Aaron's 21st

So I know it's been a really long time since we last posted anything. But to be honest, we really haven't got up to anything interesting. Saturday night we went to my Aunt Milissa's house for Aaron's 21st birthday. It's hard to believe he is just turning 21 but what can I say, my cousin is a cougar, lol. At least Aaron is a pretty awesome guy and he had a fantastic party.

Here is a picture of Aaron while we were singing happy birthday.


My brother and his girl Laura.

A picture of Jamie and I, all bundled up in our jackets. My mom was kind enough to save me a seat by the heater but I still kept my jacket on :)



My Mom, Aunt Michelle, and me.

Milissa's, as usual, decorated and everything looked amazing. It was raining, yet again, so they had a big marque for everyone to sit under. It stopped raining about an hour into the party so everyone was able to dance after that to a live band. We had a lot of fun and ate some pretty great food.

But now the weekend is over and it's back to work. Hope everyone has a great week!

Super Bowl XLIV

On Sunday, we watched the Super Bowl with my parents and bbq'd. Of course, as many Americans do, we created a Super Bowl pool for the 4 of us. I'm happy to report I won $5 and Jamie won $15. Basically the Griffin's swept the pool, sorry Mom and Dad.

The Super Bowl was watched by more than 106 million people and is now the most-watched program in television history.

In case you were wondering, the New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts 31-17.

The Mission Inn

On Saturday, we drove inland to Downtown Riverside to see the Mission Inn. The Mission Inn is a hotel built in the Mission Style. It was never meant to be a mission at all but the owner, a bit eccentric, built it in this style and often dressed as a monk to draw guests to his hotel (even though he was a quaker). It was started in 1874 but took off as a destination hotel in the early 1900's.

Frank Miller, took over the hotel from his father and created an amazing place. He traveled across Europe and bought what he could from different places. If he couldn't buy it, he would sketch it and have his builders re-create it. If he didn't have a place for it, he would build one. Which makes the hotel a bit of a maze with all sorts of different pathways and art within it's walls.

Although Riverside isn't very highly regarded these days, back in the early 1900s it used to be quite the destination spot primarily because of the Orange industry. People would spend several months in the area and many of them stayed at the Mission Inn. Including several Presidents, movie stars, and writers.

It is now a National Historic Landmark and is protected from any alterations. It was a beautiful hotel and it would be pretty fun to stay there for a night. While we were there, the Dickens Festival was going on just down the street from the hotel. It was a bit funny to see people in Victorian dress walking up and down the streets and around the hotel. It was also interesting to see the different interpretations of Victorian dress. The home made soldiers outfits were definitely interesting. We've decided people just like to dress up and if they can why not, lol.

Downtown L.A. - Art Deco Tour

Saturday was one of those amazing days that you know you're just never going to forget. We drove up to the Long Beach area and jumped on the metro blue line to go into downtown Los Angeles. We had been wanting to take the LA Conservancy Art Deco walking tour for about a year and a half and we finally had a weekend free to go and do it.

Our tour started at 10 am and we got there with plenty of time. The metro was interesting. It was cheap, for $5 you can get an all day pass. However, we did go through Compton and Watts and so saw some rough areas along the way. There are some very poor neighborhoods but the trip was nice and easy and it was a straight ride into the city.


Los Angeles really boomed in the 20s and 30s and there are quite a few Art Deco buildings still around. A few, unfortunately, have been torn down but there were enough buildings to see to keep the tour going for over two hours. This picture is of the Eastern Columbia Building built in 1930. It is a beautiful turquoise color and has all the qualities of a classic Art Deco building.

Many of the buildings are still used as office space, a lot have been turned into apartments and lofts, and others are empty.

One of the highlights of the tour was the Oviatt Building. On the outside it is not an Art Deco building but on the inside it is all done out in the Art Deco style. The lower floor, which originally was a haberdashery is now a restaurant. The Cicada Restaurant and Club now occupy the lower floor.

The interior of the restaurant still has all it's 1930's grandeur and the restaurant still puts on big band, jazz, and costumed themed parties of the 20s, 30s, and 40s. I'd love to spend an evening here!

The top floor of the Oviatt Building was built as the building owners penthouse. The security guard was kind enough to let us go up and have a look. You can still rent out the penthouse for $4,500 a night. The Cicada Club has some of their event after parties there. This is the view from one of the windows, 13 floors up.

The Los Angeles Public Library is another example of Art Deco architecture but a bit more simplistic and with more Egyptian influences.

Here is a close up of one of the sides of the library.

Unfortunately, one of Downtown's best examples of Art Deco architecture and one of it's most ornate was the Richfield Tower, also known as the Richfield Oil Company Building, torn down in 1968 to make way for more "Modern" buildings. It was black and gold, as seen in the picture above and was built in 1928. In it's place two sky scrapers were built, once known as Arco Towers. City National Bank now occupies one of the buildings and I went there a year and a half ago for training when I first started working there.


The only thing remaining of the building is to the back of the two towers. These are the elevator doors stacked on top of each other, hidden away as an art installment. Truly sad that this building didn't make it, but the elevator doors were amazing and at least they were still around to see.

After the tour, we continued to explore Downtown and had a great time seeing all the amazing buildings. We finished the day having tea at the Biltmore Hotel. The hotel was built in 1923 and is in the Beaux Arts style. It's beautiful and ornate and was the perfect finish to our day. I think we will be doing some more exploring of Los Angeles in the future.

The PBR

Saturday was PBR (Professional Bull Riders) night at the Honda Center in Anaheim. My parents, Jamie and I went to go see the PBR for the first time. It was a blast, we had so much fun. There are not many places where they sell rifles, boots and whisky at the event and pray before it starts!

My Mom and I were suited and booted for the night :)

One of our Christmas presents this year!

There were a lot of cowboys and girls with some pretty interesting outfits. I think we all liked looking at the people attending just as much as watching the bull riders.

We had some pretty amazing seats. Not right next to the bull pens but close enough to see a lot of bull saliva whipping around.

Some of those bulls are huge!

The night was a mixture of bull riding and entertainment. There were commercial breaks as it was being televised on Sunday night but we were very much entertained by the nights host (in green).

Some cowboy skills!

Jamie and I :)

I'll leave you with one of the more successful 8 second ride!

(We did see a few falls and close calls, those guys are tough!)

General Update

Well, January seems to be flying by. We haven't really done anything exciting the last few weeks. We had a nice New Year's Weekend and saw Avatar. Visually it was pretty amazing but the storyline was just too predictable. Jamie has also been replacing some wood on the house and we finally primed the wood on Sunday a few hours before it started raining.

Unfortunately, my Aunt Irene passed away on January 9th at home with her husband Lionel. He was at a point where he wasn't able to take care of her anymore and was looking for a hospice for her. But on Saturday morning he woke up at 4 am and noticed she was breathing very lightly. She passed away at 4:21 am. Irene had been fighting Alzheimer's for a few years now and the past 4 months were incredibly difficult as she had deteriorated significantly. In a way it was a blessing to finally know she was free from the state that she was in. I wish I had a good picture to post of her but I have not been able to find one.

The first part of this month was difficult but the rest of the month looks promising. On Saturday, we are going to the PBR (Professional Bull Riding) Rodeo at the Honda Center which should be a lot of fun and we will take plenty of pictures and the Dickens Festival is coming up in Riverside which looks pretty good too. Hopefully, over the next few weeks I will have a lot to post!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!!!!

Not only has another year gone by but another decade. Can you believe y2k was 10 years ago! The great thing about a new year is the possibilities it could bring. From the looks of 2010 it could shape up to be a pretty amazing year!