Tax Revolt Rally #2

I had a very busy weekend! This Saturday morning I woke up earlier than expected (a current trend of mine) so I was able to go walking from Manhattan Beach pier to 22nd Street on Hermosa Beach and back. I picked up breakfast at Jamba Juice (you've got to try the blueberry & blackberry steel cut oatmeal!) and I went home to shower before my hair appointment.

Every time I get my hair done, my hairstylist, Peggy, likes to straighten it. So, I look very different! Afterwards I met up with my sister, Erika, to get our nails done at Nailspa, which we used to frequent when she lived here. Kim, one of the technicians remembered her, even though it's been almost 2 years since Erika's been here. Erika and I had a great time getting pampered and beautified and catching up. Erika had to go to Target afterwards so I went with her before I had to rush over to Marshall's. Boy was he surprised when he saw me!

Marshall and I drove to Corona to Tom's Farm for a tax revolt rally. The traffic was terrible due to the rally so we got there about 4:45-5pm. We walked around, saw all of the very creative signs and then joined the mob to shout "Heads on a stick!!!" which is the mantra of the rally. All those attending are upset at how Sacramento is excessively spending, not being good stewards of the money, they are corrupted by the unions and so much more.

Here are some of the signs we saw:

I really liked this one:

Here is a Arnold Schwartzenegger naked pinata that they let kids take a whack at:
Here is one of the after pictures.

The pinata was filled with paper money. Here is one flying out of the pinata, with a newscopter in the background:

At first, I couldn't really see the pinata activities, so Marshall gave me a piggy back ride so I could take some pictures.

After the rally, we rushed back to his place to quickly change and then meet Erika and my dad at Acapulco's for dinner. This was the first time Marshall met some of my family and it went really well. He seems to fit in pretty well. :-)

Sunday morning we had church at 9am. I was so excited because I hadn't seen Erika's kids yet, or her husband Brian. It was so great to see them all! I've missed them and of course, all of the kids have grown like weeds. Kaylen, who is 16 months old, has grown to double the size of when I saw her for Thanksgiving! After church, Marshall and I to L & L Hawaiian BBQ for lunch (my gosh, they have big portions!) and then we took a look at bathroom cabinets at Home Depot. Marshall is redoing his 1/2 bath.

Then we went back to his condo and watched "Lars and the Real Girl" which we both liked. Very quirky-funny, with a poignant message about courage and loving unconditionally and supporting those in emotional need. Marshall cooked for me again--we had jerk chicken, roasted corn-on-the-cob and carribean rice. After dinner the Hawthorne earthquake hit. The jolt was pretty strong but didn't last long--just 10-15 seconds, but it caused us to jump up from the couch!

I left at about 9 and was so exhausted I barely made it home! I don't know why I am waking up earlier considering my fatigue, but I did it again this morning! Maybe that means I am getting more quality sleep?

Angels Game

Last Friday night, Marshall took me to another Angels game. It was Friday Night Fireworks night.

The Nick Adenhart memorial circle was still outside the stadium. Not sure if it's national news, but he was a rookie pitcher that was killed in a drunk driving accident, along with 2 others. The man who killed them had a record of drunk driving. Very sad. Marshall gets great seats for the games. Here is our view of the game:

The fireworks actually come out of the rock formation that you can see at the back of the stadium. They go off after runs are made by the Angels and after the game (Angels won 9-7 and there was an in-field home run during the game--very exciting and unusual) there was the best fireworks presentation I've seen--and I've seen the Boston fireworks! They were really well done--set to the music of the Rolling Stones with a great finish at the end.

Here we are wearing Angels red (almost like Red Sox red ;-)

Sharefest 2009

Sharefest Group Pic (although more people came throughout the day). I'm on the right hand side in the burgundy shirt.

Saturday, May 2nd, I participated in Sharefest 2009! Sharefest is a community organization that puts on one volunteer day each year. Thousands of volunteers from over 80 churches in the South Bay went out to help schools, parks and neighbors in the south bay area. The theme this year was "Leave Your Imprint."

This year, I was involved in 2 sites. I was part of Victory's team originally, but my fellow BASIC leaders, Lisa and Darcy, accepted the challenge of being project managers for the first time, so I wanted to help them out as much as possible.

I ended up getting donuts for both sites. I dropped off donuts and bagels for 40 people at Hickory Elementary in Torrance before heading over to Wilmington Park Elementary. There were 114 people scheduled for that site. I had picked up donuts, bagels and drinks for this site.

My jobs included sign in (help people sign up for a specific project, get them a tee shirt and make sure they knew about the donuts and bagels! I also was in charge of the chair cleaning project. That involved us collecting all of the fabric chairs from the classrooms (these were mainly the teacher's chairs), bringing them to a central location, then spot cleaning and then steam cleaning the chairs. Then we had to take the chairs back to each classroom. I was happy to get to know Christina and Shiloh, who helped me collect the chairs. I also had other helpers such as Amy, Amber (who was very pregnant but still worked!), Brandon, Jan and Sheri and a few others that helped us.

Here is my crew working hard:

A big part of the day at our site was the landscaping job. Mimi headed it up (we were lucky to have a professional landscaper help us) and everyone did a great job!

The final job (that ended at 7pm!) was the painting of murals. Here is one of the two murals that were painted:

Although I was exhausted when I left, I was really satisfied with the work that we did. I really love helping this organization. :-)

Angels Baseball, Hiking and More

I was set up on a blind date a few weeks ago that went better than expected. I was taking a risk when the guy mentioned he had two tickets to an Angels game on that Saturday night. Usually, first (blind) dates are at an establishment that is 1) local and 2) is an event where either party can get out of it relatively easily if things aren't going well (coffee is the most popular thing to do). But when Marshall mentioned the game, I thought it would be a nice change of pace. Besides, I hadn't been to a baseball game in ages!

Marshall picked me up and we started the hour long drive to Anaheim. Conversation was very easy and sooner than we expected we had arrived at the stadium. We got our seats and got to know each other while occasionally looking at the game. We hit it off so well that Marshall wanted to check out my church, King's Harbor, the next morning for the 11am service. After church we went to lunch at Pei Wei and had a good time.

Well, long story short, we enjoy each other's company immensely. Saturday night he came to KHC's services and afterwards we went to Vince's Italian Restaurant for dinner and today we went on a beautiful hike in Palos Verdes. We went on more trails than I had ever hiked, which was a nice little adventure!

Here we are at the beginning of our hike:

One of the many beautiful views on the hike:

We ran into more lizzards than I had ever seen on a hike. Here is one little guy:

We made it to the end of our 3 hour hike. Marshall did a great job taking our picture, whereas I, on the other hand have 3-4 other versions that I tried that didn't turn out!