I had to read it several times to get it

I don't win things. I just don't. I have never really had any luck good or bad. The last time I won anything was $50 off of a scratch lotto ticket my mom bought for my 18th birthday. Maybe that was in fact her luck, not mine that made me win 50 bucks.

When I was looking at the new Oscar museum website for possible job openings, I noticed a web banner advertisement about becoming a museum member with a possibility of winning tickets to the Oscars. I signed up and immediately emailed the immediate fam urging them to signup because maybe someone would win, not me of course.

I actually forgot that I signed up and when I did find out that I had indeed won, I couldn't be happy about it. I got the email while I waited to pick up my bag, after finding out my flight from Toronto to Ottawa was canceled.  We had just found out that we flew into a polar vortex. 

When I read the email later, the only light I had access to was my phone. The electricity went out in the place we were staying, the timed beeps of the "by the way, your smoke alarm is no longer connect to electrical!!!" made it hard to sleep. I re-read the email, but it sounded like it was just for me, 1 ticket. I thought, no way am I going by myself and I never thought about it again.

When I got back from the great farther north, I got a reminder to turn in all my forms, I didn't think to bother. I got a second reminder an hour later about getting in my forms for me and my guest.

Guest!!!!

The posts to come is my itinerary for perfect Hollywood weekend. Thankfully I had some very willing participants.

Birthday part ll

We we all a little bummed (bumbed) at that point, the day of laying by the pool and relaxing dashed, but as always we laughed through it, joking that the guys called it in because they couldn't handle all of the kids at once. We ended up again at a very cute place in Ocean Beach, sipped more cocktails and watched the surfers. Then did a little window shopping, joked about getting matching tatoos at one of the many parlors in the 3 sqaure block area and called it a day for girls day. We finished with pizza and cupcakes.

A birthday so fun they had to call in the bomb squad

As I mentioned in an earlier post, part of the reason this trip was planned in August was my mom's birthday. I you know my mom at all, her idea of the BEST terp, I mean trip, when she can spend time near water with a fruity drink in her hand with all of us in the same place. Keeping this in mind, we planned a surprise girls day at a local day spa/resort. Little did we know that we were in for a surprise ourselves. (dun, dun, duuuuun!)

We left the men with the under 10 set, and we set off for a neighboring island. We checked into the spa, sipped tea in robes and waited for our services which were going to tip off a whole day of steaming, snacking, and lounging at the resort's pools and jacuzzis without a chorus of mom, mom, moms and no, no, nos. once properly steamed, we headed to lunch and the bar. We were enjoying a bunch of sweet potato fries and strawberry mojitos when our waiter let us know that we had to evacuate because someone called a bomb threat.. At first we thought he was kidding, but unfortunately he wasn't. We grabbed our drinks and walked to the evacuation zone, which was a shadeless open field on a very hot day. After 30 minutes and no end in sight, we told a slight fib about where we were parked and ended up running to the car, a lot closer than I remembered to the building. Three hours later, when we passed by the resort, the beaches were still empty. We made the right decision, plus we salvaged a birthday.
 

(above photo was before we left)

(below photos is of lunch part one)

Where have I been??

This is another one of those apology posts where I talk about all of the reasons I haven't been posting. Since my last post, about San Diego, I have been to Miami, Montreal, Toronto, Ottowa, I had guests in town for the Oscars, and then visited North Carolina, Minnesota. I have been traveling less this year, but saving my days for something big.

I also moved in with K. It has been almost 4 months now. I like it pretty ok so far. He is making me fat, so another thing I have been doing is learning to box.

I organized an international conference with heads of museums in Amsterdam, New York, and France. It was successful and there will be a part II.

Altough I hope to try to post more often, life is a bit busy and unpredictable. I am also starting a new project which I hope to share soon. I also have become a bit addicted to instagram. Tomorrow will be my first adventure to a California county fair. I will be instagramming deep friend bacon wrapped oreos stuffed with doritos @ulainla

For now, I had a couple posts hanging out ready to be published about the San Diego trip about my mom's birthday and since it is almost her birthday again I should get on that, then I will skip ahead to what you have all been waitng for.....

THE OSCARS!