Wrapping up the trip to Illinois

This will be the final post about my trip to Illinois to meet up with CB during his tour. As most of you know, he is back and this is post is very late, but I've been WAY busy at work (which is where I do my best blogging) and they have blocked the ability to add pictures. Once I get my camera back, I'll post the pictures from Grandpa's party and the Trunk or Treat.

Uncle BB and Levi (sporting the cute hat I made him)

Stella and I played makeup any chance we got :) Here we are as kitties

And here's a cute picture of Stella with my "marcie" glasses on. She's so pretty, it actually is a good look on her! haha

Apple Bobbing Championships

This year's Halloween party brought back the Apple Bobbing Contest.
I don't usually participate, but since I had the opportunity to go first this year (read- before the water gets dirty and spitty) I decided to throw my head in the bucket and give it a try.

In 5th place, Rachel with 4 apples in about a minute-
I think she gave up then, but at least she tried!

Here I am in 4th place, (look at that clean water) with 7 apples in 1 min 8 seconds.

In 3rd place, Micah- with 7 apples in a WAY faster time than me, but I can't remember how fast.

In 2nd place, Makaya- with 7 apples in 15 seconds! Plus she had the infamous "double apple" where she managed to get 2 apples out in 1 dunk.

But Ashton was the winner with 7 apples in 14 seconds! I am pretty sure this is the fastest time ever in bobbing history. Next year we'll have to invite Guinness for the official timing.

Here is the video if you would like to see history being made...

Peanuts Party!

The Original Peanuts Gang

And Our Creative Interpretation!

From Left to Right, Charlie Brown, Woodstock, "Chuck", Marcie, Franklin, Charlie Brown Halloween Ghost, Peppermint Patty, Sally, Snoopy, Linus, Schroeder, Lucy and PigPen.

I think CB was a great Peppermint Patty- She had a mustache, right?

CB and Claire with the 2 Charlies

Snoopy on the keys!

Guess who's Back (back, back) Back again!!!

The stars in the universe are back aligned...  CB got home last night from his tour at 3:30am.  YAY!  

I went to Target late last night and bought SO much food!  For the last 5 weeks, I've been wandering around grocery stores unaware of what to buy (I had no motivation to cook any dinners for myself).  But last night I was on fire! I bought all of Caleb's favorite foods, and then some!  I finally remembered the dinners I like to cook and eat.  I just hope we can eat the food before it goes bad. haha :) Luckily, my cousin is coming to visit soon, so we'll have some help.

(I will really try to get those peanuts party pics and the pics of my trip to St Louis up, I do my best blogging at work, and I've been swamped!)

Peanuts Party, Bobbing for Apples World Record

Coming soon!

Fall Activities

A trip to the pumpkin patch

Of course, we got the largest pumpkin we could find and it was a group effort to carve it.

Aw, sweet teamwork

Finished jack-o-lantern- traditional design- gotta love the one tooth look

Carving the Pumpkin was a great distraction for CB's cake to be brought out (his birthday is Sunday) and for his family to get to sing Happy Birthday to him.

Blowing out his candles

They also then brought out a cake for Ashton (his birthday's in November) and went ahead and sang to him, since they won't see him again for his birthday.  Double cake is always good.

Illinois Trip

This is the reason why I confiscated the camera back from Caleb... 

This is one of 2 or 3 pictures that he took while on tour.  No driving pictures, no show pictures, no pictures at Garden of the Gods- only this picture of him looking kind of annoyed in front of a (pretty, at least) valley and a picture of him and Ashton on the beach in like Virginia.

He did manage to take a few pics while with his family when he met up with them and played in Carbondale.  Here is a good one of Caleb and Stella cheesing it up

*Flashforward two weekends to my trip to IL*

I flew into St Louis REALLY late Friday night and my cousin, Lisa and her husban

d came and picked me up.  I had gotten up that morning early to be at set in Paramount, CA (near Downey!!) by 6am, so by the time I got to Lisa's, I was exhausted.  The next morning, we had breakfast with my Aunt Marcia and my cousin Mike. Delicious Monkey Bread.

I then was driven to Illinois to meet up with my brother, Tom, and Annie and Thomas.  Thomas totally loved me, which is good, because at 1 1/2 years old and only seeing him every 4-6 months- it could go either way.  I don't have any pictures because

 I hadn't yet seen Caleb, so I didn't have my camera.

So then Caleb's mother and sister, Rachel picked me up Saturday afternoon and we drove the 5 hours up to Ottawa, IL, where Makaya, Micah, Stella and Levi live.  (Still hadn't seen Caleb yet)

Then Micah drove Makaya, Chris, Harmony and I the hour and half up to Chicago for Caleb's show.  Finally!!!  It was really great to see him after so long.

And that brings me to the part of the trip with pictures...

In Ottawa, we went on a nature hike.  It was sooo nice to be in Fall.  Here is CB...

And here is the reverse picture I had him take of everyone 

else.  (Going up the stairs: me, Mason, Rachel, Stella, Ashton, Harmony, Makaya, Levi, Micah, Chris, Oliver, Diana)

And this was the finale of the hike, a beautiful, serene waterfall 

I was pretty brave and climbed the narrow ledge to the other side of waterfall.  While taking this picture I kept saying- "the backside of water" - or whatever they say on the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland.  I don't think this is a very good picture of me, but I had to post the behind-the-waterfall picture.  I just look at this and feel exhausted by how tired I was.

One of the afternoons in Ottawa, we had a picnic lunch at some place that had a couple of buffalo.  Caleb took this picture of one through the fence... not a bad pic, I think.  He then informed me that when we move back to IL,  we'll have to get a house with 8 acres, because 4 acres is enough land to sustain a buffalo for 1 year, and we'd obviously have to have 2 buffalo.

Running on empty...

I'm going to attempt to actually make all the posts that I've been meaning to make for the last week tonight.  But I'll try to break them up into individual ideas.  (I don't know why I actually wrote this rather than just do it... but I'll go with it)  I feel like I'm alternating from utter exhaustion/crazed anxiety with how busy I've been keeping myself since Caleb left.  On that note:  he gets back in 5 days!  They are in Kansas City, MO tonight- Tulsa, Oklahoma tomorrow.

Greetings from Illinois!

I had a second to get on the computer at Makaya's house and just wanted to say that I'm having a great visit! I'm going to confiscate the camera from Caleb for the duration of his tour (he only took 1 picture in the whole 3 weeks!) and bring it back with me, so I'll have tons of pictures to load up when I get back. Including... our family's annual Halloween party! Caleb was peppermint patty- he looked AMAZING!

Embarrassing Moment of the Day

I just spent 15 minutes killing time on the computer while my rice cooked in my rice cooker (I got one from my assistant at work for my birthday this year- this is an amazing invention! I feel like an infomercial- "you set it and forget it!").  I eventually looked over and saw the "keep warm" light on (also known as "done" light) and went to prepare my bean, brown rice and cheese burrito I'll be having for dinner.  I open the lid and see the pile of hard, uncooked rice sitting in water- what?!?  My first thought was really- wow, does it not work for brown rice?  Finally it dawned on me, I never hit the cook button.  It doesn't work so well if you forget to set it!  Now I'm killing more time on the computer, and I'm SOOOO hungry.  

Yep, this is what I've come to: Blogging about failed cooking attempts while using shortcut appliances.  

**2 1/2 days and I'm on my way to the midwest to meet up with Caleb on Saturday!**

Keepin' up with the Benjamins

Caleb is in Birmingham, AL (shout out to Brooke McCoy!) tonight. It's a bit weird to think of him being on East Coast time, but it is mostly nice. It is nice because he's up when I get up in the morning to go to work, and he goes to bed at night around the same time as I do. When he was still in our time zone, I'd get woken up by texts at 3am saying he was in for the night. Now at least it is only midnight here and it is kind of comforting to be settling in for sleep 'together'.

Tomorrow night, they will be in Nashville, TN. Guess who else will be there...

Yep, the future president. I am hoping that they give themselves plenty of time to maneuver around traffic and security checkpoints or whatever might be going down. It would be very cool if they'd get to see the debates in person, but I am thinking that most likely you have to set that up more in advance than day of.

Also, my brother Steve is living in Nashville right now, so he'll be able to go to the show.

Tawny and I drove up to Auburn Ca this weekend to see Elise and her sweet new baby girl, Ella-Jean. Auburn is an old gold rush town and it was just beautiful. I wish we had more time to explore the town. I would really like to pan for gold sometime. I think I did it at the duQuoin state fair once in IL. I am not sure, but I sort of have a memory of it.

This was the only picture I snapped of Ella at dinner Saturday night. I love how she kept her hands folded while she slept. I think she looks a lot like Elise. Just off camera to my right, sat Jasper, who pulled and pulled and pulled at my shirt/arm/shoulder trying to climb up out of his highchair to get a look at this sleeping baby. He was so curious and pretty strong for 9 months!

After a short visit with Elise, we jumped in the car and drove the two hours to San Francisco.

Since it was Tawny's first time, we drove down the crookedy street which wasn't as scary as the first time I drove down it last year.


We also drove over the Golden Gate bridge, then turned around, stopped at the lookout and took pictures. This one of Jasper was the only halfway decent one I got with my camera phone. Tawny took one of me, but I look almost deformed, so I will not be posting it.

Coming To A Theater Near You!

This October brings many things. Caleb's birthday, Halloween, Caleb's return from tour and the release of several of the "box office gold masterpieces" that I worked on in the last couple years. Can't say that I recommend them... but just that I have worked on the following movies with October release dates.

Coming out on October 10th- This one I had to attend several production and extra's meetings for. I only booked 1 day (obviously due to the subject matter... there weren't a bunch of extras in it). I couldn't tell you if it is any good, as I didn't actually read the script. This might be for netflix.

Releasing on Halloween (ooh spooky)- I did actually read the script for this one... Wouldn't say that you should run out and see this one, but it could be alright I guess, depending on how certain scenes were shot... If you do see it though, keep a look out for the kids at the school and the party... yep- that was my work.

And lastly... also releasing on Halloween night. I am really hoping we get invited to the crew screening on this one. I recommend seeing this, if not for the story line, which I am hoping was done well by Mr Eastwood, but for the amazing late 20's-30's look. This was possibly one of the most challenging projects for me creatively and well worth it. Stepping on that set was like stepping back in time. Working on this movie reminded me why I wanted to work in the movies to begin with. It was magical.

Also quick update- I did NOT win the cookie contest. My partner on the above movie, Tony, won the contest with a "kitchen sink cookie." I will be a gracious loser and say I am sure that his cookies were good, but will also note that I had no idea which cookie was which once they were broken into pieces on my plate (all the chocolate chip varieties were similar tasting). I was told by many people that my cookies were the best, so that is enough for me. Plus, since I am planning to be out of town this weekend, I am glad I don't have to stress about whipping up another batch before Monday.