Ahhh, Disneyland! :)

Tis that time of year! Time for our annual Disneyland visit. Since I was on Fall Break, we decided to go on Wednesday to avoid the crowds. Ha! I guess lots of other schools have Fall Break too because it was kind of crowded. We still had fun though. Here Sam and I are at the Haunted Mansion, as it's all decked out in Halloween decor! So cool!

Sam TOTALLY spoiled me this year. He made reservations for us to eat at the Blue Bayou Restaurant, the one inside of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Holy cow was it fun! Even though it was inside of the ride, we couldn't hear the ride. It was so peaceful and very romantic!

Here's cute Sam at the Blue Bayou Restaurant. The food there was AMAZING!! Holy cow! Sam ordered the Tesoro Island chicken and I ordered the Monte Cristo sandwich. *drool*drool* I had read reviews online about how good the Monte Cristo was, and it sure lived up to it. It was to DIE for, totally unhealthy, but to die for! The outside was so crispy and the inside was so soft. Then they had this awesome jelly to put on it. Yum! Then Sam and I ordered the creme brulee. Oh my gosh! Heavenly! We are totally coming back to the Blue Bayou. Yum yum!

After lunch, Sam and I had fun riding the rides. We first went on Space Mountain, which they had changed to Ghost something or other. The ride was MUCH faster, darker, and it had this ghost that was chasing you. It was pretty fun! We were able to ride all the usual rides, but Indiana Jones was closed for maintenance, Splash Mountain & the Jungle Cruise were both down for a few hours for repairs. It was frustrating for a while not being able to ride some of the good rides (which clogs up the other rides), but we were able to ride them eventually!

Cute Sam as he's cleaning his glasses. We had to take a break to eat our yummy churros. Gosh, I realized that we sure do eat a lot while we're there. I guess we burned up so many calories walking around the park though!

Me giving the thumbs up on Disneyland.


Tom Sawyer's Island. Doesn't it look so peaceful?!


Looking over by the Haunted Mansion area.



I LOVED that everything was all decorated Halloweeny. Usually Sam and I go between Halloween and Thanksgiving, so there are more Christmas decorations up. It was fun to see how things were decorated. I LOVED the Mickey jack-o-lantern in the back of this picture (in front of Main Street).


Ok, this is Sam's famed picture. The first time that we went on Splash Mountain on Wednesday, Sam was trying to make this ugly face at the camera as we went down the last drop. But, he wasn't able to hold the face. So then the next time we went on it, Sam decided to be a muscle man. He kept practicing on all the smaller drops so that he'd be prepared for the big drop. And, he WAS able to hold his muscle man pose for the camera, although I think his face looks HILARIOUS! It's kind of hard to tell, but he's making this face that's like "HURRY take the picture because I'm getting scared!" Then when we saw his picture, we fell in love with it. We usually don't waste our money on expensive pictures like this, but this one was too good to pass up. All the other people in our log were laughing too. Too funny!!

Well, we had a BLAST at Disneyland this year! I can't wait for next year!! :)

Oh I LOVE Fall Break!!

So now that I'm off for fall break, what have I been up to? Well, yesterday was my first day off and I went shopping, of course. I also ordered our Christmas cards (Sam is so determined that we need to have our cards out at Thanksgiving, and that is only next month! WOW!) on Shutterfly. As for today, I cleaned the house all day (boy did it need it).

Then I made some mini-pumpkin bites. I found the recipe at http://www.bakerella.com/ . Hers turned out MUCH cuter than mine, but they still taste pretty awesome. I know it's hard to tell, but the pie crusts are actually in the shape of pumpkins. My drizzled chocolate turned out a little blobby because I cut the hole too large in the baggy. I also got some cute fall decorations and so now I'm in the fall spirit! Anyway, here's the recipe for them! They're pretty fun to make!!

Pumpkin Pie Bites

2 refrigerated ready-to roll pie crusts
8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup canned pumpkin

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter

Optional: 1/2 cup chocolate morsels

vegetable oil

re-sealable plastic bags

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.Use cookie cutter to cut 12 pumpkin shapes from each pie crust. You will need to roll the dough thinner than it comes out of the box. Press dough shapes into a 24 cup mini muffin tray. (Make 12 at a time, alternating cups to make sure pie crusts don’t overlap each other.) Apply egg whites from one egg to the top edges of each pie. Mix cream cheese, sugar, canned pumpkin, remaining 2 eggs, vanilla and pumpkin pie spice together until thoroughly combined. Spoon mixture into each pumpkin-shaped pie crust. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Remove pies to cool and repeat with second pie crust. Place the muffin tray in the freezer to cool it quickly for re-use.
Makes 24 pies. Keep refrigerated.

To decorate, melt chocolate in a heat-proof bowl in the microwave on medium. Heat in 30 second intervals, stirring in between until melted. Add a little vegetable oil to make the chocolate more fluid. Transfer to a re-sealable plastic bag and cut the corner off. Drizzle or draw faces on pies.

Note: The cutter I used was 3 3/4 inches wide, but if you don’t have one, don’t worry. Just use a round cutter around that size or slightly smaller to cut circle shapes out of the dough. Then make stems with the scraps. Press each stem over the edge and down the side of the dough before filling.

Pumpkin pie spice is a mixture of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice.
Enjoy!

Where's the Time?!

Ok, what happens when 2 people work and go to school full-time? Their blog gets forgotten about! Yes, it's true, our poor little blog. No, Sam and I haven't disappeared from the Earth, but we have been SWAMPED! My new job is going pretty good. But when I have 29 first graders for 8 hours a day, I do occasionally lose my sanity. My first graders are the cutest thing though! I've also started my Masters program. It'll be a 2 year program, and I have a new class every 5 weeks. So far I've completed 2 classes!! Woohoo! I've also been put on the college board (heaven knows why). Sam's been pretty busy too. His company opened up a new store, and it's kept him pretty busy (isn't that right Kyle?). Needless to say, we haven't had any time to breath let alone do anything on our blog. Our poor house is the dirtiest that I've ever let it get. I only have about a week and a half, and then I have a little bit of time off for fall break! YES! I will try to be better about blogging. But honestly, nothing else has happened aside from work and school. I guess we're pretty boring!

BTW-isn't the picture funny?!?! It's totally untrue at our house (Sam does more cleaning than I do), but I thought it was a good laugh.

Challenges of Life

Marcie and I found a really good article that explains our thoughts and feelings as we pass through a peculiar episode of our lives. For a few years we have been confused as to why things happen the way they do and why things happen to certain people at certain times of their lives. Although we would not wish this challenge on anyone, we have felt a lot of peace and grown much closer as a couple through understanding and facing the reality of this challenge and all of the associated feelings and struggles that it brings. This article explains better than we can in our own words the feelings that are associated with this struggle. -Sam

http://www.resolve.org/site/PageServer?pagename=lrn_ffaf_ie

Mammoth, Here We Come!

The week after I got back from Kentucky & Maryland, Sam and I decided to take a little vacation together. We drove up to Bishop Wednesday night and we camped in Bishop. We've stayed at this campground before. It's a really cute campground with a little creek that runs behind the tent. So CUTE! The not so cute part was that 50 French teens were also camping there. Talk about clogging up the bathrooms! I felt like I was back in France again, and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what the heck they were saying!!

On Thursday, Sam and I drove to Lake Sabrina, just north of Bishop. Sam had been planning this trip for months and he was SOO excited to get back into the mountains! So Sam had planned this "moderate" hike up to Blue Lake. It was only suppose to be 3 miles, or 2 hours. Well, 2 hours into our hike, we were getting low on water, we were WAY out of shape, and other hikers were telling us that we were only 1/3 of the way there. We quickly abandoned the thought of completing that hike, hiked back down to our car, and then spent the rest of the evening in Bishop.

Sam and I as we're resting on our hike to Blue Lake.

Lake Sabrina. How beautiful!

Another view of Lake Sabrina. That night, we ate dinner in Bishop and then roasted marshmallows and Starbursts. We had fun!



On Friday, we drove up to Mammoth Lakes. I was pretty happy to be away from the French teens! :). We hiked up to Arrowhead Lake, which was this gorgeous lake that was completely untouched by humans! It was a good 2 hour hike and it was well worth it! The mosquitoes weren't as bad and our bodies were better prepared for this hike. What a beautiful lake though!

After we made it to Arrowhead Lake, we decided to return to our car because it started looking pretty stormy. So we decided to drive to the different lakes in Mammoth (I believe that there are 7-8 main lakes there). This was taken at Horseshoe Lake. I just love the color of the water!

This is Lake Mary

More lakes in Mammoth

Lucky for me, Sam was kind enough to let us stay in a condo in Mammoth Friday and Saturday nights, since I had endured 2 nights of tent camping with our French friends. This is the view from our condo. How beautiful!

On Saturday, we decided to hike to Rainbow Falls in Devil's Postpile. I did this hike as a child and I remember that it was so beautiful and full of trees. Unfortunately a few years back a big fire came through and destroyed most of those trees that I remembered. You can see in this pic how barren it is!

We finally made it to Rainbow Falls! It looks so tiny in this pic, but it was a good size waterfall!

One of the rivers around Rainbow Falls. Once we reached Rainbow Falls, we were both feeling pretty good. So we decided to keep hiking to Lower Falls.

I saw this tree at Lower Falls and I fell in love with it! I'm not a tree hugger or anything, but I was so fascinated because by all reasons, this tree should be dead. But it trudges on and is barely hanging on. You can see most of its roots. How amazing!

Lower Falls. I totally thought that it looked like something from Disney's California Adventureland. So pretty!

After the falls, Sam and I decided to hike to Devil's Postpile. On our hike, we found a deer! I was pretty impressed! For those of you who see cute wildlife all the time, how lucky you are! It's amazing to see these animals in their habitats. What a treat this was for us!

Once we made it to Devil's Postpile, we decided to hike to the top of it. This is the view from the top!!

This was also taken at the top of Devil's Postpile. I love it because you can see the hexagonal shaped rocks! Fascinating!!

Here's our FABULOUS condo! I was totally in love with it! It had a cute kitchen with granite countertops, a fireplace, a king-sized bed, a pool and jacuzzi. After a full day of hiking, this was SOO worth it! On Sunday, Sam and I went to church and then we headed home. We had a good little trip and it brought my short little summer to a close! I'm sure that more trips are on the way! :)

Fourth of July

I know, I haven't posted in FOREVER. I'm slowly working on it. Here's the rest of my update from my Kentucky/Maryland trip the week of the 4th of July.

For the 4th of July, we headed into Baltimore to visit Fort McHenry, where Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner. I guess I'm not historically inclined, because I had the story all mixed up before we got there. It was interesting to hear how the song came to be and it was better just to be there! Valerie and I standing near the front of Fort McHenry.

I know the pic is fuzzy, but here me, Em and Jeremy are hanging out in a war bunker (built after the War of 1812).

They had a pretty big celebration for the 4th at Fort McHenry. They had a parade with people all dressed up in time period costumes and they gave us a bit of history.

Then they got out one of the original flags and the audience helped to unfold the flag. They also got out a current flag, which people also helped to unfold. I was happily content to take pics instead of helping! :)! They were unable to put up the flags because it was so windy, but it was cool to see it just the same!

Ok, so I am a HUGE fan of the show "Ace of Cakes" on Food Network. Since we were already in Baltimore for the 4th, Valerie and I agreed that we HAD to visit their bakery. Of course it was closed, but we were excited to just to be there! WE LOVE YOU DUFF!! (He's the head baker)!

That night, Dad, Emily and I decided to be brave and head into D.C. to watch the fireworks. We were just walking over a bridge in Virginia (I think) when the fireworks began. It was REALLY crowded, even on that bridge, but the fireworks were spectacular. You can kind of see the Lincoln Memorial on the bottom right. Afterwards, we had to head into the WAY crowded subway and head back to my parents'. We didn't get home until about midnight, but it was worth it!

Valerie, Jeremy, Em, me, Dad and Mom in front of the Washington D.C. temple that Sunday. What a huge and gorgeous temple it is!

The Washington D.C. temple. So pretty!


On Tuesday Mom, Emily and I went into D.C. to do some museuming! :). Of course we went to the Smithsonians and we had a blast. We saw Dorothy's shoes from the Wizard of Oz.

We also saw Kermit the Frog. Look at how cute he looks!

We also went to the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum. This pic just looks like it belongs in the Night at the Museum! :)

Our last stop was to see the largest diamond in the world, the Hope Diamond. This diamond put my wedding ring to shame (sorry Sam! :) ). We had a good time. On Wednesday, Em and I flew home. We almost had to fly home on Thursday because our original flight was delayed and so we were going to miss our layover in Atlanta. After waiting in line for 1 1/2 hours (NO JOKE!), they finally put us on another plane, and they gave us first class! Wahhooo!! We ended up getting back to San Diego at about 11:45PM and I was SOOO happy to see Sam!! I had a really good trip, but it was REALLY hard being away from him.

Kentucky Trip

Ok, I have SOOO much to update on! July has been a good but extremely hectic month! I go back to work next week and so we had to cram all of our vacations into July.

At the beginning of July, Emily and I said goodbye to our husbands for a week (and that was truly traumatic for Emily and I and our husbands) and then we went on a family seeing vacation. Em and I first flew to Kentucky to visit our Jeremy and Valerie. Jeremy and Valerie are quite the tour guides and we had a BLAST!!

The first day of our trip, we went to Jeffersonville, Indiana to an old-fashioned candy shop called Schimpff's. We had an awesome tour and they showed us how they make their old-fashioned cinnamon drops. You can see the man in the background cooling the mixture. It was a really fun tour!

Afterwards, we had to buy lots of souvenirs, a.k.a. candy! :). Em and I are holding up an assorted package that had cinnamon drops, caramel covered marshmallows, and turtles (actually in the shape of turtles!!)

Our next stop was at the Louisville Slugger Museum. We took a tour that showed us all around the factory and how they make their famous bats. I knew that Sam would've LOVED the tour (cursed work! :)). After the tour, they have LOTS of fun photo opportunities. Em and I are watching Babe Ruth (I think that's who it is) "drop a bomb on those fools", as Sam would say.

Valerie posing while holding a bat owned by Mickey Mantle. Doesn't she look like she's ready to hit a home run?!

Of course we had to pose in front of the big bat. One thing I learned is that this bat is not a sculpture, it is actually a plumbing vent. The city of Louisville wouldn't let the museum have a sculpture that high, so they disguised it a plumbing vent. What a genius idea!

Next on our tour was to the Glassworks Factory. They make all this beautiful artwork entirely out of glass! The guy in this pic is heating up the glass to make a whimsical wine cork. It was fascinating to see him at work!

This was my favorite part of the tour. We saw guys doing blown-glass. One guy is obviously blowing the glass while the other is shaping it with wet newspapers. It is SUCH an amazing process to watch. They ended up making this BEAUTIFUL bowl! I wanted to buy it, but it was $450! YIKES! Then I'd still have to carry it on the plane. So I bought a beautiful glass necklace instead! (You're welcome Sam! Hahah!)

Afterwards, we went to Churchhill Downs where they do the Kentucky Derby. It's so fascinating to me that they have this gorgeous building and they make such a HUGE deal about a 2 minute race. It was still interesting to see though.

Our next stop was at the Louisville temple. It was closed for cleaning, but the grounds people let us take some pic anyway!

The cute couple!! :)

Lastly, we went to see Daniel Boone's grave. I'm not the best historian, but I wasn't quite sure who Daniel Boone was. Ok, I knew he was like a Davy Crockett, but other than that I didn't know too much about him. I still don't, but his grave has an awesome view of Frankfurt!! :) That's the state capital in the background.

That evening, Valerie, Emily and I all had a BLAST catching fireflies (or the Kentuckyians call them lightning bugs). Call me a West Coast girl, but I had never seen anything like them. It was fun to catch them and look at how many we caught! What fun! :)

The following day, the 4 of us drove from Kentucky to Maryland to visit my parents (yes, my parents did move to Maryland!). It was about a 9 hour trip, but we had a good time. We stopped at this burger place in West Virginia where they make homemade root beer and all of the waiters look oddly the same (inbreeding!?). We also saw Moorhead State University, where Jeremy and Valerie went to school. This pic is at a rest stop overlooking Pennsylvania. It's so green and beautiful! I LOVE IT!. Most importantly, we did a Slurpee run for Jeremy (there are NO Slurpees in Kentucky. Poor Jeremy!). We got to Maryland at about 7PM and saw my parents' new condo. Next time I'll post about what we did in Maryland. Stay tuned! :)