Twitter Updates for 2007-10-31
- can’t wait to bring Benjamin trick or treating! #
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Happy Halloween!
I had this plan to have this awesomely cool Halloween background and theme this year, but I just haven’t had time to do it. That seems to be the theme of my life lately!
Anyway, Halloween just doesn’t feel the same this year. Most of it is due to the fact that we’ve been gone for most of October, so I haven’t been able to build up to that Halloween feeling. I also didn’t get a chance to put up Halloween decorations this year (once again, no time) and we didn’t get to attend our annual Cousins Pumpkin Carving night *cries*
Even though I have no time to do anything, one thing I did promise myself during my vacation is to make more time for Ben, and to make my family more of a priority. So tonight we’re going all over town trick-or-treating.
For now, I’ll just leave you all with some of the photoshopped pics I made of Ben last year:
The Dread Pirate Benjamin!
Benbo the Clown
Benny Potter
Where’s the Justice?
Dancing with the Stars spoiler alert!!!
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Sabrina was voted off?!?!? She was THE best dancer on the show and my pick for the finals. I also thought that she had the whole “Cheetah Girl” fanbase behind her, but I guess it just wasn’t strong enough. This is one of those “Jennifer Hudson” moments, where the best person is kicked off the show because everyone is voting for the people that aren’t as good so they stay on the show. Having Jane Seymour in the bottom two last week must have really boosted up her votes this week - even though, lets be honest, her performance was the worst one this week. How ironic that Len had been talking about “Truth and Justice” earlier in the night’s episode! Of course, you could be thinking “Well, why didn’t YOU vote for her then, Christine?” Well, because I don’t vote for reality shows. If I was a voter, then maybe I would have voted for her.
I admit, I got a little misty seeing Sabrina kicked off. True, I felt it was a little unfair having her on the show since she has done a lot of dancing before (but hey, that didn’t help Joey Fatone or Mario Lopez win). But she was just so spunky and full of life, and it was so obvious that she had a great relationship with her castmates. What really touched me was the very end of the show, when normally the cast would give hugs and kisses to the two retreating dancers. Last night, however, they made a protective barrier around Sabrina, who was obviously emotional, so that she could let her emotions out without having the glare of the cameras in her face.
Oh Sabrina! You’re young, you’ll come back from this. The Cheetah Girls will help you through!
Back from Vacation *cries*
Back from vacation and I’ve got about 275 emails to filter through. No time for pictures or stories til later today.
I’ve missed you guys (and the internet) but it was a great and relaxing 2 weeks off!
Cruisin’
Internet access here is an arm and a leg, but I wanted to update my blog, so I’m writing everything up off-line and quickly uploading everything and posting. Tomorrow is our second day in Maui, and I feel like I’ve been on vacation for months, which is a great feeling. I can’t believe we still have 5 more days to go! Anyway, I wanted to keep a quick journal of what we’ve been doing and where we’ve been going. I’m already at 1300+ pictures, which is totally insane. I’ll share several pictures in this post, but you could see the better, larger format pictures once I upload all my favorite ones (which at present count is at 252. Ugh!)
Day 1: Hilo
Went to the Volcano National Park. We did the Crater Rim Drive, an 11 mile road around the KÄ«lauea Caldera, with several stops. There was the Steam Vents, where you could see the steam coming out of the volcano. Also Halema’uma’u Overlook, overlooking the home of Pele, a Hawaiian goddess. We also did a walk through the Thurston Lava tube, which was pretty cool, though dark, wet and creepy. Later that day, we went to Rainbow Falls, and checked out a huge Banyan tree. On the cruise ship we discovered a kid area, where Ben threw stuff around for 45 minutes and loved it. We had to carry him, kicking and screaming, out so we could eat dinner.
Tomorrow, we’ll take him there a little earlier so he could get all worked up
and tired so he’ll sleep through the night.
Thurston Lava Tube
Rainbow Falls
Went to Wailea Beach. We were going to go to another beach, but heard that a sighting of a hammerhead shark there had closed the beach. Ben had a GREAT time on the beach - playing in the sand and swimming (with our help, of course) in the ocean. Later, we ate at Tony Roma’s in Lahaina (we were going to go to the other one in Kihei, since we went there on our honeymoon, but we found out it closed 2 years ago). Later that night, Justin, Dave and I took part in the cruise’s “Wii Home Run Derby”. Turns out we were the only ones who showed up so we got to play against each other. 3 times. With a group of Japanese tourists behind us cheering us on. Good times!
Ben handing me sand
Alooooooooooha!
Greetings from Hawaii!
I’m in Hawaii, getting ready to go over to the pier to board our cruise. Ben experienced the ocean for the first time yesterday, and to his dismay, the water was salty. He didn’t like the taste of it too much!
My pics aren’t uploading to flickr for some reason, so I’m trying to upload through wordpress. I’ll see if I can post more pics from the boat.
Aloha!
My Dancing With the Stars Adventure
As I mentioned before, we had tickets to yesterday’s Dancing with the Stars. On the tickets, it said to be there by at 3:30pm, and that not everyone is guaranteed a seat. From other people’s stories of visits to DWTS, I knew to get there early. However, I didn’t want to rush everyone, so we left the house at around 2pm, for a 12 mile ride to the studio. An hour early should be OK to get a seat, right?
So we started the drive, and I totally forgot about my first rule of driving around in California - add in a 1/2 hour for any trip you want to take. That 12 mile drive became a one hour drive. The parking lot was about 1/8 an mile from the studios, through a shopping area called “The Grove” (which is awesome, by the way). Normally, it wouldn’t be a bad walk, but we were all dressed up for the show in dresses and heels, so it was a pretty long, painful walk for our poor feet. By the time we actually found the gate we were supposed to line up at (we had passed up lines for Price is Right and The Craig Kilbourn show) it was 3:25.
But when we got to the line, there were only about 30 people in front of us. Little did we know, there were about 250 people who were already lined up inside the studio lot. 3:30 came and went, and we were still outside. There were about 75 people behind us in line. By4:15, we were still outside and debating on just leaving. But finally, we were allowed in. Lucky us, they cut off the line right behind Dave. It looks like they had packed the studio already and we were left to fill in the seats of VIP people who didn’t show up.
The studio is MUCH smaller than it is on TV. The dancefloor is tiny, almost as big as any dancefloor you see at a wedding. The whole studio only fits about 300 people. Unfortunately, we were seated directly across from the main stage, which meant that we wouldn’t be on camera, since they were situated right in front of us. But hey, we got in, so we were happy about that.
Even though the show is “live” on the east coast, they do some pre-taping of some of the segments, in case they have to do do-overs. Also, for some of the dances there might be extensive setup/takedown that occurs, and it isn’t possible to do during a live show.
The first pre-tape that was done was Wade Robson’s dance. I’m a big fan of his, way back when he was doing N’Sync videos. I’ve got a greater respect for him lately since he’s really turned out to be an artistic choreographer. And I admit, me and Dave used to try and do his dances when he had the Wade Robson show on MTV.
There was a man named Cory (who was AWESOME, but the way) who I called our “clap leader”. He would tell us when to clap and for how long. So when Wade was doing his intro in front of the curtain, we had NO idea what was going on (but we were able to see it when it was replayed for the live broadcast). We were just clapping because Cory was telling us to. My arms were about to fall off. But once the dance actually started, we clapped because we wanted to. It was an AWESOME routine, definitely in Wade’s style. He’s such a great dancer that even through there were many other talented dancers on stage, he definitely stuck out - there’s always that one dancer that your eye follows throughout the dance, and that was Wade. Wade’s dance was one of the main highlights of the night.
After that, we taped a segment of Wayne Newton singing - which they put together just the day before since Gloria Estefan cancelled for personal reasons. Cheryl Burke and Drew Lachey danced along, and it was interesting to watch not only their choreography, but also how the moving cameras were choreographed. There were a couple stationary cameras, but several that were operated by guys moving around the dancefloor - sometimes led by another person so they could watch the action the whole time. We taped that segment twice - it was hard to match the original enthusiasm from the first take.
After that, there was some time left before the live airing of the show. They let the audience on the dancefloor to get down. At the end, there was a dance contest, and several couples joined. There were some pretty good dancers, but my favorite was this 70ish couple. They were pretty smooth on the dance floor. Then the man dipped his wife, stuck his nose between her cleavage, and did the motorboat (nuzzling her cleavage really fast). The crowd went wild and everyone was hootin’ and hollerin’. They were awesome!
Then, it was time for the live (on the east coast, anyway) show to start…
to be continued!
Leaving LA
We’re leaving LA today, and I’ve gone through the 940 pics I’ve taken so far and will upload my favorite 100 or so, eventually.
Today we went to Santa Monica beach for Ben’s first beach trip ever. He LOVED it and didn’t want to leave. When we took him back to the car, he had about a pound of sand hidden in his pants and shirt. Here’s some pics (click for a larger size):
Dancing at the 3rd Street Promenade
Santa Monica Beach
Running on the Beach
Ben’s Toes
Today we leave LA and head for Hawaii!
I Might, Or Might Not, Be on TV Tomorrow
So Justin, Dave’s brother, got tickets to see the results show of “Dancing With the Stars” tomorrow (which is the results show) while we’re in LA. We’re definitely going, but I don’t know if we’ll get good seats. If we do, I’ll be throwing up the “shocker” for Redpac. Or maybe not. We’ll see. But keep your eye out for me!
I’m Pooped!
I said I was going to post yesterday’s pictures today, but I’m not cuz I’m pooped! I was driving around all day - sightseeing and dropping Dave off at this conference. Most of the day we were at the Golden Gate Park, which is HUGE! I’ll post a several of my favorite pictures for you to check out until I feel like uploading the rest of them - I’ve got about 500 pictures taken already!
“Give me nuts, Woman!”
Sharp Edges
Japanese Garden
Flower Close-Up
Time Out!
