What a happy birthday!!

Today was a great day! I woke up next to the man of my dreams. Yes we live together and sleep next to each other every night but Xian recently got a "promotion". This means that there was a problem store that was in desperate need of a good manager. It has been chewing managers up and spitting them out for the past 3 years. It is an incredibly busy store with employees that...hhmmm..shall we say...they have been in survival mode instead of really living the values of our company. It has been 3 weeks and Xian has been making good progress...but it means a lot of over time, stress, and WORK. He works from 5am-5pm and I work 4pm-1am. So we never wake up together. So it was a special birthday treat to wake up, open my eyes, and see my beautifully delicious favorite person in the world.

Have you heard of the House of Blues' Gospel Brunch? I went to it for my 13th birthday in New Orleans. Then my friend Julie took Xian and I to the one on Sunset today. It was SO GREAT! I danced, stomped my feet, and clapped my hands and did I mention danced? It was phenomenal! i had sooooo much fun. The energy was intoxicating. I even danced on the stage with the gospel singers because it was my b-day!

Then I went swimming @ Steven and Sarahi's.

Then I went to Stacie and Tim's for a campfire...or rather a backyard fire. It was fabulous just visiting, hanging out, and enjoying each others company. My birthday was spent with great friends and I couldn't ask for anything else.

OKAY OKAY. If I was allowed to be greedy I would want to have seen my friends and family that are in WA, WI, Denver, and Sacramento too...but you get the point:)

HEAT WAVE!

Okay...so I am so not a happy camper! It is 103 degrees here and it is almost 9pm. It reached 109 today! IIIIICKKKKKY! There were two things that were very important to Xian and me when searching for our house: central air and a garage. This place has both...however the ac broke on wednesday night. The good news is that we asked the seller to buy us a home warranty for 1 year from the purchase date and it included the ac. They are coming to fix it on Monday and we only have to pay a $50 deductible...the bad news is that we have to suffer through this excruciating heat with three little fans that do nothing but push around the stifling hot thick air. Poor Xian slept through his alarm this morning because it sounds like a 747 is taking off in our room with all the fans! C'est la vie!

I had an audition for a national commercial for Gold's Gym. They wanted a "normal, beautiful, athletic, natural, woman in her mid to late 20's with an athletic build that can 'mock' exercise." I am way ahead of the game because I can actually EXERCISE! It was in the basement of this cool building that appears to have once been a bank. I was wearing work out attire so I was, at the very least, comfortable. It was somewhat unorganized with my call time being at 3:30 and me not actually going in until after 5. I did great. It all boils down to the "look" that the client wants because I am sure that we all did sit-up, push ups and ran in place PHENOMENALLY well. Although i wore capri pants they asked me to roll them up and my scar was exposed...I will have to get some make-up to cover it up in the future.

The most interesting aspect of the afternoon was that they were casting a horror porn film in the office next to us so there were many interesting and colorful characters coming in and out (no pun intended). I befriended three drag queens that possibly looked better in 4 inch heels, thongs, and fish net stockings than I could ever hope for myself. This is Mayhem, Detox, and Paulina. You go girls!

Triathalon Day!!

My great friend Stacie and I continued on with our second annual tryst @ the Danskin Triathalon. It was at Disneyland at the California Adventure Park. For those of you who haven't been to CA Adventure it is set up like Coney Island ( think Tom Hanks making his wish in BIG) with a lake in the middle and the board walk surrounding the perimeter of the lake with all the rides and attractions. We swam in the lake in the middle. Then biked. Then ran. It was fun. My biggest strength is the swim! Stacie and I had a good time together. I will post pics when I get them

Sierra!

I found this pic of Sierra when she was about 1. She is so freaking cute!

Sierra's Baptism

Sierra was baptized in the Catholic church on Fort Lewis in January. I was finally able to meet Nate, her God dad. I think Tam and Chris met Nate in North Carolina and he quickly became part of our family. i always heard so much about him but every single time I came to town, which was pretty often, he would always be outta town or busy. I started to think that Tam made up this amazing guy one day when she and Chris were lonley and really wanted to play Rummikub...but he really does exist! I met him the day we became parents together....God parents that is!

Chris, Tamara and Sierra

OMG Here is the most amazing lil family ever. I hope that I like my future children half as much as I adore Sierra. From the moment she was born she has had this uncanny ability to look at you and everything else in the world melts away and you are the singularly most important person in the world! At barley 2 years old she is talking up a storm and makes up songs about everything. Her little voice is s precious! I have about 13 saved voice mails of her amazing lil voice singing to me. I lOVE IT!

Pics to share

The girls and I at the Consumer Electronic show in Vegas in January. We were the "booth babes" for Hitachi. Hitachi sent us a packet of dozens of pages of information that we were supposed to learn. So I was all stressed out trying to memorize all the stats and function of all the new products, but then my friend Curtis bluntly said that all i needed to do was to stand there and look pretty, attract the men to the booth, and then hand it over to the Hitachi men for any extensive questions. Duh! that took a lot of pressure off. It was 5 long days of hard work but I was fortunate enough to meet four great girls. We had a "handler" named Hyami. She was responsible for driving us from the show to our hotel and she was very "interesting". It was like having a den mother. I put a $5 bill in a Wheel of Fortune Penny slot and immediatley won 50,000 pennies which the lady next to me explained was $500:) Plus our outfits were WAY cuter then any of the other booth babes. Over all it was a good trip!

Update on the leg situation

So the stitches are out and my leg is what it is. I am not happy. Not only do I have a scar from the cut but I have a scar of the 14 holes made by the stitches. Not only do I have a Frankenstein scar on my supple, formerly prestine thigh, the scar has now Keloid. i just learned of that term which represents when the scar rises up . I have been diligent with the upkeep from the moment I came home from the ER. First with Neosporin and later with Maderma, Vitamin E cream and Vitamin E Oil. It is just destined to be ugly at this point. I am hoping that with extensive care it will become less conspicuous and eventually not be so offensive to my sensibilities!:)

SO SORRY! I AM FIRED, I HAVE BEEN NEGLECTFUL!

Okay, so there is no excuse for me not posting for a month. I take my camera with me everywhere and take fun pictures with the best intentions of immediatley sharing them with you all but I have been falling short of that last step. Much has happened in the last month! I did the ADR (additional dialogue recording) for a short film that I shot. It was so much fun. I went into a sound booth @ a recording studio. In the booth there is a tv monitor with the footage running on it and I could hear the original sound. We had to re-record portions where a bus, plane, or train interfered with the clarity. It was fun matching my voice to my image. It is a pretty dark character so I cry a lot in it. I even had to match my sobs! I learned that I cry much the same way every time i cry...breathing and whimpering in the same intervals. Who knew? The film is now finished and I will be receiving my copy soon!

I also had my first garage sale! The first day was slow but Julie and I had quality time to play Eqyptian Rat Screw! I haven't played that game in a while but it all came rushing back to me and it is still TOO much fun. The second day we moved to Xian's parents house which proved to be a much better location! We made over $100 and got rid of a bunch of stuff that we no longer need. I think we need to have another sale soon.

Our new town house is a 3 bdrm 2 bathroom unit with a 2 car garage. THe master bedroom is huge, the second bedroom is large and we use that as an office/guest room, and our friend Julie is renting out the third bedroom. She moved in a month ago and it has been so much fun to have her be a part of our family! JUlie, Xian and I all have such opposite schedules that we really have great fun when we get to see eachother. We cook and eat dinner together, play Rummykub, talk, and watch bad reality TV together. What more could a girl ask for?

I was preparing a stir fry last week and all the ingredients looked so fabulous that I had to take a pic! All the ingredients (except the mushrooms) are from our local farmers market that I go to every Sunday. It tasted every bit as refreshing and fulfilling as it looks!

Our friend Jeff (on the phone) had his eleventh anniversary of his 25th birthday. It was fun to see our friends at his b-day dinner...since buying our place we really haven't been socializing as much as we like. We usually have dinner and game nite every Sunday but we don't have a table yet so... I need to get on that!

I close Starbucks a couple nights a week and I adore my guys on my crew. Dan , on the right, is a screen writer from Jersey and Will is was a financial adviser in vegas but was not happy so now he is going back to school. We deal with all the crazies of LA together.