I was in charge of hosting the final (?) installment of the murder mystery dinners that my friends Sarah and Allison and I have been doing the last few years. Each of us has taken a turn hosting a dinner around Halloween each year, but now that each of us has had a turn and the fact that X and I have moved out of state, this last one might have been the last time (at least for all of us together). Knowing this I wanted to do something really fun and original for my dinner - I had all the guys play girl parts, and all the girls play guy parts! I had some negative response from a few people at first (mostly from homophobia or people who felt like it was just wrong), but after a little bit of coercion everyone was game! The murder mystery dinners are usually a little corny (you'll notice from the characters names listed below), but we always just have fun with it. So here's how it worked:
The Mystery
The succulent aroma of home-cooked pasta is drifting from New York City's most popular Italian eatery, La Speranza, but something else is heating up in the kitchen . . . cold-blooded murder! Restaurant-owner Pepi Roni has been shot in the back with his own pistol. Tonight his family and friends will gather to pay their respects to poor Pepi, but one of the guests won't be shedding any tears.
The Suspects
Rocco Scarfazzi
Pepi's twin brother, a tough-talking no-nonsense Italian business man. In addition to his vineyards and real estate holdings, it is rumored Rocco is in the 'laundering' business. He had no love for his brother Pepi but his reasons are his own... capische?
Cousin of a cousin of Rocco's, Bo manages the Scarfazzi vineyards. Bo comes from a long line of French wine-makers and no one knows 'ze' grape like Bo. An important man in the Scarfazzi organization .... what could Bo possibly have to whine about.
Mama Rosa
Pepi's grieving widow. For 25 years, Mama Rosa cooked the pasta while Pepi greeted La Sperenza's dinner guests. In all the years they were married, not once did they argue. Had something finally boiled over in Rosa's kitchen?
Angel Roni
Pepi and Rosa's beautiful daughter. It was Pepi's dream that his 'Angel' would marry a good Italian boy, have children and carry on the family traditions. Angel has a few fantasies of her own though and one of them is that hunk, Bo jalais. Mama-mia!
Marco Roni
Pepi and Mama Rosa's only son, Marco was expected to take over the restaurant after his parents retired. Marco hates waiting tables. His goal is to play on a World Cup soccer team but his papa has been keeping him permanently on the bench.
Father Al Fredo
An Italian priest and long-time family friend of the Roni's and the Scarfazzi's. The good priest has heard their confessions and knows their sins.
Clair Voyant
Rosa's best friend and astrology advisor. Clair's talents include an ability to communicate with the spirit world and see into the future.
We had a lot of fun at this dinner. I love doing the murder mystery dinners with this group because a lot of people really get into it and try to act & dress like their character would. If you look online at pictures from other people's murder mystery dinners (like this one, this one, or this one), most of them have just thrown on a dress shirt and called it good. But we go all out! It's a good thing we have DI!
While I won't reveal who the killer was, I will say that I wasn't surprised! One interesting thing I have noticed is that the killers have always been women. The funny thing is that it would've been a man this time had I not swapped male and female parts, but I guess it was just intuition that made me do it! Here's hoping we can do another one of these sometime in the future!
We have finished signing all of the documents to close on our house! Our loan will be funded on Tuesday or Wednesday this week, and we'll be able to move in by Friday at the latest! We ended up getting a really good rate on our loan (better than the one our lender tried to get us to pay to lock-in a few months ago), and we'll close in time for the $8,000 tax credit. We have our fingers crossed that the sellers will be out of there by Wednesday, but either way we know that we'll be in our house by Friday. It will be such a relief to get out of our motel and suitcases and into our home! There are a few things we already know we want to fix-up in the house, but we just have to decide what we want to work on first! We'll be sure to post pictures and keep everyone updated on our home as we get all settled in.
After my graduation we spent a week down in Salt Lake City saying goodbye to friends and family and tying up all the loose ends before we moved to Nevada. Then we drove to California for our CRUISE!!
That was our boat - The Carnival Splendor - it was HUGE! I couldn't believe how big the boat was when I first saw it! There were 13 floors above water that we could access, and we couldn't imagine how many more were underwater in order to keep that thing from tipping over!
Our cruise was a week long and we visited Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas in the Mexico Riviera. Our first night X got a little sick because our dining room was in the "aft" of the ship and it was rocking a little more at the back of the boat, but we were able to get her a sickness patch and move our dining location to the center of the boat and everything was smooth sailing from there.
Our dinners were crazy good; we always had tons of options to choose from. Each night we were able to choose an appetizer(s), main course(s), and dessert(s)! It was a great opportunity to try something new, or a little bit of everything. And they always had live music!
This is the filet mignon that X got on one of the "elegant nights" (where everyone gets/has to dress up for dinner). Some of the other dishes we enjoyed were lobster tail, ribs, salmon, shrimp, red snapper, and of course the pizza and ice cream that were available 24/7.
Each night we had a fun towel animal waiting to greet us after dinner. Here were some of our favorites:
Our ports of call were AWESOME! X and I had both been to Mexico before so we already knew of some of the things we wanted to see again, but there were also new things that we decided to try out.
Puerto Vallarta
We did the "Extreme Canopy Zip-Line Adventure" in Puerto Vallarta. We'd heard from several people that this was something that we wouldn't want to miss out on, so we decided to buy tickets through the cruise line to make sure we had our seats reserved (note to self: never buy tickets through a cruise line in the future - on shore its almost half the price and very available).
The excursion started with a 15-minute boat ride to this small beach and dock. Little did we know we still had a lot of ground to cover in a variety of modes of transportation. You can tell we had no idea because we are still smiling.
The next leg of our journey took part in these Mercedes Benz trucks that drove us wildly up the side of the mountain. We were still smiling in this picture because the truck hadn't left yet, but we soon discovered as the driver left that he must've forgotten we were in the back of the truck because we were bouncing all over the place. Luckily the seats were heavily padded!
Once we reached the destination for the beginning of our adventure, we got all dressed up in our gear, but we noticed that we didn't see any zip-lines. They told us to sit on these benches and wait for our next ride. In this picture we finally saw what we were taking up the rest of the way... MULES! As you can tell in this picture, X and I were less than enthused. :) All joking aside, it really wasn't that bad. The truck ride up the mountain was fine, and we enjoyed ourselves on the different legs of the journey. We weren't allowed to take our cameras on the adventure, but they had their own photographer and she just happened to take that picture when neither of us looked very happy.
Here we are on our mules. My mule was really slow (a combination of the fact that he was really old and he probably didn't like what he was carrying). I didn't know this at first, so I waited for X so we could ride up together, but her mule ended up darting past me and I rode up the rest of the way alone at the back of the pack. The worst thing was that mules are very gassy animals, so being at the end of the line I got the full wind of all the other mules in front of me. So glad I waited! :)
These were our guides on the adventure. They were so crazy, and they made us all laugh.
Here we are on the 1,000 foot long zip-line 200 feet above the ground!
Here's us repelling down the side of a WATERFALL! What an experience!
Here is us doing a 100 foot free-fall repel next to another waterfall.
And here we are racing together on the last zip-line. I totally won!
We had such a blast on our adventure! Even though we probably overpaid for our adventure, we still had so much fun and would totally do it again!
Mazatlan
Both X and I had been to Mazatlan before, but we were excited to go back and relive some of our favorite memories from our childhood visits.
We went horseback riding on the beach in Mazatlan at the same place X went when she was younger. We loved riding in the surf and enjoyed all the Mexican sun!
We also went parasailing while in Mazatlan. I love X's facial expression as she is taking off!
Here is a video of me taking off. One thing I like about the parasailing in Mazatlan is that they let you take-off straight from the beach! It made it really easy to take these pictures.
Here is a video of X landing. You get to land right back on the beach, but you have to be careful of bystanders on the beach. Watch the last couple of seconds on the video and pay close attention to the lady in blue running/ducking for cover!
Cabo San Lucas
Our shortest time ashore was in Cabo San Lucas since the cruise ship had to start heading back that evening to make it back to California on time.
We decided to go on a snorkeling tour for the day and really enjoyed swimming with the fish! Our snorkeling guide brought some crackers that the fish really liked to eat, so when we stood by him as he crushed up the crackers we literally had hundreds of tropical fish swimming all around us. It was totally surreal!
Cabo San Lucas was our last port of call, and we headed back to California for debarkation. Many of the people we met were headed back to work after the week-long cruise, but we still had more vacationing to do! Heh heh suckers!
After we got off the ship, X and I drove to a nearby beach and spent a little more time on the beach. The water was much colder here than it was down in Mexico!
After a while the wind began blowing pretty hard and we felt like we were in a sand storm! The sand hurt pretty bad so we decided to leave. We drove to our next hotel near Anaheim, CA where we stayed for the next 3 days!
We visited Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure the first two days in Anaheim. We soon discovered that mid-May is THE BEST time to go to California. It's not super hot, and most people are still in school so we never had to wait in line very long!
X's favorite ride is Tower of Terror. As you can see I don't much care for this ride. ;)
We also enjoyed making funny faces (similar to the one we did here) on rides where they take your picture.
Disney's California Adventure had all sorts of construction going on near Paradise Pier. We found out that it was for a new water show called Disney's World of Color. It looks like it is going to be AWESOME! They were supposed to have it up and running by the time we were there, but they were still running tests when we visited. We were sad that we missed it, but we look forward to the next time we visit so we can see all the new stuff! Here is a video of all their upcoming plans:
We are definitely excited!
We also visited Knott's Berry Farm on our last day in Anaheim. They have a few more "thrill rides" than Disneyland has to offer, and we thoroughly enjoyed those.
They also had this crazy horse-riding roller coaster where you get to sit on these horses as you ride! The ride was alright, but it was definitely a unique coaster experience!
After 3 days in Anaheim we drove up to my aunt's house in Ventura where we stayed the night and were planning to drive the rest of the way to Nevada the next day. But... at the last minute we decided to go to Six Flag's Magic Mountain!
Magic Mountain has some of THE craziest thrill rides I've ever been on. Of course I've never been to another Six Flags park or to Cedar Point (someday I will, someday), but we figured that we might as well go since we didn't have any real plans for the weekend in Nevada, and since it was probably the best time of the year to go with the smallest crowds. And it turns out we were right!
X2, the world's first 4th dimensional roller coaster, was something I was excited to ride again. We had come to Magic Mountain with my family back in 2008, but the lines were terrible and we spent most of the day waiting in line (including a 3-hour wait for X2)! We were thrilled to see that the wait for X2 was only 15 minutes pretty much the whole day!
Magic Mountain also has a ride called Tatsu, which is a flying roller coaster (where you are lying down during the ride to get a sense of "flying").
This video I took (sorry for the bad sound and video quality) shows how the seats on Tatsu rotate 90 degrees into the "flying position" for the entire ride. You can extend your hands to feel like you are really flying!
After a fun day at Magic Mountain, we drove the rest of the way to Nevada, and are staying at a local motel until our house is ready for us to move in!
Overall we had such a blast on vacation and on our cruise, and we are looking forward to doing more cruises in the future. The only thing we'd change is to have friends come with us next time so that we have more people to do stuff with. So if you are interested, leave a comment and we can start planning our next adventure!
I finally did it! I tackled the beast! On May 8th I graduated cum laude with a Bachelor's degree in computer science. It was a long 4-year journey, and I'm glad it is over. I plan on getting my master's degree at some point in the future, but for now I am taking a much-needed break!
These are a couple of my buddies who also decided to walk. The one in the middle, Devin, ended up getting a job at GE Energy with me. Danny Glover spoke at our commencement, but no one really seems to know what he was talking about.
My friends Allison and Dale came up and brought air horns for everyone to blow when they announced my name. We were a little scared to blow them at first because we didn't know if we would get in trouble, but the dean of the college of science encouraged everyone to be as loud as possible. Here is a video of me being announced:
After I was announced the dean told everyone that they should be as loud as we were! It was pretty funny.
My brother Landon is also ready to be done with school.
Thanks to everyone who went out of their way to come and support me!
