Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July, my favorite holiday! We had a great day spending time together as a family since Dave is still on paternity leave and I had the day off of work! We started our morning with some patriotic pancakes. I’m a sucker for themed food on holidays!

I then tried to make some patriotic cake pops but failed horribly. Seriously, baking and I don’t get along. Some day I will master making cake pops, but today wasn’t that day. It was so bad that I didn’t even take pictures.

Later in the afternoon we went to a friend’s house for a BBQ dinner and we had a great time! After dinner we were sitting around chatting and I gave Carter a bottle. All of a sudden he started laughing at me! Then if I pretended to laugh it made him laugh even more! It was the most we have ever heard him laugh and it was so cute! Everyone at the BBQ was laughing at how funny and cute he was. Luckily Dave was able to catch the tail end of the laughing streak on video. Check it out:

After chatting we headed out to watch our city’s fireworks. Well, sort of. Our city shoots them off at a local college and charges $20 per carload to view them up close, so being the cheap-os we are we found a nearby spot to park and watch for free. Ha! ‘Merica! Carter seemed to be watching the fireworks and enjoyed them. It was nice that they were further away so the booms and bangs weren’t loud enough to scare him.

It was a great day and I’m so glad we got to spend it with friends. Happy Independence Day!

Baby Showers

First. let me just say that I am one lucky lady! I have three groups of people who are my support system and who I really care about (and they care about me too!). Each group threw me a very nice baby shower to celebrate Baby Bug’s impending arrival. Each shower was very special and unique and I am so grateful that there are people in my life who were generous enough to host these gatherings for me. I genuinely loved getting to spend time with family, friends and co-workers and celebrate this little life that will be joining us very soon.

Shower #1 - Family and friends in Colorado
My aunts (with the help of my mom, cousin and a family friend) threw me a fabulous shower in January (while I was still allowed to travel). The theme was an owl in a hot air balloon (since owls are a part of my nursery decor and both Dave and I have won photo contests taking photos of hot air balloons) and the theme was carried out in the invitations, cake, favors and decorations!

My aunt even made super cute cookies with the owl in the balloon but unfortunately my cookies were a bit damaged on the plane ride home. Oops. I should have taken a picture of them at the shower, while they were still perfect. Lesson learned.

Other than the crushed cookies the shower was wonderful! I got a chance to spend time with a lot of people who I don’t get to see as often as I used to since we’ve moved to California. And I was extra lucky that my brother, sister and sister-in-law flew in from Texas for the occasion! I wish we would have gotten a picture of the whole group, but luckily my mom got a few shots of individual tables.

But one of my favorite pictures from the day is of me and the grandmas-to-be! From left to right is Dave’s mom, me and my mom. Such a sweet picture!

Thank you to all of the family and friends who took the time to celebrate baby with me! It was so good to see everyone!

Shower #2 - Friends and family in California
My girlfriends Kendra, Margaret and Jennifer threw me a lovely baby shower the first weekend in March. From left to right below: Jennifer, Margaret, me and Kendra.

In attendance were many of my California friends (all from church), Dave’s aunts Jan and Cathy (who also live in California), my mom (from Colorado) and Aunt Pat (also from California). From left to right below: Aunt Jan, my mom, me, Aunt Cathy and Aunt Pat.

We had a great time playing games, eating and praying over Baby Bug. It was a very special day and I think all of the ladies who came to celebrate this little guy and welcome him into our church and California family!

Shower #3 - Co-workers
My last shower was thrown by some of my co-workers; Diana, Melanie and Marv. We had it at the grill on the winery property and just hung out, ate yummy food and (everyone but me) drank wine (because that’s kind of what we you do when you work at a winery).

I wish I would have taken more photos but I was too busy chatting with everyone. Oops! At least I have these two to share.

Thanks to all of my co-worker friends who came to celebrate Baby Bug’s arrival! I look forward to getting reacquainted with all of our wines with all of you once I’m able to sample again!

Thank you to EVERYONE who came to one or more of my showers! I am definitely all set for baby’s arrival this week. We certainly do feel loved (and spoiled) and I look forward to sharing the news of Baby Bug’s arrival with all of you! Cheers!

Halloween 2012

Ok, so I’m a little slow on catching up with posts, but at least I’m trying, right? Hehe!

Halloween was last Wednesday and it was a lot of fun! This year I was co-chair of our church’s Fall Festival along with some of my other good friends. We spent the last few months planning and preparing to invite the church members and community onto our church lawn to play some fun games, win fun prizes, participate in a costume contest, travel through our maze, play in the bouncy houses, go on a hay ride and eat some delicious food.

Our committee dressed up as “busy bees” so that people knew who to come to for questions at the event.

The night was a success! Over 400 people showed up to participate in the event and we also had over 150 volunteers help us to set up, work at games, cook food, build the maze and clean up. It was a great event to be a part of! Of course since I was busy running around at the event I didn’t get any pictures of the actual setup or event (oops!) so you’ll just have to imagine how awesome everything was.

Go ahead and ignore the fact that we were exhausted and all of my makeup had sweated off by the end of the night (when we took these pictures).

Happy (late) Halloween!

Girls night

Last night a group of my girlfriends met outside another friend’s house ready to surprise her for her birthday… And surprise her we did! We came barging into her house (after we knew the kids were in bed and her husband was out for the evening) armed with desserts, wine and chick flicks.

These girls are so sweet and I am lucky to call them all my friends.

We had a really fun evening chatting, watching a girlie movie and eating more dessert than any of us will admit to. Hehe! Happy Birthday, Brittany!

It’s been a while…

Sorry that I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve been busy, tired, a little lazy and have just enjoyed having a little break. Also, I was kidnapped by ninjas.

Ok, well, maybe that last part wasn’t true. But that would have been kind of cool, right?

So, what have we been up to these last few months? A lot! Let me give you the highlight reel so you can get all caught up. Ok?

• We celebrated all three of our birthdays! Gromit on April 14, Dave on April 24 and me on May 1.  
• I took a trip to Colorado in May to see my next-to-youngest sister, Kelly, graduate from college. 
• Dave rode in two local bike races. He is getting more and more into cycling lately and I’m sure having this nice weather all year long is a contributing factor to that. On the weekends he does 4-5 hour training rides. Not my idea of fun, but I’m glad he’s enjoying himself :-) Ignore the photo below with the watermark over it. Of course we’re not too cheap to buy the photo… 
• We have taken many day trips into San Francisco where we have enjoyed sightseeing, dinner and sweet treats! It is so fun living close to such a big city!

• We took a little trip in early June. Our first stop was in Santa Barbara where we visited my Aunt and Uncle for a couple of days, then we headed down to Disneyland for two days of Disney magic. Dave and I loved getting to spend a little one-on-one time together! We had an absolute blast! 
• Our friend, Mark, came to visit for a few days around the 4th of July. While he was here we visited San Francisco, toured the Jelly Belly factory and ate yummy ice cream from Ghirardelli Square. I even made patriotic waffles on the 4th! 

That pretty much covers the big things that we’ve done in the last few months, so you should be all caught up now. I’m ready to continue to update my blog regularly again so check back soon for more happenings. I’ll do my best to keep those ninjas away ;-)

Weekend cabin trip

This past weekend we were invited to a cabin up in the “mountains” with some of the couples from our church small group, and we had a blast! We were just above 5000 feet in elevation which was almost like being back in Denver, but certainly not quite like being in the familiar Colorado mountains.

The area was beautiful with super tall trees and…

 

wait for it…

 

SNOW!!

I hadn’t seen snow since July, so I was super excited to see the area covered in that familiar white powder. Ahhhhhhh! Beautiful.

We drove up on Friday night and played some games with the other couples and just hung out. On Saturday all but me and one other gal (also named Sarah and who has a cutie pie 3-month-old daughter) went skiing/snowboarding. Sarah and I had fun playing with the baby and I also was able to catch up on some of my digital scrapbooking. It was soooooo relaxing. This is one of my finished scrapbook pages from the weekend:

Dave had a great time skiing (like he always does) and the group came back from the slopes tired and hungry. We spent Saturday night eating good food, watching YouTube videos, talking, and playing more games. It was a blast!

It was such a great time and we loved getting to know some of the other couples better. We were sad to go on Sunday but we were so glad that we made the trip!

Bullet point updates

So… it has been a while since I’ve updated my little blog so I thought I’d give you the rundown of the last month in short, bullet point form. Sound good? Ok, let’s go!

• I started my new job! I’m doing marketing for a winery and I am loving it! There is so much to learn and so much to do and I feel like I’ve been working a million hours since I started at the beginning of the month, which is why this blog has been so neglected. I’m still working on finding my new work/life balance, but it certainly helps to bring a little wine “work” home. Dave is certainly enjoying that part :-)
• I got bangs. I haven’t had real bangs since about third grade and I’m not sure how I feel about this. Dave didn’t like them at first but he says he’s liking them more now. Maybe I’ll keep them, maybe I won’t but it has been a fun change.
• Dave’s grandparents, aunt, and uncle took a trip to San Francisco and we were able to spend a day with them. We still can’t believe how close we live to that city - it’s like vacation is a few miles away at all times! Anyway, we visited some museums, ate clam soup out of bread bowls, and had a nice dinner in Japantown. But for some silly reason we didn’t take a picture of the whole group. Oops. So you’ll just have to settle for one of Dave and me.

• Dave finally received his diploma in the mail!
• I have met some wonderful girlfriends since moving to California. I am enjoying getting to know these ladies on a deeper level and am so thankful for such great friends in our new home town.
• I took a little girls trip to Vegas with some of my middle school buddies, Laura and Lisa (and Laura’s friend Jessie who I am just getting to know better). We had a spa day, saw some shows, tasted some yummy food, and had plenty of time for girl talk.

• My blog got a much needed makeover and finally lost the holiday look. What do you think?

That’s it for now. I’m going to try a lot harder to post regularly again so stay tuned. Have a great day!

Day trip to Napa Valley

Today we were invited to Napa Valley by the brother of one of Dave’s best friends (it was Eric, Mark’s brother, in case you wanted to know :-)  ). Eric is a member of a few wine clubs out there and so we joined him and some of his friends to pick up his member packages and do some tasting! Isn’t Napa beautiful this time of year?

We visited four wineries and tasted at three of them. We took a tour at one of the wineries and at another winery we were able to see the beginning process of processing grapes. It was fun to be able to see this part of the wine making process… and it was even better to taste the end product.

Some of the wine was so good that we came home with a couple of bottles. Anyone care to come cork them with us?

We are so lucky that we live close to so many different areas with so much to see and do! It was a great day with new friends and we hope to do it again soon!

Making friends

After a month of living here my prayers have been answered - I’ve started to make some friends! Being alone all day in a city where I don’t know anyone has gotten to be a little bit lonely and I was really ready to meet some people. I mean, Gromit is great company and a fantastic snuggler but he doesn’t really contribute much to our conversations. Go figure.

Dave and I have gotten more involved with our church and we have started going to a Young Families class on Sunday mornings. A couple people are our age but many of the group members are a little older and have a few kids each. Last week one of the gals in the  group invited me to a women’s bible study on Thursday mornings by one of the gals in the group.  So yesterday I went. I met some other gals my age while I was there and then I was invited to eat lunch and hang out with them at one of their houses! We spent the afternoon chatting and getting to know each other and I really enjoyed spending time with these women. I was even invited to a young couples bible study (married five years or less) that they are starting on Sunday. Talk about perfect timing! Dave and I are going to go and check it out. I can’t wait to get to know them better!

Then, last night the gals in the young families class had a girls night out event at a local corn maze. I went and got to know some of the other women as we walked through the maze and ate dessert afterwards. It was so fun! It is really starting to feel like we fit in here.

 

Be careful what you wish for…

Has anyone ever told you, “be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it”? I’m feeling a little bit of that right now.

I have been waiting for years for Dave to finish his PhD. The process of him graduating has been brutal on both of us and we have always been looking forward to when it was finally going to be over. We have always said things like, “we’ll be able to start our life” and “we can finally do everything we wanted to do without being tied to grad school”. Well, we’re about to get our wish. Dave has been offered a wonderful job with a decent salary which just happens to be 1,200 miles from where we call home - in a city where we don’t know anybody and our nearest relative is five and a half hours away. Wish granted.

While this new life in a new state sounds like a fun adventure, (and in some ways, it kind of is), the reality of everything has finally hit. I’m.moving.away.from.everyone.and.everything.that.is.familiar.to.me. And I’m panicking.

Frankly, this leaving everyone and everything I love thing wasn’t really calculated into our grand graduation and “moving on” plan. Surely moving on and moving away meant that everyone I love would come with me, right? I guess not. Realization has hit and I’m pretty upset. In the last couple of weeks I have cried after every time I talked to or hung out with a friend or family member. Yesterday I even broke down in a movie theater after seeing a movie with a friend and her six-month-old daughter. It was the first time that someone besides Dave has seen me break down. I’m a wreck.

So, while new adventures are on the horizon (only 3ish weeks away, yikes!) I’m having a hard time dealing with the sad parts of moving on; not being around for every day occurrences with friends and family, not being there for family events, missing the changes and milestones of all of the little ones brought into this world in the last year and a half, missing the comfort of knowing that great friends are only a short (or a little more than short) drive away, knowing that the job I love will be in the hands of someone else, and not already having a place for me to “fit” into my new world. It is clear that I have taken the simple things in life for granted.

Sure, there are some things I am looking forward to like visiting new places and watching Dave’s career bloom, but right now I am just sad about the loss of our current, familiar and convenient world. It is an interesting roller coaster ride. So remember, be careful what you wish for.

Girls weekend in Yellowstone

This past weekend I went to Yellowstone National Park with a couple of girlfriends for a fun photography weekend. We had a great time driving around, trying to find wildlife, taking in the park views and taking tons of pictures! I really enjoyed getting to know our new camera. I think I’m really beginning to get the hang of the manual settings and had a lot of fun seeing what a few setting adjustments could do to my photos. Here are some of my favorite photos from the weekend.
 



















The highlight of the weekend was being caught in the middle of a herd of bison on Saturday morning. They were in the road and all around the cars, just walking across the road as they pleased. It was a little scary, but it was also really awesome to see these animals up close and personal! I got some video footage of the incident. Ignore our crazy talk ;-)

We had a great weekend and I am so excited that I got such a great opportunity to use our new camera. I think another photography trip is in order - and soon!