Nordstrom Rack & Target & Gymboree

Pey and I did some shopping and found some GREAT deals on everything we bought!  It was so awesome.  Especially since I wasn't aware that Target and Nordstrom Rack were both having huge sales.  I have photos that I'll share below but I did try to film a haul video with Pey which I'll share first, I admit it's a bit chaotic and all over the place so it's too confusing or whatever I have photos below of items plus some more information about things I forgot to say.  And some items I did not buy but almost did.

Click here to see the video of Pey helping me show things off.

Here are a few items that I almost bought but didn't (click any of the photos to enlarge them). I saw the "Pumped Up" phone holder on my way out of Nordstrom Rack.  It was only a few dollars and if I hadn't already paid for my stuff I probably would've thrown it in.  It would definitely be useful!  The next item was a pair of heels.  I know.. they are adorable and only $12.98!!  I chose not to buy them because I already had three pairs of shoes that I wanted to buy as well.  I could totally justify buying these shoes but wanted to have some self control when it comes to shopping.  The last thing I wanted to buy but didn't was some jammie's at Target for Pey.  I could've SWORN that when I picked up the hanger there were a pair of shorts paired with this shirt.  The shirt hanger had a bottom hanger attached to it and I know that it originally had some bottoms.  But I could not find them anywhere!  At first I thought I dropped them on the ground or something but couldn't find them.  We stayed in one spot the whole time, the cart didn't move and they were for sure not around.  Did I imagine the shorts or did they just magically disappear?  I don't know but I was so sad I couldn't find them and that this was the last pair.  I love Batman and the thought crossed my mind to buy the shirt anyways, it was like $8-something and it's not like I couldn't just have her wear other leggings to bed with it but why would I spend $8-something on a jammie shirt?  Especially if I could get it with a pair of shorts!  Well..I went to a second Target and they weren't there either.  So sad.  But it's okay .. I made up for it later!!

Now here are the items that I got for Pey between the two Targets - she even picked out a few things for herself which was so fun!  And most of these items were either $5 or $7 and a few things were a little more but overall I was very happy with the prices.  The first thing to share her new underwear!!  We are so excited that she's wearing underwear 24/7.  I would totally be fine with her wearing a diaper at night but she doesn't want to and is really great at going to the bathroom before bed and after waking up in the morning.  Plus she's been sleeping in her own bed so if there's an accident I can change her and have her sleep in my bed for the rest of the night.  She already had a good amount of underwear but you could never really have enough so she picked out the Little Mermaid underwear and I picked out the super hero ones (with her approval).  I definitely love the Batman ones!!  By the way, I'm not forcing this Batman thing on her at all, I PROMISE!!  I actually think her favorite super hero is Spiderman but she knows I love Batman so she has the excitement for him out of support for me.  Haha.

The next few items are things Peytyn picked out for herself.  I love love love love love how she picked out this romper!  It will be great for this summer and our trip to Utah later this week.  She's going to look adorable in it!  The next photo here are bottoms for her princess jammies.  I don't have a picture of the full set (she's wearing it in the video) but this comes with a pink shirt with a few of her favorite Disney princesses on it along with pink shorts and then another option (for cooler nights) are these pants.  It's funny actually, at the first Target they only had a 4T in the jammies and I was bummed because I normally go up as many sizes as I can for jammies so they last longer.  But I bought the 4T thinking that would be good for now and she needed some jammies anyways.  But once we went to the second Target there was a 5T so we're good!  Returning the 4T to get the 5T and we're all happy! Now this next item was semi random.  They're a pair of shorts and they're totally cute but it's really trendy/fashion forward for a four year old.

 The next two things for Pey I picked out, one at each Target.  I LOVE this top for her!  The mint is sooooo pretty and it looks like a stylish top but something comfortable as well.  And the dress was too cute to pass up!  Especially for July when it's hot and the colors are perfect for 4th of July.

 

These last few things for Pey are things my mom bought Peytyn recently at Gymboree.  Great for summer and our trip to Utah!!  

Now it's my turn!!  If you want to show a more detailed video of the shoes I bought for myself at Nordstrom Rack CLICK HERE.  Otherwise, here are three pairs of shoes I found and am TOTALLY IN LOVE WITH.  The first two pairs are Nine West and the last pair are Donald J. Pliner which were only $10!  It wasn't until I got home when I realized the original price for these shoes were $315!!  I can't say that I'll ever find such an amazing deal like that again, but at least we each have our stories and always hope for the best when we take that trip to the Rack!

 

Delta... #neveragain

So .. something annoying happened today.  It's actually been going on for 24 hours now and to me as a customer feel like things shouldn't be so hard to fix.  But then again, what do I know?  I don't work for Delta and so I'm a bit ignorant to how things work.

I will say though that I used to work at the call center for Netflix.  So I get it. I understand.  I would get a lot of calls about how to troubleshoot different devices people used to watch movies and shows on Instant Watch and to help someone with mailing issues.  The calls that were stressful and not so fun were the ones dealing with money.  Some people didn't realize that their free trial would turn into a monthly subscription and would be charged the following month the $7.99 fee.  Which is understandable, I mean who reads the terms and conditions anyways?  So of course I would refund their money and cancel for them.  No big deal.  But the calls that were..ugh..you know, "not fun" were the ones where people who signed up, used it but hadn't for awhile and are now upset that they were being charged for the past six months for something they don't use.  We had guidelines and things for reimbursing money so that made things easier but still not super fun.  So I get it.  I understand.  However, airline tickets and fees are way more expensive than a DVD and IW subscription so my emotions since yesterday are probably more heightened than someone calling about a $7.99 charge.

Before I share details of this mess I'll say that I made a few mistakes on my end and will own up to them.  One being that I should've booked through Southwest a month ago when rates were great and bags fly free.  Plus in the past when I've needed to adjust my flights it was super easy and stress free since Southwest doesn't nickel and dime.  The second mistake I made was not calling the Delta the following day after my flight was booked.  I knew I needed to call to change mine and Pey's seats on our returning flight so we can sit next to each other but no .. I waited to do it a few days later which meant fees and price changes and things (not related to our seats though).

Alright, so I have the Fourth of July week off of work so Rick and I decided that Peytyn and I should go to Utah for a visit.  We put off purchasing tickets so we bit the bullet and just went with what would keep Pey and me there the longest.  So I call yesterday to change our seats on our returning flight, which went smoothly buuuuuuut that's when I found out our flight there was too early.  Rick and I had discussed a flight around 5 or so since I had work Thursday.  We're not sure what went wrong but obviously the wrong flight was checked when purchasing them online.  Again, a mistake on our part.  Something that we're both normally OCD about but yet it slipped.  Lesson learned.  Had I called the following day it would've been fixed with less stress but likely the price difference would've been in play but there's no way to tell about that now.

But here's where it gets annoying.  Rick called last night to change the flight and there's this ridiculous $200/person fee to change the flight along with the $84/person flight cost difference.  He talked to a supervisor and had the fee waived and they took his card info and we thought we were set.  I thought it was odd that I hadn't received an email confirmation last night but had plans on calling back today to change our seats so wasn't too worried about it, I would just request one then.

Um so..I called today.  My 1:27 flight on Thursday was still set.  "WHAT. I'm gonna go nuts." was Rick's text response when I told him my flight hadn't changed.  I tell the service rep that my boyfriend had called the night before and talked to a supervisor to change the flight and her response was that it shows on the computer he called and talked to a supervisor but no actions were done.  So I ask for a supervisor because that is totally unacceptable.  The service rep was nice and I could've completed the transaction then and there but I wanted to know why it hadn't gone through.  So I talk to a supervisor and she was....not my favorite person.  I personally think when it comes to call centers that less words you use, the better.  Plus the way she talked was really "bratty".  (Keeping wording here clean.) I explained to her it was uncomforting that Rick called the night before to change the flight and they took his card information but it wasn't processed.  If I hadn't called to change our seats then I would've potentially missed my flight on Thursday.  The more likely scenario was that my world would've been rocked Wednesday when I was preparing for the things the following day and found out then.  Worst case scenario being having to ditch Cassie at work to assist all the double root canals we have booked already plus anyone else we get in before taking a week vacation.  And that already happened once during Christmas due to a similar thing happening and I'm not about to do it again.

Really, the only thing here that I have a major issue with is not having this all processed yesterday.  That really irks me.  Since that happened I feel "entitled" to be compensated in some sort of way.  But that's silly, Delta is greedy.

So..we learn a few things.  One, book your flight as early as possible. Two, fly Southwest.  They always seem to have the best rates and bags fly free (which is now a big deal for me since I flew Alaska Airlines a few weeks ago and had to pay for my bag then.  Plus there's no way I'm doing a carry on when I already have Pey to worry about and we'll be there for long enough that I need a large bag for us). Three, Delta shouldn't nickel and dime.  I understand paying for the difference in price of the tickets, but the $200/person fee is bogus and I'm guessing they waive it often anyways. Four, long distance relationships suck.  Hopefully we'll be able to work a better solution for that in the future.

Oh and I will for sure call back in a few hours to make sure 100% that this is all set now.  A good sign already is that I got the confirmation email but there's no trust with this airline relationship anymore.

Instagram Vs. Vine

If you haven't see on Facebook or been notified by Instagram within the app, Instagram is now capable of sharing videos.  I watched the live event (click here to watch) and during that event, it was revealed the Instagram can now share videos starting today (including Android).

During the event you also hear about the history of Instagram and other cool facts as well.  I find those things interesting personally so I thought that was neat to learn about as well as this new feature.  They had stated that early on when developing this app in the beginning, video was part of the function of the app.  But it was removed because they felt that if you're going to have a certain feature, it better be done right.  I definitely agree to that and believe they have been working on this before Vine was released. It takes a long time to build something like this and although many people aren't saying it, some have mentioned Instagram [copying] Vine.  One dude I follow on Vine, Marcus Johns (who is frikkin hilarious) posted this Vine shortly after the new reveal:

I'll tell you this right now, I will keep my Vine app because of users like Marcus Johns (Eric Stonestreet, Morgan Swank, Lance210, etc.) because again, frikkin hilarious. But I will say my use of it will be limited.  Mostly because I already have followers and I'm already following so many on Instagram and the features it holds are cooler than Vine..who really has no features at all.  

Like I mentioned before, it's nice that I already have the people I follow already in one spot and don't have to worry about going through and finding them all on another app..that's obnoxious and not worth my time.

Something I am excited to see is how businesses use this feature.  I already follow Taco Bell on Vine and they posted this yesterday:

And of course advertisements get annoying over time and whatever .. but I love creativity especially when it comes to business and I enjoy seeing what people come up with.  And if any of them get annoying they'll just get an unfollow.  ;-) It will be fun to see what Nike and Aritzia (a few other businesses that create awesome posts) come up with.  And I'm here dying of jealousy as my friend who works for Nike and runs Nike's Instagram and Twitter gets to do all these fun things for it!  #DudeIWantYourJob

A feature that I'm very excited about is Cinema .. as a parent most of my videos are all over the place trying to keep up with Pey running around and being all cute so I appreciate this so very much.  I'm just sad I can't import old Vines into Instagram to convert them to be more stable!  

While there are these new features such as the length is up to 15 seconds (compared to Vine's six seconds), the 13 new filters, Cinema and having the option to delete the last segment that you added to your video, I love simple it still is.  It's easy to get overwhelmed with different options that apps can have and having the screen be cluttered with buttons and making it more complicated than it needs to be.  So thank you Instagram developers for keeping it as simple as possible while offering the many features to make it complete.  They could have easily kept it simple with just the capture mode and no other features and then add them on over time to keep us updating our app (or even make up pay for a full version - which would be laaaaaaame).  But no, they did what they said; they released it when it was fully developed and functional.  There's still potential for them to add more filters and editing options but I feel like it will be awhile before they roll out another update (unless there are bugs they need to fix).

One last thing I want to add (that I almost forgot!) was about looping.  On Vine every video loops and keeps going and going and going.  At first I was surprised that Instagram didn't have loop enabled and then my feelings shifted to that maybe they were trying to stay "different" than Vine .. but ultimately I settled on the feelings that they didn't use loop so the app could run smoother and faster.  And I actually like the fact that they don't have looping, at first that wasn't the case but now I'm good with that because like the function and use of creating a video, watching a video is now made simple as well (along with not slowing down the app).  Plus it gives you the option to play the video rather than automatically playing it as you scroll through your feed, which again, could slow down the app.

Okay, I just remembered one more thing I'm excited to see with this new feature and that's fashion related posts!!  I've posted a few Vines of my outfits and things that I'm wearing and so it will be fun to see my favorite make up artists, nail artists and beauty gurus show quick tutorials and trends to their followers.  I'm very excited for those accounts because a lot of those people are their own business and it's exciting to watch how they come up with ideas to get followers and people interested in their style and making a name for themselves.  I think this is a great opportunity for them to grow as artists and again, I'm very excited to see their and to see what they come up with!

Alright..that's it for now!  I kind of just poured all my thoughts out and got this done before I forgot anything I wanted to say about the subject!  Now I'm off to create my first vide to get people to read this!  @brittybaby105

The Dreaded Tangle Hair Cut

Everyone has their story.  Mine I can barely remember.  I think I was 3 or 4 when my brother cut my hair short.  I once nannied a girl her cut her hair to her scalp (not when I was watcher her - promise) and I've always feared Pey would one day have her own story. Luckily, this is not that story.

I really believe that Peytyn would never cut her hair or do anything intentional that would result it to be ruined or need to be cut short.  She adores her hair and after watching Tangled my guess is that she loves it even more and would fear of it changing color if she cut it herself.  I don't know that for sure, that's just a guess and I don't even dare have that conversation with her.

With that said, my dad had to cut her hair free from a tangled mess tonight. Before I tell the story I'll let you know that it isn't even noticeable or as bad as I thought it was going to be.  I brushed through it and braided it tonight and couldn't even find the the section that was cut.  Her hair is very long but the last few inches are layered and have only been trimmed twice in her life so that's why we don't need to go through and even it out.

Earlier tonight, I was in the garage with Pey, my mom and my dad.  My dad is working on his truck and he has all of his tools out.  Pey rolled the .. um .. scooter type thing, you know, the thing you lay on and then swivel yourself under the car to take a looksie?  Yeah, that thing.  She was laying on it and my dad needed it and since it was only a few feet from where my dad needed I thought Pey could go for a little ride.  I gently pushed it towards my dad and he grabbed the other end to guide it in the right direction.  Poor choice on our part.  We saw it once it happened and stopped right away.  Her precious hair and rolled up into a wheel and was tangled in there pretty good.  

My parents and I stood for a second, a little shocked but also knew that we couldn't freak out since that would cause Pey to freak out in return.  And the fact that this happened to her hair was even a bigger deal for me and I knew would be for her as well.  The .. um .. rolly thing (my dad later informed me after writing this that it's called a "creeper"? Go Craftsman!) .. is about Pey's height so we stood her up and the tool followed with her.  Pey hugged me as she cried and my mom held up the tool as my dad checked out the hair in the wheel.  Within a few moments we had realized that it would need to be cut loose.  I was already tearing up since Pey was crying and I'm very emotionally attached to her hair.  I said I wanted to take a look before they cut it and it just needed to be done.  We needed to just get it over with and be done with it.  My dad cut her hair as I envisioned in my mind the jagged, short mess that I thought would be a result.  Buuuuuuut it was okay.  It was a small portion of her hair and again, the layering on the bottom of her is already staggered that it's not noticeable.  If her hair was cut straight and perfect, then for sure it would need an all over trim to even it out. 

Thank goodness.

After her hair was cut loose my dad pulled the tool away to hide the hair in the wheel from Pey.  We knew she would freak out if she knew we had cut it (plus we didn't want to give her any ideas).  After we went back inside I put french braids into her hair.  Gotta start keeping it more tame I guess! 

Pey's Spring OOTD

This is probably my favorite outfit of Pey's right now. Definitely my favorite hairstyle too since she'll let me do it, she loves all things girly and a braided heart is perfect for that.

 

I bought her chambray top at Tilly's (when I was shopping for myself with my birthday gift card, haha). I love how the top ties in the front, has pearly buttons and the lace back is adorable and adds some more personality to the outfit. 

 

Her Joe's Jeans are from Nordstrom Rack and like a lot of her jeans they have the adjustable waist so they'll last for a long time. Her booty doesn't quite fill it out especially since she's no longer fully committed to diapers (yay!). It was a long road but we're now only doing diapers during the night and she's very happy she's a big girl and wearing underwear everyday. 

 

The hairstyle is from one of my favorite YouTube channel, Cute Girls Hairstyles. It's a braided heart and in the tutorial Mindy places it in the back but I put it on the side. (http://youtu.be/sZoU2k7TdHM for this tutorial.)

 

 

Here are a few more photos I want to post because she hardly lets me take pictures of her so I'm taking advantage of that right now!

 

These photos were taken at University of Portland last night for my brother Brian's high school graduation. It was a beautiful day out and it was fun taking photos of Pey while we were waiting to go inside. Congratulations B-Phil, I love you!!

 

Mascara in the Mirror

Lol .. First I want I thank Rick for these photos and the idea for this title of this post. He's an MJ fan so it's extra fun, right?

And I'm soooooo far behind with posts .. I have so many I've started and haven't finished yet and so those will be rolling out at some point. 

But for today I wanted to share some photos that my amazing boyfriend Rick took when we went to SoCal last weekend for Memorial Day. I was there Thursday to Monday with him and then he stayed until that following Thursday to see more friends and family since he had more time off of work than I did.

While I have a separate full blog post for that trip, here's a little teaser .. Well .. Not much of a teaser since this doesn't have too much to do with the trip. But on Friday after spending time on the beach that day, I was doing my make up to get ready to go out for dinner when Rick decided to take some candid photos of me doing my make up. No editing has been done to any of these photos. 

Thanks babe for some photos!

 

Running.

So I wrote this out and posted it to Instagram but it didn't stick (probably too long) so here it is:

So I just started running two weeks ago and so far I only do 30 minutes each time and today I was able to run the whole time without stopping. I'm not going for speed but for distance. This is a big deal for me since when I was younger running in PE was always so embarrassing for me and I was always the last to finish.

When I was a freshman I played rugby for a season and even though I sucked at it I became a pretty good runner but didn't stick with it. (Out of laziness, I really wanted to keep with it and continue to get better.) Then last year when I was working out twice a week at Diva Den Studios I gained 10 pounds in muscle and felt great about myself. But again, got busy and lost it all.

All my life people have given me a hard time about my weight and the way I look. I've been harassed, put down and talked about. Lucky for me I had wonderful friends in high school who would stick up for me when I wasn't around and set people straight and deny I had any eating disorders. I love them so much for that. I've never had an eating disorder and it's not that it hurt my feelings that people put me down for it, I was just annoyed that people were judgmental in general.

It's also annoying when people make comments about how I couldn't have been pregnant or say that I don't need to work out or make fun or me because I think I do. I don't work out to be skinny. I work out so I can be health and have a long life for Peytyn.

Health isn't about the number on the scale since everyone is different. But I know I want to gain 10+ pounds like I did last year and have substance to this body and to be fit. I know from experience that it's a good weight for me and I'll feel balanced like I did before. 

I'm not doing this for anyone but myself. (Well, I want to be healthy for my family.) I feel great when I work out. I sleep better. I eat better. I'm happier.

I find it funny how people call others "too fat" or "too skinny". Some people can never be satisfied and those are the people who will never be happy. People just need to realize that everyone is different and you can't compare anyone to another person due to health, genetics and lifestyles. Just do you and what makes you happy. 

Birthday Wish

Yup.

Twigs Bistro and Martini Bar

Something fun to do is going to happy hour.  I'm not a drinker but the food is cheaper and it's a great time to chat with friends and it's really just a fun past time for us.  Normally I go to Oswego Grill and have even tried Manzana's happy hour awhile ago.  I'm also a huge fan of The Cheesecake Factory's happy hour..but they only have it during the day and not at night when closing.  Yeah, that was a bummer phone call.  And now there's a new place in town that I was ready to try out.  Funny, I went for happy hour but stayed for an entree:

Recently in Bridgeport Village a new restaurant opened where the old Macaroni Grill used to be.  I'm not entirely sure what happened with Macaroni Grill but it's gone now and there's a swanky new restaurant in its place.  I was first drawn to Twigs Bistro and Martini Bar by the outdoor seating that they have.  It's been super nice here in Portland lately and what could be better to end your day with eating some yummy food outside on a warm night?  Well..a lot of things.  Let's just say it wasn't the best experience I've had but I can't say I won't go back.  I'm really hoping they get their stuff together or else it's going to tank.  I've already talked to a few others about this place and their experience has been the same so far.  But let me share with you what happened and I honestly want to share this as a way to give constructive criticism more than anything.  I want this place to be successful and I do encourage others to try it.

So let me walk you through our experience at Twigs.  We first walk in and I'm just all googly-eyed at the decor.  I could tell from how they redid the siding that it was going to have an all new look from Macaroni Grill and I love how it turned out.  There definitely is a great atmosphere to the place.  After checking out the place for a moment we walk to the hostess to ask about their menu and what food items they had for happy hour.  After taking a look over we decided it would be a good choice to try it out.  When we first arrived I was a little bummed at seeing all the outdoor seating looked full - in the sense that I wanted to enjoy the warm weather but others had beat me to it.  But lucky for me the walls that share the patio are collapsable and open that part of the restaurant so you're almost outside as well.  Honestly it's almost better that way in case there was any wind so HUGE plus on that.  It's also pretty cool because there are some pretty cool pub-like tables that have booth-like seating for one side of it...does that that make any sense?  Haha..I wanted to take a picture to share but they were all full .. and I also wish one was open for us to sit at, but oh well.  Well..we'll come back to that actually at the end of this post.

So we get seated and it's all great because the weather is perfect, it's dark out and there's a good mood going all the way around for us.  But then it all kind of went down hill from there.  Again, I don't want to say "Don't ever go to Twigs" because I actually have plans to go back myself, but they really need to fix the problems that they were having that night (and others that I've heard about).

But basically what the problem was our waitress.  The service was the worst. We hardly saw her all night.  And it wasn't that busy.  Even when I have gone to busy restaurants like California Pizza Kitchen or The Cheesecake Factory I'll still at least see my server way more than I did at Twigs.  It really was just awful.  And after talking to a friend of mine that went another time he mentioned that his server wasn't all that great either.  Back to our server though, at first it wasn't a big deal because since it was our first time there we wanted to look over the menu and were not in any sort of hurry at all.  We asked for some water to start since we were pretty dehydrated from the beach and our sunburns that day.  And when she came back with the waters and to take our order we asked for more time and again, we weren't too worried about it then.  Normally when I'm at a restaurant (and what I expect) is for our server to come back sporadically to check in on us and to answer any questions.  Well..no.  After we decided what we wanted (which took us a long time) we waited and waited and waited.  We never saw her in our section or anything.  Eventually some dude from the same area as us asked us if we were ready to order drinks or anything.  So we started to tell him what we wanted.  Our drink order was a little confusing because neither of us are drinkers but we wanted some sort of raspberry blended thing.  Haha.  I know on cruises I get virgin daiquiris but when it comes to the real world I have no clue what to get or what to order.  So after having a discussion with this guy waiter about what we wanted and figured that out we start to order our food and then our waitress shows up.  So this guy moves on which I understand, he doesn't want to come across as taking over her table or anything but he was trying to be helpful.  But it was just a bit annoying we had to go through the same conversation and place our drink and food order a second time.

Once we get our food, we were all happy again.  It was pretty good.  I was a fan of the steak I got, the flavor was great and it was cooked perfect to how I like it.  I just recommend to scrape the huge pepper flakes off the top before eating it.  But that's no big deal at all though.  Just a tip, unless you prefer the big pepper flakes then I wouldn't recommend to scrape them off.

While we were enjoying our steaks we had great conversation and got full on the food .. buuuuuut .. our waitress was never in sight.  Seriously.  Normally at restaurants (and what I expect) is for the server to come back every so often to check on drinks and to see how we are liking the food.  Well, we ate our meal and never saw her.  At one point we even were waiting for refills.  Eventually we see her within our section on the patio and we had planned on stopping her on her way back to let her know we wanted some more drinks.  But really, you would think she would just stop on her way back regardless.  Well, we didn't stop her.  We couldn't.  No eye contact, she walked way to quickly and really there was an empty table in between us at our closest point.  Okay, plan B was to ask the one guy server for a refill since he was helpful.  So we stopped him and asked for another drink, while he accepts the request for a refill he then goes on to explain they were having computer issues..strange..how does that relate to us not seeing our waitress all night?  Maybe she was fixing the problem?  But if that's the case she shouldn't have tables to serve.  Nice try, dude.  A bit later we see our waitress with a tray full of drinks and I can already tell ours wasn't on it.  She delivers the drinks to the table on the patio and never stops.  Then later we see the guy server again and asked about our drinks and it was obvious he had forgotten but it really shouldn't have been his concern at all.  But at this point our waitress was around and so he told her we wanted another drink and since she was there we also asked for our bill, because let's face it, we were done being there.  

While we are sitting at our table and discussing the service we received that night, a waitress in the section with the pub-like seating [I'm assuming] overheard us and started talking to us.  I can't remember what she said or how she got into our conversation but however she did it was great.  You can tell she's great at her job and easy to talk to and we expressed our concerns of the service we had that night.  We even told her that we were jealous we weren't in her section since we saw her all night long...literally.  All throughout the night we kept saying to each other how we wish we had the one waitress that was always around and catering to all her tables.  She told us we were supposed to be in her section until one more group sat down and basically booted us.  But I will tell she's the reason why I'm going back and recommend others to go back.  There's hope, and her name is Casey.  I definitely will ask if she's working the next time I go and pray that she has room to serve me.  And hopefully the other servers can learn from Casey and her personality can even rub off onto them.  Not saying our waitress wasn't nice, she just .. didn't even try.  We even think she gave up at one point thinking there was no way to redeem herself.  I've never worked in a restaurant before so I don't know all the "rules" but I'm thinking a free dessert could've improved the tip we left.  

So something really odd happened that night .. not related to us at all but .. a serious "no no" in my mind.  And again, I've never worked in a restaurant so I don't know all the do's and don'ts but I can't imagine that this was okay. What happened was, after we were seated and waiting for our water or right after we got it, we noticed one of the employees carrying a tray of food over to a table on the patio.  I didn't think she was one of the waiters but was helping deliver the food.  There were three items on the tray; fries, soup and another plate.  She places the fries down on the table and as she's about to put down the soup, the server guy that was helping us later that evening rushes over as she's doing this and they start talking and this guy PICKED UP THE FRIES OFF THE TABLE, grabs the tray and goes to another table across the patio and gives them the fries and second plate.  The woman that first had the tray took the soup and went to the kitchen.  A bit later she returns with the soup and another plate of fries.  Could you imagine the look on the couple that the food was taken away from?  They were shocked and annoyed.  I don't think they said anything but they looked pretty pissed to me.  What should've happened (in my opinion) was the fries should've stayed on the table.  The second table across the patio would have never known this had happened and they probably would've needed to wait a little longer but they would've never known.  On the other hand, this couple is left knowing they they have to wait longer because of a mistake.  I don't even know what else there is to say about that..but I'm still shocked that even happened.

Again, not saying "Don't go to Twigs" .. what I'm saying is when you go to Twigs, ask for Casey.  So let us pray that she's working next Thursday when I go for my birthday...but maybe I should be safe and head to Oswego Grill?

Meeting Andrew Hales from LAHWF

I'm sure many of you that watch YouTube videos have seen Andrew and his LAHWF channel.  He has some pretty awesomely awkward pranks/social experiments and I've been a fan since last fall.  It's always fun to have some sort of interaction with people you follow.  Even if it is to awkwardly say "hi" and have nothing else to say.  I mean really, there was nothing else to say other than that.

LAHWF video Rick is in:

Rick mentions a video that he saw Andrew in and here it is: