I think I'm in love with my dentist.

No...I'm not going to leave Cody and join the circus only to return to Lehi and try to propose to my dentist (Dr. Groneman in American Fork) while he's performing a root canal on one of my molars.

It's not that kind of love.

The love I have for my dentist is based on his excellent care of my teeth with his weird water pic method of cleaning (also, he flosses my teeth! Shouldn't I be doing that?), and that he often compliments my teeth. "You have good teeth," he says. I blush. I do have good teeth! Thanks for noticing, Dentist Man! (And thank you for the teeth, Mom and Dad!) "No cavities," he says. "Nice work." I smile. See what I mean about the compliments? He knows how to make a person feel good about her mouth.

Also, he has a superb memory...it almost seems like he and his assistants keep notes on Cody and me somewhere with our dental records. Do they? I might have to write them an anonymous letter or do some sleuthing while they're out to lunch, because it's uncanny how well they remember minute details about us. He and his assistants always ask follow-up questions to conversations we've had 6 months ago at our previous appointment! How do they do that? I really want to know. Is it because we have extremely odd tastes and stick out that much? I don't really think we're *that* odd, but maybe we are. I dunno.

Aubrey, his main assistant, is always asking about our family and jobs and interests, and this last appointment she wasn't the one helping me--but she did tell the girl who was assisting "I like Ruthie, she's cute," after just seeing my face through the door. How does she remember every patient's name?! Seriously. We've only been going to Dr. Groneman's office for the past 2 years, so we've only seen these people 3 or 4 times.

Even though Dr. Groneman and his assistants are extremely chatty and sociable, they're also happy to hand over a remote and let you watch tv while they take care of your routine oral hygiene needs. I've watched Pokemon and the Food Network while having a cavity filled. The Food Network might not be the best thing to watch when you can't eat for a few hours, but it's definitely on my list of favorite channels I don't have at home...so...it gets watched.

So anyway, back to talk of dentistry...if anybody's in or around Utah County and wants a great dental experience, go to my dentist! He's awesome!

(Disclaimer: Ruthie was not payed [much] to write nice things about her dentist.)

Cody and I were lucky enough to go on a vacation with his family this past week, first to California for a few days and then on a cruise from LA to San Francisco, Victoria (in British Colombia, Canada--w00t!!), Seattle, then back to LA.

Our boat, the Royal Caribbean Mariner. I heard it was the biggest cruise ship on the ocean, with an ice skating rink, 14 decks, a rock climbing wall, inline skating rink, miniature golf...blah blah blah...but I'm not sure and I'm too lazy to factcheck.
Our stateroom, which was small but very well planned. It seemed a lot bigger than it was and had places for everything, although I'm not sure how we survived the 2003 cruise with the Higbees with 5 of us in one stateroom.
The promenade deck, with all the shops. This is deck 5, 9 decks below the top deck.
Our first stop was San Francisco. Cody and I opted out of all the planned cruise tours because none of them sounded that interesting, and we wanted to explore the cities on our own terms. The first thing we did once we got to port--besides text like mad--was to check on E3 (video game convention in LA) news for Cody, then we dropped off the laptop and headed out to play.

Smartcar, parked smartly.

Cody in front of Viz Media's building in San Francisco. Viz Media's in charge of a few anime's English dubs, so although we mostly watch the Japanese dub with English subtitles, it was still cool to see something we could be nerdy about.
I thought this building was interesting.
I got some rose gelato and snarfed it down without a picture, although it tasted delicious and was very interesting. Then, we found this awesome little candy store that had metal lunchboxes, strange video game candy, and practical joke stuff.
I totally bought some awesome bandaids there. Oh, and the dude that worked the counter (I think he might've been gay, but my gaydar's so off I don't trust it) asked me what designer my shirt was, and I told him it was a very exclusive place called the Gap Outlet. XD
The dining room was amazing, with three full floors and crystal chandeliers everywhere. Our waiter and waitress were fabulous, telling us all about their lives before cruising, and seeming to dislike waiting tables immensely while taking excellent care of us. It was rather ironic, but they definitely earned their keep. I hope they get to live some of the life they were talking about.
The food was pretty good, although I missed our home cooking...but my favorite was when the chef would make a jaunty statement with a bunch of herbs.
Us'ns
Richard was in love with the buffet for breakfast, and below is a picture of his favorite things there. The formal dining room always takes so much longer that it was hard to justify going there for every meal, especially when the food wasn't that much better, but the portion control the dining room offered was much more convenient than having to wait an hour for food. ^_^
Waiting for food was always better when I brought along my top.
My homey away from home.
Cody got inked! Fake inked! With glow-in-the-darkness stuff!

Dragon's Lair...there were so many hidden little bars, clubs, restaurants, theaters, etc. on our boat that I don't think I saw it all completely.
CANADA! Here are some Canadian superheroes, Brave Beaver:
and Mighty Moose:
Cheesecake on a steeeek in Victoria.
The red lights were ginormous in Victoria. I'm not sure why. It was worth me taking a picture, apparently.
The public works building had an interesting sculpture outside the library.
The library in Victoria. Cody's obsessed with libraries, just in case you didn't know.

SEATTLE! This was maybe my favorite city to see, least favorite city to walk around in. The hills were worse than in San Fran! It was probably just the path we chose to take, but still. >_> onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrTudoV003fn9dQp2d65eELwEPF2OJs4LWr8D93gHIEEfnSOS5tRHpN3Hz4zF1tLjNDSqYMYcqFmeUXyPErO27dHkPEJxGjflhkrM9ZbXe94uaQ0xvKBmpxdKmc5fclGTPdCPeiIHPUWtt/s1600-h/Cody's+Phone+%289%29.jpg">Richard imitating the statue:
While we were in Seattle, we met another friend from the anime forums named Thomas (SsriTelQuessir or ST'Q to anyone familiar with the tv.com Bleach Forum.) We had a load of fun hanging out with him, seeing MUPPETS! and eating delicious curry. I was glad he took time out of his busy schedule to come and meet us. Here's Cody and Thomas at the Seattle SciFi museum:
Me playing with Animal on the drums:
Some dude was playing a flute! He was pretty good, too.

Cody and I attempting to look like nerds. I was disappointed when I saw that we didn't look much different from normal...
Rawrs! Kids attacked him with chalk, so he wasn't so fierce.


Nevermore?
Random Batman tattoo sighting on the Seattle monorail.
Seattle public library, main branch.



Us! In Seattle! We're happy!!
I thought this was intriguing. A whole park just for 1st Amendment rights! w00t!
Back on the ship, we played games. Tycee totally owned at Monopoly, despite her niceness and attempts to help people out.
Our bed had curtains, and Cody is always wont to be silly around unusual things...
The cruise ship had artwork/sculptures on every single landing on both sets of stairs. This was my favorite, kitchen utensils made entirely of aluminum wire:

Cody winning a medal for beating little girls at Wii Tennis in a family tournament. XD

Dragon! On ice! It's the new Disney ice show, y'all.
I played Bananagrams by myself a lot...I think some of those words are wrong, too. I wasn't too hard on myself when judging.
And...well, that's all. We had a lot of fun, and I'm so glad we got to go...but it's SO GOOD to be home!

We woke up early (5 am is super early for people who barely drag themselves out of bed at 7:15, and cRaZy early for Cody who had to stay up working until 4 am the night before) on May 28th, and Diane graciously drove us to the airport, where this happened: We got to Long Beach just fine, drove to my Uncle Gordon and Aunt Marlene's house in Chino Hills, and proceeded to enjoy fine hospitality via my Aunt Marlene, and the sound of young children living life to the fullest by playing a dog-tail-flip tic-tac-toe game. We took a quick nap in the same room as a funny turtle (it's Holly and Sam's, Gordon and Marlene are letting it chill at their house until Holly and Sam find a place of their own) after saying hello, spotted some California Jell-O (who knew other states were even aware of Jell-O? :P), then headed out for lunch at Chili's, shopping at Trader Joe's (I LOVE TRADER JOE'S! Why aren't they here already?!) and games at Juan's with Juan and his little brother Isaac.

Sadly, I stink at taking pictures at pertinent times, so we have no proof of Juan's family's awesomeness...or even of hanging out with Juan or Adneisha, but I can gush about all of them with words. Juan's little brother Isaac (he's 15, I think) is funny, skinny, and is a really good sport. All the Reveles kids are good looking people, and we enjoyed seeing Ivory whirl in and out of the house on her way to cheerleading tryouts. Then, Cody and I played some Super Smash Brothers Brawl live with Juan and Isaac for the first time, petted the three little doggies that were running around inside, ate tasty quesadillas (I think) that Juan's stepmom brought us, saw a treehouse Juan's dad built in the backyard, and walked over to 7-11 to get some Slurpee's with Transformers straws. After playing some more games...I think just Bananagrams, we poked our way outta the Reveles' house and headed back to Gordon and Marlene's, where we had a place to sleep. ^_^ To paraphrase Cody, "I got to play games and hug Juan, so it was a good day."



The next day, we were planning on going to go to the fashion district with Juan and Adneisha, but Juan got attacked by a sore throat and phlegm monster early, so we waited a few hours to see if it would clear up, contacted Adneisha, and met up with with her to go to Santee Alley with Cody's family. 'Neisha's such a delightful person, and seeing her again was fantastic. We ran down the street towards each other when we first saw each other, and Adneisha threw her arms around Cody's neck in a hello attack when she first got to him. XD I like that girl.

While shopping with Adneisha, I almost completely forgot to look for anything for myself because it was so entertaining to watch her and listen to her sing along to the songs playing over the stores' speakers. After Cody's family got tired and left, Cody and I drove Adneisha back to her house and got to meet her mom, sister Ebony, her pseudo-brother Tim, and Adneisha's gran; and Adneisha showed us her plushie collection and the artwork that Juan created for her, including this beautiful piece:
Those are characters Juan and 'Neisha collaborated on together, the way they do on a lot of stories and characters. She comes up with the backstories and he draws... The girl is based on Adneisha, is blind, and is in love with an alien...yeah, Juan and 'Neisha are crazy, but that just makes them more fun and interesting, no?

No, I don't have sandals on...these're just my dirty feet after walking around downtown LA in flip-flops:
On Saturday morning, Gordon and Marlene had their family over and Uncle Gordon made us pancakes. :L He makes special shapes on request, so I requested a porcupine, and this is how it came out:
It was really great to see all the California Andersons! They're such fun people, and although I'm not very good at keeping in touch, I'm really glad we got to spend a little time with all of them. Even more, I'm glad that Holly and Sam's baby is all right, and that Brad and Katie's baby arrived safely and had the esophigal problem diagnosed and (hopefully) rectified so quickly.

After we had breakfast, Juan was feeling better so we got to chill at his house while his family was gone, trying out the glory that is Guitar Hero 3 for the first time...which was pretty much epic. Then we met up with Adneisha and Tim and went to enjoy Star Trek and then out to eat at a delicious Chinese place in Hollywood. They even had veggie orange chicken! Woo!!

Sunday morning we left for the cruise, but we tried to go to sacrament meeting with Gordon and Marlene. Unfortunately, we didn't know which building was the "big" building, so we ended up at the wrong place...well, at least we got some church in before getting on the boat. I'm sorry we missed them, though.

And now, more random pictures! Below is a picture of a shopping mall that includes a store called BevMo (that's what we call Cody's grandpa Bevan to each other...)
Tycee after eating with Cody's family at California Pizza Kitchen downtown.
Richard, taken the same time as the one of Tycee above.
Oh, and have I mentioned how awesome Juan is? I requested a portrait last year after finding out he draws, and while we were there he finished a portrait of my little sister Eliza Jane for me. ^_^

When we got back from the cruise, we had a few hours to burn, so we rented a car and attacked Juan again. We played more SSBB with Juan, Isaac, and Isaac's friend Angel, then went with Juan to the downtown LA library and had a docent give us a tour. That place is awesome! I love the artwork throughout the old part of the library, and the new part of the library's artwork is interesting, too.After the library tour was over, we got some food with Juan, found chocolate in our rental car from a previous renter (which I totally ate as seen below, thankyouverymuch), said our goodbyes to Juanny boy and Isaac, and then flew away home.

Overall, I think the best part about LA is the fun people we have to love there.