Darcy comes for a visit

My sister Darcy just came for a visit. We had such a great time. Not enough time to do all the fun thing we wanted, but we'll have plenty for the next visit. We both celebrated our STAR birthday's this year, she turned 20 on the 20th and I turned 29 on the 29th. We weren't able to get together until now, so we celebrated our birthdays over the Lava Fudge cake at The Beach House!

We normally get some pretty amazing sunsets. But the fog rolled in every night right before sunset, so it just looked cloudy. But we still had fun at the beach watching the ocean waves.

The Flower Fields in Carlsbad are beautiful! Rows and rows of bright coloured flowers!

The Birch Acquarium was so fun! We saw all kinds of amazing fish. Next time we'll do Sea World.

Seal Cove in La Jolla. All the baby seals were sunning themselves on the beach. It was so cute!

$$ Shopping at the Outlet Mall $$

The outlets here are amazing! Every store you could possibly think of. We even stopped at Godiva to have one of their Gourmet Chocolate Covered Strawberry's. Yum!!


We all took a long walk on the beach.

I had so much fun hanging out with my sister again. James had fun too, and was a great sport about watching chic flic's every night!

Joy of Art Party

We hosted our first Art Party and had such an amazing time. Everyone had a blast and at the end of the night James and I had a beautiful piece of new artwork.

To have your own here's how it works.

Pick a favorite piece of art in the size you want. It's so easy to order anything you want from Art.com This is what we picked, Navaro Rapids by Ando Hiroshige.

Cut it into squares, one for each guest you have. We had 12.

Get all your supplies together. Pastels work so great, we had coloured pencil, oil pastels, pastels, also get a good art paper, and some fixative spray.

Everyone gets one square of the original print and a blank piece of paper cut the same size of square from the original print. Allow the artist inside to express your creativity. All of our guests knew we were having an art party, they were great sports about it considering everyone said what terrible artist's they were. But eveyone ended up having such a great time and were very surprised just how talented they really were!

A work in progress...

It was so fun seeing everyone finish their squares, you can hardly tell which is the original and which one we recreated!

Once everyone is finished put together the finished product.

The art party was a huge success, I am already picking another print for our next party!

Week in Review

April 15

YEAH! Tax season is finally over! And we made it through unscathed. James was a real trooper having to do more than his fair share of chores and doggy parenting. I owe him a huge thank you for being so great! He makes such a great house-husband!

April 17

Our great friend from Boise arrived today. It was so great to have him come stay with us. We took him to dinner at our favorite beach fron resturaunt and watched an incredible sunset. We had plenty of beach time and lots of relaxing. Sonse is also an accountant so he welcomed some time to just relax and unwind. We didn't do any touristy things, just ate out a few times and played at the beach.

April 23

Bunco! My new friend Nicole hosted her first bunco party. It was such a blast. It was my first time ever playing. There were 12 ladies, which was great, it was so fun to have a girls night and meet some new people. Believe it or not, but I actually won! James was pretty excited when I came home with $50 more than I left the house with! We had a great time and everyone has decided that we need to do it once a month!

April 25

Our beach made nation wide news and history. There was a fatal shark attack at our beach early Friday morning. The man who was killed was our neighbor, we had not had the chance to meet him or his family but our neighborhood will surely not be the same. It was so eery going home for lunch today. There were Coast Guard helicopters hovering and news choppers too. Lots of news vans, James was even interviewed for the news. The attack happened in the exact spot where we go swimming and surfing every time. All of the beaches in our area are closed for the weekend, they are patrolling the area by air to see if they can spot the shark. They are just trying to see if he is making his way back out to the ocean. I haven't quite figured out how I feel about going surfing yet. I was already kind of scared about everything in the ocean, and now even more so. It was very strange watching the news and seeing our beach, our house, and our neighborhood on CNN.

April 26

I finally made an appointment to begin my personal training. I met my trainer today, it was incredible. I'm going to get my money's worth for sure! After training I rode The Hello Kitty to this cute little health foods cafe and got us take out for lunch. Then we went down to the beach to layout. On a typical hot day the beach has all kinds of people playing and having a good time. There are usually large groups of people surfing, swimming and playing in the waves. So it was very strange at the beach today, not a soul was in the water. It got pretty hot, so a lot of people would go in, up to their knees, but that was about it. We walked out about that far, and were trying to figure out how tall a 17 foot long shark is, we decided it had to be atleast four feet tall, so we both felt pretty safe staying in water that was less than two feet deep. And having the Coast Guard helicopters in eye sight helped too. We also saw a very large group of dolphins playing in the surf. Around here they say if there are dolphins there won't be any sharks, but if you see a seal to get out of the water because there will surely be a shark coming. I belive it, there were a group of seals on our beach Friday morning when the shark attack happened. There have never been seals on our beach before. We were both happy to see the dolphins back!

This week will fly by. I have my second session with my personal trainer on Wednesday. And James and I are hosting an art party on Friday night. So I have lots of house cleaning and appetizer planning to do before then. I'm so excited to have this art party. I have wanted to do it for so long! I'll write all about it later, with pictures!!

My Broken Toe

As you all know, I just turned 29. I have made it to 29 without a single cavity, not one broken bone, no stitches, and not one trip to the hospital. I guess I've always been either safe or lucky, mostly safe. So with my great record you wouldn't really think I could break my little toe tripping on my husbands boots! It was time for bed, (you know 8:30) and I turned off the lamp in the living room, so it was dark. And I almost tripped on one of James' shoes, so I go to catch myself and land on the other shoe, but had all of my weight on the outside edge of my foot so I wouldn't fall. The end result was a broken toe, and it hurts so bad. It probably would have just been better to fall! Now I can't wear any of my cute strappy heels. I tried to this morning and it just hurts so bad. My poor little toe is just huge, and red. I was hoping last night that it was just jammed, but I'm quite positive it's broken.

When I was a kid my best friend broke her arm, and she got a cast and everybody signed it and it was so cool and I always wanted a cast. So now I'm 29 and have broken my first bone, I'm getting a cast! Ok, so they don't make casts for broken toes, infact there's nothing they can really do for my little piggie toe who went weee weee weee all the way home. So this post is my ecast if you will. So please leave me a comment so I can feel like I got all of these signatures on my cast. By the way, my cast is pink!

Limitless Paper for a Paperless World...

I just could not stand the wait! I am so excited for tonight. I am a HUGE fan of the office and can't wait for the new season to begin! In just a few short hours the drama will unfold as Jim and Pam go over to dinner at Michaels place. It's going to be hilarious! I really couldn't stand the wait any longer and had to check out all the funny clips from previous shows!

The funniest commercial ever made!



The Dundies



The Fitness Orb



Identity Theft



The Wedding



Music Montage



The Negotiator

Funny stuff!

I'm making my very own Dundies tonight, and might possibly put a stapler in the jello for dinner!

29 on the 29th!

I had a great birthday! I worked in the morning and then this afternoon my great husband took me clothes shopping. So much fun! We have this big patio at our new house and have had no patio furniture on it. What a waste! So for my birthday I got some new patio furniture, including a hammock and lighting for our new and improved patio. I like to think of it more like an outdoor living room. It's so great! James did such a great job hanging all the lights. From the street corner our house looks like such a fun party now! We had friends and family over for a bbq, so we got to really test out the new patio stuff. It was great. I had such a great day!

I Think I Can

Last week was tough, just feeling quite overwhelmed. I completely vented on my other blog and felt all 'whoa is me' for most of the week. Then I read my sister's (in-law) blog. She is such an inspiration to me, such a great mom to my beautiful niece and nephews, and such a great wife and girlfriend to my brother. But anyway, she had a whole long list of her favorite things all of which were amazing things and it made me realize I need to change my thinking. I decided if I just sit and wallow in everything I have to do and how hard it is, it becomes overwhelming. I need to focus on the positive and keep telling myself that good things will come from hard work and I can do this! I've been chanting the mantra from The Little Engine That Could all morning! I think I can, I think I can! Because whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right!

Nobody said it would be easy right?

First Day of Spring!

I'm so glad that winter is officially over! I know I have nothing to complain about, it's been like spring since we got here. But I love the flowers blooming on my trees and shrubs, it's magical! I love that the days are getting longer, and warmer, and soon it will be summer (the best season ever)!

Orange Tree Blossoms

Peach Tree Blossoms

If only it were an apricot tree, I do love singing that song!

Red Hibiscus Shrubs

Our yard is quite beautiful, we lucked out!

Surfing with Dolphins

Today was an amazing day! I went to work for awhile in the morning while it was still cool outside. After work we decided to go surfing. The weather was perfect, about 74 degrees and not a cloud in the sky!

We are loving our house. There are people who drive from all over to park right by our house to go surfing and chow down at Roberto's Very Mexican. And we just get to walk out the front door. We put on our wetsuits, grab our board and it's on! The waves are still pretty big this time of year so it's a workout just swimming past the breakers. Once we got past the breakers we sat on our boards for a quick breather. No sooner had I got balanced, then a school of dolphins went swimming by! It was just amazing, they were like 10-20 feet away and so relaxed just passing us by. It happend twice! The first school was all gray, and then the second group that went by was all black. The second group was even closer than the first. Simpy amazing!

They were so close it looked just like this! If I had been off my board I'm sure I could have touched them. Not that I would, I'm still a little scared of everything in the ocean. Do they bite?

So surfing.

Surfing was excellent! I can't wait to be really good at it! And I'm starting to get used to the salt water. It will be weird to go back to Boise and go swimming in fresh water!

Surfing is a good way to clean out your sinuses! And there is sooo much swimming involved! I like swimming and always thought I was pretty good at it. That is until I tried swimming into water that is trying, with great force, to push me back to the beach! My surfboard is pretty wide too, which makes it even harder paddle. I took the cheaters way out and decided to breast stroke my way out past the breakers and just let my surfboard get tagged along by the leash! I'm not a real surfer yet, so I don't feel too bad about it! My arms were on fire, so at least now I can feel the arm and shoulder muscles I need to work on at the gym!

We have definitely decided we need to get a waterproof camera so we can get surfing pictures. I found this on online, it could have been me! I spent the first part of our day like this:

After while I definitely got the hang of it, well kind of. And I'm now completely comfortable like this:

While it's not surfing, yet, it's a blast! It is kind of tricky to go from being on your stomach swimming to on your feet in one swift movement. I just do it too slowly and end up riding the wave on my knees!

But I am definitely getting a feel for it and really think that the next time I go I'll be able to actually ride like this:

That will be great! I love it and can't wait to go again. Now with daylight savings, we might even have time after work for a few quick waves!

A Taste of Actual Parenthood

We don't have kids, we have our two dogs instead and I'm always surprised at how similar the two can seem. If you have kids please don't be offended, I'm not saying your kids are like my dogs, it's more the other way around. I hear all of these stories from friends and family about raising their kids, so when certain things happen I'm like, 'oh this is what it must be like to have kids!'

Like last night. It's 2:30 in the morning and the dogs are up and need to go outside, potty time. Comparable to the 2:30 diaper change. And of course my husband is "sound asleep". (I know he was awake, big faker!) So I get up go out and open the front door. Oh, I need to back up now. We have the picture perfect house with a white picket fence all around the yard. The front gate is kind of sticky and you really have to make sure it's closed all the way. Our dogs are trained pretty well so they don't usually leave the yard unless they're with us. Anyway, ok, so I get up and open the front door and let the dogs out. (Maybe not so comparable to the 2:30 diaper change, opening the door is not as hard as a poopy diaper!) Since I'm up go get a drink of water and take a dose of cold medicine, I'm trying to get rid of a cold before I really get it. I go back to the door to let the dogs back in, and they aren't there! I stick my head out (which I should have done when I let them out) and the gate's wide open, dogs are on the loose! Great! Exactly what I wanted to do at 2:30 in the morning, walk around the neighborhood looking for two wild dogs!

I start walking up and down every street in our neighborhood, over and over, and over, for a good half hour. I go back inside to get James to come help me. So now we're both out looking for them. I had walked up to the beach access a few times, but the waves were so loud and it was very dark, I thought there would be no way the dogs would go down to the beach. So neither of us went all the way down to the beach. The whole time I'm looking for them thoughts of them getting hit by a car are running through my head (even though I hadn't seen even one car the whole time). Or the thought of the outrageous fee we'd have to pay to get them out of doggie jail (the pound). Or even worse, what happens if we look all night and never find them! Each scenario worst than the one before, (in all reality, all of them were just my imaginiation getting carried away). And at the point where I'm so worried I could actually start crying, I see them.

After an entire hour of looking for them they come prancing down the street, soaking wet, just wagging their tales with a big grin on their face. I guess they decided to sneak out of the house for a midnight swim! And it is so hard to stay mad, they look so cute and proud of themselves. Like 'we went down to the beach all by ourself!'

They didn't get hit by a car, or get taken to doggie jail, or lost forever. It's a crazy feeling to be so very angry and totally relieved at the same time. They got the 'BAD DOG' treatment the whole walk home, and a good dose of bitter apple spray (if they were kids they'd be SOO grounded!!)

So I get little tastes of actual parenthood, I get a feel for the baby midnight diaper changes, and the teenager sneakin' out of the house! And for the time being I just love my dogs and the little tastes of future possibilities.

Here's a picture of them when they're being good, just chillin' in the yard!

Tagged!

Here's 2 tags put together. It's kind of long, by the end i'm thinking TMI!

How long have you been together? Married almost 6 months, together for 11 years! Marriage has definitely changed us for the better.

How long did you date? 11 years. We grew up together so we definitely got to know each other well.

How old is he? 27 or that’s what I’m suppose to say!

Who eats more? He does. He eats enough to feed an entire family, and has only gained 3lbs since high school!

Who said "I love you" first? He did, it was pretty sweet.

Who is taller? He's taller.

Who is smarter? He is. He's so smart!

Who does the laundry? We both do our own. I’ve lost too many favorite sweaters when he tries to do mine, and I’ve washed his wallet one too many times. So we started doing our own. That way if a sweater shrinks it’s my fault and if he washes his wallet it’s his fault!

Who does the dishes? Both of us. He’s really great about helping out in the kitchen.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? If you ask him I sleep on both sides of the bed!

Who pays the bills? We just started doing this together. Sharing the finances has been something new since we got married.

Who mows the lawn? That was always a battle for us. We’d fight about it every week, we have such a huge yard, and there’s always doggie presents that need to be picked up. So now we hire someone!

Who cooks dinner? Usually we do it together. James is a fantastic cook, thanks to my mother-in-law.

Who is more stubborn? Honestly we are both very stubborn.

Who kissed who first? He did, it took forever. I was starting to think I had entered the “friend” zone!.

Who asked who out first? He asked me first, it wasn't anything special like Sybrina's story. I was standing by my friends locker and he asked me to go to a movie with him.

Who proposed? He did last year on Valentine’s Day. It feels like a lot longer than that. We've done so many things since then!

Who is more sensitive? Me- definitely!

Who has more friends? Since we met in high school we have the same friends. It's been really fun to have the same friends.

Who has more siblings? Me. I have four kids in my family and he has 3.

What time did you get up this morning? 5:27 a.m. I know it's pretty early!

Diamonds or pearls? Can't a girl have both?

Last movie you saw in the theater? I went and saw Atonement with my sis-in-law and my neice. Terrible movie, so sad. I hate seeing movies where you feel bad leaving the theatre.

What is your favorite TV show? The Office, I'm so glad the writer's strike is over!!

What do you usually have for breakfast? coffee and hard boiled egg whites.

What is your middle name? Angela

What food do you dislike? I think I like it all

What is your favorite CD at the moment? I don't buy cd's anymore. I love itunes. I just bought some old stuff by Poe.

What kind of car do you drive? Toyota 4runner, love my car!

Favorite sandwich? smoked turkey with avacado

Favorite item of clothing? my new wetsuit, I make that thing look good!

If you could go anywhere in the world for a vacation, where would you go? Australia, I have a friend there now and it looks amazing!

What color is your bathroom? which one, the one I use is grey, black and white, very classy!

Favorite brand of clothing? I like a lot of different things, there's so many options here!

Where would you retire? Here, it's perfect weather all year

Most memorable birthday? 16, it was an amazing birthday

Favorite sport to watch? I love baseball in person, basketball on tv, and I'm trying to get used to football.

Favorite saying? "If you've done one thing, you've done something." It's a line from a commercial, it's the dumbest thing I've ever heard but now we say it all the time.

When is your birthday? I'll be 29 on the 29th! And for the record it's my last birthday!

Are you a morning person or a night person? I'm a Day person!

What is your shoe size? ususally a 6.5

Pets?Yes I love my labs, if I didn't have them I'd probably want a baby.

What is your favorite candy? I don't like candy, but i do love dorito's

Your favorite flower? Gerbera Daisy's

What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? Any day that I don't have to work

What are you listening to right now? my ipod

What was the last thing you ate? hard boiled egg whites

Do you wish on stars? absolutely!

If you were a crayon, what color would you be? green

What is your pet peeve? when people don't use their blinkers!

Last person you spoke to on the phone? probably Amber

Favorite soft drink? dr. pepper

Favorite restaurant? I don't know, there are sooo many here, tons that we haven't even tried yet!

Hair Color? Blonde and it's staying that way, after hearing Lara's story I'll never dye my hair!

Favorite day of the year? 4th of July

What was your favorite toy as a child? barbies, cabbage patch dolls, etc. I was very girly.

Summer or winter? summer - that's why we moved to San Diego!

Hugs or kisses? hug

Chocolate or vanilla? chocolate, vanilla is so boring

When was the last time you cried? leaving boise

What is under your bed? nothing.

Who is the friend you've had the longest? Rachelle, we met in first grade! We definitely had our ups and downs growing up but I do love her and her cute family.


What did you do last night? It was Valentine's Day, so we went out to dinner and then relaxed at home.

Favorite smell? Plumeria

What are you afraid of? lions and tigers and bears oh my!

How many keys on your key ring? 1

How many years at your current job? 2 months

Favorite day of the week? friday, saturday and sunday

Do you make friends easily? we'll see, I haven't had to make new friends since I was 7!

Wow that's a lot of stuff! If you read all of that then it's your turn to share!!

More pictures and stuff

A friend of mine said that I wasn't adding enough pictures. I tried to take some pictures of our weekend. I would love to post some surfing action photo's, but so far not much surfing action is actually happening! We've gone out a few times, and I am getting much better. It is really tough to go from your stomach to standing up in one swift motion. But it is fun and challenging to learn!

Here's a little bit of what we did this weekend.

There was a surfing competition going on right by our house. We walked down to check it out. These guys make it look so easy!

Walking home from the surf competition.

Laying out in February!

Playing with the dogs at the beach.

Packer decided he was done playing.

That about sums it up! Beach, surfing, dogs. That's our weekends! But I love it.

Our First Visitor!!

We had our first visitor this week and it was so fun! Our friend from Boise is traveling the world for the next two months. Before he left the country he flew down to Hollywood to visit his brother that lives there. The two of them took the train from Hollywood to come visit us for a few days. It was a short little trip for them but we're so glad they made it.

The Skinny Jeans

I started another blog awhile ago, after stumbling on a blog dedicated to Kelly's preparation for her first triathlon. And while I'm not training for a triathlon I definitely needed something to make me feel more accountable to working out. I have a bunch of things against me when it comes to working out. I got married a few months ago and my new hubby can eat massive quantities of anything and everything and never gain a pound and it's been hard not to join in on the french fries and pizza (everything in moderation, remember that). An other thing is we moved and now I have no friends to go workout with and no best friend to tell me when my jeans are starting to look too tight. So I started a new blog, I don't like to think of it as a weight loss journal or anything like that, but it is important to have an attainable goal. I have a great pair of jeans that I love and looked amazing in last summer, and now they look like they've been painted on, so they don't get worn. The goal now, and the title of the blog, is to look stunning in The Skinny Jeans. I record a workout plan for everyday. It's also been a fun way to keep in touch with an old friend, Kelly, who was the inspiration behind it!

Just An Ordinary Day

I am getting completely spoiled by the weather, scenery and our house. James and I both get home from work right as the sun sets every evening. We are lucky enough to live right on the beach, so we walk down every night to watch it, and are amazed at the beauty every night. The tide was out the other day so we walked up and down the coast gazing at the ocean. Much to my surprise a school of dolphins were swimming about 20 feet away, playing and jumping in the surf. It was amazing to see them so close!

ps to mrs weekes - I need your blog's website!

The Circus Tide

The other day James took the dogs down to our beach, the tide table showed a 'negative low tide' marked in red, and being from Idaho we had no idea what a negative low tide was. There's high tide and low tide, right? And maybe the negative means it's extra low, or something.....

Our beach is kind of secluded by the cliffs wrapping around, and at high tide the tide comes right up against the cliffs and gets deep. There are about 100 stairs to get up and down to the beach. Sometimes when the tide is washing out there is about a two foot jump from the last step to the sand.

We usually only take the dogs at low tide so there is room for them to run around. One this particular day, when James got down to the beach he noticed that for being at low tide the water was coming pretty far up on the beach, but didn't really think too much of it. James and the dogs were really enjoying themselves running and playing fetch. Then after a minute or so the tide came in, almost to James' waist! Dog decoys, leashes, and flip flops were about to get washed away so James tries to hurry and grab all of that, meanwhile the dogs are about to be washed away too! Both dogs are crying and looking at James with great big panicky eyes trying to swim back to James. He runs out to Packer and basically throws him onto the staircase that leads back up the cliff, and goes back out to get Denver. Packer then freaks out because James and Denver are both in the water now, so Packer jumps back in! Since Denver is in hand he goes and puts Denver on the steps. And then Packer is trying to get up on that first step but with the water rushing around, practically making a whirlpool he can't do it. James jumps back in and pushes Packer on the bottom step. Both dogs are safe on the bottom step just crying and shaking. It was like a circus trying to save both dogs, decoys, leashes and flip flops! All of this happened in a matter of seconds, so fast but also kind of in slow motion. James decided that was enough fun at the beach for one day and put leashes and shoes on and walked back home!

James learned for both of us that the negative low tide, is really like and extra super high tide. We decided it is marked in red on the tide table for a reason! And now we just call it the circus tide!

We made it!

Well we made it! After two long days in the car, and getting lost along the way (I should not be the navigator)! But we were able to see more of California that way! We are almost completely settled, and were able to spend New Years on the beach with the dogs. It was fun seeing them in the ocean for the first time! Here are a few pictures. I'll post more of the house and stuff soon!

Walking to the beach for sunset!

The oranges in my front yard, delicious!

Another tree in the yard.

New Years on the beach. First time at the ocean for the dogs.

So far everything is going great! We picked out our new surfboards and can't wait to try it out this weekend! The house is super cute and ready for visitors! We've been really enjoying our new neighborhood, there's lots of new fun things to do and new places to go. Driving to work has never been so much fun! I have a view of the ocean the entire drive and the streets are lined with palm trees!