My Life as a Nomad

I have many positive associations with multicolored nylon fabrics fashioned into large structures. Also known as tents.

Circus Tents 

Who doesn't love the circus?  Unless you have a huge fear of clowns or had a bad experience as a child, I think that any excuse to watch animals and eat nachos and cotton candy under the big top is a win.

Camping Tents

I grew up camping. My sister and I had Mickey Mouse tent that we would set up in our basement to play in and later a small purple one. Sometimes we went on family camping trips and occasionally we would go crazy and pitch it in the back yard!  I think there was one summer when I spent a whole week sleeping out in the tent. And then in high school, camping became a great excuse to have uni-sex sleepovers! Oh, and s'mores.

Parachute Tents

This is probably my favorite association. I LOVED to play with the parachute as a child. Probably for longer than I should have enjoyed it. I loved to play popcorn (were you throw balls in the middle and toss them around) and I always wanted to jump in the middle and get tossed around too.  I realize now that would not work so well... anyways, my second favorite part was when you lift the parachute up really high and then duck under and sit on the edge- creating a large tent with a hole in the top where you can see the sky.  And then is slowly starts to deflate around you... totally safe...

With all these positive tent associations it is regrettable that I now have a negative association to share.  See, when you get the news that your house is being tented, it does not mean that you get animals, s'mores, or hours of tactile play time (unfortunately).  It means that there are termites in the building and that you are being kicked out for two days while they cover the building (in a pretty tent!) and fumigate with poisonous gas. (Yep, I looked it up.  When they assure me that the gas is not water soluble, I immediately become curious as to its other properties... *cough* Chem nerd *cough*)

 

 

 

And for those of you that are unfamiliar, this is what my complex normally looks like...

 

 

 

Cheese and Wine

Sunset and cocktails the top of the Shangri-la on my birthday

Oy, once again, time has gotten the best of me and I find myself weeks behind in my blogging  with several post ideas to write.  In my defense, I have been crazy busy- July was packed with visitors, trips, and my 27th birthday. I have not, and will not, have a free weekend until the end of September.  I'm not complaining, but this schedule leaves very little time for retelling all the action packed fun. In order to ease my burden, I'm using this post to kill two birds with one stone by combining two of my favorite July events which happen to feature two of my favorite things in the world: Cheese and Wine.

The cheese comes in my favorite form; mac and cheese. This year, my birthday party was a mac and cheese tasting hosted by my friend Danielle at her apartment. Guests were asked to bring a variety of mac and cheese to share and everyone at the party tasted the dishes and voted on their favorite.  I felt like a very lucky girl as many of my friends, new and old, showed up with various combinations of cheese and noodles. Even Joni and Sean made the trip up from San Diego!

My creation, Chorizo Mac and Cheese, surrounded by all of the
delicious contributions of my party guests.
Pure heaven.

Though everything was absolutely delicious, in the end, there could only be one winner...

Challenge accepted.

Saturday was quite a day.  James, Emma, and I had all signed up to participate in the L.A. Challenge, an urban scavenger hunt put on by Challenge Nation.  We really had no idea what we were getting into until we got started, so I'm going to allow you to have the same experience by figuring out what this whole shindig was as you read the post...

After registering and deciding on our team name, "The Wild Westsiders," Emma purchased matching team t-shirts and we read the website and gleaned that we would be wandering around Downtown LA solving clues.  Before the challenge, 5 hints to the 12 clues we would get the next day were posted on Facebook:

Yeah... this gave us no advantage at all...

So after trekking downtown on Saturday morning, we went to check in for the race/hunt/adventure thing at a delightful restaurant/bar called "Big Wang's" (really?) and got our bibs before we grabbed lunch.

When we returned to BW's we gathered 'round with the other 163 teams to receive our clues.  I stood in a circle as team captain and was handed an envelope that I had to hold out in front of me until every team had an envelope and the organizers had counted down from 10.  Then everyone ripped open the clues and ran for the teams.  Naturally, I had lost Emma and James, but fortunately they found me and we got to work on our clues:

I realize you can't read this... don't worry

We were greeted by 12 clues, 11 of which needed to be completed to finish the challenge.  All needed picture evidence to prove that we had accomplished the task.  After trying to quickly and strategically figure out the areas of Downtown that we needed to go to and what order was best, we RAN to the Staples Center.

**Disclaimer: I apologize for my extremely stupid face in ALL of the pictures.  I was trying to say in character with the clues.  In hindsight, I look really tired, sweaty, and dumb.  Enjoy!