So I celebrated my 32nd birthday 2 weeks ago. YAY for birthdays! Not so much for getting older. Waahhhh.

I didn’t do much of anything to celebrate but I did make a few requests and got super-spoiled by Rob.

I asked for home-cooked spaghetti for my birthday dinner and he threw in some pretty freaking amazing fried chicken. SO GOOD.

Dessert was my FAVORITE banberry pie from Polly’s Pies. This pie also reminds me of my mom — so it’s really special to me.

Then we spent this past Sunday morning at Disneyland. Got there bright and early to try the new Star Tours (verdict – AWESOME! I wanted to go a second time but it closed down right after we got out) and Little Mermaid rides, hit a few of our other favorites (Space Mountain, Buzz), and also meet Mickey’s pal…

Pluto!

I love that Rob will humor me and take pictures with characters. Hehe.

I have one more birthday gift to look forward to next month when the Kindle Fire Rob bought for me arrives. SO EXCITED! Can’t wait to take it on vacation to Disney World. Only 34 more days!

I decided to give myself a nice long weekend and took Friday and Tuesday off from work for an awesome 5-day break. Too bad I ended up working for a few hours each day anyway. Oh well. It was still a fab weekend.

It started off with a wonderful gift from Rob…

The Kindle 3! WOOHOO. (LOVE it so far — I’ll write a proper review in the near future).

Then a quick trip to Disneyland for lunch at the Carnation Cafe where I tried the awesome baked potato soup for the first time. AMAZING.

Also had a few visits from family. First my brother-in-law and in-laws, then my cousins, and finally my dad. Lots of eating out and quality time. I’m so spoiled.

On my actual birthday, Rob took me to my happy place aka Anthropologie and treated me to a mini-shopping spree.

And we ended the day with red velvet cupcakes from Sprinkles.

I love birthdays.

I still have pics to share, though, because I realized that I never posted any from my 30th birthday trip.

I love Disneyland in October. The resort celebrates “Halloweentime” all month so the park is decorated in various shades of fall colors.

From the entrance gates…

to Town Square…

to Main Street…

to the partner’s statue…

to the flowers planted in the hub…

and even to the balloons being sold throughout the park.

Love it. It looks so festive!

There were only a few (very important!) things I wanted to accomplish in the park…

1. Take advantage of the photopass system and get some fun “magic” shots taken of Rob and me. Like these with Tinkerbell and Stitch! Hehe.

2. Meet Mickey! He can be found on Main Street at various points in the day but I wanted to be sure I would get a picture with him so I dragged Rob over to Towntown to visit Mickey at his very own house. And he’s wearing his Sorceror Mickey outfit. MY FAVORITE. I totally need a red velvet robe so I can be Sorceror Mickey for Halloween.

3. Eat at Cafe Orleans. I love sitting outside on the patio and people-watching. I had a cup of gumbo, pommes frites (OMG. THESE ARE SO GOOD), and beignets with raspberry and vanilla sauce for dessert. YUM.

4. Ride Space Mountain. My favorite ride in the park. Notice how Rob totally covered my face in our ride picture?! THANKS A LOT.

…And that’s it! Those were my must-dos. It doesn’t take much for me to enjoy Disneyland.

My friend Robyn met up with us for more rides and then my friend Carmen joined us later that night for dinner at Roy’s.

The following night Rob took me to Napa Rose at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel for dinner.

I know, it sounds weird. Fine dining on Disneyland property?! But it’s true! I had an AMAZING meal. Rob and I shared the tempura lobster and spicy asian beef salad as our appetizer and I had the yummiest beef short ribs over risotto and butternut squash sauce for my entree. Nom nom nom.

My food pictures didn’t turn out so great but I have to share this one of our dessert…

…a S’mores popover with toasted marshmallows, peanut butter ice cream, and chocolate sauce. HEAVEN.

It was a perfect Disney birthday.

Back on Valentine’s Day, Rob and I went to the happiest place on Earth, Disneyland. We bought annual passes for each other for Christmas and finally went to get them activated. The best thing about having annual passes is that we don’t feel the need to do EVERYTHING in one day. We can totally take our time, relax, and visit select attractions. The most important thing we wanted to do on this trip is ride Toy Story Mania at California Adventure. It’s an interactive midway ride and it is SO FUN. Seriously. It’s a MUST.

Here I am in my Mickey ears and the Toy Story 3-D glasses. Spiffy.

Of course a trip to CA is not complete without visiting the Animation Academy. This time we drew Goofy. My drawing is on the right.

Lunch was at Cafe Orleans. We shared French Onion soup, Pommes Frites (garlic fries with the yummiest aioli ever), and a Monte Cristo sandwich (turkey, ham and cheese fried in a light batter with berry puree). Not the healthiest lunch but SO GOOD.

Before we left, we made sure to get on Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters. I had a measly 46,300 points. Rob totally beat me with 93,700. Too bad for Rob the picture got our scores mixed up. OOPSIE. Hehe.

The following weekend we celebrated our friend Sebastian’s birthday with pizza at Round Table (his choice) and dessert at Guppy House. There were 9 of us and we shared a large mixed fruit shave ice. It was GINORMOUS. We barely finished it.

I’ve been going through lots of Netflix movies lately too…

Eagle Eye
Entertaining but not very good. :/ Reminded me too much of I, Robot. Not very original. Also, I guess Transformers didn’t really require much acting from him because this movie made me realize Shia LaBeouf is a pretty good actor. I liked him a lot here.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Another Shia LaBeouf movie! Only meh. Lots of potential too. I just didn’t care for the storyline AT ALL. And the dialogue was so predictable. I lost count at how many lines Rob would guess before the words even came out of the characters’ mouths. Disappointing.

Wanted
I had no expectations before watching this movie so it was a pleasant surprise to find myself really enjoying it! Lots of thrilling action sequences and a well-constructed storyline. Plus, James McAvoy!

What else? Hmm… a couple of random things…

I love when DVDs have digital copies included. I load them right onto my iPod to take with me to the gym. As much as I love listening to music when doing cardio, my mind inevitably wanders, I get bored, and I stare at the clock. Watching and listening to episodes or movies definitely keeps me occupied.

Our Wii broke. I tried to use it yesterday but the console was eerily quiet (you couldn’t hear it booting up) and the TV just had a blank screen. After checking all the connections and looking up the problem on the Nintendo site, we determined that we had to send it back. Unfortunately, the repair would cost $75, $10 shipping, and CA tax, which was almost $100. !!! We might as well buy a new one. UGH UGH UGH.

So… what have I been up to? Let’s do this in list form because it’s easier.

1. Last weekend I saw Bolt. It wasn’t the best animated film I’ve seen but definitely entertaining. Bolt was so cute! I loved his little face when he was begging for food. Awww. Although, is it just me, or does Bolt NOT look like a German Shepherd? Anyway. Rhino was pretty awesome too.

2. Ever since I got my iPhone (squee!), I’ve been a little obsessed with downloading Apps from the iTunes store. Some of my favorites are Yelp, Amazon, Style.com, Lightsaber, RhinoBall, Pop Quiz. Anyone have any other recommendations? It’s so hard to wade through all the options on iTunes. Admittedly, I’m cheap so free is best but I’m willing to pay for good apps.

3. Last Sunday, Rob and I went to our friend Shirley’s birthday cooking party. Such an awesome idea! There were about 20 of us (I think) and we were split up into teams working on separate parts of the meal. Rob and I worked on the dessert, which was a tangerine souffle. We were in charge of chopping up the tangerines, making juice out of the oranges, and boiling it all together. The rest of our team was separating the eggs and prepping the baking ramekins. The end result was fantastic (the souffle was so light and fluffy) but honestly, I kinda think it took way too much time and effort. :/ Or it could be the whole laziness thing again. A couple of pics of us courtesy of the birthday girl!

Rob making juice from the oranges!

Me cutting up the tangerines.

4. As organized as I like to think I was for the wedding, post-wedding wrap-up has been a completely different story. A lot of the “stuff” used at our wedding is still in boxes at my dad’s house (like extra programs, signage, baskets, etc), some duplicate presents we received still haven’t been returned/exchanged, we haven’t finalized the photo selections for our album. And we haven’t started our Thank You cards. EEEEEEKKKKK. Well, I finally designed the cards and had them printed and now Rob and I are starting to write them… WOW. It’s going to take us a little while. :/

5. We went to Home Depot yesterday to get some moving boxes. I know we’re not moving until the end of January but knowing us and the amount of “stuff” we own, we figured we should get a head start. Since it’s raining today, we got started with our books and DVDs. We already have about 6 boxes full and we’re not done packing them yet. !!! What can I say? We love our DVDs. Too bad our apartment looks like a hurricane plowed right through it. There are piles everywhere.

Hmmm. I thought I had more to write about but I guess that’s it. I can’t believe Christmas is next week. Just 7 more days of work. WOOT.

Too bad I’m sick. I have a cold. And a runny nose. Not the greatest way to spend my birthday. Oh well.

At least I have lots of CUPCAKES to make me feel better.

One of my managers made chocolate cupcakes with strawberry frosting for me. They were so yummy. We enjoyed these at work yesterday after an unexpected birthday lunch at One Market Restaurant.

Then I got home to find that Rob went to SPRINKLES! in Palo Alto to get my favorite red velvet cupcake along with some other flavors to try. SO YUM YUM YUMMY. Their Red Velvet is the BEST light chocolate cake with the most amazing cream cheese frosting. Black and White (dark chocolate cake with vanilla frosting) is a solid classic, Chocolate Marshmallow is a unique treat (dark chocolate cake with marshmallow cream topped with chocolate ganache), and the Strawberry (strawberry cake with strawberry frosting) just might be a new favorite. MMMM. (Don’t worry — Rob and I split these cupcakes. I admit I’m a piggy but I do exercise restraint sometimes).

Rob even picked up a couple of doggie cupcakes for Diesel — carob and yogurt flavored. He totally went crazy over these.

Rob *also* surprised me with the metallic rose Nintendo DS. (Please excuse my crazy face and the laundry behind me — how embarassing). The only game I have right now is Mario Kart and it’s THE BEST.

Didn’t do anything at all today since I wasn’t feeling up to it but I managed to get myself together to have a low key birthday dinner at Santa Ramen, my favorite Japanese ramen house across the bay. Soup was a good choice for this little sicky.

Then we headed to San Carlos and the newest Bay Area Red Mango location. I know it’s a trend but I seriously LOVE LOVE LOVE tart frozen yogurt. And Red Mango’s yogurt is pretty awesome. It’s nice and creamy with a really subtle tart flavor. I do wish it was slightly more tart than it was (like Pinkberry) but overall, it was excellent. Rob and I got our usual Original flavor yogurt with strawberries, captain crunch, and mochi toppings.

It was a good day. Despire being sick and all.

Random. I cannot send or receive text messages on my cell phone. UGH. I think it stopped working about 4 weeks ago when I went into the AT&T store and had my SIM card replaced. GREAT. I cannot wait to get on the phone and deal with AT&T on this. They are SO HELPFUL. Umm, NOT.

It’s almost birthday time! AND I have a 3-day weekend to celebrate (thank you Christopher Columbus). I just have to get through the next few days of work…

Speaking of birthdays, Disney is offering guests free admission to Disneyland or Walt Disney World on their birthday in 2009. You have to register here. WOOT. I AM SO THERE. I’m totally going to have a Disney-themed 30th birthday next year. (Maybe).

I don’t have anything else to blog about so Diesel wants to say Hi…

OH! Before I forget… to answer the questions from the previous entry — Robyn, you win the award for most photobooth pics. You were in there a whopping 12 times! Rob, Uly, and I tied for second with 9. And Grantland was next with 6.

I need to think about positive things…

First. It is now October, which means it’s my birthday month. Woot. 10 more days til 29.

Second. Rob, Diesel and I are heading to LA in 2 weeks for our friends’ Eric and Amy’s wedding. I’m taking the Friday off beforehand to have some extra time to spend with family.

Third. High School Musical 3 arrives in theatres on 10/24. AND I AM TOTALLY GOING TO SEE IT. I think I can convince Rob to watch it with me.
Fourth. My best friends and I have our annual Girls’ weekend scheduled for the end of the month. It’ll be an awesome weekend of spa treatments and girly time.

Hmmm. Now that I see it all listed here, I have lots of good things to look forward to this month. I’m excited!

Anyway, I finished New Moon over the weekend and I liked it about the same as Twilight.

Emma hit the nail on the head in her comment to my previous entry — it’s been so hard to get through this series because the writing isn’t so great. This was definitely more noticeable in New Moon.

But I did understand Bella more in this second installment. Which is an improvement. Unfortunately, I still don’t really like her. I found her to be reckless and selfish. And it completely bothers me that she’s so nonchalant about becoming a vampire. Cause I don’t feel like she’s taking it seriously or that she’s really weighed the pros and cons. Interestingly, I liked Edward much more in this book — maybe because compared to Bella, he was like the voice of reason. I also really liked learning more about Jacob (he might just be my favorite character) though I still don’t understand why the vampires and the werewolves are enemies. Did I miss something?

I’ve gotten this far so I want to read the rest of the series… but I’ll have to find a generous friend to loan Eclipse and Breaking Dawn to me. Only the hardcovers are available and I’m CHEAP. Anyone?

Anyway, had a very lazy 4-day weekend. My back hurt (have no idea why – I haven’t been to the gym since before the wedding) so I lay in bed and watched a lot of CSI. (What’s new, right?)

Is it just me or did Entertainment Weekly not have their annual Fall TV preview issue this year? I LOVE that issue. It’s like my new TV season bible. Seriously. I always read it from cover to cover trying to figure out my TV schedule for the new year. It never arrived and all of a sudden the season started this past Monday. I was not prepared.

I haven’t watched Gossip Girl or One Tree Hill yet but I did catch the new 90210 (terrible) and Prison Break (interesting) so of course I have a few comments (beware of spoilers).

90210
I wanted to like this show (the original is one of my favorite shows ever) but I didn’t. It dragged. The dialogue was awful. The characters were mostly unlikable. The only things I enjoyed were the references to the original show… like Kelly and Brenda’s guest appearances, Nat and the Peach Pit (it looks like a coffee shop now, blah), the teacher joking that Hannah Zuckerman-Vazquez (Andrea’s daughter!) looks 30… everything else was pretty “meh.”
I was not feeling Annie and Dixon, aka the new Brenda and Brandon. Dixon is tolerable. Annie is incredibly annoying. I don’t know if Shenae Grimes always acts like that but she was too… over the top. She needed to tone it down. A lot. Just like the Grandma. I didn’t like her at all. The parents are okay (Rob Estes is still pretty cute but why oh why did they have to give his character that ridiculous adoption storyline with his old girlfriend — ugh). I’m still undecided on Naomi, Adrianna and Ethan (he seems like a decent guy and I did like his interaction with Annie) but I really enjoyed Navid and Silver (Kelly and David’s sister!).

I’ll probably check out a few more episodes but I don’t know… I loved the original show and this new version just doesn’t have the same appeal to me so far.

Prison Break
I didn’t watch Prison Break at all last season but when I heard Sarah Wayne Callies was coming back, I had to check it out. And I liked it. They seemed to explain away the previous season very quickly, which I didn’t mind since I didn’t watch it. Hee. And of course, it was all too convenient that each of the main characters somehow found themselves arrested again only to find out that the key to get out of jail is participation in a scheme to steal information about The Company. I love that I always have to suspend belief when watching this show.

I also loved the Michael and Sara reunion. But you probably already knew that. They were just the right balance of happy, relieved, anxious, hesitant. Mmm.

A couple of laugh out loud moments…
– Bellick screaming and throwing up his arms when his mom picked him up
– “I actually had to slow down not to catch you.” — Mahone to Bellick after their fake purse snatch
– “Did you have some bad Mexican?” — Random guy to T-Bags. EWWW. Can T-Bags GO AWAY???

Anyway, I’m back on board. WOOT.