My Uncle Made Me Do This

1. What is your occupation right now? Baby-sitter/Office Supply Crisis Counselor

2. What color are your socks right now? I rarely ever wear socks

3. What are you listening to right now? TV...need to go put on Christmas music

4. What was the last thing that you ate? Corn dogs at 10:00 AM

5. Can you drive a stick shift? Maybe? My uncle taught me how when I was 16 but I haven't since

6. Last person you spoke to on the phone? My mom

7. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Duh? He's my uncle

8. How old are you today? 27, I will be tomorrow too :)

9.What is your favorite sport to watch on TV? Baseball, hockey is WAY better in person.

10. What is your favorite drink? Water (does that count?)

11. Have you ever dyed your hair? Yes, but not in years.

12. Favorite food? Italian

13. What is the last movie you watched? Twilight, twice!

14.What is your favorite day of the year? Christmas!

15. How do you vent anger? Alone time

16. What was your favorite toy as a child? books (yes, I am proud of my geekishness)

17. What is your favorite season? Christmas

18. Cherries or Blueberries? blueberries
19. Do you want your friends to e-mail you back? sure

20. Who is the most likely to respond? several of the HCBC members

21. Who is least likely to respond? My mom

22. When was the last time you cried? don't ask

23. What is on the floor of your closet? A bunch of random things...notice cleaning and organizing my closet is still on my to do list.

25. Who is the friend you have had the longest that you are sending this to? If KFuj shows this to Mr. KFuj, then him :)

26. What did you do last night? Ate too much, car napped on the way home, then went to bed...STILL have a headache!

27. What are you most afraid of? lots of things

28. Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburgers? Cheeseburger

29. Favorite dog breed? Dachshunds...if only they weren't so stubborn!

30. Favorite day of the week? Saturday

31. How many states have you lived in? 1

32. Diamonds or pearls? diamonds

33. What is your favorite flower? Roses

How much do I love that this is a list of 33?!

Random Things Found in my Mom's Backyard

There is a water cooler sitting on the (dirty) patio table, but no chairs...standing room only?
For some unknown reason, the gardners zip-tied the hose...

Anyone want to caption this one?
He couldn't resist...

Carrie Underwood Concert

Sunday night I went with my mom and sister to the Carrie Underwood Concert at the Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario. It's a brand spanking new arena and parking was (gasp) FREE! Great concert too! Yes, we are actually sisters...do you see any resemblance?

Any guesses at how many times we had to retake this picture?

Lil Fuj is All Grown Up!

Congratulations Jenn & Kevin!!!Yes, we were as tired as we looked....
Two of my little sisters (missed you Kimmie!) - yes, Kevin is tall, but they are also that short :)
Our traditional wedding picture...
...and yes, the KFuj's fought over who got the middle...
I love this picture with my mom and sister...

For Ann...

Since Ann is a skeptic when it comes to the fun addiction that is Wii...allow me to present: My Mom Playing Wii Fit.



She was hula hooping...and as soon as I can figure out how to upload the video, I'll show you! :)

Happy Graduation Nicole!

In lieu of making us all sit in the sun baking to watch my sister walk across the stage in a group of hundreds of people earning their Sociology degrees from Cal State Fullerton this year, my sister opted to go to the Angels vs. Dodgers game yesterday.

My sister is a Dodgers fan. The rest of the family are Angels fans. My sister and uncle made a bet - whichever team lost, the corresponding fan of that team would have to put the logo of the winning team on their car/truck. The Dodgers won, so my sister is now searching for the largest sticker ever made to slap on my uncle's truck (sorry KT).

Nothing like car photography...

Or stadium photography courtesy of Mr. Pearl:

The woman on the left is the reason that I contemplated ripping off my ears several times during the game:

She spent the ENTIRE game gossiping about other people gossiping and causing drama. She seriously did not shut up. In fact, the girl in the middle was one of the women she spent the first half of the game talking crap about (they were in a group of 6 and the lady in the middle had been at the opposite end of the group).

And possibly the biggest rip-off on the planet:

A 5x7 print is $10.99 and one of the more curious items offered is a 13x16 Frame with 24KT Gold Overlay Team Coin & Minted Bronze Coin with Field Dirt for $149.99.

The hubby was happy to partake in their faux Dippin' Dots:

When attending baseball games, I tend to spend the majority of my time eating stadium food, yesterday was my typical food fest: hot dog, peanuts, licorice rope, faux dippin dots, portion of pretzel, and several bottles of water (and yes, I'm aware that Anaheim Stadium should be shut down by the health board - I figured if Queen B could survive eating in Mexico for 8 days, I could survive a buffet at the rat infested stadium).

The most memorable part of the day was in the parking lot when we were leaving. There were two particular vehicles of complete idiots. The first was a Toyota Tundra that cut off the hubby and almost took off the front bumper of my precious Pilot. The hubby had to flip into reverse to avoid the scraping of paint. After this occurred, we were sandwiched in next to the passenger side window of the Tundra allowing my aunt and the passenger to exchange words. :)

Then there was this idiot:

The self-proclaimed bandwagon jumper a la his bumper sticker (sorry again KT), was a complete jerk (and believed to be heavily intoxicated). When pulling out of his parking spot to force his way into the line of cars exiting, he scraped the rear fender/bumper of another truck. The Avalanche Idiot then proceeded to stop his truck in the middle of the lane to get out and exchange words with the owner of the other truck. The hubby honked his horn to motion for the AI to pull back into the spot he had just vacated so that we could pass. AI flipped hubby off and told him to drive around. This resulted in the hubby making a maneuver that could have easily scraped paint off of AI's other bumper and my aunt exchanging a few words with AI.

Things I learned yesterday:
-Sitting at a baseball game is not much better than sitting at a graduation ceremony when it's 100 degrees outside (even if you are in the shade).
-Baseball games are great for people watching and blog material.
-My stomach can still handle food fests :)
-My aunt should probably be forced to sit in the back seat behind dark tinted windows on our next outing that will undoubtedly involve idiots

HCBC Family Tree

This is for Bianka...and anyone else that has ever wondered how we all "know" each other and came to be the HCBC.

In the beginning, there was LoSpace - book club & radiology friend of Jane and Jane's first exposure to blogland (First Post: September 29, 2006) and Kim1Champ - coworker and BFF of Jane (September 30, 2006).

Kim1Champ (and Jane) begot the Two Historians Photo Blog (November 27, 2006).

Kim1Champ begot Queen B - coworker and virtual friend (December 2, 2006), Rachel Made Me Do This - coworker of the infamous Rachel aka Kim1Champ's sister (January 23, 2007), Jane (February 2, 2007), and The World in My Eyes - Kim1Champ's BFF from high school (January 28, 2008).

Random Thoughts - coworker of Kim1Champ and Jane, not sure how she came to blog (January 25, 2007).

Rachel Made Me Do This begot Bianka's Baby Blog - friend stolen from the hubby (February 23, 2007), Pickle - coworker and friend of Rachel (November 4, 2007), and KFuj - friend stolen from Kat's hubby (February 6, 2008).

Jane begot Skinner Family News - sisters (April 12, 2007), Happy Bunny - daughter (June 3, 2007), REM327 - daughter (also June 3, 2007), Look For the Brighter Side - cousin (January 27, 2008), and Nanifestos - you know, I'm not quite sure on the relationship here...? (February 24, 2008).

Teri's Thoughts found Kim1Champ on the Christmas Blog and the rest is history... (June 11, 2007)

The HCBC was officially formed June 12, 2007.

Thanks to Jane for aiding in the historical accuracy of this account :) And if I missed something, or was not quite right, I apologize.

I like Thai food!

I don't actually, but tonight (after enjoying several root beer floats of the adult beverage variety), one of my family members (who shall remain nameless to protect the blondeness) said "I like Thai food!"

Why I am I blogging about this? Because we were talking about my Uncle's girlfriend who is "Taiwan".

Unnamed person then proceeded to beg me NOT to blog about this incident. Seriously, how could I not? At least I didn't name names :)

Please note: Adult Root Beer Floats contain root beer and vanilla vodka. This drink brought to us by Rachel :)

Birthday Extravaganza - (last) Saturday

Please note: This will be long as I need to catch up - sorry Kim :)

On the agenda:
Wine Tasting

I went wine tasting in Temecula with my mom, aunt, mother-in-law, sister, Rachel, Pickle, KFuj, and a previously unmentioned co-worker we'll call not-Jan (only Rach and Pickle will truly understand the humor in naming not-Jan - sorry). We visited South Coast Winery and Ponte Winery. Ponte was my favorite and I'd highly recommend it!

It was my first time wine tasting and Pickle did a TREMENDOUS job coordinating and selecting the two wineries that we went to. Thanks Pickle!

We had a picnic snack of cheese and crackers, sandwiches, and grapes in between wineries and one of the Ritz crackers ended up on the ground in the middle of the parking lot. My mom didn't want the little birdie that would surely claim it to risk becoming road kill, so she placed it safely in the branch of a nearby tree.

Poker chips? Nope! Each chip represents a taste of wine...somehow my chips kept multiplying!

We couldn't remember the name of this wine and could barely pronounce it, but we all generally liked it. We began calling it Gewurzt-Janiner or Janiner for short.

It was Rachel's first time wine tasting too...she was less of a fan than I was, but she gave it a valiant effort!

When Pickle couldn't decide, she opted for a glass for each hand!

KFuj and Pickle with a bottle of the Janiner. I should have kept track of the number of bottles purchased...I'm estimating somewhere around 10?


All of the really good group pictures are on my sister's or Kfuj's camera (you think I was going to put my precious camera in jeopardy with tipsy Jenn?) and I have yet to receive them. I'll cut Kfuj some slack as she was buying a house and packing for a cruise since then, but my sister? Not so much. I'll steal them today when I see her and hopefully post them tonight.

Hair a la Jason

I let this guy cut my hair today:
[That's my sister (maid of honor) and Jason (best man) at my wedding 3 1/2 years ago.]

I'm not crazy, I swear! Jason's been an aspiring hair dresser since I've known him and has colored his hair every color in the rainbow and then some. After this platinum monstrosity, which almost caused me to BIC his head, his hair has been a "natural" hair color ever since...I still haven't got around to photo shopping it back to a normal color in my wedding photos...at least it makes for a good story. I digress...

Jason finally got licensed and started working at a salon in Fullerton, which gave me enough confidence to let him touch my inverted mohawk after swearing I'd never let him touch my hair. I hadn't had a trim in 5 months and have an inverted mohawk for crying out loud - what's the worst that could've happened?

Reasons to have Jason cut/color/style your hair:
1) Extra long shampoo/conditioning which includes a scalp massage that practically put me to sleep, total bonus!
2) Takes his time to make it just right
3) He offers suggestions to break up the hair monotony that we can so easily fall into
4) He's just starting out and needs to build up his client base
5) I said so, and if I'm going back, you should too!

Here's the final product (again, I failed to take a before photo of my "5 months since my last haircut" hair):
I wish I would have put makeup on before I took this...

Poker Night

I bought in for $9 - oh yeah!


I'd like to state publicly that both my mother and I LOVE Gut, 3s wild. My uncle and husband continually make fun of us for always selecting the same game. They have a new one of their own creation (it's some variation of baseball) that they always want to play that is far too complex for my mother and I. Funny thing? Neither of them have ever won their own game! I think we're even.

TINSTAAFL or TINSTAAFB?

TINSTAAFL = There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (in this case I'm going with Breakfast) There's my educational Economics reference for you. :)

Yesterday was my sister's last day working for "the mouse". Since graduating from high school 5 1/2 years ago she's worked in one of "the mouse's" restaurants in one capacity or the other. She was only at her last restaurant for about a year and thus I hadn't managed to visit her there while she was working because she only worked during breakfast hours.

I told her that the hubby and I would be coming for breakfast on her last day. I then secretly coordinated to have my mom, aunt, uncle, and uncle's parents join us. When I called my sister for specific directions she refused. After a little "flexing of the muscles" the hubby got the directions.



My sister stuck us in the back corner because we tend to create a ruckus when we're all out together (the mimosas may have had something to do with that). Her boyfriend, Alfonso, was our server (poor guy) and the back of my head aka scar and "boy hair" were the main attraction for everyone that worked there. They were nice enough to take a group picture of us and that server in the background is Alfonso!

Then came the favorite part of any meal with my family - the bill came. Regardless of where we are or who paid last, my mom and aunt (and any other working adults present) fight over who gets to pay the bill. Money gets thrown around and there is a tug of war over the little black bill holder. The debate raged for a good 5 minutes before my sister came over to our table and asked if any of us had bothered to actually look at the bill. My mom opened the bill holder thingy and saw this:



Guess she wasn't going to earn very many Southwest Miles on this bill!