We had so much fun and got way too little sleep. Here are some pictures to prove it...
Comedy Show. It was hilarious and Katie even got called on stage to do a little improve.
Here is the Bride to Be at her bridal shower. Love making this girl blush. Especially after what they put me through at my shower!LJ and I got to go riding up the coast. It was so beautiful and made me realize how much I miss the beach.
We ate Cafe Rio - my all time favorite four times in five days. Is that really gross?I really wish I would have gotten a picture of the view from the condo we stayed at on the beach. You can barely see the sunset behind us.

Ellen Degeneres Mother's Day Giveaway

To contact us Click HERE
Well considering it's past father's day, I considered not blogging about this but then I remembered things like this don't happen to me and I would feel ungrateful not documenting it. So here it is, the story of how I got to go on the Ellen Mother's Day Giveaway 2011 Show and win a lot of really cool stuff. Back in March I went to San Diego for a fun girl's trip with my best friends from college. One of the things I wanted to do most in CA was to go to a taping of the Ellen show because I LOVE her and joke (except I couldn't be more serious) that one of the things on the top of my bucket list is to dance in her audience. Anyone reading this hopefully has seen the show so you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, we tried to get tickets but they were totally sold out.
Fast forward three weeks later when I get a hysterical message, make that 3 messages in a row from my friend Lindsey who lives in San Diego. The message went something like this, "OH MY GOSH! The Ellen show just called and left me a message. I wrote them an email and they called me back. Can you believe it?! Answer your phone. I think I may get tickets for the Mother's Day show and you are coming with me." Mix in there some screaming and you get the idea. They gave her two tickets to the show and asked if she had any pregnant friends. Here's where my luck streak comes in. I was about 5 months pregnant at the time while she was due just a month later. I bought a ticket back out to CA for the three days before mother's day and picked out an outfit that made me look the most pregnant I could be at 5 months. We drove up from San Diego to L.A early the morning of the tapping stopping along the way at Cafe Rio. Pretty soon we arrived at Universal Studios!
When we pulled into the garage where they instructed us to park this is what we saw...This picture doesn't do justice because everyone is sitting down. It was so funny to see this many pregnant women all gathered in one place. We sat down with all the other waddling ladies and dug into our Cafe Rio. An employee came out and announced that they would be handing out numbers so everyone should slowly line up to get one but assured us that this number had nothing to do with where we would sit in the studio so not to rush or worry. We were both starving so with that we sat and ate our Rio until the other ladies cleared out.
We were pretty much the last girls to get our numbers. Number 170 and 171.
Remember how he said that it had nothing to do with seating? Well he lied. When it was time to make our way into the studio they called everyone up in groups of 2o or so in numerical order. We knew we would be in the very last row of the studio but didn't even care because we were still going on the show and we knew we would still get the goods. When we finally got into the studio, sure enough we were filling into the last row when an employee put her hand in front of me and asked how many were in my party. When I replied it was just the two of us she motioned for me to follow her and started walking down the stairs to the front. This is where our second streak of luck comes in. She took us all the way down to the front left side and put us in the front row of a side balcony. We were RIGHT next to Tony!!! (Tony is her DJ in case you aren't an Ellen fan- in which case you probably aren't reading this anyway). See?!!! That's Tony's seat!
The show was amazing! We danced our hearts out. There's only one thing more funny then seeing a whole bunch of pregnant girls all sitting in the same area and that's watching that many pregnant women dance. There was one girl that was due any day and busting out moves I didn't know where possible! Kate Hudson was the guest. She was adorable. And it was really cool to see how Ellen acted when the cameras stopped rolling. She seemed totally calm and just had a big smile on her face. During one commercial break she was over by our side and looking out at the crowd with a big smile. She stopped when she saw me and started laughing. Maybe because I must have looked like a kid on Christmas with a HUGE smile and mouthing 'Hi Ellen, hi Ellen, hi Ellen". She waved back at me and people in our section started cheering.
Ok, I have to admit that when I see giveaway shows like this on TV and people are crying I kind of roll my eyes (I know that's awful) but when they brought out these incredible gifts I couldn't help but choke back tears. I was hoping for maybe one big gift like a stroller or a car seat or maybe a crib even. We got all of those things and a ton more. Here's a list of the things we got...

$300 old navy gift card

Daillia Necklace

Rockabye Baby 13 CD Set

$240 blume gift card

6-month supply of Plum food

150 Birth Announcements from Paperterie

6-month supply of Huggies

Puj microfiber bootie

Expecting 411 Book Series

Little Giraffe Blanket

Britax B-ready Stroller

Britax Car Seat

Baby Carrier

Diaper bag- go gaga

Peg perego High Chair

Video camera

pack and play

Graco espresso crib

Baby Bedding

Washer and Dryer (Hmmm, after jumping up and down when they brought these out my girlfriend and I looked at each other and said 'oh yeah, we're renting!' Anyone want to buy a washer and dryer?!)

After the show ended we got in our cars are went out in an assembly line. It took us about 4 hours to get out of the parking garage but we were so happy we didn't care! They sent us home with the high chair, pack n play, video camera, baby carrier, blanket, diaper bag, CDs and booties. Everything else they gave us vouchers in a packet that we can order any time for the next year. This is our loot.

Crew's Blessing

To contact us Click HERE
Such a special day. Justin gave Crew a beautiful blessing, and unlike his older brother Crew didn't make a peep through the whole thing. Big C literally screamed his head off from the time Justin started to speak until he sat back down with him. The bishop even said afterward from the pulpit that it looked like we'd have our hands full. And we do! We love our crazy Camden. Any chance Crew will be a calmer kid?! Doubt it but we'll see! It was so fun to have family and close friends there to be a part of this special experience. Thank you so much to those that traveled to be here!!!

7 Temmuz 2012 Cumartesi

Packer's Team Building

To contact us Click HERE
Not bowling but, clay pigeon shooting for a team building experience. Mike McCarthy called off the mini camp practice yesterday to do a little team bonding. I think that is an awesome idea to get a bunch of grown men together to do. Perhaps Green Bay Packers left guard T.J. Lang said it best when he tweeted: “Well nobody got shot today. #success” This got me to thinking maybe Ticket King should do a little team bonding and do some paint-balling?

Girl's Trip

To contact us Click HERE
At least once a year my best friends from college and I all get together for a girl's trip. This year we gathered in San Diego where my friend LJ lives. This year was an extra special trip together because one of the four- Lyndsay Dougal is getting MARRIED!!! Yes, there are three Lindseys in our group. One goes by LJ, one goes by Dougal and they call me Searle (my maiden name). It was also special because LJ is expecting her first baby! It was so fun to get the three Lindseys and our Britt back together. Other close friends joined us that weekend too. I miss my girls like crazy. We had so much fun and got way too little sleep. Here are some pictures to prove it...
Comedy Show. It was hilarious and Katie even got called on stage to do a little improve.
Here is the Bride to Be at her bridal shower. Love making this girl blush. Especially after what they put me through at my shower!LJ and I got to go riding up the coast. It was so beautiful and made me realize how much I miss the beach.
We ate Cafe Rio - my all time favorite four times in five days. Is that really gross?I really wish I would have gotten a picture of the view from the condo we stayed at on the beach. You can barely see the sunset behind us.