Spring is here!

Or at least the tree in front of my house thinks so... and I'm enjoying it very much!

Big Bear Getaway

This last weekend Adam and I were feeling well enough to accept an invitation to join our friends in Big Bear!!!! It was so so so nice to get out of Lake Elsinore and to see the snow! This picture is a the view from the cabin's back fence of the frozen lake, I'm sure this place would be such an awesome place to stay in the summer because you are so close to the water, but seriously - it was wonderful in the winter too!

We arrived on Friday night at 8 pm after a long drive and mandatory stop to put chains on. I was very excited because I had never been in a car with chains, so it was a whole new thing for me, but not for Adam. He had those chains on in seriously 5 minutes!

We really didn't do a whole lot while we were there, but we did do a lot of sleeping and resting and hanging out with our friends (and we watched a lot of Discovery Channel and the show "Dirty Jobs"). Here's a picture of Adam enjoying the electric blanket that was on the bed we were using! The first night I woke up at about 3 am feeling like I had been cooking in a crock pot - and here's adam at 8:30 saturday morning still loving the warm blanket - aren't girls the ones who are always supposed to be cold???

So on saturday, after I finally was able to get Adam out from under the heating blanket, we all geared up and went out side to make a sled run. It wasn't the greatest, but it was still fun:

On Sunday, after our make shift church service which involved opening Evangeline's eyes to the world of "Jesus Talk" we headed back out to our "run" from the day before - only problem, it was warming up and as we were walking we were all sinking! I tossed my camera to Koni and she took this picture of Adam and I sunk in the snow.
Then after all the sinking and laughing we climbed out of our holes...except Adam didn't - he was stuck and had to dig himself out!!!!

As I'm sure you can guess there was many a snow ball fight which included a long shot over a tree that got Koni right on the top of her head and me getting a snow ball to the side of the face, most of which was lodged in my ear! Here's Adam and Evangeline in a stand off as Koni trys to talk them both down.

The crowning glory of the weekend was the completion of one of Adam's childhood dreams: finishing this puzzle. He says he got it for Christmas when he was 12 or 13 and has never completed it because no one ever wanted to do it with him. So we all felt sorry for him and pitched in to work on it - we started Saturday afternoon after coming in from the snow and we did not finish until Monday at 3 in the afternoon!!! It was the hardest puzzle I have ever done in my whole life and we all decided Adam can NEVER again pick the puzzle that is completed because of how awful this one was! Lastly, here's a few pictures from the sunset on our drive home Monday, it was rather fabulous.
Thanks for inviting us along Prior family, we had a great time!

Sick, Sick, Sick...

Adam and I have been sick all week and thus we have kind of been dead to the world - so if you called us and we didn't call you back - I'm sorry, but let's be honest, you didn't want to hang out with us anyways because we would have given this awful bug to you!

Anyways, before we got sick (started Sunday morning at about 5:30 am, such a lovely way to wake up!) we went to a play last Friday because our friend Kami was in it. When we got to the "theater" in Hemet, we gave the lady at the ticket counter our tickets and she handed us two raffle tickets and said, "there's a raffle during the show and you can win something for your car." I thought "Random!" That should have been my first clue that we were not going to your average play. You see this "play" was more of a musical that interacted with the audience who was sitting at tables and eating pie all while inside a rollerskating rink - super random - but honestly a good time! Anyways, so after intermission as the play is getting started again they tell everyone to pull out their tickets because they were about to have the raffle. I pulled our tickets out of my pocket and to my surprise the first number they called was the ticket in my hand! So I (being such a giving, wonderful and generous wife) quickly handed the ticket to Adam and said, "Look you won!" So Kami and the other girl in the play came down into the audience to give Adam his prize car air freshener and take a Polaroid picture with him! All in all it was a really fun night and I'm very glad we got to go!


Below is the Polaroid they gave Adam (a picture with our friend Kami) the air freshener he won and the winning ticket - way to go Adam!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Just wanted to brag on how fabulous Adam is - he sent flowers to my work, made an awesome dinner and then we watched "I.Q." with yummy popcorn, chocolate strawberries and almond milk hot chocolate! He did the whole thing himself! He even pulled out our heart shaped Champagne flutes we got from registering at Crate and Barrel and opened the bottle of Champagne we were given from the Madonna Inn on our honeymoon (it's in both pictures because we didn't really drink much of it because we were so full from dinner!)

What a great day! Thanks for being so fabulouos Adam!

Happy 4th Birthday Analiese!

On Monday the 11th Adam and I were invited to accompany the Prior Family to Disneyland to Celebrate Analiese's 4th Birthday! We had a great time going on all sorts of different rides and playing with our friends!

To the right here you can see Analiese wearing her birthday presents.

Below is a picture of Adam and I next to the giant apple on the "Chew Chew" train in the Bug's Life land, just before we got squirted with water from the giant watermelon!

And lastly you will find a picture of Adam, Glen, Evangeline and myself on the Hollywood Tower of Terror. We slipped away to this ride while Koni and Analiese were watching the Playhouse Disney show. (The two guys next to Adam were a father and son that we hung out with the whole time we were in line, they were on vacation from Canada where it had been -35 C when they left - they were very happy to be in 80 F weather!)

A week of Birthdays, Disneyland and Friends!

So this last week has been a continual party! :) Well, sort of - we've just been doing a lot of fun stuff. Last Sunday, during the Super Bowl, Sarah and some friends from church went to Disneyland - it was kind of cold - but it was a really good time. On Monday we celebrated Nicolle's birthday - because we didn't want it to be lost in the midst of all the new baby excitement and then on Friday we celebrated Courtney's Birthday and her 23 years of life with a fun time of sushi! We also were blessed with being able to spend time and share meals with our friends the Bravenec's a couple times this week but there are no pictures to accompany said activities.




Another thing that we did without pictures to share - we went to the first of 8 weeks of our churches "Marriage Retreat". It was really good and we are excited to continue going for the next 7 Tuesdays! :)

Olivia Joyce Aparicio!!!

Adam and I just got back from Fallbrook where we went to visit Abe and Nicolle and meet their new daughter Olivia Joyce!

She was born last night, February 1, 2008, at 11:25 pm. 7 lbs, 1 oz and 18 inches long.

She seems very much like her father in that she was super chill and quiet and just wanted to sleep :)

Congratulations Aparicio Family!

what we've been doing...

So this last week we have been house sitting for Sarah's boss, Lori. Lori is in Cabo and we are at her house in Temecula staying with her little dog, Minnie. We have watched Minnie before and have had a bit of a problem making her happy because she feels she must be on the bed sleeping with us - even when she jumps off the bed of her own free will, she wants us to get out of bed and pick her up and bring her back to bed - so, long story short, something had to be done! Adam and Lori collaborated and decided a ramp was the best option for the little princess.

Here's when we first got her to use the ramp - we were so proud, and we slept so well that night (we originally just took this video to email to Lori so she could see it).



However, after a week now she has become more comfortable with us and, well... a bit more crazy! We just took these videos last night because she was being such a nut and attacking all her toys - but as Adam puts it in the second video: "At least she's using the ramp!"






We're going home today and I'm sure Minnie will impress her mom, Lori, with her new ramp using skills!