The rest of Thanksgiving Weekend

We got back from St. George late Friday night, so we still had the whole rest of our weekend left! Saturday morning we walked to Vons for donuts (a new favorite weekend activity) and then I went downtown to Santee Alley to find a cute purse knock-off. Most of the purses I saw were cute, but still about $35-40 and they didn't have any cup or bottle holders (a necessity) on the outside. I walked around for 45 min, then went in one last shop, saw this fake D&G bag, WITH two outside pockets, and so....I bought it for only $20! woohoo. I told Casey it would be my birthday present. Here I am last Sunday using the new bag. And hey, you all wanted to see a good pregnant shot, right?
The other picture is my other birthday present. Casey and I have birthdays a week apart from each other. His is Nov 20th and I'm on the 26th. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of Casey with his birthday presents - spending the weekend playing his new video game (which actually doesn't work right. lame) OR trying to solve his Rubick's Cube. But I can show all the hard work he put in putting doors on my bookshelves (that was the present). I'm trying to get our house a little more organized before the baby comes. I've been wanting doors for our Billy bookcases (Ikea). Normally it's $60 for a set of doors. But we went there Saturday night and they were on sale for $10 each! So I we bought doors for our other bookshelf too. Woohoo!

And since we weren't planning to travel for Thanksgiving, I had already purchased a 12 lb turkey (that's the smallest you can find). It sat in our fridge for a week and on Sunday I roasted it up. We still had our own little turkey dinner. It all turned out yummy and we had all the fixings. Surprisingly, Casey's favorite were the sweet potatoes. I did half with marshmallows and half without. Both were yummy. You can see our messy kitchen/sewing room here (which is why I never have the missionaries over for dinner - I never want to clean off my table!). So I had Casey set up two TV trays, for our proper dinner. We felt like poor college students.
After dinner, we headed to Griffith Park for the Festival of Lights, put on by the LA DWP each year. Normally you can only drive through, but this year it was open to pedestrians only for the first week. We had so much fun and Lucy loved it! This light tunnel was the best.
There were all sorts of light fixtures made to look like LA landmarks: The Hollywood Bowl, LAX airport, City Hall. Very creative. And they had nice music playing along the way.
It was a fun fun weekend. We packed a lot in there. And it didn't stop....since Monday morning, Lucy and I headed down to my mom's house to celebrate my birthday and go out to lunch...but I'll write about the following week in my next post. And I'll end with a picture of Lucy eating a PB&J, sitting on her favorite trike. She can't reach the pedals yet.

Busy Weeks

We're coming down to the wire. Only a couple weeks left till our Christmas baby arrives! I haven't blogged in weeks. I've had much to write about, but too many sewing projects taking up my free time. So here we go, I'll try to keep it brief but informative, since so much has happened.

We had planned to stay in town for Thanksgiving weekend and have our own little dinner, just the three of us. Both our families were headed out of state and my doctor thought it wise for me to stay put, just in case. But life is funny. And instead, we spent the last two weekends traveling by car and plane to our grandparents funerals. Casey's grandpa, Earl Willard, passed away a couple weeks ago of old age. Here he is last year at Thanksgiving:
He was 94 and lived a good long and happy life. It was really amazing to see all the posterity in the room that came from him and Casey's grandmother. A rewarding treat to witness. The funeral was in St. George, where his grandparents have been living for years. So we jumped in our car Thanksgiving morning and made the 5 1/2 hour drive. We arrived just in time for the turkey meal. It's quite a reunion every year when all the Willards come together, since there are 7 brothers and 1 sister and each has a slew of kids of grandkids.
Here are Parry and 4 of his brothers, slicing up the 5 turkeys that were cooked over night in the pit at Uncle Bob's house.
Parry (Casey's dad) and his younger brother Bob (on the right).
Bob has a special octagonal-shaped room built on to his house for Thanksgiving gatherings. It's perfect and fits everyone (though we're pretty packed in there).
Lucy had fun playing with the other kids, with the hit of the weekend being....the marble rack. Here she is with Drew, cousin Ryan and Holly's little boy.
And she immediately liked Uncle Brady (all kids do). She wanted to copy him and laid down on the floor next to him.
Here's Aunt Lauren with cousin Jennie's baby. She was so sweet to spend so much time helping out, feeding her and holding her. I'm sure Jennie enjoyed the break. (no Lauren does not have a second head. That's just Kent)
Casey's parents hooked us up with the best place to stay for the weekend. Friends in their Simi Valley ward have a 2nd home in St. George, fully furnished and decorated and said they could stay there whenever they wanted. So we all jumped on that! There were 4 bedrooms, we had a king size bed, and Lucy even got her own room. It was like a huge hotel suite! Here we are hanging out in the house. Lucy had crazy static hair.
Casey and Linda (Casey's mom) tried to get Lucy to say "hello?"
Aunt Nicole and Lucy. Lucy had fun playing with her cousins Jacqueline and Jillian. We're glad Jeff and Nicole made it down for the eventful weekend!
Friday was the funeral service for Grandpa Willard. Though it was an emotional day for many, it was happy to know that he lived a great life. And he actually died in his sleep...fell asleep one night and never woke up. Sounds like a pleasant way to go. Here's a picture of Grandpa Willard when he was young and dapper. Good looking guy!
Since all the family was there, I took the opportunity to snap photos of all Casey's Uncles and Aunts. Here there are:
Brother, Uncle Sherm and wife, Aunt Donna / Wife, Aunt Hazel and brother, Uncle Paul
Wife, Aunt Penny and brother, Uncle Randy / Brother Uncle Kevin and wife, Aunt Vickie
(from left to right) Uncle Robert and Sister, Aunt Teresa / Aunt Mary and Brother, Uncle Cal / Aunt Karen and Brother, Uncle Bob.
And a cute shot of Lucy with the other Grandpa and Grandma Willard (Casey's parents).
Casey and Lucy with his Grandma, Ruth (who survives her husband at 92 years old). Lucy was not in the best mood. But Grandma Willard looked cute.
The service at the church was beautiful and full of great stories. When we drove to the grave-site, however, a strange dust storm started up and it was freezing outside. So we didn't stay there very long. Here's a shot of the brothers as pall-bearers.

And all the cold family, being blown away.
We all went back to Uncle Bob's house after for a nice dinner and then Casey and I got on the road. It was a very quick 2-day trip. But I'm so glad we were able to be there with all the family to celebrate Earl Willard's life. I know Casey was happy we didn't miss it as well.

I hope my baby likes Chocolate

Last week some of the girls in the ward threw me a little baby shower. Thanks ladies! I had a great time! And our little Owen, Oliver, Miles...whoever he may be....certainly got his fill of chocolate that night. Doris was so cute and remembered a blog post a while back where I ranted on and on about how much I love chocolate, and decided that the food for the night would be all chocolate! Mmmmm.
There were rich chocolate brownies, amazing chocolate balls (compliments of Pam Thomas. Honestly, amazing), my favorite Chocolate Malted Crunch ice cream from Rite Aid (thanks Sarah for buying an extra carton for me to take home!), choc fudge sauce to go on top, chocolate candies all over the house, Moose Munch, and one non-choc item: cream puffs. They even had milk and water to wash it all down! Here I am hovering over my favorite table:
It was all super tasty. Well done! (I must admit, however, that even for a chocolate lover....it was slight overload. I actually went home and had some chips 'n salsa. The balance was great!)
Sara Morgan, who has the cutest craftiest skills, recovered these chocolate bars as party favors. They looked so professional and said "Dana's Baby Shower" and the date on the wrapper. Again, crafty lady. Cute stuff! And all the fun ladies that came brought the greatest gifts. Cute clothes, diapers, wipes, onesies, gift cards...everything we need! So a HUGE thank you to everyone for being so generous. My mother-in-law Linda was able to come also (sitting next to me in the picture below) and she couldn't believe how many young moms there were in our ward. I told her that this was only half of them! We sure have a fun group of moms to hang out with. I love it. And this little vintage tee from Karla Hunt is one of my favorites. It's adorable. Can't wait to dress our little boy in all this fun stuff!Thanks Doris, Sarah, Pam, Sara, and Laura Daines for throwing a fun party. I'm lucky to know such great people!

He just seems like a nice guy

I meant to add this to the film talk posting below.

On Saturday night when we saw Dan in Real Life I had a fun run-in at the Paseo Theaters in Pasadena. I was hurrying down the hall to use the bathroom and a very tall gentleman was hurrying towards me to get to his movie. No one else was around us. I looked at him once, I did a double-take, and as he got closer we both smiled at each other. I said, "hello". He kindly peered down at me, flashed his friendly smile and in his very low voice replied, "hello there." And we both kept walking in different directions. Yep. It was him. It was President David Palmer! And he just seemed like a real nice guy. It was as if he would have said hi regardless of being an actor or knowing I was a 24 groupie who loved his presidency. Once I got to the bathroom I thought, "oh, I should have nodded my head quickly when passing him and just said, 'Mr. President'." But I'm sure he gets silly comments often enough.

So yea! for Dennis Haysbert. Yea! for Allstate commercials that have kept him employed. And yea! for a new sesaon of 24 in January that actually looks kind of interesting (from the trailer).

And since it's been a while, perhaps an old 24 poem is in order. (For those of you scratching your heads....a few seasons back, some of us 24 watchers started rehashing the previous night's episode by composing poetry for each other and expressing our sentiments...or frustrations. This was my Old Danny Boy tribute to president Palmer when he was killed. Not the finest, but seems appropriate. Funny thing is....I can't even remember who Joe Prado is now.)

An Irish Ode...to a Tall Black Man
Oh Palmer boy, the Presidency, the Presidency is calling.
From gully to vale and straight o'er to the West Siiiiide.
The old Pres is gone, and the new one is sucking.
'Tis you, 'tis you who left and made us bide.
But come ye back! when warheads are gone from the meadow.
Or when CTU's hushed and Joe Prado's let go.
If only to save Jack from interrogation in the shadow,
Oh Palmer boy, Oh Palmer boy.....we love you so.

Crossing the Line

I'm working at Universal for the next few days, so I had the treat of really seeing the Writers Strike in action. There weren't any celebrities picketing the line (Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon must still be New Orleans cleaning up Katrina water). But as I tried to pull into the lot this morning, the picketers were walking back and forth in front of each gate entrance, carrying their WGA signs.

I kindly waited for them to finish crossing before turning right into the lot. Then immediately, another group started coming the other way so that none of us could turn in to the parking lot. Annoying. I finally just butted the nose of my car into the entrance, cutting off another picketer from entering the crosswalk. She looked back at me. Well move out of the way!
Now I'm not really against their cause (um, since I don't fully understand it all). But here's a watered-down version of it: the strike has to do with New Media and residuals that are normally paid to a writer each time their work (a TV show they wrote, film, etc) airs or is shown. With all the downloading of shows onto ipods and TV episodes available online, writers haven't been receiving risidual payment....thus, the strike (I think).

So sure, fight for your rights. But please don't block me from entering the parking lot to work. I'm not even a writer scab!

The funny thing is, the strike isn't affecting the Film studios too much. Since film development is a multi-year long process, a month long strike isn't going to hurt the development and production departments, when we already have 10 projects currently in production. But where it does hurt is episodic television. Normally, the writers on an hour-long show are a few episodes ahead of production. Casey's dad works on the show Pushing Daisies, doing Special Effects. But come next week...he and the rest of the crew are out of work, since they've shot as much as they can for upcoming episodes (thank goodness for Reality Television, however, he has another show to fall back on!) It's just crazy to think how much one department/Union can affect the jobs of so many others in the television industry. If you haven't seen Pushing Daisies, though, it's an interesting show to check out.
The set design and art direction are probably the best part. But I do enjoy it when Parry (Casey's dad) tells us the strange things he worked on for an episode. I guess in a couple weeks there's a huge vat of pink taffy that someone falls into. We'll have to tune in!

And on a seperate film note, since we're talking Biz talk....
Casey and I saw Dan in Real Life this weekend and really enjoyed it! Steve Carell was great and very non Michael Scott-ish. The comedy, the situations, and the acting were very real. It was a genuinely funny movie without being obvious, in a Meet the Parents sort of way (though I love that film too.) Dan in Real Life is a must see! We recommend!

He Passed!

My brother in law, Bryan passed the California BAR!!!
This was his 6th time taking it, which makes it even more rewarding to think of all the hours put in to studying and taking the dreadful exam (what determination). And he did it! wooooohoooo!
We're so happy for him and Camille.
Congrats Bryan!!

It's Go Time

If we have to give up our daylight hours to the lame time-change, at least we get our fun shows back! (small consolation, I suppose). And I couldn't be happier to see Tim Gunn's furrowed brow on Project Runway, Season 4. Yep, tonight was the premiere! The show is back!

I have to admit, none of the contestants really draw me in (except for the overweight gay funny guy). Mostly, they all seem eccentric and kinda strange. I know, I know, it's the fashion world....but the past seasons have had some "normal" people on there. This crop seems to have strange names, really bizarre hair, and a huge resume of overqualified experience (what happened to a joe-shmoe getting on there?!) I'm starting to miss the Top Chef cronies in their boring white chef jackets.
I guess I'm sounding negative about the show. I don't mean to be. Perhaps I just look forward to being reeled into the new season. I'm not in love with any designer yet....but time will tell. I can't wait to see what they'll create!

If you haven't seen the show, it's time to get hooked. Check it out on Bravo, Wed nights.
Make it work!

Nice Shiner

Lucy and I were at the park this morning and she climbed on a toy she's climbed many times. But somehow, she fell off and hit her face. She bawled (and then threw up). But now she has a nice shiner! Thankfully she's in good spirits this afternoon and not in any pain (that I know of).

Field Trip Day

Tuesday was a fun-filled day. First we went to Lucy's school for Parent Ed class, then left early so we could head over to Travel Town to meet up with the girlfriends and the other kids. Travel town is near the LA Zoo and Griffith Park and there are a bunch of old trains parked which the kids can look at and climb on.
One of the trains was open on the inside so we let the kids climb aboard and they spent 15 minutes playing peek-a-boo in these funny little cubby holes:
Here are Lucy and Chloe and Hannah and Sammy:
Most of all though, Lucy had the most fun picking up rocks and putting them down. She does the same thing when we go to the park, only with the wood chips. If there are chips on the steps, she'll methodically remove each one before stepping on. Oh Lucy, you're gonna be cleaning those steps all day!
There's also a little train that goes around the park so we all took a ride. It was fun! Perfect for the kids. It went around twice and we all got our fill.
After Travel Town, Doris, Shannon, and I disregarded our children's tired faces and headed to In-N-Out for lunch. The kids weren't too bad though and we ate yummy burgers and fries. AND, Lucy stayed awake for the whole ride home so I was able to put her down for a decent nap. Woohoo!

For our night-time field trip, we went to Kidspace, a Kid's museum in Pasadena. Your normally need a membership to get in, but the 1st Tues of every month is Free Night. So we checked it out. Lucy loved it! The first room was perfect for her age. Lots of things to climb on, a fun slide, books, and other little kids. The second picture was in the "older" room. There was this cool climbing tower that looked like something from The Fly or The Abyss. Lucy climbed it for a bit, but got scared since she couldn't figure out how to get down. It just kept going and going and she wasn't sure if she should climb up or down:
In the first room, there was some fun rainbow fabric draped over the slide. Lucy loved climbing up and playing in the sheer fabric:
And she really enjoyed the Exit hallway. It was so cute and creative and looked like a night-club for kids. There were tons of colors, mirrors, and lights on the walls. Lucy touched everything on the wall:
And we took a weird picture
Fun field trip day! We'll have do more LA exploring next week!

Halloween Fruit

Happy Halloween to everyone! We're a couple days late getting our pictures up, but here they are. Halloween morning we stopped by Casey's work and let our little Strawberry run around the office. She was in good spirits that day, so we stuffed her full and she was finally a plump little berry:
And here's a 10 second video of our Strawberry in action at the office:

She was a hit and everybody loved her. Little seeds kept falling off her berry throughout the day, but overall, the costume was a success.

We then drove down to Orange County and spent Halloween night Trick-or-Treating with my nephew Jeremy. Lucy had a fun time going around to the houses. She had no idea what was going on, but she loved running around with the other kids and she ate all sorts of candy, with their wrappers on. If only we all enjoyed wrapped up candy that much! Lucy actually walked up the walkway to one house, plunged her hands in the bowl, and grabbed just what I love best...Almond Joy! So we had a successful evening.
Here are the costumes. Jeremy was Obi-won. And Meredith had her own party to go to, dressed as...Waldo! (she had a matching hat to go with it):
Jeremy carved his first pumpkin and so we all took creepy pictures with it. Here are Camille, Jeremy, and I spooking it out in a daaaark room:
The next day we hung out at my parent's house with Mark, Sara, and Makenna (who are in town for a job interview) and Laura and Ava. Sadly (and stupidly) however, I didn't get any pictures of Lucy with Makenna! Lame. But here are some wagon-riding pics. Jeremy loved pulling Ava and Lucy around.
They looked so cute sitting in the red wagon together:
And we may have Lucy's Halloween costume all set for next year.....Bono?
I love the second pic because it looks like she has no nose. She loved wearing these glasses around the house.
Lucy has definitely grown-up in a year's time. Here's the ensemble from last year. We were "Back to School Night". Lucy couldn't even stand up in her Crayon costume. It was nice to have her walking around this year. Her little bare strawberry legs were so cute.
And lastly, we leave you with The Dancing Pencil:

Good Night's Sleep

I had the best night's sleep last night! Silly to blog about, perhaps...but maybe not when you're pregnant? I didn't get up at all to go to the bathroom, my hips didn't hurt, no heartburn, body temperature was normal and cozy, and every pillow felt just right on my head. I'm sure I'll still be ready for a nap in a few hours. But hey, that's perfectly acceptable!