The Happiest Place on Earth

Celeste and I decided to take a break for the weekend with a trip to Disneyland/California Adventure. Our friends were going with their kids and invited us to come along (the 4-year-old actually invited us). After work on Friday, we drove down and made it to LA around 11pm. We woke up early the next day to drive down to Anaheim.

My favorite rides were the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, California Screamin', Tower of Terror, and the new Toy Story ride. The Toy Story ride is definitely a good addition to California Adventure. It is the same concept as Astro Blasters where you are shooting at items. Except in the Toy Story ride, you wear 3D glasses and are shooting at a huge screen. You can watch the items that you shoot (rings, darts, etc.) as they virtually fly across the screen in 3D. It's really fun. The 3D glasses also made for some pretty good pictures. :)

Stake Play

We had a great time this weekend as the youth performed in our Stake Play entitled Wired -- basically a music/dance festival. The theme was based on different things that you might find on an iPod, such as music, movies, and pictures. Celeste and I choreographed a swing number to Sing Sing Sing and our four couples did a fantastic job. Just check out the above picture of the beginning "V" formation. We really challenged them with multiple lifts and some fancy footwork. I think there were ten different formations that the youth had to memorize. We also helped choreograph a part in Footloose and They Dance. Everything turned out even better than we expected. We'll post videos soon. The youth we worked with were so fantastic!

Overall, Stake Play was a wonderful experience. The Spirit was very strong as the kids expressed their talents, especially in the last part of the show that emphasized the importance of eternal families. We are grateful that our families can be together forever.



On a side note, as I look at the pictures that we took, it’s probably time that we got a new camera. I talked with one of the photographers from Stake Play (who took some amazing shots that I’ll give a link to when they are posted) about some of the photos that he took, and I remembered how much I enjoyed doing my photography class back in my senior year of high school. Maybe it’s about time I took up that hobby again...

Indian Curry Cuisine

This is a picture of an Indian curry dish that Celeste made this week. It gets ten points for taste plus extra credit for presentation (this is on a ten point scale of course). Celeste has really been getting good at finding new recipes. We are constantly trying new dishes that she finds online.

Of course, I try to contribute whenever I can. I made an 8-layer Chinese chicken salad this week. But I can't take credit for sprouting our own bean sprouts that became the eighth layer. Celeste sprouted those herself and I just washed them off before putting them in the salad. Below is a picture of the sprouts right before I pulled them out for washing. This used to be just a handful of dried mung beans but grew to fill the entire container. They were very tasty!

Hiking in Stevens Creek County Park

Last weekend, Celeste and I decided to take advantage of the nice weather to go hiking (this, of course, was in between our yoga class and swing dance practice). The park we chose was Stevens Creek County Park, and it seemed promising when we got there. However, we weren't able to find a good hiking path. We found several paths, but each was marked with a closed sign -- maybe the trails are too muddy during the winter. If anything, it was nice to get outside and enjoy the nice weather. Plus, I got to use my new hiking pole! Next time, though, we'll look at a map and choose a trail in advance.

Freshly Squeezed Juice

I used to not be a very picky eater. I would eat pretty much anything that was given to me without any complaint (with the exception of stuffing, which I am learning to like). But that has changed lately, at least in a few food groups. One thing I have become very picky of is freshly squeezed juice. Whenever I go to a restaurant, I usually order water to drink, mainly because I don't like all of the artificial sweeteners that are in juices. But in certain restaurants, I can't help but order their fresh juices. For example, I got fresh strawberry lemonade the other day at the Cheesecake Factory and it was terrific.

I think part of the reason that my taste buds prefer freshly squeezed juices is illustrated very well in this picture. We sliced ten oranges in half and then used our Bosch to juice all of them. The result was two completely full glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice (plus some that we saved for the next day). We've done this a couple times in the last few weeks (can you tell that we shop at Costco?). One of my favorite variations has been to juice a grapefruit into the orange juice. Very tasty, and very good at preventing sicknesses that has been going around.