Labor Day

For Labor Day Nick and I invited ourselves on a trip to Apple Hill with my parents. Everyone else had the same idea so it turned out to be almost the whole family. We went to our regular stop for chocolate caramel apples, hanging by the pond, apple juice and checking out the crafts. After that we stop by another place that had some farm animals that the nephews and niece really enjoyed at least until Jill got licked by a cow. We had a great lunch and then headed home to relax and have dinner with Megan and Bubba. We had an awesome time and I hope you enjoy some of the pictures of our day.

My Birthday Week

For my actually birthday Nick and I went to the River Cats baseball game with some friends of ours. One of our friends had a bunch to tickets and parking passes that needed to be used by that night so we were lucky that he invited to go along for FREE. We didn't win but I did get a chance to fill myself with ridiculous amounts of liquid cheese. It was a lot of fun.

Before the game (Check out our awesome sits. Thanks Sims!)

Nick and Chad (Erin was out of town.)

My friend Michelle's birthday is the day before mine and she had a 80s themed bowling party that weekend. I hadn't been bowling in a long time so it was fun to see how poorly I still played. The food was great, especially the desserts, (rubic cube cupcakes and a cake decorated like a cassette tape) and her one year daughter provided amazing entertainment with her dancing skills.

Michelle and I in our matching yellow.

On Sunday we had dessert with my family and just had a great time celebrating. My mom even made me a gift that had 25 little gifts of 25 things each. (25 dimes, 25 stickers, 25 cotton balls...that type of thing.) I had a great birthday this year!

Ratting out my big sister....

A conversation had with my nephew this afternoon...

Dax: That's a stoplight...

Me: You are correct.

D: Umm Mur green says go.

M: I know, but I have to wait for the cars in front of me to go too. What does red say?

D: Red says stop.... and... yellow says go faster!

M: Who told you yellow means go faster?

D: Just my mom.

M: Oh...you're mom is so busted.

D: No, Mur, you're busted.

Happy Early Birthday To Me!

For an early birthday present Nick planned a mini vacation for the two of us this weekend. I told him I wanted to be surprised but about a day before we left I changed my mind and he told me part of the plan but kept our finally destination a secret still.

First Stop: We went to Blondie's Pizza in Berkeley for lunch. That pizza is so delicious I can't even tell you. The crust is amazing and Nick tells me that the BBQ chicken pizza is just as good as the pepperoni. It's pretty much THE reason to go to Berkeley.

Second Stop: After lunch we went and spent the day in San Francisco. We hung out at Pier 39 where we saw all the crazy people and fulfilled my salt water taffy needs. Nick and I also went to the aquarium were we saw the silliest sting ray and got to touch sting rays and tiger sharks. We finished our time in San Francisco at Ghiradelli square were we had a delicious ice cream sundae. For your viewing pleasue here are some pictures of the day and a video of the silly sting ray.

Third and Final Stop: Our final stop was in Pacifica, which is about a half hour away from San Francisco, were our hotel was. The hotel was apparently not what Nick had expected when he made the reservation online but we laughed about it and made the best of it all. There was a beach right next to us that we hung out on after dinner at L&L Hawaiian BBQ. Nick was cracking me up with his Indiana Jones seaweed whips and singing to his new best pal Gully.

It was such a fun trip and I'm so glad that I have such an amazing husband that was willing to do all of it for me. It was a great way to start celebrating my birthday and now the only problem is how in the world am I going to top this for his birthday next month?

What do you do when your husband is out of town?

I invite cute boys over to my house to spend the night. Nick went out of town on Wednesday to Tahoe for the High Adventure trip with the scouts so I was own left on my for four days. In my never ending quest to be the best aunt ever I decided to invite my oldest nephews, Lucas and Mason, over to my apartment for a sleepover. I love those guys! We had a lot of fun eating McDonalds, swimming in my pool, making our own ice cream creations, building a fort, watching the Ant Bully, playing Wii and hanging out at the playground. I love having the opportunity to spend some special time with them and I can't wait until I have a bigger place so that Dax can come too.

Watching the Ant Bully in the fort.

Wicked Awesome Weekend

This last weekend was a great weekend for Nick and I. On Saturday I had the opportunity to go down to SF to see Wicked with a bunch of the women in my family. I had heard some of the music and knew the basic story line but that was it. It was incredible. I loved everything about it and was excited about how the original story was mixed into this new version. It was a lot of fun to share the experience with most of my sisters, aunts, cousins and grandma.

Even more exciting than Wicked was that Nick passed the Physical test for admission to the CHP academy. We had been pretty stressed about it and were so grateful that not only was it fianlly over but that he had been successful. He had his interview with the panel yesterday and so now it's more of the waiting game to see how he did with that. I don't have any awesome pictures to show from Nick's test, because they frown upon that but here are a few from after Wicked.

Megan and I outside the theatre.

Sam and I with silly Grandma in the background

Some of the crew after the show in front of the Wicked poster

New To Me Car...

My Cavalier is getting pretty janky. This last week after work it overheated, blew a fuse and started spraying coolant all over the place causing stream to seep out of the bottom of my hood. We replaced the fuse and hoped that it would be alright. I barely made it to Auto Zone the next morning before my coolant light went off, not surprisingly since I was there to get coolant. After that it overheated again on my way home...All this is a long way of saying that the decision was made to get me a new car.

Last night after weeks of searching online and some serious loan drama Nick and I headed off to look at a car that we both liked and thought was a great deal. I ended up driving my husband crazy and loving the car! We got a 2001 Toyota Highlander 4x4. I still love it after driving it around all day today and am excited for the little extra love Nick plans to give it. I still feel a little bit like it's a rental car but after we donate the Cavalier I think it will sink in more. It'll be weird to not drive around a Teal Cavalier. :)

This is it!

It doesn't have the money sticker anymore...

The inside