Part 3: Architecture

I'm not the only obsessive one in the family. Chris just hides it really well. Anytime we're in a building, you can be sure that he's looking at the ceiling, noticing the connection of the open web steel joists and beams. So of course we needed to pack some Architecture into our little adventure.
Unfortunately the Architecture portion of the retreat got cut a little short because one of the days Chris and Nora were feeling a little under the weather. So we had to take a short hiatus from Chris's jam-packed itinerary to rest in the hotel room. We were unable to re-schedule the Disney Concert Hall and the Green and Green house but don't any of you worry because we were able to see some pretty cool buildings and houses.
After we rested our weary little heads for about 2 hours. We hit the rode once again. We ended up here

The Griffith Park Observatory. Now this destination was a win win because Chris liked the building and I love space. The observatory just happened to be closed on the day we went, but I can only imagine how cool it was on the inside! It was fun to look out over the whole city

Little Nora didn't really enjoy this stop. In fact, for the record, she didn't enjoy the majority of the architecture stops. But she did enjoy all the horse portions of the trip. This is definitely not because I'm forcing her to love all things horse, but could have been because she ran free as a bird at the horse arena while Chris chased her for 2 straight days and at the architecture stops she had to be strapped in her stroller. This day she was ornery and wanted to get out and run.

Look at that beautiful baby! Even her ornery face makes you want to kiss her cheeks off!

I'm Not Telling You What This Post Is About Or You Won't Read It

I promise I'll make this short. I'm not an idiot. I know when I start to talk about horses, the crazy starts to set in. I can hardly contain my myself, I could talk for hours and hours. As I talk, I see your eyes gently and slowly start to glaze over. Your brain drifts further and further away and as soon as I'm gibber gabbering away, you've left the building...so I'll make it short.
Because I've chosen to love horses, I want to have a horse who wants to be with me and who's not afraid of me. This is a difficult thing for Blue because his previous owners have screwed him up. He tends to be a little unstable...but aren't we all?


(Blue is the crazy one rearing and running and yes, I love riding that wild beast of a thing.)

That's why I love Parelli Natural Horsemanship. I am learning to be a partner and how to get Blue to want to be my partner. Blah Blah Blah, two days of pure horse bliss!
My horse idols Pat and Linda Parelli and some random chic in the middle of them. I was too chicken to get a picture with my idols :( sad day

Caesar Millan the dog whisperer was there

Remember I'm forcing her to love all things horse...minus country music. But it looks like I don't have to do too much forcing...yet


There are many things I've learned about myself while on the back of a horse. I won't bore you with the details, but trust me, you should try it sometime. Unfortunately not on my horse, because he'll buck you off.
Two days of horse knowledge crammed into my head. Ahhh heavenly!

This concludes the horse section of The Brown Family Horse, Architecture and Beach Retreat

The Brown Family, Horse, Architecture and Beach Retreat. Part 2: Planes

Ask me if I was nervous to take Elanora on a one and a half hour plane ride... Oh man, was I ever. Our sweet baby girl is just that, a sweet baby girl and a happy one to boot. She hardly ever cries (who would have thought, remember that one time she cried for the first 3 months of her life?). She smiles and says hi to everyone and she'll let anyone hold her. Just an all around pleasant baby (brag much? You bet!). That being said, she's a wild child! She never stops moving. All day long she runs around the house, until she drops for a nap :)
The 2 million people who had a flight departing from the Salt Lake airport the day we left can attest to this. For 2 straight hours, while we waited for our flight, my little free spirit walked up and down the terminals saying hi and laughing at every single person that walked by. Chris and I had to work in shifts to keep up with her. People kept saying "Boy, she is going to sleep well on the flight" I would smile and nod, not wanting to alarm any of the other passengers, knowing full well that this baby was in no way going to fall asleep on the plane. In fact, I've never been able to cuddle and rock this baby to sleep and unfortunately this plane ride would be no exception.

Luckily for us she's wild but happy. The plane ride went smooth, mostly because we had a backpack full of wonder and amusement for her. It had about 300 different items to entertain. Out of the hundreds of items in the bag, she only wanted the story books, coloring book and of course the treats. 3 seconds into the flight, she was completely done with those items. She did love to open and close the airplane visor over the window. That activity made up 85% of the flight. Over all she was her happy, cute little self.
The last time I was in Cali, the excitement of Disneyland and my adolescence, fogged my vision, blurring out everything but Donald and Daisy Duck(I prefer them to Minnie and Micky). As our plane landed in LAX and the fear of flying with a wild child, however irrational it had been had subsided, my eyes were wide open, my vision clear. Talk about sensory overload!!!
The airport was huge, loud, bright, palm treesy and crowded, in no particular order. More like all at once, all of that craziness smashing into my craziness. Yikes! I have a touch of the agoraphobia...mostly the fear of crowds. This tends to drive Chris crazy because he's a people person. I like to watch people(in a non creepy way)from a distance but please, oh please, back up out of my bubble. Sometimes we can't eat at restaurants if there are too many people. My anxiety level shoots through the roof. Poor Chris.
Chris likes to keep a schedule. The itinerary he had planned for us said we needed to immediately get the rental car. So he was pulling, rushing through crowds of people. I was shrinking smaller and smaller, maybe going slower and slower because not only do I hate crowds I also hate being on time and rushed. I like to float through life half a minute behind...this little fact about me drives Chris bonkers, along with I can't spell to save my life. These are the only things about me that drive him crazy :) Anyway, we were quick stepping through the airport, grabbed our luggage, got on a bus to go to the car rental place and did it all in record time. As we were sitting on the bus, I'm having a sensory overload moment and Chris is sighing in relief that we're on schedule. All at once, at the exact same time, Chris and I look at each other and we realize, "Oh crap,...we forgot the baby!" JUST KIDDING...of course we didn't forget the baby, but we did forget the car seat base that we had checked in at the airport. The car seat doesn't have a hole in the bottom of it to feed the seatbelt through, nope we needed the base. Darn it. So we got to the rental place, rented a car,

Yeah right!!...me being the cheap-o that I am would never let us rent this car (we had a moderately priced charcoal grey Impala). We left the rental car in the parking lot, jumped back on the shuttle bus to LAX(because we didn't have a car seat base...remember?), grabbed the carseat base then jumped on another shuttle bus and headed back to the rental car place. Now we were on our way...except for the 2 hours it took to get our digital TomTomm set up and figured out. (Ask me why we didn't use our GPS on our phones...oh wait I'm the cheap-o who won't let us rent a Lamborghini and the Cheap-o who won't let us have smart phones). Now our adventure could begin!

Trains, Planes and Automobiles...

...Except without the trains. We didn't ride in a train, but we probably saw one. It should be called 'pink eye, planes and automobiles'...who goes on vacation and gets conjunctivitis?

Oh wait, that would be me. I have never in my whole life had ichy, burning crazy red sclerae, until the one time we just happen to be out of state...awesome!
I'm jumping ahead of myself. I guess I should mention that the Brown family went on vacation. A real-life vacation. The 'fly on a plane to somewhere' kind.

Yes, we went somewhere out of state and slept in a hotel, not a tent(although backpacking in the high Uintahs is one version of my perfect vacation).
We flew to California...I really don't like to say why we went to California because up until this point, you were thinking, "Oh Cali, that sounds nice." Then you hear what we did while visiting Cali and you think to yourself, "Oh boy, they really are dorks."
It's no secret that I like horses.

Horses are pretty, they run fast, they are fun to ride...sounds normal so far right? There is the 'I like horses,' kind of people. And then there's me. I thought I was a horse for the first 6 or 7...okay, okay, maybe it was 8 or 9 years of my life. I read every horse book, watched every horse show. etc. etc.
I'm just going to say why we went to California, so you can just start judging...We went to Californa to go to 'The Horse and Soul Tour'. It's kind of like a horse training seminar put on by Parelli Natural Horsemanship. That's not the only reason we went. We wanted to go to all the hot architecture spots also(see Chris is a dork too, although I'm pretty sure he wasn't a skyscraper the first 7 years of his life). And of course, the beach for the babyface. Aren't you dying to know all the amazing details of 'The Brown Family, Horse, Architecture, and Beach Retreat?'

Total Eclipse of the Heart

I love space. I'm pretty sure in my previous life I was an astronomer. Unfortunately in this life I have retained not a single iota of the math needed for this profession. But my love for space and its mysteries and beauty, are fully intact.
Tonight in honor of the eclipse and for everyone's viewing pleasure, I busted out my third grade skillz and built a very sophisticated eclipse viewing box.

I got a box and cut a square out of it(which was hard to do because silly Nora wouldn't stop climbing in and out of it) and covered the square with aluminum foil. Then I poked a pin hole into the aluminum foil. I taped white paper to the inside of the box opposite the aluminum foil square...and there you have it a very sophisticated eclipse viewing box.
Unfortunately I burned the crap out of my retinas looking at the eclipse because I thought that I was supposed to look through the pinhole but really I was supposed to look at the white paper and see the shadow of the eclipse. Details, details.
Luckily our neighbor Richard had a welding mask something or other. It was just perfect because you could look right at the eclipse. It was awesome!
Before the mask thingy

After the mask thingy

We had some of the fam. come and we enjoyed an impromptu eclipse watching party...which of course included some hot dog roasting over our fire pit!

Because I wanted to prove that I was smarter then a 3rd grader, I refused to give up on my sophisticated viewing box and finally we figured it out. It only took 4 hours and a total eclipse of the heart...I mean sun

On a random note, look how tan my nieces are compared to Elanora, unfortunately she has my skin and will need 100SPF sunblock and still burn.

No one got sick of me singing this song

What is a Party Without Music?

Did I have a playlist for Elanora's Birthday you ask?... Did I have a playlist? Ha. You better believe it!
Now remember this is what the craziness looked like

if it drives you bonkers that there is no popcorn on the far right of the picture to balance out the popcorn on the far left(really it ruins the picture for me), don't worry, do you think I would have made that horrible of mistake for my guests to have to endure? I was popping another bag when I took the picture and let me assure you that by the time the guest got there, there was proper order and placement on that colorful table.


Because music makes everything more magical, we had a magically themed playlist


'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
'Sugar Sugar' by The Archies
'Rainbow Connection' by The Muppets
'Rainbow Connection' by Willie Nelson
'Candy Man' by Sammy Davis jr
'lollipop' by The Chordettes
'On the Good Ship Lollipop' by Disney Resort
'The lolipop Kids' by The Munchkins
'Reading Rainbow' by Ion Storm
'I've Got a Golden Ticket' from Willie Wonka
'Over the Rainbow' from The Wizard of Oz
'Pure Imagination' by Gene Wilder

We also had 'Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' movie playing...on silent of course.

We had a pinata...it was freezing outside, so we finished it off pretty fast

Nora loved everything she got. She would open one and walk around with it, loving it. We would have to redirect her to the next present and then she would love that one and carry it around. She is the sweetest, silliest girl!

Birthday!!!

Those of you that have stopped by and read my life story unfolding upon the pages of this blog, may have been clued into the fact that I might have a touch of the crazies. I might have the tendency to get a little obsessive excited about things. Just ask Chris how much he loves when I find a fabulous new song to listen to and how many times we have to listen to it(it may or may not be just shy of a million).
Elanora's very 1st birthday may just attest to the madness that is floating around in my brain. But in my defense, I was on spring break and I had some extra time. Also I'm pretty sure the amount of decorations used for the party has a direct correlation to how much I love Elanora.
My Grandma Page made beautiful cakes for all her Grand kids birthdays. For my 1st birthday, the cake topper was a carousel, which my mom happened to still have. I loved the idea of using it for Nora's cake so it became the inspiration for her whole party. I wanted to used the beautifully bright colors in the carousel in all the decorations.


This concludes the boring reading part of the blog, now that that is out of the way we can proceed to the picture overload portion of this blog. *NOTE- NOT ONE OF THE DECORATIONS IDEAS I USED CAME FROM PINTERST, I REPEAT NOT ONE. EVERY THING CAME FROM MY OWN VERY BRILLIANTLY CREATIVE MIND.

This was on the ceiling of our front room and it may seem a bit extravagant but I assure you it was not, I only used one screw in the middle of my newly painted ceiling to hold all that craziness up.



This is the yummy treat table, full of healthy snacks to send home with all my nieces and nephews



The watering hole


I made otter pop slush, which was super tasty(and remember I came up with this stuff on my own, wow!)

A little more decor



If you thought that the cake on the treat table was a little crooked, you may have been right. It was hard to stack those layers. And don't get me started on the frosting job I did.



Baby face liked it, frosting and all



She just shoved too much in her mouth causing her to gag a little...it wasn't because my baking skills are lacking




Don't worry more pictures and excitement to come!