Our 2,000 Mile Road Trip Weekend!

We left Thursday night and stayed at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. We left too late and ran into 3+ hours of traffic. We ended up getting there at 4 am. They waived the resort fee for us because we were only going to stay there for a few hours which was nice. We went up to our room in hopes to go straight to bed. When we got there however a couple of things were missing from the mini bar and the window shade was stuck in the down position. I thought I might as well call downstairs to make sure we were not going to get charged and to tell them about the window. They basically laughed at me and said "what are we supposed to do about this at 4 am?" We thought, "Okay we can't do anything more today let's just go to bed."

We awoke at 5 am to knocking on our hotel room door, and then a guy just came into our room! It was the engineering department to fix the window. I was too out of it to stop him and sat there well he finished up. He said "here's some chocolate for you guys" and handed us chocolates from his pocket. It was totally weird and random that he gave us chocolate from his pocket. Angela told me to not eat candy from strangers. We were incredibly tired so we went back to sleep. Then we woke up to 2 phone calls from the front desk. I missed the first one but picked up the second one. They asked "Is there anyone in this room? It says you guys already checked out. I assured the lady on the phone that we had not checked out yet and were planning to be staying for a few more hours... I'm glad I picked up the phone because had I not I think they would have sent someone else in our room.

So our stay at the MGM Grand was not that grand. We got back in our car passed a lot of cars headed for EDC and made it safely to Cedar City. This is where our trip really got a lot better. I've never felt more welcome going anywhere. It's amazing how wonderful our friends are. We made peanut butter cookies and we played Super Smash Brothers U and Mario Kart U and they let us stay in their extra room. We went to the store and bought some things that you can't get where we live and drove around in an awesome 70's Nova.

We parted ways the next morning and made our way to Salt Lake City, or the Mormon Mecca as we kept calling it. We walked around Temple Square and toured the old and new conference centers. Then we drove around Sundance and it was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. After that we made our way to our final destination of Provo. Our friend there said we could stay in their spare room as well but we know how bad traffic can be on Sunday's during the day on the I-15 South. But we did get to play Mario Kart 64 and got to tour their cool basement apartment.

On our way back we got to see the stage and lights from EDC. Our trip was fun but fast, there was so much more that we wanted to do that I'm sure we will be back. Everyone was so accommodating and it was such a pleasure, I just hope that our friends liked us visiting as much as we did. Our trip may have only lasted for 60 hours but my beautiful wife and I were able to go so far and see so much. I can't wait until our next adventure! Who am I kidding? Every day is an adventure <3 <3 <3

Project Morpheus and E3

It has been an amazing opportunity to go to E3 and I've had a blast annually for 4 years in a row. I get to try out all the new tech sometimes years before anyone else gets their hands on it. This year I took off work for one day to drive down to the LA Convention Center to go and I got to try the new virtual reality called Project Morpheus. It was fun to see where the entertainment industry is headed. There were two things I wanted to try this year at E3, one was Project Morpheus and the other was Starfox Wii U.  And I got to try them both.

Starfox was a lot of fun, they had big pods that looked like cockpits for you to sit in and after I played the game they gave me an exclusive Starfox pin. At this point it occurred to me that I had tried everything I needed to try and I wished Angela was there with me. I thought to myself I could go and try something else or I could go home and do something special for Angela. So I left early to beat traffic and cleaned the apartment.

I went to 4 stores to try to find peonies which are Angela's favorite flower, but I couldn't find them. I ended up going with the tried and true red roses. Also I picked up things to make dinner and some penguin gummies from Trader Joe's. I hung up all the laundry, fixed the clogged disposal, vacuumed, scrubbed the kitchen, took a shower, and rearranged the apartment so the treadmill could fit inside. Angela came home from work just in time for me to have finished shaving and to have a rose in my hand.

Angela came in the apartment holding a Trader Joe's bag... She had planed to make me dinner as a surprise when I came home from E3. We are so much alike and so much in love! Angela convinced me to let her make me dinner because I had cleaned, but I still plan to make her dinner tonight. :)

Our Trip to the Sequoias

This last weekend we just picked up and left, and it was such a good idea. I LOVE our spontaneous trips to random places. Angela and I love the freedom of just going anywhere we want. Angela and I went to the Sequoias this time. We still have a rental car because our car is still in the shop so it was fun to get the opportunity to try out a different car. We are glad we paid for the extra insurance because someone for no reason threw a shoe at us on the freeway and it scuffed our hood.  

Both Angela and I had never been to the Sequoias so we didn't know what to expect. When we went through Bakersfield it was 100 degrees outside. Everything was dead except the trees in the orchards. When we got to the gate of the national park we had to ask "Is there anything to look at or is there just more of this?" gesturing to the dead plants and hot weather. The guy behind the counter just smiled and said "Well this is the golden state." As you can imagine that didn't give us much comfort.

Photo credit Angela ^^

We paid the $20 to get into the forest anyway because we drove all the way there. It did get a lot better as we went up in altitude, the temperature dropped and the trees got prettier.  We pulled over and had a picnic on one of the picnic tables near some big trees. It's amazing how comfortable it is to go on a road trip with Angela we just do our own thing without a care in the world. On the way home we picked up pizza from my favorite pizza place Papa Murphy's take n bake pizza which we look forward to eating tonight.

My relationship goals for my wife and I are to get to an old age where people look at us with admiration saying, "those two people are the most in love couple I have ever seen".  So far it's been really great. We are not necessarily PDA but anyone that knows us can tell we are inseparable. We will definitely be that old cute couple you see holding hands swinging on their front porch.

Our Romantic Date to....Walmart???

So my plan last night was to surprise Angela with taking her to get sushi. I am by no means a sushi connoisseur and do not know the best place to get sushi. Angela has mentioned getting sushi for a while so I felt like it was time to make it happen. I looked at reviews of sushi places in the area and called some of them to get a feel of if I needed a reservation or how crowded they were. Angela and I don't really eat out much, we prefer to spend our money on activities rather than food most of the time, so I was pretty lost when it came to finding good sushi which I have heard is tough to do for anyone.

I felt like it would be less romantic to ask Angela where she wanted to get sushi because I knew she would be as stressed out about finding a place I was. So I took on the battle myself so she could enjoy something she wanted without the stress. I decided on Minato Sushi in thousand oaks and let Angela know that I was taking her out on a date to get food and to not expect anything fancy.

Angela spent a little extra time on her makeup and picked out something cute to wear. Soon we where on our way. We pulled up to Minato Sushi and something unexpected happened. We started talking in the parking lot about other things and soon Angela decided that she just wasn't feeling sushi. Me without a plan and her dressed up I asked her where she would like to go, I would have taken her anywhere.

A few minutes later we were on our way to Walmart... I know, I know it was supposed to be a date and we were going to end up at Walmart. I felt like the least romantic person ever, like I failed somehow in relationship 101. The reason we were headed to Walmart was because we read that they had Star Wars cereal with Darth Vader on the front.

It occurred to me that I was worrying to much. Angela and I are in love and it truly doesn't matter about the activity. That being said, had I have told Angela that it was a date and I knew the destination was Walmart I may have dropped the ball. But I had something nice planned and we are comfortable enough with each other to change plans. My goal was to make Angela happy and had you seen her face when she was eating little tie fighters and light sabers you would know I succeeded. As an added plus we decided to buy the original 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie on blu ray and eat pizza as a date. We are such dorks, but in the best way. :)

Things We are Looking Forward to.

I decided it would be fun to take some time and look forward to all the fun things Angela and I have in store for this summer. We have so much planed that it's sure to be the best summer of our lives.

1.) The first thing I'm looking forward to is we are seeing Jurassic World for my brother's birthday. We are seeing it at the city walk IMAX opening night on the 11th. My brother and I used to watch Jurassic Park on Laser Disc so much that I had the disks memorized where I needed to get up to turn them. Still to this day if I see that movie on Blu-ray I almost get up to turn the disk. :P

2.) I get to go to Electronic Entertainment Expo on the 17th and I get to try out the new virtual reality tech that is going to be on the market in the next few years. This event is only open to people in the industry and I am honored to be able to attend again this year.

3.) We are having our Girls Night this month a little differently. Girls Night has become such an important night of the month I decided this time we need it to take the whole night! There are always various foods to nom, we can soak our feet in Epsom salt, do our hair with hot hues, do facial masks, watch Disney movies, and I have plenty of nail polish for mani/pedis. We will be having waffles Saturday morning so I encouraged everyone to feel free to bring their favorite toppings. Everyone will come dressed comfortably in there jammies and I asked for everyone to bring a pillow for a relaxing and fun girls night slumber party! :)

4.) For our anniversary we got the best seats in the house to see phantom of the Opera. I've never seen this play but it's always held a very special place in my heart from listening to the soundtrack growing up, so when the tickets went on sale in December we were the first to buy them.

5.) We are going on a trip to San Francisco at the end of the summer. We hope to see Alcatraz but more importantly we have tickets to see Billy Joel again. Angela and I loved seeing him when he was at the Hollywood Bowl and we can't wait to take a trip to see him again. He is truly a magnificent musical artist and he is amazing live.

6.) Lots of Disneyland. Angela and I have been going to Disneyland a lot these past few weeks and I don't see that momentum stopping. It's just so magical to go after work watch the fireworks, go on a few rides, and stroll down main street. Last time we were at Disneyland I almost cried from happiness looking at Angela during the fireworks. Something about that song from Tangled, I See The Light gets me every time. I'm such a softy and it made me want to re-watch every Disney movie so badly so I'm glad girls night is Disney themed. :)