I Can Hardly Wait!

{via Michael Hogan Photography}

Jen: I'm writing this from my newly rearranged living room, and this is the first day that I've been able to work from home since the fires in my city here in California! It's so nice to feel the drop in temperature and to smell clean air again!

I'm incredibly excited about the Fall season this year! October has always been my favorite month because of my birthday and Halloween, but this year I'll also be celebrating my niece's first birthday! Between carving pumpkins and eating pumpkin scones from Starbucks, I'm going to have to say that October also brings the best culinary options for me. I recently discovered a salad at California Pizza Kitchen that has some amazing Fall ties, such as baked and chilled acorn squash, dried cranberries and dates in a light champagne vinaigrette- yum! I'm definitely going to be making that throughout the season!

Crystal is on a work retreat right now (lucky her!) but perhaps when she returns she'll be up to sharing some of her reasons for looking forward to Fall this year!

Crystal: I'm afraid I don't share your love of fall. Maybe because I'm a June baby and so summer is therefore my month. :) :)

To me, fall basically means that summer is over. :( :( I don't like the drop in temperature...I prefer the lovely, warm, heat. :)

But, having a child, Halloween is much more fun for me. While I'm not big into dressing up at all, it's so fun to see how happy my son gets when trying on a Halloween costume, saying "trick or treat", and getting all kinds of candy. This year we'll be going to the Disney Trick or Treat event again at Disneyland California...we loved it last year, so we'll be returning....next Friday actually. :)

And I believe we've narrowed down his costume to Peter Pan. We couldn't find one that I liked, and I did find this adorable knight costume from the Narnia: Prince Caspian movie that i loved...but Caydan didn't like it. He wants to be Peter Pan. So we're just gonna go back and get the one from the Disney store as it was the best quality one...but I didn't like the color of it. Oh well, he'll be a cute Peter Pan. :)

Other than that though, fall means football to me....which I am not a fan of, but my fiance is...and he spends most of his time watching it - which means I can't watch my t.v., and we have to base our schedules around game times....this does not make a happy Crystal. :)

Ablaze

Jen: Los Angeles has been having its share of summer wildfires. Last year, San Diego got the brunt of it; the year before was San Bernardino's turn. This time, it's close to our Beachy Keen home :(

One of the two recent/current fires hit my city, and soon to be Crystal's city. It's unnerving to be told by the news and authorities to get your prized possessions and animals ready for a possible evacuation.

Sadly, the current fire further in Los Angeles is still raging, and the lives of firefighters are being lost :( We have a constant reminder of the dire situation in the form of this surreal white cloud-looking smoke that can be seen for hundreds of miles.

Busy Weekend

Jen: I'm pretty sure I can speak for both of us when I say this weekend is going to be complete chaos! Tonight we're going to Macaroni Grill for my brother's birthday dinner (he's bringing a huge group of friends, so I'll be surrounded by a hoard of teenage boys- earplugs please!). Tomorrow we're having a family BBQ at my mom's house. Then Sunday is Father's Day, so we'll be occupied then too! All of the events revolve around food, so I think next week is going to be a diet week ;)


Crystal: I love events revolving around food...I actually realized just recently that I think my whole life revolves around food. My sister is visiting from PA right now and we have been trying to figure out what to do in the evenings....and all I can keep coming up with is that we could go to a restaurant to have dinner...we could go to BJ's and get a Pizookie, we could go to Pinkberry and get froyo, Starbucks for Frapuccinos......and that's about the extent of my imagination. What else is there to do around here? lol

And busy doesn't quite explain my life right now. There needs to be a word that emphasizes something beyond busy. I'm about 10 photoshoots behind in editing, I have my sister from PA and Dan's daughter from PA both visiting, we're going out of town to Indio Thursday through the weekend and then I come back early Sunday for a photoshoot, not to mention I work a full time job during the day....then next week is Avery's angel anniversary and the 4th of July which I need to plan for..........

Yea.

Jen: Hmm, what to do ... what to do. Well, of course there is Hollywood and all that jazz. See a movie at the El Capitan? Downtown Disney District. Universal City Walk. Hollywood Park. And you have to take her to Venice Beach to see the "talent", lol. Have you checked out UCLA and USC to see if they have any events going on while she's here? Those are more like weekend events though.

Is she a mall rat at all? Ooo, and what about Redondo Pier? I'll keep thinking :)

Most importantly though, she MUST go to Sprinkles for cupcakes while she's here!

Crystal: She just hasn't seemed to be too interested in sight-seeing...I think she's more interested in boy-watching and making friends. She found a new friend...my sister's friend's sister and her friends....and she's been hanging out with them going to the beach and the mall....typical teenage things. We decided just to let her do her own thing and she can let us know if she wants our help.

I haven't even been to Sprinkles myself!! Although I have had one of their cupcakes at Blanca's bachelorette party when Carey brought some :) They were delish!! :)

Lakers Parade

Jen: We've been pretty lax about discussing issues lately, and have gone product crazy on Beachy Keen. Let's bring it back to the debate floor for a post!

California just spent 2 million+ on the Lakers victory parade, and now Californians are angry because our state is in dire straights. They don't feel that our money should have been spent on a parade.

I'll hold off on my opinion and let you go first! What do you think?


Crystal: Well first off....I was a bit annoyed with the whole situation intially....but then I heard on the news that the Lakers were putting up half of the cost ($1m approx) and then there were a couple of private donors who donated a total of around $800K or so....I'm sure I don't have the numbers exact, but it was around there....

So in the end, the city still had to put up some money, but not as much as originally expected....so initially I'm thinking - well that's still ridiculous. We can't pay teachers but we can put up money for a parade....

BUT - then you think of what the money is going to....we're not just putting up a couple hundred thousand dollars so that we can give Kobe some extra pocket change....it's going towards the police force, vendors for decorations, the port-a-potty vendors (lol), trash pick-up people, etc. It's still going towards our local and/or national businesses and workers...it's keeping several people in work, it's paying our police officers overtime, it's stimulating our economy.

On top of that - it's bringing hundreds of thousands of people (aka customers) to the coliseum area where they will inevitably eat, buy souveniers, pay for parking, go shopping, etc.

This is a huge city stimulus that both gets money rotating in the economy AND raises morale in the city (minus the rioting and looting)...so in the end, yes - the teachers are losing out because what are they gaining? But there are many other people in our community that are actually benefiting from the government's spending which in the end doesn't turn out to be that much.

Your thoughts Jen?
Our readers thoughts?

Oh - and I wanted to add - I think there were like 90,000 people at the coliseum or something like that....if they would have just charged $5.00 to get in - I'm sure people would have paid the 5 bucks as it's not much, and the city could have made $450K!!! Uhmmm, this event would have paid for itself!!

Jen: Excellent point on revenue that the event itself brought in. I hadn't thought of that aspect, as I was focused on what the team brings to our community year round. At first, I was quick to jump on the "pissy" bandwagon because my mind couldn't wrap itself around spending that amount of money on a party while our state is struggling. My question was "why isn't the NBA paying for it's winning team to celebrate?" Shouldn't that fall under the umbrella of their responsibilities?

A minute or so later I allowed myself to backtrack because it dawned on me that the Lakers as a whole bring our city and state an incredible amount of money with ticket sales which are taxed, as well as all the merchandise sales which are taxed, not to mention the tourism that they generate.

Think of the hotels and restaurants that profit off of tourists, the airlines, etc. And look at the training facility that they use in El Segundo, and the Staples Center ... lots of jobs generated from there.

So if this team creates opportunity for our local businesses and citizens, then is it really so bad that we support/praise this commodity??

Shaky Shaky

Jen: Last night we here in Los Angeles suffered through a 4.7 earthquake! That's actually not too big, but we were incredibly close to the epicenter, so it felt like a good 6. It sounded like a huge *boom* and then everything began to shake like we were right next to a freight train. During the 15 loooooooooooooong seconds of this episode, the glass to my entertainment center exploded and my cabinets flew open in the kitchen. My wine and champagne bottles fell to the floor and even my BBQ out on the balcony found it's way to another spot!

Crystal, how was it for you guys? How did little Caydan react?


Crystal: Since you wrote this, we have now had 2 earthquakes! We were at home during the first one just watching tv...it was a bit scary...a couple of pictures knocked over, figurines knocked over....but that was the extent.

I immediately jumped up, grabbed Caydan, and went to the doorway (that elementary school training kicked in I guess)....Dan jumped up and went straight to the flat screen, lol. You can see where out priorities are. :)

Dan then started freaking out because he said that he had "seen" this whole scene happening earlier that day in his head...like a premonition of sorts....so he was wide-eyed and a little crazy sounding at this moment...and then told me that we had to go out to the street because that's what happened in his vision......I started grabbing my jacket just to humor him and because he was a little scary at that moment....but then he changed his mind and said not to go...I think he realized that whatever he was thinking wasn't actually going to happen...........

Then Caydan says that it was "like a tractor pushing the house"...I love the child's way of describing something. :)

So cruddy about your glass shattering....can you even have that fixed??

Oh - and the second one, which I guess was a large aftershock of this one, occurred on Tuesday when I was at Disneyland with some co-workers...we were waiting in line for the Roger Rabbit spinny ride and then they came over the loudspeaker saying everyone had to exit the building. We didn't even feel it though. Then we heard about the earthquake and realized that they shut ALL the rides down.....weird - being at Disneyland with no rides operating...just thousands of people out walking around aimlessly................

What were you doing when the second one hit? Did you feel it?

Jen: I was at my mom's, on the computer, in front of her HUGE sliding glass door! It was pretty close to the size of the first one, but without the freight train rumble (just the rolling like they're supposed to be). It was just a fraction of the length of the first one though, so it wasn't too big of a deal.

Actually, we had a small quake yesterday too. A 2.something that we didn't feel. That makes 3 days in a row. It's crazy! The specialists said that there is a 5% chance this is all a precursor to a much larger quake. Slim, but still a chance. My fear is that the fault line that's been rocking is so close to us and the ocean.