#29

This last week I celebrated my 29th birthday (yes, we just celebrated Adam's, we are 28 days apart) in a number of ways!

My husband gave me the gift of being able to attend the best woman's conference I have ever been to, God Chicks. You see, B-boy just isn't ready for two nights away from me (it would kill him and Adam) so instead of dealing with all that drama, Adam and Bennett came with to Pasadena. While I was listening to speakers and eating chocolate and having dance parties, Bennett and Adam were going to the park, wondering Farmer's Markets and playing in the hotel pool. It was great to be able to see them in between sections and to have them with me at night. It was kind of the best of both worlds! (isn't Adam the coolest husband for doing that?! I was very blessed!)

Seeing as we were out of town, there was lots of eating out, which I'm sure Bennett was enjoying...

(so nice that Jervaun stopped by Chili's to say happy birthday!)

We stayed at the Double Tree in Monrovia and if you've ever stayed at a Double Tree you know that they have these fantasticly yummy cookies available to you when ever you want them - Adam brought me this one while I was getting ready the morning of my birthday.

Here's a quick family shot as we were getting out of the elevator before I left to the conference.

After the conference was over Adam and Bennett came to pick me up - I was particularly fond of Bennett's shirt! :)

We walked around old town Pasadena for a while and decided on Cheesecake Factory since the amazing Crepe place we found just didn't have anything on the menu for B (too bad, 'cause I really wanted to eat there - oh well, our lunch was still great) Have you ever taken a toddler to the Cheesecake Factory? I was really impressed actually. They brought him a plate of sliced bananas and a couple pieces of bread. They couldn't have made him a happier boy!

Kind of lame that the Cheesecake Factory brings you a tiny scoop of ice cream for your birthday! (Actually it was perfect, I couldn't have eaten another bite, we were stuffed! But still, kind of funny!)

As we pulled back into town we stopped by my parents house to say hi and play in the front yard

Being as we were tired from our weekend and still kind of full from lunch, Adam and I had popcorn for dinner and watch Leap Year - it was great! Sunday after church the celebration continued with lunch at Flour Fusion! Unfortunately they had run out of triple cream baskets - but lunch was still fabulous as usual!

Monday night we kept celebrating with a trip to the organ concert in Balboa park! Any one who had read this blog for a while or has known me for a while, knows that I do love a good organ concert and Balboa park! So this was just the greatest way to celebrate! My parents got take out from The Kabob Shop in San Diego (AWESOME FOOD!) and we all sat and enjoyed the park and the company. It was a great night!

 (Matching hats from my super talented friend Rene!)

(one year makes a big difference)

Easter

"Jesus is Alive!"

I would love to tell you that the above quote is what made my son look so happy ... however, in reality, it was my mom's dog, Tony who got such a response out of my son!Oh, well, maybe next year...

Easter this year was very lovely for the Elwers. 

(Yes, this was the best picture we got... you would be amazed at the others)

 See what I mean...

We didn't go to sunrise service, but our church did do the 9:30 service outside too. I really liked church outside, it's like you are worshiping God right along with his creation.

Bennett liked sitting in (standing on, climbing up....) the white chairs and playing in the grass with Andrea (who was sitting next to us)

After church as we were talking with some friends when Debbie walked by. I said "Hello" and then Adam and Mary Beth said "Wait, wait, wait, you two are dressed identically!" 

Neither one of us noticed! What do you think? 

Funny huh? Good thing I like her so much!

We stopped by my parent's house on the way home to get the meat to put in our oven (we all ate at our house so Bennett could nap in his own bed) and tried to get a picture of Bennett next to the plant my brothers and I took pictures next to as a kids. (Someone needed a nap!)

Here he is last year!

If you haven't noticed already I would just like to highlight my son's super cute Easter Outfit!

I got it at All About Kidz for $10 - yep, all three Janie and Jack pieces for $10!!!

My husband (the crafty master that he is) dyed the eggs this year after (as usual) looking at our neighbor's Martha Stewart Living before giving it to her!Funny thing is, we didn't hunt for them or even eat them, they were just the centerpiece.

Pretty Fabulous huh?!

Our Easter table

After dinner we all went on a walk down Fig street. 

This is the closest thing we got to a family picture from the day - I really need to get better at taking family pictures!

Pizza Night!

At the beginning of the school year Adam received a "Smart Card" from his school. It gives us discounts around town and what not. Well one of the coupons that came with it was for a free Medium pizza from TJ's pizza as long as you "dined in". And being that is was spring break at the time we decided to go ahead and try the place out.

We ordered a salad along with our pizza and really enjoyed it all! 

Our left overs 

(the pizza had fabulous crust!)

After dinner Adam talked me into playing a game of air hockey. We pulled Bennett over in the high chair and Adam and I started the entertainment!

Bennett laughed and clapped the whole time we were playing! It was really funny!

I won the first game!

Adam won the second!

Then after air hockey we let Bennett "play" a race car game! He was loving it!

All in all, we had an excellent night of family fun for under $15 (granted the pizza was free). We would totally recommend TJ's and think that you all should give it a try too!

TJ's is on Los Alamos by the 2-15 next to McDonalds 

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Young and Carefree!

So last night we decided that we would be a young carefree couple instead of the old fogies that we often are. Instead of coming home from work, eating dinner, and going to bed, we decided to head out to our friend Matt's 21st birthday party at the ESPN zone in down town Disney- on a monday night! We threw caution and our preference for retiring early to the wind. We left as soon as Sarah got home and headed out to Disney Land. We managed to ride three rides in about two hours, watch my first Disney land parade, and enjoy a churro.

There were all these cute kids there in halloween costumes, including a 2-3 year old tigger who kept jumping up and down and banging his candy bucket on the ground and a tinkerbell who had her little wagon-drawn lantern to rest in. I know Sarah is sorta fundamentally opposed to the basis of halloween, but how can you beat getting to dress in costumes and have a sugar high?


We rode the new Nemo ride- it was pretty cool but kinda smelt like a dog after having played in a pool- then the Casey Jr train- to which Sarah was kinda surprise that I knew the words too since I don't know most of the stories and songs on the rides- then we went on Space Mountain- I think its my favorite ride in the park but I'm still leery of lifting my hands on the ride...

We then headed over and had "dinner" with Matt (whom Sarah works with) and a bunch of his friends (whom we didn't know). I use the quotation marks because we filled up on Hot Wings and Sliders. Oh well. They seemed like nice enough people and all in all Sarah and I had a pretty good time.

6 Months of Wedded Bliss

Yes, it's true, Adam and I have been married for 6 months now, so we decided to have a little celebration!

After church on Sunday we took off over the Ortega's and made our way to the Ramos House Cafe in San Juan Capistrano. The Ramos House has always been a special place for us, being "the place you take a girl if you want to impress her" (as said by Willy and Alison Bravenec) and Adam did take me there while we were dating - and he did impress me!

So, Ramos House for Sunday Brunch was fabulous! We both got the amazing Salmon plate of wonderfulness for our starter (SO GOOD!!!) and for our main dish Adam went for the breakfast side of Brunch while I went for the lunch side. Anyhow, it was fabulous!

After brunch we had some time to kill before being back that the church by 3:30 so we walked around down by the mission. We looked at a $2000 mirror with hand carved wooden frame and thought "Hmmm, why are we looking at this stuff?" So, we moved onto the giant antic story down the way and had so much fun looking at old tools, cameras, books, (one book called "The Fabulous Barbie and Her Boyfriend Ken" contained a chapter called "The Size 10 Dress" I didn't have time to read it all but I had a good laugh!) jewelry, aprons, tea cups, swords, crosses, armor and hats! Well, we did more than just look at old hats - we tried them on too!

After the antic store we did a little more walking around, found a cool kitchen store with tons of random stuff you would never really need in your kitchen; we also (again) morned the loss of Diedrich Coffee and did not purchase anything from the Starbucks that is now in it's place. As I said earlier, we had to be back at the church at 3:30 so by this time we were thinking we should head back - thus we did.

The reason we had to be at church at 3:30 was because we were helping Glen and Koni (known as "the Prior's" in the earlier blog) cook dinner for the young married group that started last night at the church. The turn out was less then we expected (Only Nicolle and Abe and Raul and Shayne showed up) but it was really, really great! We had dinner and just talked. It felt like community. The group will only meet on the 2nd and 4th Sunday of each month and the plan is to invite couples who have been married a long time and want to share wisdom with us young folks. But also, the group will always have a time set aside to pray for one another, which is about the only structure and planned activity to the whole group - yay! Last nights conversation was filled with stories of couples meeting and husbands coming to know the Lord, it was cool. Afterwords, Nicolle and Abe and Raul and Shayne came over for ice cream/soy dream (we sort of forgot about that in the "cooking dinner" part of the prep work) but Glen and Koni had to be home so they weren't able to come over. So, it was really fun, and we are glad that we went and hopefully we will be inviting some other people to come and join us the next time we meet.

Breakfast Club

This morning I had breakfast with my dear friends Katie and Jen! It was so nice to actually see them in person and not just talk to them on the phone. Jen invited us to her new apartment in Laguna Niguel and cooked us a fabulous breakfast (pictures to the right, with Jen blurred in the background) that we all enjoyed so much!

Thanks for a wonderful morning girls!

Dinner for two on the Mediterranean

Okay so not the inland sea south of Europe, but it is the name of our china pattern.
I made dinner for the wife last night. Got out the good dishes and a table cloth. Lit some candles and enjoyed just being together. I read somewhere that some people used their china at least once a week weather it was for a group of people or just them. I thought it was a good idea and Sarah seemed to enjoy it. Sometimes a little extra effort goes a long way towards making people feel loved...

This was really stinking cute! Good job baby!