I cannot even come close to explaining how cool some of the professors are here at Embry Riddle! Back in high school when I first became interested in Embry Riddle Aeronautical University I would constantly hear and read about how cool the professors are. To my astonishment what I heard back home became true. This week for UNIV 101 also known as College Success our Professor and Advisor had a BBQ at his house for our entire class! When I first found out that we were going to have a BBQ at my professor’s house it seemed almost unreal because that would never happen in high school. We ended up having a great time at the BBQ and getting to know our Advisor Dr. Ashworth not only in the classroom. We grilled hamburgers patties and beef franks and sat around a fire pit. We all agreed that Dr. Ashworth made some of the best chili and beans we have tried. Then we found out that it was Dr. Ashworth’s Birthday so we all sang Happy Birthday and hung out. I love how most of the professors teaching at Embry Riddle actually make an effort and want to get to know their students. It is not anything like state universities where you have a class of 200 people or more in a lecture hall and if you decide not to show up nobody cares. Here your professors usually know you by your first name and class sizes range depending on major and year.  For the freshman class from the perspective of an Aerospace Engineer I would have to say that the average class size for my classes is about 40 students. Another thing is in most of my classes if you do not show up your professor usually knows who was in class and who was not, so it is a better idea to show up to class. Anyways it was a great opportunity hanging out with our professor outside of class and getting to know him better.

So, if you read my last two blogs you will see that California was pretty fun since I got to spend time with family and friends, but the part I didn’t share was the horrible stress I encountered when I got back. I did encounter some car stress there, but for the most part I was able to try to relax on the other days. (The days I wasn’t trying to get to California and then back home to Prescott)

My car was supposed to be completely fixed and good to go, which I thought it was since I was able to finally make it back home. But when I tried starting my car the next morning, it was completely dead. It wouldn’t even try to start up. Bad news is that I had a mid-term exam to get to for my Marketing class, which I only ended up getting a few hours to study for due to “vacation” and getting home a day later (pushing my study schedule a day later). The other bad news is that Marketing is the only class I have on Wednesdays, so I was leaving at a good time so I can be a few minutes early. But since my car didn’t want to work I had to call a lot of my friends. Thank goodness I caught my good friend, Dan before he left to Washington! He not only came all the way from ERAU to give me a ride to class, he also jump started my car, so my roommate could take it to Wal-Mart and get it looked at.

I also called my teacher to let her know I will be late and she was very understanding about it. I arrived about 30 minutes late and took the exam. Luckily, I still had enough time to finish, although I was the last one done. After my exam I went to the admissions office to work a little since I had to wait for my roommate to get back from Wal-mart. Apparently, at first they thought it was the battery but they had to charge it so they can test it. Well, it wasn’t and they didn’t know what else it could be. So we went home with our battery charged from them for free. (Since the battery is brand new and we bought it from Wal-mart in California) We were hoping it would be okay, but just in case I took it for a late night drive to my friend’s house. Afterwards I drove back home and it was completely fine.

Next day- Thursday, I had a Macroeconomics Exam and an Accounting quiz. I was very nervous since I didn’t have much time to study for them either. But I got up and AGAIN the car didn’t start! I had to call my other friend and wake him up at a time that was WAY too early for him and he fortunately took me to class. I felt really bad because my roommate had to miss class since she didn’t have a ride and because she stayed and got my car looked at by a lot of different people. It had to be towed to Sears, which they said it was the battery. Then she sent it to Wal-mart and they said it was the alternator. After that, she got it charged so she could take it to Auto Zone. They also said the alternator, which I JUST bought in California as well. So I called my cousin and had him call Goodyear out here and they said if it is the alternator I have a warranty, so it won’t cost me. Thank goodness!!!

She got the car charged as much as possible by Auto Zone and then came to pick me up. I was very stressed that day and I took a lot of it out on her, but I was so grateful for her to help me out with the car. I wish I had more time to be there with her…classes seem to take over your life! Ha Ha. Thank goodness we both didn’t have classes on Friday, so in the morning we went to Goodyear and they tested the car, every way that they could. It cost me almost $40 for them to tell me that NOTHING is wrong with my car?! I felt like they thought my roommate and I were crazy. We just had two mornings in a row where the car wouldn’t start at all. And trust me, the first time it didn’t work I triple-checked ALL the lights to make sure they were off!  I couldn’t believe what they told me. I am grateful, but it is just very peculiar. I felt like I just entered the TWILIGHT ZONE! ha ha. The mechanic did say that it could be the starter messing up on me, but I’m pretty sure that is not it, because the battery was COMPLETELY drained, no lights would turn on or anything. Let’s just hope my car will okay from now on!

So, that was my stressful week after my so-called “vacation” in California. I guess it was not the best time to leave town. I should have waited til the next weekend. But it was still fun and worth it. And I hope the scores on my tests won’t be too bad due to limited study time. I’ll let you guys know.

The morals of this blog is that you should choose your vacation weekends as wisely as possible, always expect the unexpected, have a back-up plan to get back to school in case your car decides to stop, and try hard to keep an emergency fund so you can fix anything that may end up breaking. It may sound hard to do all these, but trust me- they are worth it! 😉

As promised, I am starting my second half of my stressful trip to California.

I left off at the basketball game which I fortunately got to see live. It was my first game and I thought it was really cool that it was outdoors. My next goal; however, is to see the Lakers live maybe even against the Suns. That would be so awesome and epic :]

So here are a few of the photos I took up in the bleachers:

How awesome is this shot? I think we had such a great view.

Danica and I sitting on the bleachers, second from the top. It was an amazing view!

Not sure which school they were from, but they did pretty well for a big group of diverse dancers

Danica Sitting next to me in the bleachers! 😀

Defense Suns!!! DEFENSE

Suns versus Mavericks Basketball Game at Indian Wells Tennis Garden in So Cal

So after the game, we stayed at our friend’s house since it was pretty late. We hung out and the next morning we went back to my grandma’s house. Fortunately, my car was acting just fine~ no problems whatsoever. We got to the house and I helped out my grandma with dinner, she was having a big BBQ for some of the family. She makes the best BBQ Chicken! YUMMY!

My Uncle John called me that morning and told me he was coming over and that I need to be ready to take a motorcycle ride with him. I have been waiting to go on a ride since Spring Break! But his other motorcycle kept breaking down, so he never had it ready for me whenever I visited. But this time he bought a new bike that has higher speed capacity 😀 

When he came over Danica asked me privately if she could take a ride as well because she has never been on a motorcycle before. I have only been on twice, but from the first time I fell in love. I was able to take a ride with my uncle up in the mountains to where we held my grandfather’s memorial. The second time was with a friend’s dad. We went on a LONG ride. At least a good hour or more. It was the coolest feeling in the world. Whenever I get a chance, I go on a ride. I am actually thinking of buying my own someday soon. Hopefully that will work out. My uncle said he would help teach me. So, anyways…My uncle offered Danica a ride after my ride. She was excited about it.

This is my Uncle John and his new Motorcycle. It goes pretty darn fast, it was a blast going on a ride with him!

After my ride Danica really wanted to try, she had never been on a motorcycle before. She enjoyed it.

I figured since it was a short ride I didn’t need to dress up awesome…now I wish I would have for the picture’s sake. ha ha.

After the ride, Danica and I took my car out to get a couple grocery’s and to make sure my car was still okay since we had a long drive home the next afternoon. It was running just fine. I got a little paranoid and thought it started jerking again, but I’m not sure if it did. If it did, it was only once and very quickly. We got back to the house and it was pretty crazy. There was a family issue that happened and in short words, my cousin is kicked out of my other uncle’s (his dad’s) house. Which I honestly think he should have been a long time ago. He is very disrespectful and he is 28 I believe. Yeah…time to give respect and move on in life, right?

Danica and I ate, which the food was amazing! Afterwards we head to bed. The next morning I got up semi early and cleaned my grandmother’s bathroom just to help her out a little. We packed all our stuff and headed on our way back to Arizona around 2:30 PM. Things were going okay until we hit Beaumont area. The RPMS started jumping again. I got off the I-1o Freeway and was fortunate enough to pull into a gas station. It almost died on me at the stop light! I called AAA AGAIN. It took them a few hours, but they finally got there and towed us to my cousin’s shop. He looked at it and found out that it was the alternator this time. Unfortunately, we arrived there around 5pm, so there was no way he could get the part. We had to wait until Tuesday morning! That meant we were going to miss all of our classes. How stressful. I called my teachers and left them e-mails, letting them know I could not make it. And they understood.

The next morning my cousin got the part and fixed my car up again. I had my sister drop us off at the shop and we packed our bags in the trunk and headed home. We got home around 7pm. With no car troubles, thank goodness. Although my car gave me a lot of trouble, it was still nice to see my family and friends. I also enjoyed getting away from the apartment for a while. It helped clear my mind and gave me a little time to relax. Although financially, there was no relaxing going on. HA HA. I don’t know what I would do without my grandmother, who helped me pay for my auto parts. It was the biggest help ever. I just hope my car will start being good. I am trying to look into another car, but I will have to wait until my Junior year when I sign up with the Navy and join their Baccalaureate program.

I hope when you guys go back home to visit your family, all will go well with your car! I would not even wish that craziness upon an enemy. 😛

Now that I sit down to write my blog it makes me realize how long it has been since my last post. From going to class, to studying, to being involved with the Jet Dragster Team, to pledging a Fraternity, to learning how to manage my time in an organized manor, I have been so busy these past couple weeks. When I first found out that Friday October 15th was mid-semester break I immediately decided to go back home for the weekend since I have not been back in approximately 2 months now. On Thursday October 14th after class I took a shuttle down to phoenix and from there I caught the 6 o’clock flight with Southwest into LAX. When I arrived in LA my parents were waiting for me and after seeing me for the first time in 2 months they were happy and excited. That night we all went out to eat at El Torrito and relaxed back home after a couple friends stopped by to say hi. Friday was a great day I had the opportunity to go to the Kennedy vs. Cypress football game where I hung out with my friends from high school. The Kennedy vs. Cypress football game is one of the biggest football games every single year because both schools are rivals. To add to that both teams were undefeated so it was an intense game. Having graduated from Kennedy of course I wanted Kennedy to win alongside with all of my friends. Afterwards everybody went to innout which is pretty much the hang out spot in my area. It was a great night and I was excited to see all of my friends again! Saturday morning was pretty rough getting up because I was so tired but it was worth it because we had to set up for a party that we had later that night. It was really cool being home this weekend because it was my grandmas birthday, my moms birthday, and my birthday all within a 2 week period so we had the opportunity to celebrate. Then Sunday morning I flew back to Prescott with Great Lakes on a Beechcraft 1990, it was a pretty cool flight especially since the plane sits only 19 people and you can see the pilots in the cockpit the whole time. It sure was a great time chilling back home but when I got back to campus and my friends picked me up from the airport I was so happy to see them and in all honesty I have to say I missed my friends from Riddle. It was a great weekend, I definitely needed it to relax and get my mind off of school for a change.

This last weekend was supposed to be a great trip away from reality, but instead it was just a further trip inside of realism. 🙁

It all started on Wednesday, October 6th…I had an urge to go home to California to see my family and have some time away from Prescott. I asked my roommate/best friend if she was up to it and she totally agreed! So, we decided Thursday we would head out right after our classes. (We both don’t have classes on Friday). I went to Macroeconomics in the morning and my best friend went to her sociology class in the morning. She had a test and completed it very quickly. After her test she came and met me at school. We had lunch together (grilled cheese and chips) and then she went to my Deceptions class with me. She enjoyed it, even rose her hand and participated. After that, she was a little reluctant to join me in my accounting class, but she decided she had nothing else better to do…so we sat next to each other and listened to the lecture. After classes we went back to the apartment and got all our stuff together. I mailed my ex his birthday card with a farewell letter and we went on our way to California. We headed towards the back way of the mountains~ AZ-89. We had a lot of fun looping down around the mountain. Then we hit another set of mountains that had the most beautiful view, especially since the sky was such a gorgeous color with the sun starting to hit the horizon. It was amazing! After that we were on the US-60 headed towards the I-10, but then my car started acting funny 🙁  The RPMs starting spiking up and down. I knew it was a bad sign so I pulled over and when I tried to restart the car, it would just “click”. It was not fun that evening. We left the apartment around 4pm and we got AAA to tow us with my card and my sisters friend’s card. We were first towed to Blythe, CA and then to Palm Desert, CA. From there, my brother-in-law, sister, and her friend, Kim picked my roommate and I up and towed my car all the way to my cousin’s shop. They dropped it there and Danica and I went to my sister’s and brother-in-law’s place to spend the night. We arrived at their house at 4AM! Can you believe that?! Such craziness. The next morning we all woke up very late in the day. (Except my brother who had work at 5am, he didn’t get to sleep until her got off around 5pm).

My sister went to an appointment she had and afterwards took Danica and I to my grandma’s house. Once we got there we played some WII and found out that my cousin replaced the battery in my car, since it was old. My sister took us to pick up my car and it was running very great. We had dinner and then my sister went home. So, Friday was almost a lost day, sleeping many hours away and once we had dinner we were so mentally exhausted we went upstairs and just relaxed the rest of the time.

It’s weird how days seem to blend together and you forget what you have done, but Saturday seemed to past so quickly until around 3pm. Danica and I left to Palm Springs area (grandma lives in Fontana, Sister is in Upland). We met a friend of ours who got 3 free tickets to a basketball game in Indian Wells. It was the Phoenix Suns versus the Dallas Mavericks. Of course I was rooting for our Suns!!! We all went to the gardens and they had fun booths set up to try free samples and play games. It was entertaining. At 6:30 pm the game started. We had 2nd to last top row seats, it was a lot of fun. I have never been to a basketball game, and this one was an out door one, how exciting! The Suns won of course 🙂  The woman who sang the national anthem completely messed up, it was quite embarrassing. There is a video on You tube. It only shows the National Anthem song in the first minute of the video, but it’s there. She also messed up the last word and said “Free” again, instead of “brave”. National Anthem mess up.

I will post up the pictures of the game and finish the rest of the story … It doesn’t get much better 😉  haha.

Sometimes it is hard to balance out our lives. We feel that school and work is more important than spending the few hours that we have left over with our friends and classmates, but if one does not take time to relax they will become very stressed! Students can’t live life without some fun, you will start to become bored and unhappy at school. Having a social life is very important to humans, it’s in our instincts. Some say it is a desire or want, but in reality it is a necessity. The more alone you become, the more alone you start wanting to be. Sometimes being alone can even cause us to feel sad or down. Surrounding yourself with great company helps you live each day and gives you some extra meaning in your life.

I have come to realize this ever since my best friend moved in with me. Even though it is still very hectic right now, we continue to have great days together. Things go wrong all over the place, (rent, job, car, etc.) but I could not even imagine how it would feel to not have someone here with me to go through it all with. I am pretty stressed already, but if my best friend was not here with me, things would be so much harder for me. I have also took the time to talk to new people and get to know some classmates. It helps me when a huge exam comes up or if I need some extra help in a class. It has also been a life saver when I need a favor. Like today, my car not starting, but I had a HUGE exam to get to. (I don’t live on campus) I was able to call a friend/Embry-Riddle student and he came and picked me up. It was a huge help and now my roommate is getting the car fixed as I am at school. Thank goodness I have such great friends.

Another thing friends are grand for is helping you get over worries and hurt. I wasn’t feeling too great this year, but I am finally starting to feel like my old self again. It is awesome. I suggest that if any of you are feeling down you really should go hang out with a good friend or perhaps talk to someone. ANYBODY. A counselor, professor, family…Just talk it out, it feels a lot better. I come to realize writing down your problems can help to. Whether it’s in a private journal, or on random papers that you end up shredding/burning. It helps.

Well, that’s it for now. I’ll discuss my car troubles that  I experienced this last weekend soon. It was absolutely insane! Take care. Have a great week, and good fall break to ERAU students. 🙂

FRIDAY

Ahh!!! The weekend has begun. As I currently only need to take 12 credit hours this semester, the feeling of reward I get when walking out of my Chinese class probably isn’t as sharp or gratifying as that of some of my more overworked classmates, but that fact doesn’t bother me at all. The weather is beautiful, the breeze is nice and the promise of the evening hangs quite heavy in the air. First things first, however… I must take a nap.

Three hours later…

I emerge from my bedroom well rested and sharply dressed. Tonight is the culmination of weeks of planning and execution. Tonight, my fraternity will place pins on the pledges that we have so carefully recruited. My sweater vest and knit tie warms my torso while my arms are left subject to the cool breeze of the Prescott evening. I think back on when I was elected recruitment chair and had begun planning for the process that would end tonight. That date was more than four months ago. After hours of planning and excessive amounts of hard work and time given by my fraternity brothers and I, we had finally reached that point in the year where our effort would be rewarded by the addition of a whole gaggle of new brothers.

Let me tell you, they are quite the gang. The freshmen who have decided to pledge my fraternity are as numerous as they are energetic. I have never seen a group of young men more excited to take on the responsibilities of become gentlemen of a fraternity. There are nineteen of them; they are the largest pledge class we have had since I joined my fraternity almost four years ago! I am incredibly excited to see all of them be brought into the fold as full-fledged brothers of Sigma Pi.

SATURDAY

Today started out like any other, but a quest to buy a dryer for as little money as possible would lead my friends and I on a journey of incredible discovery and intrigue. There was really no contest as to where we would find the lowest prices on used drying machines; the answer is always the DAV.

The Disabled American Veterans Thrift store (or D’Ardon Verre as I like to call it) is the most wonderful thing in Prescott. I have never in my 21 years of glorious life encountered such a vast treasure trove of wonder. After visiting this thrift store on numerous occasions, I must say that Goodwill is a RIP OFF! Why pay $3 to $4 dollars for a simple t-shirt when you can find it at DAV for 25 cents. That’s right, a quarter. Guess what. Almost everything else is a quarter. The DAV is to bargain hunters what a Candy Store is to a 5 year old with a sugar addiction.

We quickly found a dryer and priced it at $25. With that done, we began our ritual of exploration. It took me about five minutes to find a military grade, green wool sweater with shoulder and elbow patches. After walking downstairs, I decided to look in the glasses bin to see if I could find any fun hipster glasses. I like to bust the lenses out of them and ironically wear them about. I found two. Right next to that was the hat box. I found a beret. In the pants area, I found black, military ACU bottoms. I started to calculate how much this all would probably cost me. “Three, maybe four bucks tops,” I said to myself. I was wrong. The lady only charged me $1.75. Incredible. I just bought almost all the items I will need for my French Legionnaire Halloween costume for less than the price of one of my regular trips to Taco Bell.

Afterwards, my friends and I headed to the Outlet Malls at Anthem in Phoenix to find some great deals on clothes. I didn’t buy anything, but I did follow my friend Alex around and try to convince him to buy terrible outfits. “Yes Alex, that fuchsia shirt does go well with your skin tone.”

That night, we traveled to Method Coffee, a great little, local café, to enjoy the music of “Open Mic Night”. After scoring a free, award winning latte, my friends and I retired to our condo to play a very hard fought game of Cranium. “Team Bros” (my team) won. Saturday…. Done.

SUNDAY

Brett (my roommate) and I awoke and decided to travel downtown and visit the Prescott Farmer’s market. We never made it there. When we drove by the courthouse, we saw a multitude of tents up and throngs of people. We decided to check it out. It turns out it was an antique sale. Mildly interesting. However, since we were already parked, we decided that we would explore a bit. We found that there is actually a nature trail straight through the center of downtown. In the four years I have lived here, I have not known this. We also stopped in a local art gallery and talked to the artist. He told us about the inspiration for his art. After snooping around a bit longer, we decided to head home. I then spent the rest of the day lounging around a pool in Prescott Valley. Life in the PRC is hard.

When we last left our heroine, the semester had barely begun and she had lost her keys in the Salt River.

Now, more than 1/3 of the way through the semester, and fully recovered from the key losing incident, Kerianne has made it through her first round of exams and settled fully into her classes.

Now, for the moment you have all been waiting for with baited breaths. Spacecraft Preliminary Design: the intro to the pinnacle of the Astronautical Engineering curriculum. Or as the aerospace engineering department likes to call it: the senior capstone design project.

The senior capstone design project spans two semesters.  During the first semester, preliminary design, students work on the conceptual design for their project.  During the second semester, detail design, students actually build and test their design or some portion of the design, depending on the scale of the project.

The name of the degree at Embry-Riddle is Aerospace Engineering, which is fairly generic and can get you a job designing planes or designing satellites.  For the degree, students get to choose a concentration: Aeronautics (Airplanes) or Astronautics (Spacecraft).  In my experience, people tend to choose the degree that first inspired them to become engineers.

For me, I knew when I was six years old that I wanted to work on spacecraft after visiting Space Center Houston. I chose to take the “Astro” track for my concentration. I’ve met other people who chose the “Aero” track because their original inspiration was flying on an aircraft or seeing a fighter in flight as a child.

Each track has a different Capstone project.  This year in Astro preliminary design, we could choose to work on one of two projects: a university CubeSat project, or an AIAA Undergraduate competition to design a mission to remove 10 pieces of orbital debris from a 82-83 degree inclination and a 900-1000 kilometer orbit.  Guess which one I chose?

The Orbital Debris project sounded very interesting, relevant, and exciting. For a project on this scale, the team will design the mission in our preliminary design semester.  At the end of this semester we will submit a 100 page paper documenting our research, design, and justification and verification of design components to the AIAA for evaluation.

One of the cool things about our class is that one of our professors, Dr. Ron Madler, Dean of the College of Engineering at Embry-Riddle, actually wrote the section on Orbital Debris in my Space Mission Analysis and Design textbook.

During detail, students usually build their project, but in cases such as ours with such a complex project, actually building the components of the mission isn’t exactly feasible. Instead, the professors will likely have us join in on the CubeSat project or work on the university’s student build satellite simulator.

The aero track is a little different.  During preliminary design students design an aircraft from back of the envelope calculations through to a wind tunnel model that they test and evaluate in the university’s wind tunnel labs.  During detail, depending on the project, “Aero” students will do a “design-build-fly” or a “design-build-break” cycle.

My boyfriend is currently working on a fighter aircraft design for his preliminary design project.  As you can’t really build an R-C version of a fighter, he is going through the “design-build-break” cycle.  Next semester, his team will build a component of the aircraft such as a horizontal stabilizer out of composites or metals and do structural testing on it to see how it stands up to the team’s predictions.

One of the things that’s really cool about the “design-build-break” cycle is that the professor for the class worked for Northrop Grumman for 20 years before he came to teach at Embry-Riddle.  He then designed the structural testing lab at the university based on what Northrop Grumman used to do their structural testing.

I absolutely LOVE my classes this semester!  I have taken my midterms for most of them already.  Well, to be honest, the “midterms” are more like “triterms”… my classes have two midterms and a final for assignments.  I have to study like cah-razy for all of them.  It’s a blast though.  Chinese especially is definitely an experience!  Someday I hope to actually go to China, either for a study abroad trip or a pleasure trip.  Either way, I’m working hard so that I won’t drown in the language when I go!

Volleyball is great too.  In Denver, we played a few games and came home with two wins under our belt.  Currently, we are 2 and 1 in our conference! 

We also had this year’s match to fight for a cure for breast cancer.  It was called “In It To End It”, and we did it this year to raise funds for Olga Diaz, who is going to New York to walk forty miles for her friends she lost to breast cancer.  We raised $1,350!  A success, I’d say.  And bright and early tomorrow morning our team is taking a road trip to California where we play Claremont Mudd-Scripps and La Sierra University.  It’ll be a long trip, so it’s a good thing that everyone on the team likes each other, or it could be very dangerous!

One thing that I wanted to blog about is the weather in Prescott, Arizona.  For all you incoming freshman coming to ERAU, be prepared!  The weather is fantastic!… however, it is also extremely bipolar.  It just can’t decide what it wants to do from day to day.  All last week, it was super duper hot (as in like 90 degrees).  I was all psyched, wearing shorts and flip flops, and then…. BOOM.  Thunder.  Lightning.  The whole shebang.  And it poured!  Flash flood warnings, tornado warnings, you name it, it happened!  I’ve lived in Arizona all my life, and I’ve never known the dry state to be one for tornadoes.  Ever.  So it was pretty scary to have a little action!  A town just west of Flagstaff had high winds that blew over a freight train with sixty-something cars on it!  Here are a few pictures that Dylan Whitmore, an Embry-Riddle student, took from the dorms.  Thanks Dylan!  Fantastic pictures!

So these are the latest happenings in Prescott!  Let the good times keep on rollin’!

“If you want to be happy, be.”

-Leo Tolstoy

Opportunities are a part of every day life.  No matter what the situation, you always have a choice, whether you realize it or not.  However, there are few moments in life in which you have the choice to participate in an event so amazing that you will not only never forget it, but that it will make you happy every time you think about it for the rest of your life.  Sometimes it is a job offer for that company you idolized as a young child.  Sometimes it is getting that new car that you have worked so hard to buy.  Often times, though, it is the simplicity of the events that makes them so special.  For me, attending my dad’s 50th birthday party was this amazingly simple situation.

Every so often, I drive back home to Southern California for a visit, a weekend away, or sometimes an event.  Over the weekend of September 11, my family had planned out a wonderful birthday celebration for my father, being that you only turn the big 5-0 once in a lifetime!  My mom and my aunt planned to take my dad to Disneyland for the day, but my father knew nothing of this plan.  Over the course of about 6 weeks, my mother, sister, aunt , uncle, grandmother, and I planned the execution of this party.

I left friday evening and drove to my aunt’s house across town, where I stayed the night.  The next day, my aunt, uncle, cousins, grandma and I all drove to Disneyland to surprise my dad.  We decided that it would be a bigger surprise if I met them inside, so I went into the park and waited in Town Hall for the rest of my family.  When they arrived, I walked up  to my dad, said happy birthday, and gave him a big hug.  He was so surprised and happy to see me there that he almost cried, a face filled with so much joy that I will never forget it and even remembering it now makes me smile.

Until around 2 p.m. our family wandered the park, gathered fastpasses, and enjoyed the many rides of the Happiest Place on Earth.  When 2-ish rolled around we found ourselves in New Orleans Square, meandering through (having just finished Pirates of the Carribean).  This is when the biggest suprise of all came into play: lunch at Club 33.

Most people will read that and think “What’s the big deal about that restaurant?”  Well, I’ll tell you!  It is called Club 33 because it is located at 33 Royal Street.  This restaurant was designed by Walt Disney back before his untimely death.  The design for this restaurant was to be exclusive only to a select few people of Walt’s choice.  It was attached to his own private office above Pirates of the Carribean so that he could entertain lunch guests amidst his work.  In the design of the rooms for the restaurant there were talking animals, using the technology similar to that in the Enchanted Tiki Room.

Also, it was designed to give the illusion of enchantment: in the chandaliers there are built-in microphones that were to be used so that no waiters would be seen until they were bringing food or beverages to the guests, seemingly as if they knew exactly what each person wanted!

Unfortunately, since Watergate this technology is not used, but is a mere memory of Walt and his passion for being at the forefront of the future.  There are a few other unfortuantes along with the fact that the technology is now for show, not use.  There is a waiting list of longer than 14 years to become a member.  Due to this fact, you need to know someone who has a membership in order to get a reservation in the first place.

Enough about the restaurant though.  The meal was incredible!  Being together with my family in such an incredible place was almost too much to bear, but I stuck in there.  🙂  Lunch took a total of almost 3 hours!  There was a seafood bar, a dessert bar, and then the main course, which consisted of items like Filet Minion, rack of lamb, or an apricot-glazed chicken breast.  I had the chicken breast and I have never tasted anything like it!  The only way to describe it was euphoric; I felt like I was floating on cloud nine after our meal.  Unfortunatly, none of the costumed cast members wandered through during our meal, an oddity in the restaurant where the characters usually love to hang out.

After lunch, we hung around in Disneyland for a while longer so that we could use our fastpasses.

When we had finally finished in Disneyland, we wandered over to Disney’s California Adventure.  We spent the remainder of the night over there.

We went on Soarin’ Over California, The Monster’s Inc. ride, Turtle Talk with Crush, California Screamin’, and the Hollywood Tower of Terror.  After all this was over, we were about to leave the park when I remembered that the new waterworks show, World of Color, had just started.  We went to that show and were left in awe at the sheer brilliance put into this incredible performance!  There were streams of fire, images of the movies that were matched with the songs playing, and lights and colors covering the entire spectrum!  It lasted almost half an hour, and at the end I was almost too stunned to leave the spot I had become rooted in.  Finally, I gathered the will to move and we all went home.

If I learned anything from this weekend it is that no matter what you do, make it worthwhile.  The littlest things like seeing your parents smile just by being there to see them are priceless and some day, you will be able to look back on them and smile yourself!  🙂