San Diego Safari Park

My mom and I went to Murrieta for a few days to visit on of my mom's friends earlier this week. While we were there we went to the San Diego Safari Park in Escondido. I have always been in love with wild animals and it was so great to see them up close. When we got there I did not know what to expect. To get a feel for the lay out of the park we went on the tram that took us around their African Exhibits. We saw so many great animals, but my favorites would have to be the Rhinos and the Giraffes. Here are some good pictures from the ride on the tram:

After we got off the tram we walked around some more, making our way over to the Cheetahs. While we were there we caught the Cheetah Tails show. A trainer brought out a cheetah to a small grass area on a leech without any barriers. The trainer would walk around with the Cheetah so we could get a better look at him while we learned some information about Cheetahs. It was so cool to be only 5 feet away from the Cheetah. I wanted so badly to reach out and pet him. We were told before the show started that we were not allowed to reach out because it would make the Cheetah uncomfortable. But, being 5 feet away was good enough for me. It was such an awesome experience and my favorite moments of the day.

While we walked around I got some pictures of flowers

Such well trained animals. I would love to do something like this

They brought out the dog too. The cheetah and dog grew up together and do everything together except eat. The dog helps keep the cheetah calm.
This is how close I was, no zoom needed for this picture

My mom's friend Phyllis wanted to do the Flightline Safari. While we waited for her my mom and I saw the bird show. The show was really good and I was amazed at all the pretty birds. After the show we went and looked at the Gorillas. They were fun to watch.

Some great views of the Giraffes

After meeting up with Phyllis we decided that we have had enough and we started heading towards the exit. Before we left we went to see the Elephants. I had such a good time I was so amazed at everything I saw and experienced. Sorry for only posting pictures of only five animals, the tigers were not in their area and the lion exhibit was being redone.

It had rained the morning after so I got this good shot of one of Phyllis' flowers.

Easter

My mom and I had a great Easter filled with fun and family as we always have had. I woke up to some of my favorite candy: dove dark chocolate eggs and recces peanut butter chocolate eggs and bunny yum!! My mom wanted to keep it festive she hid some of the dove eggs and the peanut butter eggs. After I had found everything I immediately ate the recces eggs and some of the dove eggs, yep that's right CANDY FOR BREAKFAST!!!! The breakfast of champions. In the afternoon we headed over to Rose and Lyle's house for dinner. We join them and their family for Easter, 4th of July, and Thanksgiving for the past four years every since my dad passed away. They had a great dinner, we had roast beef and ham sandwiches with all the trimmings. I was so good, I was really hungry. We spent the rest of the afternoon talking and playing some games. We decided to head home early as people were leaving too. I really enjoy spending time with my new extended family. They are such fun and great people and I am grateful that they welcomed us into their family.

Bedroom Painting

After completing painting the kitchen, the next task to complete was painting my bedroom. I have been wanting to repaint it for a while because I did not like the way one of the colors turned out the last time I repainted my room. So, I kept one color (the purple) and changed the other color (the pink) to a cream color. It took my a while to prepare my walls with taking down my pictures and washing my walls. I took everything out of my bedroom a week early so I could do prep work, and ended up sleeping in the living room which I did not mind. I had decided that I wanted to repaint by myself after gaining a new confidence in my painting skills while painting the kitchen. I started earlier this week and started with the purple first and eased my way to the cream color finally finishing on Friday. I was amazed at how well everything turned out and I was pretty proud of myself that I could do that great of a job and I had so much fun doing it. I had set a goal for myself that I wanted to be back in my room for today (Saturday) and met that goal. After finishing Friday I moved half my stuff back in my room that night and I wanted to spend one more night in the living room to give my room a chance to air out. Today my mom helped me hang my pictures back up and move my bed back in.

My two original colors

My two new colors. Much better I think :)

Merry Christmas!!

I was very prepared for Christmas this year, I made up my list early and gave it to my mom in late October and she was thrilled well, not really. Today turned out to be a great day. The weather has been nice despite the 6 days of straight rain last week, which I had no problem with, I love the rain. This morning was nice a chilly and my mom and I opened presents. My mom got me some great gifts, she got me the complete first season's of the "Vampire Diaries" and the "Office", the Harry Potter 2011 calendar :), some pajama shirts and comfy socks, a purse, a Wii fit for our Wii console, and some other goodies. It was interesting how we got our Wii console, we got it for free!!!, a friend of my moms gave it to us when she found it in her neighbors yard. I had opened all of those and we sat and ate some cinnamon rolls from Cinnobon (yum!!), I got up to go and put my presents in my room and came back to find two more surprises - an Ipod Classic and some new headphones! It was a really great surprise, I had been talking about getting a new Ipod for quite some time and then my mom could have my old one. We've had a few problems sorting out how to get two Ipods on one computer and spent about almost two and a half hours fixing it and only gotten it half fixed. But other than that it has been a great day. We ended our Christmas day with a nice steak dinner and rain :) Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year :)

Kitchen Painting

It's amazing how a new coat of paint can make everything seem so new and make everything so much better. In June my mom decided to repaint the kitchen, we thought it was time and we were getting tired of the yucky brown color. We debated for a while on the color because we had to chose a color that would cover the wall paper. So we came to a decision to paint the cabinets black and the wall white. We started off slowly because we did not know how it would turn out and there was a lot more prep work then expected. I would do some of the prep work during the week and my mom and I would paint on the weekends. The first thing we wanted to do was pull up the floor (we also decided to put on a new floor). We started on the area above and below the stove and it was turning out very nice, then moved onto the area below the sink. Once that was done we started on the cabinets above. It took us quite a while to do everything, by late October we had the area of the fridge to do which was a big area and the floor. Painting the wall white was kind of tricky, but we covered it with lots of layers of primer and white. We made it a goal to be done by Thanksgiving cause I was having friends over for dinner. A week before Thanksgiving my mom put the floor in and bought some nice curtains and we were done. We were happy the way it turned out and that we were finally done :)

During

After

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt1 "

  Kimberly and I went to see "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" this morning and it was amazing. I think that it was the best movie of the series. It was true to the book which was great and since there are two parts why not stay true to the book. I really enjoyed it, it had a great combination of drama, comedy, and suspense. I loved watching all the special effects that were in the movie. I was captivated throughout the whole movie, I jumped, I laughed, and even cried. It was weird not seeing the comforts of Hogwarts since 'Harry', 'Ron', and 'Hermione' are on the run from Voldermort and the Death Eaters. I had some of my favorite moments: When 'Harry' was transported to the Burrow(where 'Ron' lives) and the others were transformed into Harry's to throw of the Death Eaters. When the main three went into the Ministry as workers to try to obtain something and to find more information (I am not going to go into further detail) Also, when 'Harry' and 'Hermione' went to Godric Hallow I was in suspense then too and jumped when the snake struck from nowhere at the opening at the top of the stairs. I got teary eyed a few times when 'Hedwig' (Harry's Owl) died protecting him from the killing curse. Can someone please tell my WHY!?!?! HEDWIG NO!!!. I was sad to see her die, I loved that Owl but I was grateful that she went quickly . When 'Dobby' died I could feel the tears come I loved that Elf too and I am getting teary eyed again just thinking about it right now. The performances was awesome as always Dan, Rupert, and Emma did a really good job. Rupert was so funny, I love his character. Helena Bonham Carter once again stole the show at ever scene that she was in, she is amazing at playing 'Bellatrix Lestrange'. I will definitely be going to see it again, hopefully soon. I cannot wait for Part 2, to see how they portray the rest of the book in the movie and I am really excited to watch the final battle. I am sad knowing that the end of this series is almost upon us. I always get excited when a new 'Harry Potter' movie is coming out, it is the best movie series ever.

Birthday Dinner

I had my birthday dinner with my church friends yesterday at Elephant Bar. My evening started out with me and my friends who I went to the restaurant with having to make a pit stop at my friends house to drop off the cake. My mom told me that it was too hot to leave the cake in the car like I had originally planned. That pit stop caused us to be late and anyone who knows me knows that I hate to be late where ever I go, but it wasn't a big deal. As the evening began I relaxed and started to have fun. My dinner was good and everyone else seemed to enjoy their food too. I opened a gift from Kimberly, her brother Brandon, and sister-in-law Christine cause they were not able to stay for cake I got Twilight stuff: a few key chains, pins, and a 'Team Jacob' thermos. The Twilight stuff would go great with the wolf earrings that Lisa and Rachel bought me when we went to the Santa Monica Pier :) Everyone had a good time talking and eating. After we were done with dinner some of us headed to Katie's house to have cake. I bought my cake from Wal Mart and it turned better than I had imagined and everyone thought it was so cute. I bought number candles and my friends were joking that they wanted to make me 52 lol, I wanted to go younger either 2 or 5 depending on my maturity level to which Karina replied that I should be 5 (thanks Karina :)) After cake I opened the rest of my presents from Yinna and Katie. Yinna got me a journal and Katie got me body spray and wash, earrings, and a few accessories. We played games for the rest of the night mostly some of us played on Katie's Wii. It was getting late so Karina and I decided to leave. I had such a great time and I was grateful that I was able to spend time with such great people. This has been the best birthday by far :)

My beautiful cake

Me and my friends at the restaurant

Me and my beautiful cake

The cake with the candles I hated having to cut into it