My family

People post cute things their kids say. Well...this is something my mom's kid said.
"The best thing about my family dying is we have more food."-Meagan

Re: Oregon trail

a review of 2011

well...i knew 2011 would be better than 2010 and it was!  not really for all of the reasons i thought but they were all good reasons.

let's review the good and bad.

i had fun making a ton of stationary and invitations!  i love designing and practicing designing things. i have more projects to post...but i'll get to those eventually.

basketball season...san diego state shared the mwc championship title then won the mountain west championship tournament and made school history by making it further in march madness than any sdsu team.  i believe! go aztecs! kawhi leonard was drafted by the pacers and signed with the san antonio spurs (he scored the game winning basket tonight!).  malcolm thomas went overseas and played in korea (i think), made some money, then came back and signed with the lakers! go spurs and lakers!

i made it to a few anaheim duck games last season and this season.  one time we got to go skating on the ice after!  i even went to a playoff game last season (but this year)! go ducks!

i discovered free stuff.  it is great!

i went to medieval times for the first time!

i made it to disneyland a few times.

i got to stay at a swanky hotel and live it up.

i saw nkotbsb twice and kevin richardson with bsb once!  i was also able to fulfill a tween dream of mine and was one of girls who bsb says hi to while walking through the audience.  i also discovered nkotb from these concerts. they're old but they're still cool! donnie wahlberg has given me lots of material for my rs lessons.

me and nick

i saw blink-182 three times!   i was able to fulfill my grown up dream of mine to meet a real rockstar, from a band i respect and listen to.  i also got to hang out backstage.

me and tom

i went to almost acoustic christmas and saw great bands including bush, blink-182, and 311...more to come on that.

next day going to church

i had cellulitus on my nose near my eye...the week of my birthday.  i had good friends to keep tabs on me and make sure i was ok and i did something on my birthday.  i also had great parents who dealt with me...and drove me to the doctors when i couldn't see because my eye was swollen shut. if you ask me to show you a picture i will, i can't post it...it is honestly too horrible looking. lots of doctors and lots of medicine (antibiotics make me feel super horrible), but i am all good now.

i got to dress up in maybe my favorite halloween costume ever as a sugar skull with k.

i had multiple cousins get married.  it was fun seeing all of my family.

the world discovered rebecca black's friday and charlie sheen went crazy.

lots of great movies and music came out. i really enjoyed "midnight in paris" it was such a cute movie! i just got it on dvd, yay! i am loving the new bush cd, bush is just classic.

i fell in love with ryan gosling. typographerryangosling.tumblr.com  i am ready for him to be my typography teacher.

i made it down to san diego a couple of weeks ago.  i love that place so much it is dangerous.  i've been down and anti-social ever since i came home.  i miss that place and the people so much.  i know there are terrible horrible no good very bad days, even in san diego and australia, but when i am having those terrible horrible no good very bad days, i'd rather be having them in san diego.  a huge chunk of my heart will always be in san diego.  in my opinion it is the greatest city on earth and everything about it is better than everywhere else.

i've been dealing with a sporadic minnesotan accent, not sure why or how i got it, but it is something i've been dealing with.

i got a new laptop...i'm working on 17.3" not a 10" netbook now.  it has made designing things 1000 times easier.

it is christmas time and the best time of the year!  merry christmas and happy new year.  2012, you have a lot to live up to!

happy halloween!

so i went down to san diego for halloween.  it was pretty cool!  i miss that place.

my friend kenna and i planned on going to church party and were really struggling to come up with good costumes.  they are either super immodest or super overly modest and not even cute.  so we ended up being sugar skulls from dia de los muertos, the mexican day of the dead celebration, which i was excited about.  i studied the holiday in my mexican american border folklore class in college (yes this was a class, and i did take it) and so it was cool to re-study it and see shrines in real life.

when we decided to do this, my parents were in mexico, so i asked my mom to find me a dress and she did (go mom!).  kenna got her shirt in old town and her mom made the skirt (go kenna's mom!).   i did the makeup, kenna did the eyelashes, kenna did her hair, and i did my hair with help from my mom putting curlers in my hair. i practiced the makeup and looked at lots of pictures to figure out what i wanted.  i even asked meagan to ask her makeup teacher (seriously...she has a makeup teacher...why am i an accountant?) what white makeup to use etc.

so then we went to old town and they have a bunch of mexican shops and what not so we went and took pictures.  people started taking pictures of us...it was kind of cool/weird.  i had rhinestones around my eyes. they kind of look metal-ish in pictures...but they were rhinestones.

we took lots of pictures so i separated them into 3 albums..caitlin, kenna, and caitlin and kenna.

blink-182 continued

so here are some pictures at the concert.  i took a video of travis drum solo (he goes up on this big mechanical arm and plays the drums as he is flying over the audience) and maybe some pics of the stage that ill post later.  they have the coolest av and lights i've seen.  most rock bands put up a banner and have some fire and they're good to go.  

kenna and me and blink-182's picture

kenna and me

 kenna and me in the pit pre blink

chillin back stage with getting crazy with some water 

besties backstage in the family room 

tom and me 

thank you mrs. DDub for a great night out!

blink 182

so, i don't always go to the same show twice, but so far this year i have.  i'll admit, after nkotbsb, my music playlist was invaded and filled up with way too much pop.  it is fine if you like pop, but i love my rock music.  after blink, i am back to my music roots.

side note the blink's new album is really good.  some of it has a bit more of an angels and airwaves feel like wishing well, but some of it is sounds super old, like hearts all gone.  i have listened to it 20 times easily since tuesday.

remember how i said my friend had some hook ups...we got this picture with the band!!

we also got free sunglasses.  apparently my hair thought hey, you and mark should try to match. 

ok so that wasn't all. 

(this is a picture of a picture, i'm working on getting the original and more pics)

if you don't recognize the guy in this photo, look at the pic above, the guy on the far right.

maybe i also ran into mark backstage.

last week...

last thursday mccall and i went to disneyland. we got so much done!  my friend cameron joined us later on in the day.  we had so much fun and went on every ride we wanted to go on.  mccall and i got there at 9 pm when the park opened and walked on to our last ride at 10 pm when the park closed.  it was a really fun and long day.  the highlight for mccall was standing behind some people from australia and listening to them talk.

friday after work, i flew out to utah for a quick trip.  saturday i went to my sister's school and got my hair done.  it was pretty cool. then we went to a blink 182 concert.  i was able to get some really good tickets (thanks again mrs. d.w.!) and had lots of fun with bil and meg.

rancid opened...and i am not a rancid fan, but they are a good solid band.  then my chemical romance played.  i am not a die hard mcr fan but i like their stuff.  they are a little over dramatic but good.  i really like the nananananana song.  then blink played.  i really like blink!  i am excited to hear their new cd (it is called neighborhoods and comes out september 27th).  it should be all over the place and great.  best pun of the night "salt lake city keeps it Real (pronounced like the SLC soccer team Real Salt Lake)" puns are the best.

the car ride

meg & bil

sisters

blink 182

a random picture of the crowd to the right of the stage 

blink 182

mark & travis

tom

i have more pictures...but they aren't very good and they won't post where i want them too...so this will do. 

so we had a blast.  sunday i went to church with meg & bil.  it was...ya.  then we went to dinner at my cousin jimmy's house.  it was my cousin jimmy, kira & baby jordan and cousin thomas, jenn & lincoln, bil, meg & me (this is probably a mess of a sentence and i am over it).  we didn't see much of thomas or jimmy (it was fantasy football draft day) but it was fun to hang out with kira, jenn and the kids!  thanks again for having us over!  then it was off to the airport.  

it was a fun weekend and i am glad i could just recover on monday.

finally friday...

this week hasn't been one i would ever want to relive, but ya. it took my 2 hours and 15 minutes to get to work one day.  i usually get to work in 45 mins. moving on.

1.  i am on pinterest now. my name is gold and location earth if you want to find me.
2.  the new blink 182 video came out last night/this morning.  it is cool.
3.  i got to talk to kenna and her niece.  her niece got a molly doll, and when i was about 8 i got a molly doll too. kenna has been making fun of me because i want to go to the american girl doll store and get her all cleaned up, but now we all skype.

when i was little, i wanted to dress up like molly did on halloween.  so we copied her outfit and i got the molly costume for my birthday or something and i carried her around on halloween and no one really got the concept.



i think the fact molly's last name is mcintire means that i should really be a joey (mcintyre) girl instead of a donnie girl...

i love...

i love one charming party.  i love everything they do and want to throw children’s parties all the time…but i don’t have kids to throw parties for so i sit in awe and wish i could throw these great parties like ocp does.

i also love school supplies.  honestly, the highlight of going to college was going to staples and getting all of my school supplies.  I had more school supplies than anyone else in my suite.  i remember i once got a compliment on my graphing calculator (it was see through lime green), and i knew college was the right place for me.  in you’ve got mail, they talk about wanting a bouquet of pencils.  it’s a dream of mine to get a bouquet of pencils. 

if you couldn’t tell, i am a nerd.  i also love maps.  i remember i loved to sit and look at maps.  in 7^th grade we had a map drawing contest, and we had to draw a map of the world by memory and label as much as we could, the top 5 maps won a bag of m&m’s, my map was one of the top 5.  i also made it to the 3^rd round of a geography bee in 8^th grade. 

why do i share all this weird random information about myself.  well because all three of these things came together in the most amazing party by one charming party.  they have a PENCIL CAKE out of pencils (no cake)! so amazing!  and check out the amazing map by these are things! i checked out their store, wow!  such great maps!  i want to have this party, but it doesn’t make sense to have it…so i am just making the pencil cake.  this spread of school supplies is better than any spread of food i’ve ever seen.  it is such a great party i just had to share it with the world!

happy birthday jeane!

it was my friend jenae's birthday the other day so i made her this stationary. her last name isn't really hughes...in case you were trying to stalk her.

jenae and i became friends in san diego when went to a water park together. we spent much of our free time after that getting diet coke, going on walks, pranking, sephora-ing, fro-yo-ing, etc. oh how i miss those days and san diego. it is the best place to live. i miss it and the great people there.



miss you j!

oh goodness

...i went back and watched a bunch  of youtube videos of kevin's entrance at the staples center.

i feel like this girl's video captures the moment and emotions.  there is initial excitement then the extreme excitement and joy when kevin came out.  i feel like this could have honestly been me...except i think i was screaming more and up way higher in the stadium.  i scream a lot.





this girl's video looks really good and give a good visual of the whole thing.  i don't feel like it captured the emotion as well...but the initial reaction was great.



so this is what i am still so excited about.  if you see me watch it...it is like i am there and probably hillarious.  i still think it is a you had to be there kind of moment to get the obsession but ya.

while on the subject of middle age men that i love, cowboys & aliens comes out next week!!  lots of people say they don't get it.  it is a movie with daniel craig, harrison ford and directed by jon favreau, what else it there to get?

ribbon notes/cards/tag things

so the other day i came up with this idea.  i made a topper for some cupcakes i made for a friend's birthday in april.  i didn't get pictures of that one, but i got some pics of the ones i made for father's day and my mom's birthday!

my dad always says father dear and my little sister says it a lot more than i do...but i went with it.

what did i give my dad for father's day? these books from barnes & noble!  i am in love with them and want 90% of them.  i gave my mom 3 for mother's day and my dad 3 for father's day!  i also got myself alice in wonderland because it is so cute!  i love all of the books.  pride and prejudice might be my fav though!

nkotbsb at the honda center! pictures!

so, ever since the concert, all i've cared about is bsb and nkotb (mainly donnie from new kids, i want to be his best friend).  i've listened mainly bsb.  meagan got real sick of them on her mini vaca down here. i just want to go on tour with them and follow them around. kenna took these super pics at the concert! thanks k! they're super duper!

caitlin & kenna! (i'm in bsb gear and kenna is in nkotb)

mr. donnie wahlberg

mr. wahlberg post shirt being ripped off!

close up of d dub

me reaching towards nick carter

me and nick!

brian!

me and brian in the same frame

brian singing shape of my heart (i think)

there he is right next to us!

on the backstreet boys website they have pics from when kevin was at staples center.  they are amazing!  donnie posted a pic of him and kev clapping hands and i love it!

go NKOTBSB!!

nkotbsb at the honda center!

ok.  where to start.  well, going into this concert i was pretty sure kevin wouldn't be there (and he wasn't) and i had mixed feelings about that.  i knew there was no way i couldn't have fun because i was going to be a great concert no matter what and i was with one of my bff's who i don't get to see frequently (so glad her work schedule changed so she wasn't in europe and could come).

so after an already delightful evening (kenna and i went to espn sports center in our bsb/nkotb shirts and did some shopping in downtown dinsey) we headed over to the honda center.  we got in and seated.  we had aisle seats and could see the stage pretty well, like good enough i didn't look at the big screens,  well just for close-ups of donnie's abs (kenna, he is still yours i just want to look at his abs).  matthew morrison (cute teacher on glee) opened.  he was cute and fun.  very michael buble esque.  i couldn't cheer because i had to save all cheering for bsb.

well nktobsb came on and the concert went on like it did before and was great.  then during nkotb they pulled these ropes up our row to keep us in.  i knew what was going to happen, since i had already seen the concert.  2 backstreet boys were going to make their entrance on my aisle, walking right next to me.  so then some big buff guys walked up the aisle and it was for real.  i was so excited!

brian and nick made their entrance on my side.  i got to hug nick and shake brian's hand.  i am still shaking and can't believe it happened.  it was a dream come true.  it was amazing.  it made the whole concert perfect.  it made my life.  i love bsb.  i don't know if i ever want to go to another concert again.  ok i do, but these two concerts were a childhood dream come true. and i feel 12 not 23, so thank you bsb.

honestly the 2 concerts were 2 once in a lifetime experiences and am so thankful for them.  thank you bsb from the bottom of my heart for being amazing and making my dreams come true.  i love you guys! long live nkotbsb!

nkotbsb at the staples center!

it was perfect and amazing.  first off, there was a comicon at the la convention center, so there were tons of adults walking around in cartoon outfits.  i recognized about 1% of them and i feel good about that.

the first warm up act was very ehhh.  the second warm up was jordin sparks.  she was so cute and even though that isn't my kind of music she was a good performer and sang well.  ok i go to mostly rock concerts which focus on the music, moshing and being crazy.  pop shows focus on dancing and really putting on a show, which was cool.

then nkotbsb came on and the whole thing was great then towards the end of the show KEVIN RICHARDSON came on stage.  it was during i want it that way.  when it came to his part the music stopped and he came on stage.  he was my fav bsb and i screamed and screamed, along with everyone else.  he was so adorable and humble and perfect. i was 12 again and it was perfect.  it made my life.  it was amazing!  the whole show was great. great dancing and singing and lots of screaming.  those guys know their audience! i wont be talking till wednesday cause my voice is shot and i need to recover, so i can do it all over again!

this proves it!

it is a requirement for me to play rebecca black's friday at work every friday.  when i played friday today, the indian (like from india) girl i work with asked me, "who sings this again? celine dion?" she was 110% serious, not trying to be funny.