Southwest Airline Tickets

Hello Friends!

So through our business we get Rapid Rewards tickets and I've got too many (cool right :)) So I'm selling some of mine. 1 Round Trip ticket to anywhere in the Continental USA is $300. I've got enough tickets for a large family to travel :) Let me know if you want any or if you know someone that may. You can email me directly at erin.hoy@sbcglobal.net - THANKS!

The Host

I finished reading the Host today and it was pretty interesting. I found it to be a little bit predictable, but still good. But now I have a dilemma that I face every time I finish a good book... I do not have any idea what to read next!!! PLEASE HELP!!! I like romance, mystery, WWII, Nancy Drew (read a lot of those in my younger years) and just darn good books! Suggestions PLEASE!!!!

My Laundry Helper

Ryan is such a big "helper"! His new task that he likes to help with is Laundry. And he does a pretty darn good job :)

My Rock Star

So we have Rock Band... I love playing Rock Band... except that I am constantly having to share with my 18month old - who is better at it than I am... :)

More Rickey Pictures

As promised her are some random pictures of me and Rickey Henderson over the years... They are in no particular order... I'm feeling very nostalgic lately so please bear with me :) This was the cover of the Padres magazine... This was opening weekend about 1996... I think. I introduced Rickey to the crowd during the lineup! Rickey was handed one of his jerseys on the way out and gave it to me! He was very surprised to see me there!!!

This was Kid's Opening Day in Oakland 1994ish... I threw the ceremonially opening pitch - Rickey was, of course, the catcher and the ball bounce several times before reaching him and I was several feet in front of the pitching mound :) hahaRickey just happened to be doing an interview with some Japanese news people and after he was done came over and took some pictures with us... I want to say this is early 90's - before 1993.This was September 2001 - I was 17years old and really able to see how cool these experiences were! I again got to introduce Rickey to the crowd before his first at bat. It was awesome!This is the FIRST ever Hi Rickey sign. I was 5 years old - I think that the Hall of Fame should consider putting this baby in the display :)Rickey had a small stint with this league playing for the San Diego Surf Dawgs. He was the only big name and they only one who could play ball. I was out of high school by this time so it was like 2004ish.Opening Day at Petco Park! My Dad surprised all of us with tickets to the game and somehow we found out that Rickey was there and someone took us down to see him. It was great to catch up with him! He told us that the was coaching Little League - Can you imagine having RICKEY HENDERSON as your kids Little League Coach???So I lied in my last post - This was actually the Bronze BASE that I presented Rickey (Man, How many bronze bases are the Padres going to give Rickey???) The thing weighed a TON and Rickey lifted it like it was NOTHING!

Hope you have enjoyed these pictures. Please remember to read my last post if you have NO idea what I'm talking about. Haha - Comments please :)

HALL OF FAME BABY!!!

Today at 11am, Rickey Henderson was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame! I plan to be there this July for the induction ceremony! I'm so excited!

For those of you who don't know the story... it's a LONG one, but suffice to say that I've been his NUMBER 1 fan since I was 5 years old. Click HERE for a really good article that explains a lot! It's worth reading :) It was an article printed in the September 13, 1993 Sports Illustrated! This is actually a pretty emotionally good day for me! I'm so proud of my friend!!!I'm going to ask my Dad for some pictures of me and Rickey from back in the day so I will post those soon.

I presented that Bronze Base to Rickey in 1996... Over the phone we thought that the Padres were presenting him with a Bronze Vase and didn't get the significance, but a BASE makes much more sense! :)

Disneyland!

The Saturday after Christmas we went to Disneyland and renewed Ben's annual pass! Then we went again on New Year's Eve and New Years Day... Lot of Disneyland in a short amount of time. Here are some pictures of the fun!

By the way - quick story. Always remember where you park your car in the massive parking structure at Disneyland because if you happen to forget or not even look in the first place you may spend an hour looking for your car like we did...

CHARGERS BABY!!!

This blog is going to be a little bit long and I apologize for that, but I promise you it's worth reading! Especially if:

A. You are a CHARGERS fan

B. You have watched the first couple of seasons of 24

C. You watch the TV show The Unit (and if you don't... YOU REALLY SHOULD START!)

So this little adventure all started on Tuesday at the office at about 3:05pm. Melissa asked me if I had bought my Chargers tickets yet... wait I need to back up even more! Ben was REALLY excited that the Chargers by pure luck made it into the playoffs. We had plans to go to our friend Tim's house to watch the game (we canceled our cable and we HAD to watch it!!!) Ben was really excited about going to Tim's and talked about it literally NON-STOP all week long. Ok... So back to Tuesday... Melissa asked me if I had bought my tickets and I didn't have a clue what she was talking about so she informed me that the playoff tickets went on sale at 3pm. We both thought that they were probably sold out at this point, but I was curious. So I went to Chargers.com and check it out. Their site directed me to Ticketmaster where I searched for tickets... I was sure that they were sold out, but low and behold there were tickets available on the FIELD LEVEL!!! I was soooo stoked, but I didn't know if I should buy them... They were kind of expensive and we don't have a lot of money. But then I thought - This is a freaking PLAYOFF game that is here at home on a SATURDAY! We have to go! So I bought the tickets!

Now I need to explain to you how it was growing up in my family. I grew up in a house that LOVED surprises! When I was about 10 my Dad took my mom to San Fransisco for the weekend for their anniversary... When my mom thought they were driving home, they drove to their airport instead and he flew her to Reno for a huge anniversary party! I still remember the surprised look on my mom's face. This was a common occurrence in my family to do surprises for each other. I have not been so good at surprises for Ben. I get so excited that I just end up telling him :) But I was determined this time that that was NOT going to happen!!!

I had it all planned out. Only 4 people knew that I bought the tickets - Melissa (because she was there at the time of purchase), My mom and dad (because I had to tell someone!) and Tim (because I needed help with my plan). We were supposed to leave for Tim's party at 3:45, but I knew that we needed to leave earlier to get down to the stadium. So I had Tim call Ben and tell him that he (Tim) was going to have a Tailgate party at 3pm. Ben was really excited about this - Ben doesn't get excited about much, but he was REALLY excited about Tim's party! So now we were going to leave at 2pm - PERFECT TIME! So yesterday at 2pm we dropped Ryan off at my parents house and Ben just happened to be talking to Brettley - which also just worked out perfectly. So after Ben was done talking to him I asked to talk on the phone (to pretend I was distracted :)) We needed to get on the 15 North to go to Tim's and the 15 South to go to the Stadium... So I was talking on the phone to Brettley and got on the 15 South... Ben didn't say anything... So I said - "Oh dang it! Where am I going???" I made it sound like I was so dumb dumb :) Then I asked Ben - "Hey can you open the glove box and get the..." I trailed off and Ben opened the glove box and found this... Apparently the first thing he saw was the Cheetos and then he saw the tickets and was kind of confused for a second. He took out the tickets and asked What is this? I said CHARGERS BABY! He was shocked - He told me later that for a split second he was bummed that we were going to Tim's but then it sunk in that we were going to the game and he was SOOOO EXCITED!!! It was great! Best surprise I've EVER done!!!

So we took the Trolley into the game and watched warm-ups which is always exciting.
Then we decided to go to our seats! They were great seats! About 2 sections over from the goal posts - we were right at the end zone. As our usher was showing us our seats he pointed out a man to me. I STARTED FREAKING OUT! I couldn't speak - I just started hitting Ben and whispered LOOK! LOOK! LOOOK!!! One of Ben and my FAVORITE show is The Unit on CBS. The main character on that show Dennis Haysbert plays a guy named Jonas Blaine. And it just so happened that he was standing 2 feet away from us! I was so star-struck. He was talking to someone, but could tell that 2 people were totally staring at him so he turned around and looked at us. Ben shook his hand and said "Hi, I know you came to watch a football game, but we're huge fans and we don't want to harass you." Jonas "Snake-Doctor" Blaine then told Ben "Bless you!" He has a really rich voice in real life that was mesmerizing. I shook his hand next and said something really stupid... "I'm usually not this star-struck, but we are huge fans!" What a dumb thing to say to someone! He was a very nice man though with huge hands and a very friendly firm handshake! Did I mention how attractive he is? Very :) We didn't want to be annoying to him so we didn't ask to take a picture with him, but I did get one of the back of his head :)Notice how his jacket says "The Unit" on it! SO cool! And one of him in his seat! He seemed to be a super cool guy and that was one of the best parts of the night!

The place was PACKED! There was even a line to get into the Men's bathroom - that is virtually unheard of!To make a long story short - the game was GREAT! LT made a touchdown RIGHT in front of us and that was super exciting. Since it was so pack the crowd was going crazy! It was great! We definitely messed with the Colts offense a few time because we were so loud! Scifres our punter did such an amazing job! He would kick the ball perfectly EVERY SINGLE TIME! Amazing! We were behind by 3 in the 4th quarter and Nate Kaeding had to make a field goal. This usually doesn't make me nervous, but Nate has a record of chocking in the post season! But luckily he made it and we tied the game pushing us into Over Time! I was a nervous wreak! I had to force myself to watch! It was a GREAT OT! The Chargers seemed to be doing everything right! When Sproles got the touchdown to win the game the stadium erupted! It was AMAZING and something I will never forget! Ben almost passed out from cheering so much and my throat is super sore today, but it was totally worth it!

Here we are after the incredible win!

Me with some fans after the game :) The cool thing about football games is that all the fans are cool - Everyone was high fiving each other after we won! It was great - the only annoying fans there were these 2 dumb drunk girls who sat right in front of us... I don't want to talk about it...

After the game we went and found Dennis Haysbert's seat... Pathetic I know, but he is sooooo freaking RAD!Yes, Ben is holding Snake-Docs leftovers :)

CHARGERS BABY!!! ROUND ONE IS OVER AND WE WON!!! Let's get ready for ROUND 2!!! WHOOOOO HOOOOO!!!!

Ringing In 2009!

Last night we went to Disneyland to celebrate New Years Eve! We did this last year and discovered a really fun band named Suburban Legends. They are great :) They came back to Disneyland again this year and did not disappoint us!!! We meet up with my cousin Lesley and her husband Cory (who looks like Jacob Black), but we didn't hang out with them long (we're going back today to hang with them :) Can't get too much of Disneyland!) So instead we hung out with our friends Wes and Ilse, Bernie and Toreva, and Ilse's friends Todd and Ashley (THAT'S RIGHT I SAID TODD AND ASHLEY! WHAT ARE THE CHANCES!!!) Ben got there a little bit later than I did (He had to work) so I hung out with our friends and it was really fun! We got free New Year's Eve hats and stood in really long lines to get hot chocolate. Then Ben got there and we went on some rides. We went on Indiana Jones twice (cut in line both times... Ilse is really good at that :)), Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear. Ben and I also went to see our Band and the group meet up with us later.

L-R: Bernie, Toreva, Ashley, Todd, Ilse, Wes, Me, Ben and Ryan

Now I need to explain something about the band. Last year, they seemed to REALLY like Ben and not so much like me at all! They would throw these Marti-gras beads and like 3 of the band mates gave some to Ben - I was really jealous! So this year I was determined to get me some beads! So we found this little spot to watch the band that we right next to the side of the stage and away from all the annoying groupies! And the lead singer came over and gave us all beads!!!! I was so happy! Then we made friends with a lady who worked on the stage and she gave us MORE beads! Ben of course still had way more than me because the Band kept throwing them to him... I don't know why they like him so much!!!