windy, the turtle i have been cheering for in the great turtle race, has fallen into second place. i think it has something to do with the fact she turned around and is now heading the wrong way. that turtle better keep her eye on the prize. i am not happy. all those years of training, the long days in the practice pool, and now she pulls this?!?! Turn it around, windy.

The Great Turtle Race

As many of you know, the turtle is my favorite animal in the world. And now this is my favorite website in the whole world. So pick a turtle and lets race! And at the same time learn about this amazing animal God made and sadly how close they are to becoming extinct!

www.greatturtlerace.com

My money is on Windy!

The Great Turtle Race, a unique international sea turtle conservation event bringing corporate sponsors together with conservation organizations, will take place from April 16 to April 29 in a global bid to raise awareness and funds for the critically endangered leatherback turtle. The sponsored turtles have been equipped with satellite tags and are “racing” toward feeding areas south of the Galapagos Islands after nesting at Playa Grande in Costa Rica’s Las Baulas National Park, the primary nesting area for leatherbacks in the Pacific. These massive sea animals that outlived the dinosaurs but is now dangerously close to extinction. Leatherback numbers have decreased at Playa Grande from thousands of nesting turtles 10 years ago to fewer than 100 in the last five years. This online event will raise funds to protect Playa Grande and raise awareness about what individuals can do—no matter where they live—to help protect sea turtles in our daily actions. Starting April 5, fans will have a chance to choose a favorite turtle at http://www.greatturtlerace.com/ to cheer throughout the race. During the race, viewers can follow each turtle’s journey and learn about the obstacles it will face along the way—including fishing lines, nets, and trawls; plastic bags (often mistaken for jellyfish, the leatherback’s primary food source) and other marine debris; and many other human-created hazards.

A Vaughn Park Christmas...

These are just a few pics of my favorite people from our Christmas Party!! It was a blast!!

The most fakest santa i have ever seen...

PLUS + 44 SHOW part 2

Here are the pictures as promised!!

Cristin and I before the show!! Sporting

famous stars and straps!

Me and Cristin with Shane Gallagher from PLUS 44!!!

CRAZY!!!

A picture at the very begining of the concert!!

This is Mark Hoppus from the teeth down! Getting thrown around by the crowd, it was hard to get a good steady shot!! AH!! This pic is almost priceless! He is holding a red sharpie that he signed our tickets with!

A sideways pic of me and cris with our autogrpahed tickets! (AH -- I'll go back and fix it later)

The end of the long, sucessful, happiest night of our lives. Ahhh....all hot and sweaty!

TA-DA! Wedding Bands!

Hi! And happy thanksgiving to everyone! I've been sitting here for a collective 2 days in all going on about 10 hours or so trying to get my International Management final project done and I'm just about worn out from typing...I needed a break. So I thought what a swell idea if I updated my blog real quick. Which turns out is horrible idea cuz that requires even more typing. wish i had thought this through. So many things going on...but one thing I'm very excited about is my wedding band. Cristin and I went to good ol' Tom Neville this past weekend and went ahead and placed our order for both our bands. It was crazy. They are in the process of getting sized now. We already knew exactly what hers would look like, because it matches her engagement ring. It was crazy seeing her band added onto it though. Her left hand is going to be pretty sparkly. She's deff bringing some bling bling if i do say so myself. Then we went through all kinds of rings for me, It was just so weird having jewelry on my hand. All of them kinda made my hand look girly....girly is a nice way of saying "gay gay gay". We spent a good long while and in the end I let cristin pick it out cuz I wanted it to be like that, but it just so happened we have the exact taste cuz that is the one that I secretly wanted in my heart all along. Well, the second one I wanted most. Yea, she wouldn't let me to get the ones with diamonds all in it. hahaha kinda double standard dont you think? Yea, that's 100% a joke. But seriously my ring is awesome...I didn't get titanium, gold, white gold, or platinum, wouldn't you know that Cris and I just had to stray away from the norm and get something different. I went with a Palladium ring. Yes that's right, Palladium. It's a member in the platinum family. Apparently it was around in the 20's??? Anyway, it's coming back. Why? Because Cris and I are bringing it back! It's actually brand new and Tom just showed them to us to let us know he had just gotten something brand new in (like a day before...they weren't even priced yet), and he told us we were the very first to buy a Palladium ring from him!! Not that that means anything at all. But it's really cool though....you can't really tell from the picture cuz it was taken in a darker room with my camera phone, but it's still kinda neat. It's got 2 rings that go down the middle of it....very different looking, esp for a wedding band. Anyway, that's my story. Every word of it. I know you'll read it again and again and maybe even print it out for the fridge.

Mine and Cristins First Wedding Shower!

It was awesome!!! I can't thank everyone enough for all that was done and can't get over how generous everyone was. It floored me. It was such a great time and really makes this whole wedding process feel even more special than it already does. I can't believe all the people and all the WONDERFUL gifts! We got some great stuff that will go to great use. Thank you!! And thank you ash and jamin for being so wonderful as always and my little church mouse for working so hard for us! I love ya'll and wouldn't be anywhere without you!! You're everything to me!

(Jamin sorry your not in the pic...but just know in your heart that you are my favorite groomsmen...love you man!)

To See More Pics Go To :

www.cristingunnells.blogspot.com

Ode to Mark

This is Mark.

Such a huge weekend lets just take this one entry at a time. Plus 44, this past Friday night, one of the best of my life. It was amazing. The whole thing was amazing. I had picked up Cris from the ATL airport, had my big group with me, stopped off for a little Quizno’s action before the show, and then headed to the Coca-Cola Roxy venue. We searched around for a little while and then all at once we finally found it, it is such a cool looking theater as it is all lit up in the front kinda old timey looking. On the marquee it read + 44 TONIGHT! There was a HUGE line waiting for the doors to open that wrapped all around the building. I was so excited I could barley hold it in. Pictures and flyers of plus 44 were stuck everywhere.

I knew that night would be something to remember. I got anxious waiting in line, so I went ahead and went with Church Mouse around front to will call to get our tickets. Afterwards I said, charity come with me for a few min. I just want to see something. We wandered back to this back alleyway and kept looking and all at once we saw the tour buses parked. There were about 2 or 3 other kids just standing out there and I asked them if this was their bus or not, about that time my eyes made contact with the side window and in there I just saw Mark Hoppus just hanging out. I mean I couldn’t believe my eyes….. much less speak. Charity knew she needed to run go get Cristin, so off she took into the night and came back within just a few min with Cristin and Travis. By the time they had gotten back they had closed the blinds on the tour bus and we could no longer look in. I knew mark was in that thing though, no doubt in my mind. So for the next 2 hours I sat and waited. We all sat and waited. There were giant body guards everywhere so we had to keep our distance. Finally, the bus door opened and someone stepped out. It was Shane. One of the new non-blink members of Plus 44. I was so pumped. (the one with the shaved head in the pic!) We talked to him for a little bit and me and cristin got our picture taken with him!! Thanks to my wonderful and awesome sister Charity! It was so exciting!! He was describing travis’ drumming situation. Travis had broken his arm about 5 weeks ago and he had learned how to play the entire tour 1 armed!! He was describing how his right foot was rigged to a snare drum to produce a beat by petal and his left leg was playing the base. While his left arm played the rest od drums and symbols. It was madness!! He truly is the best drummer in the world. Anyone who knows anything about music knows this. Anyway he said he was back in the hotel and had not gotten there yet. He was so nice! Then Shane finished his cigarette and went back inside. The opening band The Matches had already started playing their set inside but I just didn’t care, I just wanted to wait outside until Mark was called from his bus to begin warm ups. Finally the time had come and the body guards made us go on the opposite side of the alley so they could come out. Mark with cooler hair than ever hopped out of the bus, threw up his hand and said ‘WELL HEY!’ I just couldn’t believe it. I was standing there and Mark Hoppus just said hey to me!?!?! I froze I couldn’t speak. What words could I say??? We started walking with him to the door of the venue and he started to come over to us but the body guard said he needed to hurry up and get inside. I was just like "dude holy crap I love you man!" He just kept walking and was laughing and said “Thanks man thanks! Cool…. listen I promise I can’t right now, but meet me back here after the show is over and I’ll meet you and sign whatever you want!" Then in the doors he went. Cristin me charity and travis were all so pumped and jumping up and down we just couldn’t believe it!! This guy who has gone multi-platinum, played in front of millions of fans before, in the biggest pop-punk band in the world, and I just got so close to him and actually had a conversation with. My most favorite famous person ever!!! (Yes I sound like a groupie, and I’m proud to say that I am one!) The concert was amazing!! Truly amazing!! We were just feet from the band the whole time. Travis Barker was ridiculous as always and was just so cool. Everything rocked. They played all songs on the new album including one bonus song called Christmas Vacation which is a cover by the decedents. It rocked!! Words can’t explain. Everyone just had a blast. After the show ended we all went out back around their bus along with at least 300 to 350 fans! The place was swamped! It was insane and I was so disappointed that I wanted to cry. Everyone was all over the place and after about 30 min had passed, Mark stepped out back to say hey to everyone, and everyone just freaked out!! He had body guards all around him and he was in the center and people were giving him things to sign. I couldn’t move. I just enjoyed sitting there and watching him so much. I was in my own little world. Cristin looked at me and said “WALT THIS IS YOUR DREAM AND YOUR GOING TO BLOW IT!!” with those words screamed in my ear, she grabbed the ticket stubs out of my hand and made her way up through the crowd getting pushed around and thrown around until she finally got within screaming distance of him. I followed behind her, kind of protecting her and shoving on everyone to get her through there. She said, “Mark you promised us!!” and he goes “WHAT?! I PROMISED!? DID I!?” and he reached through and took the ticket stubs out of her hand and give us 2 autographs. Cristin tried to explain that I was his biggest fan and please take a picture with me, but he just said that theres no way he could do that in all the madness, but that he wanted to…but people were going psycho!! It got so out of hand that with those words he was guided back inside the venue building and gone forever. He went around to the side door and jumped in a van that took him away!! It was crazy!! He was the only one out of the band that stuck his head out to sign a few autographs and say hey, only because he had promised us before the show!! Crazy huh?!? Bottom line, Cristin is the coolest girl in the world and it things like this why I love her so much, because she shares my loves and is such a trooper. I love her so much. Charity is awesome, and it was so cool to have her right there beside us experiencing the whole thing. She was freaking out and screaming louder than anyone, and was ready with camera in hand to take a picture. And Mark Hoppus is the greatest! Pictures soon to come!! FYI : Plus+44’s new album when your heart stops beating hit stores today! Go out and buy it!!!