Road Trip!

This past weekend my cousin Olin got married in the San Diego Temple. S0, we took this wonderful opportunity to take a road trip. We left Friday after I worked for a few hours, stopping to pick up Trek and Jeremy along the way. Driving with three boys for seven hours wasn't exactly my idea of exciting. The mostly talked about cars, trucks, and, well, cars. Of course Trek set up his ham radio so there was a little command center in the back seat for a good part of the trip. Luckily we had beautiful weather and only hit moderate traffic in L.A. We got to the hotel in Carlsbad at about nine or ten and spent the rest of the evening hanging out with my family at the hotel.

Saturday was a blast. The wedding wasn't until two in the afternoon so we spent the morning at the Wild Animal Park! First we went on a tram ride around the park and saw really cool animals and pretty scenery. Then we spent another couple hours walking around and seeing the other animals. I think my favorite were the strange monkey things hanging out on an island and the lions.

    

After changing quickly at the hotel, we headed for the temple. This was my first trip to the S.D. temple and it is as beautiful as people say (though I still think the Sacramento Temple is even more amazing, but I might be biased). The sealing was great. We even had a little earthquake in the middle of it! Olin and Jentry looked so beautiful and totally happy. I had to hold back tears more than once. It made me remember our wedding day and all the mushy feelings that went along with it.

   

Then, we went back to the hotel to try to take a nap but as soon as I laid down I wasn't tiered any more so I just chatted with Kyle, Suzanne and Sam (we were all sharing a room and it was a lot of fun!). Going the the reception was a lot of fun. Mom had directions but we were following behind in our car. Well, Dad got a little lost. . . or was it one of his famous "short cuts". . . I'm not really sure. But we made it only a little late. The reception was beautiful. There was good dinner food as well as a candy table! Olin sang Jentry a song he wrote and the couple had there first dance and the father-daughter dance. You could just see how happy they are!

We left the reception a little early to visit Chad, a cousin on my mom's side that we hadn't seen in at least ten years. It was great to see him again and meet his cute wife and three cute kids (number four is on the way). It was a long day so we were happy to get back to the hotel and get some sleep.

Sunday morning we left at about nine. We traded Trek and Jeremy for Brandon so we could stop by Jenna's, another friend, in Yorba Linda. It was good to see here and visit for about an hour. She even made us sack lunches to take on our way, it saved us about half an hour. The trip home we didn't hit any traffic! but we did hit rain. Just after the grape vine it started misting and was raining pretty heavily by the time we got into Gilroy.

One of my favorite parts of the trip, was when Suzanne asked me to throw her a baby shower! She isn't due until July 4th but they will be in town the end of next month so we're planning it for then. I am so excited and already have lots of fun ideas. If anyone has any ideas or baby shower favorites, let me know.

I am so glad we had the chance to get away for a little bit and to support Olin and Jentry on this great occasion.

Valentines Day :D

Since we're on a low budget these days, we didn't do anything too exciting.  I came home from work and there were red tulips, a card and a teddy bear with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (one of the few chocolates I like)!  For dinner he made me a yummy pasta (he's getting the hang of this cooking stuff).  Then, we ordered a movie from On Demand.  I wanted a chick flick (it was V-day after all)  and the only one he was really interested in seeing was Baby Mama.  It was Ok, it had enough comedy to keep Sam interested and it was kind of an interesting story.  So we had a great first Valentines Day as a married couple.  It was perfect!

Baking...

It's Sunday afternoon and Kelsey is taking a nap. She has been telling me that I need to blog so I guess now is a good time to do it. So, I've been spending some time in the kitchen lately. We got a bunch of cookbooks for our wedding so I've been looking through them to see if there is anything that I want to attempt. Anyway, here are a few of my experiences.

So, some of you have heard this story but for those who haven't...

A couple Friday nights ago Kelsey wanted chocolate chip cookies, but she didn't want to make them. So I decided to do it. Using the recipe on the bag of the chocolate chips it was all working out o.k. After everything was mixed Kelsey came in to eat some of the dough and said that I had over mixed it since it looked more like frosting instead of dough. When they came out of the oven they had bubbled over and didn't really resemble cookies too much. We weren't sure exactly what went wrong other than I may have over mixed it. The next morning Kelsey had to work and she told me to try again since we had the missionaries coming for dinner that night. So, I began gathering the ingredients again and noticed another jar in the back of the cabinet, which I did not see the night before. This jar contained flour. The night before I had mistaken the powdered sugar for flour. This time the cookies turned out much better.

On Friday night there was a dance for all the adults in our old stake down in San Jose. It didn't start until 8:00 so I flipped through the cookbooks and decided to try making pizza. After a quick run to the store for toppings I used the mixer to make the dough and made two personal sized pizzas. They actually turned out pretty good. 

25 Things

This is borrowed from my facebook.  I just thought I'd share with those who don't have FB.  I did change a few of them because I thought of better things to share.

Rules of the Tag: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.
(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people, or as many as you feel like (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)
Side note: I was tagged by five people but didn't really want to do it, but I told Sam that if he did it, I would. So here it goes. Hope you enjoy.)

1. I love my family more than anything in the world.

2. I grew up with three older brothers so a lot of their craziness rubbed off on me. (I hated playing Barbies with my little sister but Loved Legos.)

3. I have had the same best friend all my life. Jody, you're amazing!!!

4. I broke my arm when I was five and I had a neon pink cast.

5. I used to collect anything orange.  It became a very large collection.  It's actually surprising I still like the color orange.

 
6. When I was sevenish, I was in the play "The Little Red Hen" at school. I was a little chick. I didn't have any speaking part but I sang those songs with all my might.

7. Before I started elementary school I took a ballet and tap dance class for a few years. I've never taken a dance class since but I would really like to. 

8. I learned to read music in elementary school. We had an amazing music/choir teacher named Ms. King.

9. I played the clarinet in my school bands for seven years. I LOVED it.

10. I love baseball and enjoy watching and playing most sports.

11. I played softball in high shcool. I wasn't very good so I spent three years in J.V. and played on the bench in varsity my senior year. But we had a blast.

12. I didn't drive until I was 18. 

13. I have an AA degree in Business Administration.

14. I hate being disorganized.

15. I've changed what I want to be when I grow up a million times but I've finally decided on a Mom.

16. My heroes are my parents.

17. I went to church every school day in high school at 6 in the morning to learn about the scriptures.

18. I am a big fan of aviation. A few years ago I started making model airplanes and now they are all over my room.

19. My husband proposed to me in a little airplane over the golden gate bridge. It was so perfect!

20. I am a lot younger than most people would guess. 

21. I hate making decisions.  

22. I really enjoy decorating but I don't think I'm very good at it.

23. Don't tell my husband, but I used to bite my nails when I was younger... a lot younger!

24. I work part time as a funeral home associate and love what I do.

25. I get cold really easily.