Crazy Blessed!

So a while ago {July to be exact} I won a fantastic prize!

I was very excited to say the least but I decided to wait to redeem said prize...

And I am sooooo glad I did!

Please enjoy my favorites from my prize! :)

My friend Leslie took all these incredible pictures ... check her out here

Disneyland

So, this kind of got lost in the shuffle of Valentine's Day and Bennett's birthday and dedication but this is nothing to just gloss over ...

Adam and I went to Disneyland ALL BY OURSELVES!!!!

Here's why. 

Some friends of mine from when I lived in Russia, 

(Cam and Sonja)

...who Adam and I drove to Washington for their wedding,

 ...and who currently live in Australia, were here in California for 3 days and 3 days only and we got to spend a whole day with them at Disneyland! So besides getting to have a fun "grown-ups only" day we also got to spend time with some fabulous friends we haven't seen in a really long time!

Oh but first, let me just tell you how rad God is! We have zero money these days, seriously, zero. But my cousin just so happens to have a job that enables him to sign people into the big D for Free!!! So, yeah, we got in for free, YAY!!!

Cam was doing some serious celebrating! 

The goal for the day was to go on rides that you can not go on while pregnant or with a small child! 

Funniest picture of the day!

 And basically we just acted like nuts all day! 

Did you know you could get custom Disney pieces for your Mr. Potato Head Doll? Fabulous!

We even got to have a fancy grown up dinner at Story Tellers and no one threw food on the floor or cried during dinner! I was in heaven!

Then we stayed to see World of Color

Don't get me wrong, we were EXHAUSTED the next day (we're getting old!) but it was still so nice to get away for a day and remember, "Hey, I still love you!" 

AND see old friends who we had a blast with!!! 

Oregon (day one)

So we went to Oregon this last weekend (well, Thursday thru Sunday) for my college roommate's wedding and to visit our friends who moved to Oregon in June! So, funny/ odd fact ... my roomamte's name is Katrina, her fiance/ husband's name is Louis just like the wedding I cordinated in 2008 for another couple with the same names! Weird huh?!

Here's the 2008 Louis and Katrina

And here's a preview on the 2010 Louis and Katrina

 Anyways, let me start at the beginning, as the beginning is the crazy part ... our flight to Portland was out of Long Beach and seeing as we have friends that live in Fullerton we asked them to babysit our car for the weekend. No prob right... wrong! We'll get to that in a bit. So we were on the road about 11:30'ish and all was well. We got to their new place no prob. Had a super yummy quinoa salad for lunch, socialized and relaxed for a bit and then it was time to head to the airport.

 All was well, we made it to the airport in about 25 minutes and then the drama started! As we are pulling our bags out of the car Adam says to me, "You got my wallet right?"  And I'm thinking, "Your wallet? It's YOUR wallet, why would I have it?" Anyways, through a series of communication misunderstandings, Adam's wallet was left in our friend's dining room! Lucky for us, her sister Hillary was still at the house in Fullerton so she jumped in the car to drive it down to us. At that point our friend takes our car to head back to her house. And so we wait....

 Let's say about 10 minutes go by and our friend in our car calls, "Has your car ever overheated before?" "No..."  And really, it never has before! We were clueless as to what to do! She pulled over, opened the hood and there is water spraying all out of the reserve! AHHH!!! Are you kidding me?! (remember, at this point Adam still isn't allowed on the plane!) She ended up having to call a tow truck and have our overheating car towed back to her house in Fullerton! (The radiator cap had broken and wasn't able to vent properly... I still don't know how it all works but praise the Lord  my parents next door neighbor is a Acura mechanic and that we have very gracious and helpful friends!)

So we are still waiting for Adam's license...

 We had decided to check Bennett and I in because we will take the longest to get through security and what not. At the desk we learn that Adam can check in up until 3:19pm. So I go through security all by myself and needless to say, I am stressing!!! My phone rings at 3:18, it's Adam, "Well, I guess you should just get on the plane without me..."  I hang up with him and call Hillary immediately, "Where are you?!!!!" She's like, "I'm here, I'm here I'm just pulling in!" About two minutes later, I see Adam, shoes in hand run, around the corner, we had the lady our boarding passes and we are the last ones on the plane!

This was Bennett's second time flying. He flew last September (weird huh? Hopefully we find somewhere to fly next September to keep the tradition alive!) to Ohio for Adam's Grandma's funeral. Look how cute he was...

He's kind of making the same "lip curl" face

Oh and did I mention that our assigned seats were two middle seats in rows 23 and 24! YUCK! But luckily the Lord saw fit to save me from a total melt down and one seat was open in row 24 so we got to sit together!  And truthfully, that was it, the drama was over (well, sort of, the car didn't get fixed until Sunday at like 5pm, it did kind of plague our whole trip... but after we made it on the plane nothing new went wrong!)  The flight was great! Bennett slept and with good 'ol Jet Blue we just watched TV the whole way there! It was actually really relaxing after all that airport drama!

Upon arriving and the man at the rental car place asking us if we wanted to stay with our "Mid sized, Toyota Corolla type car" or upgrade to an Subaru Outback, we decided to stay with the Corolla (as driving the Outback would make us want a new car too much) we got to our car and it was a brand new Subaru Legacy! It was so nice! We loved it! And yes, it made us want a new Subaru!
Here's Adam leaving the airport...

We made our hour drive to Salem (with a dinner stop at Subway ... we're super classy!) and Adam offered to drop me off at the bridal shower first and then go check into the hotel later so I could get there as soon as possible - What a sweet man I have!

The bridal shower was at a place called "Roth's" and I had no clue what to expect because well, I had never been there before. There were a number of rooms (like six maybe) that where in use for different dinners and partys and what-not with is a totally normal'ish thing - right?! We were in this room...

But here's the not so normal part, looking out the above pictured window of the "Glen Creek Room" was this:

 No joke! 

We were in a grocery store! 

It was really rather entertaining and hilarious!

After the shower was over... 

(I only made it for the last 15 minutes of the shower and missed this awesome game involving black trash bags) 

 ... the ladies in the wedding party and a couple others headed back to Katrina's parents house for the Bachelorette party.  This was a fantastic time of socializing and catching up with/meeting for the first time the people that Katrina loves! We all gave gifts to the bride to be and then answered questions/discussed conversation topics that Katie (the fantastic maid of honor) had prepared ahead of time. The conversation was great and it was so nice to be with complete strangers and hear life-giving, Bible-based, Holy Spirit inspired things coming from their mouths! Katrina has great friends and family and I felt privileged to be there among them!

Just because I can and I love her, here's Katrina and I in July of 2005

Stay tuned for more of our Oregon adventure...

Newest Blessing!

The Lord continues to bless our family in so many ways!

(We didn't move, we just took this picture in my mom & dad's driveway)

Adam's Mom got a new car and we got her old one! 

It's a 2000 Acura TL and it's great! Adam got his baby back (the Subaru) and Bennett and I have a sporty new ride to take us on all our adventures! 
Isn't it great when God gives you gifts you weren't expecting at all?!