Skymall Birthday Wishlist

I love to shop, but not in the traditional “Let’s go to the mall and have a girly shopping spree heyday” kind of shopping. As soon as I was old enough to help my mom clip coupons, I gained mad discount bargain shopping skills. I am true to my brand loyalties, despite buying most of my stuff at discount retailers and thrift stores. Growing up, I was a sucker for the “As Seen On TV” commercial products (I still am, if the recently acquired SlapChop in my cupboard is any indication). I’ve been shopping online since the late 1990’s, and get better prices on the things I do buy that way. Although I don’t do much shopping from catalogs, I have had a longtime guilty pleasure obsession with SkyMall Magazine.

Nothing produces a case of the “Gimmes” more than Skymall. It’s a brilliant airline marketing tactic…fill 136 pages with exciting and unique products, and provide each passenger with a copy at arm’s length. I usually ban myself from even pulling the magazine out of my seatback pocket, knowing that I will launch into greedy materialistic consumer mode before I hit 10,000′ altitude. But on my flight back from Memphis this weekend, I indulged in a little SkyMall fantasizing. In honor of my upcoming 30th birthday (in 17 days), here is my Skymall wishlist:

Sassybax Perfect-Fit Body Shaper $32.50

NeatDesk Scanner $399.95

Bodyform Fitness Platform $199.95

Leg Lamp (from A Christmas Story) $39.95

Rechargeable iPhone Stand $69.95

LED Fret Electric Guitar $499.95

Magellan Aluminum Wallet $29.95

I’ve never actually purchased something directly through Skymall, but I have found the items on eBay and purchased them for much less (I still don’t know why people pay $30 for an iPod charger when you can get one for less than $3 on eBay…) If these gifts are out of your price range, you can also check out my Amazon Wishlist…and I say this in the least greedy, “I’ll still be your friend regardless of the gift” voice possible. I like presents, but I like friends more. Stay tuned for details on my upcoming 30th birthday bash on February 5th…

Just for fun…comment and tell me what your SkyMall obsession items!

Sneak Peek at How My Weekend Started

Sleeping at SLC gate C09

(Yep! I Even Brought my CPAP!)

CALoween 2009

There’s something really nice about celebrating Halloween in a place where it’s warm. All growing up, I remember Halloween night being bundled up in parkas or raincoats, covering up my costume….coming home with a bag of soggy candy. For the two years I lived in California, I decided that I preferred warm, sunny Halloweens. We went last year while living in Michigan, and had a great time trick-or-treating through La Verne. When Rosie had a day off school last Friday, I decided to get in a little family and friend time in California.I pulled Rosie out of school a little early on Wednesday. We drove up to SLC, parked our car, went through security, and made it to our gate just as the plane was boarding. We were assigned seats together, and the flight was just long enough to finish my Entertainment Weekly, drink my Coke Zero, and browse some of the Delta entrainment options. We arrived at LAX around 4:00 pm, and hoped to zoom up the 405 before traffic got too congested. Unfortunately, I went with a super-cheap car rental company, and it took almost 40 minutes for the shuttle to pick us up. At least we had a good view.I had a handful of problems with our rental car company. First, I’d rented an “intermediate” vehicle…and they wanted to give me a PT Cruiser (my least favorite car to rent, usually rated as an economy or compact) I knew I’d be doing a lot of driving over the weekend, and said I’d wait a few minutes to see if a car I liked better was turned in. A Toyota Matrix drove in, and I was happy with that car. About 35 minutes later, and after an argument over my method of payment (strange online reservation didn’t run my card correctly), I pulled out of the rental agency nearly 90 minutes after landing. By then, it was too trafficky to get on the freeway. We went to the Trader Joe’s on Sepulveda to pick up $14 of groceries to avoid eating out for most of the trip. Rosie got her California Rolls and mini merengue cookies, and I got my 4-cheese sourdough bread, Popchips, and Sweet Savory and Tart Trek Mix. We drove over to Dockweiller beach just as the sun was setting. We snapped a few pictures and ate some sushi at the beach.

When we got back in the car, the center console of the car had blown a fuse: no radio, clock, A/C power, etc. There was NO way I’d be able to handle a trip without a way to charge my phone on the road, let alone have no access to the radio. We went back into the rental car agency, explained the problems, and waited for them to figure out what to do with me. They said I could pay extra to get a nicer car…I said that was unacceptable. I talked to the manager, and he eventually let me WAIT for another Toyota Matrix to get vaccummed out and ready to rent. As soon as I got in the car and reached for the seatbelt, the plastic casing for the door frame snapped off! I went back to the rental agent, told him I was fine with the broken doorframe, but I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t be charged for the damage. 3.5 hours after we landed at LAX, we were finally on the 405 up to Palmdale.

We stayed with my blogger friend Heather (aka Hizzeather). We’ve been friends online for a year, but only had met in person one other time at her wedding reception. It was so nice to finally have some quality bonding time with her. Between our blogs and Facebook, I feel like we know each other quite well…but it all comes together when you stay up till 2 am in your silly PJs, eating junk food, watching “The Office,” and gossiping about scandalous blogs.

In the morning, Heather’s husband Cody made us some delicious pumpkin pancakes. The we played some games on the Wii, and I have to admit it was nice to play games other than Wii Sports 🙂 Heather and Cody were preparing for their ward Halloween party, so Rosie and I left Palmdale in the early afternoon. We didn’t have anything planned until the evening at our former ward’s Halloween party, so we had some time to kill. I got some advisement from Cybele at Candy Blog for the best places in the San Gabriel Valley to get Japanese candy. First we went to Pasadena, where we picked up a couple things at Japanese-style combini Famina!. We continued down Colorado to Federico’s Bakery. I was introduced to their marzipan princess cake by my dear Lizzie, and no trip to Pasadena is complete without this slice of heaven. Next, we drove into San Gabriel to Mitsuwa Marketplace. I was pleased to find their sizeable assortment of Japanese candy at a reasonable price. I picked up several hard-to-find flavors of Hi-Chew, Ramune and Mango KitKats, gummies, Pocky, and fizzy candies. I look forward to reviewing these on my other blog, Nicole Rates It. We spent a little too much time candy shopping, because by the time we reached the freeway it was well into Friday traffic. It took about 75 minutes to get from Pasadena to La Verne. By the end of the drive, we were a little stir crazy.
We immediately raided my mother-in-law’s costume stash, and headed to the ward halloween party. Baked potato bar, costume contest, indoor trick-or-treating to the decorated classrooms, and catching up with old friends and ward members.

Pretty kitty and sinister villain ( Me and my brother-in-law Nathan)

Nathan the Villain and Sophisticated Dayna won 2nd and 1st places in the costume contest

I was so tired by the time the party was over, I could barely make it back to my in-law’s couch to sleep (I was running on about 3 hours sleep). In the morning, I met up with Liz for breakfast at Coco’s (sadly, no pictures). I had pumpkin pancakes again….delicious! I then ran a few errands, and then took Rosie and Nevaeh to meet up for tea in San Dimas with our friend Kevin.

After tea, we went back and prepared for the Halloween festivities. Neither Rosie nor Nevaeh were satisfied wearing the same costume trick-or-treating that they wore to the ward party. They dug up some bobby-soxer costumes and modeled them for some pics.

When Taylor’s sister Janelle made it to LV, we drove over to Lissy and Tyler’s to get the twins ready for trick or treating. Eleanor made some adorable witch costumes, that could only possibly have been cuter if they’d kept the witch hats on.

Sarah, Rosie, Phoebe, Nevaeh – the 4 cousins

We went trick-or-treating in some of the finer spots in Pomona, including the liquor store and the dollar store. Fearing for our safety, we collected candy in a residential neighborhood till the twins were exhausted. Afterward, we went back to have some homemade apples cider and sort through the candy treasures.

The last spot for festivities was in Burbank. I met up for dessert with my fellow Keaneheads Elizabeth and Kathryn. I had an assortment of fresh sorbets (lime, tangerine, blackberry) and the others ate decadent chocolate souffle. Rosie said it was the best dessert she’d ever had (and it should have been good….the price wasn’t on the menu and it ended up being $10!) They couldn’t stay long because they were off to a big mid-Singles party. We said our goodbyes and I drove to our amazingly cheap $27 3-star Priceline hotel.
With the daylight savings change, my alarm went off earlier than I’d expected. I was wide awake, and figured I’d just check out and get to the airport. We had planned on the 7:15 flight back to SLC, but made it on the 6:05 am flight just as they were closing the doors. We arrived back in SLC just in time to zoom down to Spanish Fork for church.

Rexburg Redux

After being back from London for only one day, Rosie and I roadtripped up to Rexburg, ID. Rosie was feeling left out because we didn’t bring her to London, so I promised her we’d do something fun over fall break. I’ve wanted to drive up and see my sister Mary at BYU-Idaho since she started last year, and now she’s in her last semester. We dropped Taylor off in SLC, drove on the Legacy Parkway for the first time, and headed north on I-15 Wednesday afternoon. I made my two usual stops…gas at the Flying J in Willard, and dinner at Jack in the Box in Pocatello. We arrived in the ‘Burg around 8:30 pm.

Mary, Monica, Rosie and I got frozen custard a BRC’s

It was fun to share college stories with Rosie. She said she already knows she wants to go to BYUI. She is interested in the nursing program, but let’s see what she says in 9 years when it’s time to declare a major.

I had fun getting to know Mary’s roommates, and as this picture attests…they were very sad to see me leave. We had fun stalking people on Facebook…like an old boyfriend of mine, whose brother is friends with Mary’s roommate. Small world.
This was my first time to Rexburg since the temple was dedicated. When driving into town at night, it looks like the temple is floating about of town. It would have been nice to have this available when I was a student, but I do have fun memories of Idaho Falls temple trips with my student ward. My favorite diner from back then is now a hot tub store, and the Retrix dance club is now a home decorating store. There’s loads of new married student housing, many more restaurants, a movie theater, and a lot more students. There are several more buildings on campus…and the Manwaring Center just opened a gorgeous new cafeteria. I went to Foundations of Light and Sound with Mary, pretending to be a student (also to have internet access, since it was blocked from Mary’s apartment for guests.

We participated in some Walmart hijinks until the store employee reprimanded us

Mary made us some stellar banana Nutella crepes

After class on Friday, we went into Idaho Falls. Weshopped for a few hours at the Grand Teton Mall. I found a new dress, which was much needed at Dillards. Rosie had fun posing in the rides for silly pictures. She got to visit with some cousins while Mary and I met Taylor’s cousing Kylie at Craigo’s back in Rexburg. We returned to SLC on Saturday morning in time to attend a funeral and a wedding.

The In-N-Out Layover

Next time you have a 2+ hour layover at LAX, and want some In-N-Out, this video will show you how to do it. Take the Sepulveda Parking Spot shuttle and you’ll be next door to the closest In-N-Out to LAX. From disembarking the plane, catching the shuttle, eating, security, and getting back to your gate…it’ll take you about 2 hours. Even though I can get In-N-Out all over Southern California, I so want to try this sometime!

London: Coming Home

We packed up our suitcases and checked out of our hotel around 10 am. We spent a little time in the Business Centre checking flight loads again, and coming up with more contingencies. We got a breakfast croissant at the kiosk in the Tube station, made with delicious ham and emmental cheese. We scrounged together the rest of our change to pay for our tube ride to Heathrow. It took about 30 minutes to get to LHR terminal 4. We checked in at the kiosk, went through security, and walked around the airport to pass the time until our flight boarded. We got a few snacks and drinks, and crossed our fingers for seat assignments. We missed out on business class by two passengers, and got seat assignments one row apart. A nice passenger offered to let us sit together (giving up an aisle seat for a middle…talk about a good samaritan!)

We napped, snacked, read, and watched movies. I watched “Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging,” “The Hangover,” and “My Life in Ruins.” The flight was slightly longer back to the US, approximately 10 hours. We came back through customs, grabbed some dinner, and checked out the flight boards. We were hoping to catch a 9 pm flight to SLC, but we still had about 3 hours till boarding. Taylor went down to Ops to check Deltanet, and it was pretty evident we wouldn’t make it on that flight. We looked at alternate flights through DEN, HOU, ABQ, PHX, MEM, OMA, DFW, DTW, CVG and TUS, but all of those cities would require an overnight stay before the connecting flight to SLC. We were exhausted from the day of traveling, and decided to call it a night. Taylor got a $36 crew-rate hotel (with free wifi…hallelujah!)

In the morning, flight loads didn’t look any better, and we wanted a to find the most certain option for getting back to SLC…which ended up being San Antonio. Once in SAT, we ate lunch at Las Palapas Mexican Grill in Terminal 1. I’ve got to put in a plug for this place…very delicious food and insanely inexpensive for airport food. Two full meals with drinks, tax and tip came to $16. We were happy when our names were called for a seat assignment, and even more happy that we had seats in first class. First class in a short flight on a CRJ isn’t too swanky, just more opportunities for free drinks and more legroom.

We arrived in SLC in the late afternoon, picked up our car, and headed down to Lehi to pick up Rosie from my parents’ house. We shared our trip pictures with them, and got back to SF around 8:00. It was an exhausting 2 days of travel home….but it was totally worth it.

London: Day Three

Saturday was our “touristy” day. We had a lot to see, and only one day to do it in. We grabbed breakfast and lunch from Tesco, and headed for the Tube. We started at Buckingham Palace. We arrived 45 minutes before the Changing of the Guards. After about 10 minutes, the crowds were so unruly that we gave each other a mutual “Are these crowds bugging you as much as they’re bugging me?” glance. We decided to walk around the attractions nearby and see how the crowds were as the procession started.People, people everywhere

St. James Park

We listened to a few songs by a military band. The highlight was a orchestral version of “One Moment in Time.” The epitome of British culture, let me tell ya!

And now a word from our sponsors…

One of my product placement photos (I’ve got a few more on Facebook) I thought it was funny that the Dr. Pepper Zero was “sweetened with vegetable extracts.” It tasted less sweet than Diet Dr. Pepper. Coca-Cola owns the Dr. Pepper licensing in the UK, thus the “zero” brand name. UK Coke was awesome – sweetened with cane sugar, not HFCS. So was Pineapple Fanta. Lilt was pretty good, but too tart for my taste. I HATED the Diet Coke with Cherry….tasted like rancid cough syrup.

Westminster Abbey

Houses of Parliament (aka Big Ben). I thought it was the most beautiful thing I saw on the whole trip. It sounds to touristy cliche, but it really was ornate and spectacular. The photos just don’t do it justice.

Waiting for our boat ride down the River Thames

View from the Thames

The dome shaped building is called “The Gherkin.” I also heard others call it the “Towering Innuendo,” and the “Crystal Phallus.” Definitely one of the more modern buildings in the London skyline.

London Tower Bridge

Taylor in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral

St. Paul’s Cathedral was the only paid attraction that we did on the trip. We were tempted by the London Eye and a double-decker bus tour, but I don’t think anything we could have done would have been as awesome as St. Paul’s. We toured several parts of the cathedral, and then started our trek up to the dome. After 250 steps, you reached the “Whispering Room.” 150 steps later was an observation deck with this gorgeous view:

We ascended another 150ish stairs to the observation deck at the top of the dome. I was huffing and puffing, and very tired after all those stairs, but the view was definitely worth it!

Coming down was much easier!

We crossed the Milenneum Bridge to Tate Modern. We looked at exhibits on two floors.

We also saw the replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater

View from the top of Tate Modern towards St. Paul’s

Our legs and feet were aching by this point. The closest tube station happened to be closed, and we couldn’t figure out which one to walk to. We ended up walking about 25 minutes to Waterloo station, and I felt like I was going to collapse (Yeah, I’m out of shape. Not used to walking 8+ hours in a day) Our last “must see” stop was Trafalgar Square…and that’s where we went.

We got dinner at a pub called Garfunkels. Taylor got fish and chips, I got a chicken and mushroom pie with mash. For dessert, we had bread and butter pudding with warm custard.

We got one last view of the Square, and headed underground to go back to our hotel. We had about 30 pounds in cash left at this point, so we went to Tesco to pick up some sweets and souveniers to bring home. Chocolate digestives, Bird’s custard, Smarties, KitKats, Fruit Pastilles, Jammy Dodgers, and Aero bars. I cannot even describe the look on Taylor’s face as I kept piling sweets into the basket.
We got back to our hotel, and went into the Business Centre to use the internet (20 minutes per pound) We needed to check flight loads, and come up with backup plans in case our Heathrow to Atlanta flight fell through. In this process, we realized that our flight wasn’t going to be free…we’d have to pay the taxes and tariffs to get back into the US. That increased the total price of our entire trip about 30%, but we still completed it all for less than a one-way ticket to London would have been. We are so grateful for the kind friends and family who allowed this trip to happen….and that’s where most of this candy went to.

London: Day Two

This is the map to the Underground. If only more cities had a system this organized…

The tube kept us from having to drive around and make sense of all the roundabouts and people driving on the other side of the road. I probably would have killed us if I just drove out onto the road here.These mailboxes remind me of the movie “Help” where they’re trying to cut off Ringo’s finger…

Friday morning we did a lot of walking around. We were hesitant to use our cell phones ($1.29 per minute, $.50 per text) so we looked for a place that we could get breakfast and wifi. After not finding any other suitable options, we hunkered down at a Starbucks for about an hour. I got in touch with Emma and we made lunch plans. She and David would pick us up from the Croydon station, which was within the 1-6 Travelcard zone. We took the tube back to Victoria Station, and onto the overground train to East Croydon station. Unfortunately, the ticket agent unknowingly sold us a 1-2 zone Travelcard. When we tried to exit the Croydon station, the gate wouldn’t release and we had to go to the “unpaid fare” window. The agent said we’d have to pay a twenty pound penalty each, but we talked her into just selling us the fare between Victoria and Croydon.

The first pub we went to was on a friends’ reccomendation, but when we arrived they said they didn’t have license for children to enter. Since Annabelle was with us, we asked for another suitable local pub. We drove to the Sandrock Pub. I got fish and chips with mushy peas, Taylor got bangers and mash. We had a lovely time visiting, and were sad we had so little time to spend with them.

David, me, and Emma

When they dropped us off at the train station, we totally flubbed on social ettiquite. We uncultured Americans just aren’t used to those friendly cheek kisses! We’ll get it right next time! We took the train back to Victoria, and spent the afternoon sightseeing.

First we went to the Science Museum. We knew we only had a few hours to spend there, so we focused on the medicine and aviation floors.

Taylor was in airplane heaven!

Spitfire

Assisting the Harrier Jet

This Rolls-Royce engine made me feel tiny (for once in my life)

For the next few hours, we did lots and lots of walking. We walked to Hyde Park, and it started to rain a little bit. We were blessed to have excellent sunny weather for the majority of the trip, but it wouldn’t have been a true experience without some rain.

Prince Albert Memorial

Trying my hand at some funky artistic photography

Gardens in Hyde Park

Princess Diana Memorial Fountain

By the time we got the the Serpentine, it was raining pretty heavily. We took turns with the one umbrella we had, and both ended up pretty wet.

Next we walked to Harrods was so posh, which is one of the most fabulous department stores in the world. I felt silly walking around in my sopping wet clothes. We toured the several departments, but especially loved the food halls, It. If I’d wanted to pay 5 pounds per kilogram of eggplant, approximately $15/lb, this would have been the place.

Ah, the sweet confections that I dilligently avoided buying (but I did get a free hazelnut truffle. Yum!)

We walked around for a few minutes, but it was starting to get dark, and we didn’t feel like staying out in the rain, so we took the tube back to Hammersmith.

We stopped at the Tesco market in the tube station and picked up sandwich fixings for dinner. We watched Zombieland after dinner, as well as some BBC. We had a pretty exhausting day, and decided to call it a night around 10:30 pm.

London: Day One

Emma picked us up and we drove back to her village. Her children Harry and Jack were getting ready for school. I brought a bunch of American candy for her family (Mike and Ikes, Fruit Roll Ups, Sugar Babies, Dots, Hershey Kisses, US KitKat) as well as the Great Harvest Popeye Bread. Emma offered me some squash to drink, but I had no idea what she was talking about. It is a juice concentrate that you pour into a glass of water. We walked Jack to school, and toured around her village.

When we returned from our walk, we drove to the London Temple. We walked around the grounds and snapped a bunch of pictures. It was smaller than I expected (similar in size to the Atlanta temple) and the metalwork on the exterior reminded me of the Los Angeles Temple.

Next, we drove into East Grinstead. We got hot chocolate milano drinks at Caffe Nero. It was the richest hot cocoa I’d ever had, made from Belgian chocolate.


I was so excited to finally meet Emma in person. We had become acquainted through our blogs almost two years ago, and have regularly kept in contact over Facebook and Skype.

Annabelle, Emma, and Nicole

East Grinstead

After our drinks, we went into a grocery store (to validate our parking). It was fun to see the different brands of food, and compare what is available in US markets. I was drooling over the sweets aisle. Back in her village, Emma got us some Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles, Kinder Bueno, KitKat Senses, Haribo gummies, and a juice box of blackcurrant Ribena.

We returned to pick up her pilot David, who was flying a daytrip to Egypt. After dropping him of at Gatwick, Emma dropped us off at the Three Bridges train station. We got the rail fare and travelcard at a discount by borrowing Annabelle for the familly fare. We said our goodbyes for the day, and headed toward London Victoria station.

By this time, we were really exhausted and jet lagged. Taylor fell asleep on the train, and I was pretty close to doing so myself. We transferred at Victoria station to the District line on the tube, and got off at Hammersmith. We stayed at the Novotel London West, a “four-star” hotel that only felt posh in the foyer. Our room was pretty basic; double bed, small sofa, desk, and telly. We napped for a few hours.
For dinner we went into Piccadilly Circus. We walked around for about an hour, trying to decide on what to eat. We ate at an Indian place called Chowzi. I had Palak paneer and he had lamb curry. We walked around more afterwards till we were zonked.

Me in Chinatown

As we walked back to the tube station, I ran my fingers through my hair, and something was crunchy in back. When we were back to our hotel room, I noticed the tell-tale splat of bird poop on my jacket. Yep, a bird pooped on my head in London. We watched a movie in our room and went to bed around 10 pm.

London: En Route

Since our trip to London has so many details and pictures I want to post, I figured that I would split if up into sections so it won’t take so long to post about the trip. Now for part one: Getting there!

I spent the evening before I left frantically packing. I went to the store to get some trip snacks and American candy to take to my friend Emma. I was going to bake some banana bread too, but ran out of time. I think I finally got to sleep around 11:30, and my alarms went off at 4:15. I double checked that I had my passport, ipod, chargers, and other necessary items and hit the road to the SLC airport by 4:40. I dropped my car off at Park and Jet (cheapest SLC parking spot, by the way. $5/day with a free car wash), rode the shuttle to the terminal, and checked in for the 7:00 am flight to Atlanta. The standby list was sketchy, but I got onto the flight at the last minute. I arrived in ATL and Taylor picked me up for lunch. We drove to my favorite Thai spot in Toco Hills called Top Spice. Then we stopped by Great Harvest Bread to use up a gift card on bread and kahuna bars. We got back to the airport around 2:30. He dropped me off at the terminal and went back to park in employee parking. I was to print out our boarding passes and meet him near the employee entrance.

Taylor forgot to write down our confirmation code when he booked the reservation, but I tried checking in at the kiosk anyway. No luck. Then I had a Delta Agent try to help, and she couldn’t get it to work either. I waited in a long line to talk to a ticket agent, who found our reservation easily. She swiped my passport, and then let me call Taylor for his passport number so I didn’t have to wait in line again. After security, we waited in the E concourse for the flight to board. We were thrilled when we were assigned seats in Business Elite!

It was so nice to have the swanky treatment for the flight. Our FA was wonderful and spoke to us by name. We had all the Dasani water and Coke Zero we wanted. We had a lovely four course dinner:

1. Veggies and hummus, curry soup, and green salad
2. Crab cakes (me), beef tenderloin and shrimp (Taylor), ciabatta rolls, risotto
3. Cheese and fruit platter
4. Hot fudge sundae

We watched “The Ugly Truth,” then tried to get some sleep. I slept about 90 minutes, but Taylor got even less. Breakfast was served about an hour before we landed, which was an english muffin sandwich with scrambled eggs, spinach, and havarti cheese with some fresh fruit. Before we landed, I stuck off to the lav to get my LAVIATOR shot.

We landed at Gatwick around 6:30 am, made it through passport control and customs fairly quickly, and called Emma to let her know we’d arrived. While we waited for her to “collect” us, we enjoyed looking at all the cars you don’t see much in the states: Citroens, Fiats, Vauxhalls, Peugeots. Even the Toyotas, Hondas, Nissans, and Fords looked different than their US counterparts. Although we were feeling jet-lagged, we were excited to get out and explore.