Okay...so I know I haven't blogged since the beginning of December. It sucks not having my own computer! I can't keep up with anything. Scott's computer is a pain because it doesn't accept my camera, so it is incredibly difficult and time consuming to get my pictures on my blog. I am SO behind! I'll catch you up quickly and then post pictures when I can.

DECEMBER 25, 2007 - Christmas - Was great! This was the first Christmas we have spent with my family in 6 years! (Actually on Christmas day) The kids of course raked in the gifts. Hayden got his first computer (actually, he got two computers! -- what do you expect, we live with Dave Pollard now) and he loves playing them. I love it too, because they are all learning games and it keeps him occupied other than watching movies all day long. By the second day he had mastered the mouse! He is so smart! I think Laney's favorite present was the baby stroller. She pushes that thing around all over the place. Sometimes she pushes her little baby around in it, but mostly she pushes around her blankie (or bee-bee, as she calls it).

January 15, 2008 - My Birthday - What a hoot! I went to Hollywood for two days with Becky. She took me to the Dr. Phil show and the Price is Right. What can I say...it didn't all go the way we had planned. We made a lot of memories, some I think we both hope to forget. We arrived Monday night (Jan 14th) late. Our hotel was really nice...and really inexpensive for the location - we started off pretty good and super excited about the two days of fun we had ahead of us!...That is, until Tuesday morning rolled around. We were up and parked in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery (parking for Dr. Phil) by 7 AM. We entered into the holding room where a woman was speaking to the audience about "saggy pants"...what? Could this possibly be the topic for the show? You have got to be kidding. Sadly, it was. We were supposed to be excited about talking about saggy pants. Woo hoo...?!? When we got in the studio, they separated Becky and I. They took me down to an empty seat and told me they were going to shuffle me around throughout the taping. They didn't end up doing that, but they did take me out before the show was over, so I missed the end. Just in case you were wondering, the show aired yesterday. I'm SO SORRY if you missed it...! (That was cyber-sarcasm, in case you couldn’t tell.)

After the show, we tried to get into the second taping, but it was full. For the next large portion of the day, we drove around looking for a hotel room for the second night (because our hotel the night before was sold out). I'll spare you most of those details except to say that "Hollywood" is not the beautiful place you think it is. When you walk into a hotel that looks creepy and still costs over $100/night and ask the Indian man behind the counter if it is safe and he, in broken english says, "I have been here for 27 years and I'm still alive...that is the best answer I can give you,"...lets just say, we would have rather slept in our car. We finally found a hotel where we felt reasonably safe and that was affordable. The rest of the day, we drove around and shopped in stores where scarves cost you $7,000 (Fred Segal). We hoped to get a glimpse of someone famous, but no such luck. On to bed...to rest up for a better, more exciting day on the Price is Right!

January 16, 2008 – We arrived at the CBS studios at 6:30 AM ready to "COME ON DOWN!" When you arrive, you receive an “order of arrival number” and we were pretty high up on the list, so we were excited! We had to be back by 8AM to get in line. We kept asking people around us if they had been there before, hoping to find someone who would know what we were in for…but to our surprise, everyone we talked to was there for the first time, just like us. We soon figured out why. We had to wait in the cold, on cold hard benches until 3PM – for 7 HOURS! And, mind you, the whole time we had to remain in numerical order. We were stuck on the end of the bench next to this old guy who told me he liked it when I “vibrated” (because of the cold, my leg kept shaking). Every so often, they would come by and move us from one bench to another, but only to wait for several more hours. The worst part about all of this is you don’t know what’s happening next, so you have no idea how much longer you have to wait, and you don’t want to give up and leave because you have already spent ALL this time waiting! After we got our name tags, they lined us up for the audition process. We finally got through that and made it into the studio, only to be sat in the WORST seats possible. We were behind the production table, so we were pretty much blocked from seeing the stage or Drew Carey. We had to look up at the tiny screen above us the whole time, so our necks hurt terribly by the time it was over. At the end of the taping, they offered to have anyone stay for the second taping because they had plenty of extra seats. We were in no mood to stay for another taping, we just wanted out of there. The only good part about it was Drew…he really was a great host! If in like 10 years we ever forget how terrible this was and decide we want to go back again, we did figure out what we need to do to have a little bit better experience the next time.

The best part of this day was going to Sprinkles. It is a little cupcake shop that we learned about on Oprah. They have GREAT cupcakes. We got a box of them to take home. My favorite was the chocolate coconut…yum, yum!!

Becky, I love you and thank you for taking me to Hollywood for my birthday! Even though it didn’t go as well as we would have liked it to, I can’t imagine anyone else I would have rather shared those days with. I really did have fun making those memories with you (many of which I did not mention here…) I look forward to our next road trip together! Love you, girl!!