NOT TOO MANY PLACES LIKE IT!

Who doesn't, couldn't, shouldn't, wouldn't LOVE southern california for it's most beautiful weather. It's the last day of February and I have spent the better part of the weekend in the beach town of San Clemente. Today it was sunny as can be and in the mid 80's. I'm not usually one to like the heat, especially when it's suppose to be hovering around the mid 40's this time of year. However, today I felt overly appreciative for this beautiful climate and the fact that I could walk outside and be more then content in shorts and a T-shirt in Februaury.
Isn't it great how last weekend we headed to the mountains for a "winter get away" and then the following weekend we were off to the coast for a "spring get away." (well kind of Frank had some work to do here this weekend).
THERE ARE NOT TOO MANY PLACES LIKE IT, and even if it's just today, I am happy for the "spring like" weather, early or not! :)

Happy One Year... :)

Today is Frank's one year anniversary of being baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I love him so much and am so proud of him and all the wonderful progress he has made and the growth which has taken place. It's late now, so there will be more thoughts tomorrow!

our MUCH NEEDED weekend "winter" getaway

My wonderful husband decided we needed to get out of town for a little while (with a little bit of hinting from me) and whisk me and our little doggy boy to the local mountains for a weekend winter getaway. The mountains have been blanketed with an abundance of snow in the last week and a half so we decided we'd take full advantage including snow fights, snowmen building, strolling through the "village" in downtown Big Bear, and even indulging ourselves in some fine chocolate (which is funny 'cuz I don't even like chocolate)!

Oh, and I apologize about the unorganized pictures, I pushed something and they got messed up and I don't have the patience to redo them at this moment!!

welcome to cooking 101!

Thank goodness for wonderful husbands! Let me begin this lesson by sharing a longstanding joke about me and my lack of knowledge when it comes to cooking...
So, all throughout high school and in to my early college days whenever anyone askd me to cook them something I would always respond by telling them " Oh, I would love to make you dinner, but unfortunately I don't know how to cook." For years my friends and family would tease me about it saying how pathetic it was that I was in my late teens and even early twenties and did not know how to cook.
The silliest part about it was I did indeed know how to cook, I just HATED to cook so it got me out of it every time. Then I went and decided I wanted to marry Frank, and that seemed to give me some strange desire to want to be all "wifish" and make him dinner almost every night (before we got married). The meals were starting to get better and better, and my liking to cook started turning in to my loving to cook. I was making full meals which included a variety of soups and salads as well as main dishes followed by some type of baked good. Frank grew more and more satisfied with his meals which also made me take pride in my work.
Then, two weeks ago we got married. In these two weeks of married life, I have only cooked three meals, two of which were at someone elses home. Then this past Saturday my wonderful and very loving husband slaved all day in the rain to bring in the money for us so I decided I wanted to be a fantastic wife and prepare a nice dinner for the two of us that evening. We were kind of pressed for time so I thought I'd go with something easy and basic, but filling since we'd be out most of the night. I settled on chicken, rice, potatoes and roles. How much more basic could you get.
So I began to peel the potatoes and Frank sat and watched me for a minute. I peeled one potatoe, then moved on to the rice, I payed extra attention to the directions (I NEVER follow them) then started to season the chicken. After that I went back to the potatoes and began to peel again, after a minute, Frank began to giggle, I asked what he was laughing at, and no response, I continued on with the peeling. Then he got up and walked over to me, grabbed me by the hand with the peeler in it and said, "let me show you how to peel a potatoe." I llooked at him weird and said, Umm, I know how to do that. So he let me do it. Then I headed back to the rice and got it cooking in pot, then on to the chicken. I had it in the pan on one side, and a few minutes later he walked over and said "let me show you how to cook the chicken. I frowned and said, I KNOW HOW TO COOK CHICKEN! So he walked away and I moved on to unwrapping the pre made roles, and started to use a can opener to open it and he looked at me with such a puzzled look and asked why I didn't just pull the string to open the can? I thought to myself, "oh yeah!" After that he looked at me and started cracking up and said that he really needs to start carrying a camera around when I'm the kitchen! That made for a good laugh.

Then last night we had a few close friends over to watch a movie. I was being the polite host and offered to get everyone some ice cream and make some popcorn. Simple again right? That is what I thought, then I began to scoop the ice cream out with the only large spoon we had, (which unfortunately was plastic) when Frank saw what I was doing he ran over and exclaimed "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!!!!" I replied, I'm serving ice cream, what does it look like i'm doing? He then told me you shouldn't use plastic spoons to scoop out ice cream. (Granted, the spoon was a sauce spoon).
Then I put the popcorn in the microwave for two minutes (not even the normal time) and after 1 minute they all were yelling at me to take it out because it smelled like it was burning. ( I have no sense of smell) So I take it out and sure enough, there was enough steem to set off the fire alarm.

I swear I am not as big of a kitchen idiot as it appears, I just had a rough time this weekend!!! :) Must have been all the pressure of being a new wife and trying to impress everyone with my skills. I guess I should take a cooking 101 class
Unfortunately for me, it backfired royally, and I ended up being the bundt of their jokes for the rest of the evening. :(

our first week of marriage, anything but ordinary.

Most couples we know start their marriage off with a few days, if not more, laying on some tropical island or cruising their way to a fantastic destination. Seeing as how we decided on the "non traditional" way to wed, why not follow suit with what should be known as a honeymoon but was anything but... here is the story of our first week:


We started off with this










Spent one day here








Spent the afternoon walking around here












ate a romantic late lunch here









headed back to the hometown to pick up these two










spent five days getting her ready for school and working hard at homework







spent the same five days chasing her around every waking minute







slept a little bit each night due to lots of this








then on the last day of being parents, we headed home to begin this










which resulted in some of this










And finally...












HOME AT LAST
A girl can dream right?!!! ...
We have moved in to a temporary home (a little over two months here)
then it is time to pack up and leave good 'ol California headed for a new adventure.
We had a busy first week, we watched two of the four kids I take care of and packed up and moved in to our first temporary first place. As far as being parents for a week goes, it was planned LONG before we went and decided to get hitched, so I guess you could say we asked for the whirlwind of a week. Ha, atleast it makes for a funny story to tell our kids, and the rest of our family when they hear about the very first few days.
Needless to say, when April comes around and we celebrate our "real wedding, " we're going to be more then excited to take a weeks vacation and spend it as lazily as humanly possible!