Sunday Stroll

This morning was spent strolling the beautiful cities of Lafayette and Moraga. We love our little town, especially when we go to "our park" and swing on the tree swing. Today we brought the camera with us so Matt can try out some new techniques. Here are the updates.
Enjoying the swing.



Artistic

I look like a ghost
Grizzly Adams does have a beard
Serenity

Garden Growth

Just thought I would give a quick update on the growth of our garden. Not that it is exciting to anyone but me or Matthew, but it is exciting to me and Matthew so here are a few pics. The first two are of our one stalk of corn and our other veggies (we forgot what we planted where...I guess we will be surprised). The third is from a couple weeks ago. You can see the small little stalk just poking out.

The One for Victoria

Yesterday I went to a bridal shower for a great girl I visit teach. I had the chance to do some of the food so I decided to make a fruit pizza, these wonderful concoctions called cheesecake lollipops, and the traditional Miller punch. Browsing the internet looking for recipes I came across the blog of a woman from my ward back home. I told Matt I want to be like her. He asked why? and I said, "Because she is good at everything!" Really, she is. Piano, Cooking, Photography, Composing/recording music, you name it. Anyways, on her blog she had a recipe for a fruit pizza. I tried it, and it was the big hit of the bridal shower! I got so many compliments on it, and the orange glaze on top was just perfect. Thanks Victoria! I hope its ok that I share your recipe, because everyone asked for it.
Fruit before the storm. It just looked so pretty I had to take a picture. I wish I had a better picture. This doesnt do it justice. Cheesecake bites of heaven.

Oregon/Washington Expedition

One year!!!! We did it!!! Matthew and I have reached our one year anniversary and to celebrate we drove up to Oregon and Washington. We never realized how many trees there are in the North West until we drove 2,000 miles in 4 days. We left Saturday morning and reached Portland Saturday night, celebrated at Macaroni Grill and toured the city. Sunday we went to Multnomah falls and took hundreds of pictures of the beauty surrounding us. Then we drove up to Washington, and saw what it had to offer.... more trees! Our night finished in Portland at a Thai restaurant. Our favorite! While we were finishing up, Nick called from Texas! We were lucky enough to get to hear from him even though we werent at home in Southern California with my mom. He is doing great and sounding happy!! We went back to the hotel and had a toast with sparkling cider to many more years of love and friendship, and whatever the future has in store for us. Monday we drove up the coast of Oregon and were able to see the beautiful cliffs and a light house along the shoreline. We ended up in Chehalis, WA to say hi to Matt's family and enjoy some more trees. It was a great trip full of lots of driving, lots of trees, and lots of pictures!

Here are a few things we learned while on our trip:

90% of the population of Oregon is overweight. (Or so it seems) We think they should do a "Biggest Loser- Oregon"
The Lewis and Clark trail somehow encompasses every inch of Oregon and Washington. (Or so it seems)
No matter how short your destination is, you are bound to cross at least one bridge. If they were to charge a maximum toll of $0.25, we would be broke!
"Twilight" wasnt actually filmed in the small town of Forks, WA. It was filmed in Oregon.
Based off reasearch published by NASA, there are approximately 61 trees for every person in the world. For every person in Oregon, it is a different story, there are well over 3,000 per person.

Briones Drive

About a week ago, Matt and I went on a drive around our home. It was a rainy day and we had just received our camera in the mail. We were tired of being inside and anxious to try out the camera. Along the way we found some beautiful scenery and some farm animals.


Hundreds of cows scattered the hillside.

Ostriches lined the road.

I fell in love with a beautiful white dog.

The llamas were soaking wet.

And a beautiful black bird flew into our view of the hills.

All in all, it was a peaceful drive out in the "country".

New Camera!!!

Matthew's pride and joy is our new camera. The Cannon EOS 40D. Instead of reading a book at night, he reads the camera manual and trys out his newly aquired skills. He is pretty cute when he is excited. We were able to take it on our trip to Oregon and Washington so it has already had a lot of use.

Girls Night Out!

Last week I had the opportunity to have a girls night out! The first one since Matthew and I have been married (almost a year!) I got invited to a Warriors/Timberwolves game by the wonderful Marie Johnson. Her brother plays for the Timmberwolves and so we got nice seats and the opportunity to talk to the players afterwards. While basketball is exciting, it was probably more fun to talk to the girls and enjoy the night out. Thanks for the fun night Marie!

Marie Johnson, Me, Marie Miller

Just to prove I was there. I told Matthew I would try and get pictures of all the players, but this is the best I came up with!

We're Cool Too!

While looking at friends blogs, Matt said to me last night, "other couples are cooler than us." I asked him why and didnt really get a response. Perhaps it was Brett and Emily's trip to St. Maarten, Bryan and Kristin's trip to Disneyland,or Ben and Rebekah's upcoming baby, but whatever it was, challenged me to prove to him that we are cool too! Unfortunately, this is all I came up with.


Last Sunday we went on a hike up Briones trail and ran into a herd of cows. We got up close and personal, but they made sure to inform us when it was time to leave.

We planted some cucumbers, carrots, cantaloupe, and corn. Apparently we like fruits and veggies that start with "c". As you can see, nothing has sprouted yet. We will keep you updated. We thought about having one of those countdowns on the side of our blog showing the growth of our plants, but realized it was only cool with babies.

There is a huge mound of dirt in our backyard/frontyard (we're not sure what to call it). And it has taken us hours and hours to to attempt to get rid of it. We are hoping that maybe someday we will be able to have guests over for a barbeque and figured the mound of dirt is not only an eyesore but gets in the way.

We bought a new board game. Really, it was the excitement of our week and has already provided us with many hours of enjoyment. (You can call us senior citizens if you want.)

It would be appropriate seeing as how I signed up for an aerobics class thinking I would get a great workout four days a week. I showed up yesterday and was the youngest there by 50 years! Maybe we do live like old people. Disclaimer: Picture is not of actual senior citizens in my class. Disclaimer 2: I will not be going back.

Well, maybe were not that cool this week, but my family is coming to visit for Easter, so hopefully I will have more ammunition to prove to my husband that we're cool too!

Monterey, Carmel, and More!

This past weekend, Matthew and I had the chance to go down south to Monterrey. We have both read many of John Steinbecks books so we were excited to see the places of his inspiration. We started in Salinas, hometown to Steinbeck and the National Steinbeck Museum, and ended in Carmel by-the-sea. We loved the old town feel of Salinas but unfortunately did not go to the museum. We were too cheap to pay the $10 per person entrance fee. Matt says that Steinbeck would have been dissapointed in the amount they charge to see his life. We drove 17 miles to Monterey and had a picnic on the beach. So romantic and exciting to see all the marine life! We also enjoyed Cannery Row, walking around the Aquarium (again, we were too cheap to pay the entrance fee, haha), touring the Point Pinos Lighthouse and climbing the rocks at Lovers Point. We then drove another 17 miles along the coast to Carmel and walked along the beautiful sandy beaches. We loved the relaxing day and the warm sun that had been greatly missed the past couple weeks. We figure we better take advantage of the many beautiful areas surrounding us, and were glad we finally had the opportunity to do so.

Our second adventure of the day consisted of our search for Girl Scout Cookies. We passed them up twice in the morning and I was so dissapointed that Matthew promised me we would get some by the end of the day. Apparently he forgot that little girl scouts don't stay out all day long and by the time we found another store, they had all gone home. Well, Matthew is a man of his word because in every city we were in, he searched each Longs Drugs and Safeway for hopes of the cute little girl scouts with their prized cookies. Four stores and about 8 hours later we found some girl scouts, only to be informed that they were out of Samoas. Perhaps they saw the complete look of dissapointment on both our faces because they pulled out the two boxes they had on reserve for the store manager. Those little girl scouts definitely knew how to serve their community! hahaha

Everyday Life

I havent updated our blog for a couple weeks so I thought I would add some pictures of our everyday happenings. Enjoy!

My "Manly Man" husband scored a "fruity" on his love test at Powell's sweet shop!



We couldnt resist taking pictures of all the colorful candy and I couldnt resist buying about a 1/2 pound of it to bring home with me.

The past week or so, Lafayette has been receiving the much needed rain to cure it of its drought. The picture doesnt do it justice, but it was fun to watch, nonetheless.

This morning we woke up to a beautiful rainbow right in our own backyard. Although it disappeared after about five minutes, the double rainbow was beautiful while it lasted.