Happy New Year

Dooley wants to wish you all a happy New Year! We hope you have your party hats on to ring in 2014! 

New Years

I thought I would share some lovely outfits that would be fun to help you ring in the New Year. I will not be going out where I could wear this beautiful number, instead I will likely be sitting in a hottub drinking champagne. 

What are your plans?

New Years - Black by maddy-lehman featuring nars cosmetics

Date Night - F is for Festival

F is for Festival...a Hot Air Balloon festival to be exact! A few weeks ago I saw a LivingSocial deal for this festival and I knew we had to go! Andrew and I love hot air balloons, but I've never been close to one! 

I wanted to surprise Andrew but quickly realized I had to tell him why we needed to get up at 4am and make our way down to Phoenix. I knew he wouldn't get up if I didn't tell him and sure enough he got pretty excited! 

We didn't plan our week very well because we ended up going to the midnight showing of The Hobbit two nights before the festival. So on extremely little sleep we woke up many hours before dawn (AZ doesn't do daylight savings) and made our way down south. We arrived with plenty of time to spare apparently, because we wound up waiting in line for about 45 mins! They were operating on a ridiculous system that no one liked, but whatever. 

When we finally made it inside I became super giddy! I had never been around hot air balloons and I just think they are the coolest things ever! We managed to see quite a few balloons fill up and take off before we went to grab breakfast. Unfortunately we didn't know the schedule prior to going (the website was very sparse) and there wasn't much going on until that afternoon. 

At that point we decided to call an end to our adventure-filled morning and make the trip back up the mountains! Even though the morning was short I still had an awesome time! Just check out the photos! Haha. 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from my crazy family to yours!

In case you forgot the front door will remind you which holiday it is!

Andrews family are so photogenic...

Until we take selfies! (Lobsters optional)

Andrew being silly

And those poor buggers got eaten. 

Of course the sink was leaking Christmas morning...

And Andrew was very happy opening all of his presents! (This took me forever to get a smiling picture of him!)

I had to rep New Zealand! The weather in LA certainly made it feel like a NZ Christmas too!

And Now It's Saturday

Why not continue with yesterday's music video!?  I give you Rebecca Black's follow up to her hit single Friday...Saturday. Duh.

Happy Friday

It's throwback Friday....enjoy!

Photographer Spotlight

Dan Marbaix is my photographer to spotlight this week.  I found him through an article I was reading and fell in love with his work.  I mean...how could you not?  His images are breathtaking and then you realize that he shoots in abandoned places and it just about breaks your heart.  His images capture times long gone, loss, decay...and still you can't tear your eyes away. 

He has been arrested 20 times for trespassing...but isn't it so worth it!?

If you're as obsessed as I am, go check out his pages for more photos:

Facebook

Flickr

Website

Catching Fire - Kick Ass Clothing

I still haven't seen Catching Fire yet...I know, I know.  I just haven't gotten around to it yet.  Regardless, I recently learned that the woman who was hired to design the active-wear costumes went to the same school as me in New Zealand!

Pretty spunky right?  Well she's a designer over at this awesome active-wear company in London called Lucas Hugh.  I'm completely obsessing over all the designs, even though I can't remotely justify a purchase from them right now.  So beautiful though....

The Prince Albert Look

The Aelita Look

The Rover Look

They even make swimsuits...seriously!

Themis Swimsuit

Click here to jump to Lucas Hugh to get your shop on!

Date Night - C is for Concert

As I posted here, Andrew and I are going through the alphabet and going on a date for each letter. Originally I was planning on hitting each letter in order, but that's boring. Also I have a couple good ones lined up and didn't want to skip them just because it hadn't done the letters before them.

So...C is for Concert. A B.B. King concert to be specific! Andrew and I had such an amazing time at The Lumineers a couple months ago we decided to go to more concerts. That night we looked at our local performing arts center and saw that B.B. King was coming to our tiny town! We both got so excited we immediately bought tickets! 

There was a random long line outside the doors!  They weren't checking tickets there...I guess no one thought to check if another door would open!

We've been looking forward to this night for so long but didn't realize it was the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I only looked at the calendar last week and saw that we had to book it back from San Francisco to make it in time. And make it we did! 

We got free popcorn! (I had a coupon in the mail)

Dinner was popcorn and a huge gin & tonic!

It was an incredible concert. The venue was small enough it felt pretty intimate (mind you there's still probably about 1,500 seats). B.B. was joking around with the audience and gave a beautiful performance. I'm so glad that we got the opportunity to see him live. He's 88 and still touring, but who knows how much longer. It was seriously awesome! A great date to start off our ABCs!

The man himself!

ABC Dates

A little while ago I read a great date idea on a blog I follow Him & Her.  I thought it was such a cute and inventive idea I had to borrow it.  To keep things fun in our relationship Andrew agreed to do this with me!  We will work our way through the alphabet using the letters to determine our date night.  For example:

A - Arcade

B - Batting Cages

C - Country Club dinner

etc...

I'm excited to start!

Um...Gross

A friend and I went to the Dollar Store the other day to try and find some goodies.  Instead we found this horrible product.  I can't believe stores can legally sell this as a food product.

Well it is gluten free so that must make it good for you....

Until you read the ingredients.  Gross.

For those of you who can't read those top ingredients very well, here they are:

• Mechanically separated chicken
• Partially defatted pork fatty tissue

Seriously...this is what passes as food these days?  It scares me to think that people might be feeding their children this because they think it's the only affordable option.

Volvo Commercial - The Most Badass Commercial Ever

This is seriously the most badass commercial I have ever seen!  Check it out!

Giving Thanks

It's almost Thanksgiving and I know I need to reflect on my life and look at all the things I'm thankful for.  There are many times when I just want to rant about our house or our small town, but I have to remember that these are the moments in life that shape us, they don't define us.  So, here's my list of things I'm thankful for this year.

Having a roof over my head

Sharing my life with my amazing man

Having a wonderful, loving, and supportive family

Being able to afford to go back to school

Having a great education

Having a strong body that keeps getting stronger

Learning new things

Okay, the list is a little cheesy, but I'm pretty happy with all of those things.  I could make a more superficial list saying what 'things' I'm thankful for, but I think that kind of defeats the purpose of this post!

BatKid

There are some days when I am very nostalgic for San Francisco and Friday was one of them.  San Francisco made a 5 year-old child's dream come true by turning the entire city into Gotham City for one day.

Batman and BatKid out to destroy evil!

BatKid (his real name is Miles) is currently in remission from Lukemia and asked the Make A Wish Foundation to become Batman for the day.  San Francisco was more than happy to obliged and the whole city helped out!  Thousands of people showed up to volunteer as they watched BatKid catch The Riddler, who earlier that day kidnapped Lou Seal - the famed Giants mascot.

The Riddler was caught and detained after kidnapping Lou Seal.

They even gave BatKid a Key to the City!

Do you think the key opens doors?

 Here's the newspaper report for the day!

I'm so happy to call San Francisco one of my homes!  It truly is an open and welcoming place for all.  If you would like to see more of Batkid's adventures check out the video below:

Invisible Helmets

A friend of mine on Facebook posted this amazing video and I was instantly intrigued.  In Arizona, where we currently live, there are no laws to enforce wearing a helmet if you are over the age of 18!  This goes for both bicycles and motorcycles.  It always makes me cringe when I see someone who isn't wearing a helmet, because I know it's only a matter of time before that person gets into an accident.

I understand that helmets are ugly and ruin your hair, but I've known several people who have been in severe bicycle accidents and the only thing that saved their life was their helmet.  So needless to say I always wear my helmet, even when it doesn't match my outfit (which is always because my helmet is a hideous pink color)!

But now, we have the invisible helmet.  Brought to you by two insanely intelligent Swedish women.  Watch the video and check them and their product out!

The Invisible Bicycle Helmet | Fredrik Gertten from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.

You can buy their helmets online here.  I know what I'm putting on my Christmas wish list!

Marin County Triathlon

My dad and I competed in the Marin County Triathlon last year and somehow I managed to convince him to do it with me again this year!  The triathlon took place this past weekend and the weather couldn't have been more perfect.  Andrew and I made our travel plans to fly out to spend the weekend with my parents and Saturday morning for the tri.  

Our plans were foiled (slightly) when I took a tumble on my bike on Thursday and banged up my knee.  It hurt like hell and Friday afternoon I decided to pull out of the tri last minute.  I was super bummed (and still am), but I was happy to play spectator and paparazzi to my dads accomplishment!  

The Sustainable Sports Foundation puts on this annual triathlon.

We didn't arrive in time to see my dad take off on the swim, but we were able to catch him right as he came out of the water!  Luckily I was able to get a good spot on the beach and snapped a couple quick photos of him.  

 Then there was a lot of waiting.  I wasn't able to snap any pictures of him while he was in the transition area (my lens wasn't nearly big enough) and we were standing in the wrong place to see him off on his bike ride!

Great sign I spotted right by the transition entrance!

These flags lined the pathways and went all the way to the finish line.

 Seriously there was a lot of waiting.  We had a good time though, laughing at my Aunt's hilarious stories!

My mom and Aunt Deirdre

My big brother Travis

And then dad came charging down the hill!

He was all smiles.

 Then we had more waiting until he came back around for the run.

Conservation Core was everywhere.  Definitely felt like we were in the Bay Area!

 And then came dad!  He couldn't stop smiling the whole time.

Last leg of the race!

My mom ended up chasing him down the path so she could get a photo of him!

Mom had to get the shot!

Deirdre and Andrew

Me and Andrew.

 And not soon after dad came through the finish line!

He actually finished 1:37, but the clock was started from the first round of people (my dad was one of the last).

All done!