What a Difference a Day Makes

The Woman's Interfaith Alliance and the Los Angeles LDS Stake held a service day this past Saturday. Projects included fleece blankets, knitted hats, toiletry kits, baby receiving blankets, and books for a school library. These items were donated to all sorts of charities here in LA.

Marissa, Deb, and Ashley tie some fleece blankets. Nice handy work, eh?!

These are some of the finished products.

Beer Fest 2007, (Root Beer that is...)

To celebrate our good buddy Chad's big 3-0, we had a root beer taste test to determine the best beer around. Some of the featured brews included Frosty's, Stewarts, Faygo, Barqs, Rat Bastard, Virgil's, IBC, Sprechers, Sparky's, A&W, Dad's, Route 66, Henry Weinhardt's, Barrel Brothers, Boylan, Berghoff and Thomas Kemper...

Kimber and Chad with some various beers

Marissa and Kimber with a bottle of Faygo

Sneaky Kimber pours the brew

The table of root beer specimens

The men sample the brews recording each's sweetness, creaminess, punch, aroma, and color.

Sean using a scientific method to conduct his study.

John carefully compiling his data.






David answers the RB trivia questions.

Sean and Melissa listen the to trivia answers.

Karolyn and Ashley anxiously await the results!

Nice gift bag, Chad!

AND THE WINNER IS.....

#1

Barq's and Sparky's tied for the best beers of the night.

#2

Boylan's came in a close second

The Wonderful Towers of Watts

In third grade, we study Los Angeles History.

So on Friday my class took a field trip to the Watts Towers.

These towers of cement, steel, and recycled glass were created in the backyard of Simon Rodilla, an Italian Immigrant who lived in Watts in 1929 -1952.

He lived alone and built these towers using only simple tools--hammers, chisels, and spikes. He had no scaffolding or ladders, he simply climbed what he had already built and continued to build higher.

His neighbors had no idea what he was doing. He kept to himself and just went about his creative work.

Inside the towers, he built bird baths, altars, a gazebo, and fountains like the one seen above--this is called "The Wedding Cake." All of the glass and tiles were collected from garbage cans, deserted lots, factories and warehouses. He even paid neighbor kids pennies to bring him old bottles.

This is the bird bath. Some believe it is a baptismal font.

This is called the cactus garden. He used broken 7Up Bottles for this one.

This is our (crazy, fun but crazy) tour guide and one of my students on the outside of the tower wall. The walls were built in the shape of a ship--the Ship of Marco Polo it is called.

This is the funny tour guide leading us in a cheer--Go Simon, Go Simon...raise the roof...woot woot!

A Swanky Evening at the Hilton

(See below post for introduction...) The evening's host was Giselle Fernandez--journalist and former contestant on Dancing With The Stars. Entertainment was the Beach Boy Brian Wilson and his band--they played all the Beach Boy hits! We tore up the dance floor with our "Good Vibrations". My favorite part of the evening was the live auction--4 tickets for the American Idol Finale went for $13,000 and a 30-minute basketball lesson with Magic Johnson went for $15,000!! Hello! They started the bidding at $2,000, so I was out from the start. Oh well. The night was one to remember though. Good times!

The Alliance Dinner

On Thursday, I got to attend a benefit/awards dinner for The Alliance, an organization that places minority/under priveledged children in private schools and helps fund their education. It was at the Beverly Hills Hilton and it was beautiful. Check out the centerpieces and the dessert! Yummy.

Let Them Eat Cake...

I started a cake decorating class this Tuesday. It is at this really cute cake decor supply called Gloria's. This week's cake was the "Sunflower Cake" (obviously!) It was super fun. My good buddy Ashley Poole will be joining me for the rest of the 7 weeks, but had to miss class this week because she was sunning herself in beautiful Hawaii. Stay tuned for more cake creations!

SEAN YOUNG OR SEAN YOUNG?!?!?

This top photo is of Sean Young, the UCLA Dental Student and this is Sean Young, the actress.

As you can see, the only similarity is their names, but that doesn't stop all sorts of crazy, stalker fans from trying to track down the actress and calling our house. We get calls every once in a while from a "producer" or "screen writer" looking for the female Sean to cast her in thier latest flick, but we got our best voicemail this week from Steven Riley of Colonia, New Jersey. He was calling to see if Sean remembered him from his letters and poetry he had sent her. He sent two poems a few years ago called "I Needed You" and "The Reverie of Sean Young" He mentioned in his message that he thought they were some of his best works and right up there with the likes of Robert Frost and Emily Dickenson--the best poets in the English Language. He also said he would like to further express his admiration and that she should give him a call. PSYCHO!! I actually would like a copy of "The Reverie of Sean Young," so I may give Steve a call....haha!!