Okay, Okay, Okay!

Okay!!  I will FINALLY blog about Easter weekend.  Here's what we did:

1.)  We drove back to San Diego late Friday night.  No pics of that, sorry.

2.)  We took my Grandma out to Black Angus for lunch and to visit.  We had delicious food but terrible service.  That seems to pretty much be par for the course at Black Angus. 

3.)  We colored Easter eggs with Travis, Alex and Cindy:

(I made a special one for Moose since he couldn't be there)

4.)  My beautiful niece Natalie was born!!  Which was fabulous timing.  We went to the hospital to meet her on Easter morning:  :)

5.)  We hung out with Brett's fam' on Easter, and the kids had their Easter egg hunt.

(This is part of the fam.  We'll call this a fam faction™)

6.)  Everyone got jolted by a 7.2 earthquake, or whatever magnitude it was, I just remember it was a lot.

7.)  We went to the San Diego Zoo!!

(Here I am just hangin' with the monkeys.  Pun totally intended)

(This is me communing with the wildlife.  I look so comfortable in this situation)

(You Takin' to me?  Man I'm on a roll today.)  

8.)  Then, we met Travis for lunch @ the Zoo.

9.)  We went up to Carlsbad to visit my Dad & Margie and had a yummy dinner.

10.)  We decided on the drive from Carlsbad to Alpine to drive home late that night (Monday) rather than getting up super early on Tuesday to drive home.

11.)  Got a speeding ticket for going just a teensy bit over the speed limit.  In the middle of the desert.  In the middle of the night.  With no one else around.  It's ok.  I'm not bitter. 

And THAT is our Easter Update.  :)

Stories from San Diego: The Little Pine Tree That Could

This giant pine tree began as a teeny tiny pine tree in a pot that my mom gave Brett's mom for Christmas four or five years ago. When I say teeny tiny I mean really teeny tiny. Maybe 4 inches tall.

We planted it mostly out of pity. "You can't throw away a tree," and we never expected it to survive. Now, just a few years later it has grown to be over 10 feet tall!

Definitely The Little Pine Tree That Could.

Snow?

Snow? In San Diego? Yes, my Midwestern friends, it does happen. Fortunately it does not involve salt and shoveling driveways and sidewalks. Unfortunately, this also means there aren't any snow days. :(

But yes, there is snow. See?


No? You don't see? Alright, maybe a little zooming will help...


See! There! Snow on top of the mountain!

Ok, I admit, it's no 8 inches, but I'll take my little doses of winter where I can get them. :)

Brett's Graduation Party

I don't have a whole lot to blog about Brett's graduation party, except that we had a really fun time. Mostly, I really like this picture, and wanted to share it with you. See?

Awwwww......

Such a cute couple.

Why thank you, I agree with you.

But seriously, it was a really great day and it was so much fun to get together with everyone. It felt like one big family and friend reunion, and we got to see many people that we had not seen since our wedding almost four years ago.

Here's our guest of honor:


...and again with his brother:


Then I jumped in there just for fun:


Brett's mom & Melissa, the blogger behind Darby's Daily. I'm sure Darby would blog herself if only she had thumbs:


And Brett with Melissa's husband Glenn:

It was nice to catch up with my cousin Kellie, and I'm so glad my Grandma was able to make it:


And we got to see Karen! We haven't seen her in quite some time, either:

Here's Brett's cool display with all of his smarty-pants awards that he got for being such a Smarty-McSmarterson:


A big thanks to all our friends and family who came out to celebrate with us that day!

Stories from San Diego: Theodore's Treasures

Meet Theodore (aka Theo).


Theo is Brett's parent's cat. Theo has a little bit too much free time on his hands. He should maybe consider taking up a hobby like woodworking or pottery or perhaps volunteering somewhere. Theodore likes to occupy his time by collecting random objects from around the house and stashing them in his food bowl. It can be anything really-hair ties, bobby pins, pens, etc.-but for some reason it seems like it's usually my stuff. On our most recent trip, I woke up one morning to find my eyelash curler in the cat food bowl.


Like I said, Theo: you need a hobby.

Sea Life Aquarium

When we were in San Diego a couple of weeks ago Margie treated Brett & I to an afternoon at the Sea Life Aquarium at Legoland.


The first thing we did was head upstairs to see the seahorse feeding:

Then we saw the cool stingrays. They actually had signs saying 'do not pet.' No kidding.


They had all these bubbles where you could stick your head up into the aquarium. Naturally, we all had to take a turn in the bubble:






We got up close and personal with an octopus...


...and said hello to an extremely large lobster:


There were lots and lots of pretty fish:


And cool moon jellies:


And these bright red shrimp were really pretty!

I'm pretty sure the tunnel ended up being everyone's favorite part of the experience:


Thanks Margie!!

Adventures in Iowa: Currently Posting in San Diego

Hello faithful blog readers. It's been a while since my last post. Brett and I are currently in San Diego visiting family. It is a beautiful 80 degrees here today and we are not missing the snow and the cold one little bit. I really haven't had the opportunity to take many pictures of our adventures in San Diego, but there will be plenty of pictures in a few days including some of our fantastic new house, so come back soon!

~Amy :-)

Moving Madness

Oh boy. That's pretty much what our apartment looked like when we moved in, only now we are doing the opposite. Brett and I were laughing at ourselves the other day over the fact that we can't ever seem to do things simply. Two years ago we were getting married, moving, living on our own for the first time, going to an unknown place with no jobs and to an apartment that we had leased sight-unseen. Sometimes when I hear people complaining about how hard it is to plan a wedding I secretly think to myself, "Try planning it in 6 months and moving at the same time!"

Well, here we are in 2008 and once again moving under crazy circumstances. We had planned our upcoming trip to San Diego back in October... little did we know that we would be moving at the same time! Our lease actually begins while we are out of town. We will land at 12:30am the day we return from our trip and be moving that same morning! So now we are packing not only for a trip to San Diego, but for our move as well. All of this insanity is actually a good learning experience. It reminds us that we can't always micro-manage every part of our lives, and to just roll with it when life's craziness comes your way.

So we just pack like crazy, laugh and say to ourselves "One day we will move like normal people."

Today my fortune cookie said: You will do well in you. Personal Affairs.

Grammar and punctuation have not been edited. Either way, let's hope it's right. :-)

La Jolla, CA

Today we headed to the coast to take some pictures in La Jolla (pronounced 'La Hoya' for people not from the area). Here are just a few of the many reasons why we love San Diego:

Sea World

Brett & I went to Sea World yesterday. Here are a few of the many pictures we took while we were there:

(Click the pictures to enlarge. They are best viewed full screen)