Busted: Oli and diet coke

My friend's baby is pretty darn cute, even if he did take my diet coke when I wasn't looking.

Still loving these Hipstamatic pictures--it makes Linda's floor look like a ballet studio.

Getty

Inspired by the artistry of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, I thought a trip to the Getty would be in order. It was our first time and we learned there is a 3/4 mile tram ride up to the museum from the parking:

Once arrived at an amazing collection of world art, where do two inspired 5th grade girls want to go? You nailed it if you said "cafeteria". But eventually we made our way to some of the exhibits, the best being the ones that had a place to sit down:

I wanted to check out the exhibit entitled "Tasteful Pictures" which was a photo exhibit of food, but we were all a bit disappointed at how unappetizing the pictures were--and apparently, it was sort of the point of the display. One description aptly described that the composition and cropping made a plate of noodles "look like a plate of worms." Blech.

Overall, we enjoyed the views, some sculptures, and yes, the food.

Alice in Wonderland

We had a little girls night out (the girl, her bestie, and me)--starting with dinner at Asia Noodle Cafe:

Then on to the movies, finally saw Alice in Wonderland!

We all agreed that though we found the story a little confusing, we loved the movie visually. Overall, I'd average the C story and the A art direction and give this movie a B. The costumes were gorgeous, the hair and makeup magical, and the art direction alternately creepy, amazing, and downright inspiring.

Bar Celona

For work, we did a workshop a half hour north of Pasadena and when we were done at five, we thought it wiser to wait out the traffic in Pasadena. This is me and my sharp friends from work, sitting pretty and smart in Bar Celona:

But it got better--KW, who used to work with us and left to go to grad school at the University of Southern California, joined us:

The tapas were delicious:

And I HAD to treat my friends to a pitcher of their ridiculously tasty sangria. It's like Kool-Aid for adults--sweet and refreshing. By far, the best sangria I've ever had:

And to cap it off, the Laker fan in the group was pleased by the last second rebound that gave the Lakers an amazing 103-101 win.

Needless to say, it was a great night.

Hipstamatic

If there one feature I love, love, love about the iPhone, it would be the amazing apps available for it. I have a ton of free ones and they're mostly photography apps with a few games, like Words with Friends, as I mentioned in this post.

But I recently bought my first app: Hipstamatic. It has a collection of lenses, films, and flashes that mimic the titular original toy camera:

The resulting pictures have a retro look with an appealing sloppy randomness of color processing, graininess, and/or lighting, depending on the lens, film, and/or flash combination. Unlike other photographic apps, which applies the look post-process, Hipstamatic only allows the pictures to be produced organically by taking the picture. The major downside is that in mimicking the real-time camera experience, it gets annoying waiting for the "wiping of the lens", the "transistors" to warm up, or the picture "to develop".

But here's a collection of pictures of various combos of lenses and films that the Hipstamatic can take:

Thai Iced Tea with Boba

Linda's Oli

The girl and me

A trip to the KogiBBQ truck

A cat named Oskar

I love Hipstamatic.

Drink your milk

For the longest time, I've been telling the girl that she needs to eat well (drink her milk, finish her vegetables, eat enough protein, etc.) because she's still growing. And often, she'd sigh, but I'm already one of the taller girls in my class.

To which I'd reply, Don't be so sure--remember my cousin? She was the tallest girl in 3rd grade at 5'2"...

The girl would roll her eyes. I know, Mom, and she'd finish my sentence with a wide-eyed, ghost story flourish, ...and she never grew taller than that...

Anyway, the girl recently had a growth spurt and went from 5'1" to 5'5" in a matter of 8 months. Technically speaking, at age 10, she is only 3 inches shorter than me. The other day, she was standing next to me and nearly looked in my eyes and said, hey I'm almost as tall as you--maybe I'll be taller than you someday. And then I'll say:

Who's the cousin now?

oh, snap.

Hello Monday

Kickin' off the week with one of my favorite breakfast sandwiches: avocado, hard-cooked egg, topped with garlic salt, tapatio hot sauce, olives and a little ketchup to hold it all together.

Happy Monday all!