We are bad bloggers.

Technology is cool. We're in chaps right now. Following humans like kings, that's a direct quote. Happy birthday woody.

An exceptionally good day.

today was an exceptionally good day.

we slept in until 11 and found ourselves craving Angelo's perfected egg & cheese breakfast burritos. for those who have not yet experienced this culinary delight, it's a must. full of caloric goodness.

we then began adventuring the glendora area in search of garage sales. and adventures we found. amongst the weirdness we spotted a real live peacock, a house which used to be a toy store, a giant oversized bike built for NASCAR, and an Estate sale where we rummaged through Ms. Maline's old belongings. May she rest in peace.




and yet our day was not over. we obtained babysitting duty to the ever so precious olive joy bixby-westra. she was a champ and an angel as we went about our day. she even fell asleep as lullabies were being sung to her. classic coffee ensued as the 20% discount we now receive makes the drinks cheaper than starbucks.

after returning home we once again ventured out with our roomie tianna or tots whichever you prefer. on this journey we found more peacocks, friendly neighbors, creepy houses that went above and beyond the typical halloween decor, and a baby deer.







we came home to our room burning. something was smoking. the smell was horrific and panic struck. we could not locate the source. minutes later we recognized this hazardous burning to be coming from our fan. we took it upon ourselves to disassemble the beast as it is the only thing which keeps us cool at night. the picture shown below is only a fraction of the damage which was done. thankfully due to some heavy duty cleaning and febreeze we're hoping tonight's sleep will be blissful and not smoky.


so could this day get any more exceptional?

yes. chipotle and Venmo. as quoted by k-bear, "chipotle is so addicting i could eat it all the time, i swear they must put nicotine in it."* meal time was glorious followed by our official registration to Venmo, thanks to our dear friend Leighton (we'll be sending money your way soon).

this is our friend leighton below. he was the first to give k-bear money via Venmo. we're hoping more money comes our way.


we now can send money back and forth to each other for any reason at all. it makes giving away your money more fun than it actually is. we believe this may become more dangerous than gambling could ever be. yet we are hopeful our new friends via Venmo will send some money our way, because well, we're now friends, duh.

overall, today was exceptional. so exceptional that we believed it was blog worthy. the first day worthy to be blogged about since our days in Vietnam. we're looking forward to more exceptional days, and rumor has it our very own jeff johnson will be featured in a womb225B youtube video in the next few weeks. you won't want to miss it!

*note: chipotle does not endorse the use or consumption of nicotine in their products. what was said was merely a hypothesis.

until our next exceptional day,
k-bear and a-kretz

Moped a' Go-ped

Papa Hah should've had more faith in us...

See ya soon!

As our time here in Vietnam is coming to an end, we’ve recently reflected on the many life lessons and experiences we’ve had. Due to the lack of reliable internet service here in Da Nang, you’ll have to wait a little longer for some quality videos. Until then, we’d like to share with you...

Things We’ll Miss...
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Things We’re Looking Forward to Back in the USA!
-MEXICAN FOOD
-Starbucks
-Doing our hair and wearing cute clothes
-Being cold
-Honda Accords
-Not speaking in charades
-Hot water (for showers)
-Not having to contemplate using the bidet because we’re out of toilet paper...again
-Diet Coke & Diet Dr. Pepper
-Heading straight to the clearance rack at Forever21 & not having to bargain
-We’ll be considered of normal height and stature, let’s just say we’ve been called grande by a french man
-Recognizing more labels other than Pringles and Oreos at the grocery store
-Our friends and family...DUH.

but seriously we will miss things such as...

-being treated like a celebrity, we’re surprised they haven’t asked for an autograph yet
-the children and women we were able to work with
-affordable coffee to have 3x’s a day or more
-flipping our lives minute by minute (as in videotaping on our flip camera)
-spending time with Paul & Deb
-not having to feel bad about not exercising since we bike 15 miles a day
-buying water from G-ma every morning before work
-having already seen every movie showing in the theatre & knowing the dates & times of the ones soon to come out
-the best red box we’ve found, every DVD imaginable yours to keep, all for 99 cents
-being together 24/7

We’d like to thank all our readers by name for sharing this experience with us...
-Mom and Dad Bixby
-Mom and Dad Kretzmann
-Courtney
-Tiffany
-and possibly, Jeff

hậh hậh very funny

THIS IS HAH SHE DO:

This is Hah she do
She make a move and act a fool while we up in our room
This is Hah she do
Nobody do it like she do it so show her some love

Fresh like uhhh, has a son, Than
Chrome mopeds, bike fix runs
You don't want, none
Key [her dog] betta, run
When beef is on, I'll run out, yuck
Come get, some
what’s that lump?
If it’s pho & noodles come & hand me some
It’s fish, yum
Ready here I, come
Da Nang, uhh
She found me I was, glum
Sellin my flip, she thought it was fun
I was tellin her when Papa Hah was sayin' "Dooong"
Hah don’t be blunt
These Cottage girls just wanna have, fun
Constant headache
She sleep a ton
I’m hangin the laundry towels and all
Take her key, I ain’t doing no wrong
Neighbahs in the front in case we pull a stunt

i havo smoothie

it all started with a conversation about mexican food on the way home from our service site. it suddenly dawned on us that this country does carry one crucial ingredient that would bring a little taste of mexico to our longing taste buds...AVOCADOS.

the only difference is that the Vietnamese drink their guac. yes, we resorted to avocado smoothies. and yes, they taste exactly how you expect them to.



after dipping our pringles into our smoothie we held back tears and walked them to their proper place, the trash. good thing our plane lands in Los Angeles where we're guaranteed at least 15 mexican restaurants in a one mile radius.



in other news, move in day on Sunday where the rats are the size of cats no kidding.



adios amigos.

Oh No-ped

After several days of watching the locals moped with ease through the worst traffic we've ever seen, we confidently booked a moped. Let's just say the plan failed and our legs were doubly chaffed that day. The following sequence of videos depict the most humbling experience to date. Enjoy and empathize.

Xin Chao (Hello) from Vietnam!

We're back in business. Sorry for the absence, but as you know, absence makes the heart grow fonder.

We've been thrown into a new environment that leaves it impossible to blend in. We usually like attention, as you've seen from our past youtube videos, but this is an entirely different level of scrutiny.

We would like to believe the stares we have received are not the result of the excessive amount of sweat on our bodies or our poor navigation through a sea of mopeds. We've convinced ourselves this attention is complimentary, even if it is followed by laughter and pointing.

For example, this morning we marched ourselves to the local internet cafe and confidently ordered our "Cafe Saigon", as heads turned and jaws dropped. Keeping in mind this is something that we will have to get used to, we sat down and started to return emails when suddenly we felt a looming presence in front of us.

Sensing this presence, we looked up to find a middle-aged Vietnamese woman looking between the two of us unashamedly. Thinking that these glances would be short lived, we went back to our work. Literally, two minutes later, the woman had not broken her stare, not satisfied with what was before her. We attempted other tactics to encourage her to look elsewhere, such as nervously laughing and staring back.

Nothing worked. Minutes later she returned to her table, which proceeded to turn their eyes this way as well.


We were too nervous to get a picture of her while staring, though we had plenty of time.


She was currently staring at us when we took this picture.

So what did we learn from this experience? We've been targeting the wrong demographic...it's obvious our youtube videos would be more widely accepted here.

Who in the World Wednesdays

The only time that being a loser is desirable, and being the biggest loser is coveted.

That's right, our guest this week is no other than Jillian Michaels, trainer on The Biggest Loser.



It's a hot and sweaty love affair for the men, but only because they just got done running on Incline 7, for 10 minutes.

"Get your hands off the bar!"



The women hate her as she slowly robs them of their femininity. She forces them to growl and roar, as their male counterparts stare, jaws dropped in disbelief.


Yet, this woman has no limits. We're fairly certain this woman has no degree in clinical psychology, yet we know she's purchased her fair share of self-help books.

Why we hate Jillian:
-She spit out a perfectly good crunch wrap supreme. Has she not heard of the Taco Bell diet?
-She makes wearing spandex seem like a good idea.
-0% body fat.
-Has she noticed the wedding ring on Bob's finger?
-How is it that all of a sudden her hair is perfect in season 9?

Why we like Jillian:
-She kinda looks like my dad.

supercaliFABRICliciousexpialidocious

We were in the business of breaking records today…

Number of alarms slept through: 11
Calories consumed: 4,200
Money spent on craft material: $205.87
Odes created: 5
Number of yard sales visited: 1 ½
Refills on black tea: 9 (seriously)
Pictures taken: 121
Number of people annoyed by pictures taken: 7
Exceptional hats found: 2
Consecutive hours at Barnes and Noble: 6 ½
Number of items obtained for free: 10
Minutes apart from each other: n/a

Who in the World Wednesdays.

Who: Jeffrey Douglas Johnson aka Jeff, aka Lil J

What: Life coach, Mentor, Spiritual Advisor, Sugar Daddy, Recent graduate, Personal stylist, and boo.

Where: From the blistering winters of Bend, Oregon to the sultry summers of South Africa, this man gets around.

When: July 9, 1985: Welcome Lil J.
April 5, 1997: Attempted to breastfeed his kitten Oliver.
March 31, 2009: Sawubona, Kari.
August 24, 2009: "Hi, Jeff I know who you are, but I don't think we've ever officially met. We never hung out when you were in Africa. I'm Amanda..."
October 15, 2009: Snip, snip, snip. = Goodbye Goldilocks, hello Papa Bear.
January 11, 2010: Departs to foreign country, leaving behind a grief-stricken girlfriend and his mildly obsessive friend...BEST friend.

Why: Because he...
-shows up unannounced to take us on adventures
-finds quality one-of-a-kind youtube videos (Salad Fingers) that inspire our own
-never questions when clothing of his becomes a permanent residence within our closet.
-The closest thing to Barth himself. Contemporary Christian Thought....A+
-his car has seat warmers.
-Ghostbuster. but really, he is.
-he reads our blog.
-he consciously consumes.
-he calls us every morning from Africa...well one of us....but it's always a treat when the speaker phone is on and he is unaware.
-It is written that only God knows the number of hairs upon our heads, we wonder if this also applies to the plethora of couches Jeff has in his house
-tolerates (but doesn't support) our 5 months of Christmas tradition.

Weird & Wacky:
-clips his fingernails into a pointed tip.
-can't appropriately fit into a onesie.
-frequently confused with lead singer of Iron & Wine, Samuel Bean*
-IQ of 240 (that's incredible for those who don't know)



It's always fun to have your favorite people along when promoting Themba. Thanks for the memories.

*
Jeff's twinsie.

Fiddy Cent Fools...

College students need to live cheap,
Into our pockets we dig real deep.
Hoping to find a bit of money,
"Hey is that stuff fo free honey!?"
Disappointed when it's not,
Only asking for refills when we're looking hot.
In other words this stuff you see,
Was not bought full price, the T.P. was free.
Each day at Starbucks we know the drill,
It only takes fiddy cents to get our fill.

Welcome Home.

As we've mentioned before, our apartment has under gone some major changes in the past week. Watch out Ty Pennington, you and your crew have some extreme competition.














Unfortunately we do not have in our possession the before pictures...we weren't able to find either of our cameras underneath the three feet of crap sporadically placed throughout the apartment. Don't get us wrong, it's not like we actually put the stuff away...what once was the cozy office, is now storage. Again, out of laziness and some slight embarrassment we've refrained from posting documentation of this small natural disaster. But if you're curiosity gets the best of you, you know where we live.

P.S. Dear Facilities Management,
It's been over a week since we've contacted you and you've yet to remove this fire hazard. We have accumulated bruises all up our legs since we now only have five inches of maneuvering space to get to and from our bedroom. We'd really like to wear skirts and dresses again. Please know that if not removed soon we will personally deliver these items to you, or you'll find them listed on Craig's List.

Buttons.

Buttons; more than a crafters best friend.

1. Pussycat Dolls. When did they start caring about buttons?

2. Belly buttons. Do you sport an Innie or Outie?

3. Benjamin Button...he was a curious case wasn't he?

4. Don't push our buttons.

5. Gumdrop buttons

Why we believe crafting buttons are superior to any other button.

1. Photo shoot. It's said a picture is worth more than a thousand words. See below...