San Diego - La Jolla Day 1

Since we've been married, Ryan and I have found time to travel quite a bit, and really enjoy it! This past year we did two trips locally - one to San Diego, and one up to San Simeon/Cambria. Stay tuned for more about our trip up north, but we are so far behind on our posts, that we must to San Diego first...
La Jolla Shores is so beautiful. My brother Aaron and his family live in this area, so we stayed at their house for our little vacation. We walked all through La Jolla shopping and then went down to the beach to enjoy the peace of the ocean. Ryan, of course, we very interested in the waves. There was also a little cove where the sea lions come to rest or swim. They have built a little walkway over the water so you can get closer to the water and the animals. It was fun to see them!

Ryan's Birthday - in JULY!

Ryan's birthday was celebrated last July, and as you can see it has taken us this long to actually get the pictures posted. We had some of our friends over for a little party, and it sure was fun! The highlight was when one of Ryan's childhood friends showed up in his work uniform - a police officer. One of the women shouted - "The Stripper is here!" We all got a laugh out of that, although I am not sure the police officer friend laughed...

Oh well... Happy Birthday Ryan!

Pet Spider

A few months ago, Ryan about landed this HUGE spider right on his face. This spider was easily the size of a quarter! He made his web from the corner of our roof, across our yard to the fence! Ryan went outside after a party we had at our house to clean up a little, and nearly walked into the center of the web. He grabbed me and a flashlight, and we watched the spider, hoping to see him catch something and devour it!

Well, he never did catch anything, but we caught him! I told Ryan that we needed to catch him and put him in a jar because if I didn't know where he was, I wouldn't be able to sleep... thinking that spider might just be in our house, or worse, in our bed!


We did catch that spider and kept him in a jar for several weeks. We caught flies and other insects to feed to him. He lived a good life in our jar, but one day, he died... At least we now know what it is like to have a pet spider. FYI he was only a garden spider...

Pumpkin Carving 2007

Ok, so we are a little behind... BUT, we wanted to post our pumpkins from Halloween! Ryan and I made a date night out of it and went to the pumpkin patch to get our pumpkins. We choose the most perfect pumpkins and carefuly took them home with us.

Yes, we spent too much money on our dear pumpkins, but look how cute they are!!! The carving night was a few days later, but we kept our little guys safe until the big night arrived... A few years ago we decided that since we don't have much of a family for FHE, we'd get together with other couples who had young children, or no children, and do our own family night activities! It has been so much fun, and a great way to get to know other people in our ward. Our pumpkin carving night was FHE with two other couples - Brian & Heather and Jan & Dave. We had a great time time and an even better time trying to get the pictures just right! We can't wait until next Halloween to carve pumpkins again!!!

Recovering from Too much Culture

Mountain Biking in OrangeCounty

This is all the culture I need

These shots were taken on a trail called Mathis.

This picture isn't very exciting, sorry

This is a fun little lip that will allow for a little air as you jam down the hill.

Now this is culture!

Becoming more refined...

This past week we attended TWO cultural events... I think that may be the most Ryan has ever atteneded in one year! It was great! Orange County has a great performing arts center with two facilities. One is for shows and broadway type events, the other is brand new and is for musical events. We actually went to both halls this week! First we went to see the new OC Southern California Mormon Choir performance.

This is a new choir started by two brothers who are extremely musically inclined. They had try-outs through out all of southern California to get members for their choirs - the adult choir, high school age choir, youth choir, chidrens choir and sunbeems choir - plus the orchestra! It was great to see so many people displaying their talents and working to improve them. The music was all Christmas music, and it was really fun to see friends performing in such an amazing place!

Last night we went to see the Radio City Rockettes from New York! It was also a Christmas show and we really enjoyed it! There were about 12 dancing/singing numbers. The Rockettes only danced, but they had another singing and dancing group who would perform in between the Rockettes numbers to give them a chance to change outfits and get ready for the next number.

I told Ryan several weeks ago that I wanted to go see the Rockettes. He had no idea what they were but agreed to purchase the tickets. When we were at the choir performance earlier in the week he saw this picture. He said, "those girls aren't wearing any pants!" I said, "Those are the Rockettes. That is who we are going to see." He got a big smile on his face, and said, "I love you!" What a guy... Well, regardless, the show was pretty amazing, and Ryan's favorite number, ironically, was the one where the girls were wearing pants! It was really fun and now we are totally refined and enjoy attending cultural events. The next is phantom! Coming in March! YIPPEE!

Big BEAR!

We are so behind in our posts, but still wanted to post our adventures! We went to Big Bear for our 2nd anniversay, back in November. We rented a house/cabin, that was big enough for 10 people... There were 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. There was a large family room and kitchen, along with a hot tub on the back yard deck, with a BBQ! We really had a great time!

This is the house. It was right at the base of snow summitt and big bear mountain. There was no snow but the weather was nice and cool. Before we got up to Big Bear we stopped at Tiff and Eric's new place in Redlands! We are so happy they are living closer to us! We still wish we saw them more though... They live in a very cute apartment and I think they like the new adventure. We also stopped through Running Springs to see Ryan's Aunt. This was right after the big fires, and Runnings Springs got burned pretty good. Luckily Ryan's Aunt's house was safe.

Well, we took our bikes thinking we could mountain bike a little, but ALL the National Parks and trails were closed because of the fire hazzard. They didn't want any new fires to start. SO, we found other things to do...

We rode the Alpine Slide! It was so fun! We took the ski lift up the hill and then got these sleds. We each sat on our own sled and then rode down the mountain in these track things - that you can see behind our heads in the picture on the left. It was really fun! We rode twice, although we probably could have gone at least 10 more times and still gone some more!

We had such a fun time! We tried to race, but I think Ryan's weight made it unfair... He always went faster.

We took our bikes out on the bike path and rode around the Big Bear Lake. The water level was very low, but we just kept thinking how much fun this lake would be in the summer! This was our first adult visit to Big Bear for the both of us... Now, we want to go back! Here are a few more pic's of our trip. We had such a fun time. The hot tub back at the house was great! We sat in it every night and enjoyed looking at the stars. We had such a fun time, and can't wait to go back!