Sisterhood Weekend in San Clemente!

For my Grandma's 75th birthday all of the girls got together for a weekend in San Clemente. We found a beautiful beach house to rent that was like a dollhouse. Perfect for us. :) The weekend was filled with great stories, tons of laughs, one really bad Nicole Kidman movie, followed by the always great Bridget Jones Diary, a night out on the town, shopping, naps, reading books and unfortunately cloudy skies. Oh and did I mention that there was a lot of food too? Whew. I love that I have such a great family. The birthday girl:

Let the party begin!

The great park and bond in the gated communityNight out on the town
Sisters


crazy watch out tracey!

The birthday girl

A New Addition to Our Family - The Smart Car!!!

Today Chris and I picked up our new baby and could not be happier. Right now Chris' truck gets 15mpg and the smart will get 35-41mpg. Such a difference. It will cut our gas cost in half along with benefiting the planet. The coolest part about this car is that it is fully recyclable! yay France for making such an awesome car. For all of you who think it is a death trap, you can rest easy because "The 2008 smart fortwo achieved the highest ratings from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) for front and side crashworthiness". Obviously big SUV's are not supposed to be crashing into these but that's why you have to be a safe driver. Just because your car is large does not mean it is built well either. Anyhoo - we love it!

Quentin Tarantino

So I NEVER do this. But after a few cocktails I guess I will. I was at Ford's Filling Station (a delicious restaurant owned by Harrison Ford's son) with the family and Quentin Tarantino was sitting in the corner. After all of us went to the bathroom to scope him out, I decided I was going to ask him for a picture. It is Quentin "freakin" Tarantino. But I missed when he walked by me so I got gutsy and chased him out the door! I yelled "Quentin!", he turned around, I asked for a picture, he kissed my hand and viola! Now I have his large head with me forever. hehe

The cool restaurant: http://www.fordsfillingstation.net/newDesign.htm
xoxo c&a

COLDPLAY

So on July 15th I went with Chris to the LA Forum and saw for the third time my beloved Coldplay. Anyone who knows me also knows how much I love them. I have fully converted Chris into a fan and he was right there with me in all of the excitement. They never fail to put on a brilliant performance and once again reminded me of why I love them so much.

the other chris
the awesome back drop
yeaahhhhhhh
The finale of butterfliesThe set list:

Life in Technicolor

Violet Hill

Clocks

In My Place

Viva la Vida

42

Yes

The Scientist

Chinese Sleep Chant

God Put a Smile Upon Your Face

Square One

Speed of Sound

Lost

Strawberry Swing

Yellow

Death Will Never ConquerFix You

Lovers in Japan > Reign of Love

Death and All His Friends

A beautiful night with me and the boys :)

The Lovely Chris

Because this part of the song is the best

A Night with Stevie Wonder

AMAZING

Stop the Madness

I am not one to use this as a platform for my opinion but on this issue I believe that everyone needs to do their part. I started using recyclable bags over a year ago. For Christmas I almost gave them out as gifts but Chris made fun of me. Get ready for this year because I want nothing in return for Christmas except proof that everyone I know is using recyclable bags for ALL of their simple shopping. Target, Walgreens, Grocery, to carry their lunches, take their dry cleaning...etc. THESE ARE WHAT I USE AND ARE ONLY 99 CENTS OR $1.49 AT TARGET AND ARE SO CUTE!

I started using them for many reasons. I have begun to notice how much waste we create just by living our day to day life. From junk mail to unnecessary food packaging it is key to trim down your excessive lifestyle and recycle as much as possible. We now know that global warming does exist and we need to do everything we can to change the future for our children. We also need to take responsibility for the negative impact we have on the planet and innocent creatures. I also am including sad but true information about what a simple plastic bag does to our planet

• Data released by the United States Environmental Protection Agency shows that somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year


• Less than 1% of bags are recycled. It cost more to recycle a bag than to produce a new one


• Bags find their way into the sea via drains and sewage pipes


• Plastic bags have been found floating north of the Arctic Circle near Spitzbergen, and as far south as the Falkland Islands


• Plastic bags account for over 10 percent of the debris washed up on the U.S. coastline


• Plastic bags photo degrade:Over time they break down into smaller, more toxic petro-polymers which eventually contaminate soils and waterways


• Nearly 200 different species of sea life including whales, dolphins, seals and turtles die due to plastic bags

SO WHAT DO WE DO?

• If we use a cloth bag, we can save 6 bags a week, that's 24 bags a month, 288 bags a year,
  22,176 bags in an average life time


• If just 1 out of 5 people in our country did this we would save 1,330,560,000,000 bags over our life time


• China has banned free plastic bags, Ireland taxes theirs and has reduced consumption by 90%, Israel, Canada, western India, Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Taiwan, and Singapore have also banned or are moving toward banning the plastic bag


• On March 27th 2007, San Francisco becomes first U.S. city to ban plastic bags

Please do you part and use your recyclable bags!!!! xoxo c&a

Congratulations to Jen & Nick

On July 3rd my friends Jen and Nick Schroeder welcomed their baby boy Jackson Dylan Schroeder into the world. He weighed in at 9lbs 7oz and measured 21.25 inches. I met him yesterday and he is beautiful! Some pictures I took of the little guy:

The Happy Family