Selling my Nikon D80 and 2 lenses!

I'm movin' on to bigger and better things. This is it D80--you've been good to me! Now it's time for you to find a new home. 

Thanks!

We'll be laughing soon enough...

Deej just took his cuff links off and can't find one. He can't find his iPad. I'm sitting on a very broken chair and just noticed my ring is broken, too. I got up to help Deej look. He sat down on the broken chair and it gave way. I found Deej on the floor.

This has been a very interesting 5 minutes.  

More from Japan!

So I never really explained our trip. It was pretty interesting. We had been planning on going to Japan for a while, but riding stand by can change your plans in an instant. We originally were going to fly straight there on Thursday. We looked at the flight Wednesday morning and saw it was iffy, so we decided to pack our bags and leave that evening to JFK. We had about a 7 hour layover, so we met up with Sachi (who currently is stationed out of JFK) and walked around NYC. ...Going through these photos makes me want to go back. SO BAD!

Brooklyn Bridge!

 Teddy Grahams kept us going.

 WE MADE IT ACROSS!

 Technology overload. 3 iPads. 2 phones. 1 Nikon. And a partridge in a pair tree.

DJ's and Sachi's first time in Business Elite. Oh that orange juice was divine.

Grandma and Grandpa's house! (What am I doing?...saving Deej from getting hit?)

 Grandpa's laundry rack...and peanut rack (one of the many things he gardens).

 Left: Yes, those keychains are very common and are attached to cell phones. Sometimes girls even have little stuffed animals attached.

Right: My obaachan and Sachi getting ready to go into the mall. Obaachan is always so happy, it makes me happy!

 This. This is Purikura. Just before these pictures, we were around the corner in another photo booth posing for the camera. Now, WE EDIT!

Ta-Da! 

 These are so delicious! Little fishies made of sweet bread and filled with sweet beans or custard. So good!

...I'm all tuckered out...more from the Japanese wedding dinner soon...

This one is for Michael.

I know this is a little late, but I totally spaced posting these photos...they kind of got lost in my ridiculously long "To-do" list called LIFE. So Michael, since you were so kind to remind me, I dedicate these pumpkins to you. 

So, without further ado, I bring to you our 2011 Halloween Pumpkin Carving!

Above: by Yours Truly...

Above: by Gallia and Michael

And last but definitely not least, my husband's pumpkin carving that he created all by himself.

That's a pretty good lookin' crew if I say so myself!

i.Love.movie.Quotes!

So, funny thing, as I was typing the title of this post, I totally thought of the quote: "Our. family. ALBUM!" off of How to lose a guy in 10 days. Seriously. This movie has too many amazing movie quotes. Anyway, that's not what I was going to post about, but movie quotes are in my head 24/7 and I just wanted to share that one. Moving on.

Deej was getting ready for his show tonight, and instead of the usual bow tie and cummerbund ensemble, for the Halloween show the musicians all dress up in their costumes. So he was looking around for his one piece jumpsuit and couldn't find it (surprise surprise) and he shouted to me, "Where is my super suit, woman!?!"

Yup, my movie quote addiction is slowly rubbing off onto Dj. 

Purikura Time!

          We will never get enough of Japan.


      Check out more photos here!

Sucky immune system...

 Yes, I am sick. It is that season again. Such a bitter sweet season for me. I absolutely LOVE the fall--all the beautiful colors and starting to layer up my wardrobe with scarves and jackets. But my immune system gets its butt kicked almost every year. Normally I wouldn't be in such a rush to get better, but I really need to heal fast because I'm leaving for Japan tomorrow (or TONIGHT! Just got a call from dad saying we might need to red-eye it to JFK...)! I do NOT want to be sick in Japan, especially because the humidity will already be enough discomfort. I am so congested, I feel like my entire head is being squished inside one of those air tight vacuum bags you see on infomercials at 2 in the morning...My nose can't handle any more blowing--Its starting to get so red from the irritation! I could be recruited for the next Rudolph right about now...

So for the past 4 days I've been taking Dayquil & Nyquil every 4 hours hoping to get rid of these awful symptoms that have been stopping me from getting things done. I only wish the medicine would work as fast as it does on TV. Seriously. First you see images of someone sneezing and coughing with this exhausted look on their face and its always in black and white, then right after they take the medicine they are jogging in central park and the world is colorful again. What is that about?! Has that ever worked for anyone?? Well, if it has, I am very jealous.

Guess I'm just gonna have to suck it up for now..."Be a man! Rub some dirt in it!" (Name that movie...)

P.S.
I thought I'd post a photo of a before and after of the husband. As some of you know, Deej has grown quite the beard. We were thinking to grow it out and use it as part of his Halloween costume--One we were thinking was the tall Abe Lincoln and I could be his short and stubby wife...haha! However, since we're introducing him to my Japanese side of the family for the very first time, we figured we needed to look our best, so we both decided to go in for hair cuts yesterday. Mine wasn't drastic, as always, just a little trim. But man oh man, Deej is one stud muffin!

BEFORE:

 

AFTER:   

                 
               

Thank you for solidifying your bad reputation.

Why are all office ladies/secretaries witches? Is that a requirement on their resume when they apply?  Is it part of their training when they get hired? or is it simply that they are just rude people who hate their job? Seriously.

Oh, hey Miss Trunchbull, you're job is to answer our questions/lead us to someone smarter than you, so don't stare at me like I'm stupid when I ask you a simple question and give me the "oh, too bad, I don't want to help you" look. Of course, I refused to stoop down to your level so I remembered my manners and said 'please' and 'thank you', but that had little, if not zero, affect on you. If your job requires you to work with people almost the entire time, you should probably have better people skills. ...Have a good day!

                                   

...ugh...

Un.Believable.

Where do I begin. I'm so upset right now that I just want to get to the point of the story.

No. Scratch that--not upset...IRATE! But maybe it'll be best to tell the entire story so that I can build the intensity for you--that way I'm not alone in my madness. I'll try my best not to break the keys on this keyboard...

So I got to work this morning in a pretty good mood. I was hoping for a busy day because I was pumped and ready to serve! But of course, my day begins with a one top. Lovely. And another. Lovely-er. And so the day went on with a really slow service and my section never filled up completely. Darn it all to heck.

And I had the long shift.

Awesome...

My very last table was a mother and daughter. I almost knew they were going to be toughies right from the get-go due to their "just get me seated and fed" attitudes. They came in just after 3 parties had come in literally right before them, all at the same time. I usually panic at this point when I'm the only server on and I get a lot of tables at once. I got them seated and chipped (Su Casa lingo...chipped=served them chips and salsa). Even with 4 tables all at once, after I get all their orders in, I was pretty proud of myself for how fast I got all of them taken care of.

The 3 parties that had come in before the mother and daughter had all paid and left pretty average tips, so I was content. Pretty good ending to a long shift. Or so I thought.

I went to drop off the credit card slip to the mother and went through my whole routine of, "Here ya go, if you could just sign the top copy, everything else is yours. Is there anything else I can do for you? Alrighty, have a good day, thanks for comin' in!" ...and then I had this gut feeling that this lady was blatantly going to stiff me (more server lingo...stiff=No tip.Zero.Zilch.Nada.) because the entire time serving her and being kind to her, she would hardly acknowledge me when I would do what she had asked. In my head, I kept thinking about the man from my previous shift (I promise I'm not trying to make this post longer--this is relevant).

I was being just as kind to this man as I would to any other customer. However, he was in a bad mood the entire time. Long story short, he got upset at the manager and another server for no reason at all, and I finally got him all paid and ready to go. And lo and behold, no tip. This of course got me upset because I didn't understand why, and I regretted not confronting the man and asking if I had done something to upset him that caused him to not leave any tip. This made me decide that next time I would ask if I had done something wrong. And yes, I did realized this could lead to the customer getting upset, but then I thought again--if they don't come back, that is totally fine with me because who wants to serve a table, work their best, and get nothing in return. HELLO PEOPLE! Do you know we only make $2.20 an hour?!

So back to the grumpy mother and daughter.

Realizing I could be in the same situation as before, tippless, I waited near the cash register to watch out of the corner of my eye what would happen. I see she is finished signing the bill. I go to grab it and with a forced smile, I say, "Thanks again." I look at the bill and see a big fat ZERO. In case that wasn't enough to catch my attention, it had a big slash going through it as if it wasn't a hard enough slap in the face. Just had to emphasize she was not leaving me a cent! I see as she gets up to leave there is no cash on the table. She's about to pass me and she says "Thanks" with hardly any smile at all. I'm thinking, no no no no no, you are NOT leaving me a verbal tip (Yeah, some people count that as a tip. Guess what. ITS NOT!) So I quickly get up my guts (I hate confrontation) and ask her in the politest way possible, "I'm sorry, can I ask you a question--was there something wrong with my service today?" A little nervous of how she would react, she simply says, "No." Shocked from her calm reaction, I timidly ask, "Oh...well, you know its customary to tip servers, right?"

"Yeah, but I just don't tip."

...?!?!

I was seriously taken back by her honest and RUDE answer. To be honest, I can't remember exactly what I said after that, I was so mad at this woman! Who doesn't tip, on purpose?! Who walks into a restaurant, sits down and has a nice meal for about 45 minutes, and doesn't plan on tipping their server?! I think I said something like, "You know servers work for tips, so it is customary to leave tips for them."

"Yeah, but its not the law."

...THE LAW?! By this time, my blood was boiling and it took everything to hold back my anger. I calmly persisted and told her, "I'm sorry to say this, but I know for a fact that servers do not appreciate serving without receiving tips." She then decided she DID in fact want to blame it on my service and said "Well, I told you about the flies." (There were a few flies around the front of the restaurant due to opening the door all day with the patio out front, and she complained about them during my service. I told her kind of laughing thinking she was saying it in a 'ha-ha' mood, "Oh I know we're trying to get that taken care of." She says, "No you're not. If you were I'd see you swatting at flies." Not knowing how else to reply, I told her that the manager has been swatting at flies in back trying to get rid of what he could.) So after her snide comment about my ignorance to the flies, I told her, "I'm sorry about the flies, I couldn't really do anything about that, and I couldn't really be swatting at the flies while you're eating and have the possibility of swatting one into your food, and I didn't want to bother you while you were eating." She just ignored what I had just said and cowardly left with a simple, "Okay, thanks."

I have NEVER in my entire 8 years of working as a server been so livid, irritated, furious, etc towards a customer. Its one thing to forget to tip. Its one thing to not tip if you have a crappy server. Its one thing to be confronted about not tipping and fake you forgot and then proceed to leave a little cash. But it is a COMPLETELY different thing when a server specifically asks about her service and gets an honest reply how 'because it isn't the law' they simply do not leave tips. Well ya know WHAT lady?! Its definitely not the law for me to have to serve you. So next time, please be so kind and do all us servers a favor and go to a fast food joint. Unbelievable.

I'm experiencing film withdrawals.

Not gonna lie. I kinda miss school. Seeing DJ off to school has made me a bit jealous...Don't get me wrong, I am SO glad to be done with crazy projects, but I kinda miss the challenge...what I really miss is shooting film. Oh MAN. Nothin' like shooting good ol' raw film. Now that I'm out of school, I'll have to take it to get developed rather than develop it myself...BORING! Takes the fun out of everything! And yeah, you can get the same effect with digital+post processing with LR, PS, etc...but seriously. There is nothing.like.raw.film.

I don't want to lose my grip with film. I loved the anticipation build up of not knowing what exactly would come out of the camera. Going into a pitch dark room (more of a nook--kinda creepy when you start thinking scary thoughts) to roll the film into the canister, measuring out all the chemicals, developing the film and watching the clock to make sure I do it just right, getting stinky fix all over my pants, waiting for the film to dry in the dryer, and pulling them out onto the light table to see the outcome.

I miss it dearly.

I still need to scan the rest of my negatives in...actually, maybe not the rest...that could take a while. But here are a few of what I had shot from previous semesters:

I shot this one of Tera for my cyanotypes process. They actually turned out really cool! 

(Unfortunately the cyanotype is definitely not the same feel unless you're seeing the actual print, thus no image of the final process.) 

I had an obsession with how abstract the water can look with reflections of light and such.

I loved all the geometric lines in this shot with the bike.

Not a fan of still lifes. I suck at them. Especially when it had to be conceptual...I really suck at conceptual. So, this is all you're gonna get!

My old man's cameras. My favorite is the Speedex 120 film, SO fun!

Me and the Minolta 7000 MAXXUM baby!

I gotta get back into this...soon.

Story behind my Kleinfeld's purchase.

My sisters and I took a simple trip to New York for the weekend thinking it would be fun to go shopping on Canal Street since its in our price range.

So we hit up shopping, went to the Top of the Rock (I think DJ would appreciate the sign before entering...)

walked down Broadway, caught a show to Mary Poppins, and walked around Time Square.

...but then Sachi suggested we go to Kleinfeld's--where they film the TLC show "Say Yes To The Dress". 

We only went hoping we'd see Randy or any of the other crazy employees there. We got there and immediately thought, we should try on some dresses! So we made an appointment for the next day, 5 hours before our flight back to SLC. 

I told the sales lady that I wanted something NOT POOFY. That was the only thing I did not want in my dress. I tried on my first dress--it was what I was kind of imagining and thought, meh. Its okay. NEXT. 

While we were getting the second dress on I kept thinking, holy cow am I really doing this?! Mind you, I wasn't even ENGAGED! So I had NO intention of buying one. We were just so giddy about being there and just wanted to say we tried on dresses there...but then I tried on the second...GASP!!

(...my face looks so dull and bored mainly because I was so flustered about wanting to buy this, but it was $800 above my budget...I really was jumping up and down inside that I found this dress!)

So the sales lady kept saying, "You HAVE to get this dress. I saw the look on your face when you put it on, and I've been doing this for years--this is the one." But I wasn't looking at my facial expression, I was looking at the price tag...So I told her my dilemma. I told her we were only here on a whim because it was my last free flight on my mom's benefits with Delta, and also my birthday was coming up in a few days, and also that we were leavin' on a jet plane in a few hours.

She left the room and I had a couple minutes to talk to my sisters. She came back in and told me, "Okay, because its your birthday and because you're leaving today, I got you a special price. I will take it down $800." 

PERRRRFECT!!! So I thought, okay I potentially can buy this now! My parents were unreachable because they were headed on an airplane to France. I really wanted to talk to them first before I make this huge purchase... definitely the biggest purchase I've ever made up until then (soon to be one of the cheaper things out of my whole wedding haha). 

We called Aunt Denice to get her advise and asked what Meg and Melissa did. Sachi and Kumi helped me make a huge list of Pros and Cons. Sachi kept asking, "You ARE getting married, right??" Duh Sach...:) but I seriously needed all the moral support I could get. After sitting in my dream dress for about 10 minutes, we decided this was too good of an opportunity to pass up--She took it down a TON. And who the heck can say they flew out to NYC on a whim and came back with a big white POOFY wedding dress! And it will be such a fun memory to have with me. So taking that all into consideration, I thought, if I leave here without it, its gone forever and I will regret it. 

So I went outside, transfered some of my savings over into my checkings, and KA-CHING!

I signed the papers and had it shipped to good ol' SLC, Utah! (The sales person kept telling me I could take it as carry on...are you kidding--there was no way I was going to carry that POOF BALL on the plane with me...however, it would have made for a very nice pillow/blanket...)

It was such a bitter sweet moment. It was such a spontaneous, hilarious, and nerve racking experience. I wish my mom was there with me. Later when we boarded our flight I finally got a hold of my mom, we chatted for a bit. She asked how NY was. I said it was fun!...and that I had bought a really pretty dress as a souvenir. I kept describing it as poofy and flowy. She wasn't catching on. Then I hear my dad in the background, "She bought a wedding dress..." And she says, "...YOU BOUGHT A WEDDING DRESS?" I was kinda nervous so I hesitated a bit..."uhhh...mayyybee...hehe". And then my mom broke out laughing--and if you know my mom, when she thinks something is funny, she doesn't stop giggling for a while. So she laughed for a bit longer and then we chatted some more and I told her my whole experience. I'm glad I got to talk to her that same day so  it still felt like she was there. 

So that's it! That's the crazy story behind my Kleinfeld's experience.

I SAID YES TO THE DRESS!

Ice packs will do the trick!

A couple nights ago, Deej and I had the hardest time falling asleep because it was so insanely hot! I kept complaining to him about how uncomfortable I was, and it seriously got me so ornery. He got up and just left the room--I thought he was so bugged by me whining that he decided to go sleep on the couch or something. About 3 minutes later, he comes back in the room and I hear lots of plastic crinkling. He came over to the bed and started laying about 6 or 7 freezing cold ice packs on me. Holy cow, it felt so nice! So we took turns rubbing each others feet with them to help cool us down...now that I think about it, we probably should have sanitized those ones in case they need to be used in the future...oops.

So the whole time we were just giggling at how ridiculous this situation was. We must have looked so funny. Deej is such a sweetheart--I've never had someone cover me in ice packs before when I complained about heat! I always thought how cliche it is when people say they fall more and more in love with their spouse as time goes on, but its so true. Its the little things he does that show me how much he loves me. Finally we ended up just laying the ice packs between us for the rest of the night to keep us nice and comfortable. So if you ever get too hot that it keeps you from getting a good nights rest, get your old lunch box ice packs out! Who knew, right?

Ooh, Hunny hunny!

We've been married for a little over 3 wonderful months. And what a crazy ride it has been already. I wish I had blogged this when it was fresh in my mind, but I'll do my best!

So we left straight from the unbelievably perfect reception to the hotel and the next morning to the airport to head out to Cabo. Cabo was so fantastic! We got there, picked up the rental car, and drove to the hotel. Directions to the hotel were ridiculous so it took us a while driving in circles to find it. We finally saw this dinky little sign off the side of the freeway saying "small hotel". The Riu Palace is kinda a big...but we figured we'd check it out. We drove over this bumpy dirt road that wasn't looking too promising. Finally we turn the corner and see the Palace!! We made it! So we drive in, park the car and start walking. The parking lot was a couple levels below the entrance so we looked for signs for an elevator or escalator. Instead, we found a sign pointing to where the doctor's room was. You know, just in case we needed a check up before hiking with 80 pounds of luggage! So we had to lug our heavy suitcases up the flights of stairs in the hot, humid sun. Finally we got all settled in. And this is a little of what we got to enjoy for 5 short days:

Usually I can handle fancy food...but this is where I draw the line--when I see poop on my plate. So of course, I pass my left overs along to Deej.

Sooooo pretty! The water is so BLUE!

The second day we we're there we decided to go snorkeling at Lover's Beach.

Lover's Beach has sand under the bridge every 4 years only for a short few months. So we got lucky!

We got lucky again because our "group" or snorkelers was only Deej and me. So we got our personal tour guide for the entire afternoon. He showed us so many cool things in the ocean. He dove down and brought up things like a blow fish, lots of star fish, a sea cucumber, jelly fish...and he had this bottle full of bread that he would squeeze out while we were under water and all the fish would come swarming! I got a little grossed out at first, but it was definitely a fun swim. He took us across to a beach where the only way you could get to it was by counting the waves and running for your life across the path. If you got caught in the wave, you were done for. It was pretty intense!

Something attacked me while snorkeling...looks like nothing, but it stung like heck!

Some weird Iguana with a sombrero that I paid this man to hold for about 5 seconds...I couldn't handle it--creepy crawlies are just too much for me.

Goin' para-sailing!

So we were looking for the church on Sunday, but got lost...so we decided to just head to the airport. On our way we stopped by the gas station to fill up the rental and bought ourselves a...Bubu Lubu...? haha

When Deej gets into a game, he doesn't stop till he beats the entire thing. Talk about determined!

...I want to go back so bad! It was so nice not having to worry about a schedule or paying for things. All inclusive was pretty sweet. Ordering drinks by the pool or at the bar was a little funny though. We'd have to emphasize non-alcoholic so many times when ordering just to make sure they got it in their heads...I have a feeling sometimes it was lost in translation because a couple times it tasted...uh...yeah...

I need to start a money jar for another vacation like this one.