"it's my birthday too!"

Birthdays!
So, My birthday was last Saturday on the 4th. I didn't really have much planned. Logan and I are part of the Tucanos and Benihana birthday clubs, so we get free meals during our birthday month, (his birthday is 10 days after mine) and I figured we'd go to Vegas for that since Vegas is only about an hour and a half away now. Anyway, Thursday night I climbed into my bed around 740ish...because I'm old and responsible and I get grumpy with only a little sleep....back off... ;) and as I was lying there trying to get to sleep I thought "maybe I'll just check the world of Facebook real quick before bed to make sure I'm not missing anything important...

I opened it up, and there at the top was a post from the Goo Goo Dolls...about their show the next day in Vegas! Whaaat? See what not having internet does to me?! I'm missing crucial updates! So of course I said "what? mandatory work meeting tomorrow? mandatory CPR certification tomorrow? uh...hello...The Goo Goo Dolls are here. I'm gonna be out of town." and that was that and the next morning as soon as the ticket office opened I had tickets! Obviously.
So- after work Logan and I headed to Vegas.

We went to Benihana to eat and our chef was awesome. He lit the whole table on fire. (They cook in front of you, so it was on purpose).  Logan's sister Jen lives in Vegas so she and her two cute kids came to eat with us and afterward the waitress brought me a birthday ice cream and sang "Happy Bearsday" to me. (she was asian and I couldn't help but call it my bearsday for the rest of the weekend.)
Theeen, we went to the red rocks casino for the concert. It was amazing. They have these great big pools and everyone was just kinda sitting with their feet in the water watching the show. Or sitting on these floating chairs. The place was so cool. Plus the crowd was awesome and totally just let us walk right through to get close. Johnny sounded so amazing that afterward Logan and I kept commenting that we didn't even feel like we went, because it sounded like listening to a CD.

Sad note- they told me I could bring in my camera and I had Logan grab it out of the car, but when we tried to get in they sent him away to check it because they said it was too fancy. Lame! So I walked in the show and turned around and Logan had just disappeared and was gone for.ev.er and I had no idea what happened to him. I was so confused. He eventually showed up and I just used my old camera and my phone camera- it's amazing how spoiled you get and how much you can tell a difference when you go from using a 15.1 megapixel camera to a 7 or like a 4 megapixel. ha ha. So, not the best pictures, but totally the best concert. It was my favorite venue I've seen anyone in probably.

I tried to get back and take a picture where you could see at least one of the pools, but it was kinda hard.

Just trust me that it was awesome. also, for your listening pleasure- here is their new song from the transformers 3 soundtrack. listen to it. you wont regret it. 



The next day, on my bearsday, Logan's other sister Kim came to St George with her two cute kids and Logan performed a show at the Tuacahn saturday market so we watched that and then got shave ice :) it was soo gooood. mmm.
That evening I told Logan I wanted a spotted dog ice cream with oreos and fudge from Outback so he ordered me one and we went to pick it up. When we got there the girl gave it to me for free since it was my bearsday. yay! We didn't have a candle so I blew out a lighter. ha ha.









 








Then we drove up to Zion canyon and had a campfire and camped out with both of logan's sisters and their families, and the next morning we drove the Thing around the canyon. We put the windshield down and just cruised, and it was super amazing to see it that way. It's so pretty here.

So, that wraps up my weekend- it was super amazing and I loved the whole thing.
The day after my birthday was little Nathan's second birthday. He's as adorable as ever and I can't believe its been two years. He's just the sweetest little guy and he's so much fun. I'm not even that biased! If you know him, you'll totally agree. ha ha. He called me on my birthday and left a message before I called him back saying "happy birthday Trina!" and I wanted to put it on here so you could hear how cute it is but I don't know how, so just imagine it in the cutest voice possible.  ;)

"happy happy birthday curtis dear..."

"I think it’s cool how people celebrate the day you’re born. Like for the rest of your life they have cake and presents and they celebrate that you’re here. There’s something really nice about that."-  Jamie Scott, one tree hill. 

Happy Birthday to my big brother Curtis! June gets chaotic with all the birthdays, but it's lots of fun. So today is Curtis'...30th birthday. Holy cow, I didn't even realize!

anyway, we've had some fun times over the years...

hangin out watchin stuff together

storming the castle in Nauvoo

You know. Typical sibling things.

Now he's all grown up with his own little girl and boy that will get to have fun together like we have :)

"getting good at starting over..."

Exploring the area around here has been a lot of fun. I am so happy to be back in the sunshine again! Plus most of the time we're driving around in Logan's car (Gilligan) and that makes exploring even more happy. :)

So I moved in here, and so far I love everything. I have one roommate who is never home, and when she is she's usually in her room.  My room is huge, and I love it.
also, I have palm trees outside my back door. yay!

"Look at this trove, treasures untold.. How many wonders can one cavern hold?"

Interwebs!!! I feel like it's been months. Turns out, the girl who used to live in the room I took over disconnected the internet before she left, and I've been fading away into the non-internet world of oblivion ever since. I still don't have it, but I finally broke down and took my computer over to Logan's to steal his.

bleary-eyed at 4 in the morning

SO... I have lots to catch up on! I moved to St George since my last post. I also got the first job I've had in...3 years? Yikes. That was really catching up with me. Ah, to live the life of no work. It was wonderful. Anyway, this move all kind of fell into place. I came to visit St George, called a girl about a room, put in some job applications, and got the room and a job less than a week later. Unfortunately, I am working at Gold's Gym opening at 445am. Boo....this puts my new bedtime around 740pm-ish when I can stand it. Awful. So these days you'll pretty much either catch me like this-

or like this-

Yes I am sleeping in my work clothes, I'm just that efficient. Or I worked split shifts all week long and was too tired for anything else. ahem.
 But I do get weekends off, and I'm done with work by around noon every day which is awesome.
When that happens, I go exploring and find awesome places super close to my house like this:

about a 10 minute drive from my house for picnics

yay for sweet cars and cotton candy!

Also, in case any of you missed out on my celebrity status, here is the link:
http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2011/05/guests-at-little-mermaid-meet-up-enjoy-rare-opportunity-to-meet-imagineers-animators/

Andreas Deja

The day before I was supposed to start work at 445am, Logan and I drove to California. There was a meet and greet with the head Imagineers of the new Little Mermaid ride at California Adventure, and a panel discussion with them and the artist for Ariel and the artist for King Triton from the original movie. It was awesome. So cool. Seriously. Anyway, we drove up just in time for it to start, ran in, and since we were from out of town they treated us like VIP and introduced us to Andreas Deja, (King Triton's artist, as well as the artist for a lot of noted characters like Scar, Jafar, Lilo, Gaston, etc.) and during the panel discussion he talked about how he basically modeled King Triton's character after his Dad. He made him behave the same ways and say about the same things his Dad did when his sisters started dating. It was cute and the whole thing was so surreal. Mark Henn talked about how it was such a crazy idea to make a mermaid have red hair instead of blonde. Funny to think of Ariel any other way now.

Mark Henn- the creator of my Idol, Ariel.

After it was over they sent us in to California Adventure where we got to watch the new World of Color production. I...might've teared up watching it. I'm a sucker for Disney, what can I say? Especially Ariel. Speaking of which, her animator, Mark Henn, was standing right behind us before the show and I was too nervous to say hi at first but with some gentle nudging (literally nudging me over) from Logan, we introduced ourselves and I got my picture with him. aaand his wife said "oh you even look like Ariel! You have the flower in your hair and everything!" Totally made my day. :) I'm not sure it gets much better than that coming from who it did....They were awesome. We scooted over so they could stand next to us during the show and they did. :)

On the way back to Utah we stopped for a quick trip to the beach and got home just a few hours before my first day of work.

Its been crazy but it's been sunny and I'm so happy with that. I'll have to post pictures of my sweet new house sometime...if I ever get internet again. I hope everyone is doing well!

"I'm dressed in a fashion that's fitting to the inconsistencies of my mood..."

So I've become a blog stalker once again. It wasn't my fault. I am just captivated by great pictures and funny posts. It all happened because I was trying to find a picture of Kate Middleton's wedding dress to see what all the fuss was about and if it really looked as close to my Mom's wedding dress as I thought it did. Turns out, it did. Awesome. My mom is so fashionable.

I've been packing all my stuff and I'm headed down to St George to live. Yay no more Idaho snow! No more super-cold-I-don't-even-wanna-go-outside weather! As much as I'm sad I'll be in Utah again, St George almost doesn't count. It's sunny and warm and pretty...

we took this picture last week when we went down to look for places to live.

Gorgeous backdrop, right? I know. Sometimes I am reminded how pretty Utah can be. When it's not cold. When it is cold I am reminded of nothing but how much I hate the cold.

Anyway, I think I'm headed down tomorrow to start moving into the townhouse I'm living in down there. Once I get set up there I'm gonna have to post some pictures because it's pretty amazing. Also, if anyone knows of a job for me, that would be swell. It would be great to actually be able to afford my apartment. :)

In other news,  I made cookies last night. I call them wagon-wheel cookies, but other people call them crackle cookies I guess. You know the kind I'm talking about? These:

Good, right? Yeah, I used to think so. Until Logan told me they look like E.T. when he's sick in the movie. Now they have been dubbed E.T cookies. And I'm totally grossed out.

Every once in awhile he'll take a bite of one and say "we're siiiick" in the voice Elliott uses when he says it in the movie. It's super creepy and I give him the stink-eye for it.

Last of all, I went bowling the night before last and I'm still so sore. What a baby, I know. But, speaking of babies- I got to hold our friend's tiny baby afterwards until my arms hurt. Ahhh. I love little babies. She made the cutest cooing noises and smiled at me and then fell asleep in my arms.

"one less lonely girl..."

What the Biebs?
So, Rebecca turned 15 this month. We threw a Bieber Birthday Bash for her on Sunday and it was pretty amazing. We had Bieber everything. There was even a Justin Bieber centerpiece that sang when you pushed a button. Nathan really liked that.
We also had Justin Bieber tattoos and played his trivia board game- which was super entertaining, especially since Rebecca is the only one who knows his songs. Melinda knows the random trivia though, so she had a slight advantage, and Colie, Logan and I just faked it. We all gave each other awesome hints and it was pretty competitive the whole way through. I came in second! Woo hoo! aaaand that means that now I know random things like how he thinks Beyonce is super hot, how his fav candy is sour patch kids, and how Kim Kardashian messed up his hair once and tweeted about it.

Showing off our tattoos...I have to say, i'm pretty sure this is the only time Pink Floyd and Justin Bieber will be so closely associated. Way to go, Melinda. ha ha. 

The group shot. Note my Dad...Rebecca nicknamed him 'stache-less steve'...I've only seen him without a mustache like 5 times ever. Also, thanks for rockin' things up, Justin. ha ha. 

My grandparents showed up and wore the sunglasses, too. Nathan thought it was pretty silly.

Nathan kept picking up these little guitars and strumming them and making electric guitar noises. It was awesome.

The party was pretty sweet, we had a lot of fun. I requested a Goo Goo Dolls party for my birthday...except since I haven't found a singing Johnny doll, he can just come in person.

Sidenote: I asked my little brother Justin how he felt about the Biebs...he told me he loves it because all the girls are always screaming his name. Ha ha.