We ♡ Exercise!

  Yesterday was part of a 3-day-weekend for me, since our manager at work said I had nine hours of vacation time, I was able to take one eight-hour shift off, which I used last night. Now I only have four days of work this week and four days next week! Another 2014 resolution is "Get a Day Job", even if I have to wake up at 6am. I'd rather turn myself into a morning person than be a night owl.

 Instead of going hiking after we spent some time with the Academy Award statues, I asked Michael if he would walk around Valley Plaza Park by the library with me. He agreed and I liked that it was one with exercise "equipment" around the loop. He jumped right on and seemed to enjoy the leg swing, although he said he couldn't feel it working his side/ oblique muscles the way I could.

^^ Michael was tickling me when we took this picture!! ^^

  We also walked along the bridge (over Highway 170) because I wanted to see if there were good mountain views. Not bad. ;) This is the road we used the most, especially to get to Griffth Park, but what you see here is the direction/ what you would drive right before we got off the Interstate again.

  I think Michael had a fun enough time and made some comment on how we should have started coming here at the beginning of the year (yep!) to do those silly exercises, and said it would be a great place to bring Sasha or little kids. It was a nice trail with a couple other people running the loop around us, but also some fat squirrels that were not taking advantage of it, haha. Michael did say that we have to do laps around the condo area we will live in Birmingham. Okay!

  **Today is my mom's birthday!! She and my dad are celebrating on a five-day cruise. ♡
Happy Birthday, Mommy. I love you soo much!! See you soon. Xoxo Xoxo

Academy Awards

  Today after we had another "super wicked tasty" lunch at Chipotle (for pulled pork tacos and a burrito bowl) in downtown North Hollywood, we went by and saw the bronze statues of all the famous, creative people that have won Academy Awards over the years.

  The first/ last time we walked through that area was after meeting Banks and Lacey down the street when we flew out here last November! And that was at night, so we could see them better today while the sun was still up. I don't think they have updated the area in a very long time because the youngest person who had a bronze head was Oprah.

 I definitely wanted to be sure I got my picture with Michael Landon..
aka Pa from Little House on the Prairie!

  I took pictures of other bronze heads, such as Dick Van Dyke, Betty White, and Andy Griffith, but my blogs take far too long to update, causing me to spend too much time on the Internet. And I barely even edited these photos. The first thing on my New Years resolutions list (always a list) is going to be "take less pictures"! I'm thinking about going back to my simpler blog times, when I only put one picture in each post. Perhaps a year of 365, only one picture to sum up each day.

We also stopped in Nigel's Beauty Supplies before we got back to the car.
This is Michael's serious "I'm looking at make up brushes" face. =)

Tis the Season

  These few pictures were taken early Friday morning when I got home from work. Michael and I have not been able to agree on a good house temperature. He likes having the air and the heater on at the same time. But sometimes he just uses the portable heater in the bedroom, but doesn't remember to turn the house heater on. 50 degrees outside and only 61 degrees in the house!

  The vent in front of the bathroom, next to the kitchen is the warmest place in our cozy house. I had to stand over the vent to warm up my whole icy body before I went in to snuggle with Sasha, since Michael also had the ceiling fan on. This was after I turned the air from "cool" to "off".

  Last night when Michael and I went to Target, they had all the Christmas stuff up, so he let me pick out a Christmas ornament. We need one from LA! They had a bunch that seemed far too big and heavy to be put on a Christmas tree. I liked this wooden reindeer the best, especially with the bits of gold on it's hooves and antlers.

  In September, Michael would forget that we aren't going to be in California for Christmas, but I want us to have some pretty holiday decorations for when we stay with Alana and Mia the first two weeks next month. Michael continued the early holiday spirit with us watching Chevy Chase's Christmas Vacation!

Printed Works

  This is one of the places that I will miss going to- Valley Plaza Library. It was only a lovely four minute drive from our house. It was next to a nice big, green park that always had at least three birthday parties every Saturday, usually two with bouncy castles! These are the last two books I have borrowed. Their website was always really great as well. Or maybe the last time I really used a library was back before I ever got on the computer, so I have nothing to compare it to. They would even send me an email when the book was ready to be picked up. Snazzy! ;)

  I finished reading "Dad is Fat" by my favorite comedian, Jim Gaffigan. It was very funny, talking about what its like raising five kids in Manhattan. Now we're watching his comedy act on Netflix, Mr. Universe. I'm still laughing a lot and I've seen it three times! The other book I started the other day is by Jen Hatmaker. I'm not sure if she also makes hats on the side, but it's titled, "7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess". She covers clothes, shopping, waste, food, possessions, media and stress. Of course, it makes me want to try all of them!! It's on my to-do list for next year. As well as the 31/ Orphan Project, which I kind of did for a while in June, but never long enough to blog about it.

 ^^ The guy who has been practicing playing his flute!! ^^

  Anyway, I would estimate that I read at least 15 books this year. And that makes me very happy. ;)
I still have a long list of books I didn't get a chance to read this year, so I'll be sure to read a bunch of those from the library in Birmingham. Another thing I will miss and sometimes forget about, because it's so common to see, is the mountain view that you can see in the distance at every turn!

Limekiln Canyon Trail

  I wanted to go hiking again and Michael is tired of Griffith Park, even though we haven't been there in a long time, aside from on Saturday. So we drove back to Porter Ranch since there were some trails that we did not go down yesterday and then we walked further, past the big bridge. I brought the Canon T2i today, just with the kit lens.

  Some of the road was dirt and some of it was a mix of dirt on top of a broken paved road that was still off to the side of a main road. Today was a roller coaster of emotions, simply in conversation. Probably to do with continuing my "Halloween diet" which involves consuming far too many Peanut M&Ms.. she typed, while finishing off the last fun size pack of Peanut M&Ms..!
  In the car I was venting about personal things that were bothering me- which aren't even my personal problems, or even problems at all. Basically things that I definitely need to calm down about since everyone is happy anyway, but I was on a chocolate sugar high! It got me riled up. It's just life events for some of my friends are not moving along the way I had imagined or want them to, so I feel that since our lives are at different stages, we are not able to relate to each other's life situations to give advice or valid opinions, the way we could in high school.
  We're either single and working, dating and working, or just married and pregnant! Married for a couple years and moving all the time in our own crazy adventures (that's us!) or married for almost five years with a little baby. Michael had his turn to vent after that, but was talking about ways to "fix" a bunch of the problems with the government. If only it were that easy. =)

  The fancy houses of Porter Ranch. They are very pretty- we drove through the nice neighborhood areas a few times over the summer when we talked about buying a house there "one day". Of course it would have taken us 50 years just to save up for a 20% down payment, so I'm super happy that we are moving back East so we can buy a house for a reasonable amount!

 ^^ Shnooks, don't fall off the crackling cliff! ^^

Ooooh, and we saw a bunny!
That's all.

Porter Ranch, CA

  Over the past few trips Michael and I have made 20 miles Northwest to beautiful, clean, expensive Porter Ranch, usually for dinner at Souplantation or an errand run to Wal-Mart, I always noticed cars parked on the side of the road at the beginning of a trail. And for the past few months, I have wanted to go down that trail (Limekiln Canyon Trail). And today we did, after Michael bought some fabric at Jo Ann's for Sasha's airplane carrier.

  Today was much cooler (72 degrees, but also over cast and windy) than it was when we hiked at Griffith Park on Saturday. I should probably check the weather more often when I get dressed instead of assuming that every day is going to be hot, like it is in central Florida! It didn't seem as cold once we got into the "forest" area since all of the trees blocked the wind. 

^^ Stretching my hammies, as recommended! ^^

  Michael thought the area was really pretty, reminding him of Birmingham. I did too, and finally I was able to see a few trees with changing yellow and orange leaves. Obviously I used the small camera for these pictures. They did not all turn out exactly in focus, but I still really liked the running water and rocks and leaves on the ground.

  I also loved this little "tree house" that we found. We had to duck down to get into the "front door", and then we found another pretty area with more streams, rocks and trees with hearts around the names of "young people" who were once in love, or maybe still are!

  On our way back to the car, we stopped to see how many pull ups we can do. I don't think we were really trying. And we both cheated, using that rock to push off. I even laughed, asking Michael how many he pulls ups he would have done to impress me, if this was one of our first dates. He was honest and said probably not more than two! He said he pulled his pectoral muscles, ha. 

  We drove over to Northridge Mall (about 10 minutes South of Porter Ranch) because Michael has been wanting to see the movie, Bad Grandpa, starring Johnny Knoxville as an old man! The make up effects were really good and it made me bring up the topic again of how I wish he could make me into a grandma, but he says it involves sculpting a full face and he doesn't like sculpting. The movie was funny and I laughed a few times. Michael liked it a lot and plans to buy it later, especially if they have a detailed behind the scenes video about the make up pieces.

Griffith Park Reunion

   Yesterday was one of those really good days that I wouldn't mind repeating. Maybe because it was the first time we went hiking in almost three months, and because Michael and I are in marriage bliss and getting along really well (even in my dreams)! Or because I got to Skype with my family and borrow a new book from the library, then later take a 2-hour power nap before dinner?
   But the main part of the post is about us hiking up "the Birthday Trail" in Griffith Park. We found this steep 45-50 degree trail back in January and were going to take Dawson for his birthday, but I think we ended up going other places that day, doing what he wanted. However, along the Birthday Trail is where Dawson took some of our Valentines pictures.

 ^^ Hollywood siiiiiiign! ^^

  I like the "behind" pictures better because you can see how far we climbed, as well as all the beautful landscaping. The pictures looking uphill do not show the detail of how steep it is. But this last one above kind of looks like a beach area to me, so I like that too. I do like the tree-scapes more than the cityscape, but this Los Angeles photo is for nostalgia reasons.

  Oh, we did leave our house to go to Griffith Park around 4pm and it was about 84 degrees. The past few days have been warmer than the beginning of the week was. When we got to the top of the Birthday Trail, we continued on towards the Observatory, which was actually along a small trail we had not followed before. But it lead us to an open area where people like to watch the sun set. We went back down from there.

^^ Motivational pipe!! ^^

^^ See all the people on the balcony? ^^

  For dinner Michael wanted to go to Chipotle, so we drove over to Burbank, but in the movie theater area where all the little restaurants are, it was super packed. Michael drove us to the one in the nice North Hollywood Arts District area. He parked in a lot and we walked a few blocks to the yummy food. Michael got a burrito bowl and I got the three crunchy tacos with barbacoa (beef). He was being an extra sweetie yesterday and opened the doors for me and gave me kisses on the side of my forehead. =)