USC v OR Football Game

Saturday morning my friend, Alice and her boyfriend, Mark, flew in from San Francisco to go with me to the Oregon v USC game at the Colesium. Alice and Mark are from Oregon (it's Mark's alma mater and Alice is a huge fan even though she went to Montana State) so I wore green to support Oregon (never liked USC anyway). ;)

We scored on driving there (ended up behind a beamer who had an Oregon flag attached to her car and so we followed her) and getting parking. Originally we were going to park in this $20 lot but we passed it and decided to turn right and go around the block. You wouldn't believe how many people were selling spots in their driveways for $10! We didn't do that, but instead went to the next block and ended up finding a great parking space on the street--for free!

Our walk was pretty easy...Alice's hat got lots of attention. When we entered the stadium every Ducks fan we encountered said "Go Ducks!" to use (since it was obvious we were Ducks fans). We ended up lapping the Colesium because Alice was craving Chick-fil-A and there was only one! It gave us great exercise and an opportunity to take a picture by the arches:

Here's a close up:
While we were walking around, Mark ran into 3 people he knows that flew down for the game! There were a ton of people that flew in just for this game!

Here is a picture of the game (Oregon creamed USC, although it was a good game until the last part of the 4th quarter). See that guy in the botton of the frame wearing the LA Dodgers hat? He stood up about a million times and turned around and tried to get everyone to cheer for USC. He was so obnoxious. Thankfully, at half-time he moved up to the seats higher than ours so we couldn't see him!
We were sitting in USC country (like most of the stadium). But you could see how devoted the Oregon fans were. The Oregon section stayed until the very end and when the USC fans knew they were going to lose, they high-tailed it out of these, so you could see more green and yellow as the USC fans left.
I was sitting next to a really nice guy (you can see him in the photo above). It turns out he is from Palos Verdes so we are neighbors. When the game was slow we chatted about the South Bay (where we are both from). It was nice. Too bad he's married. Hahaha.

Here is Alice looking extra-special in her hat:

Love how the legs make an awesome bow-tie! I love Alice for wearing that hat!

Chili for Charity

Tonight I went to Love INC's Chili for Charity event. I had so much fun! I sat at Jenn's table with Scotti, Nicole, Alan,Lisa W.and Lisa H.
Just when I arrived. Pictured: Jenn (next to me), Scotti (below me) and Nicole

Almost everyone dressed up in western wear and had a Yee-haw of a time! First off was the raffle ticket purchasing and then going over to choose which prize to shoot for. I liked the idea that you could pick which item(s) you wanted instead of ending up with something you'd just regift later!

Then it was dinner time--chuck wagon style! We were served frito boats with a salad and corn bread on the side. Coffee, water and lemonade were the beverages offered. It was delicious, down home (as down home as Hormel's gets you! ;) cookin'. Here's a pic of my buddy, Alan, and I, waiting for our grub. Finally, there is a picture of me where my head doesn't look huge (see previous picture):
Here I am about to dig in:
After dinner, there was two musical groups for the entertainment and then there was line dancing. You can see that Lisa W. (a former professional dancer) was the leader of the pack:

Lisa Harden was the big raffle winner of the night: she won two raffle prizes and they were awesome ones (5 car washes with detailing and a Murad gift certificate):
Alan bought raffle tickets and put them all towards winning "The Duke" in cut-out form and HE WON!!!

Everyone had such a wonderful time!

Dumpster Diving with Alice

Alice flew into town Saturday morning in order to go to a wedding. Originally, she had a hair appointment, but I talked her out of it so she could go shopping with me instead! We went to the Galleria. We had to stop at Chick-fil-A, Alice's favorite place (and I was doing an anti-boycott, to offset some people who didn't like Chick-fil-A because they support Focus on the Family and FoF doesn't support lgbt lifestyles).

After lunch we went to The Limited. It's my favorite place and I think Alice likes it too. :) While we were there I said, "Dang, I had $50 off coupons and I recycled them. I think they are in the recycle bins at my apartment complex." We purchased our items and when we left, Alice said she wanted to dumpster dive for the coupons--it was $50 off for each of our purchases.

So, I promised her that we could dumpster dive and that I would blog about it. Sure enough, we got back and went to the recycle bins and we checked the bags I had dropped in. To no avail. Then I realized that I had put the coupons in a pile of other catalogs in my bookcase. All that for nothing.

As we were walking upstairs, I realized I didn't have my keys. Turns out I accidentally dropped them into the recycling bins! Whoops! Alice was a trooper and got them out (she's taller and has longer arms--she's a rockstar)

Anyway, we were able to find the coupons and we were both able to get the $50 off...I ended up getting a few more things with the money I saved. :) I wore almost everything this week! I love my purchases! No buyer's remorse for me. :D

Lunch at Simon-L.A.

Alice and I met up with Dyanelle at Simon-L.A., a restaurant in the Beverly Hills area. It was DineLA week so they had a great menu available. On top of that, they knew that it was Dyanelle's birthday so we got free desserts! Here's Dyanelle showing off two of them:
The final dessert--cotton candy!

Here we are trying it out!

Bible Study in Palos Verdes

Andy and Jenn are house-sitting for the Smiths, who are in New Zealand to take care of their home there that suffered damage from the big earthquake that happened near Christ's Church. Jenn and Andy asked us all up for a BBQ last Wednesday and we will be having bible study there for the next month. Here's Jenn and Andy (the newlyweds): Here are Lisa, Nicole and Tammy:

Andy, me and Bryan:

Look at the wonderful spread! Yum!

And that picture doesn't even show the delicious brownie cake decorated like a jack-o-lantern that Tammy made. It was sooooo good!

B.A.S.I.C. Bonfire

Last weekend, B.A.S.I.C. had their first event since our summer break. We had our
2nd Annual End-of-Summer Bonfire!

I figured I would get to the beach around 3pm, to ensure that I would get a fire pit for our event. I had never been to Dockweiler beach, but figured that would be enough time--boy was I (almost) wrong! I searched and searched and could not find an unused or unsaved fire pit.

I even asked a woman if she could part with one of the fire pits that she was saving (she was saving two). She texted the person running their event but they said no. I wondered the rest of the beach and found another group that was saving two fire pits, but I decided to put my blanket down and start praying and I waited for Nicole to come.

Nicole asked the group (who said they were a church group) and they said no as well. We decided to drive to the other end of the beach and we were able to observe that there was a family that was already cooking hot dogs on the fire and Nicole asked them if they were staying late--God is good because they were leaving at 6pm!

We staked out their pit and set up our canopy and the chairs Nicole had brought with her. The family was really nice and allowed us to take their spot, even helping us! Here's Nicole before we moved to the fire pit:
We praised God for the fire pit! Can you imagine if we hadn't gotten it? As Nicole said, this was God's party so He had to show up and He did! A family asked us if we would share our fire pit and of course we said YES! They were a nice family and it turned out they were all Christians!

The rest of the set up went well and people started arriving at 7pm. We had a great location...right in between flame throwers (literally) and a group that had a huge red flag flying!

Pictured below: Rebecca, Gretchen and Brianna:
Here's our wonderful fire!
Here's Lisa Perrish and Steph Feuer, two of the worship leaders:

Everyone seems to be having fun:

Here's a picture of Tammy and Sachin enjoying the fire. If you'll notice, Sachin has a s'more in his hand--his first one! Sachin is from Nepal, so this was his first s'more experience!
Our first B.A.S.I.C. event was a success!